CLASSIC ROCK TRACKS POLL voting thread -- deadline July 15 -- VOTING CLOSED

not and, OR

i thought your original AND was kind of perfect for classic rock.

good point

I'd like to do some random campaigning for Roll with the Changes by REO Speedwagon. I just listened to that to get an idea of if/where it might place and that song is a fucking jam.

Jane has been my biggest "ohhhh THAT song!" so far

slowly working my way through the playlist, good grief what is this black oak arkansas abomination?

I'd like to do some random campaigning for Roll with the Changes by REO Speedwagon. I just listened to that to get an idea of if/where it might place and that song is a fucking jam.

― carl agatha, Wednesday, July 2, 2014 10:46 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Such a perfect highway song.

yeah that one is good. i find myself wishing there were less singing in 80% of these songs. speaking of REO Speedwagon, here's something i've always wondered: can someone explain/point me to the history of the high pitched male singer? i remember being a little kid and not being able to sing as high as some of these dudes. is it robert plant? what is a classic rock poll for if not asking the really big questions?

maybe they're all really big Frankie Valli fans?

Listening to all of these on Spotify and was surprised to find that I recognized not one, but all four of the 38 Special nominees.

fuck yeah that REO Speedwagon tune is a jam, and it survived both my initial cuts

down to 130 now, gonna give it a rest for a few days. I'll be incommunicado for the week of the 9th to 16th, so I need to send my ballot early.

Eunuchs? Clarence Frogman Henry?

I haven't listened to a CR station in years, and I just turned on 102.5 WDVE in Pittsburgh and sure enough, first song, Boston, "Rock and Roll Band," this is gonna be SO MUCH FUN.

can someone explain/point me to the history of the high pitched male singer?

Dude Sounds Like A Lady

(more a list than a history, but still.)

Also, the reason I haven't listened to a CR station in years is that I was a teenager in the 70s so save for a couple of the Canadian songs that I never heard on US stations (hello Crowbar), every single one of these songs is coded into my DNA.

I've whittled it down to 100 tracks, but ordering is going to be tough. So far I have it split between about 30 "top tier" tracks and then the other 70.

that thread doesn't really do it for me -- i'd like to know more! i just watched the video for "big log" because i thought the title was funny and i didn't recognize it. not familiar at all! but i was reminded of how similar these dudes looked to me. if i was lucky enough to get a look at these dudes, it didn't help to distinguish them much

http://heavyharmonies.com/bandpics/lougramm.jpg
and
http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/fd/5f/ff/fd5fffd6efc02681a20ac09d4096bd17.jpg

looked like basically the same person to me (until i could see lou gramm's teeth, which are his only distinguishing characteristic afaict)

Big Log is a weird song and I like it a lot.

Also: Big Log

wtf is that, Bob?

Big Log is definitely one of those top tier tracks I mentioned. Love that song!

why is it called Big Log?

oh! and while i'm asking questions as old as time, can anyone explain why there was an add-in chant for "mony mony"? if you know what i mean, i'm sure the chant was the same. where did that come from?
the first time i heard it was at the teen dance club held at the community center every other friday. tweens and teens from all over the area, from dozens of different schools, would pay a couple bucks, pack into the building, and socialize as hard as they could for 2 hours or so. one of the songs that was always played was "mony mony". when everyone started shouting about getting laid i was confused, but it happened every time. all different kinds of kids went -- some danced, some milled around shiftlessly (me) and some hung out in the cafeteria where they could smoke.

Sent!

Some speculation on the Mony Mony chant

at the end of the speculation, there's this So where does this leave us? Sadly, no closer to the truth than when we started. The origins of the “Mony Mony” meme remains a mystery.
so where did it come from!? i'm so curious.

haha I have never heard that chant before!

Me neither! It seems so random.

Seriously?! Imagine you are a 12 year old girl who goes to an all-girl school and at the teen dance club you find yourself in a room of thundering kids shouting GET LAID GET FUCKED. Whoa.

I definitely remember hearing it, my guess is that it existed before the Billy Idol version, but who knows? It is really random and seemed pretty random when people were doing it back in the 80s.

"Big Log" is gorgeous.

but I've said repeatedly that mid eighties Robert Plant was his best solo period.

Is "Sweet Caroline" An Anomaly In That...

Some discussion of "Mony Mony" on there. I've never heard of the "Mony Mony" additions before today, but have been baffled for years by how everyone at the karaoke bar knows the "Sweet Caroline" additions

"Big Log" is gorgeous, but I like when he further refined it five years later as "Ship of Fools" even more.

A pity this wasn't a single:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjUetCpIkkk&feature=kp

I'd just like to note that the Donnie Iris song (which I will be voting for, high up) is actually called "Ah! Leah," not "Oh! Leah."

http://youtu.be/YH5Arbm47IQ

(Technically there is also a second exclamation point after Leah.)

actual bumper sticker seen in the wild:

https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3849/14372504148_25694fa696_m.jpg

aka Pittsburgh

Sorry I got the title of that song wrong! That was my fault. I never knew what that song was called until I was grading papers (in a bar lol) and Ah! Leah! started playing and i realized that i had no idea who sang it but it was super familiar. I thought and thought and googled and googled (I thought he was saying Alía?) Finally I found it and I entered Donnie Iris territory.

True fact: It was the first 45 I ever bought.

Took me about an hour to generate a list of 100--about 60 from the nominations, the rest my own picks. Pretty easy. Ranking them, though, would take forever...Can we just send in an unranked list and split the points evenly?

Sorry I got the title of that song wrong! That was my fault. I never knew what that song was called until I was grading papers (in a bar lol) and Ah! Leah! started playing and i realized that i had no idea who sang it but it was super familiar. I thought and thought and googled and googled (I thought he was saying Alía?) Finally I found it and I entered Donnie Iris territory.

― La Lechera, Wednesday, July 2, 2014 4:39 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think you called me at work when that happened! Or shortly thereafter. I remember you calling me at work years ago about this song.

does anyone else on here think that the Classic Rock format underwent a pretty big change somewhere in the late 80s/early 90s? I seemed like Classic Rock radio back in the 80s was much more heavily tilted towards tracks from the 60s, including many that would now be considered Oldies. 70s rock was only represented by the abosolutely most popular bands like Zeppelin, Floyd, Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Steve Miller, and not a lot of the more obscure tracks you hear today. It seemed like this changed to a more 70s tilt somewhere along the line.

Am I just imagining this or did it really happen?

The James Gang's 'Walk Away' should be officially named SEEMS TO ME because I never, ever think of it by the song's title, and I always forget about it til I hear it and then I'm like THIS SONG IS THE BEST

"the immigrant song" should also have its name officially changed because when i was growing up i had no idea what that song was or how to find it. unfortunately, i don't know what the proper spelling of AAH-AHH-AAAAAAAAAHHHHH is.

lol

oh snap just saw this thread

this is going to be awesome

also going to be hard

Totally gonna do the write-in thing for "Junior's Farm" - would have seconded/thirded the nom if I'd known it was in jeopardy! Not so sure about Shambala but maybe... that song is awesome so if there are definitely CR stations that play it somewhere I would happily rank it really really high. I was very much in favor of a fairly curtailed list of noms so I think it's a good thing that we have to whine about exclusions. I gotta get back on my listening schedule though - pretty stoked to have already discovered a new favorite ("Flirtin' With Disaster") since this whole crazy party got started.

First pass is just anything I don't really consider classic rock, even if I like it - Zombies, U2, Turtles - and any familiar songs that just jump out as "probably not gonna make it on a ballot of 100." I like "You Better, You Bet" on a greatest hits, but it wouldn't make my top fifteen Who songs even.

Major write-in contender and I think legitimate candidate: The Sweet - Fox on the Run.

Also: Paul Simon - 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover. Actually always thought that was in the original list! Jimmy Buffett - Cheeseburger in Paradise presumably has no chance but I swear I hear it - though maybe that's just mixed up memories of the "yellow album."

sorry, sorry, i know we had a noms thread, just doin' the write-in campaign thing.

Huh, how was Fox on the Run not on there? It wouldn't have been one of my votes, but it was totally on the Dazed and Confused soundtrack.

Really though, those, and Bob Dylan - Hurricane (CR loves this!) are the only omissions that really jump out at me going through the big list that's pretty great.

Got my list down to, uh... 660. Might sit there for a while, I have some listenin' to do, though realistically I think only a few new-to-me wildcards will probably slip in, 100 is only so many! But this is gonna be pretty cool, programming a dream station. Think it's gonna be midway between "most classic rock" (gradually purging or down-balloting stuff that doesn't have the right 'feel' though this isn't necessarily sonic - again I think "Drift Away" is super key), "best" and "favorite by that band" in terms of representative-ness, which crosses A and B: a classic rock station would have to play certain bands at least once in a hundred songs, so what would their token be in my dream world?

It's really bizarrely satisfying to be able to hit "delete" (or mark for later worst-ballot contention) annoying songs that have been part of the inescapable "beloved classics" background my entire life.