Yes, I enjoy light film too, and never took the darker ones too serious... with the exception of "Walk and see," the one with the stork, they all are humorous... in their own way. As I wrote I think that such lists are terrible and I never did intend to make a hierarchy out of it (I hate lists as this one).
One the one hand, these lists are a lot of fun, but you're correct -- they're pretty much meaningless. The Rolling Stone list continually gets sillier because they update it -- their first Top 100 list from 2007 looked like this:
1Jimi Hendrix
2 Duane Allman
3 B.B. King
4 Eric Clapton
5 Robert Johnson
6 Chuck Berry
7 Stevie Ray Vaughan
8 Ry Cooder
9 Jimmy Page
10 Keith Richards
For blues/rock guitarists at least the first nine arefairly solid picks.
Ranking musicians is a hopelessly flawed endeavor. It's about as meaningful as having a list of the top ten best tasting foods. Taste is highly individualized, influenced by mood, familiarity, and the way in which multiple variables interact. One person's escargot is someone else's slice of Chicago style pizza. I just took a break and searched the web for the top ten best tasting foods, and of course CNN has tackled this difficult issue. Potato chips, Peking Duck, and buttered popcorn made their list, but sadly my grandmother's blackberry cobbler and cornbread baked in an iron skillet didn't. That's the nature of such lists, they're fun but certainly not definitive. My list below should been seen in that light.
To narrow it down, any guitarist who reached the age of fifty was excluded from consideration. That eliminated two of my personal favorites, Ronny Jordan and Hiram Bullock, who otherwise would have been on my list. Even with that I still couldn't find room for Robert Johnson, or Mike Bloomfield, another one of my all time favorite guitarists. The list is not intended as a ranking, my selections are simply arranged according to the age each guitarist reached.
But I must admit, people seem to enjoy lists, this one got over 86,000 views -- lot different than my posts here ;-)
Peking Duck, and buttered popcorn! That is funny - of course taste is also just as unifying as it is is separating us. So the lists have that function.
I think my animosity against such lists is because I don't share the hierarchical way of viewing our existence - the same reason, I believe, others like these lists so much: They bring order - but not truth.
There is also the fact that none of us know. I could look at Sophia Loren or Beatrice Dalle or Audrey Hepburn or Marilyn Monroe all day, but the most beautiful girl is probably in a baker shop in Belarus or is a hair dresser in Lagos. The best blues is played on a porch somewhere.
So as a general pointer to how a certain persons taste is composed, I think they can be fine. When some authority like Rolling Stones or the Danish State does it I am much less enthusiastic :)
Yes, I enjoy light film too, and never took the darker ones too serious... with the exception of "Walk and see," the one with the stork, they all are humorous... in their own way. As I wrote I think that such lists are terrible and I never did intend to make a hierarchy out of it (I hate lists as this one).
One the one hand, these lists are a lot of fun, but you're correct -- they're pretty much meaningless. The Rolling Stone list continually gets sillier because they update it -- their first Top 100 list from 2007 looked like this:
1Jimi Hendrix
2 Duane Allman
3 B.B. King
4 Eric Clapton
5 Robert Johnson
6 Chuck Berry
7 Stevie Ray Vaughan
8 Ry Cooder
9 Jimmy Page
10 Keith Richards
For blues/rock guitarists at least the first nine arefairly solid picks.
But yeah, its silly. I've done a few lists on AAJ, one was "Top 10 Guitarist We Lost Too Soon" which I prefaced this way:
But I must admit, people seem to enjoy lists, this one got over 86,000 views -- lot different than my posts here ;-)
Peking Duck, and buttered popcorn! That is funny - of course taste is also just as unifying as it is is separating us. So the lists have that function.
I think my animosity against such lists is because I don't share the hierarchical way of viewing our existence - the same reason, I believe, others like these lists so much: They bring order - but not truth.
There is also the fact that none of us know. I could look at Sophia Loren or Beatrice Dalle or Audrey Hepburn or Marilyn Monroe all day, but the most beautiful girl is probably in a baker shop in Belarus or is a hair dresser in Lagos. The best blues is played on a porch somewhere.
So as a general pointer to how a certain persons taste is composed, I think they can be fine. When some authority like Rolling Stones or the Danish State does it I am much less enthusiastic :)
Genau richtig :-)