On a lighter note, thanks for reacquainting me with Walcott, Erik T.

The song takes me back to last spring. Boat shoes and those happy and irreverent vampires…

who cares if those artists will be remembered if they sucked to begin with?

Craig… if you go about your life only putting stake and trying to listen to those whom you deem will be “legendary”, you’re gonna miss out on a lot of great music.

also, maybe i’ll be proven wrong, but i’d argue that Duffy is more likely to be on a VH1 “I love the 00’s” in 10 years than anywhere near Hall of Fame-status. i know you love her, etc., but she’s kind of a dime a dozen imo. kinda of like Joss Stone (whom you may like, i don’t know), talented no doubt, but can’t write a good song on her own to save herself, and imo owes just about everything to Janis.

like Chris said, it doesn’t matter who is “remembered” in the grand scheme, it matters what music interests you most in the present. do i think Blitzen Trapper (who put out my #1 album of 2008) will be remembered 30-40 years from now by the general populous? hell no. will I still listen to the album fondly 10 years from now at least? i’d almost guarantee it.

p.s. the RNR Hall of Fame is kind of a joke in all honesty. i had a fun time visiting, but there’s a lot of political bullshit that goes into their nominations.

Granted, every artist wants/needs to sell records, but that shouldn’t ever be the criteria for whether or not a band has achieved anything memorable or lasting. Look at The Velvet Underground, The Ramones, The Replacements, Sonic Youth, etc…the list can go on an on. Those bands didn’t sell a whole lot of records (in the Smash Hit Record scheme of things), but most bands would kill to have their kind of legacy, right. And most of them, if not all, will end up in the Rock Hall Of Fame that you speak of. I never begrudge a band for finally selling some records and making some money (i.e. Modest Mouse), and I don’t dislike something simply because it’s at the top of the charts (Rhianna’s ‘Umbrella’ was a banging track, no matter how high on the charts it was.) But I’ll be listening to Pavement’s ‘Slanted & Enchanted’ until the day I die-it doesn’t matter to me that it never went Platinum or won a Grammy. It’s just an ace record, that’s all.

Then immediately after reaffirming that, you suggest an error on our (my, someone elses?) behalf – claming a statement was made suggesting that album sales equate lack of talent. (gold and platinum selling records are represented on the list)

Now you’re here:

“To use sales as an argument for an artists quality is just dumb, sorry Craig.”

“Actually I will use that argument – sales is a pretty good predictor of who will be remembered most in music history”

The first question is, after collapsing on any sort of answer after suggesting that sales = good music, are you now saying that it’s not sales that = good music, but the idea of being “remembered” (whose memory?) in history which is suggestive of good music? Furthermore that a lack of album sales means that a piece of music won’t hold up to time… That any given music-related Hall of Fame is the chief definer of taste? That’s going back to another argument I remember which suggested that not being nominated for a Grammy meant the album was of less talent than those that were nominated, when in reality a Grammy holds up in terms of history, rememberance and quality about as well as a Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice Award.

This is all important stuff, but how does any of it relate to a list of songs that has been assembled by a group of friends on the basis of personal taste?

Sorry, but the artists that sell 5,000 units a year, no matter how good, will soon be forgotten.