Comments on: Rolling Stone's New List of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time

Rolling Stone's New List of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time

holborne — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 10:40:52 -0800

Let the arguing begin. Rolling Stone first published its 500 Greatest Songs list in 2004, when the iPod was relatively new and Billie Eilish was three years old. Music has changed immeasurably since, so they remade the list from scratch.

By: box

box — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 10:44:19 -0800

I like the one where you pick two things that happen to be next to each other on a list of 500 freaking songs, and then you're like "How could 'Happy Birthday' be better than 'You're a Grand Old Flag'? This is history's greatest injustice!"

By: Nelson

Nelson — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 10:44:25 -0800

Direct link to last page. The #1 song is Arethra Franklin's Respect. (I had to block approx. 740 ads and trackers to get to this page for you. And on edit I'm a dummy; I didn't see the top bar navigation.)

By: I shot a fox in Skyrim and it made me sad

I shot a fox in Skyrim and it made me sad — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 10:47:54 -0800

As noted by Nelson above there are a huge number of trackers on that site. Ironic then that 'Respect' is #1 given that the site shows no Respect to you.

By: The Card Cheat

The Card Cheat — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 10:49:26 -0800

By: srboisvert

srboisvert — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 10:50:00 -0800

Rolling Stone first published its 500 Greatest Songs list in 2004, when the iPod was relatively new and Billie Eilish was three years old. Flagged as "Fuck me I'm older than old"

By: EmpressCallipygos

EmpressCallipygos — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 10:56:41 -0800

I've just started looking at the list and I'm guessing that the top 50 will be all older stuff.

By: komara

komara — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 10:57:41 -0800

David Wondrich on Twitter: "Although I might have a hard time believing that 70 of the greatest 500 songs of all time were recorded in the last 21 years (I counted), I have a much harder time believing that only one of them was recorded between 1921 and 1951."

By: star gentle uterus

star gentle uterus — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 10:57:44 -0800

I guess I'm more surprised Rolling Stone still exists.

By: mazola

mazola — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 10:59:06 -0800

Ok I just started with #500 and I already disagree.

By: COBRA!

COBRA! — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 10:59:54 -0800

"Ach! It is not even wrong." - Wolfgang Pauli

By: ultraviolet catastrophe

ultraviolet catastrophe — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 11:00:20 -0800

I'm guessing that the top 50 will be all older stuff. That depends on your definition of old.

By: EmpressCallipygos

EmpressCallipygos — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 11:07:53 -0800

Good point re "definition of old". Let me re-phrase: I am guessing that the top 50 will all be 20th-Century.

By: Halloween Jack

Halloween Jack — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 11:09:48 -0800

OK, I've had it up to here and back with ranking listicles, so time to go nuclear: It's OK to have different opinions about things. No, really. [saunters toward the exit as the world burns behind me]

By: AlonzoMosleyFBI

AlonzoMosleyFBI — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 11:11:03 -0800

I am guessing that the top 50 will all be 20th-Century. 40 out of the top 50 are 20th century.

By: oneirodynia

oneirodynia — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 11:13:31 -0800

r.e. Bridge Over Troubled Water (no.66) The melody came from the Bach chorale, and the title phrase came from a Sixties song by West Virginia gospel group the Swan Silvertones — "I guess I stole it, actually," Simon told Dick Cavett around the time "Bridge Over Troubled Water" was the Number One song in America, a position it held for six weeks. He later paid the Silvertone's singer, Claude Jeter, $1,000 as a way of saying thanks. I've disliked Paul Simon ever since hearing about his stealing music from Los Lobos in the 80s (I used to see a lot of local L.A. bands like the Blasters, who definitely talked about it), and everything I've heard about him since reinforces that dislike. 1,000 dollars? What an ass.

By: DirtyOldTown

DirtyOldTown — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 11:13:37 -0800

This seems like a disjointed attempt to balance the interests of multiple generations of audiences. Maybe that's inevitable, because pop music has lived long enough that few people have sincere interest in its entire breadth. It had to come down to committees and focus groups. But you know: arguing is fun, so here we go.

By: j_curiouser

j_curiouser — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 11:15:26 -0800

classis is 'what survives the test if time'. as they say. for some values of 'they'. your favorite list sucks.

By: clawsoon

clawsoon — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 11:17:00 -0800

(I had to block approx. 740 ads and trackers to get to this page for you. And on edit I'm a dummy; I didn't see the top bar navigation.) uBlock Origin is number one on my top 500 list of ad blockers.

By: pol

pol — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 11:57:14 -0800

Is there a searchable list somewhere? I am not surprised generally, though the order sometimes seemed weird. I didn't see tool, which surprised me. And not much non-english music (just one kpop?).

By: caution live frogs

caution live frogs — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 11:59:07 -0800

Well, I am pleasantly surprised to see that only 32 of the top 50 are Beatles tunes

By: ricochet biscuit

ricochet biscuit — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 12:06:31 -0800

I haven't opened it yet but I just want to say that it is all wrong. Some should be higher, a bunch are way too high and there are some inexcusable omissions (but all perfectly on brand for RS).

By: Frowner

Frowner — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 12:11:24 -0800

This is possibly the silliest best of list I can imagine. Even if you limited it to "best songs in English recorded between 1955 and 2021" it would be a totally impossible, ridiculous task because there's so much music. How could anyone devote enough time to music-listening to have any kind of sense of the parameters of the question? I guess if I really worked on it for a few months I'd feel confident in giving, say, an informed opinion on the best fifty Scottish indie tracks recorded between 1980 and 2000, but I'm not even totally sure how I'd rank very different songs that I think are unusually good - like, is the Pogues' "The Old Main Drag" better or worse than Don Cherry's "I Walk"? And what about art songs? Like, how would one compare, eg, "Beautiful As The Moon/Terrible As An Army With Banners" to "Time After Time"? I have strong childhood associations with "Time After Time" and could never purge it from any best-of list, but should it be before or after the Henry Cow? And how does one decide? I mean, it's a fun project because it bankrupts the idea of lists....can you really hear a song effectively if you're out of its time or radically out of its culture? Like, culturally I'm so far from most of the rock of the fifties that without serious study I'm not going to be able to experience it with any depth. I used to do a radio show. Pretty much everyone who did these shows was radical lefty people but we were of different generations. The lefty music of the people who cut their teeth in eighties movements was just....mostly inaccessible to me, emotionally. Big, bloviating, rocky - it did not hit. And of course, my friends who are actual Young Persons hear music that I really like and it's just dead to them*. This list is really "songs that are both not terrible and straightforward enough in theme and approach to be accessible across time, genre and subculture", but there are lots of songs like that which have gone largely unheard due to accidents of distribution. There's a lot of largely unheard Can-Con, for instance. *For instance, "Dark Streets of London". Just today I was reading something about it and realized that it's a total cliche song that no one younger than me can actually hear through the thick coating of tacky fake Irishness, and yet "when the roses bloom again, and turn like the leaves to a new summer time", to me that's about as beautiful a verse as you get in a pop song. No Young Person with any spirit and sense of the now would bother with that song because it's dead to them, and that's okay, but it does illustrate the folly of lists.

By: glaucon

glaucon — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 12:11:50 -0800

I completely agree with all 500 songs and their respective places on the list. I developed a similar list several months ago and my list was exactly the same as this list. What is remarkable is that I used a computer that can't connect to wifi and I alone have access to it, and I used a rudimentary spreadsheet program I developed myself so I cannot prove it to you.

By: Kattullus

Kattullus — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 12:13:39 -0800

I was really ready to hate this, but if you want to get to my heart, put Fight the Power in your top three. Fear of a Black Planet was the first album I was completely obsessed with, back when I was 12 years old, and I haven't grown weary of it yet. I think I'll go put it on now, in fact.

By: 1970s Antihero

1970s Antihero — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 12:15:58 -0800

I extracted the list and tried to put it on Pastebin, but it's telling me:

Pastebin's SMART filters have detected potentially offensive or questionable content in your paste. The content you are trying to publish has been deemed potentially offensive or questionable by our filters, because of this you're receiving this warning. This paste can only be published with the visibility set to "Private".

I even tried censoring "Fuck tha Police", but no luck. Any suggestions on how to share it?

By: box

box — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 12:21:22 -0800

Spotify playlist?

By: atoxyl

atoxyl — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 12:28:55 -0800

I don't get too worked up about lists ranking works of art like this anymore but it does warm my heart a bit to think about how much Jann Wenner must hate this one, which also functions as a marker of the decline of the white/male/boomer/rock critical intelligentsia. I was tired of Rolling Stone being Rolling Stone for years but to be honest I'm also already tired of Rolling Stone trying not to be Rolling Stone. Maybe some things should just quietly decline once their moment is passed.

By: storybored

storybored — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 12:30:32 -0800

Spotify playlist? Here it is! Oh wait, that's the old one. Dang.

By: Windopaene

Windopaene — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 12:30:32 -0800

The fact that Ripple is listed higher than Box of Rain is a travesty... And I'm still in the 300s

By: fortitude25

fortitude25 — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 12:38:07 -0800

While I actually do enjoy a lot of "classic rock" in isolation, I am grateful it is slowly beginning to ebb out of popular history and consciousness and we can let the various bands and tunes find their own place in history. I like the Beatles just fine, but their Ed Sullivan appearance happened nearly sixty years ago. That would be like the world of 1964 obsessing over the pop culture of 1904 while ignoring the Fab Four's new hits. Paul McCartney has a new documentary on Disney Plus I see. What could he possibly say that is relevant or fresh about his music that hasn't been said already? A few years ago I took my dad to see John Fogerty as a birthday present. He loves CCR and I enjoy the songs too, and Fogerty still has a good voice and puts on a good show. But his first bit of stage patter was: "hey everyone! Thanks for coming to hear us! Hey, were any of you guys at WOODSTOCK?" and my eyes rolled straight back in my head and yes, I did think something like "Oh God, it's Boomer nostalgia all the way down." So lists like this give me some hope that the Reign of Classic Rock may be coming to an end.

By: Annabelle74

Annabelle74 — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 12:40:00 -0800

This list is AWESOME. And by the time I get to the top 30 or so, almost everything they include is already in my day-to-day Spotify rotation. I love the diversity and range of this list so, so, so much.

By: Frowner

Frowner — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 12:41:56 -0800

Also there's just not much indie/small label stuff on here, which seems weird. Is "Rebel Girl" the best riot grrrl/riot grrrl adjacent song? No, it is not. It's just the most famous, largely because it has the simplest, most shoutable chorus and isn't too abrasive and because Kathleen Hannah had the biggest post-riot grrrl career. I mean, it's great song and I've seen even the most sophisticated Youths race to the dancefloor when it gets played, but it isn't the best one. For that matter, who listens to the whole Clash discography and picks "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" for any reason except that it's slightly less obvious than "London Calling" but still famous enough that everyone's heard it?

By: Mr.Encyclopedia

Mr.Encyclopedia — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 12:42:08 -0800

I have a much harder time believing that only one of them was recorded between 1921 and 1951. I've listened to a fair amount of music from between 1921 and 1951 and I believe that there's a good reason why songs from 40 years ago still hold popular appeal today in a way that 40 year old songs did not in the 1980s or 1970s.

By: Frowner

Frowner — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 12:43:17 -0800

And in terms of Bikini Kill and transgressive power: I was there, I remember the era well, I still have the records and "Suck My Left One" was the song that really flipped people out.

By: FencingGal

FencingGal — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 12:43:22 -0800

By: TedW

TedW — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 12:45:23 -0800

I was quite disappointed that "99 Bottles of Beer" did not make the top 10, but shocked that it wasn't even in the top 50. I haven't had time to look, but I assume it is somewhere between 100 and 51; even though that is criminally low.

By: sinfony

sinfony — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 12:50:20 -0800

Just gonna assume that this list omits "Mirror Reaper" by Bell Witch and is therefore facially invalid.

By: box

box — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 12:56:54 -0800

I have a much harder time believing that only one of them was recorded between 1921 and 1951. In case anyone wants to save some time: that song is Billie Holiday's 'Strange Fruit.'

By: thatwhichfalls

thatwhichfalls — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 12:57:32 -0800

"Rolling Stone's New List of the 500 Greatest Songs Americans Might Have Heard on the Radio" You Suffer doesn't seem to be there so the list is invalid as an index of greatness.

By: Mothlight

Mothlight — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 12:58:39 -0800

For anyone who's interested in a look at how artists cited in 2004 (the last time Rolling Stone did this thing) fared in the 2021 list, here's a Twitter thread with some comparisons. Kinda interesting to see whose stars have risen and fallen. It looks like Elvis may have taken the biggest hit. Seeing "Bohemian Rhapsody" at #17 reminds me how baffled I am at Queen's reputation these days. I'm not even a hater, but there are plenty of old white-guy rock bands whose work I much prefer. Best surprises are "Fight the Power" at #2 and "Dancing on my Own" at #20 IMO. Though I love Outkast, "Hey Ya!" would not be my pick, but they deserve the slot for sure. (I guess I'd sub "B.O.B.")

By: Frowner

Frowner — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 13:02:53 -0800

The funny thing is, I'd really love to read more lists like "Angelique Kidjo's top 50 songs". A mishmash of "songs that a vast diversity of people have all heard and liked" is really more like "make the least annoying grocery store playlist possible" than a way to take advantage of their expertise....that's really what this list is, songs that won't annoy most people and that a fairly good percentage will enjoy. Some people hate Bob Dylan, some people really dislike reggaeton, but in general this list won't actively bug people. Then there's the whole question of what a list is for - is it to put the Stamp of Quality on things? Is it to create a genealogy? Is it to make a list of stuff that will just, like, blow your mind? This list seems to be the Stamp of Quality list more than anything else.

By: straight

straight — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 13:26:10 -0800

The point of the list is not that hard to figure. There's lots of people who have never heard lots of the songs on the list, and they might really like some of them. I'm hardly ever mad about someone putting out a list of stuff they like and saying, "Check it out!" And MetaFilter saying, "Oh, but they should have had this, this, this, and this instead" is also great. Keep it up. Tell me what are actually the best songs from the Clash and Outkast and what songs from 1921-1951 should be on there.

By: Beholder

Beholder — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 13:26:22 -0800

The #1 song is Arethra Franklin's Respect. Sorry, but no. The #1 "Greatest" pop song has got to be Thriller with Eleanor Rigby a close second. Beat It probably creeps onto the top five as well.

By: jeremias

jeremias — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 13:30:18 -0800

>>Then there's the whole question of what a list is for.... To sell magazines. Errr... actually wait, eyeballs? Clicks? Whatever the kids call ad revenue these days.

By: j_curiouser

j_curiouser — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 13:35:52 -0800

Clash: White Man in Hammersmith Palais, Straight to Hell, Washington Bullets, Train in Vain, Stay Free, The Magnificent Seven. for starters.

By: box

box — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 13:36:48 -0800

Tell me what are actually the best songs from the Clash and Outkast For Outkast I'd go with 'B.O.B' (on RS's list), 'Git Up, Git Out,' 'Rosa Parks,' 'Ms. Jackson,' and 'Roses.' Somebody else knows more about The Clash than I do. Edit: See, told you so.

By: jgaiser

jgaiser — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 13:37:50 -0800

Re: Ads and trackers. Firefox and uBlock Origin are your friends.

By: mokey

mokey — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 13:42:00 -0800

They could have picked a better Lennon song than Imagine, to me that is an extremely insipid song. How do you Sleep? would have been a much better choice. Having Radiohead's Idioteque in the top 50 seemed a bit perverse. Wonderwall by Oasis? I think Oasis have better songs than that. Running up that Hill by Kate Bush but no Wuthering Heights? Killing Me Softly With His Song is on the list twice, both the original and the Fugees cover version. Fix You by Coldplay? No, just no. They had a Miles Davis track at 492. If they're having jazz they should at least have Take Five by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Also Breakaway by Irma Thomas should definitely be in the top 10.

By: Frowner

Frowner — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 13:48:34 -0800

actually the best songs from the Clash Ha ha I'm so glad that you asked. Let me Gen X at you! The best Clash album is Sandinista up through "Street Parade". The best Clash song is The Magnificent Seven, closely followed by the extremely under appreciated Lose This Skin. Sandinista is the best Clash album because it is a small, sincere album despite being, like, three records. It's a really personal album if you assume that personal isn't just love affairs and doing too much cocaine in the seventies. The best Clash cover is Haale's One More Time, which is IMO better than the original, a huge, sad version about the Forever War. The funnest Clash song to start with is probably Hitsville UK. Combat Rock is also really good, the late/flamboyant sequel to the high/rayonnant London Calling, as if Sandinista had never happened. London Calling is serious, Combat Rock is camp. Freebies that would be on my grocery store playlist of likeable songs, should I ever acquire a grocery store: Swimming Ground, by the Meat Puppets, and My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style, Can-Con by the Dream Warriors.

By: elkevelvet

elkevelvet — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 13:53:50 -0800

I was there sorry, my brain jumped to the lyric immediately

By: churl

churl — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 13:55:07 -0800

Okay well as a 40-year old crank who likes his loud music, here's my grindy axe. In 500 entries they couldn't summon up a single heavy song written in the last 30 years and yet managed to find room for literally every song my parents ever listened to on the radio. It's like RS thinks Metal and Punk began and ended with Black Sabbath and Sex Pistols. I don't think the list suffers from too-broad genre boundaries--entirely the opposite.

By: The_Vegetables

The_Vegetables — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 14:03:11 -0800

The best Clash song is Spanish Bombs or Clampdown. And no way Living on a Prayer is better than Paradise City. I didn't get farther than the first page.

By: treepour

treepour — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 14:08:09 -0800

The fact that Ripple is listed higher than Box of Rain is a travesty... And I'm still in the 300s Shaking my fist in vehement disagreement -- but doing it very gently and with respect for differing tastes among friends

By: mokey

mokey — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 14:24:30 -0800

But if you do the greatest songs of all time again, that means... they weren't the greatest songs of all time? They're admitting they were wrong! So how can we trust them this time??

By: thivaia

thivaia — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 14:36:43 -0800

I lost interest as soon as I realized that "Private Idaho" was not going to be on this list.

By: box

box — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 14:43:23 -0800

Two 'Mr. Tambourine Men' is one too many.

By: elkevelvet

elkevelvet — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 14:58:50 -0800

Is there a Clash tune that is better than "Police and Thieves"? I'm not saying it's the best Clash tune, but tell me what is better?

By: j_curiouser

j_curiouser — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 15:02:51 -0800

definitively resolved: there are a few better clash tunes than 'should i stay or should i go'. :emoji:

By: j_curiouser

j_curiouser — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 15:03:30 -0800

(nice showing from my og punk rock peeps)

By: mhoye

mhoye — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 15:07:11 -0800

Gang Of Four not even making the list?

By: From Bklyn

From Bklyn — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 15:10:09 -0800

No Minutemen? Pffft And Straight to Hell is better than the cover of Police and Thieves - even if it's only by a whisker. But the top50 is pretty alright.

By: DirtyOldTown

DirtyOldTown — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 15:12:12 -0800

I'm not surprised to see Elvis fall so far. 11 songs on the top 500 in 2004 was over-the-top. Plus, it's de rigueur to hate Presley at this particular cultural moment, or at the very least downplay/underrate him. His name is carrying pretty heavy freight these days for the lousy way Black musicians have been treated historically. Some of that is earned and some of it sort of uses just uses him as a symbol, in a way that isn't even about him. He's had plenty of acclaim, though, and will be just fine even if it takes a bit for culture to come around on him again.

By: swift

swift — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 15:14:40 -0800

Somehow this list seems like something from another world. It reminds me of that famous passage by Adorno: Cultural criticism finds itself faced with the final stage of the dialectic of culture and barbarism. To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric. And this corrodes even the knowledge of why it has become impossible to write poetry today. Absolute reification, which presupposed intellectual progress as one of its elements, is now preparing to absorb the mind entirely. Critical intelligence cannot be equal to this challenge as long as it confines itself to self-satisfied contemplation.

By: biffa

biffa — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 15:17:32 -0800

Sure, Stephen Tyler wrote a song that is better than anything ABBA ever did. That seems likely.

By: Hey, Zeus!

Hey, Zeus! — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 15:19:02 -0800

I was going to say they pulled these out of a hat; put perhaps it was their asses. Oh, and your favourite song sucks. And so does mine.

By: ricochet biscuit

ricochet biscuit — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 15:27:02 -0800

I was quite disappointed that "99 Bottles of Beer" did not make the top 10, but shocked that it wasn't even in the top 50. "Happy Birthday" is performed more often than 85% of this list and is more widely recognized than anything here. With the possible exception of one or two R.E.M. tracks.

By: riverlife

riverlife — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 15:28:42 -0800

Hence, the asshat.

By: theora55

theora55 — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 15:52:38 -0800

1. Everybody else's favorite band is crap. 2. You're wrong 3. No, You're wrong. There's a link to play each song. The ranking is, for me, beside the point, which is that this is a great way to listen to some terrific music, much of which I may have missed. The list I want is: What's missing from the list? and I will troll this thread for exactly that.

By: ricochet biscuit

ricochet biscuit — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 15:54:21 -0800

Killing Me Softly With His Song is on the list twice, both the original and the Fugees cover version. Cool. Lori Lieberman doesn't usually get the love.

By: Ashwagandha

Ashwagandha — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 16:06:23 -0800

I don't have a horse in this race, in regards to Rolling Stones / lists / songs normal people listen to and enjoy but this statement (QFT):

London Calling is serious, Combat Rock is camp.

Should be celebrated in song and story.

By: hypnogogue

hypnogogue — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 16:20:36 -0800

If anyone comes across a side by side of the song titles removed and added, I'd appreciate a link. Also, I just have to smack up Rolling Stone for a minute. I buy sheet music, and I have no less than 4 sheet music books of the Rolling Stone Top 500 songs. Of course they can't put all 500 in one book. So you know what they do? They have a bunch of books with about 50 songs each but they overlap in song coverage by at least 50% with other books. The total number of different songs in those 4 books is like 100. That kind of garbage infuriates me. Come to think of it, putting out this updated list is a lot like that. People who buy the compilations will find that it overlaps 50% with the previous one. It sure seems like Rolling Stone just likes to sell you the same thing over and over.

By: rhizome

rhizome — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 16:54:09 -0800

Wait wait WAIT, when the F did Stairway fall from #1?

By: rhizome

rhizome — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 16:59:42 -0800

Is there a Clash tune that is better than "Police and Thieves" yt ? I'm not saying it's the best Clash tune, but tell me what is better? Spanish Bombs. It brings a tear to my eye just thinking about it. The Genius page about the lyrics is excellent.

By: box

box — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 17:27:02 -0800

I usually stop at five, but in the unlikely event you're waiting with bated breath for my next OutKast suggestions: 'We Love These Hoes' (serious sexism warning), 'I'll Call B4 I Cum', 'So Fresh, So Clean'—Stankonia is kinda nasty. I'm here for all your whitesplaining-classic-hip-hop needs. These kinds of lists are always a weird balance between what's important, what's popular, and what's good. And it gets harder to maintain that balance as you edge up to 100 items, let alone 500. I think that if people laid out some criteria going in (suggestions: one song per album max, one version of a particular song max, decide what genres are included in advance), we might see some more interesting outcomes.

By: box

box — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 17:29:17 -0800

One song per artist is probably a bridge too far for Rolling Stone, but I would absolutely like to see that 500 list.

By: clawsoon

clawsoon — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 17:44:00 -0800

If you think music has a short shelf life, I just watched Bo Jackson introducing himself to a kid.

By: Frowner

Frowner — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 17:52:59 -0800

Man, if the pandemic ever ends we should have an upper midwest Metafilter dance party. Long ago I used to do a very little DJ-ing, the kind where you get the first set where hardly anyone is there until the very end. I had to DJ because no one else played what I wanted to dance to and all this list-making really makes me want to create a set. And there's no point in set lists unless you're going to use them....We could all chip in together and rent the Eagles Club, many of us are Old so we wouldn't have to be especially hip, it could be a new level in meet-ups.

By: Liquidwolf

Liquidwolf — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 18:03:51 -0800

Wait wait WAIT, when the F did Stairway fall from #1? It didn't fall, it climbed higher.

By: philip-random

philip-random — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 18:06:26 -0800

The #1 song is Arethra Franklin's Respect. no, it isn't. It's not Like A Rolling Stone either, or Stairway to Heaven, or Hey Jude. But it might be Teenage Kicks No Minutemen? Pffft or Political Song For Michael Jackson To Sing. We can all get together on that. Can't we? but seriously ...

By: Gerald Bostock

Gerald Bostock — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 18:06:57 -0800

Spotify playlist. I see "Thick as a Brick" has been snubbed once again.

By: philip-random

philip-random — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 18:27:20 -0800

and Bungle in the Jungle

By: Cremcraw

Cremcraw — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 18:37:10 -0800

No A Europaische Kolomyka, no peace (YouTube link)

By: Frowner

Frowner — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 18:44:12 -0800

Another thought: You know and I know that Rolling Stone does not literally mean that, like, zero of the greatest pop songs of all time are in French or Mandarin or recorded by Australians, etc...they're assuming that we're all on the same page about this really being "the 500 best songs popular with Americans" and just not specifying. But honestly, you cannot have a list with, eg, "Time After Time" and have no Faye Wong on here, and why is there no Francoise Hardy? No Fela Kuti? I mean, Faye Wong, Francoise Hardy and Fela Kuti are major, major global artists, and that's not even starting to consider big names that are unknown in the Anglosphere. Like, Cui Jian is way, way better than Guns'n'Roses and he was incredibly influential on Chinese rock music. Or Tang Dynasty, why would you put Guns'n'Roses on this list and not Tang Dynasty?

By: heyitsgogi

heyitsgogi — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 18:54:18 -0800

Rolling Stone's New List of ~~the~~ 500 ~~Greatest~~ Songs ~~of All Time~~ That Feel Pretty Relevant Right Now There. I fixed it.

By: ssmith

ssmith — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 19:33:55 -0800

If you're on Apple Music they have the list split up into 10 playlists: https://music.apple.com/us/curator/rolling-stone/976439460

By: oneirodynia

oneirodynia — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 19:34:59 -0800

I have a much harder time believing that only one of them was recorded between 1921 and 1951. In case anyone wants to save some time: that song is Billie Holiday's 'Strange Fruit.' There are actually two: "Cross Road Blues" by Robert Johnson is also on the list at #481.

By: Liquidwolf

Liquidwolf — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 19:42:34 -0800

Like, Cui Jian is way, way better than Guns'n'Roses and he was incredibly influential on Chinese rock music. Or Tang Dynasty, why would you put Guns'n'Roses on this list and not Tang Dynasty? Uh Yeah.. I'm sure Rolling Stone China can deal with that .

By: wibari

wibari — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 20:12:01 -0800

we need a list of the 500 best lists of the 500 best songs.

By: logicpunk

logicpunk — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 20:12:10 -0800

scrolling through songs 500-201: it's gotta be in here somewhere. did I miss it? it can't be lower than 400, right? 200-101: still nothing. what is happening? 100-51: really? not here either? are dexys midnight runners finally, finally, going to be accorded their long and unjustly delayed recognition? 50-1: this list is bullshit.

By: jokeefe

jokeefe — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 20:32:20 -0800

Just tell me where What's Going On placed, and as long as it's around the top 20 I'll be okay. I'll avoid the rest of the list because it's really only good for contemplating the currents of cultural change and generational shift, which is fine, but it's impossible to not take offence at certain things... like the uninformed gesture to the Clash (Working for the Clampdown, please), no Gang of Four, and I bet they missed the Raincoats and the Slits too, and for sure they chose the wrong Joni Mitchell song(s), etc.

By: xigxag

xigxag — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 20:43:06 -0800

I agree that this is really more of a pretty sweet Gen-X playlist than anything that could be counted as a canonical* list of "greatest songs of all time." Some of the songs seem more like they're there just to honor a particular artist than as songs in their own right, like for example Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody," which I personally find nearly unlistenable in 2021, but perhaps has more of a historical significance than a musical one. Their little nods to international music unfortunately come off more as disrespectful pandering than honest surveys of the entire non-English pop scene. For example, I love Selena's "Amor Prohibido," but seriously they're going to include that and not include timeless classics like "Besame Mucho" (Even THE BEATLES(c)(R)(tm)(sm) covered it), "Si Nos Dejan" or any number of more popular Mexican songs? Or they're going to shout out ONE MBP song ("Ponta de Lança Africano")? As THE greatest Brazilian song of all time? Then by implication every other Brazilian pop song in history is worse than the 350 more highly ranked songs on the list. Maybe next time just leave out the foreign pop altogether instead of trying to flex and dismissing an entire culture's worth of music. And what's with throwing in a few songs from 2020? "Savage" was definitely a bop but it feels like it's already dated like other Tik-tok fueled hits. BTS's "Dynamite" might be dynamite, but how about giving history a chance to decide on their greatness? Only time will tell if they're the next Beatles or the next Backstreet Boys. Anyway, I'd have rather seen Ms. Dynamite's "Dy-Na-Mi-Tee" on the list! And as far as #329 "Safaera" goes, I would argue that a song with more writers than players in a standard NBA roster is by definition disqualified. And speaking of sixteen, out of the top 16 greatest songs OF ALL TIME, ten of them just happen to be written in the boomer sweet-spot decade of 1963-1972. Are you even paying attention to yourself, RS? Having said all this, Azealia Banks's monster "212" does sneak in at #485, so just for that I can't entirely hate. *Speaking of canons, why isn't "Pachelbel's Canon in D" included here? By any reasonable measure, it's certainly one of the greatest songs of all time, having come back from death by obscurity to end up as the basis for the most enduring musical motif in modern pop music. ("What's Going On" is @ number 6.)

By: sammyo

sammyo — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 21:10:13 -0800

Liebeslieder Waltzes in the top 100 or GTFO.

By: belarius

belarius — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 21:14:09 -0800

The main thing that makes me allergic to this sort of listicles is that, by mere virtue of having vaguely paid attention, I'm already familiar with almost all of the songs. It's garbage for music discovery (which, I imagine, is partly the aim: plenty of smug consumers of pop music are no doubt expected to pat themselves on the back for their good taste). I don't even need to check the list to know that Prince's Purple Rain and David Bowie's Heroes are on it somewhere, probably pretty close to the top. What these music journalists need, with their presumably greater exposure to the music of the ages than myself, is some constraints. Really get 'em to dig deep into their crates and bring back to us the gems they love in spite of obscurity. If Rolling Stone ever publishes "The Best 200 Albums That Never Once Appeared On The Billboard 200 Chart," let me know.

By: The Wrong Kind of Cheese

The Wrong Kind of Cheese — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 21:24:01 -0800

I got exhausted just going through the top 50. Is Tom Lehrer there? Is Weird Al? Other than Strange Fruit, are there any songs from the 30s or 40s? I really wish there were a simple numbered list on one screen so we could search for titles.

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 22:06:43 -0800

and Bungle in the Jungle That's all right by me.

By: markbrendanawitzmissesus

markbrendanawitzmissesus — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 22:38:43 -0800

I'm not even going to bother reading this because I just feel deep down in my bones that Everything Counts by Depeche mode won't be on here and it will be a war crime.

By: St. Oops

St. Oops — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 23:07:48 -0800

Clash: ... Straight to Hell Well, Paper Planes makes the top 50 and Joe Strummer is given co-writing credits so Straight to Hell kinda tops Should I Stay, maybe sorta.

By: thelonius

thelonius — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 01:47:12 -0800

Do you want to know what song is stuck in my head this morning? I will tell you! It is "Delta Dawn". Why? Why.

By: thelonius

thelonius — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 01:56:32 -0800

Marooned here at the parents' house, trying to alter the glide path of their gerontological decline to at least aim for a rough landing in a field or empty highway, I had a fun phase of going through the childhood media preserved in the basement. And I found a 45 of what is probably the first song, at least a song from a record or radio, that I remember loving : "Puff The Magic Dragon".

By: thelonius

thelonius — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 02:03:13 -0800

I agree that this is really more of a pretty sweet Gen-X playlist than anything that could be counted as a canonical* list of "greatest songs of all time." For sure. Signing onto this list implies, for example, that I agree that School's Out is a "better" song than, say, Skylark.

By: ob1quixote

ob1quixote — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 04:41:24 -0800

That was my take as well. This isn't an ordered list, it's a numbered list.

By: DJZouke

DJZouke — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 05:20:17 -0800

Rolling Stone is about as viable as Napster.

By: signal

signal — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 05:29:58 -0800

The Clash's best song is, obviously, Hinds' cover of Spanish Bombs.

By: bassomatic

bassomatic — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 06:30:41 -0800

This would be so much more interesting if you could see which 50 songs each of the voters included on their ballots.

By: clawsoon

clawsoon — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 07:24:22 -0800

I love "of all time" lists because they give me a chance to rant about the fact that ancient Sumerian songs weren't even considered.

By: mule98J

mule98J — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 08:02:06 -0800

I didn't see BEER RUN on this list, so fuck it. For those who want enlightenment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxGbwiV4Mo8

By: philip-random

philip-random — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 08:02:38 -0800

METAFILTER: for sure they chose the wrong Joni Mitchell song(s), etc.

By: philip-random

philip-random — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 08:07:03 -0800

the first song, at least a song from a record or radio, that I remember loving : "Puff The Magic Dragon". me, too, I'm pretty sure. I certainly can't remember anything that preceded it. Have you heard Will Oldham's take? He does it proud, I think.

By: wabbittwax

wabbittwax — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 08:26:20 -0800

It's kinda perverse that both Tom Petty's "American Girl" and the Strokes "Last Nite" are on the list, and the write-ups both reference how the Strokes totally consciously copied Petty's song, yet "Last Nite" is ranked HIGHER than "American Girl." I enjoy both of those songs but, uh, "American Girl" is just objectively better.

By: GoblinHoney

GoblinHoney — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 08:57:07 -0800

I think for an updated list of 500 "best" songs, you'd need to just cut out The Rolling Stones magazine altogether.

By: box

box — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 08:59:08 -0800

Would 'I Can't Stand the Rain' be on there if ' The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)' had never been recorded? Now I wonder if there's anything else on there that got a boost from being a hip-hop break.

By: gusottertrout

gusottertrout — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 09:32:32 -0800

It's kinda perverse that both Tom Petty's "American Girl" and the Strokes "Last Nite" are on the list That is just one of a number of things that point to the underlying conflict even trying to make a list of "greatest songs" in this fashion creates. The assertion of "greatest" suggests at least some sense of singularity, something that makes the chosen songs stand out from others, but both the method of compilation, selecting the songs based on those which appear on the most lists in highest placement from a large number of people, and just the general purpose of popular music as something based in mass appeal, sets up a dichotomy that can't be resolved. Rolling Stone asked their selected group of voters to pick their 50 favorite songs, which pretty much will lead to a predictable range of criteria that will be used by each to pick their faves. This can end up further amplifying the contradictions by the commonality of evaluative method. Saying, for example, a song is influential automatically suggests some degree of likeness across a significant number of other songs, thus diminishing its singularity outside of it being "first" or an early example. Pointing to something like intensity of emotion tends to point towards emotions that are strongly felt and thus more widely understood and referenced than more subtle emotional states, so certain similar emotional themes, both musically and lyrically, show up over and over again. The more rarified the emotional connection to the music, whether for subtlety, complexity, oddity, or other reason, the smaller the appreciating audience will be and the less chance that kind of singularity will be rewarded with a spot on the list. The very nature of popular music makes mass appeal central to its value, but the desire to differentiate between "good" and "bad" among listeners, to be able to say my taste is "better" than that of the people who like music from that lousy band means the want for a kind of verifiable method of discrimination is strong. People want to share pleasure with a select few but also want to be distinct from the masses once they invest enough of themselves into the music, or whatever popular art. They want their taste to be validated because they've made a strong emotional tie to an artist or song, whether that tie is one of love or hate and there is an expectation experts will provide that validation because the truth of music is in how strongly it is felt, so any that don't agree are wrong, at least in specific instance. Of course that leads to the lists being so banal, they almost have to be by the way they are compiled, and were they to be compiled differently, they wouldn't be held as representative of anything much at all other than authorial whim.

By: chaz

chaz — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 11:35:40 -0800

It's garbage for music discovery I remember the first time I read this list, many years ago. I was not overly familiar with the Kinks, but Waterloo Sunset was ranked highly, so I bought a Kinks CD and fell in love with that song and many others. So there's that. I don't think a best songs of all time list is going to be much for discovery since it's at least partially based on consensus, and greatest implies some cultural impact, not a great song hiding in obscurity.

By: philip-random

philip-random — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 11:52:43 -0800

I don't think a best songs of all time list is going to be much for discovery since it's at least partially based on consensus, this list isn't. WARNING: shameless self-link

By: overeducated_alligator

overeducated_alligator — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 13:17:26 -0800

Somehow this list seems like something from another world. It reminds me of that famous passage by Adorno: Well, he did write all the Beatles' songs, so ...

By: Halloween Jack

Halloween Jack — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 13:43:06 -0800

In 500 entries they couldn't summon up a single heavy song written in the last 30 years and yet managed to find room for literally every song my parents ever listened to on the radio. It's like RS thinks Metal and Punk began and ended with Black Sabbath and Sex Pistols. "Enter Sandman" qualifies, but barely; "Master of Puppets" was written in the mid-80s. No Iron Maiden, no Judas Priest, which you would think would be pretty safe. It's as if they want people to not take them seriously about music any more, ever.

By: sylvanshine

sylvanshine — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 14:24:35 -0800

Wish I had time to click around and see if my all-time favorite song is in the top 150 at least, but I don't so I'll just add a YT link to some Stevie Wonder.

By: The_Vegetables

The_Vegetables — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 14:32:08 -0800

It's kinda perverse that both Tom Petty's "American Girl" and the Strokes "Last Nite" are on the list I think The Strokes version is close enough to Tom Petty to disqualify it, but the shrill background vocals "make it last all night", the repeat of the cool shhh sound from the intro after the break, and the lame '70s bass in the break means there is no way that American Girl is one of the 500 best songs, even within the bounds given. IMO, The Strokes version took all that was objectively bad out (while not adding much good). Tom Petty since I do agree one of his deserves to be included has better songs.

By: The_Vegetables

The_Vegetables — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 14:33:56 -0800

Paper planes being in the top 50 is boomer America in a nutshell: guns, drugs, and crime are bad uhmkay, but novelty songs that glorify them? HELL YEAH!!!

By: signal

signal — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 15:57:08 -0800

Paper Planes is not a novelty song glorifying anything. Please try again.

By: DirtyOldTown

DirtyOldTown — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 17:27:39 -0800

For anyone who is fond of "American Girl," treat yourself to Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit's live cover, performed shortly after we lost Tom Petty. It sounds great in general, but the jaw dropper is Isbell (who cut his teeth as a guitarist in no-fucking-around, go-all-night, play-anything-anyone-asks Alabama bar bands) positivelynailing the entire solo, note for note.

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 19:13:43 -0800

For anyone who is fond of "American Girl," treat yourself to Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit's live cover Goddamn, that's good.

By: Chitownfats

Chitownfats — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 20:07:08 -0800

My yardstick for bestest song is The Trashmen's immortal "Surfin' Bird", for the simple reason that the song presents no unmet expectations. It destroys all hope. It is in B minor.

By: mhoye

mhoye — Sat, 18 Sep 2021 07:02:40 -0800

Really get 'em to dig deep into their crates and bring back to us the gems they love in spite of obscurity. If Rolling Stone ever publishes "The Best 200 Albums That Never Once Appeared On The Billboard 200 Chart," let me know. This is brilliant and we absolutely need this.

By: purplemonkie

purplemonkie — Sat, 18 Sep 2021 10:37:16 -0800

Paper planes being in the top 50 is boomer America in a nutshell: guns, drugs, and crime are bad uhmkay, but novelty songs that glorify them? HELL YEAH!!! Well, that was cringey!

If you were to first encounter the M.I.A. song "Paper Planes" as nothing more than words printed on paper, you would probably jump to the conclusion that... the 2008 record was another unedifying rap about drugs, violence and conspicuous consumption. Without knowledge of context and intention, texture and tone, you'd be likely to make pejorative snap judgments based on specious reasoning. And, just like that, M.I.A. would have you exactly where she wants you.

By: St. Oops

St. Oops — Sat, 18 Sep 2021 11:42:17 -0800

After some more careful perusal of this list and listening to the Spotify playlists I can detect some prime examples of A list trolling of their Gen-X reader base by the editors. The Pixies barely make the cut with a single track on the list, and the Breeders trump them by a few spots, for example. Also Clapton is conspicuously almost completely absent from the list, perhaps due to his outspoken Covid stance? Janis is nowhere to be seen. Massive Attack? Moby? Björk? Not present. Would Biz Markie really garner a spot if not for his untimely death? Over L.L. Cool J, Ton Loc. Young MC and MC Hammer?

By: AlSweigart

AlSweigart — Sat, 18 Sep 2021 11:55:23 -0800

The list, for ease of reading: 500 - Kanye West, 'Stronger' 499 - The Supremes, 'Baby Love' 498 - Townes Van Zandt, 'Pancho and Lefty' 497 - Lizzo, 'Truth Hurts' 496 - Harry Nilsson, 'Without You' 495 - Carly Simon, 'You're So Vain' 494 - Cyndi Lauper, 'Time After Time' 493 - The Pixies, 'Where Is My Mind?' 492 - Miles Davis, 'So What' 491 - Guns N' Roses, 'Welcome to the Jungle' 490 - Lil Nas X, 'Old Town Road' 489 - The Breeders, 'Cannonball' 488 - The Weeknd, 'House of Balloons' 487 - Solange, 'Cranes in the Sky' 486 - Lil Wayne, 'A Milli' 485 - Azealia Banks, '212' 484 - Weezer, 'Buddy Holly' 483 - The Four Tops, 'I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)' 482 - Lady Gaga, 'Bad Romance' 481 - Robert Johnson, 'Cross Road Blues' 480 - Biz Markie, 'Just a Friend' 479 - Santana, 'Oye Como Va' 478 - Juvenile feat. Lil Wayne and Mannie Fresh, 'Back That Azz Up' 477 - The Go-Gos, 'Our Lips Are Sealed' 476 - Kris Kristofferson, 'Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down' 475 - Janet Jackson, 'Rhythm Nation' 474 - Curtis Mayfield, 'Move On Up' 473 - Tammy Wynette, 'Stand by Your Man' 472 - Peter Gabriel, 'Solsbury Hill' 471 - The Animals, 'The House of the Rising Sun' 470 - Gladys Knight and the Pips, 'Midnight Train to Georgia' 469 - Dixie Chicks, 'Goodbye Earl' 468 - Mazzy Star, 'Fade Into You' 467 - Nirvana, 'Come as You Are' 466 - Luther Vandross, 'Never Too Much' 465 - Daft Punk feat. Pharrell Williams, 'Get Lucky' 464 - Joni Mitchell, 'Help Me' 463 - John Lee Hooker, 'Boom Boom' 462 - Van Morrison, 'Into the Mystic' 461 - Roy Orbison, 'Crying' 460 - Steel Pulse, 'Ku Klux Klan' 459 - Sade, 'No Ordinary Love' 458 - Beck, 'Loser' 457 - Bon Jovi, 'Livin' on a Prayer' 456 - Lana Del Rey, 'Summertime Sadness' 455 - Jefferson Airplane, 'White Rabbit' 454 - Sister Nancy, 'Bam Bam' 453 - Missy Elliot, 'The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)' 452 - Toto, 'Africa' 451 - Migos feat. Lil Uzi Vert, 'Bad and Boujee' 450 - Neil Young, 'Powderfinger' 449 - Blue Öyster Cult, '(Don't Fear) The Reaper' 448 - Erykah Badu, 'Tyrone' 447 - The Beatles, 'Help!' 446 - Bruce Springsteen, 'Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)' 445 - T. Rex, 'Cosmic Dancer' 444 - 50 Cent, 'In Da Club' 443 - Fall Out Boy, 'Sugar, We're Goin Down' 442 - Motörhead, 'Ace of Spades' 441 - Miranda Lambert, 'The House That Built Me' 440 - Alicia Keys, 'If I Ain't Got You' 439 - Celia Cruz, 'La Vida Es un Carnaval' 438 - Megan Thee Stallion feat. Beyoncé, 'Savage (Remix)' 437 - Lucinda Williams, 'Passionate Kisses' 436 - Carly Rae Jepsen, 'Call Me Maybe' 435 - Rush, 'Limelight' 434 - Ramones, 'Sheena Is a Punk Rocker' 433 - Pet Shop Boys, 'West End Girls' 432 - Eddie Cochran, 'Summertime Blues' 431 - Prince, 'Adore' 430 - Pete Rock and CL Smooth, 'They Reminisce Over You' 429 - Queen and David Bowie, 'Under Pressure' 428 - Harry Styles, 'Sign of the Times' 427 - Sugar Hill Gang, 'Rapper's Delight' 426 - Nicki Minaj, 'Super Bass' 425 - Muddy Waters, 'Mannish Boy' 424 - Blackstreet feat. Dr. Dre and Queen Pen, 'No Diggity' 423 - Fiona Apple, 'Criminal' 422 - Craig Mack feat. Notorious B.I.G., LL Cool J, Busta Rhymes, Rampage, 'Flava in Ya Ear (Remix)' 421 - The Smiths, 'How Soon Is Now?' 420 - The Mamas and the Papas, 'California Dreamin' ' 419 - Mariah Carey, 'Fantasy' 418 - Booker T. and the MGs, 'Green Onions' 417 - Mark Ronson feat. Bruno Mars, 'Uptown Funk' 416 - Pearl Jam, 'Alive' 415 - Depeche Mode, 'Enjoy the Silence' 414 - Blondie, 'Dreaming' 413 - Them, 'Gloria' 412 - Neneh Cherry, 'Buffalo Stance' 411 - Wilco, 'Heavy Metal Drummer' 410 - Allman Brothers Band, 'Whipping Post' 409 - Foo Fighters, 'Everlong' 408 - Cat Stevens/Yusuf, 'Father and Son' 407 - Lynyrd Skynyrd, 'Free Bird' 406 - Run-DMC, 'Sucker MC's' 405 - Selena, 'Amor Prohibido' 404 - Kiss, 'Rock and Roll All Nite' 403 - Rufus and Chaka Khan, 'Ain't Nobody' 402 - Bill Withers, 'Lovely Day' 401 - Fleetwood Mac, 'Go Your Own Way' 400 - David Bowie, 'Station to Station' 399 - Sylvester, 'You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)' 398 - Duran Duran, 'Hungry Like the Wolf' 397 - Public Enemy, 'Bring the Noise' 396 - Elvis Costello, 'Alison' 395 - Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force, 'Planet Rock' 394 - Jeff Buckley, 'Grace' 393 - James Brown, 'Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud)' 392 - Coldplay, 'Fix You' 391 - Eric Church, 'Springsteen' 390 - Metallica, 'Enter Sandman' 389 - Pretenders, 'Brass in Pocket' 388 - DMX, 'Party Up (Up in Here)' 387 - New York Dolls, 'Personality Crisis' 386 - The Kinks, 'Lola' 385 - Diana Ross, 'I'm Coming Out' 384 - Cardi B, J Balvin, and Bad Bunny, 'I Like It' 383 - Childish Gambino, 'Redbone' 382 - Fiona Apple, 'Paper Bag' 381 - The Slits, 'Typical Girls' 380 - Fountains of Wayne, 'Radiation Vibe' 379 - D'Angelo, 'Untitled (How Does It Feel)' 378 - The Killers, 'Mr. Brightside' 377 - The Cure, 'Pictures of You' 376 - Merle Haggard, 'Mama Tried' 375 - The Drifters, 'Up on the Roof' 374 - William DeVaughn, 'Be Thankful for What You Got' 373 - Drake, 'Hotline Bling' 372 - Bonnie Raitt, 'I Can't Make You Love Me' 371 - Elton John, 'Bennie and the Jets' 370 - Buddy Holly, 'Peggy Sue' 369 - The Cars, 'Just What I Needed' 368 - Soundgarden, 'Black Hole Sun' 367 - Frank Ocean, 'Thinkin Bout You' 366 - The Crystals, 'Da Doo Ron Ron' 365 - Sex Pistols, 'God Save the Queen' 364 - The Grateful Dead, 'Box of Rain' 363 - Bob Marley and the Wailers, 'Could You Be Loved' 362 - Kacey Musgraves, 'Merry Go 'Round' 361 - Jimmy Cliff, 'The Harder They Come' 360 - Prince, 'Little Red Corvette' 359 - Fugees, 'Killing Me Softly With His Song' 358 - Patti Smith, 'Because the Night' 357 - Taylor Swift, 'Blank Space' 356 - Cheap Trick, 'Surrender' 355 - Thelma Houston, 'Don't Leave Me This Way' 354 - Michael Jackson, 'Rock With You' 353 - Eurythmics, 'Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)' 352 - Ice Cube, 'It Was a Good Day' 351 - Jorge Ben, 'Ponta de Lança Africano (Umbabarauma)' 350 - John Prine, 'Angel From Montgomery' 349 - The Zombies, 'Time of the Season' 348 - Roxy Music, 'Virginia Plain' 347 - Elvis Presley, 'Heartbreak Hotel' 346 - BTS, 'Dynamite' 345 - Carole King, 'It's Too Late' 344 - Black Sabbath, 'Iron Man' 343 - The Doobie Brothers, 'What a Fool Believes' 342 - Chuck Berry, 'Promised Land' 341 - The Monkees, 'I'm a Believer' 340 - The Clash, '(White Man) in Hammersmith Palais' 339 - Prince, '1999' 338 - Black Sabbath, 'Paranoid' 337 - Cher, 'Believe' 336 - Hall and Oates, 'She's Gone' 335 - Marshall Jefferson, 'Move Your Body (The House Music Anthem)' 334 - The Grateful Dead, 'Ripple' 333 - The Temptations, 'Papa Was a Rollin' Stone' 332 - Rihanna feat. Jay-Z, 'Umbrella' 331 - The Marvelettes, 'Please Mr. Postman' 330 - The Notorious B.I.G., 'Big Poppa' 329 - Bad Bunny, 'Safaera' 328 - Red Hot Chili Peppers, 'Under the Bridge' 327 - Mary J. Blige, 'Real Love' 326 - Rilo Kiley, 'Portions for Foxes' 325 - Iggy Pop, 'Lust for Life' 324 - Billy Joel, 'Scenes From an Italian Restaurant' 323 - Everly Brothers, 'All I Have to Do Is Dream' 322 - Neil Young, 'After the Gold Rush' 321 - U2, 'I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For' 320 - 2Pac, 'California Love' 319 - Tears for Fears, 'Everybody Wants to Rule the World' 318 - Big Mama Thornton, 'Hound Dog' 317 - Bob Dylan, 'Visions of Johanna' 316 - The Shangri-Las, 'Leader of the Pack' 315 - John Coltrane, 'Pt. 1-Acknowledgement' 314 - The Stooges, 'I Wanna Be Your Dog' 313 - Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, 'The Tears of a Clown' 312 - Isaac Hayes, 'Walk on By' 311 - The Eagles, 'Hotel California' 310 - The Doors, 'Light My Fire' 309 - Bill Withers, 'Ain't No Sunshine' 308 - Liz Phair, 'Divorce Song' 307 - Gnarls Barkley, 'Crazy' 306 - Aretha Franklin, 'Chain of Fools' 305 - The Police, 'Every Breath You Take' 304 - Kraftwerk, 'Trans-Europe Express' 303 - TLC, 'No Scrubs' 302 - Pink Floyd, 'Wish You Were Here' 301 - Bob Seger, 'Night Moves' 300 - The B-52's, 'Rock Lobster' 299 - Screamin' Jay Hawkins, 'I Put a Spell on You' 298 - Bruce Springsteen, 'Jungleland' 297 - Beach Boys, 'Wouldn't It Be Nice' 296 - Bikini Kill, 'Rebel Girl' 295 - The Who, 'Won't Get Fooled Again' 294 - The Velvet Underground, 'Sweet Jane' 293 - Alice Cooper, 'School's Out' 292 - A Tribe Called Quest, 'Can I Kick It?' 291 - Phil Collins, 'In the Air Tonight' 290 - Usher feat. Lil Jon and Ludacris, 'Yeah!' 289 - Bruce Springsteen, 'Atlantic City' 288 - The Funky 4 + 1, 'That's the Joint' 287 - AC/DC, 'You Shook Me All Night Long' 286 - ABBA, 'Dancing Queen' 285 - Destiny's Child, 'Say My Name' 284 - Leonard Cohen, 'Suzanne' 283 - Ray Charles, 'Georgia on My Mind' 282 - INXS, 'Never Tear Us Apart' 281 - Clipse, 'Grindin'' 280 - The Beatles, 'Penny Lane' 279 - Radiohead, 'Karma Police' 278 - Toots and the Maytals, 'Pressure Drop' 277 - Bo Diddley, 'Bo Diddley' 276 - Buzzcocks, 'Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)' 275 - Randy Newman, 'Sail Away' 274 - Al Green, 'Love and Happiness' 273 - Roberta Flack, 'Killing Me Softly With His Song' 272 - Thin Lizzy, 'The Boys Are Back in Town' 271 - Procol Harum, 'A Whiter Shade of Pale' 270 - Nine Inch Nails, 'Closer' 269 - The Righteous Brothers, 'Unchained Melody' 268 - The Isley Brothers, 'Shout (Parts 1 and 2)' 267 - Drake feat. Rihanna, 'Take Care' 266 - Augustus Pablo, 'King Tubby Meets the Rockers Uptown' 265 - The Replacements, 'Left of the Dial' 264 - Marvin Gaye, 'Let's Get It On' 263 - Dolly Parton, 'Coat of Many Colors' 262 - Paul Simon, 'American Tune' 261 - Curtis Mayfield, 'Pusherman' 260 - The Wailers, 'Get Up, Stand Up' 259 - Neil Young, 'Heart of Gold' 258 - Gil-Scott Heron, 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised' 257 - Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, 'Heat Wave' 256 - Metallica, 'Master of Puppets' 255 - Loretta Lynn, 'Coal Miner's Daughter' 254 - The Supremes, 'Stop! In the Name of Love' 253 - Willie Nelson, 'Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain' 252 - Parliament, 'Flash Light' 251 - Gloria Gaynor, 'I Will Survive' 250 - The Jimi Hendrix Experience, 'Purple Haze' 249 - Joan Jett, 'Bad Reputation' 248 - N.W.A, 'Straight Outta Compton' 247 - Joni Mitchell, 'River' 246 - Faces, 'Ooh La La' 245 - Beastie Boys, 'Sabotage' 244 - Pavement, 'Summer Babe (Winter Version)' 243 - The Beatles, 'Eleanor Rigby' 242 - Jerry Lee Lewis, 'Great Balls of Fire' 241 - Digital Underground, 'The Humpty Dance' 240 - Backstreet Boys, 'I Want It That Way' 239 - Big Star, 'September Gurls' 238 - Aaliyah, 'Are You That Somebody?' 237 - Hank Williams, 'Your Cheatin' Heart' 236 - Bill Withers, 'Lean on Me' 235 - New Order, 'Blue Monday' 234 - The Supremes, 'You Keep Me Hangin' On' 233 - Deee-Lite, 'Groove Is in the Heart' 232 - The Who, 'My Generation' 231 - Whitney Houston, 'I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)' 230 - The Byrds, 'Mr. Tambourine Man' 229 - Woody Guthrie, 'This Land Is Your Land' 228 - Beyoncé, 'Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)' 227 - Creedence Clearwater Revival, 'Fortunate Son' 226 - The Smiths, 'There Is a Light That Never Goes Out' 225 - Joni Mitchell, 'Both Sides Now' 224 - Derek and the Dominos, 'Layla' 223 - Eminem feat. Dido, 'Stan' 222 - Crosby, Stills, and Nash, 'Suite: Judy Blue Eyes' 221 - Ike and Tina Turner, 'River Deep, Mountain High' 220 - New Order, 'Bizarre Love Triangle' 219 - Tom Petty, 'Free Fallin'' 218 - Wilson Pickett, 'In the Midnight Hour' 217 - Stevie Nicks, 'Edge of Seventeen' 216 - Elvis Presley, 'Jailhouse Rock' 215 - Mobb Deep, 'Shook Ones, Pt. II' 214 - Steely Dan, 'Deacon Blues' 213 - The Rolling Stones, 'Paint It, Black' 212 - Boston, 'More Than a Feeling' 211 - U2, 'With or Without You' 210 - Funkadelic, 'One Nation Under a Groove' 209 - Don Henley, 'Boys of Summer' 208 - Hole, 'Doll Parts' 207 - Rage Against the Machine, 'Killing in the Name' 206 - Glen Campbell, 'Wichita Lineman' 205 - Britney Spears, '...Baby One More Time' 204 - David Bowie, 'Young Americans' 203 - Stevie Wonder, 'Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours' 202 - Elton John, 'Your Song' 201 - Johnny Cash, 'Ring of Fire' 200 - David Bowie, 'Changes' 199 - Aerosmith, 'Dream On' 198 - Marvin Gaye, 'Sexual Healing' 197 - Ann Peebles, 'I Can't Stand the Rain' 196 - James Brown, 'Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine' 195 - Patsy Cline, 'Crazy' 194 - PJ Harvey, 'Rid of Me' 193 - The Rolling Stones, 'Wild Horses' 192 - Geto Boys, 'Mind Playing Tricks on Me' 191 - Bobbie Gentry, 'Ode to Billie Joe' 190 - N.W.A, 'Fuck tha Police' 189 - David Bowie, 'Space Oddity' 188 - The Jimi Hendrix Experience, 'Little Wing' 187 - Bob Dylan, 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' 186 - The Staple Singers, 'I'll Take You There' 185 - Michael Jackson, 'Beat It' 184 - Sinéad O'Connor, 'Nothing Compares 2 U' 183 - Stevie Wonder, 'You Are the Sunshine of My Life' 182 - Simon and Garfunkel, 'The Sounds of Silence' 181 - The Byrds, 'Eight Miles High' 180 - Lou Reed, 'Walk on the Wild Side' 179 - Pink Floyd, 'Comfortably Numb' 178 - Billie Eilish, 'Bad Guy' 177 - Van Halen, 'Jump' 176 - The Kinks, 'You Really Got Me' 175 - The Flamingos, 'I Only Have Eyes for You' 174 - R.E.M., 'Radio Free Europe' 173 - Television, 'Marquee Moon' 172 - Nina Simone, 'Mississippi Goddam' 171 - Louis Armstrong, 'What a Wonderful World' 170 - The Five Satins, 'In the Still of the Night' 169 - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, 'American Girl' 168 - Dusty Springfield, 'Son of a Preacher Man' 167 - Eminem, 'Lose Yourself' 166 - Mott the Hoople, 'All the Young Dudes' 165 - Hank Williams, 'I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry' 164 - Bob Dylan, 'Mr. Tambourine Man' 163 - Fleetwood Mac, 'Landslide' 162 - Nick Drake, 'Pink Moon' 161 - Madonna, 'Into the Groove' 160 - R.E.M., 'Nightswimming' 159 - The Who, 'Baba O'Riley' 158 - The Meters, 'Cissy Strut' 157 - Sonic Youth, 'Teenage Riot' 156 - The Kingsmen, 'Louie Louie' 155 - The Strokes, 'Last Nite' 154 - Howlin' Wolf, 'Spoonful' 153 - Rick James, 'Super Freak' 152 - Creedence Clearwater Revival, 'Proud Mary' 151 - The Shirelles, 'Will You Love Me Tomorrow' 150 - Green Day, 'Basket Case' 149 - Elton John, 'Rocket Man' 148 - Led Zeppelin, 'Kashmir' 147 - Fats Domino, 'Blueberry Hill' 146 - James Taylor, 'Fire and Rain' 145 - Outkast, 'Ms. Jackson' 144 - The Rolling Stones, 'Jumpin' Jack Flash' 143 - The Clash, 'London Calling' 142 - George Jones, 'He Stopped Loving Her Today' 141 - Rod Stewart, 'Maggie May' 140 - Bob Marley and the Wailers, 'No Woman No Cry' 139 - Madonna, 'Vogue' 138 - Blondie, 'Heart of Glass' 137 - Ariana Grande, 'Thank U, Next' 136 - Otis Redding, 'Try a Little Tenderness' 135 - The Beatles, 'She Loves You' 134 - Tina Turner, 'What's Love Got to Do With It' 133 - Journey, 'Don't Stop Believin'' 132 - Eric B. and Rakim, 'Paid in Full' 131 - Ben E. King, 'Stand by Me' 130 - Martha and the Vandellas, 'Dancing in the Street' 129 - Drake feat. Majid Jordan, 'Hold On, We're Going Home' 128 - Led Zeppelin, 'Whole Lotta Love' 127 - TLC, 'Waterfalls' 126 - George Michael, 'Freedom! '90' 125 - Sex Pistols, 'Anarchy in the U.K.' 124 - Buddy Holly, 'That'll Be the Day' 123 - Talking Heads, 'This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)' 122 - The Impressions, 'People Get Ready' 121 - The Beatles, 'Let It Be' 120 - X-Ray Spex, 'Oh Bondage! Up Yours!' 119 - Marvin Gaye, 'I Heard It Through the Grapevine' 118 - Radiohead, 'Creep' 117 - Aretha Franklin, 'I Say a Little Prayer' 116 - Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock, 'It Takes Two' 115 - Etta James, 'At Last' 114 - Britney Spears, 'Toxic' 113 - Stevie Wonder, 'Higher Ground' 112 - R.E.M., 'Losing My Religion' 111 - Bruce Springsteen, 'Thunder Road' 110 - The Beatles, 'Something' 109 - Sly and the Family Stone, 'Everyday People' 108 - The Cure, 'Just Like Heaven' 107 - Wu-Tang Clan, 'C.R.E.A.M.' 106 - The Rolling Stones, 'Sympathy for the Devil' 105 - David Bowie, 'Life on Mars?' 104 - The Jackson 5, 'I Want You Back' 103 - Alanis Morissette, 'You Oughta Know' 102 - Chuck Berry, 'Maybelline' 101 - Yeah Yeah Yeahs, 'Maps' 100 - Bob Dylan, 'Blowin' in the Wind' 99 - Bee Gees, 'Stayin' Alive' 98 - The Beatles, 'In My Life' 97 - Patti Smith, 'Gloria' 96 - Jay-Z, '99 Problems' 95 - Oasis, 'Wonderwall' 94 - Whitney Houston, 'I Will Always Love You' 93 - Kelly Clarkson, 'Since U Been Gone' 92 - Little Richard, 'Good Golly, Miss Molly' 91 - UGK feat. Outkast, 'Int'l Players Anthem (I Choose You)' 90 - Aretha Franklin, '(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman' 89 - The Beatles, 'Hey Jude' 88 - Guns N' Roses, 'Sweet Child O' Mine' 87 - LCD Soundsystem, 'All My Friends' 86 - The Rolling Stones, 'Tumbling Dice' 85 - Prince, 'Kiss' 84 - Al Green, 'Let's Stay Together' 83 - Bob Dylan, 'Desolation Row' 82 - Adele, 'Rolling in the Deep' 81 - The Velvet Underground, 'I'm Waiting for the Man' 80 - Ray Charles, 'What'd I Say' 79 - Amy Winehouse, 'Back to Black' 78 - The Four Tops, 'Reach Out (I'll Be There)' 77 - The Modern Lovers, 'Roadrunner' 76 - Johnny Cash, 'I Walk the Line' 75 - Pulp, 'Common People' 74 - Leonard Cohen, 'Hallelujah' 73 - Beyoncé, 'Formation' 72 - The Beatles, 'Yesterday' 71 - Tracy Chapman, 'Fast Car' 70 - Elvis Presley, 'Suspicious Minds' 69 - Taylor Swift, 'All Too Well' 68 - Chic, 'Good Times' 67 - Bob Dylan, 'Tangled Up in Blue' 66 - Simon and Garfunkel, 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' 65 - Earth, Wind, and Fire, 'September' 64 - Ramones, 'Blitzkrieg Bop' 63 - Dolly Parton, 'Jolene' 62 - U2, 'One' 61 - Led Zeppelin, 'Stairway to Heaven' 60 - Kate Bush, 'Running Up That Hill' 59 - Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, 'The Message' 58 - The Band, 'The Weight' 57 - Sly and the Family Stone, 'Family Affair' 56 - Missy Elliott, 'Work It' 55 - Madonna, 'Like a Prayer' 54 - Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, 'The Tracks of My Tears' 53 - The Beach Boys, 'Good Vibrations' 52 - Donna Summer, 'I Feel Love' 51 - Dionne Warwick, 'Walk on By' 50 - Daddy Yankee, 'Gasolina' 49 - Lauryn Hill, 'Doo Wop (That Thing)' 48 - Radiohead, 'Idioteque' 47 - Elton John, 'Tiny Dancer' 46 - M.I.A., 'Paper Planes' 45 - Kendrick Lamar, 'Alright' 44 - Michael Jackson, 'Billie Jean' 43 - The Temptations, 'My Girl' 42 - Bob Marley and the Wailers, 'Redemption Song' 41 - Joy Division, 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' 40 - The Jimi Hendrix Experience, 'All Along the Watchtower' 39 - Outkast, 'B.O.B.' 38 - Otis Redding, '(Sittin' On) the Dock of the Bay' 37 - Prince and the Revolution, 'When Doves Cry' 36 - The White Stripes, 'Seven Nation Army' 35 - Little Richard, 'Tutti-Frutti' 34 - James Brown, 'Papa's Got a Brand New Bag' 33 - Chuck Berry, 'Johnny B. Goode' 32 - Notorious B.I.G., 'Juicy' 31 - The Rolling Stones, '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' 30 - Lorde, 'Royals' 29 - Dr. Dre feat. Snoop Doggy Dogg, 'Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang' 28 - Talking Heads, 'Once in a Lifetime' 27 - Bruce Springsteen, 'Born to Run' 26 - Joni Mitchell, 'A Case of You' 25 - Kanye West feat. Pusha T, 'Runaway' 24 - The Beatles, 'A Day in the Life' 23 - David Bowie, 'Heroes' 22 - The Ronettes, 'Be My Baby' 21 - Billie Holiday, 'Strange Fruit' 20 - Robyn, 'Dancing on My Own' 19 - John Lennon, 'Imagine' 18 - Prince and the Revolution, 'Purple Rain' 17 - Queen, 'Bohemian Rhapsody' 16 - Beyoncé feat. Jay-Z, 'Crazy in Love' 15 - The Beatles, 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' 14 - The Kinks, 'Waterloo Sunset' 13 - The Rolling Stones, 'Gimme Shelter' 12 - Stevie Wonder, 'Superstition' 11 - The Beach Boys, 'God Only Knows' 10 - Outkast, 'Hey Ya!' 9 - Fleetwood Mac, 'Dreams' 8 - Missy Elliott, 'Get Ur Freak On' 7 - The Beatles, 'Strawberry Fields Forever' 6 - Marvin Gaye, 'What's Going On' 5 - Nirvana, 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' 4 - Bob Dylan, 'Like a Rolling Stone' 3 - Sam Cooke, 'A Change Is Gonna Come' 2 - Public Enemy, 'Fight the Power' 1 - Aretha Franklin, 'Respect' We can't have websites with basic, simple information because we need to force people to our media- and tracker-heavy websites for advertising. Capitalism.

By: box

box — Sat, 18 Sep 2021 12:37:51 -0800

Here's the 2004 list (apologies for not being able to find a text version in 500-1 order): 1. Bob Dylan Like a Rolling Stone 1961 2. The Rolling Stones Satisfaction 1965 3. John Lennon Imagine 1971 4. Marvin Gaye What's Going on 1971 5. Aretha Franklin Respect 1967 6. The Beach Boys Good Vibrations 1966 7. Chuck Berry Johnny B. Goode 1958 8. The Beatles Hey Jude 1968 9. Nirvana Smells Like Teen Spirit 1991 10. Ray Charles What'd I Say (part 1&2) 1959 11. The Who My Generation 1965 12. Sam Cooke A Change is Gonna Come 1964 13. The Beatles Yesterday 1965 14. Bob Dylan Blowin' in the Wind 1963 15. The Clash London Calling 1980 16. The Beatles I Want zo Hold Your Hand 1963 17. Jimmy Hendrix Purple Haze 1967 18. Chuck Berry Maybellene 1955 19. Elvis Presley Hound Dog 1956 20. The Beatles Let It Be 1970 21. Bruce Springsteen Born to Run 1975 22. The Ronettes Be My Baby 1963 23. The Beatles In my Life 1965 24. The Impressions People Get Ready 1965 25. The Beach Boys God Only Knows 1966 26. The Beatles A day in a life 1967 27. Derek and the Dominos Layla 1970 28. Otis Redding Sitting on the Dock of the Bay 1968 29. The Beatles Help 1965 30. Johnny Cash I Walk the Line 1956 31. Led Zeppelin Stairway to Heaven 1971 32. The Rolling Stones Sympathy for the Devil 1968 33. Tina Turner River Deep - Mountain High 1966 34. The Righteous Brothers You've Lost that Lovin' Feelin' 1964 35. The Doors Light my Fire 1967 36. U2 One 1991 37. Bob Marley No Woman No Cry 1975 38. The Rolling Stones Gimme Shelter 1969 39. Holly, Buddy That'll be the Day 1957 40. Martha & The Vandellas Dancing in the Street 1964 41. The Band The Weight 1968 42. The Kinks Waterloo Sunset 1968 43. Little Richard Tutti Frutti 1956 44. Ray Charles Georgia On My Mind 1960 45. Elvis Presley Heartbreak Hotel 1956 46. David Bowie Heroes 1977 47. Simon and Garfunkel Bridge over Troubled Water 1970 48. Jimi Hendrix All Along the Watchtower 1968 49. The Eagles Hotel California 1976 50. Smokey Robinson & The Miracles The Tracks of my Tears 1965 51. Grandmaster Flash The Message 1980 52. Prince When Doves Cry 1984 53. Sex Pistols Anarchy in the U.K. 1976 54. Percy Sledge When a man loves a woman 1966 55. The Kingsmen Louie Louie 1963 56. Little Richard Long Tall Sally 1956 57. Procol Harum A Whiter Shade of Pale 1967 58. Michael Jackson Billie Jean 1983 59. Bob Dylan The times they are a changin' 1964 60. Al Green Let's Stay together 1971 61. Jerry Lee Lewis Whole Lotta Shakin' Going on 1957 62. Bo Diddley Bo Diddley 1955 63. Buffalo Springfield For what it's Worth 1967 64. The Beatles She Loves you 1963 65. Cream Sunshine of your Love 1968 66. Bob Marley Redemption Song 1980 67. Elvis Presley Jailhouse Rock 1958 68. Bob Dylan Tangled up in Blue 1975 69. Roy Orbison Crying 1961 70. Dionne Warwick Walk on By 1964 71. The Beach Boys California Girls 1965 72. James Brown Papa's Got a Brand New Bag 1966 73. Eddie Cochran Summertime Blues 1958 74. Stevie Wonder Superstition 1973 75. Led Zeppelin Whole Lotta Love 1969 76. The Beatles Strawberry Fields Forever 1967 77. Elvis Presley Mystery Train 1955 78. James Brown I Got You (I Feel Good) 1966 79. The Byrds Mr. Tambourine Man 1965 80. Marvin Gaye I Heard it through the Grapevine 1968 81. Fats Domino Blueberry Hill 1956 82. The Kinks You Really Got me 1964 83. The Beatles Norwegian Wood 1965 84. The Police Every Breath you Take 1983 85. Patsy Cline Crazy 1961 86. Bruce Springsteen Thunder Road 1975 87. Johnny Cash Ring of Fire 1963 88. The Temptations My Girl 1965 89. The Mamas and the Papas California Dreamin' 1967 90. The Five Satins In the Still of the Night 1956 91. Elvis Presley Suspicious Minds 1969 92. The Ramones Blitzkrieg Bop 1976 93. U2 I Still Haven't Found what I Am Looking 1987 94. Little Richard Good Golly Miss Molly 1958 95. Carl Perkins Blue Suede Shoes 1956 96. Jerry Lee Lewis Great Balls of Fire 1957 97. Chuck Berry Roll over Beethoven 1956 98. Al Green Love and Happiness 1972 99. CCR Fortunate Son 1970 100. Rolling Stones You Can't Always Get What you Want 1969 101. Jimi Hendrix Voodoo Child 1968 102. Gene Vincent and his Blue Caps Be Bop A Lula 1956 103. Donna Summer Hot Stuff 1979 104. Stevie Wonder Living for the City 1973 105. Simon and Garfunkel The Boxer 1969 106. Bob Dylan Mr. Tambourine Man 1965 107. Buddy Holly Not Fade Away 1957 108. Prince Little Red Corvette 1983 109. Van Morrison Brown Eyed Girl 1967 110. Otis Redding I've Been Loving you too Long 1965 111. Hank Williams, Sr. I'm so Lonesome I Could Cry 1949 112. Elvis Presley That's All Right 1954 113. The Drifters Up on the Roof 1962 114. The Crystals Da doo ron ron 1963 115. Sam Cooke You Send me 1957 116. Rolling Stones Honky Tonk Woman 1969 117. Al Green Take me to the River 1974 118. The Isley Brothers Shout (part 1 & 2) 1959 119. Fleetwood Mac Go your Own Way 1977 120. The Jackson 5 I Want you Back 1969 121. Ben E. King Stand by me 1961 122. The Animals House of the Rising Sun 1964 123. James Brown It's a Man's Man's World 1966 124. Rolling Stones Jumpin' Jack Flash 1968 125. The Shirelles Will you Love me Tomorrow 1960 126. Big Joe Turner Shake, Rattle and Roll 1954 127. David Bowie Changes 1971 128. Chuck Berry Rock and Roll Music 1957 129. Steppenwolf Born to Be Wild 1968 130. Rod Stewart Maggie May 1971 131. U2 With or without you 1987 132. Bo Diddley Who Do you Love 1957 133. The Who Won't Get Fooled Again 1971 134. Wilson Picket In the Midnight Hour 1965 135. The Beatles While My Guitar Gently Weeps 1968 136. Elton John Your Song 1970 137. The Beatles Eleanor Rigby 1966 138. Sly and the Family Stone Family Affair 1971 139. The Beatles I Saw her Standing there 1964 140. Led Zeppelin Kashmir 1975 141. The Everly Brothers All I Have to Do is Dream 1958 142. James Brown Please, Please, Please 1956 143. Prince Purple Rain 1984 144. The Ramones I Wanna Be Sedated 1978 145. Sly & Family Stone Everyday People 1968 146. The B-52's Rock Lobster 1979 147. Iggy Pop Lust for Life 1977 148. Janis Joplin Me and Bobby McGee 1971 149. The Everly Brothers Cathy's Clown 1960 150. The Byrds Eight Miles High 1966 151. The Penguins Earth Angel 1954 152. Jimi Hendrix Foxy Lady 1965 153. The Beatles Hard Day's Night 1964 154. Buddy Holly Rave On 1958 155. CCR Proud Mary 1969 156. Simon & Garfunkel The Sound of Silence 1965 157. The Flamingos I Only Have Eyes for you 1959 158. Bill Haley Rock around the clock 1954 159. Lou Reed The Velvet Underground I'm Waiting for the Man 1967 160. Public Enemy ft. Anthrax Bring the Noise 1988 161. Ray Charles I Can't Stop Loving you 1962 162. Sinead O'Connor Nothing Compares 2 U 1990 163. Queen Bohemian Rhapsody 1975 164. Johnny Cash Folsom Prison Blues 1956 165. Tracy Chapman Fast Car 1988 166. Eminem Lose yourself 2002 167. Marvin Gaye Let's Get it on 1973 168. The Temptations Papa Was a Rollin' Stone 1972 169. R.E.M. Losing my Religion 1991 170. Joni Mitchell Both Sides Now 1969 171. Abba Dancing Queen 1976 172. Aerosmith Dream on 1973 173. The Sex Pistols God Save the Queen 1977 174. Rolling Stones Paint it Black 1966 175. Bobby Fuller Four I Fought the Law 1966 176. The Beach Boys Don't Worry Baby 1964 177. Tom Petty Free Fallin' 1989 178. Big Star September Girls 1974 179. Joy Division Love Will Tear us Apart 1980 180. Outkast Hey ya 2003 181. Booker T & MGs Green Onions 1962 182. Drifters Save the Last Dance for Me 1960 183. BB King The Thrill is Gone 1969 184. The Beatles Please, Please me 1964 185. Bob Dylan Desolation Row 1965 186. Aretha Franklin Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love you) 1967 187. AC/DC Back in Black 1980 188. CCR Who'll Stop the Rain 1970 189. The Bee Gees Stayin' Alive 1977 190. Bob Dylan Knocking on Heavens Door 1973 191. Lynyrd Skynyrd Free bird 1973 192. Glen Campbell Wichita Lineman 1968 193. The Drifters There Goes my Baby 1959 194. Buddy Holly Peggy Sue 1957 195. The Chantels Maybe 1957 196. Guns n Roses Sweet Child o Mine 1987 197. Elvis Presley Don't Be Cruel 1956 198. Jimi Hendrix Hey Joe 1966 199. Parliament Funkadelic Flashlight 1977 200. Beck Loser 1993 201. New Order Bizarre Love Triangle 1986 202. The Beatles Come Together 1969 203. Bob Dylan Positively 4th Street 1965 204. Otis Redding Try a Little Tenderness 1966 205. Bill Withers Lean on Me 1972 206. The Four Tops Reach out I'll Be There 1966 207. The Everly Brothers Bye Bye Love 1957 208. Them Gloria 1965 209. The Beach Boys In my Room 1963 210. Question Mark and the Mysterians 96 Tears 1966 211. The Beach Boys Caroline No 1966 212. Prince 1999 1982 213. Hank Williams Sr. Your Cheating Heart 1953 214. Neil Young Rockin' In The Free World 1989 215. The Chords Sh-boom 1954 216. The Lovin' Spoonful Do you Believe in Magic 1965 217. Dolly Parton Jolene 1974 218. John Lee Hooker Boom Boom 1963 219. Howlin' Wolf Spoonful 1960 220. The Left banke Walk away Renee 1966 221. Lou Reed Walk on the Wild Side 1972 222. Roy Orbison Oh Pretty Woman 1964 223. Sly & The Family Stone Dance to the Music 1968 224. Chic Good Times 1979 225. Muddy Waters Hoochie Coochie Man 1954 226. Van Morrison Moondance 1970 227. James Taylor Fire and Rain 1970 228. The Clash Should I Stay or Should I Go 1982 229. Muddy Waters Mannish Boy 1955 230. Bob Dylan Just Like a Woman 1966 231. Marvin Gaye Sexual Healing 1982 232. Roy Orbison Only the Lonely 1960 233. The Animals We`ve Gotta Get out of this Place 1965 234. The Byrds I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better 1965 235. Ray Charles I Got a Woman 1954 236. Buddy Holly Everyday 1957 237. Afrika Bambaataa Planet Rock 1982 238. Patsy Cline I Fall to Pieces 1961 239. Dion The Wanderer 1961 240. Dusty Springfield Son of a Preacher Man 1968 241. Sly & the Family Stone Stand! 1969 242. Elton John Rocket Man 1972 243. The B 52s Love Shack 1989 244. The Spencer Davis Group Gimme Some Lovin' 1966 245. The Band The Night they Drove Old Dixie Down 1969 246. Jackie Wilson Higher and Higher 1967 247. Sly and the Family Stone Hot Fun in the Summertime 1969 248. Sugarhill Gang Rappers Delight 1979 249. Aretha Franklin Chain of Fools 1967 250. Black Sabbath Paranoid 1970 251. Bobby Darin Mack the Knife 1959 252. The Drifters Money Honey 1953 253. Mott the Hoople All the Young Dudes 1972 254. AC/DC Highway to Hell 1979 255. Blondie Heart of Glass 1978 256. Radiohead Paranoid Android 1997 257. The Troggs Wild Thing 1966 258. The Who I Can See for Miles 1967 259. Jeff Buckley Hallelujah 1994 260. The Dells Oh, what a Night 1969 261. Stevie Wonder Higher Ground 1973 262. Smokey Robinson & The Miracles Ooo Baby Baby 1965 263. The Crystals He's a Rebel 1962 264. Randy Newman Sail Away 1972 265. Archie Bell Tighten' up 1968 266. The Ronettes Walking in the Rain 1964 267. New York Dolls Personality Crisis 1973 268. U2 Sunday Bloody Sunday 1983 269. The Modern Lovers Roadrunner 1976 270. George Jones He Stopped Loving her Today 1980 271. The Beach Boys Sloop John B 1966 272. Chuck Berry Sweet Little Sixteen 1958 273. The Beatles Something 1969 274. Jefferson Airplane Somebody to Love 1967 275. Bruce Springsteen Born in the USA 1984 276. The Staple Singers I'll Take you there 1972 277. David Bowie Ziggy Stardust 1972 278. The Cure Pictures of you 1989 279. The Dixie Cups Chapel of Love 1964 280. Bill Withers Ain't no Sunshine 1971 281. Stevie Wonder You Are the Sunshine of my Life 1972 282. Joni Mitchell Help me 1974 283. Blondie Call Me 1980 284. Elvis Costello What's so Funny about Peace, Love & ... 1979 285. Howlin' Wolf Smoke stack Lightnin' 1965 286. Pavement Summer Babe 1992 287. Run DMC Walk this Way 1986 288. Barrett Strong Money (That's What I Want) 1960 289. The Beatles Can't Buy me Love 1964 290. Eminem feat. Dido Stan 2000 291. The Zombies She's Not There 1964 292. The Clash Train in Vain 1979 293. Al Green Tired of Being Alone 1971 294. Led Zeppelin Black Dog 1971 295. The Rolling Stones Street Fighting Man 1968 296. Bob Marley Get Up, Stand Up 1975 297. Neil Young Heart of Gold 1972 298. Blondie One Way or Another 1978 299. Prince Sign 'O' the Times 1987 300. Madonna Like a Prayer 1989 301. Rod Stewart Da Ya Think I'm Sexy 1978 302. Willie Nelson Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain 1975 303. The Rolling Stones Ruby Tuesday 1967 304. The Beatles With a Little Help from my Friends 1967 305. James Brown Say It Loud I'm Black and I'm Proud 1968 306. The Jam That's Entertainment 1980 307. Franky Lymon Why Do Fools Fall in Love 1956 308. Jackie Wilson Lonely Teardrops 1958 309. Tina Turner What's Love Got to Do with it 1984 310. Black Sabbath Iron Man 1971 311. The Everly Brothers Wake Up Little Susie 1957 312. Roy Orbison In Dreams 1963 313. Screamin' Jay Hawkins I Put a Spell on You 1956 314. Pink Floyd Comfortably Numb 1979 315. The Animals Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood 1965 316. Pink Floyd Wish you Were Here 1975 317. Jimmy Cliff Many Rivers to Cross 1969 318. Elvis Costello Alison 1977 319. Alice Cooper Schools out 1972 320. Led Zeppelin Heartbreaker 1969 321. Neil Young Cortez the Killer 1975 322. Public Enemy Fight the Power 1989 323. Patti Smith Dancing Barefoot 1979 324. Diana Ross & The Supremes Baby Love 1964 325. The Rascals Good Lovin 1966 326. James Brown Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine 1970 327. Jerry Butler For your Precious Love 1958 328. The Doors The End 1967 329. Earth, Wind & Fire That's the Way of the World 1975 330. The Queen We Will Rock you 1977 331. Bonnie Raitt I Can't Make you Love me 1991 332. Bob Dylan Subterranean Homesick Blues 1965 333. Norman Greenbaum Spirit in the sky 1970 334. The Rolling Stones Wild Horses 1971 335. Lou Reed, The Velvet Underground Sweet Jane 1970 336. Aerosmith & Run DMC Walk this Way 1976 337. Michael Jackson Beat it 1982 338. Paul McCartney Maybe I'm Amazed 1970 339. Diana Ross & The Supremes You Keep me Hangin' on 1966 340. The Who Baba O'Riley 1971 341. Jimmy Cliff The Harder they Come 1975 342. Dion & The Belmonts Runaround Sue 1961 343. Lavern Baker Jim Dandy 1956 344. Janis Joplin Piece of my heart 1968 345. Ritchie Valens La Bamba 1958 346. Tupac Shakur California Love 1996 347. Elton John Candle in the Wind 1973 348. The Isley Brothers Who's that Lady 1973 349. Ben E. King Spanish Harlem 1960 350. Little Eva The Loco-Motion 1962 351. The Platters The Great Pretender 1955 352. Elvis Presley All Shook up 1955 353. Eric Clapton Tears in Heaven 1992 354. Elvis Costello Watching the Detectives 1977 355. CCR Bad Moon Rising 1969 356. Eurythmics Sweet Dreams 1983 357. Jimi Hendrix Little Wing 1968 358. Martha Reeves and the Vandellas Nowhere to Run 1965 359. Muddy Waters Got my Mojo Working 1957 360. Roberta Flack Killing me Softly with his Son 1973 361. The Clash Complete Control 1979 362. The Beatles All you Need is Love 1967 363. The Box Tops The Letter 1967 364. Bob Dylan Highway 61 revisited 1965 365. The Righteous Brothers Unchained Melody 1965 366. The Bee Gees How Deep is your Love 1977 367. Cream White Room 1968 368. Depeche Mode Personal Jesus 1989 369. Bo Diddley I'm a Man 1955 370. Jimi Hendrix The Wind Cries Mary 1967 371. The Who I Can't Explain 1965 372. Television Marquee Moon 1977 373. Sam Cooke Wonderful World 1960 374. Chuck Berry Brown Eyed Handsome Man 1956 375. Pink Floyd Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2) 1979 376. Radiohead Fake Plastic Trees 1996 377. Ray Charles Hit the Road Jack 1961 378. U2 Pride (In the Name of Love) 1984 379. R.E.M. Radio Free Europe 1991 380. Elton John Goodbye Yellow Brick Road 1973 381. Aaron Neville Tell it Like it is 1965 382. The Verve Bitter Sweet Symphony 1997 383. The Allman Brothers Band Whipping Post 1971 384. The Beatles Ticket to Ride 1965 385. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Ohio 1970 386. Eric B. and Rakim I Know you Got Soul 1987 387. Elton John Tiny Dancer 1972 388. The Police Roxanne 1978 389. The Temptations Just my Imagination 1971 390. The Four Tops Baby I Need your Loving 1965 391. Freda Payne Band of Gold 1970 392. The Five Stairsteps O-o-h Child 1970 393. The Lovin' Spoonful Summer in the City 1966 394. Elvis Presley Can't Help Falling in Love 1961 395. The Shangri-Las Remember (Walkin' In The Sand) 1964 396. Big Star Thirteen 1972 397. Blue Oyster Cult (Don`t Fear) The Reaper 1976 398. Lynyrd Skynyrd Sweet Home Alabama 1974 399. Metallica Enter Sandman 1991 400. Paul Revere & The Raiders Kicks 1966 401. The Shirelles Tonight's the Night 1960 402. Sly and the Family Stone Thank you (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again) 1970 403. Eddie Cochran C'mon Everybody 1958 404. Bob Dylan Visions of Johanna 1966 405. The Carpenters We've Only Just Begun 1971 406. R. Kelly I Believe I can Fly 1996 407. Nirvana In Bloom 1992 408. Aerosmith Sweet Emotion 1975 409. Cream Crossroads 1969 410. Pixies Monkey Gone to Heaven 1989 411. Donna Summer I Feel Love 1977 412. Bobbie Gentry Ode to Billy Joe 1967 413. Little Richard The Girl Can't help it 1957 414. The Coasters Young Blood 1957 415. The Four Tops I Can't Help myself 1965 416. Don Henley The Boys of Summer 1984 417. N.W.A. Fuck the Police 1988 418. Crosby, Stills & Nash Suite Judy Blue Eyes 1969 419. Dr. Dre Nuthin' But A 'G' Thang 1993 420. The Isley Brothers It's your thing 1969 421. Billy Joel Piano Man 1973 422. The Kinks Lola 1970 423. Elvis Presley Blue Suede Shoes 1956 424. The Rolling Stones Tumbling Dice 1972 425. The Smiths William, It was Really Nothing 1984 426. Deep Purple Smoke on the Water 1972 427. U2 New Year's Day 1983 428. Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels Devil with a Blue Dress on Good Golly... 1966 429. Solomon Burke Everybody Needs Somebody to Love 1964 430. The Clash White Man in Hammersmith Palais 1978 431. Fats Domino Ain't it a Shame 1955 432. Gladys Knight and the Pips Midnight Train to Georgia 1977 433. Led Zeppelin Ramble on 1969 434. Wilson Pickett Mustang Sally 1966 435. The Rolling Stones Beast of Burden 1981 436. Love Alone Again or 1967 437. Elvis Presley Love me Tender 1956 438. The Stooges I Wanna Be your Dog 1969 439. John Cougar Mellenkamp Pink Houses 1984 440. Salt-N-Pepa Push it 1987 441. The Dell-Vikings Come Go with me 1957 442. Little Richard Keep a Knockin' 1957 443. Bob Marley & The Wailers I Shot the Sheriff 1973 444. Sonny & Cher I Got you Babe 1965 445. Nirvana Come as you are 1992 446. Toots and the Maytals Pressure Drop 1968 447. The Shangri-Las Leader of the Pack 1964 448. The Velvet Underground Heroin 1967 449. The Beatles Penny Lane 1967 450. Glen Campbell By the Time I Get to Phoenix 1967 451. Chubby Checker The Twist 1960 452. Sam Cooke Cupid 1961 453. Guns 'N' Roses Paradise City 1987 454. George Harrison My Sweet Lord 1970 455. Nirvana All Apologies 1994 456. Lloyd Price Stagger Lee 1958 457. Ramones Sheena is a Punk Rocker 1977 458. Sam & Dave Soul man 1965 459. Muddy Waters Rollin' Stone 1950 460. The Chiffons One Fine Day 1963 461. Prince and the Revolution Kiss 1986 462. The Staple Singers Respect yourself 1972 463. The Beatles Rain 1966 464. The Four Tops Standing in the Shadows of Love 1966 465. Cheap Trick Surrender 1978 466. Del Shannon Runaway 1961 467. Guns 'N' Roses Welcome to the Jungle 1987 468. The Stooges Search and Destroy 1964 469. Carole King It's too Late 1971 470. Joni Mitchell Free Man in Paris 1974 471. Willie Nelson On The Road Again 1980 472. The Supremes Where Did our Love Go 1964 473. Aretha Franklin Do Right Woman - Do Right Man 1967 474. Funkadelic One Nation under a Groove (Part. 1) 1978 475. Beastie Boys Sabotage 1994 476. Foreigner I Want to Know What Love is 1984 477. Rick James Super Freak 1981 478. Jefferson Airplane White Rabbit 1967 479. Labelle Lady Marmalade 1974 480. Van Morrison Into the Mystic 1970 481. David Bowie Young Americans 1975 482. Alice Cooper I'm Eighteen 1971 483. The Cure Just Like Heaven 1987 484. Joan Jett I Love Rock and Roll 1981 485. Paul Simon Graceland 1986 486. The Smiths How Soon is Now 1984 487. The Drifters Under the Boardwalk 1964 488. Fleetwood Mac Rhiannon 1975 489. Gloria Gaynor I Will Survive 1978 490. The Rolling Stones Brown Sugar 1971 491. Dusty Springfield You Don't Have to Say you Love me 1966 492. Jackson Browne Running on Empty 1977 493. The Crystals Then He Kissed me 1963 494. The Eagles Desperado 1973 495. Smokey Robinson Shop Around 1960 496. The Rolling Stones Miss you 1978 497. Weezer Buddy Holly 1994 498. Brook Benton Rainy Night in Georgia 1970 499. Thin Lizzy The Boys are Back in Town 1976 500. Boston More than a Feeling 1976

By: philip-random

philip-random — Sat, 18 Sep 2021 13:40:04 -0800

The list, for ease of reading: Thank you. I notice that there's no Can, no My Bloody Valentine, no Sigur Ros, no Syd Vicious, no Yes, no Neutral Milk Hotel, no Peter Tosh, no Geraldine Fibbers, no This Mortal Coil, no Swans, no Mothers of Invention, Captain Beefheart, Flying Burrito Bros, Einsturzende Neubauten, Bauhaus, Waterboys, Nick Cave, King Crimson, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Scott Walker, Husker Du, Pere Ubu, Brian Eno, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Residents, no Nancy Sinatra or Lee Hazelwood, Echo + The Bunnymen, Stone Roses, Dinosaur Jr, Orb or Orbital, Aphex Twin, Pogues, Undertones, Lee Scratch Perry, Hawkwind, Butthole Surfers, no Devo, no Neil Diamond, no Marianne Faithfull, no War. And more. This is a very silly list.

By: thelonius

thelonius — Sat, 18 Sep 2021 14:22:59 -0800

Nirvana, 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' maybe the third or fourth best song on Nevermind, it's just not all that......take away the drums and it's pretty forgettable

By: Meatbomb

Meatbomb — Sat, 18 Sep 2021 14:59:22 -0800

no Devo "Maybe we like ideas." "Yeah, well maybe we like to talk in tonnage."

By: signal

signal — Sat, 18 Sep 2021 16:38:22 -0800

purplemonkie: " Well, that was cringey! " Yep. Here's a 20 minute video explaining the creation and cultural relevance of Paper Planes, worth it even if you prefer text to video.

By: wats

wats — Sat, 18 Sep 2021 18:24:04 -0800

Motherfuckers act like they forgot about Paranoid Android....

By: PHINC

PHINC — Sat, 18 Sep 2021 23:26:18 -0800

As someone firmly in the Gen X camp I just have to ask - where is Galaxie 500?

By: kittens for breakfast

kittens for breakfast — Sun, 19 Sep 2021 08:22:25 -0800

I think stuff like this is interesting in terms of "these are 500 songs people who know a lot of popular music thought were Very Important in the last half of 2021." It's fun, I guess, to argue about the rankings, but those were obviously arrived at by counting votes, and not because an otherwise normal person sat down and said, "Ah, yes, 'In da Club" by 50 Cent belongs here, and in this very spot, superior to Lana Del Rey's 'Summertime Sadness' and wayyyy better than 'Baby Love' by The Supremes, but clearly inferior to that perennial favorite, Tom Petty's 'Free Fallin',' a song with which it has so very much in common." (I glanced up at the 2004 list for "Free Fallin'," which may now be wholly irrelevant compared to, like, "Bad Guy" or something, I don't know.)

By: Tehhund

Tehhund — Sun, 19 Sep 2021 09:48:19 -0800

> take away the drums and it's pretty forgettable

I will fite you. More seriously: I don't get why we shit on drummers. No one would seriously say "Take away the vocals/guitar and it's forgettable."

By: holborne

holborne — Sun, 19 Sep 2021 12:22:14 -0800

I always thought "God Only Knows" was kind of a creepy song, but after seeing the trailer for "Lamb," I won't be listening to it again. Ever.

By: TedW

TedW — Sun, 19 Sep 2021 13:38:18 -0800

I don't get why we shit on drummers. Pay no attention; that's just the bass players talking.

By: mhoye

mhoye — Sun, 19 Sep 2021 14:04:24 -0800

Over L.L. Cool J, Ton Loc. Young MC and MC Hammer? Three of the things on this list do not belong on this list.

By: mhoye

mhoye — Sun, 19 Sep 2021 14:10:43 -0800

maybe the third or fourth best song on Nevermind, it's just not all that A lot of this list, maybe most of it, is "this artist should be on it, here's their best known tune". So much so that I'm looking at songs I think might deserve their spots, wondering what that artist made that I've missed completely.

By: box

box — Sun, 19 Sep 2021 14:27:20 -0800

Over L.L. Cool J, Ton Loc. Young MC and MC Hammer? Oh, wow. Not to fix it for you, but how about 'Over LL Cool J, Nas, De La Soul, and all the Wu-Tang solo releases?' (Also, 'Sabotage' jumped from 475 to 245, which... I did not see coming.)

By: gusottertrout

gusottertrout — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 01:51:42 -0800

(Also, 'Sabotage' jumped from 475 to 245, which... I did not see coming.) Likely as anything else due to the way the song keeps getting used in other media, maintaining its cultural relevance while other songs fade from memory. I mean that Dreams likely ended up at number 9 and Africa made the list at all is likely thanks to a tiktok video and a meme. Nothing exactly wrong with that, that is what the list is gonna measure, continued cultural relevance, but it points to how some songs will get remembered for being able to be more easily slotted into new use than another song might. It isn't, for example, that I suspect everyone has suddenly just decided that This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) is really one of two Talking Heads songs worth remembering, but that it has a ready emotional hook to keep finding use in remakes in different genres and use in shows and movies where, say, Born Under Punches is trickier to slot. Given their method of polling, asking a range of writers and musicians to pick just 50 faves which will have a point value assigned to their ranking, as the methodology said, 300 points for first, 290 for second and so on, to 44 points for 50th, the songs that find the wider claim of personal/historical associative value are gonna get the nods, while artists who may have a variety of songs people like might get more songs mentioned but could miss out on getting into the final ranking. If a number of people polled liked Bjork but all picked different songs or ranked them lower, then she could miss the list even while being generally appreciated. The list favors certain ideas of value by the way its constructed, which would need to be rethought to get a different kind of ranking.

By: Meatbomb

Meatbomb — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 04:00:38 -0800

Born Under Punches is trickier to slot Even though it is by all measure the definitive and best Talking Heads song! So yeah, lists like this do not really give us best songs at all...

By: gusottertrout

gusottertrout — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 04:53:28 -0800

I guess what I'm trying to explore a little is how we come to basically condense our cultural experiences as time goes on and the way that determines what is considered of lasting value and what is forgotten, or at least rendered ever more esoteric an interest is pretty fascinating and things like this poll kind of give some indication of how that comes about, so I try to poke at it a bit. The poll maybe has a very rough kind of analogy to how we individually keep the music we like in memory. I mean we hear many thousands of songs throughout our lives, if one is really into music many thousands more. A poll like this asks those polled to pair that huge store of music down to fifty songs that you call favorites. The very notion is ridiculous, especially for people who really do care about songs, as one only cares that much about something one finds a lot of value in, so more songs will be liked and a great many at roughly equal levels of "exceptional" so paring down isn't going to be an evaluation of quality per se, its going to be the songs you want to signal as most important to you as you make the list. That suggests personal mile markers or another measure of "Importance" beyond the qualities of the song itself and those qualities will be fit to things that remain fresh in the mind from either deep familiarity or what your interests are in the moment, so it becomes a sort of symbolic statement of who we right now told are through a selection of music. With a big enough group, the "statement" can become a bit predicable for the milestones it will measure and in the values of moment it attends to, individually we come at the questions in our own way, though only finding measurable cultural relevance when our values match with enough others to gain larger notice. But there is something in the way we condense our experience or knowledge in how lists like this capture the way the culture condenses history into segments of more and less importance. You can see the way the list is condensing jazz into a few representative songs and between the previous lists and this see how early rock is starting to go the same route. Bye Elvis, adios Jerry Lee, we need room for new things now, so Chuck and Little Richard will do. At the same time new stuff jumps to the fore, like Robyn at number 20, for how important that song is for some of this generation of musicians (the earlier counterparts of whom were also previously likely to be ignored for more "masculine" oriented stuff). Whether the song Dancing On My Own "deserves" the spot on its own merits is irrelevant in some ways, as the symbolic element is as important a thing and because you really can't entirely separate the associative elements of the music from the music itself, they become one and the same. I Wanna Hold Your Hand is understood as communicating its era and importance in a way that keeps it culturally relevant as does The Message or Rapper's Delight. They're all fine songs in their own way, but that way doesn't confront the music that followed directly, they're held to a different set of criteria for their importance. In our own experience with music, I think we do much the same. We have some songs that we hold as representative and others are just relatively fresh in the mind and the rest we sort of condense into key highlights we identify as part of or with the song that are more or less true perhaps, but much thinner or weaker than the actual version of the song and may not even be at the ready for quick recall until there is a prompt that triggers it. Making a list of your own favorite songs would require trying to revisit one's history or ignoring part of it for the new. Made the list then heard some random car playing Boz Scaggs' "Lido Shuffle" and all of a sudden there's a new flood of associations to account for, or maybe you hadn't really listened to a copy of Eden recently and when you do you find you maybe didn't give Everything But the Girl the spot in memory you should have or maybe you've just grown into it more over time, or how do you slot Barabajagal anyway? Is Donovan kitschy fun or deeper pleasure? and after that figure out The Incredible String Band. The mix of faint and faulty memories, conceptions of symbolic personal importance and how we change over time but still cling to and drag some of the past with us, while trying to validate the things we ignored or choices made leads to weird distortions of value and as important declarations of it, and all of this while we are trying to find the truth of it all as it proper value. An exceptionally elusive goal but not necessarily the worse for that if one is aware of the gulf between the desire and the outcome.

By: box

box — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 08:38:45 -0800

Somebody already posted the Spotify playlist, but I was already 300+ songs into mine when I learned this, so: Spotify playlist redux. I selected recent remasters when they were available, original album versions when they were not, and mixed in a couple extended versions where it seemed appropriate (Curtis Mayfield's "Movin' on Up," which works much better as an extended groove than a truncated radio single, and the 12" version of 'Rapper's Delight,' because that's the one the DJs played).

By: box

box — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 09:01:27 -0800

(And the remix of Mariah Carey's 'Fantasy' with Ol' Dirty Bastard--it is, in my mind, the canonical version.)

By: gusottertrout

gusottertrout — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 14:47:17 -0800

People who might be a bit irked by the Rolling Stone list ended up being focused mostly on the post fifties era set of dominant popular music genre successes, might be interested in this NPR list of 300 works that goes further back in, mostly, US music history while still trying to keep modern music in sight. Unlike the Rolling Stone poll, they relied on a small selection of music historians and critics, which is closer to a traditional canonical approach to defining importance. Not everything on the list is a song, but their method gives some indication of how the approach and criteria matter in the end result, for good or bad.

By: box

box — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 15:31:02 -0800

That NPR list makes me wonder how they decided to put just a song versus a whole album on it (Public Enemy gets a whole album, Bob Dylan does not. I'm not saying that's bad (and I love PE), just that it's interesting.) It also kinda reads like they gave extra votes to Ken Burns. But it also covers pre-WWII music and jazz and folk and blues like they actually matter, and it goes with the Grateful Dead's 'Dark Star' instead of 'Ripple' or 'Box of Rain,' and it has some of my favorite pieces of music on it (including my favorite album from Cecil Taylor, who Ken Burns (and Wynton Marsalis) semi-famously left out of Jazz), so I forgive it.

By: gusottertrout

gusottertrout — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 16:38:07 -0800

That NPR list makes me wonder how they decided to put just a song versus a whole album on it It's evidently a preliminary list for a top 100, but the link to that is dead so I didn't see what their specific aims were nor even when this was originally published. I'd guess early 2000s, possibly in response to that 2004 Rolling Stone poll, which might explain Pearl Jam and Beck as near end points on their timeline, and open to question for that as seen from today's perspective. Lot's of great stuff on the list though and that appears to come from setting out to tell a story/history rather than just gathering impressions of the moment. I think there's still something missing between those two approaches, but getting to it is difficult.

By: box

box — Tue, 21 Sep 2021 11:20:50 -0800

I believe that NPR list (that's the list of 100, culled from the list you shared) is from 2000, and it eventually became The NPR 100. The only thing from the '90s that made the cut was 'Smells Like Teen Spirit,' while the two '80s entries were Graceland and 'Once in a Lifetime,' leaving 'The Message,' 'Walk This Way,' 'Fuck the Police,' It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, and several non-rap songs on the cutting room floor.

By: philip-random

philip-random — Tue, 21 Sep 2021 18:03:47 -0800

there are many things wrong with these lists, yet they can be fun. One ongoing issue for me is that I find they suck with regard to the most recent ten or so years. It's just really hard to know what does and doesn't have genuine staying power for a while. I once read that the magic number is fifteen years. After fifteen years, you tend to know one way or another, which would make 2006 the current cut off. Which makes this an interesting chart. A few from the top 30: Crazy - Gnarls Barkley Marble House - The Knife Sæglópur - Sigur Rós Roscoe - Midlake The Funeral - Band of Horses Intervention - Arcade Fire Wolf Like Me - TV on the Radio Shark Fin Blues - The Drones That is, tracks I both recognize and agree with.

By: gusottertrout

gusottertrout — Tue, 21 Sep 2021 23:34:02 -0800

Interesting. For movies I tend to think there's roughly a fifteen year cycle for trends, with the old ones from the preceding cycle being played out in the first five years of the next, and the seeds of the next dominant wave starting to sprout in the last five of the cycle, while the "middle" section is the major trend lines. In popular music I kinda help to 12 year cycles, '65 to '77, '78 to '90 and so on, as being different eras of music, but those were always just loose frameworks for thinking about it. I think there are a few things that make this era a bit more difficult to figure as the way people listen to music has changed so much since record era. Ear buds and the internet has seemingly eroded some of the older commonality of music, where you would be exposed to some of the dominant sounds even if you weren't digging into the scene in any purposeful way. Walking around town I can more frequently hear music from the '70s and '80s than anything from the '00s playing from various cars and stores, sometimes hearing the occasional songs from the last five years or so from vehicles with a group of people inside, with only the coffeeshops sometimes covering the middle ground, but that's likely because its stores are playing "safe" songs and younger people are wearing ear buds so its more a private showcase of sounds they like. Those sounds though seem to vary a lot more widely than in my younger days as so, so much more is available to be heard without effort. Some of my perceptions are surely skewed for being older, I don't doubt there is still plenty of sharing of interests and talk about music I don't hear as clubs were still booking new bands and getting crowds, pre-pandemic anyway, so it isn't that there's no shared culture, just that the wider culture of people outside the current scene aren't necessarily getting the same kind of exposure to it, or what they do get is perhaps more limited. I mean, sure, Taylor Swift and Beyonce from the '00s or Li'l Nas X, Cardi B, and Billie Eilish now, but beyond that pop tip, it seems to be a more limited selection of sounds breaking through to mass consciousness, but I could be wrong about that and maybe we'll hear TV on the Radio tunes played in grocery stores like I do the Cure now, as hard as that would have been to believe back in the time of their first acclaim. That also kinda goes to the question of what staying power actually means. From the list you gave, there are three bands I've never heard of, Sigur Ros, which seems like a band that's found its niche and will remain solidly in it, Arcade Fire, TV on the Radio, and, Band of Horses, groups I see mentioned with some noticeable frequency, and Gnarls Barkley's Crazy, which did seem to breakthrough as a song to some degree of wider notice from the otherwise uninterested in current sounds. Again, that could just be my own bias at work since I was only passingly investigating music, or digging in on a more off and on basis without guidance save end of year lists and the like. The question is what staying power means, whether in an aesthetic appreciation by a select group or adoption by the culture at large and I kinda feel that latter category is the more difficult one to assess nowadays for it being driven by different kinds of forces than it once was. Not better or worse necessarily just harder to predict.

By: gusottertrout

gusottertrout — Tue, 21 Sep 2021 23:44:40 -0800

Oh, crucially, I should have said my listening is without guidance save for year end lists and algorithms as browsing the music scene now makes that a major factor.

By: gusottertrout

gusottertrout — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 00:57:41 -0800

Hmm, the lack of response leads me to think I didn't phrase my question/working assumption very well leading to yet another occasion where people might think I've gone off the deep end. I fully understand Arcade Fire and the rest are critically acclaimed and sell a lot of music, so for people into music they are well known and easy to find info about or listen to, what I was trying to get at was more in the level of cultural saturation they have among people who don't care about music in a broad sense, even as they may well like some specific performers or genres, old or new. I'm contrasting the response to Arcade Fire with that of, say, Radiohead, White Stripes, The Strokes, or REM, where even if you didn't care about those bands one way or the other, you couldn't really avoid at least hearing their music played in various circumstances, and so becoming absorbed by the wider culture, like it or not. In more recent years, since the late '00s with the rise of streaming song sites, it feels to me like some of that wider cultural saturation has been lost. Sure, Wake Up broke through to some degree of unavoidable notice and The Suburbs was at least ripped off for sounds, but I don't recall ever hearing Intervention being played aside from my own choice to stream it, or TV on the Radio being heard without searching for them. (The Funeral perhaps made some impression before choosing to hear it, but it wasn't like, say, Young Folks.) The reason I wonder about this is because the list of 500 songs sort of hints at something of the same. It seems to carry some value for cultural saturation within it, I mean if you want some Uptown Funk it'll give it you and Africa is waiting there for you too, but Arcade Fire? Not so much even with their sales and acclaim. It feels like there is a narrowing of what constitutes a heavily marketable hit that can achieve wide cultural notice, while the rest is becoming more fragmented in a way. People who really care about caring about music are able to dig into such a huge variety of it that it's difficult to judge relative success or importance among that segment of the population concerned with their ideas of quality over that wide range. DakhaBrakha or The Hu might get notice one day, TV on the Radio or Billie Eilish the next without much concern over differentiation of cultural reach or how they fit next to each other. It's all good music and that's enough, which is great! But it isn't the same as a wider cultural absorption and that has some possible consequence. While other folks will just dig into the fandoms of their favorite performers in ever deeper ways, which is also fine, but can become a culture unto itself. For me it sometimes feels like there are these competing flows to the culture, almost as if its a icy river, the top layer feels like it's frozen while underneath there is a torrent of culture that can barely be accounted for before it rushes past, with what was once flotsam and jetsam getting mixed into the currents of the new without clear pattern or clear effect. In much the same way that it's becoming ever more difficult to talk about a given TV show as a cultural touchstone in the way one once could, all culture seems to be more difficult to assess in terms of its cultural effect other than leading people to seek branch off from the main flow, either in preference for stagnant waters or a free flowing stream, rather than remain in the mixed flow of the main body of the culture. I can't say, if true, whether this is more a side effect of the many other cultural rifts we are experiencing or if it is helping to fuel that divide as part of the changes the internet has created, but it feels like something worth looking at.

By: EmpressCallipygos

EmpressCallipygos — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 03:46:20 -0800

Hmm, the lack of response leads me to think I didn't phrase my question/working assumption very well leading to yet another occasion where people might think I've gone off the deep end. ...I....actually didn't get that it was a question? I just reread what you wrote and I'm still not clear what it is you are asking.

By: gusottertrout

gusottertrout — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 03:55:49 -0800

Well, it's Metafilter, so I took it for granted that my working assumption would be met with objections if there was disagreement, so that's pretty much what I was hoping for to get a sense of what others see, or I guess hear, regarding the cultural trends and music.

By: dances_with_sneetches

dances_with_sneetches — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 09:11:20 -0800

If they do this type of list again, it should be in chronological order, not claiming which is the best of all time. This will show why some of the early entries are there: ahead of their time, influential, or just all time classic. It will show the build of music, rather than just present a jumble. I recommend ten per year, maybe starting around 1949, when jump jive prefigured rock and roll. That would make for more than 700. Maybe add in ten from before because Strange Fruit is so necessary a song. Maybe include Devil Got My Woman. I wouldn't object to a Cole Porter tune or two. And Stormy Weather. No more than two songs from any band (or individual) in any year. I am glad to see "I'm a Believer." Shows they weren't taking things to seriously. Sometimes fun is reason enough. If they really wanted to prove their post-serious chops, they would have included Sugar, Sugar by the Archies. (Does anyone remember that Bart Simpson made Time Magazine's Top 100 People of the 20th Century?) The greatest miss I noticed was Lesley Gore's "You Don't Own Me." In my mind the greatest female solo ballad of the early sixties. As a final anecdote, I remember an LA radio station counting down its audience-voted Top 500 songs in the mid-70s. I kept holding out for my favorite song (from Leonard Cohen, too naive to realize that smart was not the same as popular - how Lisa Simpson of me). Even when they were about to bring up number one, I was thinking, my song, not yet appearing in the top 500 must be number one. Number One went to Captain and Tennille, Love Will Keep Us Together.

By: box

box — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 09:39:58 -0800

I recommend ten per year, maybe starting around 1949 Working with little more than a Wikipedia page (okay, I also looked at a couple other wiki pages, plus Discogs) here are my top ten songs from 1949: Dinah Shore and Buddy Clarke - Baby, It's Cold Outside Louis Jordan - Beans and Corn Bread John Lee Hooker - Boogie Chillen Ewan MacColl - Dirty Old Town Fats Domino - The Fat Man Hank Williams - I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry Duke Ellington - Liberian Suite James Moody - Moody's Mood for Love Ezio Pinza - Some Enchanted Evening Anton Karas - Third Man Theme Who's got 1950?

By: dances_with_sneetches

dances_with_sneetches — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 10:34:07 -0800

1950. In no particular order. C'est Si Bon, Louis Armstrong. Tennessee Waltz, Patti Page. Someone to Watch Over Me, Ella Fitzgerald. Mona Lisa, Nat King Cole. The Thing, Phil Harris. Please Send Me Someone to Love, Percy Mayfield. Good Night, Irene, The Weavers. I'm Movin' On, Hank Snow. Double Crossing Blues, Johnny Otis with Little Esther & The Robins I'm not sure about the rules, but from Guys and Dolls, premiered 1950, but not the artists who recorded them. Sit Down You're Rockin' the Boat. For those doing 1951, I would suggest including: Rocket '88 Ike Turner Cold, Cold Heart, Hank Williams Sixty Minute Man, Billy Ward and His Dominoes The Glory of Love, The Five Keys.

By: box

box — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 11:02:06 -0800

1951, the other six: Peace in the Valley, Red Foley How High the Moon, Les Paul and Mary Ford Come On-a My House, Rosemary Clooney Unforgettable, Nat King Cole Lullaby of Broadway, Doris Day Imaginary Landscape No. 4 (March 2), John Cage

By: dances_with_sneetches

dances_with_sneetches — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 11:10:45 -0800

For 1950, I'd edit in: Rollin' Stone, Muddy Waters Hymne à l'amour, Édith Piaf and edit out, The Thing. I thought it was a different piece.

By: dances_with_sneetches

dances_with_sneetches — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 11:48:54 -0800

1952 Now we're starting to rock: Hound Dog, Big Mama Thornton Lawdy, Miss Clawdy, Lloyd Price Jambalaya, Hank Williams Kiss of Fire, Georgia Gibbs You Belong to Me, Jo Stafford The Wolf is at Your Door, Howlin' Wolf 4' 33", John Cage All of Me, Johnny Ray Somewhere Along the Way, Nat King Cole Oh Happy Day, Don Howard The last of these may seem slow and simplistic, but it was probably the first hit that was made a hit by teenagers.

By: box

box — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 11:53:24 -0800

Might I respectfully request that Thelonious Monk's 'Straight, No Chaser' be added to the 1952 list?

By: dances_with_sneetches

dances_with_sneetches — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 11:59:25 -0800

Very reasonable. Box, as you've experienced, putting these together is hard in the sense that there is also something good lurking in the peripheral vision. Also: Wimoweh (In the Jungle), The Weavers. By the way, I'm better at this in the 50s than in the later decades. I used to focus my music collection on pre-Elvis rock and roll.

By: box

box — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 12:09:57 -0800

There are a lot of good things lurking in the peripheral vision--I know a little bit about jazz and avant-garde, but I've got a pretty big blind spot for musical theater and soundtracks. One of the things I liked about the NPR list is that it makes room for things like the theme from Jaws--it never hit the Billboard charts, but millions of people heard it. 1953: Bear Cat, Rufus Thomas Crying in the Chapel, The Orioles Django, Modern Jazz Quartet Fool Such as I, Hank Snow Studie I, Karlheinz Stockhausen (Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean, Ruth Brown Mess Around, Ray Charles Salt Peanuts, The Quintet (from Jazz at Massey Hall) That's Amore, Dean Martin Your Cheatin' Heart, Hank Williams

By: dances_with_sneetches

dances_with_sneetches — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 12:18:33 -0800

Released in '52: Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean, Ruth Brown. Suggested for '53. Shake a Hand, Faye Adams. Crying in the Chapel, The Orioles. ShBoom, The Chords Money Honey, The Drifters Satin Doll, Duke Ellington Your Cheatin' Heart, Hank Williams I wrote this before seeing your list above.

By: dances_with_sneetches

dances_with_sneetches — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 12:20:10 -0800

Salt Peanuts and Django are classics. You are filling out jazz better than I did. I won't be able to work on these for awhile.

By: box

box — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 12:25:59 -0800

That particular version of 'Salt Peanuts' is a monster, too--it's the only time Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Bud Powell, and Max Roach played together. Unified 1953 Theory: Bear Cat, Rufus Thomas Crying in the Chapel, The Orioles Django, Modern Jazz Quartet Fool Such as I, Hank Snow Mess Around, Ray Charles Money Honey, The Drifters Salt Peanuts, The Quintet (from Jazz at Massey Hall) ShBoom, The Chords Studie I, Karlheinz Stockhausen Your Cheatin' Heart, Hank Williams

By: thelonius

thelonius — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 12:34:20 -0800

I want to apologize for trolling. But I do truly like "In Bloom", "Lithium", and "Come As You Are" best, from Nevermind.

By: box

box — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 13:25:59 -0800

1954: Earth Angel, The Penguins I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man, Muddy Waters In the Still of the Night, The Five Satins In the Wee Small Hours, Frank Sinatra Le Souk, Dave Brubeck Quartet Mr. Sandman, The Chordettes My Funny Valentine, Chet Baker Shake Rattle and Roll, Big Joe Turner Work With Me, Annie, The Midnighters You Better Watch Yourself, Little Walter

By: dances_with_sneetches

dances_with_sneetches — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 13:29:33 -0800

Thelonius, that is not trolling. That's posting. And, besides, you're thelonius.

By: dances_with_sneetches

dances_with_sneetches — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 13:34:50 -0800

For 1954. I Got A Woman, Ray Charles Rock Around the Clock, Bill Haley and the Comets (1954 didn't reach #1 until 1955)

By: box

box — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 15:32:01 -0800

1955: Afrodisia, Kenny Dorham Ain't That a Shame, Fats Domino Bo Diddley, Bo Diddley Cry Cry Cry, Johnny Cash Cry Me A River, Julie London The Great Pretender, The Platters Metastaseis, Iannis Xenakis Sincerely, The Moonglows Sixteen Tons, Tennessee Ernie Ford The Wallflower, Etta James

By: wabbittwax

wabbittwax — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 15:54:31 -0800

1955 needs Maybellene by Chuck Berry

By: wabbittwax

wabbittwax — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 16:10:04 -0800

For 1956 you'd need to have: Long Tall Sally, Little Richard Heartbreak Hotel, Elvis Presley Roll Over Beethoven, Chuck Berry Blue Suede Shoes, Carl Perkins Be-Bop-a-Lula, Gene Vincent I Walk The Line, Johnny Cash Speedo, The Cadillacs Corrina, Corrina, Big Joe Turner Que Sera Sera, Doris Day

By: box

box — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 16:49:29 -0800

That's a real solid list. For the one empty spot, I suggest either Oliver Messiaen's 'Oiseaux Exotiques' or Cecil Taylor's 'Azure,' because, yeah, I'm that person.

By: dances_with_sneetches

dances_with_sneetches — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 17:44:52 -0800

For 56 I'd take a second Elvis: Don't Be Cruel.

By: dances_with_sneetches

dances_with_sneetches — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 18:33:01 -0800

57 has an embarrassment of riches. All the top performers of jazz along with a few newcomers were releasing albums. I'll stick mostly with the rock and roll classics and let you all pare it down to 10. For '57: All Shook Up, Elvis. Jailhouse Rock, Elvis. That'll Be The Day, Buddy Holly A Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On, Jerry Lee Lewis Great Balls of Fire, Jerry Lee Lewis You Send Me, Sam Cooke Rock and Roll Music, Chuck Berry School Days, Chuck Berry Who Do You Love, Bo Diddley Bye Bye Love, Everly Brothers The Girl Can't Help It, Little Richard Wake Up, Little Susie, Everly Brothers At the Hop, Danny & the Juniors Blueberry Hill, Fats Domino Lucille, Little Richard Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny Cash 'Round Midnight, Coltrane The Music Man and West Side Story and Damn Yankees debuted that year.

By: dances_with_sneetches

dances_with_sneetches — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 20:14:13 -0800

Okay, with links because I love you daddyos and chicklets. All Shook Up, Elvis. Jailhouse Rock, Elvis. That'll Be The Day, Buddy Holly A Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On, Jerry Lee Lewis Great Balls of Fire, Jerry Lee Lewis You Send Me, Sam Cooke Rock and Roll Music, Chuck Berry School Days, Chuck Berry Who Do You Love, Bo Diddley Bye Bye Love, Everly Brothers The Girl Can't Help It, Little Richard Wake Up, Little Susie, Everly Brothers At the Hop, Danny & the Juniors Blueberry Hill, Fats Domino Lucille, Little Richard Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny Cash (live performance in Folsom Prison. Some in the audience cheer when he sings, "I shot a man in Reno, just to see him die." 'Round Midnight, Coltrane

By: thelonius

thelonius — Fri, 24 Sep 2021 02:18:54 -0800

57 has an embarrassment of riches. All the top performers of jazz along with a few newcomers were releasing albums......Coltrane btw if you ever want to take a dive into midcentury jazz, you could do a lot worse than just to listen to records that Paul Chambers played bass on. That would get you the canonical intro album, and then much more besides. following a sideman or studio musician can be a pretty interesting tour through a period in popular music

By: box

box — Fri, 24 Sep 2021 05:10:40 -0800

1958: All I Have to Do Is Dream, Everly Brothers Book of Love, The Monotones Freedom Suite, Sonny Rollins Johnny B. Goode, Chuck Berry Maybe Baby, Buddy Holly Rebel Rouser, Duane Eddy Splish Splash, Bobby Darin Summertime Blues, Eddy Cochran To Know Him Is to Love Him, The Teddy Bears Tom Dooley, Kingston Trio Yakety Yak, The Coasters Whoops, that's one song too many, and it's missing Dave Seville. (And somehow we got through '56 and '57 without Buchanan and Goodman, about which I have some regrets.) Let's kick off Chuck Berry (heresy!), and keep it movin' into 1959.

By: dances_with_sneetches

dances_with_sneetches — Fri, 24 Sep 2021 06:08:49 -0800

I think you missed some classics in '58: Chantilly Lace, Big Bopper Good Golly Miss Molly, Little Richard High School Confidential, Jerry Lee Lewis Breathless, Jerry Lee Lewis (I love pneumatic drill piano-playing) La Bamba, Ritchie Valens Stagger Lee, Lloyd Price

By: dances_with_sneetches

dances_with_sneetches — Fri, 24 Sep 2021 08:48:15 -0800

1959 What'd I Say (part 1&2) Ray Charles Shout (part 1 & 2) The Isley Brothers I Only Have Eyes for You, The Flamingos Mack the Knife, Mack the Knife Lovin' Up a Storm Jerry Lee Lewis A Big Hunk of Love, Elvis Love Potion Number Nine, The Clovers El Paso, Marty Robbins Peter Gunn, Duane Eddy (Henry Mancini) Kansas City, Wilbert Harris February 3 – "The Day the Music Died" When John Lennon was asked about Elvis's death, he said, "Elvis died the moment he joined the army."

By: box

box — Fri, 24 Sep 2021 10:50:39 -0800

Did we just go through '58 and '59 without any jazz? Look what y'all made me do: 1960: Chain Gang, Sam Cooke El Paso, Marty Robbins Naima, John Coltrane A Night in Tunisia, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers Only the Lonely, Roy Orbison Original Faubus Fables, Charles Mingus Shop Around, The Miracles Stay, Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs Triptych: Prayer, Protest, Peace, Max Roach Una Muy Bonita, Ornette Coleman Some regrets about leaving out 'It's Now or Never,' but I liked it better when it was a Mario Lanza song. No regrets about Chubby Checker, choices had to be made.

By: philip-random

philip-random — Fri, 24 Sep 2021 13:40:34 -0800

Hmm, the lack of response leads me to think gusottertrout - I lost track of this discussion for a while. I appreciate what you're getting at. Which I'd sum up with a annoyingly simple, "pop culture's just way more complicated now". I personally come from an age when music meant A LOT. And I don't mean just to me personally. The charts, who was on top, who even got on them and who didn't -- that got a pile of notice and discussion even from people who weren't that invested in whatever was popular. In 1976, pretty much everybody had an opinion about Frampton Comes Alive. Even if they hadn't heard it, they'd heard about it. They could talk about the hype if nothing else. Here in 2021, who could even name the most recent Grammy nominees for Best Group? I personally gave up on keeping track long ago. There's just WAY too much going on ... and not just in music. I have my interests and obsessions and am always open to a certain level of randomness. I just spent a bunch of yesterday listening to obscure Nektar tracks due to something that popped up in my Youtube sidebar. But I don't pretend to know what's officially considered culturally significant anymore and don't care to, I guess, because why would I trust the kind of EXPERT who'd insist they've got a handle on cultural significance? (Yes Rolling Stone in general -- I'm talking to you) So as a lover of music, particularly the music I love, I just keep digging, keep listening, keep sharing notes with fellow travellers, and loving it when it seems we're going the same way ... for a while at least. Speaking of which, Working for the church while your family dies Arcade Fire's Intervention yt as interpreted by St. Peter's Male Voice Choir Drogheda, and Musical Director Edward Holly, with the Lourdes Youth Choir. Annual Christmas Concert 2013.

By: dances_with_sneetches

dances_with_sneetches — Fri, 24 Sep 2021 19:53:31 -0800

I just wanted to say, my problem here is, with the 60s, I am getting into territory I know less about. I know the importance of some now obscure but important pieces in the 50s, but with the 60s, I'm a bit lost. What were the Kinks other important pieces? What presaged hard rock? I would probably choose Helter Skelter just because I know it. And I wouldn't place it on the top ten of its year. Hell, I might not place it on the top ten of the White Album.

By: Going To Maine

Going To Maine — Thu, 07 Oct 2021 14:41:01 -0800

@blainecapatch okay okay OKAY i'll list Rolling Stone's 500 Worst Albums

500. Moondance -- Van Morrison 499. Young Sheldon -- Radiohead 498. Turd Smokin' -- The Turd Smoker Band 497. Well Whaddya Know 99 More Luftballoons How About That -- Nena 496. Songs to Fuck To -- Leonard Cohen

(NB I disagree with his #1)