On the Cover of the Rolling Stone

As they have done in the past, the editors of Rolling Stone Magazine have come out with another "Special Collectors Edition", this one featuring the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time." Regular readers will remember that Rolling Stone did one of these issues earlier in the year on the 100 Greatest Beatles's Songs, and that I wrote about it in my post of January 6 (see http://grandstander.blogspot.com/2011/01/beatles-greatest-songs.html). Readers also know that I love this kind of stuff because they are so subjective, because they create arguments, and, most importantly, can cause you to pull out the iPod, CD's, cassettes, and vinyl LP's to listen to some great music that you may not have listened to for awhile.

This newest magazine is based on a poll that Rolling Stone did in 2004 (fifty years after Elvis' first recordings at Sun Studios) and that they recently updated. The articles on each artist are written by other artists (Bono on Elvis Presley, Paul Simon on the Everly Brothers, for example), and the illustrations are not photos, but really neat paintings of the artists (except for the one of Bruce Springsteen, which doesn't look at all like The Boss).

Anyway, here is Rolling Stone's Top Ten, and note that these are presented as the Greatest Artists of the Rock & Roll Era, not the Greatest Rock & Roll Artists. This is not an insignificant distinction, I believe. Here we go...

1. The Beatles


2. Bob Dylan


3. Elvis Presley


4. The Rolling Stones


5. Chuck Berry


6. Jimi Hendrix


7. James Brown


8. Little Richard


9. Aretha Franklin


10. Ray Charles

Okay, hard to argue with any of those, right? I might put Elvis at #1 because he was the first mainstream rock & roller, but how can you argue that anyone should be ahead of The Beatles? Heck, if you consider who influenced whom, you could probably make a case for Chuck Berry being #1, but, still, a pretty good list.

Where it gets fun is when you start going down the list and seeing other names and start to think "how can this guy/lady/group NOT be in the Top Ten, or at least rated higher on the list?" For example:

• The Beach Boys #12


• Buddy Holly #13


• Bo Diddley #20


• U2 #22


• Bruce Springsteen #23


• Johnny Cash #31


• Smokey Robinson #32


• The Everly Brothers #33


• Michael Jackson #35


• Simon & Garfunkel #40


• The Grateful Dead #57


• Creedence Clearwater Revival #82


• Diana Ross and the Supremes #96

Shouldn't some of these people be higher on the list? Why is John Lennon (#38) recognized as solo artist, and not Paul McCartney? And are you serious that there are 95 artisits greater than The Supremes? There are artists on there about whom I could not care less (rappers, heavy metal etc.), but that is a matter of taste, of course. Also, I am sure that if I put my mind to it, I could probably come up with who are not even in the Top 100 who should be (Ricky Nelson).

Fun stuff and I am sure that you would enjoy the magazine if you picked it up and paged through it.

Oh, and as to the title of this blog post, one of Rock & Roll's ultimate ironies is the fact that Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show never appeared On the Cover of the Rolling Stone.