I've started a little series, My Top 100 Music Artists. Take a look: http://placetobenation.com/parvs-top...on-and-100-76/

Wow, that's one hell of a blog...you weren't kidding! Very well done, even if I don't share most of your taste in music...but I will be checking out some of the older acts you mention that I have not heard of. And I'm looking forward to the next batch.

Dom just likes it because there's no Michael Jackson.

Oh wow, dude. This is well written and interesting. Read page one so far and I'm loving the angle. Standing on the shoulders of great reviewers to start.

I only wish kudzu was around to read this.

awesome man. I will definitely be following! it's a solid approach + I'm a big fan of Starostin's reviews, so was happy to see that named as an influence. have only been through the omissions page so I'm excited to see why Oasis and Elton weren't able to crack the top 100.

Now that is a lot of music to digest right there. A lot of it fairly obscure tbh. Interesting reading. I've always loved TMBG and woulda put them way higher than 97th-ish though!

finished the first 25 last night. found it captivating, for sure. I had never even heard of almost half the artists, which is great. and the ones I had heard of, I haven't heard much outside of one or two songs. I like the five songs you give - I've been taking them and youtubing a couple for each band. excited that you are curating quite a collection of pre-50s music for which I have almost no knowledge. very convenient starting point for me!

Dang Lord. I must say your WW persona would never lead me to think you could do something like this. It's pretty awesome.

One of George Harrison's best songs imo.

Okay, time for a light evisceration, but in good fun.

Thelonious Monk. Uh... uh. Just no.

The story goes that the first time Horowitz heard Monk, he heard what he thought was a duelling piano outfit in the other room. Yes , Monk was so damn good that the guy who Rachmaninoff said played Rach 3 as it was meant to be played in heaven was fooled.

Of course, Horowitz played Monk at his concerts.

Monk was well-trained, and many of his pieces are well below 17 minutes. Monk spun his classical training on its head by splitting the polyphony into distinct parts, which is in sharp contrast to how polyphony is normally sewn into a singular piece. Monk smoothly moved between atonality and normalcy in his pieces, some to delicious effect.

Monk influenced ALL genres of music, from Jazz to classical, to rap to rock.

On the same page, you call Oasis a classic. These guys were way too much into being Beatles #2 (well, they probably saw themselves as Beatles #1, but that's a different show). What training did they have? The lead singer never once sang in key with his band and never sang in the correct tempo. If I had to venture a guess, this is because they simply weren't able to play correctly due to no training, not because they were taking their training and playing incorrectly. I find it odd that you celebrate such wrenched and misplaced dissonance from Oasis yet take Monk to task for doing dissonance while he had the training and ear to playfully mess things up.

I hate Oasis, lol.

Mentioning Billy Joel in the same sentence as Bruce Springsteen is blasphemous, let alone rating Joel higher, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt as I had never listened to The Lilac Time and really enjoyed the songs I checked out so far.

Regarding Oasis, I hated the 90s, still do actually and particularly disliked Britpop. But nowadays nearly every time an Oasis song comes on I catch myself thinking "that is one finely crafted song and melody." They were a fine band, in retrospect.

Interesting list. Always good to see the kind of **** other people are into. Good taste. Thanks for this.

I read this statement and was confused. I had a radio show in Boston from early 1992-late 1993 that was playing the indie music coming out of the UK. In no way, shape, or form had I heard the term Britpop being used at that time. I referred to my show as "UK Indie Rock". So, I decided to check the wikipedia page for Britpop, and it was pretty lol. I don't think whoever wrote those retrospectives was into that scene at all.

They claimed that Blur and Suede were rivals, which is the most lol thing I have ever heard. Blur didn't have a rival until Oasis started getting noticed (Blur was probably my favorite band during the period of my radio show). Suede and Verve were the two rivals in that scene, and I vastly preferred Verve to Suede, which I felt sounded like fingernails on a chalk board.

Then it mentioned that Blur's Popscene was the "ushering" in of that "style". I don't know what they were referring to, because Popscene was considered a disaster, for some reason, and it never had impact in that scene (even though it was my favorite song of 1992). Interesting how history can paint an era with a broad brush pretty inaccurately to the people who were really a part of or into a scene.

Bands from Britpop on the Britpop wikipedia page I played on my show:

Blur
The Boo Radleys
Dodgy
Oasis (didn't like them during the time of my show)
Ocean Colour Scene
Suede

A semi-interesting aside is I mixed the music video for Oasis's Wonderwall, and got along really well with the director of it. It made for quite an awkward moment when he was going really hard at bashing Blur (many months into our relationship). I guess he read my body language, because he asked if I actually liked Blur and I had to admit I did...lol.

I definitely heard the term Britpop used back in the 90s. The marketing shtick was also 'Second British Invasion," which was pretty much epitomized and destroyed by the Spice Girls, but hey, at least they could sing in a known key and if they didn't come along, our ears may have had to suffer The Darkness.

I'm not saying the term didn't exist in the 90s, it just didn't when I was doing my radio show. It appears to have been coined around 1995, maybe 1994.

Certainly looking forward to actually digging in to this later. But I have to ask 2 questions:

1. Why no metal? Just not into it?
2. Where, if at all, does Zappa fall?

Well, they didn't say grunge or Seattle Sound in the 80s....

When are you releasing the rest of the list ?

Really nice reading. Been listening to Madness after your recommendation.

Here is Part 2: http://placetobenation.com/parvs-top...-part-2-75-51/

Love the inclusion of Cole Porter. If you haven't already, check out the late Susannah McCorkle performing his stuff. Her version of "Anything Goes" is my favorite.

Forgot to say: thanks for all the comments.

I really can't get into metal at all. Always seems just silly to me and I can't take it seriously. I say that understanding that others say the same sort of thing about rap. I have nothing useful or constructive to say about metal.

You'll have to wait for the top 50 to see if Zappa ranks.

Thanks, reading through this, looks great.

The sole thing I do with music lists is I look to find new artists, so I'm really encouraged to hear you suggest that.

I thought the movie "DeLovely" with Kevin Kline was terrific. It's one of those movies I can't help but stop on if I am clicking channels. Porter really was genius.