Thanks for posting, bosk1.
Let me explain my rationale to some choices, such as "Neue Regel."
First and foremost, I made sure none of the tunes were ever singles. But then I tried to look at it from a casual fan perspective. More fans that know the stuff from Mindcrime, the hits from Empire, and maybe some of the more metal tracks from the earlier 1980s. It was really difficult to pick a list, and obviously, it is completely subjective.
But let me address a few:
Neue Regel -- Personally, this song is in my top-10 all time for the original QR. But most fans (again, taken from a casual perspective, IMO) are not as familiar with that song, as they are stuff such as Walk in the Shadows, The Killing Words, I Will Remember, and Screaming in Digital. So yes, if you are a hardcore, you know Neue Regel (I would hope so). But if you were just a casual fan of the band, that track likely may have gone unnoticed over the years.
No Sanctuary -- Absolutely underrated, although again, personally, one of my favs. I believe that when most casual fans think of The Warning by QR, they think of Take Hold of the Flame, the title track, Roads to Madness, NM 156. No Sanctuary got very little play over the years, and while it is an amazing song, it has flown under the radar.
Della Brown -- it has never been a single, nor has it ever been played extensively on a tour. Just sporadically here and there over the years (for example, they only played it a couple times on the Empire tour, never played it on PL, and then only played it at a handful of gigs on the HITNF tour when Tate was sick. It was played more after that, by the post-DeGarmo lineups of the band, but it was never really a featured song. And in remembering conversations over the decade or so on my old forum, it was a pretty polarizing track. I happen to think it should get a lot more love than a lot of hardcores gave it, and again, mainstream folks never really got exposed to it a lot, other than it being performed at QR's MTV Unplugged session.
In addition, a few of you pointed out songs that I absolutely would include if I expanded the list to say 15. Lady Jane, Out of Mind, Justified, London, One and Only, immediately come to mind. But having to squash it to top-10 cut out a few. Also, to whoever selected the song "Tribe," that was not written by the original lineup with DeGarmo. That was written without him, and he does not appear on that track at all. So at least for my criteria in establishing this list, that's not even a consideration.
Had I done a fully comprehensive list of the entirety of the catalog under the QR name, it would look entirely different than this.
Overall, its just a blog, and despite it obviously being opinion, I usually write in a very definitive way. But I thought my choices were pretty fair. It was fun to sit down and put that all together.
Thanks again for posting it, bosk, and thanks to those who checked it out.
p.s.
It makes me very happy that many of you also singled out Lady Jane. I've always felt like that song never gets the love it deserves.
AMEN. The guitar solo in that song is classic Rage-era to my ears, and I completely agree it should have gotten more love. It would have probably been 11 or 12 on my list had I gone that far.