What­ev­er val­ue one places in “best of” or “great­est” lists, it’s hard to deny they can be vir­tu­oso exer­cis­es in crit­i­cal con­ci­sion. When run­ning through 10, 50, 100 films, albums, nov­els etc. one can’t wan­der through the wild­flow­ers but must make spark­ly, punchy state­ments and move on. Rolling Stone’s writ­ers have excelled at this form, and expand­ed the list size to 500, first releas­ing a book com­pil­ing their “500 Great­est Albums of All Time” in 2003 then fol­low­ing up the next year with the “500 Great­est Songs of All Time,” a spe­cial issue of the mag­a­zine with short blurbs about each selec­tion.

In 2010, the mag­a­zine updat­ed their mas­sive list, com­piled by 162 crit­ics, for a spe­cial dig­i­tal issue, and it now lives on their site with para­graph-length blurbs intact. Each one offers a fun lit­tle nugget of fact or opin­ion about the cho­sen songs. (Tom Pet­ty, learn­ing that The Strokes admit­ted to steal­ing his open­ing riff for “Amer­i­can Girl,” told the mag­a­zine, “I was like, ‘Ok, good for you.’ It doesn’t both­er me.”) There’s hard­ly room to explain the rank­ings or jus­ti­fy inclu­sion. We’re asked to take the Rolling Stone writ­ers’ col­lec­tive word for it.

Maybe it’s a lit­tle dif­fi­cult to argue with a list this big, since it includes a bit of everything—for the pos­si­ble dross, there’s a whole lot of gold. The updat­ed list swapped in 25 new songs and added an intro­duc­tion by Jay‑Z: “A great song has all the key elements—melody; emo­tion; a strong state­ment that becomes part of the lex­i­con; and great pro­duc­tion.” Broad enough cri­te­ria for great, but “great­est”? Put on the Spo­ti­fy playlist above (or access it here) and judge for your­self whether most of those 500 songs in the updat­ed list—472 to be exact—meet the bar.

You can see the orig­i­nal, 2004 list, sans blurbs, at the Inter­net Archive. Num­ber one, Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” (get it?). Num­ber 500, Boston’s “More Than a Feel­ing,” which, well… okay. The updat­ed list gives us Smokey Robinson’s “Shop Around” in last place (don’t wor­ry, Smokey fans, “The Tracks of My Tears” makes it to 50.) Still at num­ber one, nat­u­ral­ly, “Like a Rolling Stone.” Find out which 498 songs sit in-between at the online list here. (Wikipedia has a per­cent­age break­down for both lists of songs by decade.) The mag­a­zine may be up for sale, its jour­nal­is­tic cred­i­bil­i­ty in ques­tion, but for com­pre­hen­sive “best of” lists that keep track of the move­ment of pop­u­lar cul­ture, we should­n’t count them out just yet.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

89 Essen­tial Songs from The Sum­mer of Love: A 50th Anniver­sary Playlist

The His­to­ry of Punk Rock in 200 Tracks: An 11-Hour Playlist Takes You From 1965 to 2016

Stream 935 Songs That Appeared in “The John Peel Fes­tive 50” from 1976 to 2004: The Best Songs of the Year, as Select­ed by the Beloved DJ’s Lis­ten­ers

A Mas­sive 800-Track Playlist of 90s Indie & Alter­na­tive Music, in Chrono­log­i­cal Order

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Before its many lay­ers of well-deserved hagiog­ra­phy, the Vel­vet Underground’s first album emerged in 1967 on its own terms, in near obscu­ri­ty, intro­duc­ing some­thing so mys­te­ri­ous­ly cool and haunt­ing­ly grim and beau­ti­ful. Goth and punk and post-punk and New Wave and cham­ber pop and shoegaze and indie folk and Brit­pop and noise and drone and No Wave… all came decades lat­er. But first there was The Vel­vet Under­ground & Nico. Of its unlike­ly cre­ation, Tyler Wilcox writes, “tal­ent, vision, fear­less­ness, a touch of genius: they’re all nec­es­sary ingre­di­ents for the cre­ation of a clas­sic album. But you’re also going to need a lot of luck.”

Wilcox describes in his his­to­ry how all of those qualities—luck, and Andy Warhol, included—brought the five orig­i­nal VU mem­bers togeth­er in 1965; how the band debuted with Nico at the Del­moni­co Hotel 1966, occa­sion­ing the New York Her­ald Tri­bune’s head­line, “Shock Treat­ment for Psy­chi­a­trists”; and how their lo-fi drone and Medieval folk meets deca­dent, lit­er­ary 60s pop derived from influ­ences like Book­er T. & The MG’s and avant-garde min­i­mal­ist La Monte Young. It’s one thing to read about this total re-imag­ing of rock and roll, and anoth­er thing entire­ly to see it. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, lit­tle film of the band exists from that time—some of it very frag­men­tary or very rare.

Just above, you can see one of the best pieces of footage: Lou Reed, John Cale, and Ster­ling Mor­ri­son com­pos­ing the album’s first track, the del­i­cate “Sun­day Morn­ing,” whose hand­ful of wist­ful, ambigu­ous lyrics intro­duce Reed’s “spir­i­tu­al seek­ing” as a the­mat­ic thread that weaves through songs of sado­masochism, hero­in, and death. The silent film was shot in 1966 by film­mak­er Ros­alind Steven­son while the band rehearsed in her apart­ment. This debut broad­cast, with the stu­dio record­ing over­laid, comes from a 1994 BBC pro­gram called Peel Slow­ly and See (after the instruc­tion telling buy­ers of the vinyl LP to peel the banana stick­er and dis­cov­er this).

Had the band only record­ed their first album, it’s hard to imag­ine their impor­tance in rock his­to­ry would be much less­ened, but it’s also hard to imag­ine rock his­to­ry with­out fol­low-ups White Light/White Heat, The Vel­vet Under­ground, and Loaded. Yet these were all prod­ucts of delib­er­ate focus, and a dimin­ish­ing num­ber of key singers/songwriters. The first Vel­vet Under­ground album is mag­i­cal for its serendip­i­ty and almost schizoid col­lec­tion of ful­ly-formed per­son­al­i­ties, each so dis­tinc­tive that “each track” on The Vel­vet Under­ground & Nico “has launched an entire genre.”

So notes WBEZ’s Sound Opin­ions. Just above you can hear the show’s Jim DeRo­gatis and Greg Kot dis­cuss the influ­ences and sig­nif­i­cance, with many son­ic exam­ples, of the album that launched a few thou­sand bands. Watch the cre­ation of “Sun­day Morn­ing” and think about the num­ber of times you’ve heard it haunt­ing bands like Belle and Sebas­t­ian, the Decem­brists, or Beach House. And if you’ve some­how missed all the oth­er gen­res to which this first record gave birth, DeRo­gatis and Kot should get you caught up on why “no album has had a greater influ­ence on rock in that last half-cen­tu­ry than the Vel­vet Underground’s debut.”

Find more ear­ly VU footage in the Relat­eds right below.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Vel­vet Under­ground & Andy Warhol Stage Pro­to-Punk Per­for­mance Art: Dis­cov­er the Explod­ing Plas­tic Inevitable (1966)

A Sym­pho­ny of Sound (1966): Vel­vet Under­ground Impro­vis­es, Warhol Films It, Until the Cops Turn Up

An Ani­ma­tion of The Vel­vet Underground’s “Sun­day Morn­ing” … for Your Sun­day Morn­ing

Lou Reed, John Cale & Nico Reunite, Play Acoustic Vel­vet Under­ground Songs on French TV, 1972

The Vel­vet Underground’s John Cale Plays Erik Satie’s Vex­a­tions on I’ve Got a Secret (1963)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Some singers are born with the voic­es of angels, some with voic­es like bags of grav­el. Both, I’d say, are blessed in their own way. Take the haunt­ing, unfor­get­table Blind Willie John­son, the weirdo genius Cap­tain Beef­heart, and, of course, the inim­itable Tom Waits, whose mer­cu­r­ial per­sona has expressed itself as a down-and-out lounge singer, junkshop blues­man, Tin Pan Alley racon­teur, Broad­way show­man, and more. Each iter­a­tion seems to get grit­ti­er than the last as age weath­ers Waits’ sand­pa­per voice to a rougher and rougher cut.

Waits first emerged in 1973 with Clos­ing Time, an album Rolling Stone’s Stephen Hold­en described as “all-pur­pose lounge music… a style that evokes an aura of crushed cig­a­rettes in seedy bars and Sina­tra singing ‘One for My Baby.’” Though Waits is “more than a chip off the Randy New­man block,” Hold­en wrote, “he sounds like a boozi­er, earth­i­er ver­sion of the same.” The descrip­tion might cause some fans of Waits who dis­cov­ered him ten years lat­er with Sword­fishtrom­bones to fur­row their brows. Sure, we may always hear some Sina­tra in his song­writ­ing or deliv­ery, but a Randy New­man-like lounge singer? A lit­tle hard to fea­ture…. As Noel Mur­ray notes at The Onion’s A.V. Club, “Sword­fishtrom­bones has sound­ed more and more like a base­line for ‘nor­mal’” in Waits’ oeu­vre.

Although he has always drawn lib­er­al­ly from music of the past, in the 80s and 90s, he reached fur­ther back in time for his influ­ences and instrumentation—into the back cor­ners of ear­ly 20th-cen­tu­ry out­sider gospel and wash­tub blues, 19th-cen­tu­ry sea shanties and mur­der bal­lads. For all his avant-garde bona fides—including his many col­lab­o­ra­tions with exper­i­men­tal gui­tarist Marc Ribot—few con­tem­po­rary artists as Waits best exem­pli­fy the “old, weird Amer­i­ca” Luc Sante describes as the “play­ground of God, Satan, trick­sters, Puri­tans, con­fi­dence men, illu­mi­nati, brag­garts, preach­ers, anony­mous poets of all stripes.” Each of these at one time or anoth­er is a char­ac­ter Waits has played in song.

Waits’ old, weird Amer­i­cana is wild­ly askew even for gen­res that prize the off-kil­ter. He went from mak­ing records that sound like Hollywood’s seed­i­est cor­ners to records that sound like drunk march­ing bands in machine shops. By 2004’s Real Gone, his voice mod­u­lat­ed into a ter­ri­fy­ing bark that com­mands atten­tion and respect, yet still com­mu­ni­cates with all the emo­tive pow­er of the most angel­ic sopra­no.

You can hear Waits’ tran­si­tion from iron­ic lovelorn croon­er to demon­ic car­ni­val barker—and a few dozen more old, weird Amer­i­can characters—in the 24-hour, 380-track Spo­ti­fy playlist just above. It cov­ers Waits’ entire career, from that first, 1973 album, Clos­ing Time, and its fol­low-ups The Heart of Sat­ur­day Night and Nighthawks at the Din­er, to Rain Dogs, Bone Machine, Blood Mon­ey, and his last stu­dio album, Bad as Me, “a fun reminder,” Mur­ray writes, “of Waits’ abil­i­ty to be a badass when nec­es­sary.” I’d say, if you’ve heard Waits’ deep, grav­el­ly growl at any stage of his career, you’d hard­ly need remind­ing.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Tom Waits Makes a List of His Top 20 Favorite Albums of All Time

Tom Waits For No One: Watch the Pio­neer­ing Ani­mat­ed Tom Waits Music Video from 1979

Tom Waits Sings and Tells Sto­ries in Tom Waits: A Day in Vien­na, a 1979 Aus­tri­an Film

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Alice’s Restau­rant. It’s now a Thanks­giv­ing clas­sic, and some­thing of a tra­di­tion around here. Record­ed in 1967, the 18+ minute coun­ter­cul­ture song recounts Arlo Guthrie’s real encounter with the law, start­ing on Thanks­giv­ing Day 1965. As the long song unfolds, we hear all about how a hip­pie-bat­ing police offi­cer, by the name of William “Obie” Oban­hein, arrest­ed Arlo for lit­ter­ing. (Cul­tur­al foot­note: Obie pre­vi­ous­ly posed for sev­er­al Nor­man Rock­well paint­ings, includ­ing the well-known paint­ing, “The Run­away,” that graced a 1958 cov­er of The Sat­ur­day Evening Post.) In fair­ly short order, Arlo pleads guilty to a mis­de­meanor charge, pays a $25 fine, and cleans up the thrash. But the sto­ry isn’t over. Not by a long shot. Lat­er, when Arlo (son of Woody Guthrie) gets called up for the draft, the pet­ty crime iron­i­cal­ly becomes a basis for dis­qual­i­fy­ing him from mil­i­tary ser­vice in the Viet­nam War. Guthrie recounts this with some bit­ter­ness as the song builds into a satir­i­cal protest against the war: “I’m sit­tin’ here on the Group W bench ’cause you want to know if I’m moral enough to join the Army, burn women, kids, hous­es and vil­lages after bein’ a lit­ter­bug.” And then we’re back to the cheery cho­rus again: “You can get any­thing you want, at Alice’s Restau­rant.”

We have fea­tured Guthrie’s clas­sic dur­ing past years. But, for this Thanks­giv­ing, we give you the illus­trat­ed ver­sion. Hap­py Thanks­giv­ing to every­one who plans to cel­e­brate the hol­i­day today.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bob Dylan’s Thanks­giv­ing Radio Show: A Playlist of 18 Delec­table Songs

William S. Bur­roughs Reads His Sar­cas­tic “Thanks­giv­ing Prayer” in a 1988 Film By Gus Van Sant

Mar­i­lyn Monroe’s Hand­writ­ten Turkey-and-Stuff­ing Recipe

William Shat­ner Raps About How to Not Kill Your­self Deep Fry­ing a Turkey

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 13 Tips for What to Do with Your Left­over Thanks­giv­ing Turkey

I wasn’t always a Queen fan. Hav­ing cut my music fan teeth on espe­cial­ly down­beat, mis­er­able bands like Joy Divi­sion, The Cure, and The Smiths, I couldn’t quite dig the unabashed sen­ti­men­tal­i­ty and oper­at­ic bom­bast. Like one of the “Kids React to Queen” kids, I found myself ask­ing, “What is this?” What turned me around? Maybe it was the first time I heard Queen’s theme song for Flash Gor­don. The 1980 space opera is most remark­able for Max von Sydow’s turn as Ming the Mer­ci­less, and for those bursts of Fred­die Mer­cury and his mates’ mul­ti-tracked voic­es, explo­sions of syn­co­pat­ed angel song, announc­ing the com­ing of the eight­ies with all the high camp of Rocky Hor­ror and the rock con­fi­dence of Robert Plant.

As a front­man Mer­cury had so much more than the per­fect style and stance—though he did own every stage he set foot on. He had a voice that com­mand­ed atten­tion, even from mopey new wave teenagers vibrat­ing on Ian Curtis’s fre­quen­cy. What makes Mer­cury’s voice so compelling—as most would say, the great­est vocal­ist in all of rock his­to­ry? One recent sci­en­tif­ic study con­clud­ed that Mercury’s phys­i­cal method of singing resem­bled that of Tuvan throat singers.

He was able to cre­ate a faster vibra­to and sev­er­al more lay­ers of har­mon­ics than any­one else. The video above from Poly­phon­ic adds more to the expla­na­tion, quot­ing opera sopra­no Montser­rat Cabal­lé, with whom Mer­cury record­ed an album in 1988. In addi­tion to his incred­i­ble range, Mer­cury “was able to slide effort­less­ly from a reg­is­ter to anoth­er,” she remarked. Though Mer­cury was nat­u­ral­ly a bari­tone, he pri­mar­i­ly sang as a tenor, and had no dif­fi­cul­ty, as we know, with sopra­no parts.

Mer­cury was a great performer—and he was a great per­for­ma­tive vocal­ist, mean­ing, Cabal­lé says, that “he was sell­ing the voice…. His phras­ing was sub­tle, del­i­cate and sweet or ener­getic and slam­ming. He was able to find the right colour or expres­sive nuance for each word.” He had incred­i­ble dis­ci­pline and con­trol over his instru­ment, and an under­rat­ed rhyth­mic sen­si­bil­i­ty, essen­tial for a rock singer to con­vinc­ing­ly take on rock­a­bil­ly, gospel, dis­co, funk, and opera as well as the blues-based hard rock Queen so eas­i­ly mas­tered. No style of music elud­ed him, except per­haps for those that call for a cer­tain kind of vocal­ist who can’t actu­al­ly sing.

That’s the rub with Queen—they were so good at every­thing they did that they can be more than a lit­tle over­whelm­ing. Watch the rest of the video to learn more about how Mercury’s super­hu­man vibra­to pro­duced sounds almost no oth­er human can make; see more of Polyphonic’s music analy­sis of one-of-a-kind musi­cians at our pre­vi­ous posts on Leonard Cohen and David Bowie’s final albums and John Bonham’s drum­ming; and just below, hear all of those Mer­cury qualities—the vibra­to, the per­fect tim­ing, and the expres­sive performativity—in the iso­lat­ed vocal track from “I Want to Break Free” just below.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Sci­en­tif­ic Study Reveals What Made Fred­die Mercury’s Voice One of a Kind; Hear It in All of Its A Cap­pel­la Splen­dor

Watch Behind-the-Scenes Footage From Fred­die Mercury’s Final Video Per­for­mance

Queen Doc­u­men­tary Pays Trib­ute to the Rock Band That Con­quered the World

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness