50 Best Songs of All Time According to Rolling Stone's BRAND NEW, 100% Revamped Top 500

voted for “juicy”

"Strange Fruit" really sticks out because it's probably the only pre-'50s track on the whole 500.

Unless there's some Carter Family or Robert Johnson or early Hank.

There is some Hank.

Worst is probably Fleetwood Mac, Kinks or Radiohead

Worst is Kanye.

Or "Imagine."

Worst for me is "Bohemian Rhapsody". I would pay a not insignificant sum if there was a way to block me from ever having to hear it again.

^I'll chip in if this method will block me from having to hear "Imagine" or "Hallelujah"! (admittedly the latter didn't make the Top 50)

Whatever, "Dancing on My Own" is the most inspired recent addition to this list.

― i carry the torch for disco inauthenticity (Eric H.), Thursday, September 16, 2021 2:10 PM (twenty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

feel about this the way stirmonster does bohemian rapsody

"Strange Fruit" is good, but wouldn't be in my top 10 Lady Day songs. I would also put probably a few dozen Beatles songs over "Strawberry Fields Forever". Even "Day in the Life" doesn't really work in any context other than as the closer on Sgt. Peppers. I guess I'm an unreconstructed rockist but this would probably be "Like a Rolling Stone" for me.

solid number one.! voted hendrix, it was my #1 on the classic rock poll too

Difference between worst and most overrated. "Crazy in Love" is a great song. The 16th greatest song of all time?..eh...

I'd choose "Royals". Good song. No business being where it is!

Leaning toward "Like a Rolling Stone" or "Superstition" for best.

"Strange Fruit" is good, but wouldn't be in my top 10 Lady Day songs.

This is me with "Superstition." Doesn't mean I'm not still going to vote for it here.

"Strange Fruit” might not be the worst but is the most “look-at-how-woke-we-are” inclusion.

Wtf?

They're demonstrating their trendy political correctness by including an almost universally canonized anti-lynching song from 1939?

I can't speak for wokeness, but there is some element of trendiness to that song, which avoided all three previous versions of this list but now has a Kanye song, an Academy Award winning movie and ties to the Nina Simone renaissance

being mad at strange fruit's placement because of wokeness is an absolutely classic terrible post

100%!

Also Nina Simone renaissance

when was she ever not in vogue???

The last decade was like the Academy Award winning documentary, the botched biopic, the Watch the Throne sample, the Kanye sample, the Jay-Z sample the Kanye sample, Lauryn going to bat for her all the time, appearing in stuff like The Watchmen and then getting into the Rock and Roll Hall of fame like decades after she was eligible

Worst for me is "Bohemian Rhapsody". I would pay a not insignificant sum if there was a way to block me from ever having to hear it again.

― stirmonster, Thursday, September 16, 2021 3:33 PM (forty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

"Runaway"would probably get my vote for worst, but amen to this nonetheless.

its really funny how after all that Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" didn't even make the rolling stone list.

which to be clear i'm totally ok with, but it kind of goes against all the people telling me this list is supposed to be a measure of the temperature today rather than some historical narrative

I am oblivious to most of those things except for the documentary & the botched biopic but it has always felt to me she has been iconic and very present my whole life, with perhaps the odd heightened boost here and there.

x post

the Academy Award winning documentary

Nominated.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/how-nina-simone-captivated-a-new-generation-203955/

Not arguing against the notion that Nina is still cresting. That's what these updates are kind of all about tho.

Must be right if it's in Rolling Stone. LOL

Maybe it is different in the UK to the USA? She was always bigger and had more hit records here.

this is "Dreams" for me

I scrolled through this too fast and thought Daddy Yankee was the Damn Yankees and was like "man no wonder everyone is pissed about this list"

I love or at least like about 40 out of these 50, but at the moment "My Girl" has the strongest claim, for me, of being one of humanity's finest achievements.

― Les hommes de bonbons (cryptosicko), Thursday, September 16, 2021 1:24 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

yes

Listening to a playlist of the list on random and getting a few pleasant surprises here and there, like Marshall Jefferson "Move That Body."

did it make the list? I didn't even scroll thru the thing.

I'm devastated Noel's "Silent Morning" and Sylvester-Patrick Cowley's "Do You Wanna Funk" didn't make the list, apparently.

this is "Dreams" for me

xps RS makes it impossible to scroll thru the whole thing ... a Spotify playlist of the purported full list has it on it

You can also see the full list in one place here:
http://www.acclaimedmusic.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=149454#p149454

326 Rilo Kiley, 'Portions for Foxes' 2004
324 Billy Joel, 'Scenes From an Italian Restaurant' 1977

!!

that rilo kiley track showing up is maybe the most 'huh?' pick

Seven nation army really? That stupid riff

I really have to stretch to find a song I'm not at least a little bit tired of. Probably Dr. Dre/Snoop Dogg or Lauryn Hill.

Meant to say that I played about two minutes each of the Top 10 for a grade 6 class today (three minutes for Sam Cooke--played a Malcolm X clip). And held my breath during a clean version of Missy Elliott, because clean to the uploader doesn't necessarily mean clean in a school setting. Stuff I miss about having my own class.

One guy really surprised me by asking if the J5's "I Want You Back" was on the list. Evidently should have been give a vote.

"given"

"fremme neppa ventte" is INAPPROPRIATE for the classroom, Mr Clemenza! Please take the rest of the week off -unpaid!

I'm fired!

I would love to have had you as my 6th grade teacher. Instead I got the harsh Sister Julianna

didn't ever see the Fight the Power video before now

Our French teacher played us "Je t'aime... moi non plus" in class, and blew our minds

I was a little nervous about "Fight the Power," too, but I think "never meant shit to me" is all there is, right (which came later in the song anyway). With "Hey Ya," I played the actual video and was more wary of the visuals with some of the women (and the lawn jockey imagery was potentially a problem, although a little too esoteric for grade 6s; I did flash back to playing Culture Club on a remote job last spring and having blackface pop up.) "Je t'aime"? Wow--don't think I'd risk that

my eye-rolling moment:

120. X-Ray Spex, 'Oh Bondage! Up Yours!'
121. Marvin Gaye, 'I Heard It Through the Grapevine'

These lists never seem to know if they are rating milestones or performances or recordings or songwriting or what.

Went with "A Day in the Life," which still has a lot of magic for me.

At the risk of being flagged, I'll link here to the Top 50 that I contributed to Scott Woods's ongoing roundup on rockcritics.com. Much more canonical than some of the lists that have been collected thus far (including clemenza's), but less canonical than others, I guess:

https://rockcritics.com/2021/10/12/top-50-favourite-songs-jeremy-fairall/

Good list.

8. “No Easy Way Down,” Dusty Springfield (1969)
33. “Move With Me,” Neneh Cherry (1992)

hell yeah

Thanks! I made several drafts before finalizing, and those two songs were never not on my list.

"Inverness" is a nice pick if you only have one Scott Miller song.

Questlove's new list-based Music Is History sounds promising (comments & song excerpts):
In his new book, Roots co-founder Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson starts in 1971 and moves year-by-year through his life, writing about memories, turning points and the songs he listened to.
stream/download/transcript (Fresh Air)
https://www.npr.org/2021/10/12/1045247409/questlove-spins-the-soundtrack-of-his-life-in-music-is-history

Bashing "Strange Fruit" because of someone else's alleged motivations in posting it is some of that ol' classick reductive ilx religion---to say the least---

Aaand I took the bait, sry

But by that logic, any artist on here who's ever been subject of a documentary etc. could be exculded; hell whole list could be dismissed because it's pantheon-sucking trend-molesting Rolling Stone

This will seem weird, but it's meant to address an obvious problem.

I mentioned above that Scott Woods has been posting Top 50s on rockcritics.com--not an answer to the Rolling Stone list, but prompted by it and kind of related. Anyway, Scott's running into the same problem I encountered putting out a fanzine in the '90s where we rated hit singles: it's one male contributor after another. At the time, I was able to recruit a few female contributors, but it wasn't easy. The world has changed a lot in 25 years, but it in this regard, time seems to have stood still: females evidently aren't that big on rating or listing pop songs.

So this is a recruitment list, meant for ILM's female posters: if you'd like to put together a Top 50, with or without a short intro/comments, Scott will post it.

https://rockcritics.com/

Ladies, please make unpaid content for us

females evidently aren't that big on rating or listing pop songs submitting free work with no discernable benefit beyond peacocking the breadth and depth of your performatively diverse and eclectic tastes

"Unpaid content"--if you use language like that, I suspect you and I are from different universes. I've been doing this for 35 years, and I could take all the money I've made and go buy a few pizzas.

A few pizzas does sound pretty good tbh

JFC

People should be paid for their writing, but if it's just a ballot or list of 50 favorite songs and nothing else, I'm not sure I'd expect much compensation - maybe a free record I guess. If you offered real pay for an accompanying essay (assuming it's worthy of publication), that would be a nice incentive.

People should of course be paid when writing for venues that make (or at least attempt to make) money. Really and truly, this is not any different than the polls that go on here. (And it's not even a poll, just a bunch of a lists.) Rockcritics.com is a fan site that has been around for 20 years. I'd have to check with Scott, but I am 99% sure it generates 0% revenue.

Do you have to be a Rock Critic to contribute(?)

I'm actually not against what you're doing at all - all you're asking for is lists. If I ran a publication, I'd pay for an article, whether it was pitched to me or if I assigned it to someone, but if I got a list of 50 songs put on my desk, regardless of how much time or thought is put into it, it's still a list of 50 songs. I don't think Sight & Sound or Pazz & Jop give any monetary compensations for any of the thousands of ballots they've sent out for their esteemed polls, and though they don't require comments, people frequently give them.

Pazz & Jop used to pay a tiny bit, then they stopped a few years ago. For what it's worth, this is to help a friend--it's his site.

(xpost) Here's the very first iteration of rockcritics.com, going back to 2000. It's changed over the years, but I think the right answer is "no."

https://web.archive.org/web/20000823130535/http://www.rockcritics.com/

Pazz & Jop used to pay a tiny bit, then they stopped a few years ago.

Wow, I stand corrected. When you say stopped, do you mean because the Voice (before it was re-animated) closed shop?

we'd get paid for blurbs too

No, this was before they went under. It wasn't much, believe me--$10 per printed P&J comment?

I might be able to submit one! Not really sure if I have that unique of a perspective and I suck at blurbs since I’m not a writer or a native english speaker but yeah… I could maybe give it a try. I have probably such a list more or less curated by now.

Please do! If you look at the short intros that are there, I think you'll find them as informal as humanly possible.

No, this was before they went under. It wasn't much, believe me--$10 per printed P&J comment?

In that case, I definitely prefer a free record (as long as I get to choose)!

Thanks to this thread, I dreamt someone gave me a pizza. I didn't have to provide any lists in exchange though.

ILX'ors cryptosicko and Kevin J. Bozelka have their lists up there.

I've discovered the Tammys' "Egyptian Shumba" (1964) off KJB's list.