The terrific Philadelphia radio station WXPN, which is housed at UPenn, is running a great countdown this week: they’re running down the 885 greatest artists of all time, and playing a song or two from each one. Now, I know everyone’s sick to death of these stupid pop culture lists, since they mostly consist of arguments over who should be in the top ten. But things get a lot more esoteric, when you get into whether or not the 293rd best artist (Sleater Kinney) is better than the 308th (Dan Fogelberg.)
Tuning in tonight, when I figured they were up to about #150, I heard… “The Pancreas Song,” by Weird Al Yankovic. Now, it’s not to say that Weird Al isn’t the 150ish best artist, but such a designation is certainly questionable, and I wouldn’t have expected XPN to come to that conclusion. But I eventually realized, in fact, that the Weird Al song was not part of the countdown, but rather a kids show broadcast at night while the countdown was paused.
If you’re interesting in listening to the countdown, XPN streams on the web at XPN.org.
Posted by Stephen Silver at October 17, 2006 01:07 AMYoru link didn't work. This one is does....
http://www.xpn.org/listen.php
Yoru link didn't work. This one does....
http://www.xpn.org/listen.php
OK, this list is like listening to some hipster's iPOD. Who puts Train before 10,000 Maniacs or Tony Bennett????
It's clearly crackheaded.