WXPN's List of Grievances

Phillyist loves a good list of things, especially a countdown of best things, and especially especially a countdown of the best music - there are few things that excite more controversy, argument, and occasionally even thoughtful and considered discussion. So Phillyist has been pretty much obsessed with 88.5 WXPN's list of the 885 All Time Greatest Albums, which they've been revealing over the last two and a half weeks (spin them up on your radio dial, or listen to their live stream here). The list was compiled based on top ten album lists sent in by listeners of the radio station (including yours truly), although how exactly they got from those lists to this one is a bit of a mystery to us; we assume it involved a blender.

Last year, XPN did the 885 All Time Greatest Songs, and that was definitely something, but this list of albums seems like an even more monumental and important artifact - a moment in time to look back on our musical history and decide what was great about it. It's made Phillyist scream with rage and disbelief (such as when that monumentally cheesy, highschool musical production known as Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell showed up at number 134 on the list, right after the seminal punk album Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols), and laugh and clap with joy (such as when the unfairly maligned prog rock band Genesis popped up at 279 with their complex and strange Foxtrot). It has confirmed our poor opinion of some artists (yep, AC/DC does screech really puerile lyrics on top of really dull, unimaginative rock music), exposed us to others we'd never heard before (who the heck is Damien Rice?), and reminded us how great some albums are (like Springsteen's Nebraska at 121, and Neil Young's On the Beach at 346). It's been wonderfully diverse, with really recent indie pop nestled next to '90s women singer/songwriters, '70s psychedelia, and '80s metal; Phillyist gets a real perverse kick out of hearing Metallica on WXPN.

The station will be playing the top 25 albums in their entirety, but obviously they can't play all the tracks on all the albums, because that would take years, so instead they played two tracks each from the albums at the bottom of the list, and are currently playing three tracks from each album. This means, of course, that the DJs have had to pick which tracks off of each album to play, which leads to more discussion and argument from listeners - personally, we're disappointed they just picked the obvious hits off of Police's Synchronicity instead of playing deeper, weirder, more interesting cuts like "O My God," "Murder by Numbers," or even "Miss Gradenko." You can engage in discussions of this type with "real people," or take your life in your hands and plunge in amongst the frothing music geeks on XPN's 885 Greatest Albums Bulletin Board.

And if you want to get even more involved, you should know that XPN will be broadcasting the last few albums live from upstairs at the World Cafe on Monday October 17th from 4PM to 7PM. They promise prizes and drink specials on their site, and you might just see Phillyist there, shaking our head with disgust, or bobbing it up and down with glee.

As for predictions, well, Phillyist suspects the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band will show up at number one, but don't discount the Boss's Born to Run; it's a local favorite, and it was a track off of that disc, after all, that topped the list of 885 All Time Greatest Songs.