They did this last in 2004
Most of the top 50 I am OK with except not a rap fan. Have at it
Well it’s a silly list, but then it’s intended to be.
Fascinating that ‘Let it Be’ is at 121, behind Britney Spears’ ‘Toxic’ (!!) and ‘Hey Jude’ is in the 90’s, but the only Beatles song in the top 10 is ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ at #7, which I wouldn’t even put in the top 10 of Beatles’ songs. And Public enemy has the 2nd song on the list with ‘Fight the Power’?
Classic Rock is taking a beating in this new way of doing things. The first Who song I found was ‘Baba O’Reilly’ at 159. The first Pink Floyd song is ‘Comfortably Numb’ at 179. ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’, which used to reliably crack the top 10 on such lists has dropped to 295.
And wow, the first (and only) Eagles song is ‘Hotel California’ at 311. That also used to be a top 10 ‘greatest song’ or close to it.
Recency bias has put a whole lot of very mediocre but newer songs on the list.
No Warren Zevon, but I expected that. Actually, I expected the list to suck hard. I think that’s intentional. It’s all about the clicks, and the best way to get clicks is to get people arguing and linking to it.
Stupid. Just pain stupid and pointless. I can’t imagine anyone who’s marginally serious about music giving any consideration to it. I suppose the magazine has their reasons.
They obviously polled a very diverse group of people to get these results, which is the best way to do it. It’s an interesting list, but I can’t imagine there’s any actual individual person in the world whose list would much resemble this one.
And coming in at number 471 (two spaces behind the Dixie Chicks’ “Goodbye Earl”), we have the Animals’ “House of the Rising Sun”.
Wait, wut??
mmm
That about sums it up. And their reason is eyeballs and clicks, plus a general attempt to remain relevant.
I would say RS has lost their credibility, but I never thought they ever had any.
The list is joke. Can’t take it seriously when the best song in human history isn’t Number one or even in the Top 50.
John Jacob Jingleheimersmith?
“Cherry Pie” by Warrant, of course.
Obviously my tastes must be significantly different from those who voted. Of the top 50, there are very few songs I even like. Some of the artists had songs that were better than those in the top 50, so in some cases I am comparing apples to apples. Here’s the few from the top 50 I like.
5 - Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
17 - Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
22 - The Ronettes - Be My Baby
33 - Chuck Berry - Johnny B. Goode
35 - Little Richard - Tutti-Frutti
43 - The Temptations - My Girl
44 - Michael Jackson - Billie Jean (although this isn’t even in his personal top 10 IMHO)
50 - Daddy Yankee - Gasolina
That’s less than 20% for me in terms of the songs even being good songs, much less the best of all time. Prince, The Kinks, Springsteen, Notorious BIG, Michael Jackson, and many others in the Top 50 had better songs that didn’t make the top 50.
Mozart’s 17th piano concerto / K 453?
99 Bottles Of Beer On The Wall?
“Cherry Pie” by Warrant,
I believe you are correct. My computer’s fan wanted to join in the competition to become #501 on the list. It was working overtime to cool down my hard drive which was heating up due to all the ads that were embedded in that list that kept popping up.
And I’ll bet it would sound better than about 50 songs on that list.
Rio by Duran Duran.
I also like only some of the songs in the top 50. However, my list is different from yours. I guess that’s the point.
Lists like this are always dumb, but this list is almost aggressively dumb. “Dancing on my Own” by Robyn? Huh?
Maybe I just have very generic tastes, but I like most of the songs in the top 50. (which is the only part of the list I looked at). And the ones I don’t, I at least think “yeah, that’s a good song.” (or at least “yes, that’s an influential song”) even if subjectively, it’s not my taste.
I’m also not seeing much recency bias in the top 50 - it seems fairly well distributed and centered about 40 years ago, though I’m sure you would end up with a very different list if they had surveyed white middle-aged men.
Rolling Stone is just trolling everybody with this list. They ceased having musical relevance back in the 1980s.
It’s a great song. I wouldn’t expect it to be on a list of the 50 best of all time, but I like it.