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Why I Hate Lists, 9/5/03

 

WHY I HATE LISTS!

I just had to bitch about this and since I have a website where I’m supposed to bitch, then I feel it’s my duty to do so.

I hate lists. You know, those fucking things music magazines do because they want to tell you what you should own or what you should like. Like “50 CDs You Must Have,” “50 Greatest Bands Ever,” or like Blender recently did, “100 Worst Bands Of All Time.” It’s all subjective bullshit that is generally done by people who have no clue what’s popular or what’s cool. It’s done by geeky critics who listen to Radiohead, REM, and U2 and wouldn’t know a good song if it fucked them in the ass. Can you tell that I’m a little bitter today?

Well Rolling Stone just put out “100 Greatest Guitarists Of All Time.” Jimi Hendrix is #1, so that’s fine with me. I can see why somebody would put him at #1. However, it’s the rest of the list that makes me wonder if this is all some sort of Ashton Kutcher “Punk’d” joke. Here’s the list:

1 Jimi Hendrix
2 Duane Allman of the Allman Brothers Band
3 B.B. King
4 Eric Clapton
5 Robert Johnson
6 Chuck Berry
7 Stevie Ray Vaughan
8 Ry Cooder
9 Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin
10 Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones
11Kirk Hammett of Metallica
12 Kurt Cobain of Nirvana
13 Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead
14 Jeff Beck
15 Carlos Santana
16 Johnny Ramone of the Ramones
17 Jack White of the White Stripes
18 John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers
19 Richard Thompson
20 James Burton
21 George Harrison
22 Mike Bloomfield
23 Warren Haynes
24 The Edge of U2
25 Freddy King
26 Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave
27 Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits
28 Stephen Stills
29 Ron Asheton of the Stooges
30 Buddy Guy
31 Dick Dale
32 John Cipollina of Quicksilver Messenger Service
33 & 34 Lee Ranaldo, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth
35 John Fahey
36 Steve Cropper of Booker T. and the MG’s
37 Bo Diddley
38 Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac
39 Brian May of Queen
40 John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival
41 Clarence White of the Byrds
42 Robert Fripp of King Crimson
43 Eddie Hazel of Funkadelic
44 Scotty Moore
45 Frank Zappa
46 Les Paul
47 T-Bone Walker
48 Joe Perry of Aerosmith
49 John McLaughlin
50 Pete Townshend
51 Paul Kossoff of Free
52 Lou Reed
53 Mickey Baker
54 Jorma Kaukonen of Jefferson Airplane
55 Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple
56 Tom Verlaine of Television
57 Roy Buchanan
58 Dickey Betts
59 & 60 Jonny Greenwood, Ed O’Brien of Radiohead
61 Ike Turner
62 Zoot Horn Rollo of the Magic Band
63 Danny Gatton
64 Mick Ronson
65 Hubert Sumlin
66 Vernon Reid of Living Colour
67 Link Wray
68 Jerry Miller of Moby Grape
69 Steve Howe of Yes
70 Eddie Van Halen
71 Lightnin’ Hopkins
72 Joni Mitchell
73 Trey Anastasio of Phish
74 Johnny Winter
75 Adam Jones of Tool
76 Ali Farka Toure
77 Henry Vestine of Canned Heat
78 Robbie Robertson of the Band
79 Cliff Gallup of the Blue Caps (1997)
80 Robert Quine of the Voidoids
81 Derek Trucks
82 David Gilmour of Pink Floyd
83 Neil Young
84 Eddie Cochran
85 Randy Rhoads
86 Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath
87 Joan Jett
88 Dave Davies of the Kinks
89 D. Boon of the Minutemen
90 Glen Buxton of Alice Cooper
91 Robby Krieger of the Doors
92 & 93 Fred “Sonic” Smith, Wayne Kramer of the MC5
94 Bert Jansch
95 Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine
96 Angus Young of AC/DC
97 Robert Randolph
98 Leigh Stephens of Blue Cheer
99 Greg Ginn of Black Flag
100 Kim Thayil of Soundgarden

This list might as well be in Chinese because I just don’t understand it!

Can somebody, anybody, explain to me why Eddie Van Halen is #70 when Jack White is #17, Jerry Garcia is #13, Kurt Cobain is #12, and Kirk Hammett is #11?

How many kids have sat in their bedroom playing guitar and said, “One day I want to play like Jerry Garcia.”

NONE!!! It’s never fucking happened in the history of the world!!!

When was the last time you saw Jerry Garcia on the cover of Guitar World, Guitar, or any other guitar magazine? And he’s number 13 of ALL TIME? When you see guitar players talk about their influences, how many say Jerry Fucking Garcia? Not any that I’ve ever known!! Nobody picks up a guitar to play like Jerry Garcia!! They play guitar to be like Eddie, or play Black Sabbath or Kiss riffs, or shit like that. Nobody’s sitting around learning Grateful Dead songs! I think somebody was doing more drugs that Jerry ever did if they think that’s the case.

And who got the blowjob that made Jack White of the White Stripes #17. Yeah, he plays guitar, but #17 of ALL TIME?? Fuck, isn’t it a little early in his career to already be #17? If Rolling Stone wanted to be funny, why not just include Kristy “Krash” Majors from Pretty Boy Floyd? That would make just as much sense.

Kirk Hammett is #11, yet Slash is nowhere on the list to be found? And James Hetfield comes up with most of Metallica’s riffs anyway. And Kirk is #11 and Tony Iommi is #86. Makes sense…….if you’re a fucking idiot.

Now about Kurt Cobain, sure, he wrote some good songs, yak yak yak, and “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is one of the biggest songs of ever, blah blah blah, but half the time he wasn’t even in tune, he’s not exactly a virtuoso, and he certainly shouldn’t be above Eddie Van Halen or even Tony Iommi. When people think about great guitar players, Kurt doesn’t pop into mind. Maybe as a songwriter, but not as a guitar player.

How did Joan Jett get ranked above Agnus Young? She’s on the list at #87 and Agnus is 96. He barely made the list. I’m beginning to wonder if Rolling Stone even listens to music? Who knew Joan was better than Steve Vai, Neil Schon, Tom Schultz, Ted Nugent, Peter Frampton or even Slash and Zakk Wylde, all of whom aren’t even on the list. And I’d say Lita Ford can play better guitar than Joan anyway!

Blender’s Top 100 Worst Bands was also pretty gay, just because they don’t pay attention to things they already wrote, and they also didn’t include Bang Gang or Wild Boyz anywhere on that list, so how accurate can it be? For example, Insane Clown Posse was the #1 Worst Band, and they said their worst record was “The Wraith.” However, when “The Wraith” came out, Blender gave it 3 stars out of 5, which is “good for it’s genre.” So if ICP is the worst band, and “The Wraith” is their worst CD, then why did it get 3 out of 5 stars? If that’s a 3, what’s the rest of their catalog? I’m not defending ICP, I’m just saying if you’re gonna do something like that, pay attention to what the fuck you are doing. You can’t say something is horrible if you gave it good marks in the past. It just goes to show that all these lists are done with an agenda in mind. They’re bullshit.

Perhaps Rolling Stone doesn’t like Eddie Van Halen, or he blew them off at one time, whatever, so BANG, he’s #70. Critics love Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Ramones, and the White Stripes, so they’re automatically in the Top 20. You’re SUPPOSED to like and respect them because of their musical integrity, so that’s why they’re there. Jerry Garcia is dead, literally, and had a cult of drugged-up hippies following him around, so because he’s dead, he needs to be remembered as a great guitarist, right, so he’s #13. And it’s hip to like Sonic Youth, so we’ll put them way above Joe Perry and Les Paul, who basically started the whole thing.

It’s bullshit, I tell ya! If you’re gonna have a list, at least be in the ballpark. Maybe you think Eddie Van Halen should be #5 and your friend thinks he should be #10, and that’s fine. But at least have him towards the top! At least be somewhat human with your thought process and understand what the fuck you’re rating! This just goes to show you how out of touch Rolling Stone, and most of the music media is. They have no clue.

On that note, Metal Sludge has decided to do our own stupid list, and we’ll be the first to tell you that’s it’s stupid and subjective and you shouldn’t give two shits about it, but we’re doing it anyway. We’re doing Metal Sludge’s “50 Worst Rock CDs OF ALL TIME!!!” We need to throw in “OF ALL TIME” because that’s how you’re supposed to do it. But we’re gonna try to make this as good as we can. We’re not even gonna include Warrant, or L.A. Guns, or Slaughter, or bands we generally diss. We want to really come up with shitty CDs, and there are shittier bands thatn Warrant, L.A. Guns and Slaughter, so they won’t be in our Top 50. It would be easy to put them there, but we’re actually trying to be fair, believe it or not. We came up with 60 some CDs and now we’re at the point, “how the hell do you rank these?” We haven’t figured that out yet, but we will, and it’ll be a lot more realistic than anything Rolling Stone or Blender can do.

I’m out like Steve Vai on the Top 100 Guitarists,

OZZY STILLBOURNE

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