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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Don't worry, all of you have convinced all of us that you can be a great Assistant to the Regional Director of Quality Assurance and STILL have the rockinest taste in music on the entire 4th floor of your office building! We're all very impressed.
... I suppose we should be grateful that Arcade Fire wasn't included somewhere on the list.
Oh wait... that would be Spin, not RS... never mind!
So I'll start and stop with just two words: "Strange Fruit."
Jeez Louise - don't they even have ONE Spanish, French or Portugeuse speaking intern over at RS?
Talk about a bunch of parochial, myopic, monoculutral, ethnocentric dopes...
The most important music ever recorded in the Western hemisphere was mostly recorded in Spanish.
so do you. so does RS.
More Than a Feeling? Boston???
The most recent few selections seem almost random. Why on earth is "Just Like Heaven" by The Cure there? It isn't influential or even particularly remarkable..."Just Like Heaven" by Dinosaur Jr. would have been a better choice, for crying out loud. The inclusion by Dre is hardly groundbreaking or influential; same with that of Spears. And maybe The White Stripes launched a hundred bad garage bands and can be considered "influential" that way...but I think that in time 2000's garage music will be considered as dated as 90's grunge and 80's hair metal (which render the selections by Nirvana and G'N'R pretty useless).
Past "Walk This Way" (more for the effect it had on rap than on rock) this list is close to a blank, save "Bring The Noise."
As an aside: I completely agree with the suggestions of Funkadelic and Carole King. Even us kids know.
I'm actually trying to transition out of temping. Isn't that sad? Let me tell you about the novels I've never written.
The Tornados' "Telstar". Davey Graham's "Anji". Clarence Carter's "Strokin'". Jeez, David, we could do this all day.
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.
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.
Most obvious ommission:
A Change is Going to Come-Sam Cooke
"More than a feeling"? Boston? I've lost all respect for you.
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.
Anonymous, i liked your picks, but do you *really* think they were so outrageously personal you couldn't use a screen name?
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.
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?
"Summer Babe" you Rolling Stone dolts! You know how many bands that started?
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.
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
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.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
