This is a HUGE (and pricey) book, containing 7,500 songs. It's an updated edition of the one that was out around 1997.

This could be the biggest featured to ever land at Acclaimed Music. Of course, it will take QUITE a while to get info to you, Henrik, since it's so huge. I hope to have it ready sometime early-to-middle of next year. It makes that Hall of Fame 500 list of important songs look like peanuts!

I'm just about done typing up the Songs & Artists info. And. I'm still inquiring about those Greek books (Songs/Albums of the Century)- haven't heard anything back after my recent inquiry to the compiler or publisher.

Oh my Gosh- now that's enormous!

How many songs do Prince and Madonna have?

Prince has 28 songs, Madonna has 38 (which looks to be the most for a female). Joni Mitchell has 25 and Janet Jackson has 20 (those are two I looked up at quick glance).

Any guesses as to how many the Beatles have?

Alright- doing a quick look through the book, here are the acts with at least 20 entries (if my count for any is off by 1 or so, I'll edit at some point- the type's pretty small):

1. The Beatles: 149
2. Bob Dylan: 102
3. Elvis Presley: 62
4. The Rolling Stones: 61
5. Bruce Springsteen: 47
6. Madonna: 38
7. Chuck Berry: 36
8. The Who: 34
9. The Beach Boys: 33
10. Elvis Costello: 32
11. Stevie Wonder: 32
12. Elton John: 31
13. Led Zeppelin: 30
14. Billy Joel: 29
15. Neil Young: 29
16. Prince: 28
17. The Everly Brothers: 26
18. Michael Jackson: 25
19. Joni Mitchell: 25
20. Fleetwood Mac: 24
21. Aretha Franklin: 24
22. U2: 24
23. David Bowie: 22
24. Jimi Hendrix: 22
25. Paul Simon: 22 (solo)
26. Ray Charles: 21
27. The Kinks: 21
28. The Temptations: 21
29. Van Halen: 21
30. Marvin Gaye: 20
31. Janet Jackson: 20
32. Bob Marley & the Wailers: 20
33. Van Morrison: 20
34. Pink Floyd: 20

Sir Paul actually has 25 songs included- 16 were listed under PM & Wings; another handful under just PM; and then he had a couple duets listed. They all would be lumped under his name as one act, hence 25.

Why are they "important"?

He writes that the idea of the book is "to combine many different sources in making my selection- singles and album cuts, chart positions and critical acclaim, noted cover versions and historic movie usages, respected personal collections of professional music listeners and more unforgiving chart positions- with my own half-century as a radio addict in the 1950s, to a much published author and record reviewer in the 60s to an annual reference book on the year's 500 most importnt songs through the 1980s and 1990s, and to my present position as a prolific compilation producer at one of the remaining major record labels in New York City."

There's more in the intro, but suffice to say, it's far from just being a compilation of the biggest chart hits (the Beatles' number of entries alone is a testament to that, since they didn't have nearly that many hits!)

I went through the book more, and caught some things:

James Brown's songs are listed under his name, and then also James Brown & the Famous Flames. But, he would get credit for those along with the others, so that brings his total number of songs to 24.

Aretha Franklin actually has 27 songs- I neglected to include three duets, which were listed separately.

Stevie Wonder has 33 songs, including his duet with Paul McCartney.

The Temptations have 22 songs

John Lennon has 17 solo songs, plus 5 under JL & the Plastic Ono Band- making it 22 songs.

I'm sure that David Lee Roth is furious to be foiled yet another time by Elvis Costello, even though Roth claims to be much prettier.

But seriously, Van Halen 21? are you sure it was not supposed to be just one?

I guess "eruption" is important to guitar-playing history, but isn't their music on par with acts such as Def Leppard, Extreme, and such and such? in other words mindless pop-metal...

Any book that lists Van Halen above Van Morrison is questionable to me, (unless of course the list were "the most unimportant songs")

If you ask me Van Morrison got 20 songs too many.

I'm sure David Lee Roth would agree with you there...

Verlaine, go listen to the Fair Warning album, Van Halen's best imo, usually under-rated even by their fans.

I just can't help it, Van Morrison bores me stiff. This list is very questionable anyway. A song to be considered "important" should either be a musical landmark or have made an impact on popular culture of its time. There's no way there were 7,500 important songs in the last 50 years.

is a pretty revered guitarist, so for that alone, Van Halen is given a lot of props.

I own the previous version of the book. can you write down the entire list, so i can check the new entries?