Rollingstone's Best 500 Songs: Worst. Article. Ever.
This has to be a travesty to anyone who has even a passing understanding of pop music. Without hyperbole, I can honestly say that this is the stupidest thing I have seen in print from RS. Seriously.

The top 500 songs ever made are heavy on the late 50's and early 60's pop. What were they thinking? The "Ooop I did it again" of the early sixties, "Doooo Run Run" is ranked above "Jeremy" by Pearl Jam. The Pet Shop Boys, NIN, Jay Z, Rage Against the Machine, Black Flag, Eric B/Rakim, The Strokes, Prodigy, The Hives, Fatboy Slim, No Doubt, Nas, The Chemical Brothers, Oasis, Notorious B.I.G., Sublime, N.E.R.D./Neptunes,The Wu Tang Clan, Bjork, Snoop, The Vines, The Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, The Cult, Daft Punk, Jane's Addiction (!?), INXS, Duran Duran, The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Cypress Hill, Janice Joplin, Soundgarden, and Moby are all absent.

For some reason, crap/pop songs made in the early sixties and produced by Phil Spector were far superior to eighties/nineties/millenial artists who broke new ground. ..and 117 of the songs are represented by Dylan, the Stones and the Beatles?! Do we need the entire cookie cutter output by the early Beatles? Revolution, Lucy in the Sky and Come Together, and the later and more interesting output is replaced by well made but shallow, early-career garbage. Similarly, The Rolling Stones are completely overrepresented. Yes, they are great, but if they are included, where is Start Me Up? And do you really need their entire post-1970 work? They lost relevance after about '71 and to pretend otherwise is ridiculous.

Meanwhile, while the jackasses who made up the list agonized over "I wanna hold your hand" or "help" entire genres were completely left out. Rap/Rock? Non existent. It redefined the sound of rock, but you won't find Rage, or the Chillies here. "Under the Bridge"? What about "Killing in the name of.."? Nope. These are original works that sold big, and changed perspectives...but I guess "Roll over Beethoven" is a superior piece of work, as are both versions of "Mr. Tambourine Man". Lame*10. I mean come on: Covers?! Seriously?

What about House, trance (okay, even I hate trance), big beat, or electronica? Songs like "Setting Sun" and "Firestarter" changed the game, but they don't exist in RS land.

Industrial? Marilyn Manson, Ministry, NIN, Skinny Puppy, Korn...all these bands that had great output and influence are nowhere on this list.

Grunge? They didn't need half of Nirvana's "Nevermind", but they could have included the Smashing pumpkins, Mudhoney, and Soundgarden...hell, even the Breeders did better songs than "Be my baby".

Ska? What's ska?

Even when they get it right, the still mess it up. New Year's Day by U2 is on the list. Now I like U2, but this is rated higher than "With or Without You" (which didn't even make the list!). They include the Clash, which is good, but they pick throw away crap like "should i stay or should i go" and "train in vain". "Spanish Bombs", "Janie Jones" and "The Clampdown" should have been on there instead.

Anyways, I could keep going about how bad this list is...only 3 songs from 2000 onwards were deemed worthy. Reason sums it up although they diss Eminem...and for what? Stan and Lose Yourself are both great songs...the only other post 1999 song is "hey ya" which is great, but geez, there are more than a few songs missing here. Radiohead has produced three albums since then and 2 of them are crazy good.

Part of the problem has to be the choice of 'judges'. RS boasts that Brian Wilson, Joni Mitchell and Mike Tweedy aka: the guy from Wilco are all judges on the panel. Hmmm, okay, so Joni Mitchell and Brian Wilson are both accomplished song writers, but they came of age in the 50's! Get a perspective, please. Wilson, for starters, has stated in interviews he doesn't listen to anything past 1985 or something ridiculous.

And Wilco sucks. I don't care how many critics say otherwise, their limp lyrics sounds like someone half asleep in front of drum machine and a computer. No energy, no relevance, no message, no writing, no coherence, no problem! Wilco is by far the most overrated garbage since The Velvet Underground....which is another band with 'songs' on the 'list'. Lou Reed + Warholian Pretension = Great Art! I'd rather listen to Bobby Brown.

Thanks for nothing RS! This is about as bad as dissing every Led Zeppelin album. I hope NME comes out with a real list.