Welcome to The Eliminator 1000!  What is The Eliminator 1000?  Answer:  a ever-evolving list of 1000 great songs to be listening to today.  Here is the current Spotify playlist of The Eliminator 1000!  The reason this project and songlist is called The Eliminator 1000 is that every new song to The Eliminator 1000 has to “Eliminate” another song already in The Eliminator 1000 to make the list.  This means that really only excellent great to listen to songs should be able to break in to The Eliminator 1000.  Big picture, this project is founded in big pop music from about 1970 to today, with a TON of adult alternative and folk and singer songwriter songs.  But it strays afield a bit, into rock, country, rap, and hip hop.  But as I have worked on it and begun the process of Eliminating songs, I’ve discovered that this project is really a giant musical refresh project, bringing in new sounds and new artists. And another treshhold item to know is that The Eliminator 1000 does NOT aspire to be a list of top songs, the most classic songs, or the best songs.  To the contrary, The Eliminator 1000 is proving to be decidedly anti-nostalgia, so many all time classic songs are being rapidly eliminated from this project.  The original list of songs started out with basically my favorite (mostly mellow and pop) songs from all time, but already 55 of those songs are out as of September 11, 2021, replaced by theoretically newer, fresher and updated music.   What can you do?  Propose a song to go in, together with your argument for why it should be in the The Eliminator 1000.  I will review it, but essentially I am going to play the role of curator and not the dictator.  I’m looking for really good listens, and I’m not trying to stick to my preferences too firmly.  I am curating and looking to create a certain overall sound and mix I prefer.  Basically if you really like a song – propose it!  I’ll review any song, but please see the guidelines and biases below!  If you take a look at any The Eliminator posts, you will get the idea. For more information on The Eliminator 1000, here is the Youtube playlist.  Here is a Google Sheets list of the current top 1000 songs. 

December 2022 update:  The 2022 reranking of songs is complete!  Focus of this project remains on what has become the core idea – fresh, high quality songs that are great to listen to.  The Original The Eliminator 1000 was trying to do too much, being both good songs to listen to and all time classic songs or songs that were really immensely popular or whatever.  I spent October getting rid of a lot of those old all time classic songs and replacing them with more current songs.  And most of the songs that remain are songs I think you can listen to over and over again on a song playlist and get positive non-stale vibes from the next listen.  Every song that survives now is at least not completely irrelevant to the modern listener, even the classic oldies that are still in the list. Song Proposal Ideas:

1. Better versions of any song already in the list.
2. Better songs from a specific year.  Challenge the worst song in the same year.
3. An opponent for a song in my list that you hate.
4. Specific songs to eliminate.  If you absolutely think a song should NOT be in The Eliminator 1000, you can just say please get rid of that song and here’s why.

Rules:

1. Every new song proposed for The Eliminator 1000 must defeat another song already in The Eliminator 1000 to get in.
2. Every song must have lyrics.  Instrumental music, of any kind, need not apply.  
3. There can only be one version of any one song in The Eliminator 1000.
4. If you propose a song, you can specify a song currently in the The Eliminator 1000 to Eliminate, but see rule #5.
5. If you don’t specify a song to Eliminate, your proposed song will face #1000.  
6. You can submit an Analysis in support of your proposed song, and the reasons why it should be in The Eliminator 1000 and why it should Eliminate any specific song you want it to oppose.  A lot of the lower songs in The Eliminator 1000 right now are just waiting for new songs to Eliminate them.  Just type your Analysis out in the comments.  The more detailed the Analysis, the better, as far as I’m concerned.
7. I am the Curator of the Eliminator, but in general my new plan is to largely attempt to defer to any submitted analysis and proposed songs and just curate the list for quality and overall sound.  Your Analysis or proposed song will be given due consideration, and if it fits in the big picture of what I’m trying to do I will try to include it, but of course if the proposed song runs up against a strong song already in The Eliminator 1000 that I think people should be listening to, then it might be rejected.  I’m not going to try to hold to the original songlist because why should I (except maybe the top 200 songs which will be hard to take out I think).
8. One core way to think about the songs your propose is “What will one more listen to this song do for me in 2021?”  This question is kind of key for The Eliminator 1000 because this is NOT a nostalgia / best song ever list.  If we have already heard the song one million times, its chances of being added to The Eliminator 1000 are pretty low.  

Scoring:  I’ve started up a scoring system, more so that I can rank the songs than for anything else.  The basic metric for how high up in The Eliminator 1000 a song is is the following:  exactly how many more times can a person listen to this particular song before you have heard it too many times?  What I like about the arbitrary metric is it captures what I am trying to do with this project.  Songs that are really old, or even moderately old, are songs we all have heard, often way too much.  Music has a couple of major roles – one is to make you feel all comfortable, safe and warm, like an old piece of clothing you have worn for years or that friend you have had for decades.  Another is to keep your life vibrant and effusive with really high quality songs.  And it is this last focus that is why I’m doing this project, in an effort to stay fresh and interesting with curated music choice, focused intently on song quality. I’ve also evolved a bit of an internal scoring idea that is still in process but whatever.  I’ve put in a maximum score for more listens at an arbitrary 5,000 more listens.  The most any song can get is 5,000, if it is a perfect song and could never fade as a good listen.  Here is the rough scoring scale from 0-5000 that I have come up with: 5000:  Song Perfection 4000+:  Incredible Song, and one I can currently listen to over and over again and like it every single time.  Nearly impossible for a new song to Eliminate one of these.  3000+:  Incredible Song, but just starting to lose its infinite listen luster or on the way up.  Very difficult for a new song to Eliminate one of these 2000+:  Incredible Song, but could be long in the tooth and also could be Eliminated by something new if it is outstanding.  1000+:  Incredible Song, but more vulnerable to attack from a younger fresher or more interesting song.  Below 1000:  Incredible Song, but definitely on the way out [or maybe brand new to the Eliminator 1000, some songs do grow on you over time].  These are the songs that a new song would love to oppose in the Eliminator 1 v 1. So the theory behind the scoring system is that eventually you would get to 1000 songs that are scored 5000!  So scores should go up over time, and songs should get better and better as The Eliminator becomes aware of better and better songs.  No one can tell me there aren’t 1000 perfect songs in the world.  There definitely are.  We just have to find them!  And I may reduce the scores across the board every occasional time period, just to reflect the passage of time and the fact that every song is that much older.  We will see.  Biases:

1. The Eliminator 1000 is all about making a current ultimate 1000 song overall playlist that is fun to listen to.  By “ultimate”, I mean no genre is off-limits, but remember the overall theme of the list and the biases below.  
2. Positive Biases:  As you will quickly discern from a quick read of the playlist, The Curator of the Eliminator 1000 has spent a lot of time listening to the following genres – 1970s and 1980s mellow rock, lite pop, early 1990s hip hop, late 1980s alternative, 1984-1987 pop specifically, 2000 songstresses, 2010 folk.  It’s all been an evolution.  The Curator of the Eliminator 1000 also strongly prefers:  mellow music generally, music from new locales and places, current or recent music, and generally music that doesn’t stray too far afield from the core concept (easily discernable by looking through any of the playlists) though I do want to stay open.
3. Negative Biases:  The Curator of the Eliminator looks down on some major genres:  metal, pure rap, hard rock.  If these are your favorite genres, then The Eliminator 1000 is likely not for you.  The Curator of The Eliminator also is opposed, in concept, to:  boy bands, girl bands, Disney artists, artists who are now criminals, super high production value / overrated artists releasing songs as moneymakers, and songs that everyone has heard one million times for over 30 or 40 years.

Thanks for taking a look at this project.  I really welcome your input and contributions!