1000 Songs Everyone Must Hear

In March 2009, the Guardian/Observer published “1000 Songs Everyone Must Hear,” an unranked, themed survey of popular music—from early standards to modern pop—curated by the papers’ music critics rather than by public vote. Rolled out over a week in seven categories (love, heartbreak, people & places, sex, politics & protest, life & death, party songs), each pick includes title/artist/year and a short signed blurb; the series later invited readers to nominate omissions for each theme. Although branded as “1000,” the currently available official dataset now totals 988 entries. Based on the variety of critic initials signing the blurbs across all seven themes—and the fact that multiple different initials appear within the same theme—we estimate about 12 critics contributed to the curation (a conservative, evidence-based count rather than a published headcount).