Quote:
Originally Posted by Eomer of the Rohirrim
The link for the music list is now working for me. Wow...
I think reading Entertainment Weekly would give me very high blood pressure. It is, as Mothoron suggests, designed to include some picks that will appease certain demographics. Even allowing for this ridiculous limit, was it necessary to include Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera? 
I read it using advice from Diamond and Lush, considering cultural impact or whatnot. The music list totally fails, even taking into account impact over quality, so the credibility of the film list is to me suspect.  |
I hadn't looked at the 25 New Music Classics previously. Now I wish I hadn't. But I am surprised no one complained that The Lord of the Rings Soundtrack was left off!
If this is what they consider a profoundly and 'culturally-impacting' music list (as opposed to actual great music, which it aint), then Western Civilization is further down the road to exctintion than I surmised (anyone know what time it is on the D-Day clock?).
Be that as it may, I am wondering how they could even list a superb album like Paul Simon's Graceland alongside a Beyonce album, or Cat Power next to Lauryn Hill's Miseducation (to be honest, I've never even heard of Cat Power-- although I recognize everything else on the list -- so much for culturally-impacting)? Does anyone really consider any Mariah Carey album having cultural or musical importance? Perhaps I'm becoming more like my parents (ie., old) in regards to distaste for certain genres of music, but was there a necessity to have Kayne West as a top 5 choice? *shrugs*
Here's a few albums they left off from the last 25 years. I considered these as superlative albums in their respective genres (even though I may not like said genre), as well as having an impact culturally and among musicians. You tell me if EW is off-base:
So by Peter Gabriel -- A sublime album, and, more importantly, the videos of
Sledgehammer and
Big Time were technically and thematically far advanced of any others on MTV for the time, and made music videos an art form.
In Your Eyes and
Don't Give Up are gems.
If I Should Fall From Grace With God by The Pogues -- This album defies labels. It is an amalgam of Gaelic folk, Spanish, Middle-eastern, jazz and punk influences. Aside from having some of the best drunken bar ballads available anywhere (and the Pogues obviously influenced other bands, The Dropkick Murphys and The Young Dubliners are but two), the haunting
Fairytale of New York,
The Broad Majestic Shannon and
Lullaby of London counter the fiery, whiskey-soaked fever of other songs on the album.
Joshua Tree or
War by U2 -- Why EW chose
Achtung Baby as more relevant than
Joshua Tree or
War is beyond me.
Master of Puppets by Metallica -- I am not a big Metallica fan, but I do know that my thrash guitarist friends and head-bobbing metal junkies consider this as perhaps the greatest heavy-metal album ever made (I prefer Black Sabbath personally, but that's an argument for 1970's bands). The video game Guitar Hero is played by millions and millions of folks and is a cultural phenomenon, with Metallica featured prominently.
Ten by Pearl Jam -- Along with Nirvana, Pearl Jam codified the Grunge sound (from what I recall, either one was a Curt Cobain or Eddie Vedder acolyte), and Grunge (with Pearl Jam as the anti-establishment, anti-rock star poster child) was a radio mainstay for much of the 90's. The video of
Jeremy is considered by many to be one of the defining music videos of all time (and MTV certainly played it to death).
It Takes a Whole Nation to Hold Us Back by Public Enemy -- Ummm...Kayne West? Please meet the the real rap deal. Public Enemy's downright scary album influenced nearly every other rapper (including media darling Kayne).
Freedom by Neil Young -- A brilliant reinterpretation of his classic album
Rust Never Sleeps. Incendiary guitar work and incendiary political statements (
Crime in the City and
Rockin' in the Free World -- used by Michael Moore in
Fahrenheit 9/11), mingled with lush acoustic ballads to make an intriguing album.
The Bends by Radiohead -- I just like it better than the one EW chose.
*shrugs*
Raising Hell by Run DMC -- Again, I am not at all a rap fan, but wouldn't it make sense to have had this album as culturally impacting, seeing as it was the first great crossover hit?
You know, I could go on and on, adding such albums as
Murmur by REM,
The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails,
The Division Bell by Pink Floyd,
Tracy Chapman by Tracy Chapman (take that, Amy Winehouse!),
Rhythm Nation 1814 by Janet Jackson (Beyonce who?),
Undertow by Tool,
Grace by Jeff Buckley, or
BloodSugarSexMagic by The Redhot Chili Peppers, each as having a profound impact on music and society, and far better than most of the choices in that top 25.
Bah! I've drank too much coffee again!
P.S. And this, I suppose, is just a roundabout way of saying I question the precarious judgment of EW in choosing its top 25 movies (whether LotR was on the list or not); in fact, I would have argued just as vehemently for LotR if had not been put on the list, and given the odd choices EW made, I'm surprised they managed to sit through the entire film without fidgeting.