Sasha Weiss

Many commenters on our project have been lamenting the absence of Billy Joel.

Now, Billy Joel, everybody in the room would agree, I think.

At least most of them would agree that Billy Joel belongs on a list of great songwriters.

But when you're making a list of 30 and you're rooting it in a balloting process,

You have to make hard choices.

And there were people who were higher than he was.

And, you know, there were also people representing the piano man Schmaltz tradition.

Schmaltz?

Sure.

Schmaltz meant in the best sense.

Emotionalism, opera, you know, a kind of like...

The bigness of storytelling, which is a venerable tradition in American songs, you know, and represented on the list.

But Billy Joel, some people argued in the room as a lyricist, if you're kind of putting him up against a Springsteen and a Dylan, people who he admires and I think pays homage to, some people argued he's not quite there.

And there are others who are better.

And we do have to represent the piano men better.

They're there, but the piano man himself ultimately... Is not.

I think it's a list that reflects the world that we move through.

I think it reflects the way that American music comes out of everything from like...

a speaker at a bar mitzvah, you know, a dance floor at a bar mitzvah, to what you see on TikTok, to, like, the thing that you'd sing at karaoke that everybody would know.

We have people who are layering in production and a kind of sound that threads its way through popular R&B and soul and hip-hop.