Pixies.

• "No Fun"/"Push It" by Iggy & The Stooges/Salt-N-Pepa and 2 Many DJs

  The best of the mash-up world.

• 4'33" by John Cage

  Sometimes silence is golden.

• The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky

  How come riots never happen at any of the concerts I go to?

• "Police and Thieves", "White Man in the Hammersmith Palais", or "White Riot" by the Clash

  How come everybody's afraid to throw a brick in this country?

• Any song by the Replacements

  Actually no song by the Replacements ever changed the world, but many of them changed individuals.

The list does ok until # 27, and then it just blows it. Were the songs selected per year? If so, that's the year they lost touch.

My objections:

The White Stripes - nope. They're good, just not great, and so far not world changing in any way.

Britney Spears - the Suzie Q of our times. Nope.

The Cure - Just like Heaven - this changed nothing, as far as I can tell. Nor did the Cure. I don't hate them, but they're a very singular band with a unique sound and thing, and they just change much in the way of music IMHO.

Black Flag - TV Party - nope.

In their place, let me suggest:

1) Parliament Funkadelic. "Atomic Dog", of course. Needed and missing.

2) Where's Black Sabbath? "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath?" Or "Paranoid". Or "Sweet Leaf". Launched heavy metal? Remember them? A criminal omission.

3) WHERE is MINOR THREAT?? "Bottled Violence"? "Cashing In?" Come on. Ian Mackaye almost single-headedly brings Skinhead punk to the US.

4) WHERE IS THE POLICE??? "Roxanne". Or any one of any number of their other songs. They spearhead New Wave music, and merge punk, reggae pop and jazz into rock.

Why not REO Speedwagon?

Seriously, though: "Runnin' with the Devil," "Sweet Home Alabama," "Master of Puppets," "Changes"?

Is these forty songs changed the world. They're not saying those are the only songs that changed the world. It's their list. You can make yours, I can make mine.

Yeah, Brittney Spears changed the world. Her hair cuts made us avoid the reality that is going on all around us.

Rolling Stone normally does a really good job, but no Neil Young? No Pink Floyd? No Doors? Not even a nod to a country song by Johnny Cash? They even picked the WRONG Led Zepplin song.

Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean' is more world changing than Patsy Cline singing Willie Nelson's 'Crazy?'

They lost it.

woodie guthrie

this land is your land

he was very important in influencing 60s folk music.

the doors

light my fire

one of the most important american bands.

joy division

love will tear us apart

seminal britpop standard

Their list makes much of the songs that would NOT have been written or the artists who might not have followed were it not these trailblazers.

So how come no Muddy Waters? Because without McKinley Morganfield, the magazine itself (to say nothing of Mick and the lads) would have had to come up with a whole different name.

"Summer Babe" you Rolling Stone dolts! You know how many bands that started?

They forgot to include:

Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys,

California Dreamin' by the Mamas and the Papas,

Fire and Rain By James Taylor,

several songs by Simon and Garfunkle (most noteably "Sounds of Silence",

And why no Clash?

that Rolling Stone is talking about, which explains the absence of Robert Johnson or Louis Armstrong, or -- probably more importantly -- "I Got Rhythm, " which, along with the standard 12-bar-blues progression, is the most common chord progression in Jazz.

But if it's rock 'n' roll, there are really only five tunes:

1) I Want To Hold Your Hand

2) Satisfaction

3) My Generation

4) Like A Rolling Stone

5) Johnny B. Goode (For a second, I thought Chuck Berry was missing from the Rolling Stone list -- a firing offense for the editor if you ask me. "Maybelline is not the best choice for Berry, however)

These are not necessarily my favorites tunes by these artists, or even my favorite artists, but I think these are the ones that belong in the time capsule to illustrate rock 'n' roll. Anything after 1980 at the lastest is just rehash of what came before. What about "alernative"? What about it? It sounds like like any other rock I've ever listened to. The only new sound is rap, but I don't care for it.

Anonymous, i liked your picks, but do you *really* think they were so outrageously personal you couldn't use a screen name?

Ray Davies and the lads qualify in at least three categories:

1. Punk progenitors, e.g. "You Really Got Me."

2. Saviors of the literary song lyric, e.g. "Lola," "Come Dancing."

3. Pioneers of the rock-opera, e.g. anything from "Arthur" - my vote would be "Shangri-La."

A good case can also be made for the Who in the same three categories (e.g. "I Can't Explain, "Pictures of Lily," and anything from "Tommy.")

I also second the calls for the inclusion of "Good Vibrations," certainly much more of a watershed than "Bohemian Rhapsody," a work which is little more than a novelty song, whatever its (debatable) intrinsic merit.

Finally, Madonna and Britney were hardly revolutionary musical influences, unless self-promotion and marketing are considered as legitimate criteria for the purposes of this list. Cindy Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna' Have Fun" had more impact, more chops, and more appeal than anything in the collective output of Madonna and Britney. In my opinion.

"More than a feeling"? Boston? I've lost all respect for you.

Most obvious ommission:

A Change is Going to Come-Sam Cooke

Count me in as one who is SHOCKED that RS is only 40. I gave up on RS when I was 19 in 1981. Even then it was hopelessly out of touch with my generation -- the youth of that time. Spin and Alternative Press spoke much more to me.

I'm guessing this list is supposed to be in the history of rock (and all its offshoots). Thus, the absence of pre-Elvis-era songs. So let's not all get our panties in a wad that [insert blues legend and/or great composer here] isn't included.