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.
Showing posts with label Vinyl Surrender. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vinyl Surrender. Show all posts
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Top 200 Songs of the 1980s from Vinyl Surrender Voters
When I look at other sites with music lists, particularly best-of-the-decade or best-ever type lists, I mostly look at two things. I'm interested in the amount of overlap with my lists and I'm interested in their approach and the care they put into developing the lists. Recently, I was looking at a site called Vinyl Surrender, especially the Top 200 Songs of the 1980s compared to my list of the Top 500 Songs of the 1980s.
In terms of care and approach, this is a really excellent site. He's even got an FAQ, and the links to other music lists are quite handy. I gather that the top songs of the decades lists incorporate site member voting. That explains why some very, very popular songs are at the top, but it makes the oddities all the more difficult to explain. I'll say a bit more about that shortly.
In terms of the comparison, I think the Vinyl Surrender list is not static due to ongoing voting, so this could change after I post this, but for now here's how his top 10 stacks up against my overall list and visa versa.
At #1, #2, and #3 on the Vinyl Surrender chart, U2's "With or Without You", Guns'n'Roses "Sweet Child of Mine", and Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" did not make my list at all, but other songs by all 3 artists do appear on my list. At #4, inexplicably ranked among other megastar artists, the Stranglers make the Vinyl Surrender list with "Golden Brown". I had it at #239 on my list and I agree it's a great song, but I was startled to see it here so high. He's got Tom Petty and #5, and I apparently don't have any Tom Petty on my 80s list. That feels like a possible oversight on my part, but he is at least on my 70s list.
Rounding out the top 10, Vinyl Surrender (as of July 24, 2011) had The Cure, U2 (again), Michael Jackson, The Cure (again), and Phil Collins 1989 track "Another Day in Paradise". Phil Collins' "Something in the Air" just missed the cut on my top 500 list, but none of the dreck he made in the late 80s got any consideration on my list. Michael Jackson did make my list, but "Billie Jean" lost out due to my one-song-per-album restriction.
The Cure also makes my 80s list, but "Boys Don't Cry" (#6 on the Vinyl Surrender list) is not on my 80s list. It's a great song, so why isn't it on my 80s list? It's #94 on my 70s list! I guess it's an issue of US vs. UK release dates and/or 7-inch versus LP release dates. I had trouble with this issue for a number of tracks on my lists with turn-of-the-decade songs. At #11, we come to the first song on his list that made the top 100 on my 80s list (The Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams", which came it at #81 for me).
So let's see how the matches go when we turn it around the other way. As I noted in my interview, the best punk songs rose to the top of my list in head to head matchups with the best non-punk songs, and punk doesn't fare so well with the voters at Vinyl Surrender. From my top 10, Husker Du, Minor Threat, Bad Brains, and Mission of Burma (#1, 3, 5, and 8) don't have any representation at all on the Vinyl Surrender list. My #2 ("Love Will Tear Us Apart" from Joy Division) is #15 on the Vinyl Surrender list, which I believe gives it the highest combined ranking of any song on the two lists. My #4 (The Jam's "That's Entertainment") comes in at #124 on the other list, although The Jam makes the top 40 of both lists because "A Town Called Malice" is at #31 on the Vinyl Surrender list.
The Violent Femmes are in my top 10 and absent from Vinyl Surrender. R.E.M. and The The, part of my top 10, make the Vinyl Surrender list with different songs, other than those in my top 10. Skeleton Crew, far and away the most idiosyncratic choice in my top 10, is unsurprisingly absent from the Vinyl Surrender list.
I'm looking forward to doing this comparison with the other Vinyl Surrender lists another day. If you love music lists, this site is highly recommended.
In terms of care and approach, this is a really excellent site. He's even got an FAQ, and the links to other music lists are quite handy. I gather that the top songs of the decades lists incorporate site member voting. That explains why some very, very popular songs are at the top, but it makes the oddities all the more difficult to explain. I'll say a bit more about that shortly.
In terms of the comparison, I think the Vinyl Surrender list is not static due to ongoing voting, so this could change after I post this, but for now here's how his top 10 stacks up against my overall list and visa versa.
At #1, #2, and #3 on the Vinyl Surrender chart, U2's "With or Without You", Guns'n'Roses "Sweet Child of Mine", and Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" did not make my list at all, but other songs by all 3 artists do appear on my list. At #4, inexplicably ranked among other megastar artists, the Stranglers make the Vinyl Surrender list with "Golden Brown". I had it at #239 on my list and I agree it's a great song, but I was startled to see it here so high. He's got Tom Petty and #5, and I apparently don't have any Tom Petty on my 80s list. That feels like a possible oversight on my part, but he is at least on my 70s list.
Rounding out the top 10, Vinyl Surrender (as of July 24, 2011) had The Cure, U2 (again), Michael Jackson, The Cure (again), and Phil Collins 1989 track "Another Day in Paradise". Phil Collins' "Something in the Air" just missed the cut on my top 500 list, but none of the dreck he made in the late 80s got any consideration on my list. Michael Jackson did make my list, but "Billie Jean" lost out due to my one-song-per-album restriction.
The Cure also makes my 80s list, but "Boys Don't Cry" (#6 on the Vinyl Surrender list) is not on my 80s list. It's a great song, so why isn't it on my 80s list? It's #94 on my 70s list! I guess it's an issue of US vs. UK release dates and/or 7-inch versus LP release dates. I had trouble with this issue for a number of tracks on my lists with turn-of-the-decade songs. At #11, we come to the first song on his list that made the top 100 on my 80s list (The Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams", which came it at #81 for me).
So let's see how the matches go when we turn it around the other way. As I noted in my interview, the best punk songs rose to the top of my list in head to head matchups with the best non-punk songs, and punk doesn't fare so well with the voters at Vinyl Surrender. From my top 10, Husker Du, Minor Threat, Bad Brains, and Mission of Burma (#1, 3, 5, and 8) don't have any representation at all on the Vinyl Surrender list. My #2 ("Love Will Tear Us Apart" from Joy Division) is #15 on the Vinyl Surrender list, which I believe gives it the highest combined ranking of any song on the two lists. My #4 (The Jam's "That's Entertainment") comes in at #124 on the other list, although The Jam makes the top 40 of both lists because "A Town Called Malice" is at #31 on the Vinyl Surrender list.
The Violent Femmes are in my top 10 and absent from Vinyl Surrender. R.E.M. and The The, part of my top 10, make the Vinyl Surrender list with different songs, other than those in my top 10. Skeleton Crew, far and away the most idiosyncratic choice in my top 10, is unsurprisingly absent from the Vinyl Surrender list.
I'm looking forward to doing this comparison with the other Vinyl Surrender lists another day. If you love music lists, this site is highly recommended.
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