Great Greatest

This weekend I read the latest issue of Rolling Stone. Jeremy lent it to me as he was really excited by the compilation of the 100 Greatest Singers of all time. What was interesting about the piece was each little article/snippet was written by another popular singer.


Here are the top ten:
1. Aretha Franklin, written by Mary J. Blige
2. Ray Charles, written by Billy Joel
3. Elvin Presley, written by Robert Plant
4. Sam Cooke, writen by Van Morrison
5. John Lennon, written by Jackson Browne
6. Marvin Gaye, written by Alicia Keys
7. Bob Dylon, written by Bono
8. Otis Redding, written by Booker T. Jones
9. Stevie Wonder, written by Cee-Lo
10. James Brown, written by Iggy Pop.

I also enjoyed what artists inspired other artists. For example, Michael Jackson, George Clinton and Prince all have named James Brown as an inspiration for their own singing. It was interesting to play this game of connecting the musical dots!

Besides the obvious entries like Etta James and Janis Joplin, I was happy to see some modern day singers named like Christina Aguilera and Mariah Carey make the list.

My favorite quote came from Chris Martin who wrote about Bjork. He starts the article by writing, "When you land in Iceland, you feel like you're somewhere a bit magical. Maybe it's the volcanic activity, maybe it's the dried fish, but something's going on." What a fun way to describe a country, especially one that birthed a musician like Bjork!