CLASSIC ROCK TRACKS POLL parking lot tailgate pre-party -- nominations, discussions, parameters, etc.

Front right.

The version of Highway Star on Made in Japan is probably the best song ever put to tape.

Can't be, cause the live "Space Truckin" on Side 4 is the best

Hair of the Dog will be in my top 10 no question. a worthy number one for this poll surely

Did Rainbow's 'Stargazer' ever get much US "classic rock" airplay? 'Cuz if it did, it deserves to be in there.

It's hard to participate in this part of the poll, because I have no idea what was and what wasn't played in the US on classic rock stations. We didn't really have classic rock radio here, at least not until the digital radio era.

I have the same problem. the criteria is up to the U.S. radio listeners to figure out

ok guys here is me singing/humming this fucking riff i cant figure out, help me out here:

http://shoutkey.com/risqu%C3%83%C2%A9

fwiw i would encourage you guys and others in a similar position to vote on your favorite songs anyway. we're handwringing about criteria now but ultimately it's just gonna be about what people like best out of the songs that meet the criteria. xp

An Error Was Encountered

The URI you submitted has disallowed characters.

wait lets try that again

http://shoutkey.com/eject

ok, no fucking idea.

It sounds awesome though.

oh shit I know this god damn it what is it

it was the "bloo, bloo, bloo" part that kicked my memory in

sounds like ZZ Top's "Cheap Sunglasses" to me

YES!!!

btw gr8080 is now going to beatbox riffs from the top 100 songs during the poll results rollout

oh dude, that will be so necessary.

blooo, bloooo!

yes!!! cheap sunglasses! i even listened to that this morning and must have lost my patience before it got to the blooo blooo keyboard part

fun fact: i played "cheap sunglasses" in my set when deej and i DJ'd a loft party together in summer 2010

and thank you, some dude!

Cheap Sunglasses a strong contender for my #1 spot

I lose my patience with ZZ Top all the time.

no prob! (xp)

are ppl voting for santana?

oye como va gonna be high on my ballot

def. going to be voting for Santana, probably that track

songs that are primarily a groove+solos are one of the best kinds of classic rock. Same reason Cheap Sunglasses is a high contender for me.

Santana-related, from the Ween thread

how many songs are we putting in our ballots? i know we haven't got to that yet but I was wondering

347.

- After this thread has run its course and I officially open voting, I'm thinking of a 2 week voting window, with ballots consisting of a minimum of 20 songs and a maximum of 100 songs.

100???

Except for the decade polls, this will be the first time I feel confident I can full a 100-track ballot pretty easily.

420

I think the results from this poll are gonna be super hella interesting and contentious.

if people think 100 is insane i can dial it down to 50 but i kinda want the option there for those of you (us) that wanna go whole hog. i just look at all these songs and the hundreds of them i've enjoyed, and i'd like to be able to really vote for everything i feel strongly about, be able to vote for as many Who songs as i want and still have room for the one hit wonders, etc.

whatever wins, we should start a movement, maybe through one of those whitehouse.gov petitions, to have that song replace "freebird" as the song that people are required to shout out at concerts.

this is prob gonna be one of the hardest polls to predict ever. i don't even want to venture a guess at a #1 or a like top ten.

Did Rainbow's 'Stargazer' ever get much US "classic rock" airplay? 'Cuz if it did, it deserves to be in there.

^ never. even though it is better than 99% of songs on there.

I'm excited to do a 100-song poll, don't dial it down to 50 please!

Guessing "Baba O'Riley" for top 5.

Everybody's going to have a different criteria for voting. For me, this poll is the place where songs like More Than A Feeling get their due.

If the band/singer already had their own dedicated poll, I'm not going to vote for them. That means no Stones, Who, Dylan, Zeppelin, Springsteen etc. So while I normally like Gimme Shelter more than Radar Love, I don't here.

I like that approach, will consider

Guessing "Baba O'Riley" for top 5.

it barely made top 5 of the who poll!

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSsssssssss! So stoked for this one, a long time coming. Will flip through the list in a second with suggestions in a second. Really glad it's a long ballot, too.

I vote yes on 'regional hits' - or at least, on "Ah! Leah," which I never heard until I moved north - great song.

I would agree with purging Motley Crue and Ratt - that's something else, new hard rock music at the time that these stations were becoming officially closed-door 'classics' affairs, at least from what I've gathered on other threads. I NEVER heard these on classic rock radio growing up.

I think Asia's top couple of hits should DEFINITELY be here. Not quite as convinced by Europe but YMMV.

Agreed with WilliamC that Horse With No Name absolutely should be here, only format in which I've ever heard it and they play it a LOT. Never heard any of America's other hits on CR though. MAYBE Tin Man, MAYBE Ventura Highway.

Beatles: yeah it's a limited list, but actually almost anything on the last few albums is fair game. I'm sure I've heard "Here Comes The Sun" on these stations. Hell, even "Drive My Car" back in the day. "Birthday" gets played, etc..

basically intheblanks is right - we all know what the ultimate stereotypical Classic Rock would end up sounding like, but this radio format has always been a LITTLE broader than that, and includes lots of things on the basis of decades of inertia and momentum that really don't make sonic sense next to each other. Nonetheless I'd say "Fooled Around and Fell In Love" is pushing us too far into soft AM territory.

"Birthday" gets played, etc..

^ this or Come Together are the classic rockiest of Beatles songs.

Someone upthread mentioned never hearing Pretenders on CR radio. I'm almost positive I've heard "Brass In Pocket" jammed in between the likes of Journey and the Doobies, but no other Pretenders songs ever.

I like the 100-song ballot idea. If you're willing to compile that much data, I'm willing to throw that much data at you.

Testing the waters here - some of these may be 'borderline' and I may be mashing up things I used to hear as "oldies" versus "classic rock." Not sure any are really staples these days. Kinda picking up the woodstockier end of things, I think.

The Band - The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
Blood Sweat & Tears - Spinning Wheel
Blues Image - Ride Captain Ride
Canned Heat - Going Up The Country
Doobie Brothers - Black Water
Eddie Money - Think I'm In Love (maybe)
Eric Clapton - After Midnight
Faces - Ooh La La (maybe?)
Genesis - Paperlate (once in a blue moon, played to show their deep-cut cred)
Guess Who - These Eyes
Jaggerz - The Rapper
Joe Cocker - Feelin' Alright
Joe Cocker - She Came In Through the Bathroom Window
Little Feat - Dixie Chicken
Robert Plant - In The Mood
Rolling Stones - Tumblin' Dice (might be imaginging this)
Rolling Stones - Wild Horses (not that we need more Stones)
Three Dog Night - Joy To The World
Three Dog Night - Mama Told Me Not To Come (maybe more "oldies"? see also "Celebrate." Does "Shambala" get play?)
War - Cisco Kid (maybe?)
War - Spill The Wine

Does Ace Frehley - Back In The New York Groove have any CR purchase? Just heard it for the first time recently but people seem to know it. Similarly, I know I heard Cheap Trick - Dream Police at SOME point in my youth but god knows on what station.

Overall I think the initial list is already pretty great, and does have the virtue of not including anything that absoLUTEly doesn't get played on these stations. As balls said a while back, "bemoaning the lack of choices is a key part of the classic rock radio experience" - it would be better for the noms list to be too restrictive than to see votes get soaked up by awesome songs that, like it or not, just aren't part of the 1,000 song Labor Day Extended Weekend Rock Block. I'm surprised for example at This Beat Goes On/Switchin' To Glide, which I would be stoked to vote very high - but it feels very "new wave" and definitely did not hear it growing up. This again might be a Southern regional exclusion though.

Does "Shambala" get play?

Any song prominently featured in the film Joe Dirt should be grandfathered in.

"Back on The Chain Gang" and "Middle of The Road" are pretty big on classic rock radio here.