Recently I happened upon this list by Rolling Stone of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time". It is, of course, mired in old-fart music, relying on "importance" of songs rather than on aesthetics. It's also clearly not the work of an individual. The top 2 songs are both really just lines of bullshit: Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone and the Stones' Satisfaction. Both are tunes of marginal merit with a maladroit singer logorrheaing over them. Here are the real top 100 songs of all time, in no particular order. If you disagree you are wrong.
Top 20:
Ain't Misbehavin, Honeysuckle Rose (Bobby Enriquez's version)
Band - The Weight
Ben Folds - Fred Jones (part 2)
Ben Folds Five - Alice Childress
Ben Folds Five - Missing The War
Ben Folds Five - Selfless, Cold and Composed
Cure - Pictures of You
Fountains of Wayne - Troubled Times
George Gershwin - Rhapsody In Blue
Henry Mancini - Pink Panther Theme
Henry Mancini - The Days Of Wine And Roses (McCoy Tyner's version)
Joe Jackson - It's Different For Girls
Massive Attack - Protection
Radiohead - Fake Plastic Trees
Radiohead - Let Down
Radiohead - No Surprises
Radiohead - Paranoid Android
Radiohead - Subterranean Homesick Alien
Tom Waits - Ol' '55
Verve - Bittersweet Symphony
Click "more" to see the rest.
Top 21-100:
Badly Drawn Boy - Pissing in the Wind
Beatles - And Your Bird Can Sing
Beatles - Getting Better All the Time
Beatles - Happiness is a Warm Gun
Beatles - I Will
Beatles - If I Needed Someone
Beatles - In My Life
Beatles - Julia
Beatles - She Said She Said
Beatles - You've Got To Hide Your Love Away
Ben Folds - Carrying Cathy
Ben Folds Five - Boxing
Ben Folds Five - Emaline
Ben Folds Five - Jackson Cannery
Ben Folds Five - Where's Summer B?
Ben Kweller - Falling
Beulah - Gene Autry
Beulah - Popular Mechanics For Lovers
Black Sabbath - War Pigs
Burt Bacharach - I'll Never Fall in Love Again (I prefer the Elvis Costello rendition)
Carole King - So Far Away
Cat Stevens - The First Cut Is The Deepest
Counting Crows - Anna Begins
Counting Crows - Friend Of The Devil
Counting Crows - Mr Jones
Cure - In Between Days
Cyndi Lauper - Time After Time
Dave Brubeck - Blue Rondo A La Turk
David Bowie - Heroes
Elliott Smith - Son Of Sam
Elvis Costello - Alison
Elvis Costello - Satellite
Eric Clapton - San Francisco Bay Blues
Flaming Lips - Do You Realize?
Fleetwood Mac - Go insane
George Michael - One More Try
Hank Williams - Lonesome Whistle
Jimmy Webb - Wichita Lineman (I like the Billy Joel version. Hard to find.)
JJ Cale - Magnolia
Keith Jarrett - Sandu
Keith Jarrett - Whisper Not
Komeda - Cul de Sac
Leadbelly - Where Did You Sleep Last Night? (Nirvana's version)
Mason Williams - Classical Gas
Michael Jackson - Wanna Be Startin Somethin
Neil Diamond - Red Red wine
Nick Cave - Sad Waters
Nick Drake - Fly
Nirvana - All Apologies
Peter Gabriel - Don't Give Up
Peter Gabriel - In Your Eyes
Portishead - Sour Times
Puffy - Radio Tokyo
Queen - Under Pressure
Radiohead - Airbag
Radiohead - Black Star
Radiohead - Bullet Proof..I Wish I Was
Radiohead - Everything in its Right Place
Radiohead - High and Dry
Radiohead - Just
Radiohead - Karma Police
Radiohead - Killer Cars
Radiohead - Knives Out
Radiohead - Lurgee
Radiohead - Stop Whispering
Radiohead - Vegetable
REM - Losing My Religion
Shins - Gone for good
Shins - Pink Bullets
Shins - Saint Simon
Stevie Wonder - Visions
Sting - A Thousand Years
TMBG - Experimental Film
Tom Waits - Please Call Me, Baby
Tom Waits - San Diego Serenade
U2 - Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses?
Vaselines - Son Of A Gun
Weezer - Say It Ain't So
Wham! - Careless Whisper
Woody Guthrie - So Long, It's Been Good To Know You