I’d like to know if you could post the code you used at R to program the graphics in this post, because I need a graph like the one you did with the names of the songs but I don’t know how to do it.

Thanks so much

1997: 11 (of which 2 are Radiohead)
1994: 9 (of which 4 are Jeff Buckley)
1991: 7 (of which 3 are Nirvana)
1995: 5 (of which 1 is Radiohead)
2000: 5

So, once you count for the high ranking acts, 1997 is a standout winner. But, the best single year of music ever? Now that’s a big call. According to Radio 2 listeners in the UK it was 1967. Being a bit older than you, I’d probably pick a year in the late 70s or early 80s. But, I’d have to agree that there’s certainly something to explain there about 1997. For those wishing to reflect on that question, here is the list, complete with Hottest 100 rank:

5. Paranoid Android, Radiohead
9 . Everlong, Foo Fighters
14. Bittersweet Symphony, The Verve
15. Karma Police, Radiohead
34. Prisoner of Society, The Living End
36. Into My Arms Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
57. Forty-Six & 2, Tool
58. Around the World, Daft Punk
61. Song 2, Blur
67. Brick, Ben Folds Five
75. Good Riddance (Time of Your Life), Green Day

Meanwhile, here is a mini-poll on best year of music ever.

Of course, I’m sure this says more about the demographics of voters than the preponderance of true classics in the 90s.”

I disagree. I suggest you compare the concentration of songs in this year’s countdown to that of the 1998 countdown. This year, by my reckoning there were 12 songs from 1997, 9 from 1994 and 7 from 1991. Compare this to what happened in 1998 – 15 songs from 1997, 13 from 1994 and 7 from 1991.

According to the demographic logic, either one of these two things would have happened: (a) there would have been a lot more songs from the 2000’s in this year’s countdown (i.e. songs that are pretty recent) OR (b) there would have been a lot more songs from the 1980’s in the 1998 countdown (i.e. songs that were 10-20 or so years old at that time).

Instead, what actually happened seems to be this – 1991 you can thank Nirvana for, 1994 you can thank Jeff Buckley for, but 1997 you can’t really thank anybody for, which just goes to show what I’ve always said: that 1997 was the best single year of music ever!

The countdown also goes to show that music (at least the stuff Triple J plays) has been on the downward spiral ever since, as demonstrated by the low number of recent songs in the countdown!!

Being 26 years old myself I am going to be somewhat biased, as the 90’s is the music I grew up with, but Triple J listeners aren’t all 26 years old, nor are they all 15 as I was in 1998! At some point the masses have seen the light!!