In Which Doctor Casino Listens to Classic Rock Classics for the First Time

Of the Foreigner songs I know, the only one I actively like is "I Want To Know What Love Is," which I just don't see as CR in any meaningful way. Would have thrown "Feels Like The First Time" a point somewhere down in the 230s of a 250-vote ballot though, that fits well in a playlist and the spirit seems right.

Listening to "Urgent" again, the menacing keyboard-and-slap-bass quality of the verse is still pretty compelling. The chorus just seems so blah. It's Urgent! ......... Urgent! ..... Wait, what were you saying, sorry, I dozed off there... Doesn't really sell me on the urgency. Maybe the band should drop out more to change up the texture, give us the sense of this voice just hanging on the line declaring that something is urgent - or some new element should come in, maybe that sax that waits until later to do anything, have a little riff that comes in there. You can see Gramm trying to fill the space later on with "Urgent, emergency!" and he's on the right track, IMO.

big thanks, FCC - this is a super fun project and I'm totally stoked to expand my mental library of this stuff, get some new favorites, etc.

thank YOU!!! your reviews are so well-written, insightful and hilarious. and they're completely spot-on even when i disagree with them! i'm kinda shocked at how much you seem to be absorbing in on just one or two listens. it's taken me years, literally, to puzzle out some of these songs. (but then again, i have the attention span of a tiny insect.)

You can see Gramm trying to fill the space later on with "Urgent, emergency!" and he's on the right track, IMO.

otm.

i had marked down "wonderful tonight" as a previously-known-to-you song but somehow missed your pre-knowledge of "urgent." as a replacement, here's a whole 'nother kind of urgency.

SONG #17B: THE PRETENDERS "MIDDLE OF THE ROAD"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDeHAM93fuc

i meant to add that the pretenders, like foreigner, had roots in both the u.s. and england.

"Urgent" is the ur-AOR-dabble-in-New-Wave, isn't it? The hysterical emoting over the robotic rhythm is hysterical (in the other sense of the word)

Awwww shuuuuucks. I'm really just tapping into my basically 14-year-old level of musical sophistication which enables me to make really rash judgements with very limited vocabulary.

Ranking so far, halfway between "most played" and just "most glad I now know" (within categories, best->worst). The top few are really close together.

GREAT

Flirtin' With Disaster
Eminence Front
Roundabout
Rock and Roll Never Forgets
Hocus Pocus
Rosalita

GOOD TO MIDDLING

Renegade
Call Me The Breeze
I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide
Jane
The Spirit of the Radio

BAD

Fire Down Below
One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer
Roadhouse Blues

It's been a long time since I listened to Yes. These are the 5 songs from them I have in my ipod and they're awesome:

Sweetness
Survival
Starship Trooper
Roundabout
Long Distance Runaround

i would have thought "fire down below" had earned at least a "middling" based on your review, no?

(xp)

Urgent is the #1 track on my ballot, and one of a small number of pop/rock songs I view as compositionally perfect—I wouldn't change one note or cue, the production style, anything.

Dear Dr C: something awesome happens right before the harmonica solo on this song

(Re pretenders)

oh no doubt

Hmmm....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxhivy_qOFQ#t=48

"Fire Down Below" might be suffering by comparison with the other boogie songs, I can get that kinda thing without the bad taste in my mouth from the narrative. If I did this like a video game review and broke out 0-10 scores for graphics, sound and gameplay it'd probably do much better than several of the 'middling' cuts.

Will return for the Pretenders in a minute, am rocking Don't Look Back straight through at the moment (cracked it open at some point in the noms thread but don't think I got all the way through it). Yes I'm gettin' ready to cruise, and if you got something for me, I got something for you! I'm sad to say that this nixes "Feelin' Satisfied" for our experiment - blew right by me without me taking notice of it as a specific song versus another slab of shiny sweet Boston-ness. If there was any Third Stage in some dude's list, that'd surely be a safe replacement here.

That is - I mean tons of very straightforward rock-type songs in this era have some rhythmic oddity thrown in at a kinda unexpected moment, even like, I dunno, the topsy-turvy horn break in "Spinning Wheel," or the way "Sky Pilot" or "Magic Carpet Ride" get kinda completely taken over by long stretches of groaning guitar noises and someone frenetically attacking a Hammond organ and then abruptly get back to the song just in time to fade out.

Ha - I was just thinking about these 70's mid-section freak outs listening to "Smokin'" by Boston a few days ago.

I'm sad to say that this nixes "Feelin' Satisfied" for our experiment

noted. though i'm going to have check that one out anyway. not sure i've ever heard it either.

Middle of the Road: Like the drum intro, kinda feels like a demo warmup with nobody there or the start of a Microsoft Songsmith or "shreds" video. Woah, this wooh-ooh-ooh thing - - - was this ripped off by some recent corp-indie band or was it just a quickie cover for a Youtube ad or something? Really familiar in that way. Maybe I'm thinking of the Eagles of Death Metal or something.

Anyway - the verse is cool, kickin' along, that twangy guitar and loud clean snare just keepin' us moving. This is cool - I don't really dislike any Pretenders I've heard, but I know 'em mainly for the slow swagger of Brass in Pocket and the beautiful, wistful ambivalence of Back on the Chain Gang. This is totally convincing, danceable Eighties Rock strongly rooted in New Wave - and man, this long solo, that's fun stuff! The kinda 'a little bit softer, now' segment around 2:30 brings back the kinda aimless feel of the intro, not in a bad way but it does feel like it's waiting to be snipped right out for a shorter edit. I can see why this would get picked up as a classic rock station standby, even though it sounds not the slightest bit like 'classic rock' to my ears. I mean, that drum sound, and the guitar tone of the main riff...

Love Hynde's delivery on this, really whipping the band forward - AHHAHAA, the "Brr-neowww!" bit! Er but yeah, love all those syllables packed in there. Now that's "urgent," Mr. Foreigner.

This is getting a little long for this kind of thing - not sure it needs a harmonica solo, like at all? It's cool only for how it skronks all over the heavier guitar when that comes in. Wonder if Timbuk 3 were listening to this.

Overall, thumbs up - but I could kinda see myself getting worn out by this if I listened to it too many more times. Maybe rides that one riff a little too hard.

awww, i like that harmonica solo. it fits right in with the '80s bar-band (...meets new wave, obviously) vibe of the whole thing. and, conveniently, it comes at the end, giving DJs the option to cut out of it anytime they want. this is a four-minute song that could easily play on the radio as a three-minute song.

this sounds to me like new wave night at the stone pony in asbury park, or whatever the equivalent of that was in ohio, and it's totally fun, but also grown-up and pissed-off and defiant in a way that so much of that stuff was not. the key line is "i got a kid/i'm 33, baby," which i remember coming across as shocking and brave and cool when i first heard it. "33" might as well have been "63." and "got a kid" was not something i was used to pop stars screaming about in 1984.

that "little bit softer now" segment, on the other hand -- that sounded very very 1984.

That line was so unusual for a long time I was positive it said "I've gotta get a .33" as in Chrissy's got a gun.

Oh, wow, I blew right by it thinking she said ''I'm not a kid, I'm 33,'' which is still defiant enough but definitely not as distinctive.

Suppose I should give this one at least one more listen with an ear out for the lyrics...it occurs to me that I didn't really take in the plot at all!

"Standing in the middle of life with my PANTS behind me" is what I heard 30 years ago

^^I still hear that line as 'Pants', tbph.

Me too

Chrissie Hynde's most Elvis Costello-y song, I think. "I can't get from the cab to the curb without some little jerk on my back" could've come right off of Armed Forces.

I used to think that line was about carrying her baby on her back.

The baby on my back
The buh buh buh buh baby on my back back back back

i love that line, that line plus rrrrrNEEOWWWWWW make the song for me.

it occurs to me that I didn't really take in the plot at all!

i sometimes don't take in the plot until i've been listening to a song for years!

you can't really call yourself a classic rock station, or a classic rock thread, or a classic rock anything, if you don't play the doors at least once every couple hours. so we return to the scene of this thread's opening band, and dr. casino's opening disappointment, for a rather different doors song, which i'm reasonably sure is the first doors song i ever liked.

SONG #18: THE DOORS "TOUCH ME"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UEVyIyibD8

suggested awkward segue for the dj of the strange classic rock station that is this thread:

"speaking of the pretenders, use your arms, use your legs, use your fingers, use your, your, your imagination ... and touch me babe!"

get a new skank!

STRONGER THAN DIRT!

Touch Me is one of the few Doors songs I still tolerate but doesn't stand a chance against Peace Frog.

otm

Great karaoke song.

Touch Me: Man, there's a title that, coming in cold, I really don't want to hear Jim Morrison saying a lot - I get skeeved out by "Love Me Two Times." Let's see.

Well, at least this is peppy! More British Invasiony or something. Ugh Morrison, I just - oh wow, the horns all over this! Wandering way over into Johnny Rivers/Tom Jones territory. This arrangement is ready-made for the 'live' TV performance with stark black backdrop, smeary color and bad studio lights.

This is basically fine as this kinda stuff goes but - and maybe this is just my suspicion of the Doors coming through - it does feel like a cover or demo of a song that someone else has the definitive version of. Morrison's big booming approach to the vocals is really distracting - it's amazing how much better the song got the moment he walks away from the mic for this big instrumental breakdown, which gradually takes us from Vegas to Freak-town, I like that move. "Stumble in front?" Oh, I see. That's...cute I guess? (The phrase for me links up more with the Samurai Pizza Cats theme song than the cleanser slogan.)

Second listen, yeah, Morrison's the weakest thing about this, or maybe it's just that his voice is kinda too similar in tone to everything else, thick and doughy and glued-together. This is where my weaknesses as a rock critic really show through though: I know something about the rhythm section isn't working here, but is it that the bassist sucks? The drummer sucks? Or is the drummer just badly-recorded? There's a missing snap, crackle and/or pop here, though I imagine if one is a Doors fan, the boozy and lugubrious haze is part of the point. Not exactly for me, but at least interesting.

Y'know, it's kinda amazing, we owned the Greatest Hits record, and it lived in my room for a while, and I still don't think I've ever heard this before. Pretty sure I cherry-picked it for "Riders on the Storm" and nothing else - I was an unadventurous listener I reckon. I don't think I got into "Break On Through" until I borrowed the Forrest Gump soundtrack from my high school bus-mate, which would explain how I escaped its immediate follow-up on the Greatest Hits LP, "Roadhouse Blues."

OTM these guys are the worst

I think the bass player (not a full-time Door, probably Harvey Brooks) is more comfortable with the shuffle feel of the rhythm than John Densmore, who changes his feel throughout, rushing sometimes and slowing down at others.

First heard Touch Me when it was included on a mixtape from my longtime high school girlfriend as an indication that we were FRICKIN' FINALLY going to get to have sex. Anyway, I never told her this (because I was v. much in love with her and wouldn't want to hurt her feelings), but I thought the song was unbelievably cheesy and for just a minute there it almost gave me second thoughts.

okay, that story makes me feel my time listening to The Doors was not wasted

it's kind of cool they were trying something different on that album, but those horn arrangements highlight all that is cheesiest about the band

The drummer sucks?

Yes.

Or is the drummer just badly-recorded?

Also this.

i always think of the recording scene from the movie whenever I hear this song now

WHY DON'T YOU SUCK A FART OUT OF MY ASSHOLE YOU FASCIST SLAVEDRIVER

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TioucxNAuzg

let's not talk about why i'm thinking of the movie at all (secret answer: i kind of love it)

movie is better than the band!

and that scene is hilar

I was trying to find the scene, maybe it's soon after that, where he sings the 'cmon cmon now fuck me babe, can't you see that I want you to give me head' or something?

maybe I imagined that though? It's been years since I last saw it. hmmm maybe time for a reviewing