On Thanksgiving Day, Pittsburgh radio state WYEP (91.3fm) had a countdown of the 100 top American albums as voted by the listeners of the station. Since we were listening to part of the countdown, my brother and I debated various albums and artists that should be included on the list. As a countdown of only American artists, The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Police, Celine Dion and MC Snow are not included. Our initial thoughts were that Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and the Beach Boys would be at the top (we were right). We didn't count Jimi Hendrix because we thought that some of the members of The Jimi Hendrix Experience may have been British. We also decided that we would only choose one album per artist; therefore, we had Nirvana and Pearl Jam in the top 10 (in actuality Nirvana was 11; Pearl Jam 12).
There are many problems with the list, but I'll share just a few. Tori Amos is at #30 and Ben Folds Five (who I like a lot) is at #40. Fleetwood Mac is at #65 with Rumors, but half of the group is British. Even if you do count them as American, how can Tori Amos be 35 spots ahead of them? Michael Jackson is missing from the list as are many Motown acts and artists such as Whitney Houston, Madonna and Mariah Carey. Oh, I have no idea why the Grateful Dead would ever be in the top 10.
That is utter hooey. Stations should not be allowed to list such things if they're going to be completely biased in favor of "their" type of music.
ReplyDeleteYou are completely right. By the way, I keep thinking of other artists that should have made the list such as Sinatra and Elvis.
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