All-Time Greatest Music

(This is the thirtieth artist that made this Top100 list that began producing music in 1980. So, they are not a part of the 1960s generation).

By Colin Meloy, is an American musician, singer-songwriter and author best known as the frontman of the Portland, Oregon, indie folk rock band the Decemberists (2000-present). In addition to vocals, he performs with an acoustic guitar, 12-string acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bouzouki, harmonica and percussion instruments.

Illustrator: Anita Kunz

I first heard R.E.M. in 1986, a song tacked on to the end of a demos collection of a Eugene, Oregon, band that my uncle, then in school at U of O, sent to me for Christmas. The song was called “Superman,” a bit of meticulously crafted bubblegum that was so simple and honest and funny that my entire nascent library of cassettes (chiefly: Yaz, Scritti Politti and Depeche Mode) seemed to be rendered obsolete in the span of the track’s three minutes. I was fully hooked. Little did I know: Becoming enamored with indie bands in Helena, Montana, in the late 1980s was kind of like developing a taste for beluga caviar in rationing-era postwar Britain.

By the time Lifes Rich Pageantwas gracing the yellow Sony Sports boomboxes of the world, R.E.M. was totally a going concern. The following year brought Document, and that landed them a video on MTV, even. Still, in Helena, being an R.E.M. fan meant being part of a tiny community. A community that, as far as I could tell, consisted of exactly one person. Then Green came around, and suddenly this band was on a major label, playing arenas, and every human in America with two ears and access to radio was being demanded to “Stand.” I listened to Chronic Town — procured on a recent family vacation to Los Angeles — on my Walkman backstage during rehearsal for the school production of Guys and Dolls, rehearsing the conversation in my head:

“What are you listening to?” they’d ask.

“R.E.M.,” I’d reply.

“Oh — they do that song ‘Stand.'”

“Yeah,” I’d reply casually, “I’m not really into that song — this is their first EP. It’s, like, from 1982.”

It was well-rehearsed, but it never actually happened. I had to suffer the philistines — stealing my band — silently. But still: To be an ardent R.E.M. fan, happy to venture beyond the pale of the radio singles, was a rare thing. Middle school was brutal for me, and I clung to my music like a life raft. Murmur, Reckoning … even Dead Letter Office, with its beer-soaked goofs and discarded B sides, provided a much-needed insulation against the cruel, Queensrÿche-and-Garth-Brooks-listening world. “When I was young and full of grace/And spirited, a rattlesnake/When I was young and fever fell/My spirit? I will not tell….” However inscrutable Michael Stipe’s lyrics were, they always gave language to this weird, agonizing metamorphosis taking place in my head. I was desperately searching for like-minded kids, but with every semester that went by, I felt like my isolation only grew.

R.E.M. greatest hits playlist:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7KmRZTShlhaeHIQSy1HFSR?si=ir9mXixZTluLCWdri66h4w&pi=WQKoEvDtQQaNl

My parents, at a loss, suggested I get involved in the local community theater’s after-school program. I was initially skeptical, but I agreed to give it a shot. As I climbed the stone steps toward the theater’s entrance, the doors flew open and out walked a girl I’d never seen before — someone from the high school, maybe — wearing a gauzy sundress and a notable lack of hair spray in her long hair. But the thing that caught my eye: She was wearing a Fables of the Reconstruction T-shirt. I was floored. She smiled shyly — probably more embarrassed at my gaping than anything — and walked by.

I’d been given the signal. A wayward fugitive, stumbling through the door of some Provençal cafe, his hat and coat soaking wet from the journey. The customers turn and look, each more untrusting than the next. Till a flash of a badge or the wave of a ribbon can be seen from the farthest table, and he knows: This is it. You’re in the resistance now, son.

By Antonio “L.A.” Reid,  is an American record executive, A&R representative, and record producer who served as president and CEO of Arista Records from 2000 to 2004, as well as chairman and CEO of the Island Def Jam Music Group from 2004 to 2011 and Epic Records from 2011 to 2017. He co-founded the record label Hitco Entertainment in the latter year, which was sold to Concord in 2022.

Illustrator: Dale Stephanos

For almost 30 years — my entire career, really — all I’ve been doing is trying to discover another Diana Ross. I obviously still have my work cut out for me. She was gorgeous and skinny — and this was back in the Twiggy days, when skinny was new — and she had that big, beautiful hair. And, of course, she was glamorous: I remember all those furs, diamonds and early bling-bling. Everything about her — her mannerisms, her look, her aura — exuded stardom.

The Supremes were the epitome of the Motown sound. People look at Ross and say she had great songs, she was a good-looking girl, behind her she had Berry Gordy — who, in my book, is the greatest record man who ever lived — she had all these things. Holland, Dozier and Holland were amazing songwriters, just pure melody men. As we all know now, the unsung heroes were the Motown house band, the Funk Brothers. They could take those great songs and give them sound. “Where Did Our Love Go,” “Baby Love,” “Come See About Me,” “Stop! In the Name of Love,” “I Hear a Symphony” — at the time, people thought those songs were disposable. And now we realize that they’re true masterpieces. They’re so alive. Everything about the songs was great, even the intros — every one of them had a distinctive, memorable intro, which was a hook in and of itself. And, of course, there were two other wonderful singers in the Supremes, Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard.

Diana Ross and The Supremes greatest hits playlist:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3nsa1qXpcKvsI3AwUKIWto?si=2n55k9H2Sv2MbO0SnPb1PQ&pi=Xlz37_JETne2U

But at the end of the day, Diana Ross’ voice would come on the air and give you chill bumps. It had such presence, terrific tone, and was so identifiable. She didn’t sing like Aretha Franklin — she wasn’t a gospel singer — but she was a stylist, and you always believed her. She was captivating, romantic. When she asked, “Where did our love go?” she sounded like she was begging.

To this day, I believe that her voice could work on contemporary radio. She set the road map for the success of Janet Jackson, Madonna — anybody who could sing but wasn’t a real crooner like Aretha or Patti LaBelle or Gladys Knight. I still ask artists in the studio to “sing this like Diana Ross would.” So far, no one has.

(This is the twenty-ninth artist that made this Top100 list but was active in recording music in the 1970s. Therefore, they are not a part of the 1960s generation).

By Al Kooper, is an American songwriter, record producer, and musician. Throughout much of the 1960s and 1970s he was a prolific studio musician, including playing organ on the Bob Dylan song “Like a Rolling Stone”, French horn and piano on the Rolling Stones song “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”, and lead guitar on Rita Coolidge’s “The Lady’s Not for Sale”. He also formed and named Blood, Sweat & Tears, though he did not stay with the group long enough to share in its subsequent popularity.

Illustrator: Joshua Gorchov

In 1972, the radio was logjammed with progressive rock like you wouldn’t believe — Yes, Pink Floyd, Genesis — I was searching for a great three-chord band to produce. And so, that year, I heard Lynyrd Skynyrd making their Atlanta debut at a very dangerous club on Peachtree Street called Funocchio’s. They were playing a weeklong engagement, and each night I’d hear another great original song from them and knew I’d found the band I was searching for.

As I got to know them, I marveled at their work ethic. They had a shack on the swamp in their native Jacksonville, Florida, where they rehearsed constantly, honing their original material into polished, shining steel. They may have had three guitar players, but they understood restraint. Of all the bands I’d come across in my life, they were the finest arrangers. “Sweet Home Alabama” sounds like seasoned studio musicians twice their age.

Lynyrd Skynyrd greatest hits playlist:

https://open.spotify.com/album/7CocMpFkEjPUMkWyPH3s0v?si=rdlVGRseSSC0qw1_xLqcRg

Ronnie Van Zant was Lynyrd Skynyrd. I don’t mean to demean the roles the others played in the group’s success, but it never would have happened without him. His lyrics were a big part of it — like Woody Guthrie and Merle Haggard before him, Ronnie knew how to cut to the chase. And Ronnie ran that band with an iron hand. I have never seen such internal discipline in a band. One example: These guys composed all of their guitar solos. Most bands improvised solos each time they performed or recorded. Not them. Ronnie’s dream was that they would sound exactly the same every time they took the stage.

After three or four albums, Lynyrd Skynyrd transcended the Southern-rock tag. They became one of the greatest rock & roll bands in history. They feared no one. On their very first national tour, they opened for the Who. And got encores!

When Ronnie went down in that terrible 1977 plane crash, the forward progress of the band ended. After the survivors all healed, they miraculously reassembled. Ronnie’s kid brother Johnny took over, and you had to rub your eyes to make sure it wasn’t Ronnie. But while the band could duplicate the majesty of past live shows (and still can), the heart and soul of the band was gone forever.

(This is the twenty-eighth artist that made this Top100 list but started recording in 1988, so therefore was not a part of the 1960s generation).

By David Bowie, was an English singer, songwriter and actor. Regarded as among the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Bowie received particular acclaim for his work in the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, and his music and stagecraft have had a great impact on popular music. His first hit “Space Oddity” (1969) jump started his career.

Illustrator: N. Vetri

When the gods of nasty sounds tacked audition cards to the trees around town encouraging the brutes of industrial rock to brawl for the crown, a small lad with a tuba was probably not what they had in mind for a contender. His name was Michael Trent Reznor, and he also played sax and piano and learned early in life how to engineer a recording-studio console. He produced a terrific debut album called Pretty Hate Machine. Melodically oriented — and, because of record-company contractual problems, supported by what became a three-year tour — it birthed the first real mainstream breakthrough for industrial rock, selling over a million copies.

Nine Inch Nails greatest hits playlist:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5yRMJxpxttJUR1sOGNE3Cz?si=mrasewvfQDWZCt2rAAD87A&pi=VUhnSKXKSaKJ_

Following Brian Eno’s example, Reznor unpacked his synth and threw away the manual. In making The Downward Spiral, he encouraged the computer to misconstrue input, willed it to spew out bloated, misshapen shards of sound that pierced and lacerated the listener. As a companion piece to Baudelaire’s “To the Reader” — the preface to his Flowers of Evil — and second to the Velvet Underground, there has never been better soul-lashing in rock.

I had a strange dream a few years back. Lou Reed, myself and a friend known as Warren Peace were having dinner in one of those old-style Greenwich Village places where Pollock was supposed to have fought other painters. Our meal was served by one of the members of Einstúrzende Neubauten. I slowly became aware of the house music and that it was infuriatingly familiar. Our waiter, Blixa Bargeld, leaned in to me and whispered, “The music is a birthday surprise for Lou. Trent Reznor remixed this version of Metal Machine Music as a present.”

As he said this, strands, splodges and blots from a Pollock early-Fifties “drip” painting materialized in front of our faces. While the music got louder, the paint hurtled around us faster and faster till we ran nauseous from the cafe, chased by infernal screaming lavender, blue and black snakes.

And that is it, really. Trent’s music, built as it is on the history of industrial and mechanical sound experiments, contains a beauty that attracts and repels in equal measure: Nietzsche’s “God is dead” to a nightclubbing beat. And always lifted, at the most needy moment, by a tantalizing melody.

I cannot believe that Spiral was released nearly 20 years ago now. It still sounds incredible today. And, no, no one ever calls him Mickey.

By Isaac Hayes, was an American singer, songwriter, composer, and actor. He was one of the creative forces behind the Southern soul music label Stax Records in the 1960s. Best known for creating the theme song for the movie “Shaft” (1971).

Illustrator: Joseph Adolphe

Booker T. and the MGs had that Southern funk flavor. Motown took care of the North with their polished sound, but the MGs were gritty and raw, and they could really groove. You can hear their sound reverberating throughout the whole industry today — especially since hip-hop guys sample so much of what they did back then. They were an integrated band — half white, half black. There was a “cotton curtain” back in the Sixties: Bands were all segregated in Memphis. But the MGs were like a family. That integration was a sign of things to come.

The MGs made a name for themselves with all those great instrumentals, like “Green Onions,” but they were the house band at Stax/Volt, so they had real adaptive ability. Otis Redding had his sound, Sam and Dave had theirs, Albert King had his own thing. But it was always Booker T. and the MGs playing. When I did my first sessions at Stax, I learned everything about record production from those guys.

Booker T and the MGs greatest hits playlist:

https://open.spotify.com/album/3ATCCblIQHWzgP6gzssd5r?si=Djn85rfqQt6q_-urKMzKXQ

In the MGs, Steve Cropper and Donald “Duck” Dunn were the rock & rollers, but they also had the country thing covered, as well as the blues. Most guitar players like to go crazy, but Steve picked his spots, and when he spoke, it was profound. Duck was a great bass player, and very funny — one of them good old Southern beer-drinking boys.

Al Jackson’s father was a drummer, so Al had a background of rhythm. Al had a little jazz flavor along with those R&B grooves. You know when I did “Shaft,” with those 16th notes on the high-hat? That was actually a break Al played on Otis Redding’s “Try a Little Tenderness.” That stuck with me.

Booker T. pioneered a lot of sounds on the organ. When you heard him play, you knew it couldn’t be anyone else. I remember one time, Booker accidentally had two dates booked at the same time, so he took some other band and went somewhere in Kansas, and I went with the MGs to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where I had to go pose as Booker T. Halfway through, some guy yells out, “Hey, man, that guy ain’t no Booker T.! He ain’t got no hair!” We said, “Oh, shit.” But the groove took over, and that calmed them down.

(This is the twenty-seventh artist that made this Top100 list that began recording music in 1985, therefore, wasn’t a part of the 1960s generation).

By Joe Perry,  is an American musician best known as a founding member, guitarist, backing and occasional lead vocalist of the rock band Aerosmith (1970-present). Had many hits including “Dream On” (1973).

Illustrator: Anita Kunz

Guns n’ Roses revived our kind of rock. I remember someone handing me a copy of Appetite for Destruction and saying, “You’ve got to hear these guys — they’re the new big thing.” Bands like Bon Jovi and Whitesnake were big then, but Guns n’ Roses were different. They dug down a little deeper into rock’s roots. I heard a lot of Aerosmith in them, which meant I also heard a lot of bands that came before us. And I remember being a little jealous, because they were really hitting the nail on the head.

They opened up for us in 1988, and one of the things that impressed me was how much personality they put across, even when they weren’t playing. Axl knew how to work an audience. They used to have to go out there and tape foam rubber around everything that Axl could touch — from his teleprompter to his mic stand — to make sure he wouldn’t break anything, or hurt himself. I think people saw that he was basically just let out of the cage. Part of the thrill was wondering what he was going to do next.

They were called metal at the time, but they weren’t: Metal isn’t sexy, but rock is. To put it another way: You can have the rock, but you need the roll. Songs like “Paradise City” and “Welcome to the Jungle” were just simple enough; the chorus lines came right when you wanted them. Slash plays what’s needed for the song, as opposed to trying to make the tune a showcase for his technique. Guns n’ Roses’ music wasn’t full of the overblown gymnastics that a lot of guys were doing then — their stuff is just very tasty. Duff McKagan is like the bass player in AC/DC: His parts were fairly simple, but they made the band an unstoppable force. Izzy Stradlin was also important. Guns n’ Roses played as a gang, which is just what you want.

Guns n’ Roses greatest hits playlist:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6kgQeWAXXVYTiA9azbn39q?si=dMUz6q9cQ1mUGbUloc2qMQ&pi=iutoUoLSQHGwb

Guns n’ Roses are still an example of how a band can move rock forward. Sometimes you think, “How can you top anything by the Yardbirds, or Zeppelin, or the Stones?” And then you hear Guns n’ Roses, and it’s inspiring. You can think that it’s all been written, but it hasn’t. There’s another way to twist those three chords around, to make it sound new, fresh and rebellious.

(This is the twenty-sixth artist that made this Top100 list but did not produce any recordings until the 1970s, therefore, was not a part of the 1960s generation).

By Stevie Nicks, is an American singer-songwriter, known for her work with the band Fleetwood Mac (1967-1995) and as a solo artist. Many hits including “Albatross” in 1968.

Illustrator: Jody Hewgill

In 1976, I’d been in Fleetwood Mac for about a year when I heard Tom Petty’s debut. I became a fan right then. I loved the way Tom’s Florida swamp-dog voice sounded in cahoots with Mike Campbell’s guitar and Benmont Tench’s keyboards. Tom had the same influences we had — the Byrds, Neil Young, Crosby, Stills and Nash — but he dropped in lots of serious old blues. And Tom is such a great singer and so charismatic onstage. I became such a fan that if I hadn’t been in a band myself, I would have joined that one.

When I started doing my first solo album, Bella Donna, my first thought was, “Who produces Tom Petty?” When they said Jimmy Iovine, I got Jimmy, because I wanted my solo work to be as much like Tom’s as possible.

I first met Tom in the studio, and he was pretty much what I expected. There’s not a fake bone in his body. Jimmy and Tom decided to give me “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” which they had written with Campbell. When they showed it to me, I was like, “Is this the right thing to do? I only get 11 songs and one of them won’t be mine.” And both Tom and Jimmy said to me, in a brutally honest way, “You don’t have a single on this record. And here’s a single for you.”

Tom Petty’s greatest hits playlist:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6tdwGqurUgukH5uc5PCbiA?si=YysuuJU7RYS1XLuILWIWzA&pi=lIajx5nMQgS8M

Tom is a great and loyal friend, but he’s also honest like that. In 1994, I had just gotten out of rehab, and Tom and I had dinner. I wanted to make a new record but I was scared. I said to him, “Will you help me write a song or two?” I didn’t really expect the reaction I got, which was, “No, I won’t. You are one of the premier songwriters in this business. Go home and turn off the radio. Don’t be influenced by anything. Just write some great songs — that’s what you do.” He reinforced that I was still Stevie Nicks. I wrote a song about him I’ve never recorded, but I will someday. It goes, “Sometimes he’s my best friend, even when he’s not around.”

In 2006, I did 27 shows with him. Tom made me a little platinum sheriff’s badge that had 24-karat gold and diamonds across the top and said “To Our Honorary Heartbreaker, Stevie Nicks.” On the back it says “To the Only Girl in Our Band.” I keep it on my black velvet top hat. It goes with me everywhere. It’s probably the most beautiful piece of jewelry a man has ever given me, ever.

By Henry Garza of Los Lonely Boys. Los Lonely Boys are an American musical group from San Angelo, Texas. They play a style of music they call “Texican Rock n’ Roll”, combining elements of rock and roll, Texas blues, brown-eyed soul, country, and Tejano music.

Illustrator: Marc Burckhardt

Carlos Santana’s music is a family thing for Chicanos. It’s what you listen to when you’re all hanging out: Drinking some beers, listening to “Oye Como Va” and cooking some barbecue is the best thing in the world. His music hits right to the pump — right to the heart. He’s a pioneer of Latin rock & roll: His music was something new, but it was intertwined with everything else that was out there at the time — Sixties rock, Latin jazz and more. We’re trying to do the same thing with Los Lonely Boys — make a lot of different types of music into something our own — but he did that first. He incorporated his culture into the music, and he mixed English and Spanish in the lyrics.

Everything on a song like “Black Magic Woman” works: the keyboards, the congos, the drums, the vocals. Carlos isn’t the lead singer, but he is the maestro. Of course, the best thing about all his albums is his guitar. He’s one of the greatest players who ever lived. His guitar has a very distinctive sound — it’s like a fingerprint. His tone just bleeds through everything. His playing is both simple and complicated — he can communicate with just one or two notes. He speaks languages through his music that people can understand in any country, any language.

Carlos Santana’s Greatest hits playlist:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/62aJYbkT5PToxW6xxRRo9H?si=6R67kbKeTfaM75eiXnCeag&pi=d7Z_lAF0QeqAV

Those first three albums — Santana, Abraxas, Santana III — are really special to me. You could hear his ethnicity in his music — even when he’s playing like some blues cat, he still sounds like Santana. And his music always has that rhythm. It makes you want to get your girlfriend and go to a dance in your lowrider. Some people were confused after that by his Seventies music, when he became jazzier. But he was just experimenting, learning more. And then his comeback with Supernatural shows how enduring his talent is.

Santana has a really good message to send to the human spirit. He once said to us, “You want to be like emissaries of light. When you’re up on that stage or when you record, you want to be a tool that light shines through to everybody.”

You don’t want to dwell in darkness. You want to go toward the light. And Santana is the light.

By Steven Tyler, Tyler is best known as the lead singer of the Boston-based rock band Aerosmith, in which he also plays the keyboards, harmonica and percussion. He has been called the “Demon of Screamin'” due to his high screams and his wide vocal range. He is also known for his on-stage acrobatics. Aerosmith (1970-1978) had several hits including: “Dream On.”

Illustrator: Charles Miller

Listen to “Somebody,” a song I wrote for Aerosmith’s first album: It’s all from the Yardbirds. They were the shit to us, out of all the British bands in the Sixties. The Yardbirds were a bit of a mystery. They had an eclecticism — the Gregorian chant-ness of the vocals, the melodic diversity, the way they used guitar feedback. I loved that weirdness.

Yardbirds Greatest hits playlist:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/12VbgdjjLult1qQvAavCdl?si=tcauBJMkSoqZ6IIGJxvHzA&pi=AbpijtlUQ7ux6

In the Sixties, I was in a band called Chain Reaction. We got to know the Yardbirds because they played at Staples High School in Westport, Connecticut, in 1966. We had a friend, Henry Smith, who had been our manager for a while, and he had gone to school there. He called me and said, “Steven, the Yardbirds are playing here, and you can open up.” It was the lineup with Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, who was playing bass on that tour. We waited all day for them to arrive. I grabbed their amps, they grabbed ours. We carried each other’s gear in, because back then, that’s what you did. Hence began the rumor that I was a roadie for the Yardbirds.

They did “Shapes of Things,” “Beck’s Boogie,” among other songs. I was in such awe. They played like no other band. They weren’t concerned with clothes or looks or hit singles. Their thing was “What do we do with these sounds?” They did things with harmonics — minor thirds and fifths — that created this ethereal, monstrous sound.

You hear it in every song — the way they could take the blues and turn it into a pop song like “For Your Love,” then something psychedelic like “Shapes of Things,” which has that weird middle. You can hear the click when Beck hits his fuzz box. Page, in the end, was the one who took those ideas all the way with Led Zeppelin. The two shows I remember where I just sat with my mouth open was that Yardbirds show, and Led Zeppelin at the Boston Tea Party in 1969.

As a singer, the thing I got out of the Yardbirds was that you don’t have to have a great voice. It’s all about attitude. He was a white boy who pushed it to the max. And he was a great harmonica player. You never heard Jagger hanging out on a single note the way Keith Relf could.

The shame is, I know how great the Yardbirds were. But I don’t think everyone else knows it. The Yardbirds’ music is a gold mine waiting to be stumbled upon. Aerosmith did, because we grew up in that era. The riff in “Walk This Way” is just us trying to explore the blues in the Yardbirds model. What the Yardbirds did is something you don’t hear in today’s blue-plate-special, cookie-cutter music. Everything is so canned and sliced up now. This was back when a band was a band. You had all those personalities, and they were all truly playing together. And I don’t hear that today. The day of those bands, that wild stepping out, is gone.

(This is the twenty-fifth artist that made this Top100 list but began making music in 1986 so they are not part of the 1960s generation).

By Ezra Koenig, is an American musician, record producer, and radio personality. He is the lead vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter of indie rock band Vampire Weekend (2006-present).

Illustrator: Owen Smith

Somewhere between LOL and FML there was “TRL.” MTV’s Total Request Live debuted in September 1998. The early TRL charts were dominated by ‘N Sync, the Backstreet Boys, Korn and their respective biters. Then, six weeks in, Jay-Z’s “Can I Get A … ” video debuted at Number 10. It wasn’t the beginning of his career as a rapper, but it was the beginning of his career as a major force in pop music.

Jay-Z greatest hits playlist:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4EMBaFWqCE3t00mk6VpWAg?si=RLP0C8R8SMOWyUvs-JgjcA&pi=pL-TLFqtSda2R

Mainstream radio and TV presented the late-Nineties teenager with a weirdly extreme choice between aggro rock played by men in tank tops and mushy ballads sung by slightly smaller men in tank tops; Jay-Z presented a much-needed alternative. This is not to say that Jay-Z never wore tank tops, but he was (and continues to be) an exceedingly rare combination of intelligence, weirdness, seriousness and pop appeal. Go look back at those TRLcharts and it’s not hard to tell why a generation of musicians, critics and fans became so deeply connected to the lyrics of a dude who, supposedly, was describing a world that at least 50 percent of his fans “couldn’t relate to.”

In my lifetime, Jay-Z has, by far, been the most artful and exciting musician to consistently make hits, and I mean real hits — Top 10 singles deep into his career, like “Empire State of Mind.” How many artists make it 15 years without embarrassing themselves, let alone while maintaining their relevancy?

I remember getting chills watching him perform “On to the Next One” at Coachella. He was wearing all black and standing in front of a giant video wall. I interpret that song as both an ode to creative ingenuity and a critique of infinite-growth capitalism. Admittedly, I was reading a lot about peak oil at the time, but c’mon, who else can inspire a crowd of 100,000 to throw their arms in the air while offering each individual brain in that crowd the opportunity to think critically about language and the state of the world today?

His lyrics are deep enough to demand exegesis (see: Decoded), at times, cute and playful enough to be memorized by every “mean girl” at my high school (see: his verse on Mariah Carey’s “Heartbreaker”). On “Public Service Announcement,” he described himself as being like “Che Guevara with bling on.” Some people found this to be in bad taste, but it doesn’t feel too off the mark to me. At the very least, I don’t think anyone will take issue with the next line: “I’m complex.”