Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time

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The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time was the cover story of a special issue of Rolling Stone magazine published in November 2004. It was chosen based on votes by 172 musicians, critics, and industry figures.

Controversy

As with similar previous lists from Rolling Stone, such as The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time and The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, this new list proved to be controversial. (For example, one might wonder why the Bossa Nova sensation 'The Girl From Ipanema' (a song in the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress)[1][2] would be omitted, while Foreigner's less famous 'I Want to Know What Love Is' (#476, and Foreigner's only chart-topper in either the U.S. or the U.K.) is included).[3] One criticism is that the list suffers from a strong bias towards American and British artists: out of the 500 songs, 357 are from the US and 117 from the UK; the third most represented country is Canada with 10 entries, then the Republic of Ireland with eight. The list includes only one song not sung in English: "La Bamba" (#345), by Ritchie Valens (an American-born singer). Another common criticism is that, much as the earlier list of 500 greatest albums did, it leans towards the 1960s and 1970s, at the expense of newer artists and even newer genres such as rap, and ignoring all music that existed before the late 1940s. As for the latter point, standards out of the American song book by legendary composers such as Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Jerome Kern, Hoagy Carmichael (whose composition 'Stardust (song)' is arguably the most popular song of all time)[4], Rodgers & Hart, and George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin, are ignored. Likewise, jazz recordings of the 1920s and 1930s, which includes landmark recordings of Louis Armstrong, as well as the phenomenally successful swing recordings of the 1940s (e.g., Moonlight Serenade and In the Mood (two of the the most popular tunes of the World War II period)[5] by Glenn Miller, are omitted.[6] Even given the concentration of music from the 1950s to the 1970s, the list underrepresents R&B and Soul, which in the 1950s and beyond heavily influenced white American and British artists such as Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart, Elton John, and Led Zeppelin. Accordingly, despite its seminal influence and popularity, great music compositions of major black music styles Motown, Pfunk, and Philly Soul, and the landmark works of innovators such as James Brown and Sly Stone[7] are in some cases afforded lower ranks than musical performances of lesser artistic merit. For example, 'Papa's Got a Brand New Bag' (#72) by James Brown, a seminal, [8] Grammy winning (won in 1965 for Best R&B recording) sensation ranked among the 100 Most Important Recordings of the 20th Century by National Public Radio (NPR)[9][10] is ranked below The Eagles' 'Hotel California' (#49), a recording that has not received as much critical recognition.

It may simply be the case that the list reflects the preferences of current Rolling Stone readers and those of critics and writers who specialize in post-1950s music.

There seems to be controversy with all of Rolling Stone's lists of all time greats, as their list of the 500 Albums of all time and their 100 greatest guitarists of all time were met with some disdain by many fans. Many feel some guitarists on the list are not the 50 best all time, but are only on the list because of popularity. Artists such as Neil Young being on the list while pioneers such as Yngwie Malmsteen haven't created quite a stir.

Another controversy is that the list should be renamed The 500 Greatest Records of All Time because the technical definition of a song is the music and the lyrics and a record is the recording. This change may be needed as many songs made it onto the list by two artists. (See Miscellaneous below.)

The Top Ten Songs on the List

The top ten songs are:

  1. "Like a Rolling Stone" - Bob Dylan
  2. "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" - The Rolling Stones
  3. "Imagine" - John Lennon
  4. "What's Going On" - Marvin Gaye
  5. "Respect" - Aretha Franklin
  6. "Good Vibrations" - The Beach Boys
  7. "Johnny B. Goode" - Chuck Berry
  8. "Hey Jude" - The Beatles
  9. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" - Nirvana
  10. "What'd I Say" - Ray Charles

Miscellaneous

The list has 202 songs from the 1960s and 144 from the 1970s, yet only 55 songs from the 1980s, 24 songs from the 1990s, and just three songs from the 21st century. The oldest song on the list is Muddy Waters "Rollin' Stone" from 1948 (ranked #459). The only other song from the 1940s is Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" from 1949 (#111). The most recent is OutKast's 2003 hit "Hey Ya!" (#180) — the other two songs from the current millennium being from Eminem.

With 23 songs on the list, The Beatles are the most represented musical act. They are followed by The Rolling Stones (14 entries); Bob Dylan, who also topped the list with "Like a Rolling Stone", (12 entries); Elvis Presley (11 entries); The Beach Boys and Jimi Hendrix (seven entries each); and Chuck Berry, U2, James Brown, Prince, Led Zeppelin, and Sly & The Family Stone (six entries each).

When the article ran in the 2004 issue, musicians Brian Wilson, Tom Morello, Brandon Boyd, Solomon Burke, James Hetfield, ?uestlove, Ray Manzarek, Slash, Billy Gibbons, Ozzy Osbourne and Maya Ford all were featured in a column each about their personal ten favorite songs.

Three songs made it onto the list twice under different artists:

See also

References

  1. ^ http://www.loc.gov/rr/record/nrpb/nrpb-masterlist.html
  2. ^ At the 7th Annual Grammy Awards in 1965, 'The Girl From Ipanema' was designated Best Record of the Year, and is considered the signature work of the Bossa Nova style. The album on which it was featured, 'Getz/Gilberto' was the winner for 'Album of the Year'.
  3. ^ 'I Want to Know What Love Is', though popular, did not receive a Grammy or other award distinction.
  4. ^ According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, 'Stardust' is the most recorded popular song of all time: http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article-9359844/Hoagy-Carmichael
  5. ^ http://www.purdue.edu/Bands/news/061019Miller.html
  6. ^ http://www.npr.org/programs/jazzprofiles/archive/standards.html
  7. ^ According to his biographer, Joel Selvin, "[t]here are two kinds of black music: before Sly Stone, and after Sly Stone." Selvin says that "[Stone] shook the foundations of soul and turned it into a brand-new sound that influenced and liberated musicians as varied as Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder and Herbie Hancock." Sly and the Family Stone: An Oral History, Vol. 4 by Joel Selvin, Dave Marsh, Dave Marsh (Editor), Paperback, ISBN: 0380793776 Pub. Date: June 1998.
  8. ^ http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/music/la-me-hilburn26dec26,1,7090849.story?coll=la-entnews-music
  9. ^ http://www.npr.org/programs/specials/vote/100print.html. NPR's Master List of top 300 Songs ("NPR 300 List")(http://www.npr.org/programs/specials/vote/300list.html), which was the list from which its top 100 songs ("NPR 100 List") list was distilled, is a very comprehensive one, encompassing all of the history of recorded music, and includes albums and musicals. According to NPR, the list "was compiled by members of the NPR News and Cultural Programming staff and several distinguished music critics and scholars." Like the Rolling Stone list, popularity seems a major criterion for inclusion in the NPR 300 List. However, unlike the Rolling Stone list, the NPR 300 List, and its successor, the NPR 100 List, seems to reward recordings that have been influential or innovative (i.e., something that has changed music's landscape), not merely great sellers. Accordingly, the NPR lists would escape the aforementioned criticism leveled against the Rolling Stone list, that rap and other newer genres are underrepresented. There is consensus among the NPR lists and the Rolling Stone list, however. The following songs in the top 10 of the Rolling Stone list also made the NPR 100 List: 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'; 'What's Going On'; 'Like a Rolling Stone'; 'Good Vibrations'; 'What'd I Say'; and 'Respect'. Disharmony between the Rolling Stone list and the NPR lists is evidenced by the fact that the following four of the top 10 songs on the Rolling Stone list do not appear in either the NPR 100 List, or the NPR 300 List: 'Satisfaction'; 'Hey, Jude'; 'Johnny B. Goode'; and 'Imagine'.
  10. ^ http://www.denverpost.com/music/ci_4899734
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