Regarding the Mojo 100...

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Yes, the epics, that is.

I mean, I love prog and epics, and there are lots of epics in that list.

However, I feel like here, they have fallen into the trap they try avoiding, I am speaking of being such an obvious "old man's mag".

What I try to say is that through ignoring the entire dance/techno/electronica genre, which is obviously full of tracks that would have fit perfectly into such a list, they aren't very updated. The list would have been more interested if it had also included a fair share of today's most "progressive" genre

OK, so Primal Scream is in there with a song that may be considered electronica, as are some of electronica's ancestors such as Kraftwerk and Klaus Schultze. But still, where are "The Blue Room", "Inner City Life" and "Out There Somewhere", all brilliant examples of dance gone prog?

There are also other flaws (like, ELP and Yes are in with the wrong tracks, and Pulp's one and only epic was called "This Is Hardcore", not "Common People"), but generally, of course, a list full of truly great music, and a lot of underrated stuff that has taken a lot of undeserved criticism from fans of punk, R&B, hip-hop etc.

But I still miss more electronica in there.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Friday, 2 April 2004 20:19 (twenty-one years ago)

where can we get the list?

― Maxwell von Bismarck (maxwell von bismarck), Friday, 2 April 2004 22:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Here it is:

1. Queen: Bohemian Rhapsody
2. Led Zeppelin: Stairway To Heaven
3. The Rolling Stones: Sympathy For The Devil
4. Pink Floyd: Shine On You Crazy Diamond
5. The Doors: The End
6. Kate Bush: Wuthering Heights
7. The Beatles: A Day In The Life
8. Elvis Presley: An American Trilogy
9. Meat Loaf: Bat Out Of Hell
10.Richard Harris: MacArthur Park
11.Beach Boys: Heroes And Villains
12.Don McLean: American Pie
13.Ike & Tina Turner: River Deep, Mountain High
14.Derek & The Dominoes: Layla
15.Black Sabbath: Black Sabbath
16.David Bowie: Space Oddity
17.U2: Bullet The Blue Sky
18.ELP: Fanfare For The Common Man
19.John Leyton: Johnny Remember Me
20.Kraftwerk: Autobahn
21.Procol Harum: A Whiter Shade Of Pale
22.Mike Oldfield: Tubular Bells
23.King Crimson: In The Court Of The Crimson King
24.Radiohead: Paranoid Android
25.Bruce Springsteen: Jungleland
26.The Shangri-Las: Past, Present And Future
27.The Walker Brothers: The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore
28.Yes: The Gates Of Delirium
29.Jethro Tull: Thick As a Brick
30.Prince: Purple Rain
31.Wings: Live And Let Die
32.Lynyrd Skynyrd: Freebird
33.Manic Street Preachers: A Design For Life
34.The Velvet Underground: Sister Ray
35.Frankie Goes To Hollywood: Welcome To The Pleasuredome
36.Can: Mother Sky
37.Oasis: Champagne Supernova
38.Thin Lizzy: Roisin Dubh (Black Rose) a Rock Legend
39.The Darkness: Christmas Time (Don't Let The Bells End)
40.Joy Division: Decades
41.Rush: Xanadu
42.Genesis: Supper's Ready
43.The Who: Baba O'Reilly
44.Eric Carmen: All By Myself
45.Klaatu: Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft
46.Deep Purple: Child In Time
47.Bauhaus: Bela Lugosi's Dead
48.Freddie Mercury & Montserrat Caballe: Barcelona
49.Alice Cooper: Halo Of Flies
50.Blüe Öyster Cult: Don't Fear The Reaper
51.Guns'n'Roses: November Rain
52.The Verve: Bitter Sweet Symphony
53.Lou Reed. Street Hassle
54.Ultravox: Vienna
55.The Nice: The Cry Of Eugene
56.Pulp: Common People
57.The Electric Prunes: Holy Are You
58.Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds: The Carny
59.Primal Scream: Higher Than The Sun
60.Scott Walker: Such a Small Love
61.Mountain: Nantucket Sleighride (To Owen Coffin)
62.Fairport Convention: Tam Lin
63.Eagles: Journey Of The Sorcerer
64.Gordon Lightfoot: The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald
65.Rainbow: Stargazer
66.Leonard Cohen: Memories
67.The La's The Looking Glass
68.Supertramp: Fool's Overture
69.The Monkees: Randy Scouse Git
70.Sonic Youth: Tunic (Song For Karen)
71.The Stone Roses: Breaking Into Heaven
72.Dory Previn: Mythical Kings And Iguanas
73.Roy Harper: The Lord's Prayer
74.McAlmont & Butler: Yes
75.Grateful Dead: Dark Star
76.Klaus Schultze: Friedrisch Nietzsche
77.David McWilliams: The Days Of Pearly Spencer
78.Julian Cope: Safesurfer
79.Buffalo Springfield: Broken Arrow
80.Iron Butterly: In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida
81.Alex Harvey: Isobel Goudie
82.Flowered Up: Weekender
83.David Gates: Suite: Clouds, Rain
84.Fleetwood Mac: The Chain
85.The Bevis Frond: Tangerine Infringement Beak
86.Spiritualized: Don't Just Do Something
87.ELO: Eldorado Overture
88.Spock's Beard: The Healing Colours Of Sound
89.Iron Maiden: Rime Of The Ancient Mariner
90.Patti Smith: Land
91.Kiss: Odyssey
92.Aphrodite's Child: The Four Horsemen
93.Metallica: One
94.Dexy's Midnight Runners: This Is What She's Like
95.John Miles: Music
96.British Sea Power: Lately
97.Bob Dylan: Hurricane
98.Billy Joel: Scenes From An Italian Restaurant
99.Diamond Head: Am I Evil
100.Damien Rice: Eskimo

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Saturday, 3 April 2004 01:06 (twenty-one years ago)

What exactly is this supposed to be a list of? It makes no apparent sense. Scratch that - it makes no sense, full stop.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Saturday, 3 April 2004 01:11 (twenty-one years ago)

It is supposed to be a list of "epics". Some of them seem to be personal late 50s/early 60s favourites of the Mojo writers that don't quite fit into the category though.

I mean, "Johnny Remember Me" lasts for, what, 2 minutes or something, and isn't the most "epic" thing I can imagine.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Saturday, 3 April 2004 01:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Olivia Newton John's "Xanadu" >>> Rush's "Xanadu"

― Lord Custos Omicron (Lord Custos Omicron), Saturday, 3 April 2004 01:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Well you could say "Johnny Remember Me" is "epic sounding" - at a stretch, tho fuck knows what that actually means. But, hold on, The Monkees' "Randy Scouse Git"? And "Tam Lin" by Fairport Convention? Is that because it's on a compilation or something? I think "Sailor's Life", "Matty Groves" OR "Sloth" are more like it.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Saturday, 3 April 2004 01:20 (twenty-one years ago)

I was about to say, glad to see 'Tam Lin' getting props instead of 'Matty Groves' already....

― de, Saturday, 3 April 2004 01:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Well "Matty Groves" is a bore now, but not then, "Tam Lin" was the bore then.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Saturday, 3 April 2004 01:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Well neither are actually, though i wasn't around *then*

― de, Saturday, 3 April 2004 01:58 (twenty-one years ago)

This list actually looks pretty interesting. The songs are all "epics" for different reasons, as opposed to a list of songs that all embody the same single characteristic. (Though it would be really easy to think of 200 more songs that qualify just as much as epics).

― Maxwell von Bismarck (maxwell von bismarck), Saturday, 3 April 2004 03:14 (twenty-one years ago)

What exactly is this supposed to be a list of? It makes no apparent sense.

It's in mojo magazine, and the writers there love nothing better than to fill several pages of their pub w/another meaningless canonical list. That's about as much sense as I can glean.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Saturday, 3 April 2004 11:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, a lot of people needs to discover the "canonical" favourite music of the Mojo writers, because it is considerably better than the more recent crap they listen to themselves. But those people sadly never read Mojo anyway, so...

Another important point is that Mojo's readers are considerably more conservative musically than their writers. I mean, just look at their readers' letters pages...

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Saturday, 3 April 2004 15:20 (twenty-one years ago)

It's in mojo magazine, and the writers there love nothing better than to fill several pages of their pub w/another meaningless canonical list..

this magazine did an astonishing* "100 greatest songs" a few years ago, and sometime later it started producing generic 100 greatest soungs about [x], and they've done lists of albums too (of all time, '90s). i know people who literally use these types of lists as buyers guides for their re-mastered/ re-re-issue cd collections

what i liked about mojo was all the little features about some bands i'd never heard of (eg they excited me and completely turned me on to peter hammill and van der graff generator), but even those little articles would have subjective biases and these "buyers guide to .." for the "little artists". Jon Savages post-punk singles guide was interesting, published "20 years ago today" style with PiL on cover. It was nice to see Lydon on the cover i suppose, but would have been nicer still to see Hammill. OK my bias.
Still, they must have run all the big rock acts as leads by now, so i resent leaving these other imo interesting acts till later and it was during the mags later recent times when i was wondering what they would do next that the beatles seemed to just keep turning up on the cover.

it's that boiling things down to the same old names all the times thing though -- how many times have cover stories and too much page space about (eg) Oasis or supposedly more about the Beatles put me off other features ? too often, but that's that sales pitch to the core audience i suppose.

it's also a pity that an idea of such'n'such music belonging to such'n'such a generation gets perpetuated, often not the magazines fault, but canonical behaviour featuring the usual suspects can't really be helping some peoples' memories accuracy.

* The editorial bombast and sheer audacity in compiling these lists utilising in large measure in-house editorial consensus is what i find astonishing. That, and that apparently great things often seem to come in measures of 100s.

― george gosset (gegoss), Sunday, 4 April 2004 22:18 (twenty-one years ago)

oh, where are the Hamill/ VdGG song(s) -- i notice it's one from every band, but here was one of the great epics bands, like an interesting if occasionally incoherent foil to led zeppelin -- mojo piqued my interest in the band and then went back to it and hammill, and then hammill got "voted" one of readers' fave unsung heroes etc., so where is such an obvious contender on this list
(cf stuff like "whiter shade of pale" or "tubular bells" which could only be called "epics" at considerable stretch)

― george gosset (gegoss), Sunday, 4 April 2004 22:26 (twenty-one years ago)

Where exactly is "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers"? Top 10 surely?

― Dadaismus (Dada), Sunday, 4 April 2004 23:08 (twenty-one years ago)

george is OTM as usual, but i think elements of what he likes/liked about mojo can still be found in its pages, but perhaps less prominently. for example, the buyers' guides are still there... but at the very back of the mag after the reviews section. they did John Martyn this month or last

there are also still articles on pop/rock's fringes. e..g i liked that they tried a sitar rock feature this month, but it was limited to a double page and inevitably sketchy as a result. came over as rather half hearted

one of mojo's strengths used to be its coverage of new music - remember their "Readers' favourite tracks of the 90s, with reasons" feature? ...done in 1996! (starring Tom E and Marcello IIRC) but it doesn't do anything like that now and the reviews section reflects much safer tastes of late also

cover stars this month are Queen. two reasons for this: one interesting, the other not. the interesting one being the 30th annioversary of the release of Queen II, which mojo makes a pitch for being their most essential record, but then bottles it and retreats to the safe territory of Bohemian Rhapsody and the recent Mandela concert

as for the 100 epics, well the list makes sense if you read the commentary that goes with it. "epic" can mean lengthy, a big production or simply ambitious according to mojo. i enjoyed reading about the songs in the bottom half i wsn't previously aware of. yes, there are some obvious dance omissions - goldie's "mother" would have fitted right in, and what about "dirty epic" (the clues in the title, dudes)? but hey, they've offered the chance for you to write in suggest omissions, so get writing if you feel strongly enough.

― zebedee (zebedee), Monday, 5 April 2004 09:32 (twenty-one years ago)

"The Chain" is epic?

― Barry Bruner (Barry Bruner), Monday, 5 April 2004 11:47 (twenty-one years ago)

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