U2, The Boss, artists of the decade?

So I got the new Rolling Stone, it's best of the decade edition (there it is, to the right of this post). I always expect to have arguments with best of lists. I think that's the point of such lists. They're completely subjective, even when, as Rolling Stone claims, they consulted numerous musicians and others in the "music biz."

Some of the magazine's choices were questionable: U2's No Line on the Horizon is a good album, but the best of the year? Don't think so. But hey, it's debatable. I also had a hard time figuring how they managed to pick The Strokes' Is This It as the second best album of the decade, ahead of Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. But that's what criticism is about... you make choices and support them. Others will agree or not.

There's no harm in making over-the-top proclamations. In my own lists I've argued hard for the Doves, a band that nearly no other publication I've read has any time for (haven't seen them mentioned in any other best-of list I've read). But Rolling Stone made several choices that really left me flabbergasted. Under "Artists of the Decade," good picks like Radiohead, Arcade Fire, Jack White and Kanye West shared space with MIA, Bruce Springsteen and U2.

Now I know Rolling Stone is no longer a rock magazine. It's really a pop publication. But MIA? MIA has one hit song this decade... How does that qualify her as an artist of the decade? No matter how great, I don't see how you can earn artist of the decade cred with one song.

I was equally baffled by U2 and Springsteen. Both are great artists. I like U2 a lot, and their most recent '00s albums are good, but the band's influence -- and they are perhaps one of the most influential band's of the last 25 years -- is based on their work between '82 and '92. During that period the band released at least three masterpieces: War, Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby. Their current work, at its best, recalls the sound they pioneered then.

Springsteen's greatest work predates even that period. The Boss has been really busy the last 10 years, and I like the political work he's done, but his period of influence stretches back the the '70s. At his best, he recalls the early work of the E-Street band or the starker songwriting of Nebraska. The Boss is cool, but an artist of the decade? Maybe an artist of his generation, but that generation is over.

Perhaps rolling Stone is simply catering to its aging base. But even an old -- by pop standards -- taste like mine found those choices almost absurd. I could see arguments made for Wilco, Kings of Leon, Conor Oberst or even Ryan Adams... All would have been better choices for artists who've influenced the sounds and tastes of the last 10 years.

I will give Rolling Stone credit, though. I think they were spot on for the best song of the decade: Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy." So the writers aren't completely under an '80s rock. But, seriously, they needed to think a little harder about artists of the decade. U2 and the Boss are big, but their best days are long gone.