Johnny Cash would've been 80 this February 26. An iconic figure, Cash played to his strengths. He did not have a great vocal range, but he had an honest worldview and a dedication to the few notes he did reach that gave his career a gravitas not often seen. He was a one-of-a-kind who got his start among many other one-of-a-kinds at Sun Records, where he recorded some of his finest songs.

Reducing his career to just 25 songs and then ranking them is a fool's errand. But it's the format we have. Figure anything on this list is a great place to start. But it is nowhere near definitive. You need entire albums for that. The man's catalog was too grand to be contained here. Let's enjoy and rock our lives away!

My extensive research into matters regarding the 1980s has proven that the kids can't get enough of that shoulder-padded decade. At the time, it seemed like a bit of a letdown from the achievements of the 1960s and 1970s, but in retrospect you don't even need rose-tinted glasses to get the idea that it's a much better decades by comparison to, say, the last twelve years or so. For music, not for computers, just to be clear. Just look at the stylistic diversity here! Better yet, there are no emo bands, only Phil Collins. While I would never wish to relive the 1980s commercial radio experience, I wouldn't be averse to growing younger.

Nowhere does it get more confusing than the Grammy's Best New Artist category. The Academy acknowledges artists when they chart. Or something like that. From the cheap seats where the logic doesn't reach, many of those who have been nominated through the years have often felt pretty old. But newness is in the eye of the beholder. To the nominees' parents, they've been around forever.

Here are the five!

Bon Iver, photo: SN Photography/WireImageOne of the weirder categories, Song of the Year suggests that you can reduce an entire year's worth of songwriting down to one song. Coincidentally, the songs chosen here all come from artists whose albums have been picked for awards as well. I don't think this is any kind of conspiracy. I chalk it up to an innate laziness. Or to the fact that only those names already in the Grammy Rolodex are likely to garner enough votes to be nominated.

I haven't bothered to list all the songwriters involved, since, really, who wants to read a bunch of names? It doesn't just make for bad television, as Randy Newman noted, but it makes for bad blogging as well!

Here's the list of the five nominated songs. I have no guess as to what will win. I don't even know how you vote for one song.