In a million years, when the stalky, big-eyed beings of pure thought that we’ll evolve into look back on popular music in the 20th and 21st century, there’ll be some obvious stand-out names.

Elvis, The Beatles, Public Enemy, Jimi Hendrix, 50 Cent, Madonna…

Hold on a cotton-pickin’ second! 50 Cent??  

As much as it kills us inside to tell you, Fiddy is the first artist in over 40 years to have four singles in the US Billboard chart simultaneously. hecklerspray is currently making a disappointed and repulsed noise that can’t really be written down.

The only people to better this were obviously The Beatles  in 1964, when I Want To Hold Your Hand, Please Please Me, She Loves You, Twist And Shout and Can’t Buy Me Love took up five slots in the top ten.

Now Fiddy has four. Candy Shop, Disco Inferno and two others with The Game 

So statistically, 50 Cent is now better than every single other
recording artist in the last 41 years. All of them. Who is your musical
hero? The Stones?  Fiddy’s better. The Clash  ? Fiddy’s better. Whigfield? Scatman John? 

Fiddy’s better than everyone.

This will confuse our future generations. Elvis Presley popularised
the new rock and roll movement, changing the lives of an entire
generation. He pretty much invented the teenager.

The Beatles destroyed the notion of people having to sing other people’s songs. Lennon and McCartney’s compositions brought in a new optimism to the post-war world, and acted as a catalyst to the changes of the 1960’s.

Madonna  whatever you think of her now, made people see female
performers in a new way. She was as strong as a man in her viewpoints,
and made people rethink their views on gender issues and the church.

And that’s ignoring all the black performers, the ones who invented and pioneered jazz, rock and roll, soul, funk and hip hop.

Of course, the Billboard chart is based mainly on radio airplay,
which can be easily corrupted. The recent stories of an Avril Lavigne
single being played several times in a row on a small local station
when everyone was sleeping to bump up her place attest to that.

And everyone downloads songs, now. The actual sales of a top ten single now are tiny compared to when the Beatles were popular.

But still; the best is the best. And who’s the best? Some bloke mumbling about confectionary. Great.

[story by Stuart Heritage]