Is there any reason left to live?

If you haven't heard about it, Rolling Stone Magazine has printed its "500 Greatest Songs of all Time" issue. While thumbing through the list, I saw a large number of mistakes, some so horrendous it boggles the mind of any living organism! The ranking of some songs and the very listing of other songs or artists made me so ill I almost went into a coma and would have had someone take me off life support in the hospital. Here are a few of the gross inaccuracies and some corrections I have taken the liberty of making. The first group is rated on a basis of why the song/artist should not be in that place and the other list is why it should be there or should be higher up on the list. They are not in order of inaccuracy, so don't yell at me if you think I hated one thing more than another.

1. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana and number nine on the list.

I like Nirvana, and don't even think for a moment I don't, but this is the most overplayed Gen-X song on the planet. It's good a couple of times, but becomes sickening after being played every minute of the day. Nirvana had more songs that were far better and since Kurt Cobain eventually grew tired of playing this song, it shouldn't have made the top 10.

2. "Be My Baby" by The Ronettes and number 22 on the list.

Are you nuts? No way should boring girl groups who were mass produced like the pop stars of today be ranked higher than actual groups who knew what they were doing and did it well. This is completely inaccurate.

3. Eminem: "Lose Yourself" at 166 and "Stan" at 290.

Eminem does not deserve to be on this list at all. Enough said.

4. Procol Harum: "Whiter Shade of Pale" at 57.

Has anyone actually listened to this song? It's boring. Taking-an-all-day-long-chemistry-test boring. At 57, it's ranked about 400 spaces too high.

5. Dolly Parton: "Jolene" at 217.

No.

Now we go to the interesting part; the too-low rankings. These artists were ranked too low or were left off the list by the sick, twisted monsters who made it.

1. Jimi Hendrix: "Purple Haze, Voodoo Child, Little Wing" at 17, 101 and 357.

This is a horrendous error. I was so infuriated by the blatant disrespect that Rolling Stone gave to the guitar god that I just had to smash something upon reading it, which turned out to be a small trash can we were getting rid of anyway. "Voodoo Child" is one of the greatest songs ever written by a human being. Putting it behind other artists whose songs were not nearly as good is the equivalent of silencing a brilliant child just because they are far better than other kids, which wouldn't make any sense. "Purple Haze" is pretty much required to be in any top 10 list, because not doing so is blasphemy. "Little Wing" has one of the best guitar riffs created, and the fact that it was ranked below two Eminem songs and countless of pointless 50's girl group songs almost gives me no reason to live anymore. Those rankings are nothing but the idiocy of a group of people who should be tied up and thrown in the ocean.

2. Led Zeppelin: "Stairway to Heaven", "Whole Lotta Love ", "Black Dog" and "Heartbreaker" at 31, 75, 294 and 320.

Upon seeing that Led Zeppelin was not in the top 10, I seriously considered moving to Cambodia, where I could escape the evil of Rolling Stone Magazine. "Stairway to Heaven" is ranked as the second most epic song of all time, (the most epic song was "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen) and they have tons of songs that are better than that. Led Zeppelin was the ultimate live band in music history and to have their most famous song ranked at number 31, which was the highest they got on the list, is appalling. Without Led Zeppelin's pounding rhythm and super loud guitar work, heavy music such as metal, grunge, punk and so on, would not even exist. Ranking a song that is hardly their best at such a low rank should not be acceptable in the country that invented Rock n' Roll music.

3. The Rolling Stones: "Brown Sugar", "Paint it Black", "Jumpin' Jack Flash", "Honkey Tonk Woman", You Can't Always Get What You Want" and "Sympathy for the Devil" at 490, 174, 116, 124, 116, 100 and 32.

Good gracious alive! There's no way someone who still has use of at least part of their brain can put "Paint it Black", one of the only good songs about sadness/depression that has ever existed at a 174. Regardless of the fact that they stole the sitar idea from the Beatles, that song takes all the sadness and depression of emo songs (and there's way too much of that to go around) and crushes it with strange Spanish guitar sounding parts and Mick Jagger's constant need for things to turn black. It's the polar opposite of any happy song that has ever existed, and not ranking it in at least the top 20 is despicable. And "Sympathy for the Devil" at 32? If I were in the military, I would have ordered a barrage of bombing runs on the people who didn't put that song into the top 10. It has everything. Confrontational lyrics aimed at extremely conservative religious groups, catchy sing-along parts and screeching guitar solos. This song goes in the top five of all time, let alone the top 10, and certainly not as low as number 32.

4. Frank Zappa: No placing.

This is an insult to music itself. Frank Zappa, the very same man who fought against evil politics with music ("One Man, One Vote;" "Porn Wars") who actually had more talent than many of the top bands put together (just listen to one of his guitar solos and then tell me he wasn't amazing) and who could lampoon anything in the world no matter how disgusting or controversial is not on a list of the greatest songs of all time, despite being considered by those who know what they're talking about, such as Ray Manzarek of The Doors (there were more people than just Jim Morrison) or myself. The man could produce notes that probably didn't even exist or couldn't be heard by human beings. His band grew to about 20 members, sometimes including several guitarists and drummers playing at the same time! There was no need for putting all the different drum parts together if you could have three different people playing three completely different rhythms (13/17 being one of his favorite time measurements). Of course, many Americans are too snooty or too stupid to know what Frank Zappa had accomplished in his long career, and that alone is the greatest insult of all.

I'm afraid I can't go on any longer, due to the fact that this is depressing me beyond belief. If trends such as these continue, I'm afraid I will have no choice but to move to a foreign country and embark on a musical holy war against the evils of western thinking. If you have any appreciation for music left in your body, I strongly encourage you to listen to the bands I listed as being too low on the list. Only then can we rid this land of the evil known as bad musical taste.

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