Stairway #1 - What Else Is New

My radio station had their annual Thanksgiving weekend countdown of the top 1043 rock songs, as voted by listeners. As usual, "Stairway to Heaven" was number one. I don't ever remember this song not being #1 on such countdowns since my high school days. As I've said before, I just don't get this. Stairway is admittedly a great song, but is it that far above all the other classics that it's a shoo-in to win every time?

What was different about this particular countdown is that there were no Beatles songs in the top ten. Though I wouldn't consign the Fab Four to obscurity just yet; they did have three songs in the top 20, and eleven in the top 100. I would have to guess they probably also had far more songs on the overall list than any other group, though this would be hard to check because the web site didn't publish stats.

I enjoy listening to these countdowns each year, but especially to the earlier portions, where I get to hear a lot of songs I don't hear that often. The top 200 or so songs, by contrast, all get fairly regular airplay the rest of the year. I am reminded why I can't stand listening to pop stations; even if I like a song, I don't want to hear it nine times a day! With rare exceptions, once a week is about as often as I can enjoy listening to a given song without it feeling too repetitious.