Planet Rock - Top 500 - Interesting listeners votes

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

@rwillett - Don't want to mess with your numbers, but I just noticed #97 Paint It Black is shown as being released in 1996 😬

[NancyJohnson]

On 06/01/2026 at 11:31, NancyJohnson said:

The major problem with these Top <insert number here> things is that they're so subjective.  

 

Thing is, you're almost definitely going to get the same turgid 50-year old stuff because that's pretty much the listening demographic is of the station.  Add to this that the demographic in question are generally somewhat blinkered and unwilling to step out of their comfort zone, hence the same old song choices.  Believe me, I know plenty if people who would prefer to listen to Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple rather than even considering anything from this decade.

 

Mark my words.  The top 20 will be peppered with Stairway To Heaven.  Freebird.  Smoke on the Water, Whole Lotta Rosie, Sweet Child of Mine, Bohemian Rhapsody, Alright Now, Enter Sandman, Ace of Spades.

 

 

Stairway To Heaven (#2)
Freebird (#5)
Smoke on the Water (#13)
Whole Lotta Rosie (#10)
Sweet Child of Mine (#9)
Bohemian Rhapsody (#1)
Alright Now (#30)
Enter Sandman (#14)
Ace of Spades (#22)

 

Like shooting fish in a barrel.

 

Amazingly, only two songs from this effing century in the top 50.  Says a lot about Planet Rock and the listenership.

 

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

19 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

Stairway To Heaven (#2)
Freebird (#5)
Smoke on the Water (#13)
Whole Lotta Rosie (#10)
Sweet Child of Mine (#9)
Bohemian Rhapsody (#1)
Alright Now (#30)
Enter Sandman (#14)
Ace of Spades (#22)

 

Like shooting fish in a barrel.

 

Amazingly, only two songs from this effing century in the top 50.  Says a lot about Planet Rock and the listenership.

 

Whilst I'll try not taking offence as I do listen to Planet Rock, what songs should replace them in your opinion?

[tauzero]

2 hours ago, ezbass said:

I often said you probably only need 1 AC/DC album  (dons tin hat).

 

PR play sooo much Queen, who, IMO, weren’t particularly ‘rock’ post Sheer Heart Attack. I do wonder if Sabbath would have finished so high, were it not for Ozzy’s demise; we’ll never know.

 

Finally, big thanks to @rwillett for doing the spreadsheet, donkey work on this, most appreciated.

 

An entire album? One single would do.

 

I thought Queen's last good album was Night at the Opera - of course that suffers from having Bo Rhap on it, not because Bo Rhap is a bad song but because it's been so overplayed. They moved from straightish rock with their first album to prog by NatO, then it started going very very commercial.

 

And thanks from me too.

[rwillett]

5 hours ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

@rwillett - Don't want to mess with your numbers, but I just noticed #97 Paint It Black is shown as being released in 1996 😬

Yep. That's either the extended and remastered disco mix version collaboration with The Cheeky Girls OR Planet Rock cocked up. 

 

It doesn't really affect the numbers much as it should be in the 1960s stats and not the 1990s. 

 

I didn't check every year apart from checking the upper and lower bounds as I don't even know some of the bands. 

 

Rob 

[NancyJohnson]

8 hours ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

Whilst I'll try not taking offence as I do listen to Planet Rock, what songs should replace them in your opinion?

 

Aaw come on W, I think you know more than enough where my musical tastes lie. 😏

 

'Rock' music (along with all it's sub-genres) is simply too all-encompassing to capture within 500 songs, but you have to admit the inevitably of the tracks peppering the top 20/50.

 

I have a mate called Pete (bass player too), lovely bloke, a few years older than me, who would look at that top 20 and all those wretched power ballads and go, 'Yep, yes, absolutely, yeah, Christ yes,' at pretty much everything in there.  He wouldn't be considering, or be remotely interested in Alkaline Trio or Fishbone or Jane's Addiction or The Beths or Momma or XTC or Steven Wilson or Pavement, Primus, Living Colour, Veruca Salt, Jellyfish, Smashing Pumpkins (and so on), as these bands simply aren't on his radar and to him they don't represent rock in it's purest - 1970s/1980s - form.  The stuff, as a guy nudging 70, he grew up with.

 

The Planet Rock 500 is like those wretched NOW! compilations; it's the songs Neal Kay would spin before the lights went down for the headliners at Hammersmith Odeon.  It's awful populist rawk, filtered down to it's lowest common denominator; Queen (and I love early Queen), Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Metallica, Iron Maiden.  The only one that suprised me was Rainbow's 'Stargazer at #3.

 

The only reason Alter Bridge are at #8 is because the station probably play it a lot, because sure as hell, Pete wouldn't have just plucked that one out of the ether.

 

 

[NancyJohnson]

7 hours ago, tauzero said:

 

An entire album? One single would do.

 

I thought Queen's last good album was Night at the Opera - of course that suffers from having Bo Rhap on it, not because Bo Rhap is a bad song but because it's been so overplayed. They moved from straightish rock with their first album to prog by NatO, then it started going very very commercial.

 

And thanks from me too.

 

I'd concur on the Queen thing. NATO was the last decent Queen album, but I'd say Sheer Heart Attack was their absolute peak.

 

Again though, it's all subjective.  My brother taped SHA for me and I listened to it endlessly, along with Sweet's Sweet F*nny Adams and Sparks' Kimono/Propaganda albums.  Time, place and circumstances account for a lot.  Would they stand up now?  If I told my teen nephew to go at listen to them?  Probably not.

[Merton]

14 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

 

Aaw come on W, I think you know more than enough where my musical tastes lie. 😏

 

'Rock' music (along with all it's sub-genres) is simply too all-encompassing to capture within 500 songs, but you have to admit the inevitably of the tracks peppering the top 20/50.

 

I have a mate called Pete (bass player too), lovely bloke, a few years older than me, who would look at that top 20 and all those wretched power ballads and go, 'Yep, yes, absolutely, yeah, Christ yes,' at pretty much everything in there.  He wouldn't be considering, or be remotely interested in Alkaline Trio or Fishbone or Jane's Addiction or The Beths or Momma or XTC or Steven Wilson or Pavement, Primus, Living Colour, Veruca Salt, Jellyfish, Smashing Pumpkins (and so on), as these bands simply aren't on his radar and to him they don't represent rock in it's purest - 1970s/1980s - form.  The stuff, as a guy nudging 70, he grew up with.

 

The Planet Rock 500 is like those wretched NOW! compilations; it's the songs Neal Kay would spin before the lights went down for the headliners at Hammersmith Odeon.  It's awful populist rawk, filtered down to it's lowest common denominator; Queen (and I love early Queen), Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Metallica, Iron Maiden.  The only one that suprised me was Rainbow's 'Stargazer at #3.

 

The only reason Alter Bridge are at #8 is because the station probably play it a lot, because sure as hell, Pete wouldn't have just plucked that one out of the ether.

 

 

Ultimately if you did this with Absolute Classic Rock you’d probably get a similar list; their playlist is very heavily stuck in those decades and the more modern takes on “classic rock” which PR plays don’t get a look in (Those Damn Crows, Florence Black, Massive Wagons, even Alter Bridge and the lamentable 5FDP).

 

I bet if you asked the Kerrang radio listeners to do theirs, that’s when you’d get a bit more variety. They seem to focus on 90s onwards, with a smattering of classic Sabbath, Maiden, Ozzy, Van Halen etc. It’s through Kerrang that I discovered I’d missed all 25 years of Billy Talent (bloody love that band now) and Rise Against (same) and learnt more about a lot of other bands I knew from one or two songs only.

 

It’s all incredibly subjective, and ultimately the PR raison d’etre is to play the older “classic” rock, hence that’s what the list will provide because that’s why the listeners tune in.

[SteveXFR]

9 hours ago, NancyJohnson said:

 

 

Stairway To Heaven (#2)
Freebird (#5)
Smoke on the Water (#13)
Whole Lotta Rosie (#10)
Sweet Child of Mine (#9)
Bohemian Rhapsody (#1)
Alright Now (#30)
Enter Sandman (#14)
Ace of Spades (#22)

 

Like shooting fish in a barrel.

 

Amazingly, only two songs from this effing century in the top 50.  Says a lot about Planet Rock and the listenership.

 

 

There's certainly nothing wrong with modern music, bands now are as good as they've ever been.

Its the dinosaurs who listen to Planet Rock who just won't listen to bands they don't know. Its their loss, there's a whole heap of new music they'd probably love if they were more open minded.

Discovering new bands is something I love, finding they have a couple albums for me to check out and enjoy and hear new, good stuff. I love Sabbath, they've probably influenced every band I love but Id probably only put one of their songs in my top 10.

[King Tut]

5 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

 

There's certainly nothing wrong with modern music, bands now are as good as they've ever been.

Its the dinosaurs who listen to Planet Rock who just won't listen to bands they don't know. Its their loss, there's a whole heap of new music they'd probably love if they were more open minded.

Discovering new bands is something I love, finding they have a couple albums for me to check out and enjoy and hear new, good stuff. I love Sabbath, they've probably influenced every band I love but Id probably only put one of their songs in my top 10.

That’s a bit of an unfair generalisation. I often listen to planet rock ( the gambling ads do my nut in though) but I’m just as likely to listen to 6music or give something new a try.

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

30 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

Aaw come on W, I think you know more than enough where my musical tastes lie. 😏

 

'Rock' music (along with all it's sub-genres) is simply too all-encompassing to capture within 500 songs, but you have to admit the inevitably of the tracks peppering the top 20/50.

 

I have a mate called Pete (bass player too), lovely bloke, a few years older than me, who would look at that top 20 and all those wretched power ballads and go, 'Yep, yes, absolutely, yeah, Christ yes,' at pretty much everything in there.  He wouldn't be considering, or be remotely interested in Alkaline Trio or Fishbone or Jane's Addiction or The Beths or Momma or XTC or Steven Wilson or Pavement, Primus, Living Colour, Veruca Salt, Jellyfish, Smashing Pumpkins (and so on), as these bands simply aren't on his radar and to him they don't represent rock in it's purest - 1970s/1980s - form.  The stuff, as a guy nudging 70, he grew up with.

 

The Planet Rock 500 is like those wretched NOW! compilations; it's the songs Neal Kay would spin before the lights went down for the headliners at Hammersmith Odeon.  It's awful populist rawk, filtered down to it's lowest common denominator; Queen (and I love early Queen), Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Metallica, Iron Maiden.  The only one that suprised me was Rainbow's 'Stargazer at #3.

 

The only reason Alter Bridge are at #8 is because the station probably play it a lot, because sure as hell, Pete wouldn't have just plucked that one out of the ether.

I don't disagree regarding the bands you've mentioned. I'm a big Primus fan and bought LC's Vivid on day one, but have any of them written anything better than Stargazer, Stairway to Heaven or Bohemian Rhapsody? I think not.

It was mentioned earlier that voters had up to 3 (I think) choices. It really doesn't explain how a lot of the very weak material got in at all. I mean Teenage Kicks - WTF?

No Greta Van Fleet I notice 😂. No Blackberry Smoke. No Zappa either, which is criminal given what is in there.

My next gigs are Kurt Elling at Ronnie Scott's followed by The Aristocrats.

Music is the best!

[rwillett]

It's opened up some new names to me so that's good. 

 

As with all "best" lists, it's highly subjective and causes lots of thought / discussion / arguments / flame wars. 

 

I was surprised The Pretty Reckless didn't have an entry but as somebody posted earlier "twas ever so". 

 

Personally speaking I'd love to get a full dump of all the votes and the demographics behind the voters. I didn't see the voting page at all so no idea what information was requested by Rayo but this is a goldmine for them as they get told clearly what music to play and in which proportions. They can hit their target audience pretty quickly without spending lots on market research. This was probably the aim all along 😁