"The whimsy will continue until morale improves."

June 7, 2017 2:37 PM

All 213 Beatles Songs, Ranked From Worst to Best
posted by kirkaracha (92 comments total)

Oh is that what we're gonna do today, we're gonna fight? First Ketchup flavoured chips and now this...
posted by Fizz at 2:41 PM on June 7, 2017 [7 favorites]

With "Dig A Pony" coming in that low, I don't think I can take the rest of the list. It's not like any blues song makes sense.
posted by Miko at 2:41 PM on June 7, 2017 [6 favorites]

I posted this to Facebook earlier today - here are my comments:

a. "She's Leaving Home" is not #213; FAIL
b. Actually, no. "She's Leaving Home" should be #212. "Mr. Moonlight" should be #213.
c. "Good Morning, Good Morning" needs to be higher than #106
d. It should definitely at least switch places with "When I'm 64" (#103)
e. Or "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (not the reprise) (#82)
f. "You Won't See Me" should be higher than #71
g. "Paperback Writer" should be higher than #40
h. "Drive My Car" should be lower than #38
i. "Tomorrow Never Knows" should be higher than #12
j. "She Said She Said" SHOULD BE HIGHER THAN #11
k. "Rain" SHOULD BE HIGHER THAN #10
l. "Here, There and Everywhere" should not be #7
m. "Penny Lane", "Strawberry Fields Forever", "A Day In the Life" ranked #3, #2, #1? BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING
posted by Lucinda at 2:42 PM on June 7, 2017 [9 favorites]

"Good Day Sunshine" most certainly does not "ruin" Revolver. I SAID GOOD DAY, SIR!

and "Things We Said Today" should be at least 20 notches higher I SAID GOOD DAY!
posted by the return of the thin white sock at 2:47 PM on June 7, 2017 [14 favorites]

My personal bottom 5:
Run For Your Life
Wild Honey Pie
Mr. Moonlight (barf)
Glass Onion
I Want to Hold Your Hand (could totally do without it)

I am sure everyone will have a different bottom five, thus proving that of taste there can be no disputation.
posted by Miko at 2:47 PM on June 7, 2017

My complete ranking of Julie Taylor-directed Beatles jukebox musicals:

1. Across the Universe (2007)
posted by roger ackroyd at 2:49 PM on June 7, 2017 [9 favorites]

Savoy Truffle deserves waay more than #156.
posted by gyusan at 2:50 PM on June 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

I afraid to look, but I need to know where You Know My Name Look Up the Number falls
posted by yhbc at 2:50 PM on June 7, 2017 [5 favorites]

By Bill Wyman

Well that hardly seems, like, objective, does it?
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 2:51 PM on June 7, 2017 [11 favorites]

My personal bottom 5:
Run For Your Life

I have a soft spot for that one because it's one of my mother's favorites and therefore one of the first ones I remember hearing. She particularly likes singing along to the part at the end of the chorus and over-emphasizing the stop after "end," as in "That's the end-UH! ...little girl."
posted by infinitywaltz at 2:51 PM on June 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

This list, whatever its faults, is redeemed for me by "The whimsy will continue until morale improves," which will now pop into my head every time I hear "When I'm Sixty-Four" or "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" or any of the other Paul songs that sound like they belong on a vaudeville stage, sung by someone who also juggles and has a animal act.

Most of my favourite and least-favourite Beatles tracks are Paul songs.
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:52 PM on June 7, 2017 [19 favorites]

Oh man, "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" is way down there, too. That's another one of my mother's favorites. Oh, and "Rocky Raccoon."

I think my mom pretty much just likes the Beatles best when they're singing about cartoonish violence.
posted by infinitywaltz at 2:54 PM on June 7, 2017 [13 favorites]

#1: Yeah, duh.
#2: I guess, meh.
#3: Oh, piss off.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 2:57 PM on June 7, 2017 [5 favorites]

Most of my favourite and least-favourite Beatles tracks are Paul songs.

I've realized over the years that my favorite Beatles tracks up to about 1964-ish tend to be Paul songs, from '65 to '67-ish they're mostly John songs, and from '68 onwards they're mostly George songs. (Least favorites don't seem to fit a pattern.)
posted by the return of the thin white sock at 3:01 PM on June 7, 2017 [3 favorites]

These are certainly opinions. Some of which align with mine and some of which do not
posted by naju at 3:03 PM on June 7, 2017 [4 favorites]

I DISAGREE
posted by quiet coyote at 3:04 PM on June 7, 2017 [4 favorites]

This guy doesn't like Only a Northern Song. I would like to kick him right in the listicle.
If you enjoy The Beatles & podcasts, check out Compleatly Beatles, a soup-to-nuts review/biography podcast.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 3:06 PM on June 7, 2017 [7 favorites]

You're all wrong, Old Brown Shoe is the best one! (OK, maybe not the best but I legit really like it.)
posted by capricorn at 3:25 PM on June 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

I've never heard of Bill Wyman but god, I dislike his writing style. When he hates a song he's insufferably dismissive, and when he likes a song he's annoying and unconvincing. To borrow his take on "She's So Heavy": a tedious workout.
posted by naju at 3:29 PM on June 7, 2017 [4 favorites]

Wait, it was 70 years ago today that Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play?
posted by hwyengr at 3:31 PM on June 7, 2017

Oh, I guess he was in some band people like. Whatevs!
posted by naju at 3:32 PM on June 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

Profoundly and comprehensively wrong.
posted by Bee'sWing at 3:42 PM on June 7, 2017 [4 favorites]

'Taxman' deserves docking far more than 15 points and I don't care how 'creative' the sound is. I suggest we redistribute all its points to less fortunate songs, and maybe make it stay in 1966 until it's watched Cathy Come Home enough times to get some sodding perspective.
posted by Catseye at 3:47 PM on June 7, 2017 [3 favorites]

Jesus. Yes, de gustibus and all that, but listicles should be farmed out to writers who are either (a) moderately knowledgeable about the topic at hand or (b) able to do a smidgen of research. Two of Us has "a rambling bass track by McCartney"? Well, in the sense that there is no bass on it, but a bass-like line being played by Harrison on guitar, then yeah. I guess you could call it "rambling," though, so I will give him that. Baby, You're A Rich Man is "just another Paul McCartney nonsense song;" news to Lennon, who wrote the bulk of it, while McCartney wrote the one-line chorus.

I made it the precise midpoint, Fool on the Hill, which nominally has exactly as many songs better as worse. Sure. At that point, I checked out.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:47 PM on June 7, 2017 [6 favorites]

Oh, I guess he was in some band people like. Whatevs!

Look I know that going in he must have known that Mick and Keith would keep most of the cash, but if the 80 year old Bill Wyman is spending his last years working in the listicle salt-mines, maybe they could do a benefit or something? Or just like bury some gold coins for him to detect somewhere, if he'd be too proud to take charity?
posted by howfar at 3:49 PM on June 7, 2017 [6 favorites]

I thought they had "Let it Be" at 212 and nearly lost my shit.

I didn't even know I had such strong feelings about that song before that moment.
posted by asteria at 3:52 PM on June 7, 2017

Yeah, how is "Only a Northern Song" not in the top 20?

If you're listening late at night
You may think the band are not quite right
But they are
The just play it like that
posted by chavenet at 4:02 PM on June 7, 2017

oh i am just the right amount of drunk for this, yesssssss

IF MAXWELLS SILVER HGAMMER IS NOT DEAD LAST I WILL DEMAND RETRIBUTION
posted by floweringjudas at 4:03 PM on June 7, 2017 [3 favorites]

WHAT IN THE ACTUAL ASS
I DEMAND RETRIBUTION

tho i am glad to see norwegian wood so high up :)
posted by floweringjudas at 4:13 PM on June 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

asteria, I have a strong affinity for Let It Be because a camp I went to for a few years played it as a "get in your room and go to bed" signal. In retrospect, maybe a weird choice, but I really liked it. I was a strange and melancholy preteen.
posted by Night_owl at 4:14 PM on June 7, 2017

Upon reading I must say that this list was made by someone who hates singing, and fun.

Paul McCartney should probably take great pains not to be alone with or take any food from this person.

Yes, I know who he is.
posted by monopas at 4:32 PM on June 7, 2017

Not that Bill Wyman.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 4:40 PM on June 7, 2017 [7 favorites]

I can never decide whether "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" or "Octopus' Garden" is the worst Beatles song. Neither of them is low enough on this list for my comfort.
posted by tobascodagama at 5:02 PM on June 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

I'll give them "Good Day Sunshine", though.
posted by tobascodagama at 5:03 PM on June 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

Wyman: It might suck, but it it's not clickbait. It's 22,000 words long, for chrissakes.

"This piece designed to make you upset over bad snipe-y takes about a subject people have strong emotional gut-formed opinions about might suck, but it's not clickbait. It's very long!"
posted by naju at 5:11 PM on June 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

I like Taxman, and I don't care who knows it.
posted by Chrysostom at 5:22 PM on June 7, 2017 [7 favorites]

I'm glad we can all agree that "Wild Honey Pie" is in the top ten. And that if you are in an Irish bar after midnight you should definitely put "Revolution #9" on the TouchTunes.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 5:23 PM on June 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

Some great writing here, and some not so great. I largely agree with his analysis of the songs he likes.
posted by grubby at 5:27 PM on June 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

it would have been a better list if it had been written by someone who actually LIKED the beatles
posted by pyramid termite at 5:27 PM on June 7, 2017 [7 favorites]

With "Dig A Pony" coming in that low,

yeah but best cover version by Laibach...
posted by ovvl at 5:29 PM on June 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

I like Wild Honey Pie. There. I said it.
posted by wittgenstein at 5:48 PM on June 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

So many criminally underrated - "Happiness Is a Warm Gun," "I Want You," "Helter Skelter" just to start. But also - Penny Lane over Eleanor Rigby are you serious?
posted by atoxyl at 5:51 PM on June 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

160. “All Together Now,” Yellow Submarine (1969): Paul McCartney is one of the most remarkable, and luckiest, people of the 20th century. He, too, grew up marginally in a damaged city; he lost his mother at 14. More than any of the Beatles, and indeed more than just about anyone you can think of, he has radiated happiness and contentment (and not in a self-satisfied way) for most of his life. He was the era’s most successful songwriter, and, in fact, is probably the most successful songwriter of all time. He was in the biggest-selling band of the 1960s, and was probably the biggest-selling artist of the 1970s as well. The industry analyst I trust for reliable record-sales figures says that McCartney’s total is about 650 million sold in total — about 25 percent more than Michael Jackson. He was also — how to put this? — gorgeous to look at, and somehow had developed the diplomatic skills and winning nature to get what he wanted virtually all the time. He smoked marijuana heroically most of his life, and lived a great love story with his wife, Linda Eastman, until her too-early death in 1998. If Paul McCartney has a dark side, it is the voice inside him demanding that he dominate every genre of pop music with his cosmically pleasurable, almost ridiculously facile skills. Here, a number for toddlers. The excitement builds and, if you’re 4, the ending is as apocalyptic as, I don’t know, “Gimme Shelter.” Damn him.
posted by Sebmojo at 5:58 PM on June 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

"This piece designed to make you upset over bad snipe-y takes about a subject people have strong emotional gut-formed opinions about might suck, but it's not clickbait. It's very long!"

This isn't clickbait.
posted by Sebmojo at 6:05 PM on June 7, 2017

You'd think somebody writing about music would AVOID the same professional name as a famous musician. William Wyman, maybe or Will Wyman. Bill T. Wyman, or whatever middle initial. Sheeesh.
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:15 PM on June 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

"Why should I change? He's the one who sucks."
posted by Chrysostom at 6:18 PM on June 7, 2017 [4 favorites]

Well, this is some kind of wankery, inn't it?
posted by waitingtoderail at 6:27 PM on June 7, 2017

You'd think somebody writing about music would AVOID the same professional name as a famous musician. William Wyman, maybe or Will Wyman. Bill T. Wyman, or whatever middle initial. Sheeesh.

Given that that Bill Wyman was born William George Perks Jr., maybe it is a Michael Bolton situation.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:28 PM on June 7, 2017

I mean, yes, the article belongs to a played-out gimmick intended to generate clicks through outrage… but nevertheless, it’s a sincere ordering that a lot of consideration went into, and most of the disagreements I have with over- or under- rankings of specific songs at least give me a different perspective and food for thought. Bravo!

Nevertheless, I must insist that “She Said She Said” is clearly ranked 10 spots too low.
posted by nicepersonality at 6:42 PM on June 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

Despite the different Bill Wyman individual confusion issue, I stand by my earlier assertions.
posted by monopas at 6:45 PM on June 7, 2017

149. “The Inner Light,” single (1968): A Harrisong of minor interest.....

(slaps author with glove)

I say good day, sir.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:55 PM on June 7, 2017 [3 favorites]

I'm pretty happy with penny lane and tomorrow never knows near the top, but good day sunshine is a solid track.
posted by empath at 6:59 PM on June 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

Also, there are a shitload of Beatles songs that I've never heard.
posted by empath at 7:00 PM on June 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

Happy to see Rain so high up as I've been listening to that non-stop for the past couple of weeks.
posted by grubby at 7:12 PM on June 7, 2017 [3 favorites]

When I was a kid in the 80s, I thought my dad's record player was the coolest thing on earth. I asked for a record player of my own for Christmas in about 1987, and received a Fisher Price record player and my mom's stack of 45s from the 60s. A real standout for me was the Paperback Writer/Rain 7". I can remember flipping that thing back and forth over and over and over again, and getting in trouble specifically for listening to Rain when I was supposed to be sleeping. What a fantastic song.

I could write a similar comment about the Rolling Stones Jumpin' Jack Flash/Child of the Moon 45 she gave me.
posted by TrialByMedia at 7:36 PM on June 7, 2017

empath: "Also, there are a shitload of Beatles songs that I've never heard."

The dirty secret is that a lot of them aren't that good. When the Beatles were on, they were perhaps the best pop/rock band ever. When they were off....
posted by Chrysostom at 7:38 PM on June 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

A lot of wrong in this list. "One After 909" stands out as being way too low. And for covers, "Money" about "Twist and Shout" and "Please Mister Postman"? Please.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:38 PM on June 7, 2017

I think Baby's in Black should be last.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:40 PM on June 7, 2017

Yoko Ono's Cut Piece is a seminal feminist( NOT "supposedly")work.
posted by brujita at 8:04 PM on June 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

"Fool on the Hill" deserves better placement than "Magical Mystery Tour" ye gods. Aretha Franklin's cover is exquisite.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:20 PM on June 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

And my take on the girl in Bowie's Life on Mars is that she's temporarily escaping to the movies like Tom Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie.
posted by brujita at 8:22 PM on June 7, 2017

Baby's in Black has some sweet harmony, and some tricky bits.
posted by Windopaene at 8:36 PM on June 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

The Ballad of John and Yoko is one of my favourite beatles songs---i love how fast it runs, how bitter it is, and how the stakes are so high. Also, Yoko was not a supposed major artist, she was a major artist, and gave way more to John than vice versa
posted by PinkMoose at 9:05 PM on June 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

Baby's in Black has some sweet harmony, and some tricky bits.

IIRC from A Hard Day's Write , Lennon admitted to recycling the music from "This Boy." And the lyrics are top insipid.

I think of her
But she only thinks of him
And though it's only a whim
She thinks of him

Ugh.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 9:06 PM on June 7, 2017

Yeah, "The Ballad of John & Yoko" is great. Also I feel like this is, uh, something:

"Case in point: Showing up to 'The White Album' sessions with new girlfriend Ono, who stayed there for the duration. Outsiders had never been allowed in Beatles recording sessions, and Ono — ten years older, supposed to be a substantive artist in her own right and a pioneering feminist figure — sat silently by Lennon’s side, even following him to the bathroom. Then Lennon started using heroin. Fun times, fun times."

I mean, she was pregnant at the time, and subsequently lost the baby in what sounded like a pretty traumatic miscarriage five months along. But he's whiny. Sure.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 9:19 PM on June 7, 2017 [3 favorites]

This might have been better if someone who liked the Beatles wrote it.
posted by monkeymike at 9:37 PM on June 7, 2017 [5 favorites]

I see I missed the deadline for THIS LIST IS WRONG AND BAD but still think I am in time to fight anyone who talks shit about Yoko Ono.
posted by louche mustachio at 10:29 PM on June 7, 2017 [8 favorites]

Nice to see I'll Cry Instead get a bit of love by being ranked #37, even if he does diss it a bit. If you wanted to pick a clear example of The Beatles taking country, rockabilly, and R&B and turning it into pop, you couldn't do much better than it.

(Points off the whole list though for including the 90's Anthology songs. As Uncyclopedia puts it, "the two tracks Otis produced were critically acclaimed for the way they made The Beatles sound just like ELO"…)
posted by Pinback at 10:54 PM on June 7, 2017

I'd put these much closer to the bottom:

"Mr. Moonlight"
"Do You Want to Know a Secret?"
"Revolution 9"
"You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)"
"Flying"
"Wild Honey Pie"

And in general I'd put their covers below their originals, although they do have a few shitty originals.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:05 PM on June 7, 2017

The worst thing the Beatles ever did is better than anything you ever did. This is troll.
posted by NedKoppel at 12:09 AM on June 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

I would like to see a similar list for The Rutles.
posted by mazola at 12:11 AM on June 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

I don't think it's a troll, but I do think anyone who writes a list like this is asking for trouble unless they're prepared to put in massively more work than went in here.

The problem is that, almost no-one would read an article called "One Fan's Short Impressions of All the Beatles Songs". So you take a subject you're enthusiastic about, and you make it into a list, because people read lists and the editor will take a list. But then the format, and your editor, encourages you to be what you think is "scathingly​ funny" about a large number of the songs, even though slagging off songs that have been in circulation for half a century doesn't really serve any purpose whatsoever, and isn't as interesting as bringing out the beautiful details in things that you otherwise don't rate. But it's an easy way to make the list make some sort of superficial sense, and people will read it, so that's what you do.

There is, at times, some interesting​ and worthwhile writing in this piece. But if you set out to write this sort of piece at all, you either need to put in a huge amount of work, or you need to accept that you're fundamentally going to end up writing clickbait, even if you do some good writing while you're doing it. I have a degree of sympathy for Mr Wyman's protests, but it's not like he hasn't done listicles before. He knew what he was getting into.
posted by howfar at 12:31 AM on June 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

Among other quibbles, Something at number 13 is too low. It definitely deserves the status of a top 10 song. It would be #1 for any other band.
posted by Svejk at 2:44 AM on June 8, 2017 [3 favorites]

I went through this with the SO and it was good fun. Neither of us ever listen to a Beatles song of our own accord* anymore even though so many of them are in our DNA. We're always looking for stuff to disagree about.

By the time we got to Here, There, and Everywhere at #7 we were too tired to be outraged, and anyway I think Day Tripper at #30 would win most overrated by any metric that involves being ranked relatively high over songs it is definitely not fucking better than. Swap it with We Can Work It Out at #109 recommended fix.

(*Except She Said She Said which we were happy to see ranked high. For me it's somehow like the B52's Mesopotamia (or TMBG's Stand on Your Own Head w/r/t Lincoln), in that it wasn't a song I particularly liked back when, but in the long run seems to have everything I ever wanted from that band.)
posted by fleacircus at 6:46 AM on June 8, 2017

Well, as a song qua song, Day Tripper might not be all that, but it has the best riff The Beatles ever produced, and demonstrates how they actually advanced (if you accept that advancement in the arts is a thing that exists) pop music as an art form. It's a long way from Louie Louie.

(In re: List - Ranking Dear Prudence above Here Comes The Sun show the list-maker to be in the grips of opiate-induced dementia with intervention strongly advised.)
posted by Chitownfats at 7:59 AM on June 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

All You Need Is Love is not in the top ten, this list is therefore irrelevant
posted by cobain_angel at 8:40 AM on June 8, 2017

I would love to see this re-done as the results of a worldwide, month-long poll. Everyone's tastes are different, but I'd love to see how they would all shake out. I, for one, love me some Old Brown Shoe.
posted by jetsetsc at 10:19 AM on June 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

OK, let's have a poll! Choose your favorite from each randomly-selected pair. I'll stack-rank the results and post them back here.
posted by enf at 12:54 PM on June 8, 2017 [10 favorites]

My #213 would be "Fool on the Hill," or maybe "Oh! Darling." Certainly not "Good Day Sunshine." #1 would absolutely be "Tomorrow Never Knows." I'd be okay with "A Day in the Life" and "Strawberry Fields Forever" at #2 and #3.
posted by blucevalo at 1:25 PM on June 8, 2017

OK, let's have a poll!

That is really neat!
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 1:56 PM on June 8, 2017

"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is my favorite Beatles song, and Wyman expresses why really well:

This is a great pure rock song, as sturdy and definitive a workout in that genre as any other the Beatles recorded. By 1968, you could feel that Harrison’s abilities were evolving even as Lennon and McCartney’s were being confounded.

The only post-breakup songs I like were all by Harrison. Lennon and McCartney were tapped out after the band ended, but Harrison was able to let out all that creative energy he couldn't when he was under them.

I disagree with rating most Please Please Me songs so low. That first album didn't have strong hits, but, to me, it's the most enjoyable Beatles album to listen to in one sitting from start to finish, much more than Sgt. Pepper's. The boys start out full of vim and vigor with "I Saw Her Standing There" and end with Lennon's voice going hoarse on "Twist and Shout". It's a fun ride to takes as a listener.
posted by riruro at 3:21 PM on June 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

Lennon and McCartney were tapped out after the band ended

I don't know. I think Instant Karma and Cold Turkey were as good as anything Lennon did on the White album.
posted by Chitownfats at 3:36 PM on June 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

I'm generally upset George got as shafted as he did by this. ....Although George is my favorite Beatle so I have a bit of a bias (we share a birthday, so for as long as I can remember my birthday has always been heralded by his music on the radio).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:45 PM on June 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

Some of the observations were insightful, but the order seemed basically random.

Except for Good Day Sunshine. Fuck that song.
posted by panama joe at 6:40 PM on June 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

"Here, There and Everywhere" does not belong in the top ten Beatles songs. That song is a fucking snoozefest. It would probably be in my bottom ten.

Aside from that, I actually thought the top ten was OK, by internet-clickbait-listicle standards. "A Day in the Life," "Dear Prudence" and "Rain" would all be in my top ten; "Eleanor Rigby" and "Norweigan Wood" might be, too. The rest of them wouldn't, but, save "Here, There and Everywhere," they're all perfectly defensible choices, in my estimation.

I give this list a solid B+.
posted by breakin' the law at 12:32 PM on June 9, 2017 [1 favorite]

I always approach these kinds of lists thinking, "how far into it can I get before reaching one that outrages me?" New York likes to do these ranking clickbait articles, and they previously had a Billy Joel song ranking that I thought was surprisingly decent, and a Rolling Stones one that was less so (but hey, props for actually making it through all 374 songs). Those were by other writers, however.

So, a ranking of 213 songs -- how far will I get?

213. “Good Day Sunshine,” Revolver (1966)

Oh, I see, this list will be absolute rubbish, so I can read the rest with zero expectations.

And so it was. Random example: Revolution 9 (114) above Revolution 1 (167). Really, which one have you chosen to play lately?

Sure, there was some entertaining snark, but overall FAIL.

(Y'all are doing a better job overall in enf's poll ... but Cry Baby Cry at number one as I write this? Gotta be Russian hackers.)
posted by pmurray63 at 4:19 PM on June 9, 2017

I'm really surprised by how volatile the poll results are. Maybe the algorithm is bad, but it also looks like different people also have radically different tastes, so the attempt at transitivity (if A is better than B and and B is better than C, A must be better than C) goes crazy and it ends up with nonsense.
posted by enf at 4:48 PM on June 9, 2017 [2 favorites]

And so it was. Random example: Revolution 9 (114) above Revolution 1 (167). Really, which one have you chosen to play lately?

OK, that's just bonkers.

I stand by my comment that the top ten was pretty solid, though.
posted by breakin' the law at 6:53 PM on June 9, 2017

I doubt it will hold, but at this moment, "Michelle" is #6, which is about where I'd I'd put it on my personal top ten.
posted by riruro at 7:57 PM on June 9, 2017 [1 favorite]

I am ready to declare results from the poll, based on the average scores from reconciling the conflicting votes in 20 different sequences.

"All You Need Is Love" was chosen as the best and "Kansas City/Hey Hey Hey Hey" as the worst. Thanks to everyone who participated!
posted by enf at 11:25 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

money that's what i want at no 159?
posted by pyramid termite at 2:59 PM on June 12, 2017

"Money (That's What I Want)" got 9 upvotes and 23 downvotes.
posted by enf at 3:39 PM on June 12, 2017