Burying the Baby Boomers at Popmatters

The writer claims that these lists are "random," but then (inadvertantly?) reveals that they really aren't:

"The driving factor behind all of these "Greatest of All Time" lists is validation, not of the artists in question but of those who produce the lists and those who consume them."

Well, there's your answer. It's not random. It's demographics. Magazines measure the taste of their readers and validate them with lists like these.

I think the guy is way off in suggesting Dave Matthews will ever be a staple of "greatest albums of all time" lists in magazines. Nirvana has a far greater chance. And I question the idea that "the list" is a baby boomer phenomenon. Lists were being published in jazz magazines before rock and roll existed, and they've been around at least as long as the "Western Canon" (which itself may be a validation of the taste of a select group, and so forth...)

i think the question that should be asked is, how will the methodology behind the lists cary into how those that come next will make lists. how long till we can escape the endless summer culture that the babyboomers made into the moneybag we can't seem put down.

And when will somebody step up to this sort of ranter's passing and apparently sincere wish for the death of an entire generation and respond: ) That's ugly shit! And, BTW, there are some actually young people out tere not too thrilled with you, either.

I think he's saying that they appear for no particular reason, not that the makeup of the lists is random, but the decision to make the list at all happens with no discernable provocation. They just show up in a magazine.

If we went into a list knowing that we were really reading a list of favorites (being limited to the music they've heard and not counting the music they haven't yet heard) and not a list that presumes some kind of musical omniscience (Rolling Stone's GREATEST MUSIC IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD Issue) it'd be easier to understand why bands and genres come and go with the times and why the "Greatest band ever" will be dethroned by new "favorites" as the old favorites are forgetten with time. The fact that most people are only educated in music so far as what is "pop" music means that what will be considered the "greatest" music will only come from what's been popular and that will change like any other trend.

i remember that ad nabisco...infuriating...

But that's the point I'm making. They really don't appear in magazines for no reason. "Greatest" lists are good tools for a magazine to take stock of their readership and measure their demographics. The writer himself makes this point further in the article.

If you don't already know...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8593210.stm

*usual propaganda, Stockholm Network style, to divert generations & prepare the public ground for further disintegration of the social state*

yawn

I like the way the top comment is about squatting and it comes from someone from Hitchin.

http://www.popmatters.com/review/190434-sir-richard-bishop-tangier-sessions/

roughly translates to, "people really like this guy I suppose, but why the hell would anyone want to listen to a guy just play guitar without a singer?"

Lee Zimmerman is thrilled to be writing for PopMatters, one of the best in the biz. In addition, he also writes Blurt, Relix, M Music and Musicians, New Times, Bluegrass Situation, Country Standard Time, Goldmine, and maybe more that don't immediately come to mind. He's fond of editors (most of the time), publicists (esp. when they agree to send him music in physical form) and the brave souls that make the music and struggle to express their creativity and still make a living at it at the same time. Lee is obsessed with music - new, old, pop, rock, Americana, country, folk... all he desires is a great melody and an indelible refrain.

all he desires is a great melody and an indelible refrain.

what a fucking bore