I didn’t want to write about Rolling Stones’ list of the 50 greatest Canadian artists of all time, but it’s so horrible, that I just have to.
Rolling Stone, which fancies itself as some kind of arbiter of musical taste and culture, even in areas where its writers obviously have no expertise. Witness this abomination of a list of what the magazine believes to be the 50 greatest artists of all time.
To be clear, all the artists on the list are great in their own ways. But the omissions and the ranking are so off that they make me want to head-butt a nail. It’s a lazy, patronizing, bullshit list. My notes:
Not on the list:
- Oscar Peterson
- Glenn Gould
- Bruce Cockburn
- Bachman-Turner Overdrive
- Tom Cochrane
- Max Webster/Kim Mitchell
- Cowboy Junkies
- Triumph
- Blue Rodeo
- Trooper
- Our Lady Peace
- Nickelback (Be honest. They’ve sold 50 million albums.)
Dodgy inclusions that imply that they’re better than any of the above.
- Snow (#50)
- Party Next Door (#39)
- Buffy Sainte-Marie (#28. They haven’t heard, have they?)
Strange rankings:
- April Wine (#47)
- Broken Social Scene (#36)
- Bryan Adams (#30)
- The Guess Who (#26)
- The Tragically Hip (#18, lower than Justin Bieber, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Carly Rae Jepson, and Tegan and Sara)
- Drake (#5)
I’m okay with the top 3:
- Joni Mitchell
- Neil Young
- Rush
Rolling Stone has an online Canadian edition, too. It’s terrible (there’s barely any Canadian content and it’s updated infrequently), but you’d think they’d know better.
