"Whiskey botttle, brand new car, oak tree you're in my way"...talk about a great song opener.
― VegemiteGrrrl, Thursday, 8 October 2009 17:13 (fourteen years ago) link
Yeah, I don't count post-plane crash Skynryd.
― Bill Magill, Thursday, 8 October 2009 17:16 (fourteen years ago) link
xpost: new record is called "God & Guns". Yeesh
― bendy, Thursday, 8 October 2009 17:23 (fourteen years ago) link
Yeah, kind of dumb. The real Skynrd at least had some subtlety to them, ie the anti-gun "Saturday Night Special"
― Bill Magill, Thursday, 8 October 2009 17:44 (fourteen years ago) link
"Working for MCA" totally beat both "EMI" and "Complete Control" for classic major label songs about major labels not being classic. And wasn't "Gimme Back My Bullets" actually about not landing on the Billboard charts? And "That Smell" was anti-drug in the darkest way possible. So: so classic. Also, actually one of the few acts whose "Essential" collection I play as much as the albums proper. I find it makes the album tracks pop out even more when I play the albums.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 8 October 2009 18:32 (fourteen years ago) link
Yes, their Essential is fantastic.
― & other try hard shitfests (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, 8 October 2009 19:27 (fourteen years ago) link
I really like Platinum & Gold compilation (is that what it's called)?
All the eye-rolling over 'Sweet Home' and 'Free Bird' kind of bothers me. I know they've been played to death, and that they've become signifiers for something pretty far from what the band represented at the time...but it bums me out that everyone hears the cliche, rather than the actual songs.
― VegemiteGrrrl, Thursday, 8 October 2009 21:20 (fourteen years ago) link
Nah, the Essential is a two-disc collection that is relatively recent (okay, maybe turn of the century-ish?). Speaking of "Freebird", while waiting to pick up a prescription at CVS last night the store was playing some horrible adult-contemporary medley that went into the chorus from "Freebird" out of a Richard Marx song. It was pretty bizarre.
― & other try hard shitfests (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, 8 October 2009 21:24 (fourteen years ago) link
Does anyone have the Muscle Shoals Album? Recommended? Yes no? Want to expand my Skynyrd collection a little, and that one looked interesting to me.
― VegemiteGrrrl, Thursday, 8 October 2009 21:25 (fourteen years ago) link
xpost: "signifiers for something pretty far from what the band represented at the time"
OK, I'm a hater, but I'm genuinely curious, so tell me - what did the band represent at the time?
― Soukesian, Thursday, 8 October 2009 21:27 (fourteen years ago) link
― feed them to the (Linden Ave) lions (will), Thursday, 8 October 2009 21:30 (fourteen years ago) link
^^ is otm
the store was playing some horrible adult-contemporary medley that went into the chorus from "Freebird" out of a Richard Marx song
You sure that wasn't the legendary Will to Power medley of "Freebird" and "Baby I Love Your Way"?
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 8 October 2009 21:30 (fourteen years ago) link
As in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lxDwfMaQsc
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 8 October 2009 21:31 (fourteen years ago) link
That was indeed it! It was a Richard Marx song before the medley then.
― & other try hard shitfests (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, 8 October 2009 21:33 (fourteen years ago) link
^^hello 6th grade slow dance
― feed them to the (Linden Ave) lions (will), Thursday, 8 October 2009 21:33 (fourteen years ago) link
I had honestly never heard that before in my life.
― & other try hard shitfests (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, 8 October 2009 21:37 (fourteen years ago) link
xxpost to soukesian even though I know I'm being baited.
I'll be blunt but my dumb hipster friends equate both songs with 'the stupid South', with redneck racist lowbrow hillbillys. Skynyrd weren't that anymore than the Allman Brothers were. They played blues rock like their heroes the Stones, and they sang with southern accents. Their songs spoke about where they came from, they celebrated it, but they never celebrated the things that...outsiders?...*equate* with the south. Like all the Southern Man/Sweet Home stuff...Ronnie & Neil were friends. But people act as though some kind of rocknroll civil war re-enactment took place.
― VegemiteGrrrl, Thursday, 8 October 2009 21:40 (fourteen years ago) link
and EW to that will to power clip
(shudder)
― VegemiteGrrrl, Thursday, 8 October 2009 21:41 (fourteen years ago) link
OK. Really, I'm not trying to bait you. I've been listening to Thin Lizzy a lot recently. Reading this, I'm trying to figure out why I love them and hate Skynyrd, who are approximate contemporaries and, when it comes down to it, not a million miles remote in sound. I've got no answers.
― Soukesian, Thursday, 8 October 2009 21:53 (fourteen years ago) link
If it's just a matter of taste, then it is what it is. You know? I love Lizzy a TON...but Lizzy don't 'bring the south' like Skynyrd, and maybe that's where you draw the line. I can appreciate that. It's like Beatles v Stones, or Who v Kinks, or whatever...sure they're contemporaries but sometimes your ears just like one over the other, for whatever reason.
― VegemiteGrrrl, Thursday, 8 October 2009 22:05 (fourteen years ago) link
Maybe that's it. I'm not from the South, and I associate Skynyrd with wannabe bikers who aspired to that redneck, racist, lowbrow stereotype in suburban UK in the late 70's. Ridiculous as it seems, there were such people. But Skynyrd didn't create them, and aren't to blame for'em.
― Soukesian, Thursday, 8 October 2009 22:19 (fourteen years ago) link
I think that's kind of what I was getting at upthread. Skynyrd attracts those kinds of associations all over, like iron filings to a magnet. It took me a long, LONG time to get into country for a lot of the same reasons. And Skynyrd for that matter too, I really didn't come into them til the last 5 years or so.
It's hard to hear the music and not bring all your own associations with it.
― VegemiteGrrrl, Thursday, 8 October 2009 22:25 (fourteen years ago) link
You need to listen to one "Southern Rock Opera" to fully grasp the duality of "the Southern thing," you see.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 8 October 2009 23:22 (fourteen years ago) link
^^ otm. Actually, that album was what sent me back to the Skynyrd catalog. It's a good way in for folks who might be wary of Skynrd. At least for me
― VegemiteGrrrl, Thursday, 8 October 2009 23:53 (fourteen years ago) link
I could be wrong, but I'm relatively certain that "Saturday Night Special" is the greatest rock song ever recorded (imo, right this minute).
― Johnny Fever, Monday, 21 December 2009 06:32 (fourteen years ago) link
I think it's only from the deluxe version of One More For From The Road double live, but on the live version of "Sweet Home" at the Fox in Atlanta, Ronnie basically gives a shout-out to then candidate Carter, who was about to become president.. "and sweet Georgia, home of the future president of the USA"
― Sock Puppet Pizza Delivers To The Forest (Sock Puppet Queso Con Concentrate), Monday, 21 December 2009 07:21 (fourteen years ago) link
Pretty optimistic considering that record was recorded months before the election (unless the deluxe versh featured tracks from much later)
― Race Against Rockism (Myonga Vön Bontee), Monday, 21 December 2009 15:02 (fourteen years ago) link
No, it didnt, it was all from a three night stand in May (I believe) '76, a good 5 months before the election.
― Bill Magill, Monday, 21 December 2009 15:40 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah but who was he running against - Ford? lol
― Herodcare for the Unborn (J0hn D.), Monday, 21 December 2009 15:43 (fourteen years ago) link
Jerry Brown, Mo Udall, Scoop Jackson, George Wallace, etc.
― Bill Magill, Monday, 21 December 2009 16:41 (fourteen years ago) link
Every time I see this thread pop up I have this sudden shock that anyone would find Lynyrd Skynyrd anything short of classic.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 21 December 2009 18:14 (fourteen years ago) link
just listened to (Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd) in its entirety ... damn, there isn't a single bad song, not a single bad NOTE on the entire album. lynyrd skynyrd was always the one southern boogie band that i actually admitted to liking (well, ok, maybe zz top too) -- but this was the 1st time i'd heard the entire record and DAMN it's good.
― keine Macht für dich mehr! (Eisbaer), Saturday, 8 May 2010 23:55 (fourteen years ago) link
I need to get that. I have Street Survivors in the car...perfect driving cd! No bad songs, I never tire of hearing it. Ronnie sure did sing purdy...
― VegemiteGrrrl, Sunday, 9 May 2010 00:14 (fourteen years ago) link
I grew up in Atlanta, so it was Skynyrd 24/7, with occasional breaks for the Allman Bros. and Led Zeppelin. They were a good band with a few excellent songs, so I'm sorta in the middle regarding the thread's original question. Classic: Simple Man, Curtis Lowe, the live version of Tuesday's Gone, I Know a Little. No duds. Everything else is quite listenable, though a couple of things on Nothin' Fancy are w/in a stone's throw of dud.
― ImprovSpirit, Sunday, 9 May 2010 21:41 (fourteen years ago) link
Skynyrd 24/7, with occasional breaks for the Allman Bros. and Led Zeppelin
I think this condition pervaded the entire state of Georgia at one time.
Skynyrd are classic and deserving of more love on this thread. Not a whole lot of bands were swinging harder in 1973-74.
― Brad C., Sunday, 9 May 2010 23:14 (fourteen years ago) link
Classic rock radio does this band a huge disservice by focusing so much on their boogie stuff like Gimme Three Steps and Gimme Back My Bullets.
― kornrulez6969, Monday, 10 May 2010 01:24 (fourteen years ago) link
'that smell' reminds me of 'sister morphine'...maybe intentional considering the subject matter?
― ('_') (omar little), Thursday, 12 August 2010 00:03 (thirteen years ago) link
ban richard wood johnson btw
http://cgi.ebay.com/LYNYRD-SKYNYRD-LYNARD-SKYNARD-1968-SHADE-TREE-45-/350384165654?pt=Music_on_Vinyl#ht_500wt_971
hey y'all
― by another name (amateurist), Thursday, 12 August 2010 01:04 (thirteen years ago) link
Lynyrd Skynyrd inspiration dies in north Florida
Leonard Skinner, the basketball coach and gym teacher who inspired the name of the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, died Monday in Florida, his daughter said. He was 77.
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 21 September 2010 00:30 (thirteen years ago) link
I had no idea that Al Kooper discovered them. Listening to the debut right now and goddamn.Ultra Classic.
― Trip Maker, Monday, 14 March 2011 14:58 (thirteen years ago) link
I happen to think that Skynyrd is one of the best American rock bands ever. Sometimes I think they're the best ever, but I usually decide that Aerosmith is better.
Fav track: "Needle & The Spoon"
― Loud guitars shit all over "Bette Davis Eyes" (NYCNative), Monday, 14 March 2011 16:45 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah they deliver on every level for a rock band - great rhythm section, great songs, great lyrics, great singer, fucking unreal guitar playing
― gr8080 sings the blues (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 14 March 2011 16:47 (thirteen years ago) link
I read somewhere that, prior to signing with MCA, Ronnie Van Zant locked Bob Burns and Leon Wilkeson in a room for 18 hours a day to solidify as a rhythm section. Sometimes I think, "Oh, that's an exaggeration." Then I listen to Second Helping and think, "Nope, that sounds about right."
― Tarfumes The Escape Goat, Monday, 14 March 2011 17:17 (thirteen years ago) link
I was always surprised that Christgau, an early fan/booster/defender, downplayed the quality of Skynyrd's lead guitarists. He underscores their "lack of virtuosos" and "elementary riffs" - admittedly, those are complements, and I get what he means, but just because Skynyrd sure as hell knew how to write and play good songs should not overshadow their way with guitars.
My fave elementary riff, btw, is the one in "Working for MCA." Angry, evil, awesome.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 14 March 2011 17:24 (thirteen years ago) link
Lynyrd Skynyrd - "The Needle & The Spoon" Sex Pistols - "Submission"
― өөө (Pleasant Plains), Monday, December 15, 2008 2:53 PM Bookmark
I mean, they're not the same, but same enough. Of course Skynyrd came first.
― Pleasant Plains, Monday, 14 March 2011 17:24 (thirteen years ago) link
Back in the day when hard disk space was at a premium, I deleted songs that I didn't like from compilations and remember being surprised at having such a hell of a time getting rid of any tracks from their box set. Their huge number of hits blend together into a giant Skynyrd-sounding blob after hearing them on rock radio for the billionth time (I went to high school in Atlanta) but it's an extremely impressive and varied set of songs when lined up. Not quite Creedence level but close, and they sounded totally relevant in late 90s Atlanta--and probably still do.
― skip, Monday, 14 March 2011 17:29 (thirteen years ago) link
My fave elementary riff, btw, is the one in "Working for MCA." Angry, evil, awesome.― Josh in Chicago
― Josh in Chicago
― Loud guitars shit all over "Bette Davis Eyes" (NYCNative), Monday, 14 March 2011 17:47 (thirteen years ago) link
"Working for MCA" is a fucking MEAN tune. Second Helping is pretty heavy through and through.
― You're a notch, I'm a legend (Bill Magill), Tuesday, 10 January 2012 17:47 (twelve years ago) link