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

Both arguably more rockin' (or at least swarthier), but only in their live versions - the studio editions of both are wannabes.

"Only the Good Die Young" is arguably more a pop song than a CR song, but I'm voting for it anyway because it's awesome. (And they definitely used to play it on my hometown CR station.)

It's also in line with the CR mandate that songs be about either existential angst or trying to get laid.

Or ~the road~.

Only the Good Die Young is great, Piano Man is rancid

xp That qualifies as existential angst AND trying to get laid

the road to existential angst

aka, "Slow Ride"

Movin' Out was on my tracks list and Piano Man is going on my most hated, so I got y'alls backs

Every time Slow Ride comes up it just takes over my brain and blots out everything else. SLOW RIDE!

I also love how nobody involved seems to be "taking it easy" in any way.

"Movin' Out" is definitely, to me, Joel's most AOR hit, the one that real classic rock heads are big on that wasn't an MTV or pop radio staple.

― some dude, Thursday, July 10, 2014 1:49 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

using this logic to winnow down Elton John (who's already had his own poll anyway) to, probably, "Levon" and "Funeral For A Friend." "Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting" is rockin' enough I reckon, but...

"Levon" is def prime AOR Elton imo although "Funeral" has the virtue of being the long album cut championed by rock radio.

actually, what was i saying the other day about how i like all the really long 8+ minute rock staples and wouldn't want a single edit? i kinda hate "Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding."

you are wrong though

Finished! 4 Write-Ins: Pat Benatar-Shadows of the Night, Jackson Browne-Boulevard, The Eagles – Lyin Eyes, & Heart-Nothin At All.
Top CR Album: Toys In The Attic
My eternal hatred top 5: Blood Sweat & Tears-Spinning Wheel, Jethro Tull-Aqualung, Eric Clapton-I Shot the Sheriff, Alan Parsons Project - Eye in the Sky, The Moody Blues-I'm Just A Singer In A Rock And Roll Band

though i lived in new york long enough to know billy joel as a classic rock artist, and though i love billy very much and am eagerly counting the days until his own poll comes up, it's hard for me to actually think of him as classic rock. that just seems weird to me. "that was 'slow ride.' coming up next, 'piano man.'" uh, no. filling out a 50-song billy ballot will be easy, finding one of those songs to go here ... not sure i can do it. don't ask me why.

but elton "funeral for a friend/love lies bleeding," absofuckinglutely yes.

cr radio should dig up billy joel's "roberta," though. that could kinda sorta work!

Piano man has been cr radio fodder in every city I've inhabited.

up to 22 ballots now!

5 more days.

campreverb thank you! I forgot all about Eye In The Sky while making my shitlist. that one NEEDS to be there

http://rapgenius.com/2931539/Future-move-that-dope/Theres-an-eye-in-the-sky-im-tryna-let-yall-know

Eye in the Sky made my top ten because it was the first song that ever BLEW MY MIND.

The story behind the first Boston album, wow! Sneaking around the record company's back to re-create your demo tape instead of recording in a "pro" studio. someone should do a 33 1/3 book on it.

i looooove eye in the sky
so creepy

yeah the Boston album is such an odd phenomenon for its era. a nerd at MIT makes an incredible bedroom pop record with songs like "Rock And Roll Band" that create a false bar band mythology, it sells bazillions and become synonymous with corporate rock.

Everybody remember to write in
Junior's Farm
#9 Dream
Amie
Photograph (Ringo Starr)
Shambala (3 Dog Night)
Mr. Blue Sky (ELO)
!!!!!!!

Your ballot is a thumb in The Man's eye!

Take that, The Man!!!

Voted. My Worst Songs list is a thumb in everyone's eye.

Is "American Pie" on it?

nope

Eye in the sky is like the most politely sung song in history. Only if Kermit's nephew robin sang it could it be more polite. This of course enhances its creepiness.

Shit. Shit. Okay. If "Shambala" write-in campaign is happening I might need to make room for it. I mean in the last year it has become one of my favorite songs period. But...but...am I being true to my life experience, in that I don't think I ever heard it at all before two years ago, and certainly not on the radio? Augh.

Buhhhh. Just dunno. Is it "classic rock"? It sure should have been.

My experience with "Shambala" is hearing it a lot on classic rock radio in the 90s when I lived in N. Alabama, and then later when I moved to Nashville. Maybe its appeal really is confined to a specific region, but I have no qualms writing it in based on real world experience with it.

never heard this song in my life. can only think of three dog night as a novelty band though once again there's a Russ Ballard/Argent connection

Three Dog Night are great. They picked really good material and performed it enthusiastically, if not always with great subtlety. Having three lead vocalists came in handy sometimes. They also tended to go for a soft-verse, loud-chorus thing which has probably orphaned them on radio more than their megahit status (twenty-one top forty songs! hardly a novelty act!) would have anticipated: the loud parts are considerably throatier and more raucous than the easy AM gold verses. In 1971 that all kinda fit together in the woolly rock landscape but I feel like those things diverged a lot more later on. The choruses of Shambala, Never Been To Spain, Joy to the World, Eli's Coming, Liar and Mama Told Me Not To Come are all in that kinda scratchy, textured, yellowing-photos campfire Woodstock mode that I think is a key part of the Classic Rock matrix. Admittedly some other stuff hasn't dated as well and there is something about them that doesn't really suggest they are actually a 'rock and roll band' in any way, but ehh, I'll take my groovy positive-vibed singalongs where I can find them.

it felt so good to put billy squier & eric clapton's names on my most hated list

NAME & SHAME

just for that i'm moving "lonely is the night" up 10 spots

but billy squier is awesome

yes but Stroke is a turd

oh. yeah. if it's "the stroke" we're talking about here do what you gotta do.

i hate that song with the force pf a thousand suns

you disgust me

re: Three Dog Night, not crazy about them, but voted Mama Told Me Not To Come in my top 100, because it gave me a back door way to vote for Randy Newman, and also TDN gave us one of the BEST Behind The Music's ever.

i wrote about "Mama Told Me (Not To Come)" this week for the boomer paper of record!
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/pictures/20-biggest-songs-of-the-summer-the-1970s-20140709

that list a good example of how different the pop charts were in the '70s from what became the classic rock canon, though.

I think Clapton will feature pretty heavily on most hated lists. And his least favorite song of mine is not even eligible for this poll

though i am not much of a clapton fan, and though i thought the film "august osage county" was about as bad a film as has ever been made, the usage of "lay down sally" in the film got me to like it quite a bit. it's a realy nice laid-back groove.

no boomer's rep has dropped more drastically than Clapton's. VH1 did two 'greatest artists of all time' lists a decade a part, and Clapton went from #15 to not mentioned at all: artists that were on VH1's 1998 "Greatest Artists of All Time" list but not the 2010 list

You're far more likely to hear "Shambala" on an AM oldies station than on an FM classic-rock station. (I voted for it anyway.) I think Q-107 here generally sticks to "Mama Told Me Not to Come," "Easy to Be Hard," or "One"...um, early Dog, before they really became a full-fledged Top 40 band with "Joy to the World." If you've never heard B.W. Stevenson's countryish "Shambala," released a week before Three Dog Night's and not nearly as big a hit, it's excellent too.

youtube.com/watch?v=EyOqUX4eUpo

you guys i have news:i loathe "shambala" and would only write-in for most hated (but only if there were like 50 spots on the most hated ballot, not otherwise because fortunately i never have to hear it)