Which of this generation’s songs will be the classics of the next?

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Let’s all get up and dance to a song
That was a hit before your mother was born.
Though she was born a long, long time ago
Your mother should know, your mother should know.
           -Paul McCartney

I’ll always adore Annie Nightingale because she picked out the Heroes of She to win the competition for new band of the year at the O2 Arena. She’s the only Radio 1 DJ who’s older than I am and her musical tastes were formed when mine were, which means the Beatles and the Stones. Yes, we were lucky. Annie has been writing about Paul McCartney’s new album “Kisses” which consists of covers of songs recorded by artists such as Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Dean Martin, the songs of my parent’s generation. These were songs which I loathed as a child and I’m intrigued to see that McCartney liked them. (My mother redeemed herself by being one of the few people to buy the Beatle’s very first single, Love Me Do). Annie’s question is this: If we have no difficulty in recognising the iconic songs of McCartney’s dad’s generation and of McCartney’s generation, what about the songs of our generation? 

She listed what she thinks are the best 25 songs of the last 25 years*. Now, if you asked me to look at any chart of the sixties I would be pretty certain to know the tune and the words of most of the songs. The primitive technology of those days meant that the melody was paramount, which made them easy to remember. Today’s songs are much more complex and I’d bet that in a generation’s time not many of the songs on Annie’s “Top 25″ will be remembered.
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*Annie’s list