Extremely acclaimed songs

Rolling Stone released a list of the 250 Greatest Songs of the 20th Century So Far.

Here it is on Spotify, as the actual list with little write-ups for each song on the Rolling Stone site is staggeringly unwieldy and will freeze any browser it comes into contact with.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2BOseUAL339UOnNInQbF2E

Much as I like to scorn, it can, I think, proudly place itself on the "not too bad" list of lists.

You can tell that, whatever they might say about the democracy of the voting process, it has been done by committee, and I'd say it is pretty carefully put together to cover most bases.

To appease the likes of me, the "indie-alt-country-rock" songs are, usually, the right indie rock songs by the bands in question, or near enough. They got Impossible Germany, they got No Children, they got Such Great Heights, they got Float On, they got Waxahatchee and Rilo Kiley, they are not scorning the 47-year-old kids that matter.

It is also probably the most international of these lists I've ever seen, for better or worse (though saying it, I still think about 3/5 of the songs are American). There's a lot of Latin American songs, there are African songs, Korean songs, there are 20-odd from Britain and Ireland. Is that a decent number? Not really, but it could be worse. I wouldn't really say there are any UK choices that are particularly interesting ... you'd like to suddenly see some Libertines, some Roots Manuva, some Delgados, some SFA ... you know, and, as is always the case with America, there is almost no knowledge of non-white Britain ... just MIA and FKA Twigs.

Slight detour, but America's universal non-recognition of black British (and presumably other countries) culture is perpetual and universal ... here's Idris Elba https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1138554078135003

and it reminds me of when I went to NY and was going to go to Brooklyn and a friend of my host said in a tone of patronising warning "you know, it won't be like anywhere you've ever been before" clearly tipping me off about the fact that there were a lot of black people there, and, well, i lived in South London at the time.

So, yes, anyway, no Little Simz, no Stormzy, Skepta, Dave, Dizzee Rascal, Roots Manuva, Young Fathers, Raye, Kiwanuka etc etc

which is a bit annoying, as, you know, there's quite a lot of pretty wearisome American hip-hop as the list goes on ...

But, anyway, yes, when it comes to the UK, it's the usual suspects, Adele, Coldplay, Sheeran, Radiohead, Arctic Monkeys, Harry Styles, nice high placing for Take Me Out, and weirdly, a song by Two Door Cinema Club, as if to represent the totality of British indie rock.

But, anyway, minor quibbles.

The Top 4 are Get Your Freak On, Maps, Crazy in Love, Seven Nation Army

and I think there are two interesting things about that.

1. They're all from the first few years of the century - in fact 2, 3 and 4 are all from 2003. That's pretty funny, coincidental probably, but maybe shows that Rolling Stone can't resist being a bit old-timey.

2. I love those four songs, and not many would dispute there being near the top of the list, but, they're all "sound" aren't they. People love them for a hook and how they sound in that moment. They're all, even Seven Nation Army, especially Seven Nation Army - now reduced to a five-note football chant - pop songs. The thing about the poptimism, if that's what we're going to call the direction of travel of music criticism this century. and this, I realise, above all, is why it bugs me and why it's by no means an automatic good, is that the sound became everything. Production above "song", in the traditional sense. People love Get Yr Freak On because it sounded like the future and it sounded fun. But, you know, Get Yr Freak On, is "just" a superfun song. It's not Doo Wop (That Thing) or Billie Jean or Like a Prayer or Good Times, which are more than that. 

At 5 is Taylor Swift's All Too Well, which is maybe the opposite of that, it's all "song" especially in the 10-minute version. I was going to be very sniffy about it, but I listened to it again yesterday, and it is good. Then Alright (ironically, just about Kendrick Lamar's simplest, soundiest, song) and, then, the one of the Top 10 i think most deserves to be Number 1, Dancing on My Own, which has got everything a song should have - sound, tune, monster chorus, dancing, melancholy, and "stilettos and broken bottles", some proper poetry.

The actual best song of the century, All My Friends, was at 35.

What was, strikingly, missing? Well, no Joanna Newsom or Sufjan Stevens. The lack of the former in particular does make you question what they mean by "greatest"  and "songs". I mean, they're clearly the best songs, the Newsom songs. That's the obvious song genius of our time, right there, and that's a pretty common thing for people who are really into songs to say, it's not just me. You can tell me that e.g Youngblood by Five Seconds of Summer is greater than Emily ort Time as a Symptom, but, come on ... and Fourth of July by Sufjan Stevens is not just the saddest song ever written but it's actually wildly popular too. I don't know how they've missed that one.

No Cave, no Sia, which definitely surprised me, no My Girls, no The Rat, Sleater-Kinney, National, St Vincent, nothing from Disney films or musicals at all, no Get Lucky, Uptown Funk, Happy, Crazy, which were all so monstrously successful and acclaimed at the time, no Empire State of Mind, but there's a lot of other Jay-Z.

No David Berman, no Love It We Made It (surprising as it was Pitchfork's song of the year for 2018), no Girls Aloud, goddammit.

There is actually quite a lot, and this did still surprise me, that I didn't know or hardly knew. I've listened to a lot of it over the last few days, and there are quite a few really good songs, but some I just cannot hear what I'm meant to hear at all. Americans, eh. Reminded how great Cranes in the Sky by Solange is. 

They still found room for one each by Bowie, Dylan (Things Have Changed, though?), Simon, Cash, Springsteen, Cohen, Zevon, John Prine, Madonna and Kylie (is it ungallant to put them in this veteran company?). 

Anyway, as long as their lists for me to go through, I'll be happy.