just passing through, nothing to see here

Play that funky music

I can't argue with the top ten or so. Purple Haze should definitely be up there also though (since Zeppelin/Page has two, I assume there wasn't a rule requiring the best from a single artist).

The sad part is more that I can't argue with it. Either because there isn't much out there now to compete with it or because I don't know enough to challenge collective wisdom of crowds on musical judgments like these. My suspicion is that things written 30-40 years ago with some staying power and popularity with a broad range of people, who didn't grow up hearing them to develop some sort of strong irrational emotional attachment to a particular song, are just good works. There's a few that snuck in from say 20 years ago (Nirvana, Metallica, GNR), but it doesn't seem like the musical talents stayed in guitars for this generation. At least not in the same way. Could be the drummers, or it could be that too many people in music went the beats route and don't actually play anything at all. Dunno.

The other possibility for argument purposes is that these sorts of lists have a feedback effect. They've been doing them for several years at least through internet discussions, forums, and magazine articles. The arguments for or against certain performers and performances are well entrenched. New people to the arguments, rather than investigating their own fancy sophisticated sensibilities on the matter, may simply adopt the tried and true consensus opinions.