- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
What a list of American Boomer nostalgia-dominated nonsense, made even more irrelevant by inclusions #35 and #38-#40, and by the general focus on mainstream pop/rock. Where are songs that changed the musical landscape like Kraftwerk's Autobahn (launced Electronica), XTC's Dear God (spearheaded the college radio revolution), or The Resident's Hello Skinny (gave birth to truly alternative music)? Not to mention people who pioneered real indie music, like Wire, Pere Ubu and Laurie Anderson. Whole movements are missing, like Industrial and New Romantic, as well as almost any band you'd see at Lollapalooza (Front 242, Ministry, RHCP), while New Wave scarcely makes a showing with a late entry by The Cure (instead of one of their foundation tunes like Boys Don't Cry).
Instead of a challenging look across the breadth and depth of music history, we get this, a list of songs that looks like the track listing on the back of K-Tel's Golden Hits, available now for $24.99 if you call in the next hour. Sure there is some important stuff in there, but there's way too much junk that reeks of audio complacency. And the last entry is symptomatic of that phenomenon where people just can't resist adding their current favorite to the list of "things that will live forever". Don't expect to see it on next year's list, assuming anyone can expend the same minimal effort to do another one.
