In my quest to complete 101 tasks in 1001 days, I decided to make one of those tasks to listen to Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. As a huge fan of music, I figured this would be a fun task, and I might discover some new favorite songs along the way. With over 1200 songs in my music library, I figured I'd have most of the songs anyway. How difficult would listening to a few more be?
Turns out I only had 76 songs out of the 500. Wow. I may have a lot of music, but clearly not the
right music; at least not according to Rolling Stone. My love of all genres, multiple languages, and different decades did me no good when measuring my music collection to that of Rolling Stone's.
As I went through the list, to determine which songs I needed to download, I noticed that Rolling Stone's claim that these are the greatest songs of all time is a lie. The earliest song on the list is Muddy Waters' "Rollin' Stone" from 1948.
What about the swing era?! Songs from early 20th century musicals?! I'll admit, I'm not hugely familiar with songs from that long ago, but I know there are some classic songs that I think would be worthy of being on the list: "Minnie the Moocher" by Cab Calloway and His Orchestra? "Cheek to Cheek" by Fred Astaire? "Sing, Sing Sing (With a Swing)" by Benny Goodman and His Orchestra? What about something by Frank Sinatra? And don't get me started on the fact that there is only one non-English song on the list, "La Bamba" by Ritchi Valens.
The whole thing is a sham. A sham, I say! Still, there are a lot of great songs that do deserve to be on the list, and I look forward to hearing them; some for the first time, others for the unknownth repeat.
Image from http://amberly-grace-feaver.deviantart.com/
