RS Top 500

Do people really still think "Runaway" is Kanye's best song?

did the elton john biopic drastically inflate his critical standing or something?

"Tiny Dancer" is significantly higher than any Elton John song on the 2004 list, but he has fewer songs overall.

ELTON JOHN ⬇️

2004
136. Your Song
242. Rocket Man
347. Candle in the Wind
380. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
387. Tiny Dancer

2021
47. Tiny Dancer
149. Rocket Man
202. Your Song
371. Bennie and the Jets

— John M. Cunningham (@jmcunning) September 15, 2021

The Who's stock seems to have fallen pretty far. Or farther.

Grande released “Thank U, Next” a little more than a year after her concert in Manchester, England, came under attack

It was 18 months later... NBD, I guess, but why fudge the timeline? (It reads like they wanted to write about "No Tears Left to Cry," but it didn't make the list.)

Surprised Schubert didn't make it. So many canonical songs.

“ave maria” ffs

lolz imagining JYP forcing ITZY and TWICE to sit in a room and make them rank Steely Dan and Fleetwood Mac songs pic.twitter.com/CtBWdvVrKH

— Patrick St. Michel (@mbmelodies) September 16, 2021

also why the hell is the voters list presented so terribly

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/500-greatest-songs-voters-list-1225358/

“ave maria” ffs

srsly

Strictly speaking, they have ranked recordings of songs rather than songs themselves.

Fischer-Dieskau robbed

They sort of seem to think they ranked “albums”:

Voters were asked to submit ranked ballots listing their 50 favorite songs of all time. Votes were tabulated, with the highest-ranked album on each list receiving 300 points, the second highest 290 points, and so on down to 44 points for number 50. More than 4,000 albums received at least one vote.

A text search reveals that those words are just left over from last year's album poll. I wouldn't want Rolling Stone to try too hard to correct the boilerplate text from an article published 12 months ago, that kind of fussy attention to detail is what killed rock music.

Bob Dylan: From 12 songs to 7, and tumbled from the #1 spot. The new list is the better one.

they should've just published Greg Dulli's list

Sadly, they seem to have removed that wonderful sentence from the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” blurb (I’ve seen ppl clowning on it, with screenshots, so Twitter has proof it existed).

Are the individual ballots available somewhere?

I love seeing the writing credits for these songs. Had no idea "Flava In Ya Ear" incorporated a Carpenters sample. (At least, I assume it does, given the Paul Williams/Roger Nichols credit.)

As is usually the case with critics "all-time" polls, you can see the stratification by different levels of popularity in the more recent material vs the older material. More recent songs predominantly come from the "semi-popular" strata where most critical darlings reside, whereas older songs have more of a barbell distribution of very popular stuff and very obscure stuff. Over time people's antipathy to the most recent very popular songs (whether due the taint of association with their current fanbase or simply overexposure) will fade and the cream of the mega-popular songs will receive their critical due. Likewise over time, some obscure tracks from today that prove influential or ahead of their time will become more widely known and appreciated. But as of right now, the fanbase of these songs is too small and splintered to place them in a poll of this type.

How dare you not poll this: 50 Best Songs of All Time According to Rolling Stone's BRAND NEW, 100% Revamped Top 500

Sadly, they seem to have removed that wonderful sentence from the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” blurb (I’ve seen ppl clowning on it, with screenshots, so Twitter has proof it existed).

It's in the 2004 blurb also. Many of these blurbs seem to be edits of the older ones.

Wait, what is that exactly?

what the fuck pic.twitter.com/mge9t057y2

— bring on the dancing horses (@inthefade) September 15, 2021

The only song I was surprised to see on the list (of the songs I'm familiar with) was "Radiation Vibe."

With respect to Adam S. (R.I.P.), it's a catchy chorus in search of a song; and I didn't think it had the cultural cache to end up as a consensus pick on a list like this. I thought it was just sort of a random mid-'90s CMJ sampler track that sounded cool for a spin or two at the time.

Wasn't "Radiation Vibe" by the other FoW guy?

Looks like they're both credited

According to the list here: Whatever happened to Fountains of Wayne? (c/d?), "Radiation Vibe" was a Chris song, although they shared credits ala Lennon/McCartney.

I remember seeing that and feeling embarrassed because I'd just posted the RV video on FB as a tribute to Schlesinger.

The chorus of radiation vibe is better than 95% of the songs that exist in the world though.

Re: the new blood on the list, the bad songs make me scoff at list-making in a familiar way ("what kind of lunkheads would consider '7 Nation Army' even the best White Stripes song?"), but the good songs on the list really make me question the whole concept of a canon.

I mean, I do love "Dancing On My Own". It's amazing. But if pressed to list the best songs ever, I'd never list that one. But then I thought, why not? what actually makes "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" a better song? Is it just because more boomers have already sentimentalized it? Surely if that was on a best-of list in 1974, that would have been a joke. So in a way, their effort to keep the list fresh really just drives home the pointlessness of the whole exercise.

Also: Runaway is the best Kanye song to people who don't really like Kanye (like myself)

there's a former RS staffer who supervised at least one list for the mag that I know of, in 2016, who is participating on two of the threads re: this revised 500 songs list, so perhaps he can comment on the following if he feels like it… I wrote I think four or five entries for the 2004 list, and I can more or less ID the ones that have made it to this version… and yet I don't see why RS bothers with presenting the bylines of everyone whose contributions have survived… at least in my experience, the entries I was assigned were published with very little resemblance to what I filed, and so while I probly was one of the shittiest writers to be involved at that time and possibly deserved to have my shit rewritten, I doubt very much that I was unique in that regard… over the years I did some front of book shit that was also similarly rewritten, to the point where I was like "my name really shouldn't be credited for this," but these were still clips that would have been useful… but I don't see what the point is in crediting writers, whether for 2004 or for 2021, when every single entry is pounded into the dull house style (except for Rob Sheffield, who is allowed his tics)…

"what kind of lunkheads would consider '7 Nation Army' even the best White Stripes song?"

Good lyric.

Are the individual ballots available somewhere?

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Thursday, September 16, 2021 9:50 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

A few voters have posted theirs:

my ballot :) pic.twitter.com/SmmQzUK0pi

— brittany spanos (@ohheybrittany) September 15, 2021

the top of my Rolling Stone ballot. a few of these made the big list, including "Adore" & "Nightswimming," which are so spiritually linked for me https://t.co/SFynW5kvS0 pic.twitter.com/gl7KcrmNY1

— rob sheffield (@robsheff) September 15, 2021

I was determined more women, POC and queer folks were included in the new @RollingStone list. So here's my ballot #RS500Songs I think it worked? https://t.co/oNh0cd5YaB pic.twitter.com/Tq0JTZ8eeV

— Jerry Portwood (@jerryportwood) September 16, 2021

I voted in the Rolling Stone 500 Songs poll. Here’s my ballot. You probably haven’t heard No. 6 but you can listen to it at this link, it rules: https://t.co/UxCDeBhCrV pic.twitter.com/9dcIqrKk8P

— Jody Rosen (@jodyrosen) September 16, 2021

i forgot to vote

I think there’s a disconnect between Voters were asked to submit ranked ballots listing their 50 favorite songs of all time and The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time

Those aren’t the same thing (“favorite” is actually more interesting)

My ballot.

@Alfred - I was disappointed there wasn't a single country song in the top 50 but looking at your ballot I'm thinking there's simply less consensus in the genre. I would have liked to see "Walking After Midnight" or "Poncho & Lefty." Or yeah, "Kerosene" or "Springsteen."

and if younger contributors even included country on theirs

pancho & lefty snuck in at #497 or thereabouts

Cool list Alfred. You choose the correct greatest Kanye song.

Also the correct Bowie song.

i find it frustrating that 'ahistorical preference for contemporary favs' is conflated with 'diversity'

like that robyn song ... come on. its basically a house song but the only chicago house song is marshall jefferson on the whole list?

I agree that I'd trade Robyn so long as I could slot "Can You Feel It" right there in slot #20.

Whoa hold on. Maybe keep the Robyn song and instead demand the inclusion of more people with a house/techno background in the voting team.

We also got Daft Punk in the list! Oh wait it’s fucking “get lucky”.

LOL, the last version of the list including "One More Time" as the DP song was one of the unequivocal arguments in that version's superiority.

refuse to believe that enough people voted for "royals" for it to rank that high, gotta be fudged

"So What" coming in at 492 is pretty funny.

― jmm, Wednesday, September 15, 2021 11:29 AM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

thought this was about the p!nk song, which would've been a better choice than royals

chris & i were arguing recently bc i was trying to explain in our micro-generational break how big a deal snoop dogg was to me

but its not about insisting that snoop dogg should be high on the list -- everyone sees criticism of the list as being essentially 'stan wars' which is not my point. its abt recognizing that snoop dogg is represenatative of a lineage and tradition that's marginalized by the historical state of the list, so as a writer i become intrigued by say slick rick since he influenced my favorite rapper and would like to see that aspect of the tradition of popular music represented, so slick rick being on the list (even tho I didnt personally experience it) becomes importan to me. and my perspective is of course not the only one, nor should it be (nb i did not contribute to this list this is rhetorical example); thus among many reasons why a diverse range of voices should be on the list, highlighting not just the underrated present but lost histories, lineages, the connections between past and future

now if you have people who came up on sarah machlachlan or nas or anita baker or throbbing gristle or lee scratch perry or whoever ... this entire lineage, tradition, way of talking is erased so that we can make sure ppl's personal stan favs from the last few years are on the list? a genuinely diverse voting bloc shouldn't just underline that kids today thought MIA and Azealia Banks were cool, it should underline and highlight whole traditions and communities that were devalued by the historic hegemony reproduced by lists like this

this is why the gasolina inclusion was a moment where i was like, hell yea, regardless of my personal feelings on the song it feels like a recognition of signficant cultural tradition that needs to be represented

otm, and uh, as one of the few Hispanic people on ILX, "Gasolina"'s inclusion is fucking great.

agreed about gasolina, stone cold classic.

i didn’t see if there was any other reggaeton on there, but would be cool if don omar’s bandoleros” made it

Speaking for myself and my ballot, I quite consciously chose 50 of my favorite songs that it would be cool for RS to endorse. I wish we'd been able to peek at each other's ballots because, I dunno, maybe seeing Noel or Sylvester or Anita Baker on each other's ballots might've inspired people to stan for the marginal shit of which individual tastes are made and is hell on lists like this which strive for being markers of a historical moment but end up looking like tombstones.