Songs of the Century

The "Songs of the Century" list is part of an education project by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the National Endowment for the Arts, and Scholastic Inc. that aims to "promote a better understanding of America's musical and cultural heritage" in American schools. Hundreds of voters, who included elected officials, people from the music industry and from the media, teachers, and students, were asked in 2001 by the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) and the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America)[1] to choose the top 365 songs (not necessarily by Americans) of the 20th century with historical significance in mind. RIAA selected the voters, and about 15% (200) of the 1,300 selected voters responded.[2][3][4]

The list

The list of the top 25 songs, in the order of votes received. Each song is followed by the name of the artist who made the most notable recording of the song.[5]

Rank	Title	Artist	Year
1	"Over the Rainbow"	Judy Garland	1939
2	"White Christmas" (Irving Berlin)	Bing Crosby	1942
3	"This Land Is Your Land"	Woody Guthrie	1940
4	"Respect" (Otis Redding)	Aretha Franklin	1967
5	"American Pie"	Don McLean	1972
6	"Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" (Don Raye, Hughie Prince)	The Andrews Sisters	1941
7	West Side Story (album)	Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim	1957
8	"Take Me Out to the Ball Game" (Jack Norworth, Albert Von Tilzer)	Billy Murray	1908
9	"You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" (Phil Spector, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil)	The Righteous Brothers	1964
10	"The Entertainer"	Scott Joplin	1902
11	"In the Mood" (Wingy Manone, Andy Razaf, Joe Garland)	Glenn Miller Orchestra	1940
12	"Rock Around the Clock" (Max C. Freedman, James E. Myers)	Bill Haley & His Comets	1954
13	"She Loves You"	The Beatles	1964
14	"You Are My Sunshine"	Jimmie Davis	1939
15	"Mack the Knife" (Bertholt Brecht)	Bobby Darin	1959
16	"(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"	The Rolling Stones	1965
17	"Take the 'A' Train" (Joya Sherrill)	Duke Ellington Orchestra	1941
18	"Blueberry Hill" (Larry Stock, Al Lewis)	Fats Domino	1956
19	"God Bless America"	Kate Smith	1938
20	"The Stars and Stripes Forever"	Sousa's Band	1897
21	"I Heard It Through the Grapevine" (Norman Whitfield, Barrett Strong)	Marvin Gaye	1968
22	"(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" (Redding, Steve Cropper)	Otis Redding	1967
23	"I Left My Heart in San Francisco" (George C. Cory Jr., (Douglass Cross)	Tony Bennett	1962
24	"Good Vibrations" (Brian Wilson, Mike Love)	The Beach Boys	1966
25	"Stand by Me" (Ben E. King, Leiber and Stoller)	Ben E. King	1961

Criticism

B. George, director of the ARChive of Contemporary Music, said pop music genres such as electronic dance music, punk rock, and rap were given short shrift. An informal survey of CBS News producers indicated surprise at some of the choices on the list.[2] NPR's Talk of the Nation highlighted songs that were excluded from the RIAA list but were on a similar list produced by NPR the same year. One song that was highlighted was George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue".[6]

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gollark: Anyway, running minoteaur ""at scale"" has shown me that people actually do want "index/recent changes/general purpose discovery thing", so I need to work out how to do that decently, and also the case-insensitivity thing works poorly in some situations and people want aliases/redirects.

gollark: Fascinating.

References

Whitaker, Dave (March 7, 2001). "Dave's Music Database: The RIAA/NEA's Top 365 Songs of the 20th Century". Davesmusicdatabase.blogspot.com.
"Best Songs Of The Century?". Cbsnews.com. CBS News. February 11, 2009. Retrieved March 9, 2013.
"New song list puts 'Rainbow' way up high". CNN. March 7, 2001. Retrieved September 7, 2018.
"RIAA, NEA Announce Songs of the Century" (Press release). Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). March 2001. Archived from the original on March 24, 2012. Retrieved March 3, 2013.CS1 maint: unfit url (link)
"Songs of the Century". CNN. March 7, 2001. Retrieved March 9, 2013.
.Williams, Juan (March 14, 2001). "20th Century's Best Songs". NPR. Talk of the Nation. Retrieved March 9, 2013.

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[1] Whitaker, Dave (March 7, 2001). "Dave's Music Database: The RIAA/NEA's Top 365 Songs of the 20th Century". Davesmusicdatabase.blogspot.com.

[CBSNews-2] "Best Songs Of The Century?". Cbsnews.com. CBS News. February 11, 2009. Retrieved March 9, 2013.

[CNN1-3] "New song list puts 'Rainbow' way up high". CNN. March 7, 2001. Retrieved September 7, 2018.

[4] "RIAA, NEA Announce Songs of the Century" (Press release). Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). March 2001. Archived from the original on March 24, 2012. Retrieved March 3, 2013.CS1 maint: unfit url (link)

[CNN2-5] "Songs of the Century". CNN. March 7, 2001. Retrieved March 9, 2013.

[NPR-6] .Williams, Juan (March 14, 2001). "20th Century's Best Songs". NPR. Talk of the Nation. Retrieved March 9, 2013.