I have always hated listing stuff when it comes to music. Then again, I have always been amused at what others think of to comprise their own lists.

I too am baffled at the Clapton inclusion. But it’s all fairly subjective, eh? Academia and rock often collide with disastrous consequence.

I would like to add others:
James Brown – I Feel That Old Feeling Coming On
Rolling Stones – Jumpin Jack Flash
and just feel that CCR should be in there as I consider it a classic American rock band – perhaps Fortunate Son

but I like Carlos’ list too

Improvised could be well-crafted and besides your writing doesn’t read like improvisations. You usually have related uploaded images (over twenty images attached to a recent post – that takes a long time to construct) and you often uploaded your songs. This post has paraphrasing and quotations. I think of improvisation more like Stacey’s stream of consciousness posts.

Still, it makes for a fun game. I’ve done it in three songs:
1. Beatles, Help, Live at the Hollywood Bowl
2. Ramones, Rock n Roll High School, Loco Live
3. Motorhead, Built for Speed, No Sleep at All

Tutti Frutti would’ve been a good one to add, but I chose to stick with my rock and roll, not my moms.

I’d be tempted to throw in one of my greatest influences – the Talking Heads. Also Black Sabbath, you’ve got to take it to Metal somewhere in there.

But what I’m most curious about is what a “real” blogger is. My definition would be somebody who volunteers to blog on a regular basis and writes well-constructed pieces about the things that interest her. Do you mean something that gets broader attention like the Huffington Post?

The Kinks “You Really Got Me”
Jimi Hendrix “Purple Haze”
The Beatles “Strawberry Fields Forever”
Velvet Underground “Venus in Furs”
Ramones “Blitzkrieg Bop”
Nirvana “Smells Like Teen Spirit”

The only ones of these that I might pick are “Anarchy in the UK” and “Little Red Corvette.” “Long Tall Sally” I might pick, though if I were introducing somebody to Little Richard I’d probably pick “Tutti Frutti” first. I’m guessing he picked this because The Beatles covered it and therefore it must be an influential song.

I’m also guessing he picked The Beatles doing “Roll Over Beethoven” because that would let him cover Chuck Berry without using another of his six songs. It’s a crappy example of a Beatles song, though, as it might be the least important song in their catalog in terms of its influence on rock. A good example would have been “Yesterday,” which has been covered more than any song ever written. A better example would have been something that emphasizes The Beatles’ psychedelia like “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” or “Strawberry Fields.”

Similar to his Beatles pick, I’m guessing he picked “All Along the Watchtower” because it let him cover both Dylan and Hendrix, but doesn’t really do either justice. If I had to pick an intro to Hendrix, I might pick “Fire” or “Purple Haze.” And for Dylan, I would want to be able to include something folk and something electric.

Though if I had to choose between Dylan and Hendrix, I’d pick Hendrix. I’ve long thought that Dylan is less influential than people make him out to be and probably not as influential as some of his contemporaries, like Paul Simon, who was born in the same year as Dylan and who has introduced so many elements of other culture’s music to popular rock.

His choice of “Wonderful Tonight” is a mystery to me. If I’m only picking six songs from all of rock, Clapton wouldn’t be one of them, and certainly not that song.

The quote above implies that this exercise took place several years after 1990, which was when Levitin and Pierce first met, and yet the latest song in this bunch is from 1983. Lots of things have happened since then. But it doesn’t surprise me that a boomer would be so focused on the things from his youth. So I’m not sure how he could skip something like Nirvana, which was probably happening at the time of this exercise and was responsible for mainstreaming eighties alt-culture.