The History Of Rock Part Alpha and Omega aka You Got No Secrets To Conceal

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I've still not decided (see yesterday evening's poll) about what to do with the P&J results, but it struck me reading epicharmus' suggestion of a poll of polls (the very thought!) that it's frustrating the the Village Voice didn't do singles/tracks polls before 1979. How can the opinion of Poptimists towards older music be best assessed?

Not like this, probably. What we have here is a poll based on the most recent Rolling Stone Top 500 Songs Of All Time. I ran out of patience after a mere 45 songs so this is the much-pored-over cream of the "rock canon" in its single-tracked form (not in 'singles form' - a few weighty album numbers sneak in). I removed the tracks that also appeared in Pazz and Jop polls, for comparability purposes with the gigantic spreadsheet. In practise this was only THREE songs - can anyone guess which they were (without peeking at rollingstone.com)?

Anyway I thought it would be interesting to get some poptimists perspectives on the 'rock canon' as it has been handed down to us by J Wenner Esq and friends.

You get FIFTEEN picks from an inapt 45 tracks.


[Poll #907822]


The second 'week in pop' poll will appear tomorrow, for the selfish reason that I can listen to a few of the tracks in it before then.

Comments

Clueless when it comes to black music

[koganbot]

I'd say that the quick impression that some of you have that this list does better by rock than soul is wrong. It's just that late '60s soul is less embarrassing (and less represented on this list) than late '60s rock. But - even bearing in mind that the Stoners knew that they had 450 spaces to make up for their cowardice at the top - I'd say that the mid '60s white* picks do better by the black tradition of group vocals than the black picks do. "Dancing In The Street" is mostly Martha, leaving "People Get Ready" as the only real black group-vocal representative and it's maybe - I don't know - the tenth best Impressions song or something? (I'm not an Impressions aficionado, and this is a gap I want to make up sometime.) The Stone top 45 is a very white rock take on black music. It applauds wailing and shouting while passing over crooning and harmonizing.

(*I'm counting the Ronettes as white, since multiracial Ronnie looked white, and most of the input into the music was by white people, though I can understand why some would disagree here.)

Anyway, as for the nonshowing of funk, hip-hop, and disco... [starts sputtering].

(But Lex, it's not the fault of the music they choose that Stone used it to reinforce certain blinkers.)

Re: Clueless when it comes to black music

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

as for the nonshowing of funk, hip-hop, and disco

I thought Rolling Stone was a rock magazine? I assume they have a readership that generally likes perhaps three genres maximum (rock, country and some AOR pop). I'm surprised that there is as much soul in the list above as there is. I'm sure a Mixmag 'greatest songs of all time' poll would be a lot different to a Modjo poll and rightly so - otherwise their readership will lose faith in them. I feel like I'm pointing out the obvious here somewhat but again, correct me if I'm wrong.

Re: Clueless when it comes to black music

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Rolling Stone is sort of like Q is here, in that it makes a claim to be a generalist music magazine. So Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs Of All Time" has an implicit glaim to cross-genre-ness which Kerrang's would not!

Re: Clueless when it comes to black music

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I would say in terms of the lists it produces Q is a rock magazine as well! That's definitely the audience it is aiming for. OK they will give column inches to Amy Winehouse and Tricky but they are far more likely to have Van Morrison on the cover than Beyonce.

Re: Clueless when it comes to black music

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I know, but they don't say "we're a rock magazine", they say "we're a music magazine" and they cover hip-hop and dance music and pop and whatever else (though it won't get the main features very often). RS is - I believe - the same (actually RS positions itself as a pop culture magazine).

So it's legit to ask why they don't give these things that they do cover more airtime when the big lists roll out. Or to make the assumption that they're saying these bits of rock and soul are better than those other things, and challenge that position.

Re: Clueless when it comes to black music

[koganbot]

Rolling Stone's pedigree is of considering itself the counterculture magazine, which of course means trying to take in black music. One of its cofounders, Ralph Gleason, had been primarily a jazz critic. And until recently they regularly ran political features, then reluctantly abandoned them, now I think are trying to bring some of that back. I haven't paid much attention to them recently, but I know in the near past they've had Barry Walters writing reviews, and he's the fellow who once did a piece for the Voice declaring Taana Gardner's "Heartbeat" the greatest song of all time. Stone has been through changes in the last 40 years, of course; for a while they were more likely to put movie stars than music stars on the cover; in the early '00s they were putting near-naked women on the cover, to try to meet the Blender, I guess. They ran a feature basically about whether or not Lindsay's tits were real. (The writer concluded that they were.) Now they're generally back to rock guys like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but I think Timberlake was on there recently, and maybe some hip-hop guys. As I said upthread, an earlier list put "I Want It That Way" in their all-time top ten. And the taste of the people who write for Stone is probably closer to what you've been seeing in the History Of Jop lists than this list would indicate; but then there's a difference between their own tastes and their readers' tastes, and the Stone guys probably feel that they can't indulge their own too much.

Re: Clueless when it comes to black music

[koganbot]

http://www.rollingstone.com, if you want to take a look. James Brown is on the cover, 1st feature on the Website is whether TRL is going to shut down (that's the teen-oriented MTV viewer-voted countdown show); also about effect of V2's restructuring on the White Stripes and Moby. Movie review likes Timberlake in Alpha Dogs, gossip items about Brandon Flowers, Britney, etc., Bright Eyes are on the listening station, Senator Obama is exploring a presidential bid.

Re: Clueless when it comes to black music

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. I am now clueless as to their list-drawing-up methods/madness!

Re: Clueless when it comes to black music

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Well, bear in mind that the list magazine was a special edition, presumably with a longer self-life and relying more heavily on casual buyers as well as the regular readership. My guess is the driver was more "what will make the business guy who hasn't bought RS for years pick this up in an airport" than "how can we provoke and entertain our readers?"

Re: Clueless when it comes to black music

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

At least it's not as bad as Virgin radio's (or whoever's) list that had Slow Patrol at the top and the all-white, all-male top 25. Yikes.

Re: Clueless when it comes to black music

[mcarratala.livejournal.com]

Actually, Beyonce was one of the twenty cover stars of the Q 20th anniversary issue (most of the others were, admittedly, grizzled white folk like Jimmy Page and Mrs Ritchie). Van Morrison more of Mojo thing.

Re: Clueless when it comes to black music

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

I actually think RS (or readers) would take more to R&B/hip-hop than country. Of course, I haven't really lived in the US for about ten years.

Re: Clueless when it comes to black music

[koganbot]

You're right. Probably wouldn't touch country with a 10-foot pole, unless it's someone dead or near dead.

Re: Clueless when it comes to black music

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

For some reason I'll never understand, Johnny Cash is (and has been for a long time) the one country artist it's "cool" and "OK" to like. Even in the indie community. I guess his "badass" image appeals to the rock critics.

Re: Clueless when it comes to black music

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

See also, "RIng of Fire"