Imagine (song) - Recognition and Criticism

Recognition and Criticism

Rolling Stone described "Imagine" as Lennon's "greatest musical gift to the world", praising "the serene melody; the pillowy chord progression; that beckoning, four-note figure". Included in several song polls, in 1999, BMI named it one of the top 100 most-performed songs of the 20th century. Also that year, it received the Grammy Hall of Fame Award and an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. Triple J ranked it number 11 on its Hottest 100 of All Time list. "Imagine" ranks number 23 in the year-2000 list of best-selling singles of all time in the UK. In 2002, a UK survey conducted by the Guinness World Records British Hit Singles Book ranked it the second best single of all time behind Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody". Gold Radio ranked the song number 3 on its "Gold's greatest 1000 hits" list.

Rolling Stone ranked "Imagine" number 3 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, described as "an enduring hymn of solace and promise that has carried us through extreme grief, from the shock of Lennon's own death in 1980 to the unspeakable horror of September 11th. It is now impossible to imagine a world without 'Imagine', and we need it more than he ever dreamed." Despite that sentiment, Clear Channel Communications included the song on its post-9/11 "do not play" list. On 1 January 2005, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation named "Imagine" the greatest song in the past 100 years as voted by listeners on the show 50 Tracks. The song ranked number 30 on the Recording Industry Association of America's list of the 365 Songs of the Century bearing the most historical significance. Virgin Radio conducted a UK favourite song survey in December 2005, and listeners voted "Imagine" number 1. Australians selected it the greatest song of all time on the Nine Network's 20 to 1 countdown show on 12 September 2006. They voted it eleventh in the youth network Triple J's Hottest 100 Of All Time on 11 July 2009.

Jimmy Carter said, "in many countries around the world—my wife and I have visited about 125 countries—you hear John Lennon's song 'Imagine' used almost equally with national anthems." On 9 October 2010, which would have been Lennon's 70th birthday, the Liverpool Signing Choir performed "Imagine" along with other Lennon songs at the unveiling of the John Lennon Peace Monument in Chavasse Park, Liverpool England. Beatles producer George Martin praised Lennon's solo work, singling out the composition: "My favourite song of all was 'Imagine'". Music critic Paul Du Noyer described "Imagine" as Lennon's "most revered" post-Beatles song. Urish and Bielen called it "the most subversive pop song recorded to achieve classic status."

Journalist Dave Berg, writing in the The Washington Post, reflected on the song's selection for the New Year's Eve celebrations in Times Square. He considered it an "insidious and a horrendous choice" and found it strange that what he considered a "sad and depressing" song had "achieved the status of a secular hymn." Berg said, "atheists have embraced the song as their own", and he gave the example of an "Imagine" themed advertisement from the Freedom From Religion Foundation." While Berg considered the song an atheist anthem which served to dishonor both the victims of 9/11 and the US, a Methodist pastor he spoke with about it disagreed, "insisting the song was simply a metaphysical criticism of religion and politics." Harvard economics professor Mathias Risse criticised Lennon's lyrical suggestion that humanity could reach a stage of development devoid of religion, countries and possessions as unrealistic: "Lennon's is not a dream in which we ought to join. We cannot imagine what he asks us to imagine in any action-guiding way."

Conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro, writing for Briebart, ranked "Imagine" the most overrated song of all time. Shapiro commented: "There are no words for how truly evil and terrible this song is ... utter and complete rubbish ... It’s vomit-inducing bad ... It commits the worst musical sin: it is completely boring ... But that’s not what makes this song so horrible. For that, we have to examine the lyrics, which are not just ignorant, but Soviet-style ignorant. It’s a communist, atheist song, pure and simple ... no borders, no God, no meaning, no values, and no wealth. And it’s being penned and sung by one of the richest people on the planet. Despicable as art; despicable as politics."