Rolling Stone Magazine has released its top 500 songs of all time. Not only are there no Schubert lieder in the top 20, there’s no Little Richard! Outrageous! Anway, here they are from one to twenty: [How come "Maybellene" got in ahead of "Memphis"?-ed. Oh, shut up!]
Like a Rolling Stone, Bob Dylan
(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, The Rolling Stones
Imagine, John Lennon
What’s Going On, Marvin Gaye
Respect, Aretha Franklin
Good Vibrations, The Beach Boys
Johnny B Goode, Chuck Berry
Hey Jude, The Beatles
Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana
What’d I Say, Ray Charles
My Generation, The Who
A Change is Gonna Come, Sam Cooke
Yesterday, The Beatles
Blowin’ in the Wind, Bob Dylan
London Calling, The Clash
I Want to Hold Your Hand, The Beatles
Purple Haze, The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Maybellene, Chuck Berry
Hound Dog, Elvis Presley
Let It Be, The Beatles
UPDATE: I love rock and roll–I grew up with it–but there’s not a single song on this list that holds a candle to this… but, hey, that’s just my opinion. I’m a sentimentalist. I’m crazy for La Traviata.
One woman?
3 beatles? No Fat Boy Slim? Who made this…oh.
They love to put “A Change is Gonna Come” in lists of this sort because Sam Cooke was a great singer, and it has a civil rights type vibe. Trouble is, it’s not that great a song. Most of his big hits are better (though not top 20 material). I think they feel compelled to list a Clash tune because all the late 70s/early 80s buzz was “The only band that matters”. In truth I don’t think they left much of a legacy.
“Hound Dog”? Far from Elvis’s best. I would place it waaaay below “Heartbreak Hotel” or “Jailhouse Rock” (Before anyone starts listing Sun tunes; I think they’re pretty overrated).
Notice how all these songs are, well, old? Like Rolling Stone itself of course. The rock and roll set has turned itself into the ‘moldy fig’ jazz clique, letting the world pass it by.
Not that I dislike any of these songs, but this is a requiem for a dead art form.
It’s probably a safe bet that there are no Schubert lieder anywhere on the list. I wonder how many songs by Gershwin, Kern, Berlin, or Rodgers there are on the list. Or, for that matter, how many by Tom Paxton.
And at #9, Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana
All the 1000′s of great hits over the years, and this is all they could come up with for the ninth best song? Smells like…..well something else to me.
“Imagine” at number three. Excuse me while I find a corner to throw up in. My vivisection of this anthem to mindlessness can be found at:
http://acuf.org/issues/issue6/040217cul.asp
That list needs a whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on. Top songs of all time and there’s not a single one from the American musical, swing, torch, or jazz genres? Rolling Stone needs a checkup from the neckup.
They obviously never heard Big Mama Thorton sing Hound Dog. Elvis got it from her. Saw her live in 1954 in the Cotton Club, West Memphis Arkansas. She was one of the greatest Blues singers of her time. Just fantastic.
Like their list of greatest albums they should add to it the last time they actually listened to these songs. I’d guess something like I Want to Hold Your Hand (’67)
Imagine at #3 is hilarious.
No La Vie en Rose?
No Je ne Quitte Pas?
Are they nuts?
They obviously never heard Big Mama Thorton sing Hound Dog. …. Saw her live in 1954 in the Cotton Club, West Memphis Arkansas.
Go ahead, tease us.
Sorry, but any top 20 list that doesn’t include Frank Zappa’s The Legend of the Illinois Enema Bandit (or, alternatively, Titties and Beer) simply can’t be taken seriously…
Sure, rock’n'roll is fun, but we’re talkin’ about art here. Damn it.
And where, in the wide, wide world of sports is Throw Rag’s Hang Up, Stiff Little Fingers’ Gotta Gettaway or the Sex Pistols’ Anarchy In The U.K.?
And of course they got the wrong Clash song…
Yawn Winner, once again, confirms his status as an Old Fart. Give it up, Yawn.
You know how lame that list is?
It’s exactly the list you would expect John Kerry to feed some dimwit writer for Rolling Stone during the campaign…to show everyone he’s “with it” or whatever.
Oy.
Dennis the Peasant ó Hey, lissen, man, Kerry jammed a session with Dylan, okay>?
They just can’t find the masters…
Roger:
Rolling Stone is too locked into their fuzzy memories of the sixties. They picked the wrong Beatles songs. I would have gone with Eleonor Rigby, In My Life, and Paperback Writer. I would have gone with Elvis Costello instead of the Clash from that period. Imagine, and Nirvana are overrated and have more to do with social trends and politics then songcraft, and although I like Sam Cooke they ignored Motown except for Gaye.Street Fighting Man for the Stones.
In the top 20:
No Buddy Holly?
No Kinks?
No Queen?
No Janis?
No Alman Brothers?
No Steely Dan?
Please.
Rock is dead they say.
Rolling Stone did the same thing 10-15 years ago and I swear to God almost all the songs were the same. I’m reminded of the scene in the first Austin Powers (you know, the only one that was funny) where Dr. Evil says to his Gen-X son (Seth Green): “I’m hip. I’m with it.” and starts doing the Macarena.
Opera:
Bizet’s Carmen
American Songbook:
Johnny Mercer & Harold Arlens’ Come Rain Or Come Shine
Rock & Roll:
(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais — The Clash
richard mcenroe,
Kerry may have jammed with Dylan, but wasn’t it Gore who invented the electric guitar?
At least they got Yesterday right.
No Gilbert and Sullivan?
Morons.
Although it’s fairly recent, what about: America, F#@k yeah! I thought I’d tie all of the day’s threads together.
Almost a complete blandout,imagine this playing segue on the jukebox,an invitation to empty both barrels into it as a friend of mine did.
WichtaBoy guitar pickups seem to have been invented by a chap called Humbucker.
No Little Richard the man who gave popular music the biggest culture shock since the invention of the accordion,they just cannot have seen the man perform,after a diet of Frankie Lane and songs like the Mexican Jumping Bean,… A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-lop-bam-boom! was a brick in the face,sadly no one will ever hear it like we did again.
People please!
It’s folly to make such a list, just as it’s folly to dispute it.
There is so much great music from this magnificent melting pot of a nation (the Brit rock stuff is derivative of American music, of course) in such a wide variety of styles it’s silly to make a list of “The Best Songs”.
When it comes to music everyone’s an expert….
I’d put Imagine at #3 on the list of worst songs of all time.
No wait, I’d put it at number 1.
And could they have picked three lamer Beatles songs? I mean c’mon, those are Beatles Muzak songs.
You know who I think compiled the list?
The kumbaya-on-the-guitar-playing, mustache-having hippy nun who taught me in fifth grade circa 1979. Sounds like just her speed.
IMHO, they should have done songs that sort of defined a generation, and then 2-3 songs from that generation.
Some of those songs are – I mean, “Smells like Teen Spirit” was perhaps the song of Generation X. I remember I was in college at the time, and I would shoot pool with a friend for hours (pay for 4 hours, get the 5th free) and that song would be played on the juke box literally every other song.
To that end, there should have been a disco song or two on the list. Disco Inferno, Stayin’ Alive.
And of course, Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love”, which basically started the whole electronic dance music thing.
And, something from the early 80s. Call Me from Blondie, Dont you want me from the Human League. Or Tom Sawyer from Rush. And of course, there was music before the 1950s. O Fortuna! from Carl Orff.
This list way over-represents the early-mid 60s. (And I want to hold your hand just plain sucks. It’s as insipid and shallow as anything produce by Ms. Spears or any boy band of the 90s/00s)
Also, Little Richard was probably disqualified for appearing in the movie “Catalina Caper”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061456/
What about “Louie Louie”? Great song when getting hammered is required…
And WHERE is Al Green??
Roger, here are three goodies for you:
“The Night We Called it a Day” (Matt Denis/Tom Adair). Get Chet Baker singing it.
“Yesterdays” (Harbach/Jerome Kern) Get Frank singing it.
“Nancy with the Laughing Face” (Jimmy van Heusen, and, yes, Phil Silvers, lyrics (!)) Get Bill Evans playing it.
or Nat King Cole?
I change favorites frequently. Right now I’ve been trying to get the piano sheet music for “Midnight, the Stars and You”, the song from the Batchelor show (and also from The Shining), a real oldie from the 1930s.
Back in the 1970s I coudn’t get enough Stairway to Heaven, though.
DtP,
Not a single Shel Silverstein (I’d nominate Freakin’ at the Freakers Ball and Penicillin Penny). And one might reasonably expect one Kinky Friedman in there (maybe Get Your Biscuits In The Oven and Your Buns In Bed or They Ain’t Makin’ Jews Like Jesus Anymore)
Yup. I guess it’s official now. Who needs Harold Arlen when you can have Marvin Gaye?!
I’m quite surprised that no one has mentioned The Ramones, specifically the song Blitzkrieg Bop. If I had to summarize the spirit of rock and roll into one song and one song only, that would be it.
Surprising too, in that I think it was Rolling Stone that had a Best Acts of All Time thing a few years back and put The Ramones at number 2 after The Beatles. I might be misremembering it tho, it could have been Spin.
Hey Jude is not the best Beatles song. And I can think of about 20 Beatles songs that should be ahead of Imagine. Typical Rolling Stone.
Hmmm, two songs in the top 20 from after I graduated high school (and I’m about to become eligible to join AARP).
“Imagine” ranked ahead of any Beatles tune? “My Generation” ranked ahead of “Won’t Get Fooled Again?” No “Stairway to Heaven”? (No longer a favorite of mine, but it is certainly considered a classic).
I’ll give them “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” because of its significance in launching the Beatles in the US. That’s another thing lurking in the background on all these lists, is the significance of the song. For example the top song is chosen because it inspired the magazine title; I suspect the Rolling Stones get the #2 song for similar reasons.
wichita boy ó No, Gore wanted to prove his Democratic street cred by getting caught in a campaign sex scandal of his very own with all four Bangles but Susannah Hoff’s mother wouldn’t let him, especially once they found out there was nothing Egyptian about it, he always walked that way…
And where’s Hawkwind on this freaking list? I suppose PDQ Bach is right out of the question…
Send more Chuck Berry.
There’s only one music magazine worth the paper it’s printed on, and that’s Mojo, from the UK. No politics, no pop culture, tons of content, all of it well-written and often funny. Most of the music covered is classic, but they do a better job following new trends than anyone else. The Brits should consider it a national treasure.
Rolling Stone is a joke. Yesterday, Imagine, and Blowin’ in the Wind are rock n roll? Please. Not only is there no Little Richard, there’s no Jerry Lee Lewis, the real king of rock n roll. The magazine is literally not even worth skimming.
I hate when they make these lists for all the reasons stated, but please, Otis Redding doesn’t crack the top 20? Satisfaction is a better song than Happy or Gimme Shelter? Only one Elvis song? How absurd.
Boomer nostalgia overcomes good taste once again.
“Imagine” doesn’t hold a candle to any other Beatles song. The lack of songs in the top 20 past when boomers stopped listening to the radio is disappointing. There have been some fantastic songs written in the past 15 years:
“Ghost” by the Indigo Girls
“Where the Streets Have No Name” by U2
“In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel
Jann Wenner doesn’t seem to realize that he’s a joke. He’s what we 80s children think of when we hear the phrase “aging boomer hippie.”
I second the shock at no Buddy Holly!!!! On the other hand, I guess I have graduated to old Fartdom because the last great rock and roll band I ever heard was Credence.
Ummmm—I thought U2 was a spy plane
Bob Dylan and no Led Zep or G’n'R – that tells you all you need to know – it was compiled by people who like Muzak.
The list by Rolling Stone was compiled from votes by 172 critics and musicians that included Brian Wilson, Joni Mitchell, Jeff Tweedy of Wilco and others.
Sure, it’s bent toward the 60′s but that really was the rock music explosion–rock, folk rock, country rock, Pyschodelic, Blues Rock, I’d argue Heavy Metal started there (Born to Be Wild, Jumpin’ Jack Flash). Of course, there have been great songs written in the past 15 years, but I’m not sure they can compare overall with the music from the sixties. I do think Imagine is out of time. It was a nice song, but it seems so quaint now. Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone is brilliant as is Satisfaction. Though, like someone else said, where is Gimme Shelter? To me, that is the greatest rock song ever.
I probably would have put a Buddy Holly song in there as well as U2′s I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For. I Wanna Be Sedated by the Ramones should be there as well. Oh, well…these lists are really only meant to get people talking anyway–and to sell magazines. Every mag now has to have lists–all are marketing gimmicks.
Imagine. No. 3. Cack.
Don Williams. The man wrote my theme song:
Good Ol’ Boys Like Me.
Now if you don’t care for Country music, then I would submit REM, “Man in the Moon”.
That one gets me everytime I hear it.
Excuse me. “Man On the Moon”.
Goodness gracious great balls a’fire!
Not.