10. Million Dollar Dream

This variation of the sleeper hold that The Million Dollar Man executed put all jobbers to sleep. Dibiase would take the jobber’s arm and put it across his throat and then he would put his other arm and apply as much pressure as possible to the neck region. The conclusion? The end of the jobber and his dreams of beating the sly and elusive Million Dollar Man. The end of thinking that he could take the Million Dollar Belt away from The Million Dollar Man. This wasn’t a spectacular move but it yielded it’s exact consequences; the end of a match and the usually the end of the jobber’s 2 month stay in the WWF.

9. Leg Drop

Probably the worst finishing move of all time is also one of the best. I’m quite certain that Hogan could leg drop me 1,000 times and I would get up after the 1,000th time and ask him if he wanted to go get something to eat somewhere. But in the staged wrestling world, The Leg Drop meant everything. It meant the end of the wrestler (except for The Undertaker and The Ultimate Warrior). The lying wrestler would slightly flop as if to signify he was unconscious from the phantom Leg Drop. The degenerate crowd would erupt as if the Leg Drop actually had an impact.

8. Sweet Chin Music

Shawn Michaels executed his finishing move to perfection, showing that he was really an expert at karate. He would get full extension with his leg and kick his opponent into unconsciousness, including the infamous scene in the barbershop where he high kicked Marty Geneti and then subsequently threw him into the glass. Shawn Michaels would have trouble shaking off his heel persona slowly after this, which isn’t a bad thing. Some wrestlers just have it in them to be heels. This move would come suddenly and quickly. When it hit, it was over. Even though this is fake wrestling, you could hear it for miles away. The opponent was actually taking a hit. When watching this move, you could see just how devastating it was.

7. Superfly Splash

Superfly Jimmy Snuka was a high flying character from the rainforest, anthropomorphizing a jungle animal. It was only appropriate that his finishing move involved flying off the top turnbuckle. He wouldn’t just jump off the top ropes either, he would fly off them with arms extended right onto the opponent’s belly, knocking the wind out of him for good. Cameras would all be shooting when Superfly performed this incredible move. No wrestler had flown as high as Superfly. This was more than a memorable finishing move and will always be attempted by those early wrestling fans. Only the degenerates will get hurt though.

6. The Brutal Banzai

The Banzai Drop was a real leg drop because it was coming from someone who was over 500 pounds. This shit could suffocate you. But Yokozuna also had a better finishing move with the Brutal Banzai where he would drag his opponent towards the turnbuckles. Yokozuna would then get on the second ropes and jump off landing his fat ass right on the chest of the opponent. This was hard to watch. When I was young, I always had to turn away when watching this move. How could wrestlers just sit under Yokozuna fat ass even for the 3 count. They must have been breathing for their life during that time. Yokozuna had many refreshing things about him because he was so opposite of the big men that came before him who were just loafs with no endurance.

5. DDT

The DDT by Jake the Snake Roberts was explosive. Like The Perfect Plex, the beauty of the move was that it came from out of nowhere. The wrestling fan could be looking at something else besides the TV screen for just a second before Jake ruthlessly DDT’ed someone to the canvas. The move happened in a matter of seconds and left the jobber unconscious for Jake to pin. Jake’s ruthless nature sometimes made him do 2 or 3 DDT’s to an opponent. Jake loved being the heel. He had the blood of Judas in him and felt no mercy for anyone. A devastating move at such a quick speed, this had to be in the top 10 finishing moves of all time.

4. Tombstone

The Tombstone spelt a certain end for every opponent (except for Hogan). When Undertaker hoisted up the opponent and planted him into his knees, it was doomsday. The Undertaker would then go on to fold up the arms of the opponent as if they were dead and pin him with his eyes rolling back in his head. This was one of the deadliest finishing moves in WWF history. The fact that Hogan was the only one would could get up from it told you something about it’s cataclysmic nature. The crowd would come to an abrupt hush after the Tombstone was executed. The Grim Reaper would prevail again as one of the most dominate wrestlers of all time.

3. Sharpshooter

If you were in the sharpshooter, you were done unless you were near the ropes, which happened to be about 50% of the people that Bret Hart executed the Sharp Shooter on. If you were in the middle of the ring though (which means you were most likely a jobber), you were done for. The move would crack your back if you didn’t call for submission. Bret Hart didn’t just execute the Sharpshooter though. He put so much pressure on your back during the execution that only the strongest could survive past 5 seconds. Always executed with greatness, The Sharpshooter was one of the most memorable finishing moves.

2. Perfect Plex

Mr. Perfect’s Perfect Plex actually wouldn’t hurt the wrestler, it would just put them in an interminable position of never being able to kick out of it. It was done with perfect execution only known to the excellence of execution; Mr. Perfect, and it would happen any time in the match. The power of certain finishing moves is that you never know when they’re going to happen. This was the case with the Perfect Plex. What looked liked a simple attempt at a suplex could spell the end for the wrestler as the suplex was actually a Perfect Plex. The true wrestler that he was, he was deserving of a such a perfect finishing move.

1. Razor’s Edge

The Razor’s Edge was technically one of the best finishing moves of all time. This took major athleticism and an incredible amount of creativity to come up with. Razor Ramon would perilously hoist a wrestler by his arm pits and smash him down on his neck. If this was done with vigor this could actually hurt someone. Seeing the spectacle of the Razor’s Edge though was incredible. It’s often forgotten in Razor Ramon’s feckless disposition. When Razor wanted to wrestle though, he did and he would destroy opponents with this grandiose finishing move. Great idea. I would give as much credit to whoever came up with the idea.

Why do Americans hate the French so much?

Good question, I don’t know the exact answer. If it wasn’t for the French we wouldn’t have won the Revolutionary War, we wouldn’t have bought the Louisiana territory (an incredibly cheap deal made between Jefferson and Napoleon because the later needed some quick cash to trash the rest of Europe), or the Statue of Liberty. Historically we should like them, but they smell bad, eat weird things, have bad attitudes, and won’t give you extra syrup for hot cakes at McDonalds. Maybe the reason we don’t like them is that we had to save their asses twice from the Germans and still they had bad attitudes

Why are vacations in France longer than in the US?

I want to say that the french are lazy, because that would be funny, but I actually agree with this one. Stress at the work place is far from productive and vacations help get rid of that.

I am going to Paris. What do I HAVE to do while I am there?

I went to Paris once too. My hotel was near the Eiffel Tower,  at least I think. Somewhere within walking distance from the hotel is a McDonalds, it’s on a corner if that helps. Go into this McDonalds during the morning hours and order hot cakes, if they are still on the menu ( I haven’t eaten at one in many years). Now this set of hot cakes will come with one syrup cup, which by American standards is far from enough. Pay attention because this is the tricky part, return to the counter and ask for an extra syrup cup. Most likely they will give you a shitty attitude, don’t let that phase you, stay strong and get your extra syrup…..for America. This is something you HAVE to do while you are there.

I went to France.  The people were great what did you think?

You are obviously a French infiltrator trying to manipulate the opinions of us good and decent people. Nice try, we know you are all salty and superior acting, even though you are sticky and stupid. Nice try, Frenchman!

Have you ever had your picture taken with the Eiffel Tower as background?

Yes.

What is the worst time to say “Voila!”?

Right when you take your pants off.

What are some Napoleonic war strategies?

Well there’s the classic pincher move, the loopty loop, the 5 second rule, no givesys backsies, the indian arm burn, calling it, running away, popping a wheelie, the human shield, bending, attack and release, and so on.

10. Super Street Fighter 2

All those characters, all those moves, all those different areas to fight in. With all this diversity in game play, you could play this game for hours. Just when you thought that Dhalism was the character to choose because of his long reach, you realized that Ryu could easily penetrate this by throwing fireballs at him from a distance. When you thought you couldn’t beat your expert friend at the game, all you had to do was choose M.Bison and do his super move into your friend’s character’s back and forth forever. All these different techniques and all these different ways at stopping the techniques. This was only on 2 player mode. In 1 player mode you had to beat the game with all those characters. This game was endless fun and would solidify itself as the ultimate fighting series in fighting game history.

9. GoldenEye 007

007 was patently addicting. How ridiculously amazing the multiplayer action was made this one of the most re-playable games of all time. Almost every level was amazing to play in (except for the cavernous areas). Who could ever forget “The Facility”; the premiere 3D shooter level in all of gaming history? Play this with Rockets, Proxies, what you wanted and this level would be amazing. The most fun a person can have playing this game is have 2 people secretly gang up on a 3rd person in the facility playing with proxy detonators. You throw them in every spot where a player can start and all that the player getting wrecked can do is press start and die. Controllers will be broken after this possible along with some jaws. This game can be played forever. It’s possibly the best 3D shooter ever made.

8. Doctor Mario

Tetris on Acid? Doctor Mario was a different approach to Tetris. The goal was to rid your screen of all the viruses. You did this by connecting the blocks with the appropriate colors coming down from your blocks. The way you laid the blocks down was vastly different from Tetris. Some sideways laying you would do in Doctror Mario, you would never do in Tetris. A great idea off the already great Tetris, Doctor Mario solidified itself as one of the better multiplayer games for the 8 and 16bit platforms.

7. Rampart

Rampart was a pure strategy game that would become endless fun upon learning how to actually play it. Don’t count on learning how to play it when playing the computer 1 on 1. The computer will destroy you with first shots from their ships. Play against a friend and figure it out, then you will know the power in the replayability of this game. You choose your main castle and build around it to fortify the castle and the eventual cannons that go inside of it. Your opponent then smashes your walls to pieces. After this you’re in rebuilding mode taking pieces (much like Tetris) and putting them in place to envelop your castle and retain the points needed to win a match. Great game, great concept, this game can be played for hours.

6. Bomberman 1

Bomberman 1 was replayable in numerous ways. Firstly it had an amazing co-op 2 player mode where you had to destroy level upon level, boss upon boss. Not losing your weapons was key to winning at this game. Once you lost your weapons and had to start over from the level you were at with no weapons, it was deflating. Playing the battle mode was a joy too, but you had to start at level 1 difficulty or the computer would have it’s way with you. They would race around, trapping you in corners while you were just trying to find an extra bomb to lay down. Once mastered though, you could increase difficulty level and feel proud of the fact that you were challenging the well-programmed computer. Then it was just you and your human opponent fighting for Bomberman supremacy.

5. WWF Royal Rumble

WWF Royal Rumble was a great game. You could replay matches against opponents, have tag team matches and of course Royal Rumble it up against the computer and friends, and of course this game had Mr. Perfect in it making it one of the most perfect games of all time. Believe it or not, this game isn’t just button smashing, but knowing when to eye gouge and to kick your opponent when he was down (as this would do a large amount of damage to him). The button smashing came in the grapples against the rope when you needed to thrown them over the ropes. This game was classic, and not just because Mr. Perfect was in it, although that helped.

4. Metal Warriors

Metal Warriors is the ultimate Mutiplayer game for the sci-fi fan. Robots, rockets, differentlevels; this game was the sci-fi gamer fan’s dream. All the robots had different characteristics. Some would have agility but not a lot of strength. Others would barely be able to move because they were so slow but a couple shots of their weapon would destroy the opponent. The replay ability factor came in the fact of trying to master all the different robots. Accordingly, you should be able to beat any robot that you choose regardless of how weak some may seem when you use them for the first time. To become the ultimate Metal Warrior player, you had to master all the robots. This made it one of the most re-playable games of all time.

3. Mario Kart Double Dash

As was stated in previous lists, Mario Kart Double Dash took up most of this author’s college life. It singlehandedly brought down this author’s GPA from a 3.8 to a 3.4. Papers were edited in haste as coming in a close first at the Mushroom Cup proved to be more important than letting your professor know that you weren’t lazy and actually spent time looking over your papers. Mario Kart excelled in replayability because not only could you have race battle, but the battle mode was even more addicting. All the levels were designed perfectly and the skill required to become good at the game kept growing the more each player played.   Much time had to have been put into this game for this to occur. Mario Kart Double Dash will always prove itself as the ultimate racing game.

2. Super Bomberman 2

With 4 players Super Bomberman 2 is the ultimate replayable game. You could go 7 hours straight without thinking of drink or food playing this game. Bombs, explosions, kicking the bombs into explosions right where your opponent is and then accidentally hitting the other opponent…man what a feeling. Sometimes you’ll start a battle mode and everyone’s already dead in 5 seconds and you ask yourself “What did I do”? but you’ll happily take the win. There are numerous battle areas, some great, some good, and some really really bad. Just avoid the really bad ones and this is one of the most fun multiplayer games of all time.

1. WWF Raw

WWF Raw is the most Re-Playable game of all time. It has many modes to play, but most importantly it has the Royal Rumble mode. The only thing missing from the game is that Mr. Perfect wasn’t included. Instead you have to deal with the utterly annoying and uncontrollable Luna Vacahon (weren’t Women supposed to be relegated to the managerial role in wrestling?). Besides this small shortcoming to the game though, you were in for endless hours of button smashing. Start drinking while playing this and you could go into the morning playing this game. You’ll be in your 12th beer and not notice that your button smashing abilities haven’t unraveled even though your hand muscles are strained to the limits. At the end of the match though, you’re literally breathing as if you ran a marathon because of how much energy you put into throwing opponents over the ropes. The satisfaction of having no energy left but enduring 6 more wrestlers to win a Royal Rumble is the one of the best that any human being can have. This satisfaction will always bring the player back to playing this incredible game.

10. Shawn Michaels

Shawn Michaels first started off in the queer tag team “The Rockers”. After high kicking Marty Genetti in the barbershop, he became his own man and took on all comers. He was a force to be reckoned with not only with the girls who swooned over him but with the wrestlers who would have to watch out for getting high kicked any time in the match. This devastating blow was like getting hit with an uppercut by Mike Tyson in Mike Tyson’s Punchout. Shawn Michaels turned back and forth from protagonist to heel numerous times showing his versatility in personality. He was a better heel than hero though; when girls loved him and guys hated him.

9. Rowdy Piper

Rowdy Piper was a firestorm. Whenever he hit the ring, the crowd would erupt. He was a solid wrestler, but his greatness came from his Scottish adrenaline when down in a fight. He would run in circles and then start smashing the fighter to his doom. He was a dirty fighter too. He would take people by the nostrils to the middle of the ring and then eye gouge them. He was a Scottish Street Brawler. His record was impeccable and he fought only the best wrestlers. He was always a great main card or mid card wrestler. Simple in suit but strong in heart, Rowdy Piper was one of the greatest.

8. Bret Hart

Bret Hart’s venture into the WWF was a slow one. He didn’t catch the crowd as immediately as the rest of the wrestlers on this list, but this is what made him so great. When his physical endurance was shown in the ring along with his wrestling prowess, he slowly gained the respect of his fellow wrestlers and fans in the WWF. He became know as the “excellence of execution” and delivered this excellent execution in matches against the best, from Yokozuna to Mr. Perfect. It was a great moment for wrestling when Bret Hart was able to put the sharp shooter on Yokozuna. Even the greatest beast couldn’t get out of the sharp shooter. If it weren’t for ring ropes, Bret Hart might be the greatest wrestler of all time.

7. Mr. Perfect

With a name like Mr. Perfect, how could he not be in the top 10 WWF wrestlers of all time? His name wasn’t just a gimmick though. He was the best pure wrestler in WWF history. Every move was executed to perfection; so much so that he had a manager named “The Genius” to further accentuate the his artistic quality in the ring. Mr.Perfect was involved in some of the greatest matches of all time, regardless of whether he lost or not. Forget the arrogant posture he brought the ring spitting out his gum and smacking it away with his hand or his overly-self-assured smirk upon entering the ring. He was a wrestler’s wrestler. He won and lost with grace. Every match he wrestled to perfection. Has there ever been a more perfect finishing move than the Perfect Plex? He was admired by everyone in the locker room where it mattered the most. A true professional, Mr. Perfect really was the perfect wrestler.

6. Ric Flair

Ric Flair never knew when to quit. He loved the sport too much. Just when you thought he was going to retire, he came back and fought with the ardor of a 20 year old. There are many memorable moments with Ric Flair. Most of all though was Royal Rumble 1991 where he won the rumble after coming in at the #3 spot. Looking back, how couldn’t we know he was going to win with Hennan losing his voice trying to prop up the fact that no one could ever win the rumble entering in as early as Ric Flair. He did it though, with poise and professionalism. He was a showman. He knew how to work the angle of being beat and tired. He knew how to drop face first like no one before or after. He was also a good wrestler too executing the figure four leg lock to perfection. Ric Flair was a special wrestler. No heel had ever been as celebrated as him.

5. Macho Man

Macho Man was probably the most intense wrestler of all time. You saw it in the veins of his neck. You heard it in the rasp of his voice. You saw it in his wrestling delivery. He was tight as hell throughout a whole match. Simple elbows were executed with an explosiveness that another wrestler would have done lazily, thinking that they were just trying to carry a match. Watch one of his interviews to experience the intensity of Macho Man. Who knows what he was on before a match or even before an interview. Regardless, he pumped up the viewer into making this smaller figure a main card wrestler. His finishing move, the elbow from the top rope devastated opponents. No one got up from it. One of the few finishing moves that no one could ever get up from. This guy wasn’t simply macho, he was pure intensity.

4. The Undertaker

The Undertaker’s place in WWF lore is certain. He’s one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, one of the greatest showmen of all time, and the greatest dark figure in wrestling history. This was sedimented with his win over Hogan in Survivor Series 1991. This is when The Undertaker was a heel. The kids in the crowd were crying, the kids who purchased the Survivor Series via Pay Per View at him were crying. How could their hero Hulk Hogan be beaten? Two words, “The Undertaker”. No one gets up from the tombstone. For a wrestler as big as The Undertaker he showed a scary agility being able to fly off the ropes with full body torpedo and could tight walk the ropes and smash a wrestlers arm. There has never been a wrestler who struck their opponent or the fan with a sense of fear like The Undertaker. This presence will always keep in the Top 5 of all time.

3. The Ultimate Warrior

The Ultimate Warrior went through a couple different incarnations, at least, due to alleged death via steroid use. There was only one Ultimate Warrior though, and that was the original who was as close to as important as Hulk Hogan. Who could ever forget him beating Hogan in Wrestlemania 6?  Surely one of the greatest matches of all time, but the warrior had the intensity to take the belt, and just like that, he was basically done from the WWF. He accomplished what needed to be accomplished; holding the belt once, instead of losing it, and winning it over and over (Hogan). The one word to describe The Ultimate Warrior is ‘Fire’. He ran to the ring with fire, fought with fire, and got up from a beating with fire. Trying to understand his explosive and solipsistic interviews is like trying to read James Joyce’s “Ulysses” which made him even that much more intriguing. The fire of WWF lore belongs to The Warrior alone.

2. Hulk Hogan

What can be said about Hulk Hogan that hasn’t already been said? He changed wrestling even though he couldn’t wrestle. He had one of the worst finishing moves of all time, yet somehow he was the most popular wrestling in the history of the sport. He wore awful and entiointrepid tights. When Hogan came to the ring though, the crowd would erupt. Events were based soley on him. Every mid card match was a lead up to seeing Hogan come down the ring. The inspiration he caused in the degenerate fan was earnest. He is human and non-human at the same time. Hogan was the one who started the phenomena of getting up from seemingly interminable finishing moves; shaking his head with the eyes of a maniac. After that it was a boot to a face then a leg drop that would never touch the wrestler. The only person Andre would “pass the torch” to was Hogan, and he carried it for some time to come. Andre saw something in Hogan, as did everyone else who every experienced wrestling.

1. Andre the Giant

Many things can be said about Andre the Giant. He was the biggest wrestler of all time. He was the most entertaining figure to see in all of wrestling. He was the greatest heel of all time, except that he became a non-heel without ever wanting to become a non-heel. This was quite the phenomena. Never has there been a wrestler that was meant to be disliked but people began to like them anyways (Undertaker broached this until he become a full-on protagonist once McMahon saw the phenomena happening). What was it about Andre that inspired this reaction? In one small gesture, Andre would give a slight smile even when he was fighting Hogan and this made the fans of wrestling see in his soul; A passionate and caring wrestler who believed in the non-sport of staged wrestling. There will never be another 8th wonder of the world. While Hogan made wrestling popular, Andre was the first to make it a legitimate show. It was not only his size, but his heart that made for staged-wrestling’s ascendancy.

10. Blues fans

Let it go seriously. Who goes to these blues festivals? Who the fuck could have the blues anymore? The blues over what? The fact that you’ve lost your enviable retirement supplement? The fact that the world is currently in a state of “disharmony”. Do people just like the style? How do people still want to go to the bar to here random generic blues? It’s the same thing over and over again. How can anyone be satisfied with this? Just listen to a Robert Johnson box set and get over it. The blues were born in a context that has long since past. You can’t relive the blues that someone like Robert Johnson felt and you will never hear it again, so why are you going back to it? The comfort in the past never visited; the identities first attempt at self-idealization.

9. Jimmy Buffet Fans (Parrotheads)

It’s actually difficult to criticize “Parrotheads” because they’re so unselfconscious of their own actions that they’re sincere.  Regardless these people are annoying to be around.  You find them in hotels following around Jimmy Buffet, drunk 24/7 singing the same 2 or 3 popular Jimmy Buffet songs that I don’t care to go into now out of the unwanted grimace of recognizing those songs.  These fans are well beyond their middle age and are trying to live young again.  People say age is a state of mind…not when your face looks like leather and you spray paint your beard white.  You’re very much your age.  An age that is very much old that is giving it’s last shot at being young.  Hopelessly romantic, or just hopeless?  Either way, there’s an alternative graceful-aging that should be the hope of those young.

8. Heavy Metal fans

Heavy metal fans are a lot like video game nerds.  Where some people drown their sorrows in their parent’s basement by playing video games, some go out to heavy metal shows, dressed in the stereotypical all black, and mosh or headbang. When you think about moshing, its just a bunch of guys rubbing on each other, which, if you think about it, is kind of gay. Just like the hardcore gamer there are very few girls at these events, as most girls don’t like heavy metal. This further frustrates the heavy metal fan and leads to further violence amongst them. The heavy metal fan also likes to claim that they are railing against the life of the common man, the average, or the normal people. They do this by dressing exactly the same, wearing the same color, growing their hair long, and doing whatever they can to become indistinguishable from the next fan. This little contradiction never cross the heavy metal fan’s mind. Sadly, we here at OW love a number of heavy metal bands and have been to a number of heavy metal shows. Oddly enough we dressed in our typical jeans and a t-shirt where the most unique people at the show. One time I had to go straight from work which had me where a white polo. For those who don’t know white is the only color that can physically harm the heavy metal fan. Anyway I got a lot of bad looks at that show.

7. Ska Fans

You don’t find ska fans many places and this is a good thing, because if you did the world would be a massively annoying place.  Instead you find them in the confines of small clubs with mobster top hats on and suspenders mimicking the style of The Specials.  They dance like assholes.  They don’t know how to dance.  The music is goofy and so are they.  Where does the instinct come from to enjoy this music?  Where was the instinct to transfer the horn sound into pop music?  Out of all the orchestral instruments that made the transition to pop music, the horn played in staccato has to be the most annoying.  I claim no understanding in the instincts of where people start liking this music.  I just know I don’t like being around it nor it’s fans.

6. Rap fans

Yes, you’re tough.  You look like you’ve come from “the streets” even though your street is blooming with evanescent willows.  Yes, your pants are falling off your legs.  Yes, you have a scar on your face that you probably gave to yourself because you saw that Eminem gave one to himself.  Yes, your car speakers has no frequency higher that can be heard higher than 25 HZ.  Yes, your car sounds like it’s about to explode.  Yes, you wear your hat backwards late at night in attempts to court trampy women.  Yes, all these signs point to the fact to that you’re tough.  Yes, you need all these signs to point to the fact that you’re tough.

5. Dave Matthews fans

Have you ever been to a Frat party? How do you feel about Birkenstocks? Backwards hats with curved brims? Greek letters? Chugging terrible beer? Keg stands? If the answer to each of these questions is resoundingly positive, then you may be  fan of the Dave Matthews Band. What is more interesting is that DMB is actually a talented band, with a  world renowned drummer, bassist, and saxophone player. Oh they also have this gigantic dude that plays violin. I don’t know if he is any good, and I don’t want to be the guy who tells him otherwise. In any case we here at OW generally like this band but boy do we hate the fans. They are either insanely obsessed or drunks looking for a party. Or sometimes both. We have even heard of DMB fans who will only listen to DMB because they claim nothing else is even worth it. Further research has even shown that there is an on going feud between DMB fans and Blink 182 fans. Why is completely beyond us. Going to a DMB show is like watching every jock, frat boy, and sorority slut get so hammered they forget they were even at the show. But don’t worry they have pictures on facebook to prove they were there.

4. Punk fans

Punk fans don’t like music.  At least they don’t like anything substantial in music. They are more interested in the style of the music, meaning how the band appears aesthetically on stage and the quantity of pierced rings are on the band members faces.  When punk isn’t so obviously expressive in it’s aesthetic repugnancy, it relies on a supposed understanding of anything political.  In comes The Clash, one of the most Overrated Bands of all time.  Instead of wearing your heart of your sleeve physically, you wear your heart on your brain disingenuously.  You read the most superficial account of the Sandinista revolution and somehow equate it as a total repudiation of American foreign Policy.  Anything that can decenter you to others is what’s more important for you.  This argument is tired.  It has to go without saying at this point.

3. Emo fans

Drooping razor edged hair, an operable-to-all sulk, a little eye liner below the eye, the Emo fan wants you to know about them.  Nobody else wants to know about them and never did, so that’s when they turn towards the appearance, the appearance that wants attention, needs attention, and seeks it in the hidden corners of the most marginalized places of modern suburbia.  One day maybe someone will come around and truly understand your plight of always being misunderstood, or rather, never trying to be understood because you weren’t important enough.  Either way, sympathy for the sake of sympathy may come along with another is bored, and together you can feel sorry for yourselves feeling sorry for yourselves.  Objectless, without any idea, the height of egoism is Emo’s inner soft shell.

2. Phish fans

What’s the difference between a  DMB fan and a Phish fan? Drug use. Your average DMB fan drinks a lot of beer, smokes some weed, and depending on how rich and white they are, do a little coke. Your average Phish fan is on everything from LSD to Heroin almost all the time. Where the DMB fan wears clean pressed button up shirts, the Phish fan might change cloths once or twice a year and generally walks around smelling like patchouli oil. Which, by the way, barely covers up the constant weed smell, since they smoke pot like cigarettes. Much like the DMB fan they are obsessed with all things Phish. I have even heard stories about fans doing Heroin because lead singer Trey Anastasio was doing it. The difference being they were dirt poor, couldn’t afford it, and generally don’t have jobs. Much like the DMB fan, we here at OW enjoy most of Phish’s albums but, once again, there fans are terrible people who try to pretend it’s still the seventies. If it wasn’t for this band the tie dye industry would have disappeared years ago. Yet despite OW’s best efforts people still buy these terrible t-shirts.

1. Indie Fans

Indie fans are the worst fans of any genre in the history of music.  They wear the tightest jeans imaginable to the point of buying woman’s jeans if it’s possible.  They walk like storks with their elbows always turned behind their hips.  They wear tight ass T-shirts with some logo on it representing something either socially perfunctory (that they think is significant) or something in the guise of an absurdity in the attempts at making another laugh.  The craving of attention inside the Indie Fan is much like the emo fan except with the ostensible hope that their attention-seeking is methodologically more sophisticated.  This is more gross than the Emo fan when the mask of ball hugger sized jeans is unmasked and the secret loser is revealed.  Only someone of this disposition could listen to such abominable  music that loves to think it‘s quality in it‘s unchecked “creativity“.

10.Will Sergeant

Will Sergeant of Echo and The Bunny is an often overlooked guitarist.  One listen to their album “Ocean Rain” though and one will hear some of the most innovative and neurotic guitar playing of the 80’s. His classic delay used on their previous album’s was overwhelmed by spontaneous creativity on every single song off of Ocean Rain; more specifically the song “Thorn of Crowns”. It’s hear that Sergeant matches the Voltairian madness of Ian McCulloch’s vocals delivery to a song that exists somewhere in the sadistic reaches of and 18th century romantic comedy. Beyond the brilliance of his work on Ocean Rain is his work on subsequent singles like “The Cutter”and “Lips like Sugar”. He could play pop, spontaneous guitar madness; everything under the sun but his work always sounded distinctly his own. Break out Ocean Rain to hear what creative guitar playing sounds like.

9. Noel Gallagher

Hmmm…Noel Gallagher on the greatest guitarists of all time list?  Well, this is Old-Wizard’s list so we didn’t have a choice so we might as well start going into his great solos and ending it like that. First off, listen to the solo in “Live Forever“. Simple, but emotive and perfect in the context of the song. Listen to his massive amount of guitar overdubs in “D’Ya Know What I Mean”; That was certainly a new sound for the time regardless of how much someone would like to simply call it psychedelic. Listen to his hypnotic guitar lines in “Up in the Sky” and “Columbia” and one will find further evidence of a man who just had a sense for what a tune was and what a guitar needed to do to carry that tune. Alright, that’s it.

8. Jonny Greenwood

Since The Bends onwards, Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead has established himself as one of the greatest guitarists of his generation. Whether it’s in alt-rock modes like “Just” or the twiddling heard on “Paranoid Android“, Jonny Greenwood is always looking to expand the sound of the guitar, and when he couldn’t anymore he turned to the programming for his sounds. But between The Bends and Ok Computer, he exhausted all the emotion out of the guitar that there could possibly be. Beyond his actual playing is his striking sound that pierced the listeners ears especially during a solo. He moved across the fret board with a feeling of limitlessness not seen in most guitarists. His expansion of what the guitar can sound like puts him in high rank among the endless list of guitarists through the instruments history.

7. Kevin Shields

Kevin Shields, leader of shoegazing’s most coveted band My Bloody Valentine took the guitar and made it sound like something it never sounded like before. Forget the simple overdrive and sometimes guitar interplay of his “alternative-indie” contemporaries. He made the guitar sound like flowers and volcano explosions at the same time utilizing the whammy bar of a fender Jag more creatively than any guitarist before. It was with Kevin Shields that the obsession with guitar pedals became enormous for better or worse.  What many people didn’t understand though was that Shields got his sound from the way he played his guitar, the way he would exaggeratedly bend notes on entire bar chords with countless amounts of amps portraying the sounds. The sound of the guitar had never seen it’s most outward limits since Kevin Shields and no one has come close since.

6. Jimmy Page

There is no guitarists with as many recognizable riffs as Jimmy Page. No matter how queer it sounds, he is the “riff master”. It would be too obvious to name the obvious songs that one recognizes immediately by his playing. Beyond his penchant for creating memorable guitar riffs though was someone who commanded the guitar itself like a toy. Watch him during the early days in the DVD “How the West was Won”. Watch his playing during “Misty Mountain Hop“. He has total control over what he’s playing that answers every musical move by the rest of the band with an ease unseen by any guitarist before or after. He just knew what to do with the guitar at every second and created memorable lines in 80% of the songs in the band. He is THE hard rock guitarist of all time.

5. John Squire

John Squire of The Stone Roses may be more recognized by “GUITARISTS!” for his second album “The Second Coming” which perfectly updated Jimmy Page’s style into a 90’s alternative sound, but it was with their debut album that John Squire will always win his legacy. Every one song on The Stone Roses debut album was sprinkled with the shine of the best Byrdsesque guitar playing and sound. When he wasn’t sprinkling sunshine on the groove of these songs, he was going to subterranean Caribbean guitar styles that took this pop music into a completely different place never occupied by pop music before. Take a listen to “Bye Bye Badman”. Listen to his solo at 3:00 minutes in and think about the style he played in the entire song before.  Combining this Caribbean shuffle with guitar lines that literally sounded like a sunny day made for one of the most enjoyable guitar experiences put to record. Whatever Squire was being influenced by at the time, we were the beneficiaries

4. Jimi Hendrix

What Jimi Hendrix did with the guitar influenced so many guitarists afterwards. It would take an endless amount of time to list all of them. He not only influenced guitarists who concentrated on their musicianship, but all those other guitarists who wanted bend the living shit out of the guitar string, the other guitarists who wanted to make one note sustain for five minutes, the other guitarists who wanted to combined 10 delays with 20 reverbs to see what massive sound would come out of their Marshall Stack after all this work. Hendrix epitomized a figure who influenced the most disparate amount of guitarists of all time. Think about it. What other guitarist could both influence Eric Clapton and Kevin Shields? The legacy of Jimi Hendrix is without question. You know him, you hear him, you know what he does. It’s pretty simple actually.

3. Johnny Marr

The jangly guitar is owned by Johnny Marr. Listen to the entire Smiths catalogue and at every turn you will find Marr coming up with the most creative guitar lines that was perfectly complimented by Morrissey’s idiosyncratic lyrics. But this is what makes Johnny Marr such a great guitarist. It was never just guitar wankery. Every song had to be tuneful and melodic guitar lines. Everything popped out in Johnny Marrs pop playing. Listen to “This Charming Man” and “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” to get a glimpse at the quality that Johnny Marr put into his guitar work. Every note meant something. There was no chugging or power chords; it was all just melody that never got in the way of the vocalist. This sense for restraint and melody puts Johnny Marr as one of the greatest guitarist of all time.

2. David Gilmour

One feels like a charlatan putting David Gilmour as the 2nd greatest guitarist of all time because of not including Syd Barrett with his psychedelic musings that must have influenced Gilmour. But when one listens to Gilmour, one hears a guitarist more controlled while still retaining the intensity that Syd Barrett originally brought to songs like “Astronomy Domine.” One hears this equal control and intensity in Gilmour’s guitar playing on “Meddle“, especially “Echoes” which is listed on our greatest songs of all time list. It’s hard to argue the greatness of Gilmour during the solo of Echoes. He pulls something off that’s unspeakable from any guitarist before or after. It’s unfortunate that Gilmour turned into such an average musician ‘rehashing the classics’ in his old age when he was at one time operating at such a primal level in his guitar playing. It’s hard to think of a guitarist who just understood the instrument more naturally than Gilmour.

1. Keith Richards

Keith Richards certainly wasn’t the best technical guitarist of all time but we already said in the introduction that we could care less about that. What we do know about him is that he wrote the beginning guitar line to “Gimme Shelter.” What we know is that he wrote the riff to “Brown Sugar.” What we know is what he played in “Can’t you hear me knocking.” We know how he responded to all of McJagger’s vocal lines. What we know is that we listen to him and we hear someone playing the guitar in a way that evokes more soul than any guitarist before or after. He has an instinct for knowing when to make his playing sound haunting. He has an instinct to know when to make his playing sound more raw than any player in guitar history. 2 albums; Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street. Listen to these albums, and you will hear a guitarist with the most instinctual sense for the guitar. He is the rock guitarist who matters most. The guitar was more than a guitar for Keith Richards. It became his body and something more.

10.Robert Smith

Why does The Cure get listened to so much? There are no good songs in the catalogue. There are no choruses. There are basic attempts at sounding pop sometimes, probably one chorus in their biggest single to date, so why the fuck is this fat vampire considered a good songwriter? Is it because the makeup he wears? Is it because he’s fat? Is it because he sings in a voice that’s overly-emphatic, probably due to the fact that he couldn’t get girls because of his appearance. Shit, there was always a weight room in the high school. There was always at least a treadmill. Just think, one treadmill and no one would have been duped into thinking that Roberts Smith’s foray into pseudo-romantic tragedy would have had it’s legacy.

9. Sheryl Crow

THE female American songwriter. She once appeared as credible to people who thought they knew what credible was and then she released that “Soak up the Sun” song and somehow this took away her credibility because a chorus came too quick and the melody was too breezy, but before this, she was the Aphrodite of modern songwriting. She couldn’t write a bad song. Her unabashed self-expression had to be heard as good, especially by those who needed some auxiliary human being to affirm their own self identity. Shit, when I listen to her self-titled album though, all I hear is woman-power rock on par with Meredith Brooks at the time. Is something this culturally relative good? If it’s good at the time, is it good later? Can people still listen to “A Change will do you good” without cringing? Can they do the same with “Redemption Day”? Only a dogmatic acolyte won’t admit this.

8. Bob Dylan

How many times do we have to hear that Dylan is be all and end all of music? What is with all this idolization? And how come every time these Dylan idolizers are called out on why they like Dylan they give the same banal reasons for idolization like “He was one of the great American Poets”. How come when you ask one of these buffoons on the spot which Dylan album inspired them the most, they can’t respond? They can’t even name one Dylan album let alone a favorite album! They know a few select songs and relegate the rest of their opinion to popular mainstream media’s coverage on tradition, whatever that is supposed to mean. Pedestrians, pure and simple…easily satisfied. The human being at its worst.

7. Pete Doherty

The best word to describe Pete Doherty’s songwriting with the Libertines and Babyshambles is boring. Listen to his live solo output and it’s even more boring. It’s a man with an acoustic guitar talking about the basic day of an English life without noticing the subtleties of a conversation that would often appear interesting as is the case with Lee Mavers. Instead we get cockney bullshit about storefronts and hooligans, and everything that sounds cool to the NME. Pete Doherty is the print machine for the NME; someone operating on a visceral level on what English coolness is. See, this is the problem by being influenced by any music. There’s an unlucky chance you might be influenced by The Clash.

6.Paul Westerberg

This dick has the gumption to call out Ryan Adams as being shit. Paul Westerberg in his lifetime won’t write a song half as decent as Ryan Adams worst song, but because Paul Westerberg appeared “hardass” in The Replacements (with their overly mundane punk-turned rock n’ roll exigencies) and his subsequent solo career, he could get away with criticizing a good songwriter. What is one good song that this Paul Westerberg wrote? “Satisfied?” This shit should be relegated to the highschool gym concert series, not a professional band. You won’t find anything better on his Stereo album no matter how much he distanced himself from big name producers to produce a more raw “songwriter in a basement” sounding production. Bad production on top of bad songwriting. This was Paul Westerberg’s next step after his major label stints. It only made sense with the coming of the indie crowd.

5. Frank Black

Frank Black’s macabre style of songwriting would have it’s crowd. Basically, those who liked The Pixies. From all his albums there’s about two choruses worth listening to, but you would still have to endure his painfully overbearing vocals throughout the song. Did anyone ever tell this virulent piece of crap to shut the hell up? Speak softly and carry a big stick (not in Simon and Garfunkel’s way though; which was speak softly and carry no sticks). This didn’t happen because the pretend that people played in liking The Pixies or maybe it was simply a dialectical reaction to the harmonious sounding music of the 80’s. A good reason to never be interested in the sake of liking something for the sake of reaction alone: one day realizing that the man you thought was an amazing songwriter was really complete shit.

4. Eric Clapton

Eric Clapton made blues for white men. If one was enamored by white man blues solos then they may like Eric Clapton. If not, they you would have dislike most of his songwriting. It was generic blues at its worst. Who gives a fuck about his overly sentimental “If I can change the World” which should be the textbook definition of an unctuous musical delivery. Can’t though. This dude went through a lot of shit. He actually did though. He lost his son, and cashed in on it by writing a song that made him millions about his loss. Loss and Bluesmen; what the fuck is with these people? Have they ever thought about a type of losing that isn’t existential, that isn’t so tied to the human death? Eric Clapton didn’t, and he cashed in on it. Not even a greatest hits of his can be listened too. It’s generic wanking inside generic songwriting. The dude even looks generic.

3. Simon and Garfunkel

It’s hard to understand why Simon and Garfunkel are known as some of the greatest songwriters of all time besides by some of old farts who only passively read Rolling Stone magazine when they’re at the local book store. These songs put you to sleep, and not in the good way. They put you to sleep in the way that you thinking to yourself “shit, this is sucks, I’m going to sleep”. Except for the smashing drum in “The Boxer“, Simon and Garfunkel never deliver any song with any vitriol. Call it a style. We call it the emasculation of a sex who no longer exercised the power it once had over the world. So the reaction would be a sensitive delivery in it’s period of settling down. Whatever was, it was inordinately soft, or to be even more precise, mawkish in every sense of the term.

2. Lou Reed

This pile of piss songwriter can’t sing, and writes songs that sound dumb but sound interesting to him, and therefore sound interesting to everyone else because he insists on perennially coming from a different place sonically. Who gives a shit about the Sonics (some Old-Wizard pun intended) when the songs are this shit? Yes, he goes up and down on his vocal range, often sounding like a chimp which relays a sense of primordial delivery to a music listener who got beat up too much at school. Rarely will you find a catchy chorus. You will find songs that elaborate on a solipsistic level which obviously means he’s usually talking about drugs or some vulgar conception of metaphysics that’s parasitically tied to a contemporary politic. This dude’s pulled a fast one of those who “love” him. He’s made actual shit that people love. Do people just love shit? Nah, they just can’t tell the difference anymore.

1. Paul McCartney

If there is one signature songwriter who’s absolutely overrated because of the quality of songwriters in the band he’s in, then it has to be Paul McCartney. Let’s list them. “Got to Get You Into My Life“; no soul whatsoever. “The Long and Winding Road” (which we listed as one of the most overrated songs of all time); a poor attempt at Bacharachian appurtenance (and this was when McCartney was supposed to be “coming into his own!”). How about the unbearable “The Night Before” off of Help. How about “Your Mother Should Know”. I can seriously go on and on with the sheer amount of shit songs this man released, and this was just with the Beatles. All his post-Beatles work was even worse, except for the Nigel Godrich produced “Chaos and Creation in the Backyard“, because McCartney actually allowed himself to be challenged by a producer. Paul McCartney is like an average basketball player who thinks he’s a star but knows he really isn’t so tries to get traded to the bad team in the league so he appears as a star there.

10. Sam Roberts – Brother Down

Now that Sam Roberts has become somewhat popular and a major live music attraction, no one remembers what started him off on his path to great music. It was a call to existential despair in “Brother Down” that paved the way for the spirit of Sam Roberts. If you want to find the origins of where Sam Roberts comes from, you have to return to this first single. This song was recorded in an 8 track but busted open the doors of Canadian radio to a new style of quality songwriting, a style that would trump all those other shitty Canadian indie bands that came after. For any Sam Roberts fans out there, don’t forget this song.

9. Kenny Logins – I’m Alright

This song is seen as a joke by everyone who hears it probably because it was always going to be tied with the most funny movie of all time in Caddyshack. But try to distancing yourself from any idea of the movie and one will hear an amazing cheesy 80’s song with an absolutely ripping chorus that is as odd as it is poppy. The lyrics speak for themselves but not so much to the point of blatant obviousness. It’s at 1:44 that the song takes an incredible turn with a stop in all the instrumentation. It’s perfectly ung vocal harmonies arranged in a completely unexpected way. This song is one of the most odd and blatant pop songs you could hear. Everyone needs to hear it.

8. Suede- Electricity

No one talks about Suede’s “Electricity” off their rippin “Head Music” album. This song grooves like no song after. The bass line is strange. It’s sort of dumb sounding with the drum rhythm in the verse but conveys a feeling of unease. Wait till this fucking chorus hits you though. If you want to know what a great chorus sounds like, listen to “Electricity.” You could listen to this damn chorus for a year straight and never get sick of it. How this never went #1 in the British charts is beyond me. This is the music that is meant to go #1 all over the world, not just in your native country. This is Suede doing more perfect pop.

7. Oasis – D’ya Know what I mean

How easy it is to forget this amazing first single off one of the greatest albums of all time? “D’Ya Know What I Mean” kicked the ass of the listener into listening to good music. The beats were heavy and compressed, Liam gave a perfect vocal delivery, and Noel experimented with guitar overdubs on par with Jimmy Hendrix. In short, this was a psychedelic maelstrom. This was Oasis at their finest. Massive sounding, unafraid and enveloped by a great chorus. That this is never named in Oasis’s greatest songs is beyond us at Old-Wizard. This shit dominates 90’s rock.

6. The Vandellas – Come and Get these Memories

The Vandellas, like The Supremes seemed to have a never ending amount of great songs (much due to the DHD songwriting combo). People forget this early single from The Vandellas though. It barely made a dent in the charts but after a couple listens this may just be The Vandella’s best single. It’s starts off big, and ends off just as big. The chorus is big while still retaining an easygoingness that’s known to the best of Motown. The song rhythmically moves well and doesn’t reach too far lyrically which is to the songs credit. It’s simple and great, like most great pop songs.

5. Kasabian – Processed Beats

Kasabian are the shit. Their first album was one of the best albums of the new decade, but people never mention “Processed Beats” as being one of their great songs. This song grooves with the best R and B ever made while still retaining it’s cool from songs like LSF. It’s vocally delivered with a rawness that only Tom Meighan knows how to deliver. And what about that chorus? This thing is slinky and sensuous. Imagine getting in on this at a dance club with people who actually had good taste in music. A dream come true if only others had good taste in music. Kasabian may have had more popular songs but none ripped the groove harder than “Processed Beats.”

4. Shed Seven – The Heroes

Listen to this song and you will wonder why you never heard this band, let along this song. How could a song be so good and the band isn’t even popular. How can a production be this smooth and melodically so perfect without anyone knowing about it? How is this song not going to be remembered for decades to come? How is this band not going to be remembered for decades to come? Unfortunately for them, they were competing within one of the greatest musical movements ever in Britpop where every song was a single. The thing was, Shed Seven’s songs were just as good as the “first rate” bands as proved on this grand sweeping waltz of a song. All Old-Wizard readers, download this song, down this album “Let it Ride.”

3. T-Rex- Dreamy Lady

Has there ever been a song with better sexual lyrics than Dreamy Lady by T-Rex? Bolan of course was the master of turning on everything under the sun, but with this song he goes all out. “Oh, dreamy lady, won’t you come to my bed…night is the right time, to get acquainted, with my head, in my bed”. Just barely a metaphor, the obviousness of this line is hilariously executed. The song itself is a super melody of sass and passion. For all it’s sexuality it still retains it’s innocence which is one of Marc Bolan’s greatest traits. It’s a shame that all his later work became ignored because it was just as good as early work even if more dramatic. The songs were still there and is exemplified best by this oddity of a song.

2. Happy Mondays- Dennis and Lois

This song starts off like your watching the beginning of Wheel of Fortune and that’s great! Whenever “Pills Thrills and Bellyaches” is mentioned, this song is never mention as being one of the standout songs on the album, but this is one of Shaun Ryder’s best vocal deliveries in the Happy Monday’s history. Never mind the vocals though, listen to the song. This song has got spirit. The chorus is made for a stadium but not in a cheesy Bon Jovi way, but for the way the British know how to make timeless songs that can be sung by 100,000 people in an arena. “Dennis and Louis” was never released as a single and was in the middle of this timeless album but it can’t be forgotten as an incredibly good song.

1. Stone Roses- Bye Bye Badman

The Stone Roses debut album is certainly not underrated, not in Britain at least. It has been listed as the greatest album of all time by publications in the UK. Never though is Bye Bye Badman mentioned in the reviews of the album and it’s arguably the best song on the album. The song is strangely excluded from their greatest hits album also. This song defines what makes The Stone Roses debut album probably the greatest debut album of all time; An insatiable rhythm section, Ian Brown’s lyrics that are full of bravado while never feeling forced, John Squire’s indelible guitar playing that shows his greatest guitar work in The Stone Roses history at 3.00 minutes in. This song says everything about why The Stone Roses are a band that will never happen again. That these elements can combine into this one sound is an anomaly, one for better or worse is only reserved for the nature of pop music’s flexibility.

10. The Catherine Wheel – Black Metallic

Catherine Wheel were always going to be an underrated band. The vocals weren’t a traditional timbre and the style was always just too pop to be considered “credible” by underground publications but too indigenous to ever become a high selling pop band. Existing in-between this line is a difficult way to success, if that’s even what The Catherine Wheel wanted in the first place. With the delivery of “Black Metallic” though, one could tell that Rob Dickinson and co didn’t really care. Whether they cared or not, this slice of guitar wash and perfect pitched vocals created a space for Catherine Wheel as a band that would be looked upon nostalgically forever. When listening to this song, you will always be forced into previous memories.

9. Chapterhouse – Pearle

Chapterhouse is often forgotten in the Shoegazing crowd for worse. They created a collection of songs that would all be signatures of the Shoegazing genre. Nowhere is this seen more clearly than on their album “Whirlpool”; specifically on the song “Pearle.” The vocals are as dreamy as Shoegazing vocals ever became. The drumbeat is hypnotic, the lyrics are quixotic, and the song is overdubbed with anything that could possibly create a pure atmospheric experience. In some ways, “Pearle” is Shoegazing in it’s most cliché, but that is to it’s credit because the song was executed sincerely; meaning this is a good place to start off for anyone wanting to invest their musical experiences in the Shoegazing genre.

8. Oasis- Columbia

Shoegazing found its best bastard child in Oasis, especially the Oasis of their first album Definitely Maybe. Any number of songs on Definitely Maybe could be considered Shoegazing classics, but it was “Columbia” that inherently understood the musical hypnosis of Shoegazing and gave it a blistering rock vocal delivery and Bolan swagger combining the pomp of past rock and the nuance of the Shoegazing genre. There’s no space for dynamics in this song; which is the heart of most great Shoegazing songs. The marginalization of the “need for dynamics” that was always privileged was destroyed by Shoegazing. Along with Rave culture in the late 80’s, the never ending Ecstasy filled groove became the hallmark of musical spirituality. Oasis took these styles and filled them with Lion’s teeth.

7. My Bloody Valentine- Only Shallow

In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past 20 years, My Bloody Valentine is the first and foremost recognized band in the Shoegazing movement and deservingly so. Without My Bloody Valentine, there would be no Slowdive, Lush, or Chapterhouse, regardless of the fact that either of those later bands may have written better songs than My Bloody Valentine. When Loveless came out it was one of the most unique musical experiences to ever be heard in the pop music medium. Everything was faded into each other. Nothing was spaced out. Everything was pushed into an atmospheric medium that at any moment sounded like it was going to explode, and it did explode on “Only Shallow”, the title track on Loveless. Listen to this enough times in your car with speakers up and you will lose your hearing before your 30. See this song live and you will become physically sick by how much headroom the music takes up. Talk about musical experience.

6. The Telescopes – The Sleepwalk

The Telescopes were a band who started off as a band basically sounding like Spaceman 3. It were punk vocals and sped up songs that tried to mesh punk with psychedelic, without the inherent privileging of psychedelic over punk that Spaceman 3 always operated under. As The Telescopes career moved on though, they got the beat, literally and figuratively. They expanded their sound into a massive guitar clash that was more raw than dreamy combined with beats as grooving as songs off The Happy Mondays “Pills, Thrills, and Bellyaches”. It was a perfect combination of dance, caustic vocals, and massive guitar production. They were the only band to accomplish this and it’s perfectly exemplified by The Sleepwalk. Their was a band from California (in the name of Casper) who recently was making music like this without even knowing about the Telescopes, but their want for stardom turned their beat into a Killers copycat. If they only knew, and if they only begin to realize what they once had, stardom would pale in comparison to the music that they once created, which was a new form of The Sleepwalk.

5. Ride- Vapour Trail

The shamelessly romantic “Vapour Trail” always had to be on the best Shoegazing songs of all time list. It’s hard not to be hit by this song in a profound way. It’s hard to not believe in the un-believable and culturally relative concepts of love when listening to Vapour Trail. It sounds more meaningful than any explanation of what the sentiment could ever convey in words. It’s distance, it’s confusion, it’s problems with a romantic musical accompaniment serving as the background to arguably Andy Bell’s best vocal delivery. If there has to be the one song that epitomizes a vigor to traditional romantic love, it would be Vapour Trail. It’s expansively heartening without sounding unctuous. It’s a true accomplishment for a concept that has become so consigned to meaninglessness.

4. Lush – Monochrome

When listening to Lush, one really feels that credit first has to be given to the Cocteau Twins for creating a genre (without their wanting to) in the name of “dream pop” which sometimes can be seen synonymously with Shoegazing, but not quite. This is proven best with Lush’s best song from Spooky and arguably their career. “Monochrome” is a perfect dream with perfect vocals and when the song hit’s the pure instrumental at 2:39, one can’t help but feel that the northern climates will always have a more profound spirituality than any of the southern climates regardless of our history. The world begins in ice, water and snow. The dance of the world begins with primordial ice skaters figure-8ting a sweeping design in the world bestowed upon what was once nothing. This feeling for northern spirituality has never been captured as perfectly as this masterpiece by Lush.

3. Slowdive – Allison

The first song from their “Souvlaki” album, the song starts off in an instrumental haze. The vocals come in that are even more hazy. It’s almost like someone took the tape machine and used a tool to slowdown every track on the record, or it was a band who was operating under a disposition of “just floating”. The haze slowly pushes into a chorus that’s one of the most catchy in the Shoegazing genre. Sisters are spinning, but she’s just fine, she’s just out there somewhere. It’s this sentiment that perfectly captures the spirit of the Shoegazing genre; absolute vagueness but a realization that something is still going on that is always on the verge of barely being understood, to eventually understand it’s superfluous to even try to get by the “barely-being-understood” and the vagueness that points to a more grounding reality than one of reason and enlightenment could ever hope for.

2. Swervedriver- Duel

This song is never even recognized in the Shoegazing genre and it’s more powerful than most every song in the genre. Maybe it was because the guitars were too overdriven with masculinity, maybe it was the masculinity of Adam Franklin’s voice that made this song seem more rock than Shoegazing. Either way, both genres were always closely touching each other. This is nowhere more recognized than on Swervedriver’s Mezcal Head and Oasis’s Definitely Maybe. But with Swervedriver’s “Duel,” Shoegazing was taken into something that was even more transcendent than the laters previous forms. It was taken to an affirmative space where the nebulous center of Shoegazing was no longer falling into a relaxed complacency; it was taken to ages beyond itself, still going for a thousand years, going to the absolutely general “marketplace”. This song was not just the negation of the world that Shoegazing found in it’s most stoic and dreamy acceptance, it was the negation of the negation; it negated the fact that there will ever be a point in which a “pure” reality will ever be realized. The circularity of eternity found it’s most perfect musical example in “Duel” by Swervedriver.

1. Ride- Leave them all Behind

Everything perfect about the Shoegazing genre was found in Ride’s “Leave them all behind.” This is their second place in the list and they earned the number 1 spot for this beast of a song. Listen to it once and you know something’s going on. Listen to it two or three times, and for some reason you listen to it a 4th and 5th time. It’s that 5th time that this song becomes absolutely addicting and hypnotic without utilizing the traditional modes of pop music. This song is grand in sound and lyrics. What starts off as a simple synth turns into a massive wall-of-sound guitar cornucopia. With Mark Gardener and Andy Bell’s duel vocaling, the vocals sounds as hypnotic as the music itself. Like all great songs, the vocals match the vibe of the song. It’s in space, in purgatory, and the vocals match this perfectly. This space though is not something that just sounds “floaty.” It’s heavily intense and commands the listeners attention at every second. The lyrical sentiment speaks for itself and is arguably the most profound in all of Shoegazing proving this time that laconic style, when done right, trumps detail and complexity. This song ends in an explosion and the listener is left with nothing left than something that has just happened to them.

Who were the trendsetters in music?  Well of course the British.  Everyone followed the style of British musicians and they still do today.  When Liam Gallagher grows his hair out so does a nation.  When Pete Townsend develops mod culture and style that goes along with it, a nation wears the style.  When The Stone Roses epitomized the “baggy scene” in loose pants, everyone started buying them.  No American band inspires this kind of mimicry.  The British know what great style is and combine their great songs with it.  The Americans write average songs and wear straight legged Levi jeans.

9. Better Haircuts

This is obvious.  Check out George Harrison’s hairdo.   Check out Robert Plant’s blonde curls.  Look at Liam Gallagher’s Zeus like hair.  What do musicians haircuts from America look like?  They’re thick dark pieces of shit and more often than not look dirty.  The Brits would never allow themselves to get away with having dirty hair.  Their rock stars; they’re the God’s of the modern age.  They can’t appear at shows with crap hair.  When style has been made by musicians, even in more blatant pop (E.G. Lilly Allen) it’s always been from British musicians.

8. The Birth of Rave Culture

Could you image a world without rave culture?  A world without DJ Shadow or Aphex Twins?  A world without the Chemical Brothers or Massive Attack?  Where would the beat be in music with Rave Culture?  Thank God for Tony Wilson and Factory Records for putting this absolutely essential music genre on the map.  The birth of the DJ was the birth of music as the groove, as it always should be.  The British bands that have spawned from this style are innumerous from The Stone Roses to The Happy Mondays, to New Order, to Monaco, to The Space Monkeys…all British bands…of course.

7. More Ambition

The Brits aren’t afraid to be big.  Starting with Lennon’s quote of being bigger than God which he stated simply as an empirical fact at the moment, The British weren’t afraid to take their music to the masses.  They weren’t afraid to dream beyond their bedroom and the music from Brits benefited from this attitude.  American music is afraid of ambition probably from some reaction to its cultural political surroundings that places itself in a position of manifest destiny.  So because of this we get lo-fi shit or boring bitch fests.  It’s time to turn modesty on it’s head and there’s no better place start than British Music.

6. Shoegazing

Britain gave us one of the best music genres in the past 20 years in Shoegazing.  Do you think Americans would be creative enough to come up with the sounds you hear out of “Loveless” or “Nowhere”?  Do you think an American could create a song like “Leave Them All Behind”?  They could copy it and it wouldn’t be good enough to even be covered by a small American “zine.”  Because of the Brit’s the music listener was able to enjoy Lush, Slowdive, and Chapterhouse.  There’s something distinctly British about these bands;  they all have imaginations, something lacking in most American music.

5. Oasis

In case anyone didn’t know.  Oasis came from Manchester England.  That’s a northern city in England.  Oasis is one of the greatest bands of all time if not the greatest band of all time.  America doesn’t have an Oasis, nor did they ever have an Oasis or any band that could compete with Oasis.  Take whatever America’s best band has ever been (can’t think of many) and match it up against Oasis’s songwriting catalogue and Oasis will undoubtedly win.  In fact, take Americas top 5 bands and put their songwriting catalogue against Oasis’s.  It’s still a no-contest.

4. Better Record Labels

This is certainly a difficult task to list all the great record label that came out of Britain.  For starters, there was Factory Records who hosted The Happy Mondays, Joy Division and The Inspiral Carpets just to name a few.  There is Creation Records who hosted Oasis, Ride, Swervedriver,  and Hurricane #1 just to name a few again.   There was 4AD which hosted the Cocteau Twins, Lush, and Slowdive just to name a few again.  Nude Records had both Suede and Geneva.  The list could keep going on.  No American label could match the quality output of bands on any of these British labels.

3. Condemns the awful indie genre.

British bands correctly condemn indie music whether it be American (which it is most of the time) or British (when some publication tries to tie them into that tag).  The greatest bands wanted nothing to do with it.  Ask Oasis if they’re indie  They’ll laugh at the word.  Ask the Stone Roses if they were indie and Ian Brown will say “The indie scene is shit”.  Ask Brett Anderson about the word “indie” and he says “It’s a dirty word to me.  A word that means people who don’t know how to play their instruments or write songs”.  This penchant for criticizing indie music has gone a long way for making British music bigger and better sounding than American music.  American music has it’s head up its own ass too much too see that their own self-reflection and loathing is superfluous.

2. Better Bands

Think about it.  The Stones, Led Zeppelin, Oasis,  Pink Floyd, T-Rex, The Kinks,  The Stone Roses?  What does America have besides The Byrds and The Beach Boys?  One can make an infinite list of all the great British bands and barely be able to make a top 10 list of the greatest American bands of all time.   Who are the top 10 greatest American bands of all time?  We can’t even think of 5 off the top of our head right now.  This is a no-brainer.

1. Better Songs

The most obvious reason why British music is better than American music is the songwriting.  C’mon now,  Oasis, Radiohead, The Verve, The Stone Roses, Suede, Dodgy, Coldplay, Shed Seven, Travis?  These are bands that mastered songwriting craft to a T.  There isn’t one American band out right now that could come close to the quality of songwriting produced by these bands (except maybe for Wilco), and these are just the modern British bands.  We aren’t even putting Zeppelin, T-Rex, The Who, and Bowie on this.  There are too many no-brainers on this list.