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2.4.5Best Songs of All Time vs Current Hit Songs: No Comparison
Every generation laughs at the old fashions but follows religiously the new.
The best songs of all time are listed on the Gold Standard Song List. A person who equates “classic” with “too old” does not understand the difference between fashion and art. In popular music, fashion means current hit songs.
If you want to learn about songwriting from other songs, steer clear of current hit songs, the pop music fashion shows such as the Billboard charts and Official Charts and all other charts and listings of current singles, albums, and videos. Nearly all of the songs you find there will be long forgotten in 5, 10 or 15 years. Stripped of slick performance and production values, current hit songs are mostly just average, banal songs
While most of the tunes that make it onto the Billboard charts eventually vanish, never to be heard again (deservedly), a small fraction of them—a tiny fraction relative to the total number that make the charts—don’t fade away. Years and years later, people still play and sing them. Artists still record them. You hear them in clubs and bars, at concerts and festivals, in movie and tv soundtracks and commercials.
Youth of the 1960s were fond of reminding each other never to trust anyone over 30 (a mantra that curiously faded away in the 1970s). With respect to songs as models to learn from, a practical guide—not a hard and fast rule—would be, “Never trust a song under 30.”
“Georgia On My Mind,” “Dancing In The Street,” and “September Song” were once hit songs. Now they’re classics. They continue to connect with a lot of people emotionally, year after year.