Top 50 songs of all time, since the rock and roll era
Limit one song per act.
Criteria: 3 equal parts, representative of its era, good song, I said so
See * for my defense
Email your gripes and alleged oversights. aurich@okstate.edu
1 My Generation (The Who)
2 Jailhouse Rock (Elvis)
3 Blister In The Sun (Violent Femmes)
4 House of the Rising Sun (The Animals)
5 Sunday Girl*1 (Blondie)
6 Rock Lobster*2 (The B-52′s)
7 Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin)
8 Born To Run (Bruce Springsteen)
9 Sheena Is a Punk Rocker*2 (The Ramones)
10 (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction (The Rolling Stones)
11 Rapper’s Delight*3 (The Sugarhill Gang)
12 Losing My Religion (R.E.M.)
13 A Hard Day’s Night*4 (The Beatles)
14 Rock the Casbah (The Clash)
15 Once In A Lifetime (Talking Heads)
16 Material Girl (Madonna)
17 It’s Tricky (Run- DMC)
18 Hello, I Love You (The Doors)
19 Werewolves of London *5 (Warren Zevon)
20 Basket Case (Green Day)
21 About a Girl*6 (Nirvana)
22 Layla (Eric Clapton)
23 Mr. Jones (Counting Crows)
24 Rock and Roll Lifestyle (Cake
25 Through Being Cool (Devo
26 Jump*7 (Kris Kross)
27 Come Out And Play (The Offspring)
28 Space Oddity (David Bowie)
29 Head over Heels (Go-Go’s)
30 Soak Up The Sun (Sheryl Crow)
31 Vertigo*8 (U2)
32 Louie, Louie (The Kingsmen)
33 Head Over Feet (Alanis Morissette)
34 Miserlou (Dick Dale & The Del-Tones)
35 Moondance (Van Morrison)
36 Pink Houses (John Mellencamp)
37 Dude (Looks Like a Lady) (Aerosmith)
38 Friends In Low Places *9 (Garth Brooks)
39 Sweet Jane*10 (Cowboy Junkies)
40 Mary Jane’s Last Dance (Tom Petty)
41 Going Back To Cali (LL Cool J)
42 Buddy Holly (Weezer)
43 TNT (AC/DC)
44 Rebel Yell (Billy Idol)
45 Groove Is In The Heart*11 (Deee-Lite)
46 The Humpty Dance*11 ( Digital Underground)
47 Hey Ya!*11 (OutKast)
48 Walk Like An Egyptian*11 (The Bangles)
49 Ice, Ice Baby*12 (Vanilla Ice)
50 Positively Fourth Street (Bob Dylan)
Footnotes
*1 Deborah Harry sings in French, Blondie turned Disco to New Wave
*2 In my world, either of these arguably could have been number 1
*3 The first rap song never topped
*4 Great band lowered because Paul turned out cheesy:: dying in order of best to worst:: Ringo should live to 200.
*5 Wrote great songs
*6 Was Grunge new, or just depressing New Wave
*7 In 1992-93 I heard Jump all over the world. Examples: Hong Kong, Singapore, Russia, the House of Funky in Nairobi, Takahimaya department store in Japan and a Chinese restaurant in Bangladesh
*8 All U2 songs sound the same except this one, the only good one
*9 Class theory: You have to be liberal to be a hero. Basis of theory: All heroes have been liberal. Garth Brooks the only liberal Country Western singer of all time. Sings about racial equality and NOT beating your wife, thereby undermining everything country music stands for. See Best Country Western Songs of All Time
*10 Can not think of a sadder song
*11 See me in person. I need practice defending my indefensible positions
*12 Vanilla Ice is a personal hero. Of course Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger make the list, they have amazing talent but they were born with it, what is the big achievement? Any idiot with their talent could have been famous. How does Vanilla sell so many records without one drop of talent? His feat was actually much more difficult and thus truly amazing!