Triple J Hottest 100 Songs Of All Time - Are They Kidding?
July 21st 2009 05:55
Recently a friend of mine posted the songs she had voted for in the Triple J Hottest 100 Songs of All Time poll on her Facebook profile. Curious, I decided I should investigate this phenomenon. I’m not one who likes to select definitive lists of bests as they’re so subjective, and clearly they are at Triple J too. I began to select a shortlist of songs I considered to be among the greatest, but eventually decided not to waste my time. The reason? I wanted to select a song from Laura Nyro, a very, very influential songwriter of the 1960s who wrote brilliant songs, performed them in her idiosyncratic manner, but never knew major commercial success herself. I thought I should pay homage to her by selecting at least one of her songs – to my horror she was absent from the list. Not only that, I wanted to select at least one Rolling Stones track, but their Stones list was not comprehensive either. I simply couldn’t take the poll seriously then, and just let it go.
There was some uproar about the fact that so few women made this list – does this mean women have not contributed to great song-writing? I won’t even dignify that with a response. I also question the choice of the (arguably) greatest song of all time by Nirvana, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. I do like this song, but Mr Cobain really didn’t stick around long enough to prove himself. Interestingly, the last “greatest song” by Joy Division was also written by a man who hanged himself – I wonder if the next poll will have a Michael Jackson song as the number one? This morbid fascination for creative people no longer with us is perplexing, to say the least. Are the songs only voted as number ones because the artist is dead? What of the merits of the art itself? Can we then safely predict future number ones from Michael Hutchence, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, John Lennon and Bon Scott? Time will tell, I guess. I seriously hope we have a little more originality in our thinking than that.
There was some uproar about the fact that so few women made this list – does this mean women have not contributed to great song-writing? I won’t even dignify that with a response. I also question the choice of the (arguably) greatest song of all time by Nirvana, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. I do like this song, but Mr Cobain really didn’t stick around long enough to prove himself. Interestingly, the last “greatest song” by Joy Division was also written by a man who hanged himself – I wonder if the next poll will have a Michael Jackson song as the number one? This morbid fascination for creative people no longer with us is perplexing, to say the least. Are the songs only voted as number ones because the artist is dead? What of the merits of the art itself? Can we then safely predict future number ones from Michael Hutchence, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, John Lennon and Bon Scott? Time will tell, I guess. I seriously hope we have a little more originality in our thinking than that.
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Comment by Duncan McLeod
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