I've been following the Top 50 Songs Program on CBC, and after finding the early decades to contain mostly very good choices, I've been pretty perplexed by some of the choices and the omissions from the 40's on. Well, today was the 60's, probably the most challenging decade yet for this sort of format. Choosing 5 songs to represent such a song-rich decade.....I was quite curious to see where they landed.

The selections were, for me, extremely disappointing, almost embarrasingly so - The Beatles as the first choice, OK sure, but "In My Life", while a lovely melodic, sentimental ballad, is not their most impressive writing or performance, nor one of their really influential numbers (though well thought of by critics generally, in fairness). The Byrds I love of course, but I wouldn't have chosen Mr. Tambourine Man - I can only imagine that the panel thought they could "include" Dylan by choosing one of his songs (nice try, and come on, no Dylan in the sixties?), but the Byrds had far more profound musical moments - more on that later. Two Motown numbers, both great songs I agree, is at least one too many when choosing only five numbers, and "Born To Be Wild" as #5, well Christ I laughed until I peed myself (and I loved Easy Rider too). You want to show the best of hard rock, choose Hendrix, Cream, The Who, 100 spots ahead of Steppenwolf. Overall, a wildly unsatisfying combination of boring, weird, and badly informed, I'd say.

So, when the fuming, laughing, and peeing finally ended, I started throwing out a few favourites with V that we couldn't believe didn't make the list, and she suggested that I encourage y'all to post our own version of the top 5 of each decade. Or just one or two decades if you have particular favourites. I thought it was a Great Blog Notion (GBN), and am prepared to take the heat if it's generally considered gay and/or wanker-esque. I will give it some thought and post my top fives for the 40's 50' and 60's in the next week. I also think it would be fun to have a wager to see who can guess the most right for next week's 70's selections - the winner owed a beer or two from each other competitor. What say you?