WXPN's All Time Greatest Songs Countdown

The countdown of the 885 all time greatest songs as selected by the listeners' top ten lists (with staff and music industry votes "weighted") began on Monday October 2nd to celebrate WXPN's move to their new facility. The countdown goes from 6am to 11pm daily and will run through Friday October 8th. The selections are as arbitrary and variously good and bad as any given person's top ten list multiplied by about 4,000 entries. The best thing about it is that it allows WXPN to go off format and play some tunes you would never normally hear. It's almost surprising (but not really) that there is such a predominance of Grateful Dead, Rolling Stones, Dylan, Neil Young, Led Zeppelin, Beatles, and Springsteen on the list. If the survey data was fudged at all to allow the Tom Waits and Springsteen versions of "Jersey Girl" to follow each other at #685 and #684, it was a nice touch, at least from a programming standpoint. I didn't hear Jethro Tull's "Thick as a Brick" at #568 but I wonder if they played the entire album. When was the last time anyone played "The End" by the Doors on the radio, or Al Stewart's "The Roads to Moscow." I have my doubts that anyone in their right mind put "Speeding Motorcyle" by Daniel Johnston with Yo La Tengo on their all time top ten, but there it was at #856. Before playing Jimmy Buffet's "Margaritaville" the afternoon host opened the mike and said "I'm sorry for this." Great radio. You can follow the list here http://www.xpn.org/885_GSAT.php. When the countdown is finished, I'll post an entry listing how my top ten selections did.

Comments

Charlie Ricci said…
They also played the entire 17:05 minutes of Ina Dadda Da Vidda! That was shocking!
10/06/2004
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