They've Got A Lotta Lists
I've found an interesting website, Acclaimed Music. Someone (or some group) has gone over thousands of music critics' list, combined them all, and figured out the rank of everything.
Of course, even if you think lists mean anything, this compendium is still of questionable value, since it combines wise lists with absurd ones, wide-ranging lists with blinkered ones, etc. Still, it's fun, and that's what counts.
You could spend hours at the site, but let's just go over the big winners.
Top ten albums of all time:
2. Revolver
3. Nevermind
4. The Velvet Underground & Nico
5. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
6. London Calling
7. What's Going On
8. OK Computer
9. Exile On Main St.
10. Blonde On Blonde
Clearly these lists are rock-centric and 60s-centric. (Based on just this top ten, you could say '66 to '67-centric). They're also a bit ridiculous (especially the absurdly overrated Pet Sounds--and OK Computer, really?), but that's how it works.
Top ten songs of all time:
2. "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
3. "A Day In The Life"
4. "Good Vibrations"
5. "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"
6. "Johnny B. Goode"
7. "Be My Baby"
8. "I Heard It Through The Grapevine"
9. "What's Going On"
10. "My Generation"
I certainly have my disagreements, but at least they're all classics. And a strong showing by Marvin Gaye.
Top artists of all time:
2. Bob Dylan
3. The Rolling Stones
4. David Bowie
5. Bruce Springsteen
6. Radiohead
7. Led Zeppelin
8. Neil Young
9. The Who
10. Prince
I don't think the top three were in question, though perhaps the order was. But where's Elvis or Chuck Berry--no love for the 50s? I like Bowie, but top ten? At least I can see him, but 5 and 6 shouldn't be here at all. And note the Beach Boys didn't make it, even though they've got the top album and the #4 song of all time. (They're #11, if you're wondering.) Pleased to see Neil Young rated so high, and perhaps The Who should have been even higher.
Anyway, explore for yourself.
posted by LAGuy @ 9:55 AM
7 Comments:
Pet Sounds at #1 -- or on the list at all -- is absurd.
A bunch of the other top ten albums aren't even the best album by that artist. Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 51 Revisited, Dylan's first two electric albums, are head and shoulders above Blonde on Blonde, which (like all double-albums) is bloated.
Neither Revolver nor Sgt. Pepper is the Beatles' best, although L.A. Guy and I disagree about their overall list.
London Calling is the album where the Clash moved from punk to post-punk. And it has some of their best songs. But it loses what made them such a powerful band in the first place.
A band could conceivably have the best album of all time and still be a new band. But "Top Artists of All Time" requires a kind of longevity.
Radiohead doesn't have that. (I don't think Prince does either, but I know folks who disagree.)
Led Zeppelin was a band of a very specific era. Are they on this list because of their early blues-rock albums? If so, then the Yardbirds should be on this list instead of LZ. Are they on this list because of their later-era extended pieces? I happen to like those a lot ("Kashmir", "Achilles' Last Stand", "Carouselambra," and yes even the song that classic rock radio plays every hour on the hour) -- but as this list otherwise ignores prog-rock I doubt that's why they are on the list.
How does progressive rock fare on the extended list? Pretty badly. For bands, King Crimson is at #174, Genesis at 195 (probably for their later pop hits), Yes at 245, Procol Harum at 447, Soft Machine at 479, ELP at 742, Van der Graaf Generator at 1167, Caravan at 1461, Magma at 1735, PFM at 2019, Marillion at 2046.
For songs, the highest by any of the big prog bands charts at 479 ("21st Century Schizoid Man" by KC). For albums, prog-rock should do better, since it was album-oriented music, but while In the Court of the Crimson King makes a respectable #139, the next prog album in the list is at #486 (The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, not quite Genesis' very best, but a reasonable choice).
Of course, if you choose to categorize Pink Floyd as prog, the scores go up.
I was going to mention Pink Floyd, but you beat me to it.
Also, I'm sure it's a typo, but it's Highway 61, not 51. Interestingly, that Dylan album is #1 for 1965 (and Bringing It All Back Home is #5 for the same year). Meanwhile, Blonde On Blonde is only #3 for 1966, but the list loves 1966 so much that the #3 album from that year is #10 for all time, while the #1 album for 1965 is only #11.
So 1966 must be the best music year of all time, since it has 3 of the top ten albums. 1967 has 2. The rest are from 1971, 1972, 1979, 1991 and 1997.
Sadly, it wasn't a typo -- just a mistake. If I had played the lyrics in my mind for 10 seconds I would have gotten it right.
I never knew why the highway was "revisited". Just looked it up on Wikipedia, and it seems this might be because the junction of Highway 61 and Highway 49 was the inspiration for Robert Johnson's 1937 Cross Road Blues, later updated by Cream.
Prog afficionados argue about whether PF counts as "prog-rock". Some of the middle-period Pink Floyd certainly does ("Echoes" for example). But when I was in high school, the fan bases were radically different. People came back from a Yes or ELP show saying how great the musicians were, and how amazing it was to play rock in 7/8 time, and how the lyrics reminded them of Tolkien. People came back from a Floyd show saying how much weed they had smoked.
Of course it's a bullsh*t list. Not one song by America's Greatest Living Songwriter, Neal Diamond.
Red, Red Wine baby.
SWGdWICg,etc.
Check out the site. You'll discover Neil Diamond recorded seven songs that made the overall list, the highest-rank being "Sweet Caroline." And The Monkees' "I'm A Believer" is ranked even higher.
Not bad for perhaps the third-best songwriter in the rock era named Neil.
Looks like a lot of "Safe" choices. Radiohead is such a joke. They were literally the punchline of a joke for my kids where the question was overrated, overplayed, etc. The sixties are of course the greatest decade that ever has or will occur so there's that. I do think it is hard to reflect "greatest album" prior to the 60s. And even now that label makes little sense. But top artists not to include any non rock artists is ridiculous and a great disservice to the audience of whoever reads these lists. Same for top ten songs: no Happy Birthday, Bach, Folk, or Louis Armstrong, among so many others depending on taste. These latter two lists are actually embarrassing.
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