About The Project

Contributors:

Guy

DJ Rad

Bimmy

Methodology: Contributors’ MP3 players were scanned for matching file names.  In the event that a MP3 player was not available, contributors were asked to submit a list of all songs in their personal music collection.  Songs that were listed on more than 50% of the sampled sources were considered “matches.”  Among the “matches,” without collusion, contributors selected (up to) five songs from each artist.  All other songs were discarded.  Of the “matching” songs that remained, on a confidential form, contributors weighted each song with a score between 0 (disinterest) and 250 (mind-shattering bliss).  The forms were kept under lock and key by an impartial third-party official.  To ensure objectivity, contributors were told to return to their normal lives and sworn not to discuss “Project 100” for 90 days.  Any perceived violation of the gag rule would have result in an immediate dismissal from the Project and their scores to be revoked.  90 days later, contributors were granted another view of the list, and, once again, scored each matching song on the 0-250 scale.  The scores from all lists, new and old, were then compiled, with all songs scoring with a total score below 75 being stricken from the Master List.  To prevent collusion, each contributor was placed in an empty janitor closet, with a copy of the Master List and a flashlight.  They each had 45-minutes or until their batteries ran out (whichever occurred first) to strike 15 songs of which they found offensive to their tastes, and furthermore, select 15 songs, which they deemed immune from being stricken.  These judgments resulted in the Grand Master List, with the remaining songs rearranged alphabetically by artist.  Each contributor was then allowed to review the Grand Master List for a two hour lunch break before returning to the compound to for 6 hours of deliberation.  Then each contributor was then individually sequestered for 36 hours in a private hotel room (with a stack of freshly burned CDs for referential listening) where they made a final weighing of each Grand Master List song on a scale between 1 and 7.  The final scores were tabulated and ranked.  ONLY THE HIGHEST SCORING SONG FROM EACH ARTIST REMAINED ON THE LIST, all others were removed.  The higher the score the higher the ranking (#1 being the “highest”).  This resulted in the Final List with Numbers #11 to #90 being permanently finalized.  Numbers #91-120, however, received another two hours of collaborative deliberation.  Contributors then publicly made a list of the 10 songs, between 91-120, that they disliked the most – with the songs receiving the least mentions being ranked 91-100 according to their previous “final score.”  Songs ranked #1-10 on the Final List were then presented to the contributors individually with a final, blindfolded, listening session, played in CD quality at moderate volume, through high-fidelity headphones, with the #10 ranked song being played first, #9 played second, etc.  After all ten tracks had elapsed, each contributor was immediately lead to a voting machine, where, by secret ballot, they selected the one song they felt was the greatest of all time.  The votes were counted, with the song receiving the most votes being #1 on the Grand Final List, the second most #2, etc.  All ties in the rankings were broken with by referring to the previous ranking on the Final List.