Because all sorts of hoi polloi pundits are out there, ‘polling’ (quod non, just repeating the meh mediocrity) for the Top 2000 of 2016 on the ray-the-ohw and elsewhere, herewith the real deal Top 2000.
Which of course isn’t; it’s the Top 2268 for one thing and Definitive is slightly understating it. If you hadn’t guessed, #14 is about me.
And yes, it is downloadable in plain Excel, for your own tinker and play, in this file; checked and clean (no subversive content).
Next, a few little notes (repeated from last year):
- “That’s odd! The usual numbers 1 to 50 aren’t where they’re ‘supposed’ to be by common standards!” Correct. Because I‘m ‘Rekt. The list is mine; why put the Mehhh songs high up there? They’re in there somewhere, but its my list, my preferences..! yes I do like some almost-forgotten songs better, sometimes much, much better, than the expired old hands.
- Especially.. see the notes, when the clip (much) enhances the song(s). Wouldn’t that mean the song in itself isn’t fully complete ..? No, it means in (since) the age of video, songs with clips (‘integrated’) can much surpass mere songs by themselves, for a cubed sensory experience.
- There’s more than 2000 yes. Because, already after the first 500 or so, determining the relative rankings becomes awkward. Hence, the cut-off would be random …! (why not 2048, that would make more sense in this digital (i.e., binary) age). The result is quite random in the end, too, indeed; some of the last songs ‘should’ be up much higher…
- If you would still have some (preferably wacky) songs you miss, please do comment them to me. I’ll see whether I’d want to include them still, or not. Hey, it’s my list so I decide, geddid?
- The actual end result order is far from definitive (sic). It depends heavily on one’s momentary temper and the memories that spring to mind like Proustian madeleines. And on one’s ability to hear quality. Such is life.
- When dabbling with the Excel file yourself, feel free to play around with the ranking mechanism. What worked for me, was to first split the songs into bins of about 250 size (designate some song to be in the first bin that will end up being ranks 1-250, another song to bin 5, which is around the 1000-1250 mark, etc.), then sizing down bin 1 etc. to 8 smaller bins. Then, numbers 1-50 get a personal treatment one by one to their end rank, the rest gets (got) a random allocation within their bracket. After this, sort and re-apply number 1-whatever. Through this, actual intermediate bin sizes aren’t too important.
Then, as a long, very long list. With a Moar tag otherwise it would be ridiculous… [i.e., for the complete list in the post, follow the link:]
1 | Hustle | Vann McCoy | Yes, the original |
2 | Easy Livin’ | Uriah Heep | To power it up |
3 | Heart Of Gold | Neil Young | Hits the heart |
4 | Hide and Seek | Howard Jones | Same, if you listen well |
5 | Peter Gunn | Emerson Lake & Palmer | Just for the intro alone |
6 | She | Elvis Costello | Personal nostaliga |
7 | White Room | Cream | Nicely powerful, doesn’t wear out too easily |
8 | 74-’75 (+Video) | Connells | The video sublimates the message |
9 | Windowlicker (+Video) | Aphex Twins | Incomplete, as a work of art, without the video |
10 | Nice ‘n Slow | Jesse Green | Calm down again |
11 | One Of These Days | Pink Floyd | Hidden pearl |
12 | Smoke On The Water | Deep Purple | Of course |
13 | The Man With One Red Shoe (+Video) | Laurent Garnier | Incomplete, as a work of art, without the video |
14 | You’re So Vain | Carly Simon | I think this song is about me! |
15 | Dancing Barefoot | Patti Smith | Hidden treasure |
16 | Right Here Right Now | Fatboy Slim | Oft forgotten, defined an era |
17 | The Great Gig In The Sky | Pink Floyd | Appealing complexity |
18 | All I Need | Air | Mindfulness in musical form |
19 | Dream On | Aerosmith | Heartburn |
20 | You Got To Fight For Your Right to Party | Beastie Boys | Appealing. Simply that. |