Category: music

Rolling Stone’s “Greatest Songs of All Time”

June 10, 2026 • 11:30 am

I came upon this list while lost in the depths of Wikipedia; it’s an entry for “Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time,” a list that has been revised several times. And of course I had to read the article (which gives only the top ten assessed at various times) and comment.

Here’s how it was made:

“The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” is a recurring song ranking compiled by the American magazine Rolling Stone. It is based on weighted votes from selected musicians, critics, and industry figures. The first list was published in December 2004 in a special issue of the magazine, issue number 963, a year after the magazine published its list of “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time“. In 2010, Rolling Stone published a revised edition, drawing on the original and a later survey of songs released up until the early 2000s.[2]

Another updated edition of the list was published in 2021, with more than half the entries not having appeared on either of the two previous editions; it was based on a new survey and did not factor in the surveys conducted for the previous lists. The 2021 list was based on a poll of more than 250 artists, musicians, producers, critics, journalists, and industry figures. They each sent in a ranked list of their top 50 songs, and Rolling Stone tabulated the results.[3] In 2024, a revised version of the list was published, with the addition of songs from the 2020s.

For some reason they’ve combined the 2004 with the 2010 revision, and also the 2021 and 2024 revisions. Here are the top ten songs from the two lists:

Well of course I have my opinion, which is subjective, but I’ll give it anyway.

On the first list, if you’re going to mention a Dylan song as #1, “Like a Rolling Stone” is a good choice. However, in my view the best rock song in history was “Layla”, minus the slow piano part. Right behind it is the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life.” Neither of these songs are on either list. I’m not a big Rolling Stones fan, but many are, so I won’t comment on “Satisfaction”.  “Imagine” is a very good song, but there are many Beatles songs I like better. I’ve mentioned one but there’s “Yesterday,” “Blackbird,” the medley on the second side of “Abbey Road,” and so on. Of all of Marvin Gaye’s songs, I’d put “What’s Going On” on the list, as it is, but if you’re talking about soul songs, there are many better, especially “A Change is Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke, which I see as the greatest soul song of all time.  But if you aren’t wedded to political songs, I think “Ooo Baby Baby” is better than “What’s Going On,” though it’s simpler. And then you get into the great soul songs like “Try a Little Tenderness” (which I prefer over “Dock of the Bay”), “Ask the Lonely”, “I Was Made to Love Her” (or, in the Wonder genre, “Isn’t She Lovely”), “Since I Lost My Baby,” and so on.

Aretha’s “Respect” is a great song, but is it the fifth best (popular) song ever recorded? You tell me. In fact, I prefer her version of the Carole King song “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman” (mind you, I haven’t looked at the rest of the list; I’m judging only the top ten).

The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” is an excellent song, but the placement here is a clunker: clearly their best song is “God Only Knows”, and its omission is a scandal. It’s their best song and clearly better than “Good Vibrations.”  Paul McCartney judged “God Only Knows” as one of the best songs of all time, and he didn’t mention “Good Vibrations”.  Chuck Berry was a real innovator, and belongs on the list, but I like “Maybelline” better than “Johnny B. Good”. Again, remember that this is a matter of taste.

As for the Beatles, yes, “Hey Jude” is a great song, but I can think of many Beatles songs that should rank higher, and have named three above.  Let me add “In My Life” to make it an even four.

I have listened to Nirvana’s “Smells like Teen Spirit” many times, trying to find out what so many people see in it.  I see little of value, but many people like Nirvana’s style. At any rate, my list would not include that song at all.  And for crying out loud, how could they pass up Ray Charles’s “Georgia On My Mind,” a sad and heartbreaking ballad, in favor of “What’d I Say”? Oy gewalt!

I have little to say about the second list save the necessary inclusion of “A Change is Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke (listen to it here.) I see it as not only the best soul song, but the best civil rights song with the possible exception of “Blowin’ in the Wind.” Public Enemy’s song, along with those of Outkast and Missy Elliott, are not worthy of mention in the top 200, much less the top ten.  And I’d replace the Fleetwood Mac song with “Rhiannon” or (my favorite) “Landslide”.  All in all, both lists seem to me deficient, though they have flashes of good taste.

A few more things from the article:

It is, as Karen Blixen might have said “fit and decorous” that the Beatles have nearly twice as many songs as any other group or artist. And although “Are You Experienced” is a world-class album, the Beatles’ “Revolver” (to my mind their best album, has at least five songs that should be on the list.  To each their own.

Finally, here are the songs on the 2004 list given by decade, proving that my teenage and college years encompassed the best rock and pop music (the numbers vary by list,  but on all the lists the Sixties and Seventies lead the pack for having the best songs. I conclude that, yes, my adolescence and young manhood happened to occur when the best music was being made, so it’s not just that we all think the best music is the music made during our youth.

Rick Beato’s top 40 albums of all time: my take

May 27, 2026 • 11:15 am

I simply can’t bear to write anything about war or Trump today, though doubtlessly something related will pop up when I write the news for tomorrow’s Hili post. But until then I want to keep it lighthearted. The Great Duck Egress still weighs heavy on me.

It’s sad that I discovered Rick Beato so late in my life, as I generally share his taste in music, though I remain largely stuck in music of the Sixties through the early Seventies, while he’s much more open to newer music. However, his education and ear make him a great educator, and since I’ve watched his videos I’ve become a lot more attentive in listening to music, especially in understanding what  makes my favorite songs my favorite songs. His analyses of “what makes this song great” are my favorites.

In this video Beato lists what he sees at the top 40 “greatest sounding albums of all time,” and by that he means that all the songs on the album are good—but not only good but that sound good.  In other words, I think he’s choosing albums that show musicality throughout—that stimulate both the ear and the emotions.

I confess that I don’t know about a third of the albums he mentions, and I don’t share his opinion about many of the ones I do know.  Below I’ve put the 12 albums that I have heard and which I think deserve consideration for the list.  But many better albums are missing. For example, he gives the Beatles’ “Revolver” an honorable mention, but wouldn’t any of the Beatles albums after “Rubber Soul” be better music than Sufjean Stevens or Seal, good as they are? Apparently Mr Beato wants a variety of artists.

Note that the albums I list are not identical to the songs that Beato plays to exemplify the album, but, as he says, “Any of the songs from these albums are phenomenally great songs.” I am not sure I agree, though I do agree that his exemplar songs are great.

I list below the albums that I both know of and agree are excellent albums, but I would not say they belong on a list of best-sounding albums. Where is Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited”?  And Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” and “For the Roses” are, to me, at least as “musical” as “Court and Spark.”  “Aja” is a dubious choice for Steely Dan; I prefer “Can’t Buy a Thrill” or especially “Katy Lied.” But of course if you included the Beatles or others of that quality, the list would be heavily weighted with just a few artists.

My opinions are of course subjective, and everyone will see omissions on Beato’s list, or inclusions that don’t merit mention. That said, here is where I agree with Beato: these albnums are great as wholes—but not the best albums of all time, not by a long shot.

#35:  Bonnie Raitt, “Luck of the Draw”

#32: Tears for Fears, “Song from the Big Chair”.

#29  Sufjean Stevens, “Jacksonville”

#28  Sarah McLaughlin, “Fumbling towards Ecstasy”

#27  Chicago, “Greatest Hits”

#16  The Rolling Stones, “Let it Bleed”

#9   Seal, Seal

Here’s where I started agreeing more with Beato:

#6  The Beach Boys,”Pet Sounds”

#4 Steely Dan, “Aja”

#3   Stevie Wonder “Songs in the Key of Life”

#2  Joni Mitchell, “Court and Spark”

#1   John Coltrane, Jonny Hartman “John Coltane and Johnny Hartman”, which Beato describes as “Probably the most beautifully recorded record ever. “

Honorable Mention (there are several): one is the Beatles “Revolver”

I was delighted to see Coltrane and Hartman nab the top spot, and it’s one of my favorite jazz albums. To me, it is the greatest jazz album of modern times (by that I mean albums released after 1955).  But Coltrane/Hartman is jazz, not rock, pop, or folk like the others, and I’m not sure why Beato put it on the list. If you’re going to include jazz in the list of all-time best albums, well, you’re playing a whole new ballgame.

The entire Coltrane/Hartman album in its original incarnation is on YouTube, and I’ve put it below so you can have the pleasure of listening to it. It’s only 31 minutes long, so you have time to hear it today.  It’s the album I would give people who weren’t familiar with jazz to ease them into the genre, and I gave it to several women I fancied as a nuptial gift: the musical equivalent of a spider proffering to his swain a silk-wrapped fly.

Anyway, here’s Beato’s list. Don’t confuse his exemplar songs with the quality of the album itself; Beato is touting the album but selling it with a snippet of one of its songs.

Here’s the entire Coltrane/Hartman album. Coltrane is at his best, not too out there to put off newbies, but soft and ballad-y. Most of all his renditions blend perfectly with the smoky voice of Johnny Hartman, an underrated singer. (Hartman died at 60 of lung cancer, and I’m sure his voice reflected many cigarettes.)

Joni!

May 20, 2026 • 1:30 pm

Here’s an entire BBC concert by Joni Mitchell, filmed in September, 1970. I’ve always thought that BBC concerts were the best, as they will always live and without accompaniment.  This one is 48 minutes long, and she had long career after this with some great albums (“Blue,” “For the Roses” and “Court and Spark”).

I have nothing to add to this music save to say that I think she’s the greatest combination of singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist of our time, and like most boys my age (I was 21), I was hopelessly in love with her. James Taylor, who also had a BBC concert that same year, rivals her on the male side for the trio of talents, but Joni has the overall edge.

Oh, and some of my favorite songs here are “Chelsea Morning” (at the start), “My Old Man” (16:47), “Woodstock” (25:10), “All I Want” (31:00, on the dulcimer), “All I Want” (31:45), “California” (36:45), and of course “Both Sides Now” (44:25)

Can you imagine being in the audience and hearing these songs for the first time?

The first comment is ineffably poignant:

“These people’s takes are absurd”: Rick Beato versus the NYT’s music critics

May 12, 2026 • 10:45 am

A bit more than a week ago, I posted Rick Beato’s video critique of the NYTs list of the 30 Greatest Living Songwriters that you can find here (archived here).  Many of their choices, like Bob Dylan and Paul Simon, were no-brainers, but Beato deemed others, like Bad Bunny, as bizarre. I agree.

Here he’s gotten his hands on some podcast footage of NYT staffers—three critics and the project’s editor—who helped compile the list, and for once he discards his geniality to make fun of these people in a nine-minute video. Beato even mocks the way they talk.  They do indeed come off as pompous and largely ignorant: Beato harps on their lack of formal musical education, though he says it’s not essential to evaluate music. (The participants went to Harvard, Yale, NYU, and Princeton; none has a degree in music.)

John Carmanica, the NYT’s pop music editor, is particularly annoying with his definition of a “songwriter” and his dismissal of Billy Joel as “not a hitmaker.”

As a whole, Beato says the NYT group is “Four Ivy League educated people—you’ve got two from Yale, one from Princeton, and Mr. Harvard there—that are the most pretentious, cork-sniffing, smug people that are all music critics with no background in music: exactly what you’d expect from a New York Times music critic.” He adds, “These people’s takes are absurd. All you need to watch them talk about music. It drove me nuts watching it.”

As for Carmanica’s claim that Billy Joel wasn’t a hitmaker but a person who wrote “one or 1.5 kinds of songs,” have a gander at this list:

Piano Man
It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me
She’s Always a Woman
Movin’ Out
My Life
Uptown Girls
Just the Way You Are
The Longest Time
Only the Good Die Young (This is my favorite of his; it’s extremely inventive and a good critique of Catholic repression of sexuality. The lyrics are a work of genius.)
New York State of Mind

And others. These run the gamut from hard rock to love ballads to biography, and how can you say his range is limited to one to 1.5 types of song? Cork-sniffing pedants!

And it’s great watching Beato blow off steam.

My favorite:

Rich Beato criticizes the NYT’s list of greatest living songwriters

May 3, 2026 • 10:15 am

The NYT published a list of the 30 Greatest Living Songwriters that you can find here (archived here), and while many of the choices are no-brainers (Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Brian and Eddie Holland of Motown’s Holland/Dozier/Holland, Carole King, Smokey Robinson), but I immediately saw people whose songs I knew a bit about and don’t belong. Those include Taylor Swift (she doesn’t write most of her songs alone, but with a group, and I don’t think they’re “great” songs anyway), Bad Bunny, and Fiona Apple. And where the hell is Joni Mitchell, for crying out loud? What about Donald Fagan, or Laura Nyro, Marvin Gaye and of course, Paul McCartney, who is still alive, James Taylor, and Robbie Robertson? If you think that Bad Bunny is better than these, you have either a tin ear or a screw loose.

But don’t listen to me; listen to Rick Beato, who pondered the list and came to a similar conclusion: there are great songwriters on the list, but others whose presence is bizarre. Beato notes that the list is for American songwriters, so you can immediately exclude Paul McCartney and Joni Mitchell as candidates. But music is a worldwide endeavor, and if you’re using only Anglophones, do you have to exclude people from the UK and Canada? Neil Young was born in Canada, but he’s now an American citizen, and dammit, he should be on that list!

Beato’s choice of notable omissions include Stevie Nicks/Lindsey Buckingham, Billie Corgan, Steven Tyler, Ann and Nancy Wilson. I disagree with some of these.  For those with solo careers who were omitted, Beato mentions  Jimmy Webb, Donald Fagan, James Taylor, and Billy Joel, all of whom belong.

Now Beato seems to use “number of plays” as an important criterion for greatness, which is a reflection of popularity rather than quality. And the NYT uses “mass appeal” as well, and I take issue with that. If you used the same criteria for literature, you’d have a bunch of dire but popular novelists like Ayn Rand and Barbara Cartland listed as “the greats”.

Now have a look at the NYT’s list and listen to Beato, and weigh in if you want. Beato asks people to put in his YouTube comments the singers would shouldn’t be on the list. Go tell him!

“Sukiyaki”

April 27, 2026 • 12:15 pm

I heard this song yesterday on Facebook, where the melody was used as background for a video of a man walking two kimono-clad cats in Kyoto.  I hadn’t heard “Sukiyaki” in many years (it came out in the U.S. when I was 13), but I remembered the tune instantly, though the words of course are in Japanese. The Japanese title was changed for play in other countries, but changed into the name of a dish, for crying out loud. And I didn’t know how popular the song was (see below).

It’s a song of loneliness, though it inspired by politics. The details below are from Wikipedia.

Ue o Muite Arukō” (Japanese: 上を向いて歩こう; “I Look Up as I Walk”), alternatively titled “Sukiyaki“, is a song by Japanese crooner Kyu Sakamoto, first released in Japan in 1961. The song topped the charts in a number of countries, including the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1963. The song grew to become one of the world’s best-selling singles of all time, selling over 13 million copies worldwide.

Sakamoto died at 43 in a plane crash.

“Ue o Muite Arukō” (pronounced [ɯeomɯiteaɾɯkoꜜː]) was written by lyricist Rokusuke Ei and composer Hachidai Nakamura. The lyrics tell the story of a man who looks up while he is walking so that his tears will not fall, with the verses describing his memories and feelings. Ei wrote the lyrics while walking home from participating in the 1960 Anpo protests against the U.S.–Japan Security Treaty, expressing his frustration and dejection at the failed efforts to stop the treaty. However, the lyrics were purposely generic so that they might refer to any lost love

In the US, “Sukiyaki” topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1963, one of the few non-English songs to have done so, and the first in a non-European language. It was the only single by an Asian artist to top the Hot 100 until the 2020 release of “Dynamite” by the South Korean band BTS. “Sukiyaki” also peaked at number eighteen on the Billboard R&B chart, and spent five weeks at number one on the Middle of the Road chart.

Can you name an American chart-topper in a European language? I can!

Here’s “Sukiyaki,” which has both the Japanese words written in English transliteration as well as the English translation.

“Angel”

April 13, 2026 • 12:45 pm

It was 12 years ago when I posted the first video below of Sarah McLachlan singing what is perhaps her most famous song, “Angel.” I came across it again yesterday and decided to pair it with another version.  The first one, recorded in her home studio, shows her well-known ability to go between her “chest voice” (normal range) and “head voice” (high notes, like a falsetto or yodeling). It’s a lovely song, and was written by her and usually performed only with her own piano accompaniment (there are a lot of versions on the Internet). My earlier post describes what the song’s about.

When I looked up the song on Wikipedia, I found this:

On 8 April 2000, McLachlan performed “Angel” with Carlos Santana on guitar at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in Pasadena, California. The show was televised on Fox TV and released on the DVD Supernatural Live – An Evening with Carlos Santana and Friends.

And of course I hoped that song was on video, too, as I’m a Santana fan. Sure enough, it was, though Santana humbly embroiders the voice and piano with soft accompaniment and a short solo (starts at 2:24).  I would have preferred to see him cut loose with an electric solo, but of course it’s not appropriate for this song. Santna’s bit, though, was apparently improvised.

I can’t say that the version with Santana is better than the solo version, but how often do you get to hear two such different musicians play together?