Excuse me while I rant about another stupid “Best of” thread.
I was looking over VH1’s list of the 100 greatest rock ‘n’ roll songs. At first glance, it looks pretty good. in fact, I’d be hard-pressed to argue with the top 5 – “Satisfaction,” “Respect,” “Stairway to Heaven,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” and “Born to Run.”
BUT
After Aretha at #2, the next song with a woman singer in at #63 (Patsy Cline, “Crazy”). In fact, there are only four songs on the entire list with a woman singing lead (the other two are “Somebody to Love” and “We’ve Only Just Begun,” and one more – “California Dreamin” – where a man and woman share the lead.
Come on people! NO Janis Joplin? NO Supremes? NO Martha and the Vandellas? NO Heart? Not even Linda Rondstadt or Stevie Knicks.
I have trouble calling a lot of the songs that made the list Rock, much less Rock ‘n’ Roll. But if your definition of Rock is big enough to include Motown, how can you leave off “Can’t Hurry Love”? If you can include “Light My Fire” how do you leave of “Piece of My Heart”?
I’m beginning to think these list-makers deliberately leave off some obviously deserving name so we can get all riled about it and give the list more buzz than it would get if everyone got “fair” treatment.