I recently saw a list of. "the ten most popular songs of all time" ! Immediately it struck me as assuming a great deal on the judges' part.
This is not a discussion on the relative merits of the the songs listed, but a discussion of narrow views and poor word choices. This group of critics attempted to list ..."the
top ten songs of
all time.!
Now, that is a very broad statement...and I suspect coming from a very narrow view. Perhaps they should have parenthetically mentioned chronological and geographical time frames (basically, when and where) !
Their conclusions are laughable..
1) Their headline didn't mention sales of music, which is more a modern day situation.
2) They seemingly didn't consider that music is likely, nearly as old as mankind itself, since we have record of at least 7,000 years of it's continued enjoyment.
3) They don't seem to consider the music of the middle ages, when most music was centered around the clerical; Gregorian chants etc.
4) How can they know for instance, just how popular certain forms of music were for instance, from 700 to 200 BCE?
5) it is almost laughable that their list is composed of only songs from the last 30 to 40 years of human history..
Perhaps they should have been slightly less inclusive and said something such as, "the best songs of the last 75 years, or even the last century".
Then too; it would seem that the term "best" is very subjective to various individuals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_Stone%27s_500_Greatest_Songs_of_All_Time