Best-of lists and the abdication of judgement
05-09-2025 • Ryan Prendergast
As time goes on, the market share of old media increases. People still listen to the Beatles and watch The Godfather. It's a natural effect of media discovery. If I'm going to watch a movie, I will probably google "best movies" and see The Godfather on the list.
The logic of consuming the best seems pretty sensible. You have a limited amount of time on earth, and you can't consumer every piece of media. So for a given format, you probably want to start your search with a consensus of what other people like, and branch out from there.
I'm someone who grew up a best-of consumer. My most listened to artists in high school were Pink Floyd and the Beatles. Recently I've found it to be more and more an empty practice. Far more interesting than the consumption of a best-of, is the creation of one. Would Bach be Bach if not for Mendelsohn? Picasso would not be Picasso if not for a conglomeration of mimetic associations of a downtown scene, loft parties, counterculture. Was that inevitable?
The Big Lie of best-of lists is that the best emerge by survival of the fittest. The thought goes: every year 1000 artists make 1000 songs, and the good ones emerge from the top of that stack. But that's just not true. Songs and books succeed by becoming memetic. That is ANOTHER process independent of the production of the art itself. It's attaching a lifestyle to the artwork, one infective enough to induce itself in its listeners. Pink Floyd effuses a pyschadelic rock lifestyle- that didnt just emerge descriptively! It's a hodge podge of what people say about the artists' lifestyle and the lifestyle of their listeners.
I listen to Tyler Cowen's podcast, and anytime he suggests music he seems to approach it by searching for the best. He looks for an argument for why certain music is better than others. He's a well-known economist, so perhaps best-of lists are best understood as a symptom of the economics takeover of the world.