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80 Artists Pick Their Favorite Neil Young Song

Ryan Leas — Tue, 11 Nov 2025 14:15:48 +0000

When I was a kid first getting into classic rock, Neil Young was “the weird one.” The Beatles, the Stones, the Who, Led Zeppelin, they all had their legions of fans. Young, did, too. But they were the loners, the wanderers. My elders would quip about his voice, or the darkness simmering underneath his writing. For every beautiful, enduring folk-rock hit, he had a whole array of gnarled music unafraid to lean into some harrowing adult shit — not foreign amongst his peers, but rarely conveyed with so much unflinching honesty. Out of all the Boomer icons, Young was the dark horse.

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80 Artists Pick Their Favorite Paul McCartney Song For His 80th Birthday

Ryan Leas — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 13:40:25 +0000

Every time the Beatles come up, there's the inevitable danger of hyperbole. But at the same time, it's sort of hard to be that hyperbolic considering the scope of the group's impact. Pop music and pop culture as we know it incubated in the '50s, and then really blossomed in the '60s — and the Beatles were at the very top of a feverishly, rapidly changing medium in tumultuous, transformative times. All these decades later, they still influence up-and-coming artists; new generations are still falling for them (on TikTok, they're worshipped as if they were a currently active band); and their songs can still surprise and disorient no matter how long they've been in the atmosphere. Nobody really thought pop music was supposed to have a 60-plus year shelf life back then. But the Beatles proved everyone wrong.

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80 Artists Pick Their Favorite Bob Dylan Song For His 80th Birthday

Ryan Leas — Mon, 24 May 2021 13:40:11 +0000

In the almost 60 years since Bob Dylan released his debut album, countless words have been spilled on his singular legacy. There are books and movies and over half a century's worth of music journalism trying to dissect the mystery and pin down the multitudes. College courses unpack his lyrics. A Presidential Medal Of Freedom and a Nobel Prize and who knows how many other honors mark Dylan's towering, seismic presence as not just a musician but a cultural and literary icon of the American Century. All of which is to say: You and I both know about Bob Dylan, and there's little I could say to celebrate his 80th birthday that hasn't been said many times before.

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