Top Ten Greatest Songs of All Time According to Rolling Stone

From several lists I already made about the Rolling Stone magazine, you probably know my opinion about them. I don't hate them, but they are really flawed at times. Their best lists that they release annually to pick the year's greatest tracks are often solely based around popularity, and the texts that go along with it are short and unpassionate. However, whenever they decide to make "bigger" lists that include records from many different eras, they suddenly turn out decent. For example, their list about the best emo albums is brilliant - they didn't just pick the obvious choices that are on every fanboy's list (and that includes my own favorites as well), they tried to select the most important, influential and praised works, the oldest which date back to the 80s when emo was years from being a thing people outside of the underground scene knew. They have many lists like that.

Now, even though I once made a list about why their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list is flawed (e.g. only focusing on the views of the English language world when Japan, France, Germany, the South American continent and others have relevant music scenes as well, including compilation albums, and preferring certain decades and genres over others), I think it is the closest we ever got to a musical canon, and that they did a better job than all other similarly themed publications I know - and this goes for their songs list as well. I don't know if this word, "canon", is used in English as well, so let me paraphrase it: a list containing works that are essential and should be known by everyone. Most of the items on the list are historically important, either because they themselves were huge, or because they influenced other huge works. They are also works of which the majority of the musically interested world would agree are great. This is probably because the list was not created by the staff, but included musicians and critics as well.

Now, looking at what was voted into the top ten, I am quite happy. Although, yeah, "Bohemian Rhapsody", which is usually called one of the greatest songs of all time, didn't even make the Top 100, the tracks that made it into the top spots are really fine and important to music history. The ten artists on top are usually regarded as some of the greatest of all time and are featured with either their signature songs, or with songs that every fan agrees on are their finest.

However... is it a coincidence the two top song have "Rolling Stone" in the title or the band name, respectively? Sounds suspicious, but judging by the acclaim these songs usually get on other sites and magazines as well, it might as well really just be coincidental. Although it's really kind of weird.

Source: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/the-500-greatest-songs-of-all-time-20110407, Created on 3/14/2018

The Top Ten

1 Like a Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan