Silly List Slogs: My 100 Favorite Musical Acts Of The Pop-Rock Era (In Terms Of Quantity)

Anthony Cougar Miccio -

This might be the silliest list slog yet. My 100 "favorite" musical acts that started making albums after 1960, based on how many tracks of theirs I find worth keeping around, whether on physical media or in streaming playlists. Predictably, this metric benefits prolific white male guitar rockers I've been paying attention to since my adolescence. So it's worth reaffirming I'm not saying Mark E. Smith is better than Aretha Franklin, or more worth your time. I'm just saying that, as we reach the end of 2022, I've kept around more Mark E. Smith songs than Aretha Franklin songs. This isn't surprising, considering I owned every Fall album through The Unutterable in college, and I haven't really checked out Franklin's last forty years of work.

So as I said, this is silly. But while I'm exploiting the countdown format for a little cheap eye-grabbing, I'm also saying these 100 acts are worth your time - or at least were VERY worth your time for a period long enough to merit a decent box set (for instance, The Kinks' Anthology 1964-1971 or Guided By Voices' Hardcore UFOs). If there's someone you think is criminally absent (and not in a "every band to release an album on Capricorn in the '70s is worth your time more than frikkin' Eagles Of Death Metal by default" way), please let me know, either through your social media outlet of choice or with a line to anthonyisright at gmail.com. At worst, I'll tell you they're at 132.

Oh, and I'm saying tracks instead of songs, because I didn't exclude multiple versions kept of a real humdinger. I think this mostly boosted the Velvet Underground. Check them out already, if you haven't. Stop being so stubborn! They're neat!

The Mountain Goats: decades of prolific output are finally paying off!! Suck it, Dylan!!
  1. Neil Young
  2. The Mountain Goats
  3. Bob Dylan
  4. Electric Six
  5. Guided By Voices
  6. The Beatles
  7. The Fall
  8. The Kinks
  9. Low
  10. Yo La Tengo
  11. The Rolling Stones
  12. R.E.M.
  13. John Prine
  14. Rocket From The Crypt
  15. Superchunk
  16. Loudon Wainwright III
  17. The Ramones
  18. Sonic Youth
  19. Spoon
  20. Randy Newman
  21. Sloan
  22. Husker Du
  23. Luna
  24. The Cure
  25. Drive-By Truckers
  26. Pavement
  27. The Flaming Lips
  28. Harry Nilsson
  29. Al Green
  30. Prince
Even Stevie Wonder can see how silly this list is. 

31. Stevie Wonder  32. Amy Rigby  33. Magnetic Fields  34. Beastie Boys  35. Half Japanese. 36. The Mekons   37. AC/DC   38. The Velvet Underground  39. Wire  40. Beck  41. The Minutemen  42. A Tribe Called Quest  43. Fugazi  44. The White Stripes  45. East River Pipe  46. Devin The Dude  47. Fleetwood Mac  48. The Replacements  49. Ghostface Killah  50. Mudhoney  51. Wilco  52. !!!  53. The Pixies  54. Missy Elliott  55. Hot Chip  56. Rufus Wainwright  57. Aretha Franklin  58. Teenage Fanclub  59. Radiohead  60. Sleater-Kinney  61. Van Morrison  62. Los Lobos  63. David Bowie  64. Les Savy Fav  65. Bill Withers  66. Jon Spencer Blues Explosion  67. The Bats  68. Scrawl  69. Screaming Trees  70. New Order

New Order, somehow included despite all those 8 song albums.

71. Talking Heads  72. Joni Mitchell  73. Nine Inch Nails  74. The Go-Betweens  75. Motorhead  76. Death Cab For Cutie  77. Bonnie Raitt  78. Rod Stewart  79. Lou Reed  80. The Flatlanders  81. Public Enemy  82. Sly & The Family Stone  83. Weezer  84. The Afghan Whigs  85. Steely Dan  86. Queen  87. The Beach Boys  88. Killing Joke  89. Elvis Costello  90. Tom Waits  91. The Feelies  92. Eagles Of Death Metal  93. Archers Of Loaf  94. Queens Of The Stone Age 95.  Clem Snide  96. Camper Van Beethoven  97. Led Zeppelin  98. Lemonheads  99. Aerosmith  100. Mary J. Blige

I do enough crate digging and online "discovering" that I wouldn't be surprised if there's a healthy bit of flux in this foddered canon if I post it again next year. Maybe I will, Milhouse. Maybe I will.