If you think my lists are too short...

My decade lists for the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s range from 300 to 500 songs.  Somebody who made a list at rateyourmusic.com made a list that currently stands at 6,612 songs.  My hat is off to him not only for ranking so many songs, but also for getting it all posted with links on rateyourmusic.  He's also made it sortable by artists, which allows for a different way to browse if you're looking for how your favorite bands rank.  I saw the sortable list first and was initially alarmed to think that somebody ranked 6612 songs and put A-Ha's "Take on Me" first, but A-Ha is just first in alphabetical order and "Take On Me" is the 3,086th best song, which really sounds just about right.  I bet I could think of about 3,000 better songs than "Take On Me", but probably not a lot more than that.

The Top 20 Songs By The Jam

One of the things I like about iTunes is that it's easy to sort songs (rather than albums) by popularity.  This is especially helpful for bands that released a lot of songs as singles between albums or who released a lot of EPs.  The Jam is one of those bands with a complicated discography and it's further complicated by the fact that I first really got to know The Jam through their double-LP best-of-collection Snap, which was later truncated to fit on CD as Compact Snap.

Here are the top songs by The Jam based on current iTunes rankings along with the rank of their singles on rate your music (rym), rank of songs on Vinyl Surrender (vs), and my own personal nothing but good things (nbgt) ranking.

#1 Town Called Malice (rym #2, vs #1, nbgt #6)
#2 That's Entertainment (rym #1, vs #2, nbgt #1)
#3 In The City (rym #6, vs #11, nbgt #2)
#4 Beat Surrender (rym #18, vs #10, nbgt #3)
#5 Start! (rym #8, vs #9, nbgt #10)
#6 The Modern World (rym #14, vs #18, nbgt #4)
#7 The Bitterest Pill (rym NA, vs NA, nbgt NA)
#8 Down in the Tube Station at Midnight (rym #3, vs #5, nbgt #5)
#9 English Rose (rym NA, vs NA, nbgt NA)
#10 Eton Rifles (rym #7, vs #7, nbgt #15)
#11 Ghosts (rym NA, vs #4, nbgt NA)
#12 Thick as Thieves(rym NA, vs NA, nbgt NA)
#13 Going Underground (rym #4, vs #3, nbgt #9)
#14 The Butterfly Collector (rym, b-side of #5, vs NA, nbgt #19)
#15 Pretty Green (rym NA, vs #13, nbgt NA)
#16 David Watts (rym #11, vs NA, nbgt #16)
#17 Absolute Beginners (rym #13, vs #20, nbgt #14)
#18 Mr. Clean (rym #15, vs NA, nbgt #18)
#19 Liza Radley (rym NA, vs NA, nbgt NA)
#20 Away from the Numbers (rym NA, vs NA, nbgt NA)

Notable songs outside of the iTunes top 20

Strange Town (rym #5, vs NA, nbgt #7)
To Be Someone (rym NA, vs #8, nbgt NA)
Smithers-Jones (rym b-side of #9, vs NA, nbgt #8)
Funeral Pyre (rym #10, vs NA, nbgt NA)
News of the World (rym NA, vs NA, nbgt #11)
All Around the World (rym #17, vs NA, nbgt #12)
Dreams of Children (rym b-side of #4, vs NA, nbgt #13)
I Need You (rym #12, vs NA, nbgt NA)
Man in the Corner Shop (rym NA, vs #14, nbgt NA)
Saturday's Kids (rym #16, vs NA, nbgt NA)
A Bomb in Wardour St (rym b-side of #11, vs #6, nbgt #17)
Just Who Is the 5 O'clock Hero (rym #19, vs NA, nbgt NA)
Tales of the Riverbank [fanclub version] (rym #20, vs NA, nbgt #20)

On the whole the iTunes rankings are pretty well in line with all the other rankings.  Bitterest Pill ranks high on iTunes without making it on any of the other top 20s, and both Down in the Tube Station and Midnight and Going Underground are less popular on iTunes versus every other list, but not by all that much really.

English Rose makes the iTunes top 10 and none of the other lists.  That's one of the songs that was on Snap and not on Compact Snap.  I wonder how many people are filling in that digital gap on iTunes.  Strange Town makes the top 10 of every other list, but misses the iTunes top 20 entirely.  Strange.

Make Your Own Chart at Rate Your Music

I've posted previously about Rate Your Music's nice feature that allows you to customize charts.  It's cool enough that it's worth revisiting.  A commenter inquired a while ago about my top 500 songs of the 1980s list.  It didn't have the pop music the commenter was looking for.  I had, myself, commented on the way that a lot of hardcore unexpectedly rose to the top of that list.  I know it's a minority opinion that hardcore punk was among the best and most lasting contributions to music in the 80s, but what if we take that as a given?  Did my list at least match the opinions of others who rate hardcore highly?

Here's a chart I made, with the make your own chart feature.  Instead of just having albums or singles or eps on the chart, I chose the "everything" options.  I decided to limit it to the 1980s for comparison with my own 80s list.  I selected the genre "hardcore punk".  We just called it hardcore in the 80s, but I guess other people have called other subgenres hardcore this or hardcore that, so I'm forced to use the term "hardcore punk" even though that term was never ever in use in my recollection.  It sounds dorky.  I also selected on ratings by users from the United States.

Here's the top 10 as of October 21st, 2012

1. Misfits - Misfits
2. Minor Threat - Complete Discography
3. Minor Threat - Minor Threat (1984 compilation with 12 songs)
4. Dead Kennedys - Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables
5. Black Flag - The First Four Years
6. Minor Threat - Minor Threat (1981 ep with 8 songs)
7. Dead Kennedys - Holiday in Cambodia/Police Truck
8. Husker Du - Zen Arcade
9. Descendants - Two Things at Once
10. Misfits - Legacy of Brutality

It was really interesting to see that 4 of the top 5 releases and 6 of the top 10 are compilations.  I think that reflects the uneven nature of hardcore releases and also the difficulty in obtaining some of the rarer singles, such that "best of" collections are necessary if you want all the best songs.

Apparently I left the Misfits off of my 1980s list.  It's possible I got confused about what was really released in the late 70s versus the early 80s and inadvertently left them off of both lists, or its possible that I just forgot about them because I wasn't really into them during the 1980s.  It was an oversight.  It happens.

Minor Threat's Salad Days comes in at #3 on my 80s list and Minor Threat's Minor Threat comes in at #43, coming in outside of the top 40 only because of my one-song-per-band-inside-the-top-40 rule.  The DK's Holiday in Cambodia is at #25 on my list, and Husker Du's Zen Arcade include my #1 song of the 1980s, Turn on the News.

Black Flag's "TV Party" made my top 100, but not my top 40.  The Descendants, like the Misfits, got left off of my list.  I can see now that the problem is that I've never gotten around to copying Two Things at Once into my iTunes library, which is the starting point of all my lists.  I'll fix that today.
My list had the Bad Brains "I Against I" at #5.  Although the Bad Brains, in general, do well on the Rate Your Music list, coming in at #11 with their 1982 release and #28 with their 1983 release, their 1985 release on which "I Against I" is the title track is all the way down at #92.

The Minutemen are lower than I think they ought to be at Rate Your Music, and I'm disappointed the Rat Music for Rat People compilation (including my #19 song "Cheap Tragedies" by the Avengers) doesn't show up.  I was pleased, on the other hand, to see the Repo Man soundtrack at #25 at Rate Your Music.

Government Issue had 3 songs on my top 500, but none in the top 100, so maybe it's fitting that they don't show up until #255 on the Rate Your Music list.  I'm guessing the rankings down that low are more volatile than the rankings at the top, so don't be surprised if it's no longer at #255 if you look for it yourself.

What's that?  You aren't going to look yourself?  OK - fine, but you should still make your own chart.  It's fun, and it's easy.