A number of years back, my buddy Tim B. of Stupefaction fame started a collective blog called The New York Nobody Sings, wherein he, myself and a clutch of other similarly-inclined bloggy types could wax rhapsodic about songs exclusively devoted to our native New York City. It’s a favorite subject of mine, and one I’ve spent several posts ruminating about here as well.
I suppose it’s really not that original of an idea at the end of the day, as Time Out New York recently published their list of “100 best NYC songs.” Their publicist shot me a note about it to evangelize it. I didn’t initially expect to be impressed, but their list does have some left-field stuff contained therein. For every endearingly esoteric choice (like “D Train” by the Unsane) there comes the predictable (“New York State of Mind” by Billy Joel) and the strenuously lamentable (Jennifer Lopez’s “Jenny From the Block”? Really? Fuck you!). I was bored to see that they gave the #1 to Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ “Empire State of Mind,” a song that has yet to earn canonical status (it’s no “Native New Yorker” by Odyssey or “New York Groove” by Ace Frehley, as far as I’m concerned).
Anyway, while I think there were a few key omissions, it’s not a bad list. But see what you think.
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