On what basis are green day included?
Did they manage to use all of the 4 chords they know?

Green Day is pop shit.

I think these are definitely licks, not riffs.

How the hell did Green Day, Marylin Manson, and Rage Against the Machine get on here?!

ok, the list is about half right in my opinion. The first thing that struck me was the shameless lack of metal songs. Come on, you have Green Day and Smashing Pumpkins but no Metallica, Motorhead or Slayer? Whats up with that? You could do a top 20 list on those three alone.
Here's a few:
Slayer- Raining Blood
Metallica- Master of Puppets
Van Halen- Unchained(now thats a cool riff)
Black Sabbath- Black Sabbath(the darkest riff ever written and root to all metal. I swear that riff envokes the devil himself. Iron Mans cool but...)
AC/DC- I think Highway to Hell is a beter riff
Motorhead- Ace of Spades(bass riff)
Judas Priest- Electric Eye
Rush-YYZ or Limelight
Ted Nugent- Cat Scratch Fever of Stranglehold
Boston-Piece of Mind
Doobie Brothers- China Groove
Kanasas- Carry On....
I also agree with the Cream and Jethro Tull additions as well as Dire Straits, Deep Purple(though Highway Star is better), GnR, Layla, RATM, Skynard, Stones and Zep(and a dozen other Zep songs) from the original list. But I feel Stairway To Heaven is a tired worn out, overrated, boring song. GASP! There I said it, now let the angry posts begin!

No prob, it had to be published. The world needed it.

In reply to this comment by Spiff:
Thanks for rescuing my Green Day video from the discard pile. :-)

Thanks for rescuing my Green Day video from the discard pile. :-)

Actually, what you should really be saying is, "Anyone else able to hear Stray Cats -Stray Cat Strut main riff in Green Day's Hitchin a Ride?" since this song did come out long before Green Day.

Hah! Anyone else able to hear Green Day - Hitchin a ride in the main riff?

Hmmm, I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens when September ends...

ughhhhhhh the oasis/coldplay link lasted 5 seconds for me before i had to nuke it. that first album was only good because they didn't give a fuck and weren't famous. The recordings were great. And rough. As soon as people told them they were good, they became shit. Spent too much money in the studio. singalong robbie williams crap. you are right about limitations being important.

Liam Gallagher is a great vocalist though. And wonderwall's a great song, so long as you were around to hear it when it first came out, and now you don't actually listen to it

oh, and.. er... i don't do green day any more either, it's just too close to coldplay First albums always rule though. Unless you're blur, in which case the difficult second is actually the best.

stop rambling? who said that?

Thanks for the links, will try out some of the artists..:) Hopefully those new Lithuanian guitars will bring original music. Often creativity lies in limitations.

There's a clip featuring Oasis and Coldplay
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cy6VG_dMoPc

Would be nice to see more video mash-ups like
Oasis vs Green Day
http://www.videosift.com/video/Boulevard-of-Broken-Songs-Mash-Up-Green-Day-Oasis

As far as Wonderwall is concerned: I like the track but it's an overexposed track.

I wanted to thank you for posting your comment about the loudness wars. It cut through the crap and made a lot of sense. I was upset when I first saw the vid, as I didn't know such remastering was done. I do see how some rock albums, like greenday, wouldn't suffer much from having a brickwall of sound.

One thing, though: given a more ideal audio listening situation (a decent home theater system or monitors, instead of a portable CD player or walkman radio), wouldn't the song always be better off with less normalization and processing? In terms of releasing a song to consumer CD's, is normalization and all that really just meant to compensate for poor sound systems, and improve SNR?

Thank you!
-Ryan

In reply to your comment:
“To Add my .02 worth:

I'm a professional Mastering Engineer, this is the most asked question I get these days from people who notice such things. They usually ask how I stand on the idea of all this, and I usually say that it has its place. The last Green Day Album would be a perfect example of an album that having a "brickwall" or "2x4" waveform is fine, but put that same kind compression on re-mastered CSN or Grateful Dead and we have a problem.

I was saying just today at lunch when this question was raised that it's a shame that more of today's young engineers haven't had to deal with analogue tape. Tape was on it's way out as I got my start in the biz, but at my first job the fellas there MADE me work in analogue to get used to the care that it takes when it comes to levels and compression. Much like learning to draft, you have to learn with paper and pencil first to get a "feel" for it.

Great vid! Thanks for sifting it.”

To Add my .02 worth:

I'm a professional Mastering Engineer, this is the most asked question I get these days from people who notice such things. They usually ask how I stand on the idea of all this, and I usually say that it has its place. The last Green Day Album would be a perfect example of an album that having a "brickwall" or "2x4" waveform is fine, but put that same kind compression on re-mastered CSN or Grateful Dead and we have a problem.

I was saying just today at lunch when this question was raised that it's a shame that more of today's young engineers haven't had to deal with analogue tape. Tape was on it's way out as I got my start in the biz, but at my first job the fellas there MADE me work in analogue to get used to the care that it takes when it comes to levels and compression. Much like learning to draft, you have to learn with paper and pencil first to get a "feel" for it.

Great vid! Thanks for sifting it.

Some question the wisdom of organisers placing 50 Cent, a rap/urban act, in between Placebo and Green Day, both rock acts....

Obviously they did that on purpose so he'd get bottled...

From the Wikipedia entry on the Reading Festival in Britain:

The 'tradition' of unpopular bands being bottled off (being forced off stage by a barrage of audience-thrown plastic bottles, sometimes filled with urine) has continued; famously, Daphne and Celeste suffered this ignominy in 2000. Good Charlotte experienced it in 2003, but remained on-stage and encouraged the crowd to throw more. In 2004, The Rasmus were bottled off at Reading, as was 50 Cent (with urine, fireworks, mud, pieces of furniture and generally anything people could throw--even a children's paddling pool) in Reading only. Some question the wisdom of organisers placing 50 Cent, a rap/urban act, in between Placebo and Green Day, both rock acts....