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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
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.
Why not REO Speedwagon?
Seriously, though: "Runnin' with the Devil," "Sweet Home Alabama," "Master of Puppets," "Changes"?
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.
"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.
Pixies.
Eddie Van Halen was one of those rare artists who both heralded in a huge change in their art, and remained the best in the world at the new form. He ushered in the era of speed guitar and its thousand offhsoots, but no one else could play with his skill, emotion and humor. He took the guitar to new levels of virtuosity, but never got bogged down in technique. Yet Rolling Stone forgot about him in their "Best Guitarists" list (I think he was down in the 70s, which is downright absurd) and on this list they missed his indelible contribution to music history: the crossover hit "Beat It", on which his supple solos merged guitar worlds as surely as the "Walk This Way" collaboration.
Eddie deserves more love!
Sure, it's tough to narrow it down to 40, but Britney Spears changed the world? What world? And RS started in SF, during the heyday of the sixties San Francisco sound, and yet nothing from the Airplane or the Dead- hell, even the Youngblood's "Get Together" was as emblematic of the summer of love as any song I can think of. And I was there- Berkeley, Monterey, the Fillmore, all of it, everybody, and I've been a guitarist for 42 years. No Muddy, no Memphis Sound (where's Otis Redding), no Robert Johnson or Son House. I agree with about a quarter of the choices (that's alright, mama had to be there), but no Jonny Cash, or Hank Williams. Give me a freaking break. The move to NY was the sure signal of sellout. I was a charter subcriber from issue one, but I haven't read the rag in twenty years. Booooooring.
"Dark Side of the Moon" is not on the list, damn it all-the album and the song were pretty good then, and I think it changed the world!
But "The Wall" is a good bet, too.
The rest of the list is ho hum. Guess Rolling Stone is getting pretty old, too.
I'd go with "Wish You Were Here", but at least Floyd made the list. Syd Barrett invented what Gilmour and Waters carried on, and the song is about him. But I'm good with "The Wall", too.
Is it really that hard to spell Aerosmith? Really?
I've got to hand it to Rolling Stone, though-- this is the first time in probably ten years I've read anything from them, and I don't think I've ever been to their web page before. Any publicity stunt that'll give you traffic is a good publicity stunt, right?
Aside from the other omissions, I'd single out "Cop Killer" by Body Count-- huge controversy, changes in the record industry, and Body Count was the beginning of rap/rock.
What on earth do they mean by "changed the world"? The world of music? The political landscape? Our culture?
"How Soon Is Now" The Smiths -- fab, soaring guitar over emo lyrics. Certainly the Smiths were responsible for bringing more gay men and women out of the closet, and this is one of their signature songs.
"Keep on the Sunny Side", The Carter Family. Their music saw millions through the Great Depression. Without them, there would be no country music, and probably no rock and roll.
The Stone Roses, "I Wanna Be Adored" or "Fools Gold" -- launched a thousand new bands in England in the late '80s/early '90s.
Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" was far more world-changing than "A Hard Rain".
If you're gonna list something by the Cure, surely "Killing an Arab" or "10:15 Saturday Night" changed music more.
Boston's "More Than a Feeling" changed by life when I was 14, but I can't say that it changed the world.
"I Shall Be Released"?
If so, why? I mean, it hasn't been relevant since the mid-70s, when they began to staple the fucking rag, magazine-style.
That self-congratulatory stuff has got to be a northern California thing. And, uh, Yawn? You're gay in New York but just a fag in LA.
"We Shall Overcome"
"I Shot the Sheriff", "One Love", or "Get Up, Stand Up"
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
