Rock band Metallica votes for dancehall
Rock band Metallica listed dancehall music amongst its 25 Best Songs of the Decade in a poll commissioned by US based magazine Rolling Stone.
The influential band’s votes included songs by Sean Paul and Damian Marley, according to ballots on the magazine’s website.
Drummer and spokesman Lars Ulrich voted Sean Paul’s Get Busy at number 21 whilst his top pick was U2’s Moment of Surrender. Lead guitarist Kirk Hammett voted Damian Marley’s Welcome to Jamrock as number 10 whilst his top pick was Radiohead’s Everything in its Right Place.
The results disclosed the musical diversity of the band formed in 1981 with record sales over 100 million and awards including nine Grammys. The ballots of the other two band members were not public.
In fact Rolling Stone magazine’s assistant managing editor, Jonathan Ringen also voted for Damian Marley’s Welcome to Jamrock at number 14 and Sean Paul’s Like Glue at number 19.
Metallica and Ringen formed part of 100 artistes, journalists and insiders who voted. The final list ranked Welcome to Jamrock at number 100 but no other dancehall/reggae artiste made the list which ranked Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy at number 1.
Rolling Stone, pop music’s most prestigious magazine described its methodology as transparent and audited.
“Each voter was asked to list his or her 25 favourite albums and songs of the past decade, in order of importance. Ballots were tabulated and weighted according to a methodology developed by the accounting firm of Ernst & Young, under the supervision of the editors of Rolling Stone,” the 43-year-old magazine stated last month.
Last month music ‘bible’, Billboard, listed Sean Paul as the reggae artiste of the year and decade.
Paul beat Matisyahu and Bob Marley & the Wailers for second and third respectively for 2009 artiste of the year based on just released chart data from Billboard, the US based music company. Billboard stated that the top reggae artiste of the decade ranking was based on an artiste’s chart performance. During the year Sean Paul hit number one on the charts and sold slightly more copies than Matisyahu, however neither artiste surpassed 80,000 units in the US market.
