The Best Songs From 1958

​This Saturday is Craig's Hlist's father's birthday, and the man turns 53. Sorry to out your age, Dad, but it's for science. This week while doing other research, we found that most people whose art we enjoy were actually born in 1958. People like Alec Baldwin, Prince, Jello Biafra, Jools Holland, Gary Numan, Tim Burton, Joan Jett, all hail from 1958.

Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx was born December 11 of the same year, which blew our mind this week, on top of Prince's birthday because CHL grew up consuming their music voraciously. If you would have told us in 1990 that that little man wearing assless pants on MTV or the scary metal dude with a blood-stained bass was actually the same age as Craig Sr., the guy who yelled at us for leaving the fridge door open, we would have laughed at you.

There is always a disconnect between the age of your loved ones and the age of celebrities, like how in the hell is my younger brother a month older than Taylor Swift? Or how is CHL just six days younger than Hunter Pence? For some reason the older we get, the more we think about this.

We went back and found 30 songs from 1958 to get an idea of the world that Craig Sr. was born into. The modern white-washing of the '50s makes the decade sound like it was a wholesome white-bread, but it wasn't. There was mass unemployment, racial tension, political tension with Russia, and poor Elvis had to go into the Army, but the remote control and the computer modem were invented, so it's all good.

From the playlist we made, we were overwhelmed with all the novelty songs from that year, like "The Purple People Eater," "Witch Doctor," and "Short Shorts." You mean to tell us that these people were just a little high? Reefer, goofballs, grass? 1958 also saw some of the best singles from Ricky Nelson, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and The Everly Brothers, pretty much setting the course for rock to come in the next five decades.

We have a soft spot for Duane Eddy's "Rebel Rouser." Run, Forrest, run. And is Peggy Lee's "Fever" not one of the hottest songs, pardon the pun, ever recorded?