And I wouldn’t have known the all-important rankings of these songs if it weren’t for the VH1 special “100 greatest songs of the last 25 years.”
Yes, I fell victim again to the weeknight one-hour installments of a VH1 top 100 show. Previous shows like “The 100 Greatest Women in Rock,” “100 Sexiest Artists,” “100 Greatest Artists,” and “100 Greatest Videos” have proved to me that VH1 is a station for countdown junkies like myself.
I look to VH1 specials for my trivia fix, but I also watch these lists because I want validation. I want to know that my musical tastes are accepted by others. I want someone to coalesce all that is good about music into one neat list in a particular order. I want to see what VH1 and other people think “good” is.
Which begs the question: What is good? The folks at VH1 are very cautious in picking the adjective for their countdowns. They choose “great.” What is critically “good” may not be great. But what is greatness? Is greatness judged on shock values? Freshness? On a song’s ability to usher in a new sound? Is what’s popular also great?
To VH1, greatness is bigness: how well it charted, how much airplay it received and how many units it sold.
| This explains why “My Heart Will Go On,” the dumbest love song ever, is on the list.
Ultimately, choosing to judge songs based on greatness vastly increases the viewing audience because these songs were appreciated by a larger portion of the population. See, if we had a list with the Pixies, Tori Amos and Elliot Smith, most in VH1's demographic wouldn’t have heard of their songs. Here’s a breakdown of some of the interesting stats: No artist has three songs on the chart (if you’re counting writing credits, at least one artist, Prince, has three with “Nothing Compares 2 U”). Those with two are Michael Jackson, Madonna, U2, Prince, The Police, and Eminem, who is apparently now the acclaimed artist of our time. The artist with the biggest span between their two greatest songs is Madonna, with “Ray of Light” kicking off the countdown at 100, she doesn’t appear again until 10 with “Like a Virgin,” despite a total of 35 Top 10 hits to her credit. The artist with the two highest songs is U2 (“One” - 5, “With or Without You” - 21). Whether “One” is really better than “With or Without You” remains to be debated by music geeks. Out of all the beloved Aerosmith songs in their 25+ year career the only one to make the list is their only #1 hit “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing.” Hello? “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)” or “Sweet Emotion”? “Creep” is Radiohead’s best song. Translation: It’s still the most played or rock radio and the most accessible of all their work. The best thing David Bowie (sound it out with me Avril ... BOH-WEE) did in the last 25 years is a guest vocal on Queen’s “Under Pressure.” Smashing Pumpkins has no great songs. (I would have nominated “1979") Elvis Costello also has no great songs. Sixteen of the songs are rap songs. Two are in the top 10. Nelly is better than John Lennon (“Hot in Herre” - 65, “(Just Like) Starting Over” - 72) View the whole list at Seattle Post Intellegencer That was informative. And now, the great debate. Is “Smells Like Teen Spirit” deserving of the coveted #1 position? Obviously, Kurt Cobain sold his soul to the devil to ensure that “Smells Like Teen Spirit” would be #1 on every VH1 countdown for all of eternity. But is it right? My favorite Nirvana song is “In Bloom.” Now that doesn’t mean I don’t like “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” I enjoyed it quite a lot at my 8th grade graduation dance, but this song is to grunge as “...Baby One More Time” was to late-‘90s teen pop: it was a song that ushered in a movement in music. It is so bound up in the greatness and the memory of the movement that it comes to stand for it. Clearly the people at VH1 are judging the song on this nostalgia quotient, and not on its musical greatness. Plus, I think people get accustomed to declaring one song as “the best” because it has been declared so before. A precedent is set in previous lists and thus, “SLTS” is the best song of the last 25 years as it was the best song of the ‘90s. And how soon can you know if a song is great? Does it have to stew in your cranial back catalog of songs for five years before you start incessantly humming it one day and realize it’s good? You can count on VH1 to school you in the best of classic rock, but the last 25 years are pretty foreign territory. Maybe the last 25 years are still being categorized and by the top 100 pundits who brought us the knowledge that “Blonde on Blonde” is the best Dylan record? SPIN magazine did a list on the top 90 albums of the ‘90s that was pretty comprehensive and fair. It might be the definitive work of top 100 lists about the late-20th Century. Had VH1 wanted any of the credibility that pop music journalists and authorities have, they would have put some different songs in the mix. But as VH1 continues to dumb down these lists of greatness, I will still tune in. C’mon. The Top 200 (yes, baby, 200) Pop Culture Icons will air on VH1 starting July 21. |
Pop Waffle’s Top of the Pop Lists
Pop Waffle interviewed no one and polled zero professional musicians and rock journalists to compile this list. Top 10 Albums in your CD collection you don’t listen to anymore Alanis Morrisette - “Jagged Little Pill” Semisonic - “Feeling Strangely Fine” The Cranberries - “No Need to Argue” Smashing Pumpkins - “Machina” (you only listened to it once) Stone Temple Pilots - “Purple” Live - “Throwing Copper” Korn - “Follow the Leader” Collective Soul - “Collective Soul" (ya know, the one with "The World I Know") Candlebox - “Candlebox" (ya know, the one with "Far Behind") Hole - “Live Through This”
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