I do the same thing as a mental trick to overcome a negative initial impression of an unfamiliar song. Challenge myself to find one thing that is good, can be anything, something interesting the bass is doing, an unusual turn of phrase in the lyrics, the way the snare was miked, etc. Often this is enough to purge the negative mental energy that is preventing your ability to find pleasure in the work, and suddenly it opens up to you. I am also an amateur musician and spent a lot of time when I was young playing and recording music, maybe this helps one be open and charitable to what an artist has gone through the trouble to create - having an inkling of how much hard work is involved to get to the point where a song could be professionally produced, recorded and sold for money!
« über-macho riffola deftly mixed with a tillfitting hodge podge of prog twaddle », you mean ? Ahah, yes, that was pretty good. Re- Dave Grohl, Billy Joel and Lars Ulrich : I can name at least one good song by each one of those guys. Well, "at least" may be a bit generous in some cases. Not familiar with those Uriah guys but if someone can direct me to a song of theirs as good as Foo Fighters' Big Me or Billy Joel's Through the Long Night, I'll be happy to listen! You posted this on the Mirror of Love day, which was the last song on the first LP of Act 2. Believe it or not, counting only the studio LPs stricto sensu (= leaving the live ones, the various comp's and the Percy soundtrack out), it happened to be the exact middle point of the band's discography ! 11,5 LPs behind us, 11,5 LPs to go. With Nobody Gives, we're now not only one song into the second act of Preservation, but one song into the second act of their recording career… Fortunately, there's no need to panic about our beloved thread ending anytime soon. If we add both brother's solo albums of original songs to the mix (and still discounting the live ones, the hybrids like To the Bone, the comps, the other soundtrack work like Return to Waterloo or the curios like 80 Days etc.), we get an extra 11 albums to cover (Dave has been quite prolific, hasn't he ?). So we still have basically two thirds of the way ahead of us. The way we're going, we could target the 2000 pages mark! An exciting but almost frightening prospect…
I compared @Fortuleo ’s great-Ray-songs with mine (through Showbiz). Fortuleo: 74 tracks Me: 59 Shared Tracks: 38
Nice one, but I think I would come up with much different numbers for The Kinks (they would most definitely have hit 100 by now) and I could come up with easily more than 100 for Dylan. I would most likely come up short with Neil. I'm not sure who else I could put in the 100 club. Steve Kilbey from The Church would likely be in. Interesting to think about. I'll try and report back with my Ray numbers so far, and see where I get with Dylan.
I also had to put on Uriah Heep for a minute, and that's all I could take. I have to admit I was listening to some Billy Joel last night. He seems to get picked on a lot. I'm no super fan, and he has his share of terrible music, but he has a handful of tunes I really enjoy. Lars also gets beat up pretty bad, but I love And Justice For All, even if he gets blamed for the lack of bass and sound of that record. It's really the only Metallica album I like very much. You all can have Dave Grohl. I don't get his appeal at all.
Neil has 1000+ songs (per Billboard article) and I’m a hardcore fan. Threw the kitchen sink at it…but there is a difference between I-like-this-song and great song. I do plan to look again, especially at the front end of the discography because that’s when I’m probably being harder on the selections. Along about the end of the discography, at least I found this to be the case, I started to really loosen up. Then I’d look at the track and think “I cut such and such from Everybody Knows and I’m including this?” And so had to apply the scalpel. Please let me know how many/what you end up with!
I don’t doubt Neil has at least 100 great songs. I’m just not familiar enough with probably half of his discography, especially the last 15 years.
I came up with 84 (and that’s with two from his latest album…which is absurd because they don’t pass the test-of-time test). So realistically 82 and a need to look at first two or three solo albums one more time. But it won’t be 100. Fortuleo’s list: I tried to be very objective (even restrictive) in my definition of "great". And I propose Ray Davies. You Really Got Me Stop Your Sobbing All Day and All of the Night Tired of Waiting for You Set Me Free I Need You Nothing in this World Can Stop Me Worryin’ ‘bout that Girl Something Better Beginning See My Friends I Go To Sleep Till The End of the Day Where Have All the Good Times Gone Well Respected Men Dedicated Follower of Fashion Sunny Afternoon I’m Not Like Everybody Else Rosie Won’t You Please Come Home Too Much On My Mind Dead End Street Big Black Smoke Mr Pleasant David Watts Two Sisters Waterloo Sunset Harry Ragg Situation Vacant Lazy Old Sun Autumn Almanac Wonderboy She’s Got Everything Days The Village Green Preservation Society Do You Remember Walter Picture Book Big Sky Sitting by the Riverside Animal Farm Starstruck Village Green All of My Friends Were There Lavender Hill Berkeley Mews Rosemary Rose Pictures in the Sand Till Death Us Do Part Victoria Some Mother’s Son Drivin’ Australia Shangri-La Get Back in Line Lola The Moneygoround This Time Tomorrow Apeman Powerman Got to Be Free God’s Children The Way Love Used to Be Dreams Moments 20th Century Man Alcohol Have a Cuppa Tea Holloway Jail Oklahoma USA Nobody’s Fool Hot Potatoes Sitting in My Hotel Motorway Supersonic Rocket Ship Celluloid Heroes The Time Song Sweet Lady Genevieve There’s A Change in the Weather Where Are They Now ? Sitting in the Midday Sun Demolition When a Solution Comes Scum of the Earth Nothing Lasts Forever Flash’s Confession Salvation Road Have Another Drink You Make it All Worthwhile Ducks on the Wall A Face in the Crowd You Can’t Stop the Music Schooldays No More Looking Back Life on the Road Juke Box Music Stormy Sky Full Moon Misfits A Rock’n’ Roll Fantasy Out of a Wardrobe Father Christmas Catch Me Now I’m Falling Moving Pictures Yep, that's 100, all great. And stopping in 1980, with a few dozen more great songs to go… —- end paste
Uriah Heep have been together since 1969, have journeyed through many different musical places, and in fact up until the covid outbreak were still touring and releasing albums, albeit with a different line up to the original band. I guess they have somewhat of line similar to Deep Purple, but I don't subscribe to the idea that they were Purple imitators. People are just lazy, hear an overdriven Hammond, and think that Purple are the only band to do that. In fact Purple didn't get that sound until 1970, with the In Rock album ... In 1970 Heep released their debut album. From the 1972 album Demons And Wizards - Circle Of Hands I like Heep, I like Billy Joel, I like a few Foo Fighters songs, and much like @palisantrancho I only really enjoy Justice For all from Metallica these days, though Master Of Puppets and Ride The Lightening are good also.... Not sure why we are diving into band slamming.... the Kinks stand on their own, without the need to slam other artists
Nobody Gives I've read all the posts this weekend, and I have to say I agree there is not much that is memorable about this song, so I am there with @Martyj. It's dark, it's serious, and the "hookiest" vocal part includes lyrics about killing left-wing intellectuals and annihilating the Jews. I realize he's not saying to try negotiating with the Nazis, but that is certainly what one could deduce from looking at the lyrics. And this isn't even the first reference to Hitler, as an earlier song included the phrase "final solution". A general rule in writing (at least when arguing on forums or Twitter) is to avoid comparisons to Hitler, Nazis and the Holocaust, and I think that should hold true with pop/rock music too. Even if it is meant to be a history lesson by Professor Davies. I hear the similarity to 20th Century Man, but I also hear it musically. The piano breakdown and buildup around 3:30 seems of Nobody Gives to recall the last minute or two of 20th Century Man. I am not one one to know if they use the same chords or not, but it seems similar.
Ray has been setting Mr Black up as a Hitler type from the start. Play on the weak minds of the voters to get them into a frenzy about something, so as to manipulate them into a certain position, and once in power, take it where you wanted to begin with.
I came up with 102 great songs by 1980. I did it quickly and tried to be selective. Without looking I had 97 and then easily found 5 more trying to get to 100. 65 shared tracks with @Fortuleo. I have 79 up until Showbiz.
Just doing a quick look and I can get to 100 with Dylan by 1976 with just including his main releases. I am guessing I can easily get to 200 throughout his career. Some of his albums I count every song.
I have a child's sense of justice, and I would feel cheated if I couldn't exert my right to a Sunday evening off-topic post like everyone else. So I'll say I never listened to Uriah Heep or Metallica, and I had to google David Grohl (though the name sounded familiar). As for Billy Joel, I have the notion that he must be difficult to appreciate when you're American, surrounded as he seems to be with a persistent vibe of unhipness (from his very beginnings). Wilson, from the old Wilson & Alroy's review site, once asked "who needs a third-rate Paul McCartney (with a Long Island accent, yet)?" Still, the same site raves about Elton John, while from my French point of view they're pretty much alike. I met French people who considered Billy Joel much hipper than Elton John. I love both artists, and in my opinion there is not a single bad Billy Joel album - even if the last 3 are of lesser quality, in my experience. There are a few bad Elton John albums, of course, but he's taken more risks and has been much much more prolific - Billy Joel's songwriting career pretty much ended in 1993 after 12 albums in 22 years. Elton John, who started releasing albums in his own name 3 years before Joel, released his 12th album in 1976 (counting Friends) ! And 2 of those were double albums. I'm surprised at avid @Fortuleo's mention of Through The Long Night, a great song but a rather deep cut, I'd say !
I don't think Billy Joel belongs in the company of those other three. He composes tunes with verses, choruses, bridges and all those other good qualities that leave you humming them throughout the day. Any connoisseur of psychedelia would be proud to have concocted this: Scandinavia Skies
I love this song. I almost mentioned it. It sounds like Robyn Hitchcock to me, especially when he sings "We pulled the shades and closed our eyes". The very Beatlesque "Laura" is another good one on this album.
Yes, great song, great album. One of the few 1970s artists whose favorite album of mine dates from the 80s. Other exception is Randy Newman with Trouble in Paradise. It's Monday now (here at least), weekends over, the Master is going to bring us back to Kinks reality.