Originally published at: Are these the greatest songs of all time? | Boing Boing
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Betteridge’s law of headlines, anyone?
Fine, I’ll say it. Nope. No, they are not. All of them are enjoyable to me, but greatest of all time? Nah. Wake me up when Cole Porter or Willie Nelson make the cut.
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The Shaggs or get out!
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Music, like all art, is highly subjective. It seems really pretentious and conceited that someone would put a flag on what they believe is the definitive best of the best in whatever artistic category. I’m sure i would enjoy the hell out of a lot of those songs, but i’ll decide for myself what i like best and what really speaks to my soul.
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A quick search and I don’t think it includes The Undertones - Teenage Kicks, John Peel would not approve! Replace Teenage Kicks with . Also distinctly lacking in dance music. Metal seems under represented along with a whole host of other genera. Not unexpected of course.
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Creating canons (or lists if one prefers) is one of the ways critics can promote works they favor. It’s not the only way, but it works. Often, a disliked list will be challenged by creating an alternate list. Or one can simply sneer at the entire endeavor.
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Not one MoonDog tune in there, f’ that.
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Good lord. My youngest played this for me recently. Cats in a trap would sound better. The most horrifying thing is that apparently they recently reunited, just as bad as ever.
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If the Webster Dictionary needed a perfect definition of “musical genius”, well MoonDog is it and then some.
He suffered through homelessness, poverty, and who knows what else, but still managed to make one of a kind completely unobjectionable music for ear young and old. Fucking musical genius.
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It all depends on what criteria you’re using for rating them.
Although I think it’s reasonable to wait a few decades to see which songs have staying power-- if this list had been made in 1975 I doubt any Velvet Underground songs would have made the list.
But if you’re just going to make these lists every few years to stir up debate and site traffic, then make whatever list you want.
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Making lists is cool because its an exercise that gets a person really diving deep about their relationship with certain songs or bands. But my problem is declaring that something is “best”, it comes off as pretentious. I might agree that some song compilations are real bangers but that’s about as good as it’d get for me.
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Absolutely agree with folks here. Any list of “500 Greatest” is going to be different for ever single person. Although scanning through this, I did find something called “Dancing on My Own” by Robyn at #20… and that one felt way out of place among the luminaries. But again, my opinion, subjective, everyone is different, your mileage may vary, have fun, rock on!
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Strawberry Fields at number 7. To paraphrase an old Beatles joke, “It’s not even the best song by the Beatles.”
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A Day in the Life is top 50 but much further down. I’d have put that as the #1 Beetles tune myself.
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Still no Half Man Half Biscuit?
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This does seem like an oversight to me.
I’m surprisingly happy with the list as a whole. There are relatively few duds and a lot of great songs that are not blared on the classic rock station constantly.
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AZEALIA BANKS - 212 FT. LAZY JAY
This has it all, ferocious.
