Acclaimed Music Forums

Hello,

Apologies if this has been answered before, but it's such a general question that a search doesn't seem to yield the answer.

For any given entry in the Top 10,000 Songs list (or previous Top 6,000 Songs lists), does the "Year" specify the year of release, recording, or writing of that particular song entry?

For example, "Stir It Up" by Bob Marley and The Wailers appears on the list (ranked at 1977) with a year of 1968. The 1973 version doesn't appear on the list. As excellent as that 1968 release is (1967 actually), I'd have to think that the 1973 version is far better known, acclaimed, and (arguably) better than the earlier version. So is the list saying that the 1968 (1967) version is actually the acclaimed version or does it automatically assign the date of the first version to the entry if the artist recorded and released the same song multiple times (and there's no way of knowing which version is the one that belongs on the list)?

It's always the year of first release. It counts for all versions of the song recorded by the artist.

Rob wrote:It's always the year of first release. It counts for all versions of the song recorded by the artist.

Ok, then that lines up with what I'm seeing with the particular example I showed and makes more sense. Unfortunately, doing it this way doesn't let you know which is the more acclaimed version of any given song with multiple versions.

I think there are exceptions when two versions are significantly different. Frank Sinatra recorded "One for My Baby" in 1947, but the 1958 version is acclaimed.

This was Henrik's response back in 2016, when we discussed Radiohead's "True Love Waits."

The choice of year for AM is often based on versions mentioned in critics' list. "There She Goes" has been listed as both one of the best songs of the 80s and one of the best songs of the 90s. In situations like that I usually use the year of the first acclaimed release. However, I don't think "True Love Waits" has been mentioned in any critics' lists yet, so if it appears in eoy lists I think it would make sense to list it as a 2016 song on AM. Maybe it's also ok to keep [Peter Frampton's "Do You Feel Like We Do"] in 1976.

Setherex wrote:This was Henrik's response back in 2016, when we discussed Radiohead's "True Love Waits."

The choice of year for AM is often based on versions mentioned in critics' list. "There She Goes" has been listed as both one of the best songs of the 80s and one of the best songs of the 90s. In situations like that I usually use the year of the first acclaimed release. However, I don't think "True Love Waits" has been mentioned in any critics' lists yet, so if it appears in eoy lists I think it would make sense to list it as a 2016 song on AM. Maybe it's also ok to keep [Peter Frampton's "Do You Feel Like We Do"] in 1976.

This one is dated, as True Love Waits eventually did make the list... as a 2001 song.

Hmm. So it looks like there's no consistent rule applied, as there can be exceptions and it becomes Henrik's judgment call. I guess there's still no way to tell for sure which version is on the list without additional context or explanation.

One thing I have a problem with is sometime you can be very specific about a certain song that was released more than once by the artist. Example The Sounds Of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel. It was originally released in 1964 but some additional drums and music were added on to it in 1966. I specifically wanted to add the 66 version to my list but not sure if it would have counted for 66.