Site Presented By
Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Here's how Rolling Stone comes up with these lists:
-- Each of the seven or so members of the music staff comes up with his (almost entirely) own list. No interns or nonedit people are consulted. These guys are smart, but they don't have much more expertise than your average music geek.
-- The seven guys get together and half-heartedly pass around lists. Someone makes a master list.
-- Certain names are cut when they prompt howls from a staffer or two. Others are added in the interest of pleasing Jann Wenner.
-- What's left is cut down to 40 (or whatever number they're shooting for) through an uninteresting process of justification and random gut-trusting.
In other words, don't take it too seriously.
Minor Threat had nothing to do with "Skinhead Punk" (a.k.a. the "Oi" movement, which was basically a UK-only phenomenon, with a few, long-after-the-fact American imitators). They were a great hardcore band, no doubt, and one of the most influential, but Black Flag definitely got there first. As a matter of fact, so did Bad Brains - if any song could be said to have launched American hardcore it was probably "The Big Takeover," which even MacKaye and Rollins bowed down and genuflected to.
Also, the Police were simply the most commercially succesful of the British "Blue Eyed Reggae" contingent from the early '80s - and by far the least interesting. If I was gonna represent that short-lived movement, I would go with something from the Clash ("Police and Thieves," "White Man In Hammersmith Palais") or the Specials ("Message to You Rudy," not reggae exactly, but the impulse and influence was undeniable on other UK popsters). Heck, even Elvis Costello's "Watching the Detectives" had a bigger - and earlier - commercial impact in the UK than anything the Police ever did.
Tapestry should have been woven into this list.
It's hard to imagine a list of this nature without including a song from Carol King's Tapestry which, for years, was the biggest selling album of all time and which elevated the female singer/songwriter to new heights. I'd pick "I Feel the Earth Move" as the best one for this narrow list.
-- Dabney
`
How could they overlook "You Really Got Me" The kinks launched the Second British Invasion. Damn you Sanjaya, you've ruined that song for me.
Also Dabney is right. Everyone my age lost their virginity while listening to TAPESTRY. Thanks for the memory.
Surely, any 40 songs that changed the world list should include:
l. Amazing Grace
2. We Shall Overcome
3. Down by the Riverside
4. I am Woman
5. Respect
i mean..really..?..seriously..?
that exercise in whitebread boredom..?
whose feckin' world did that change..?
and what must it have been before..?
(whoar..!..)
nzphil..
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"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
