Some Music Top Ten Lists

KISW 99.9, A local Seattle station, today played a list of the top ten Pearl Jam songs, and this being Seattle, the place where grunge did not die it just shrunk its pant size, this can't be too surprising. Is Pearl Jam in town soon? One has to assume. In any case, it got me to thinking about the process of deciding an artist's ten best works - a fun, mostly irrelevant game of music-lover opinion-making.

Every now and again, Rolling Stone or Entertainment Weekly will come out with a "definitive" list of, say, the Greatest Songs in Rock and Roll or the Greatest Sci-Fi works, and all they spotlight is just how desperate each magazine is to show their understanding of current trends. A few years go by, and each magazine presents a new "definitive" list of those things, and those of us more instinctually tuned to those trends notices the way the more contemporary choices seem to have vanished.

It leads me to conclude that top ten lists are only accurate when they are the most honest, and when they are the most honest they cannot take into account cultural impact - that the work had cultural impact is possibly important, but that impact is temporary and forgettable. The only true top ten list is one that reflects honest opinions of how "moving" the work is, but that would only be true insomuchas it displays that creator's opinion. KISW 99.9 and I agree that "Even Flow" is the best Pearl Jam song, but it seems the most useless of views - of course "Jeremy" is the essential Pearl Jam song, but that is the most useless of the most useless of views considering how much the days in which "Jeremy" was a relevant song seem such a historical product existing in days which are faraway, invisible. KISW might have been trying to break this view of Pearl Jam by putting "Even Flow" at #1, but it hardly changed the view - 4 of the 5 top songs were from Ten, their quintessential grunge record.

In any case, I enjoy this type of opinion making, so I'm including my top Pearl Jam choices, and then a few more artists who I think about often. After Pearl Jam, the ranks proved to be less and less useful, and I just started to list songs chronologically (it's easier for me to think of them that way), and anyway, narrowing these artists to ten is an impossible game anyway, one in which my answers could change with the weather - some are so challenging, it's fun: seriously, what ten Bob Dylan songs could you narrow yourself to? In each case, I like to think the ten songs I chose represent the capabilities of that artist, that they highlight the reasons each is so relevant and powerful - why, in short, they become artists you love, not merely artists you listen to.

Ten Best Pearl Jam Songs:
1. "Even Flow" (Ten)
2. "Red Mosquito" (No Code)
3. "Animal" (Vs.)
4. "Jeremy" (Ten)
5. "I Am Mine" (Riot Act)
6. "Wishlist" (Yield)
7. "Elderly Woman Behind A Counter In a Small Town" (Vs.)
8. "Yellow Ledbetter" (B-side)
9. "Hail, Hail" (No Code)
10. "Whipping" (Vitalogy)

Ten Best Joni Mitchell Songs (Chronological)
"Cactus Tree" (Song To a Seagull)
"Both Sides, Now" (Clouds)
"River" (Blue)
"A Case Of You" (Blue)
"For The Roses" (For The Roses)
"Judgment Of The Moon and Stars" (For The Roses)
"Help Me" (Court and Spark)
"Free Man In Paris" (Court and Spark)
"The Hissing of Summer Lawns" (The Hissing of Summer Lawns)
"Refuge of the Roads" (Hejira)

Ten Best Sonic Youth Songs
"Kill Yr Idols" (Confusion is Sex/ Kill Yr Idols)
"Death Valley, '69" (Bad Moon Rising)
"Expressway to Yr Skull" (EVOL)
"Cotton Crown" (Sister)
"The Sprawl" (Daydream Nation)
"Kool Thing" (Goo)
"Bone" (Experimental Jet Set, Trash, and No Star)
"Skip Tracer" (Washing Machine)
"The Diamond Sea" (Washing Machine)
"Unmade Bed" (Sonic Nurse)

Ten Best Bob Dylan Songs
"It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" (Bringing It All Back Home)
"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" (Bringing It All Back Home)
"Like a Rolling Stone" (Highway '61 Revisited)
"Sad-eyed Lady of the Lowlands" (Blonde on Blonde)
"I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine" (John Wesley Harding)
"New Morning" (New Morning)
"Tangled Up In Blue" (Blood On The Tracks)
"If You See Her, Say Hello" (Blood On The Tracks)
"Isis" (Desire)
"Shooting Star" (Oh Mercy)

Ten Best Rolling Stones Songs
"Honky Tonk Women"
"Loving Cup" (Exile On Main St.)
"Tumbling Dice" (Exile On Main St.)
"Gimme Shelter" (Let It Bleed)
"You Got The Silver" (Let It Bleed)
"Sympathy For The Devil" (Beggar's Banquet)
"Moonlight Mile" (Sticky Fingers)
"Beast of Burden" (Some Girls)
"Emotional Rescue" (Emotional Rescue)
"Slave" (Tattoo You)

Ten Best PJ Harvey Songs
"Dress" (Dry)
"Rid of Me" (Rid of Me)
"Dry" (Rid of Me)
"50 ft. Queenie" (Rid of Me)
"To Bring You My Love" (To Bring You My Love)
"Send His Love to Me" (To Bring You My Love)
"Heela" (Dance Hall at Louse Point)
"Angelene" (Is This Desire?)
"We Float" (Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea)
"Uh Huh Her" (B-Side)

Ten Best Bruce Springsteen Songs
"Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)" (The Wild, The Innocent, & The E-Street Shuffle)
"Thunder Road" (Born To Run)
"Born To Run" (Born To Run)
"Badlands" (Darkness on the Edge of Town)
"Drive All Night" (The River)
"Atlantic City" (Nebraska)
"Reason to Believe" (Nebraska)
"Dancing In The Dark" (Born In The USA)
"Tunnel of Love" (Tunnel of Love)
"All The Way Home" (Devils & Dust)

Ten Best Madonna Songs
"Burning Up" (Madonna)
"La Isla Bonita" (True Blue)
"Like A Prayer" (Like a Prayer)
"Express Yourself" (Like a Prayer)
"Pray For Spanish Eyes" (Like a Prayer)
"Waiting" (Erotica)
"Ray of Light" (Ray of Light)
"Music" (Music)
"Don't Tell Me" (Music)
"How High" (Confessions On a Dance Floor)

Arguments? Your own lists?

My first letter to a senator!

Ethan Kutinsky

725 N. 43^rd St.

Seattle, WA 98103

ekutinsky@gmail.com

Dear Senator Cantwell:

On a recent episode of Real Time With Bill Maher, GOP Strategist Amy Holmes asked of Harry Reid that, at the point in which he’s voted for the war in Iraq, voted to confirm General Petraeus, and continues to find the war “lost,” then why hasn’t he asked “his friends in Congress” to start moving towards impeachment? I believe Holmes was onto something, and that question speaks to the flaws at the center of the Democratic party – at what point during this party’s and this country’s deep, unwavering dissatisfaction with President Bush and the Republican leadership in America, do we stop complaining and start to take actions to check and rebuke that leadership? In other words, when do we begin to show as Liberals in America that we too care as much about action as we do about criticism?

I moved to Seattle in August of last year, so in the midterm elections, I voted absentee from Colorado – it was important to me at the time to vote for a Democratic governor there as well as on the amendments covering social issues and educational packages. I worked in mental health in Boulder, Colorado prior to moving to Seattle and work within the foster system here in residential behavioral counseling with at-risk teenagers. I bring my background up for a couple of reasons: first, I am new to your electoral base and I vote. Secondly, I mention my background because in work with children, it is assumed that if there is not adequate supervision and disciplinary action taken immediately with employees who are simply not doing their job, unacceptable behaviors go unchecked and have the chance to become the norm in daily operations, and this puts the kids that we represent at risk. Strong leadership requires that the best interest of our clients remain our highest responsibility.

I do not believe Democrats in Congress share a similar philosophy towards their clients, the electorate in their districts – Holmes is correct to point out that Democrats are willing to make symbolic gestures rather than necessary action. This does not need to be the case. As Americans, and as our leadership in Washington, there is a responsibility when our voices are not being heard to move towards real, undismissable actions.

In this case, that action is impeachment. Currently, 71% of Americans are dissatisfied with President Bush’s leadership. This past week, President Bush once again showed disregard for Congressional reproaches by vetoing the war funding bill that included a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. Americans continue to express their concern that there is no plan for salvaging American involvement and protecting troops and Iraqi civilians under this administration, and why shouldn’t we? There is no plan, and this President is not interested in the criticism necessary to hear in order to formulate any sort of strategy.

The information I have is incomplete as it is not my job to keep a check on President Bush, but you do have access to that information because that is part of your job. As a reasonably informed citizen, I know about things like the Walter Reid scandal, the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, the illegal NSA wire taps, the humiliation of the justice department, and the unyielding escalation of violence in Iraq – and these are simply the scandals of the past year. How many of these presidential scandals does it require before Congress confirms what America sees fairly plainly – this president is in violation of the law and needs to be removed from office. It is disconcerting that a president as disastrously inept as this one will be listed in history as a successful two-term president for whom no congressional disapproval beyond nonbinding resolutions was ever logged. As a nation, our check on our dissatisfaction is exactly this – to pressure our elected representatives to log their own discontent in the form of impeachment. As our elected representation, it is your obligation to take forth legislation, disregarding how unpopular it has the potential of being, and help to begin the process to impeach President Bush with cause and remove him from office. These are the times in which your obligations are most important, and definitive, clear action is essential.

Sincerely,

Ethan Kutinsky