JW #41: Why are there so many Top 10 lists? Because they're awesome

Keep 'em coming everybody

There’s been some good discussion on Substack about this topic, so I wanted to get my thoughts out there in a little bit longer form.

Look, I get the point that many have made - “there are enough best-albums-ever lists, we don’t need more.” Sure, if you’re talking about ranked lists from the big media outlets who set out to create a set-in-stone canon of the best music in the world, in ranked order, then I agree. There are plenty of mainstream lists out there - they do serve a function, as I’ll argue later, but they aren’t in short supply.

But the act of listing our favorite music is universal. Listing is a way to satisfy the human need for organization, it helps us process the wild world of music in a way we can see and understand, and it gives us a more solid way to compare our tastes with those of others. They’re tools of communication. Playlists are named the way they are because they are lists of songs, y’all (mic drop). Albums are just playlists created by the artist. They’re all freaking lists of songs. Some are in ranked order and some aren’t - but even the ones not in ranked order have an inherent ranking - songs that were chosen and songs that weren’t.

If you’ve ever listened to more than one song, congratulations! You’ve got yourself a list of songs you’ve heard in your life. If you’ve ever liked one song more than another song, congratulations! You’ve got yourself a ranked list of favorite songs. Your lists might be internal, and they might be a little fuzzy as far as what you like and why, and they might be changing all the time. But they’re lists nonetheless.

So the idea that we should stop making lists is absurd.

What’s a little bit less absurd, but still feels wrong to me, is the idea that we should stop sharing our lists.

Many, many people love to discuss their tastes with others. Even those that don’t actively take part in the discussion like to listen in - to find new music or find others who like the same music, there are a thousand reasons. This discussion is how music spreads and reaches our ears - social media, radio, streaming algorithms, blogs, and even the dreaded Top 100 lists are forms of musical discourse, and they’re essential for music to reach our ears. You could even view an artist’s album release as the ultimate statement of their musical viewpoint - a list of the songs they want to share with the world - as the most critical lists of all, when it comes to musical discussion.

I don’t think there’s anyone here who would say discussing and sharing our music preferences is a habit that needs to go away. If you do, uhhh, I think you’re lost because that’s basically the only thing I write about.

So: discourse in many forms is critical to music. We’re all in agreement, right? Good.

To contribute to good discourse, I need to know where I stand, and where my position is relative to who I’m discussing with (learning the other person’s position can be the point of the discussion, but I still have to go in knowing that they likely have a different position than me, which requires knowing my own). In other words, I need to have my thoughts organized if I’m going to effectively share them with or compare them to others.

Lists are just ways of organizing your thoughts. Organized thoughts are essential to know where you stand, and without them discussions about music preferences are impossible.

Discourse is an interchange of thoughts - multiple people sharing their ideas, which are ideally organized in some way. Even those who don’t participate directly often rely on the discourse for their own internal thinking, for discovery, to spark ideas, or to learn. Sharing organized ideas is critical.

So: Lists are essential to good musical discourse.

A little trickier is the idea of the ranked list. These can get a bit counterproductive to good discourse for the simple fact that in order for one thing to be ranked higher, another thing has to be ranked lower. This is easy to take personally - music taste is very personal, and if I connect emotionally to a song that someone else ranks lower (dislikes), it’s hard to separate their judgment of the song from judgment of the emotions I associate with it. It’s also too easy for someone to make a ranked list, go share it with the world, and then think that they need to rank their ranked list compared to others - the power of judgment goes to their head.

The line between someone making a list to organize their thoughts or making a list to showcase how smart they are is very thin on the internet.

I’m not saying that ranking things is wrong - it’s another level of mental organization, of categorizing and knowing where my musical preferences lie. And competition - the process of force ranking things - is an unavoidable part of life that can’t be shunned entirely. I’m only saying that ranking your music taste against someone else’s is nonsense because it’s not measurable - there’s no definition of good taste, bad taste, or anything between, and there never will be.

It can create a lot of noise when a gigantic organization like Rolling Stone or Pitchfork or the Grammys shares lists of their top-ranked music. For better or for worse, these large organizations are perceived to have more trustworthy or more authoritative judgment on music. This can easily lead to confusion - if I read a Rolling Stone list, is their ranking influencing my own ranking? Do I even have my own taste at all, or am I some kind of naive media sucker who only loves what I’m told to love?

These big-market lists, competitions, etc. do have a purpose. Part of that purpose is commercial, an incentive for artists to strive for to reach larger audiences and income pools. A larger part is to increase the list maker’s power and attention - to get clicks, views, money. But the most useful purpose of these lists - for music fans like us - is to raise awareness of what music is out there, and to give us a starting point of “vetted” music to consume. Whether this ability to raise awareness is wasted on those who don’t need it or not is up for debate, as is the idea that these listmakers are skilled at vetting music, but it’s clear that third party best-of lists create lots of attention and excitement for artists that wouldn’t otherwise exist. They help people start listening.

In this kind of world, I think it’s even MORE important to have my own ranked list of music in some form or fashion. It can change and evolve (and it should), but it’s also a semi-stable representation of my own musical identity, a life vest in a sea of clashing opinions. It helps me remember and trust that I do have my own taste, and that I’m not a TikTok trend-zombie masquerading as an independently thinking human. It’s only when I get too invested in my tastes, when I try to etch them in stone and stand by them come hell or high water, that I can get in trouble. Taste isn’t always permanent.

Sharing ranked lists for the average person, however, is fraught with danger - of judgment, of general online nastiness, of becoming too set in my ways because I dug in my heels during an extended argument with GunsNRosesFan420 on Reddit. It also projects a sense that my taste matters, and I’m sharing it because I’m important. Some people do have that impression of themselves, unfortunately, but for the non-sociopaths in the group, sharing lists should be treated as a discussion starter, not a flex.

Why you share your lists, especially ranked lists, matters. Bad taste doesn’t exist, but bad intentions certainly do. If you share your taste with good intentions, I’m all for it. But if you’re trying to shut down other people’s opinions rather than have a friendly discussion about them, then you have bad intentions, and you shouldn’t be sharing ranked lists. You’re defeating the purpose when you do that - defining good taste for anybody but yourself is impossible. It’s not a thing.

Your taste is good to you, mine is good to me. Maybe your taste overlaps with mine, and maybe not. Comparing can yield new ideas for both of us, but it should never lead to one person thinking their tastes are better or worse than the other’s - ranked lists of who has the “best” musical tastes should never exist. If this statement is confusing, please leave a comment.

Look, I like to start discussions on my music taste for one reason: my own gain. There you go, the cat’s out of the bag. I only post these newsletters to have discussions that lead to me knowing more about music. Oh, did you think Jamwise was free? Joke’s on you, I’m actually farming the internet for free music recommendations and wise insights and the only thing I pay for is the electrons that keep my computer running while I type this. Suckers!

But in all seriousness, I firmly believe that sharing our music taste is essential to start discussions, when it’s done the right way. GOOD: start discussions using our ranked lists as a way to compare and understand each other. BAD: compete to see whose taste is better. Let’s all be good, friends.

Aaaand… Argument complete.

Lists are critical for organizing thoughts, organized thoughts are necessary for having good discussions, and good discussions are what make the music world go ‘round.

Make your lists. Revise your lists. Share your lists. Debate your lists. Enjoy your lists. Read a Rolling Stone list if you want. Just don’t take them too seriously.