I couldn't agree more. Then again, they're one of the magazines hailing The Gaslight Anthem as the second coming of Jesus, so why am I really not surprised their lists are such a joke? Honestly, every second guitarist on their list is just another generic blues/rock artist. Quite how they can rate people like that over Randy Rhoads or Omar Rodriguez-Lopez is beyond me. Even if you're going to talk pure influence, someone like Dave Murray (Iron Maiden) would shit all over say, Johnny Ramone. Or Kurt Cobain. Can you tell I really, really don't like Rolling Stone?
Maynard should be in the guitarist part not the singing part. His bass work is just spiffy!! And I agree (don't boo me please) with most of the choices, Aretha Franklin, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana, John Lennon etc etc. This is the second source that has voted Pepper Sergent as the best album of all time. I saw it on an ABC countdown a while ago, and it made number one as well. I think Pink Floyd (#???) and The Smashing Pumpkins (#16: Siamese Dream) made it as well. Surprisingly enough, Nirvana made it #10 with Nevermind. Come on, you know you want to boo me LPA.
Everything else I can understand, but I do want to boo Nirvana, repeatedly. If I hear another idiot telling me that Nirvana started grunge... Soundgarden deserves a large part of the legacy people attach to Nirvana.
Potentially rant about how they didn't. But probably just say that starting grunge can only be attributed to Soundgarden, seeing as they were the first grunge band to be signed to a label and have any sort of real success.
I'm not saying Nirvana/Pearl Jam/Alice In Chains aren't grunge. But Soundgarden were as close to the original as it's possible to define.
Maybe Nirvana was more popular than Soundgarden was, seeing how much of a sucess Smells like Teen Spirit was and Nevermind.
Since when has popularity been a measure of a genre's progenitors, though? By that reasoning, Blink 182 should be regarded as starting punk.
They were more popular. I didn't deny that. But popularity doesn't = musical talent... Smells Like Teen Spirit was just very well timed. 5 years larer it would've flopped, 10 years earlier it wouldn't even have been conceived because bands like Soundgarden hadn't started that style of music...
But naming an album/EP/demo doesn't necessarily make it's title truth. For example, Slayer's "God Hates Us All" ....
considering i downloaded this top 500 song list months ago it is an old list. there are songs like eminem's "stan" or "lose yourself" in there, so i would guess this list is at least a few years old, thus not having newer songs in there. correct me if i'm wrong. jimi hendrix really is one of the greatest guitar players of all time, there is nothing to doubt about it. we could argue for hours, whether he's THE best or not. i got into his music lately and got a live dvd for christman and what this guy does is crazy, insane, scary! everything at once. he feels his music in a kind of way i never saw before and what he actually plays follows a path but with a whole great lot of improvisation. he defined modern guitar playing, solo playing plus he didn't just use his guitar for playing notes, but for making noises, sounds sick stuff. what i actually saw for the first time ever, was someone who really LOVES his guitar. therefore i definetely agree with the choice of putting him first. not liking artists or songs is ok, but i gave almost every song on there a few listens and it just feels like a time travel. hearing no.1 "bob dylan" made me feel good on my first listen and it really was an influencial song for it's era. let's face it, almost every song on there will be remembered for another 40 years, while most of the stuff we listen to today will be forgotten... soon. just the straight fact, that jimi hendrix still fascinates people 38 years after he died with a big career that lasted only 4 years is remarkable enough. and that's something that counts for nirvana's "smells like teen spirit" aswell. it is one of the bigger songs of our time, whether you are sick of it or not. everyone knows that song, everyone! it is one of these songs that will be played in ages. so in my mind it deserves a high place in this list. whether other songs therefore deserve a lower rank is still a point for discussion. but i see absolutely no wrong with nirvana being that high. in the end it will never give a list that satisfies most people. but i would really wish those who just talk with never listening to a good amount of these songs should do this first, then judge (i'm not speaking to anyone in particular).
It's kinda ironic if you downloaded this list months ago, when it only came out in December (because did you see the top albums for 2008 link on the page?).
I think I have resolved your Nirvana issue Harlz - The only reason why Nirvana lives on is because Kurt Cobain, a seattler, married Courtney Love, had a child, was in a overrated band, and killed himself. If Cobain had lived on, Nirvana wouldn't be so popular. That's why Nirvana is on the list, simply because of Cobain's non-existance.