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

Thoughts

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

"Imagine" and "Layla" are not impossibly my two least favorite songs of all time.

Pretty good selection of Rolling Stones songs here. Not their absolute best work, but hell "Satisfaction", "Sympathy for the Devil" and "Gimme Shelter" are certainly 3 of their best singles. I'd have expected to see, say, "Paint It Black" or "Under My Thumb" or whatever, but it's not terrible (unlike, say, the Elvis selections).

I find the idea of Bob Dylan winning a poptimists poll inherently humorous on a few levels, but I did vote it for best.

Re: Thoughts

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

The lack of country music on this, except for a token Johnny Cash song that's probably not one of his ten best, is a bit disappointing to me. Come on, "Blue Eyes Cryin In The Rain" or "He Stopped Loving Her Today" or SOMETHING else could have made it.

Re: Thoughts

[koganbot]

Strangely enough, "Sympathy," "Shelter," and "Thumb" were never singles.

Re: Thoughts

[koganbot]

I voted "Imagine" worst, but it does have a great high note - I think it's on "to-DAY-ay"; saw a fellow with massive rainbow-colored swirling to the sky hair sing this during open-mic night at the Merc, and everyone sang along trying to reach the high note - he would point his finger up when it was coming - and it was a wonderful moment. (Oh, there are many many many worse songs than "Imagine," but "Imagine" may be the song that gets the most frequently irritating piousness attached to it. But of course the high-note game had nothing to do with piousness.)