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

they killed keith moon

a shadowy criminal organization, the eminence front, saw to the details

i would LOVE an AM gold poll, fwiw

^^ yessss

so many quality soft rock jams here

AM Gold poll would be so much fun

Key thread: I need more AM GOLD

And, oh heck, I'll hawk it again - slowly expanding Spotify playlist: http://open.spotify.com/user/doctorcasino/playlist/6WzifvQ5j3RMO9gB1iTs12 (with big lapses for artists like Simon who I listen to heavily on LP). But save that for later - or take a quick dip I guess if you need a palate-cleanser in between rounds of some dude's killer classic rock playlist. My head is spinning from trying to actually get my top-, mid-, and bottom 33 in order.

This is interesting, every time I try to play "Baby I'm-A Want You," Spotify keeps hitting me with "Subterranean Homesick Blues." Perhaps a sign that rock holds the day for now.

You can do it Doc. I just moved my 100 over a column in excel, and cut & pasted chunks of 10. The Joe Cocker's of the world (#99) just naturally found their place.

AM Gold came to mind as I was thinking about Shambala, and wondering where the Bread songs were. For that matter, no Guess Who in my Classic Rawk top 100, but I'm pretty sure These Eyes would crack my AM Gold top 20.

Last night I dreamed i was hanging out with some guys and they got really stoked about the idea of doing a Three Dog Night style band, they wrote a song on the spot and I had some choice harmonies. But I was simultaneously playing a Batman video game that involved an inordinate amount of diving under water and searching for air pockets, Sonic-style, so I'm not sure if they felt I was really committed to the idea.

meanwhile, really hoping my ballot proves to be a game-changing missive from another planet (Joe Cocker at #13 currently).

some dude thanks for doing this, especially the spotify playlist. I think I spent a good couple of days on my list, so I imagine running this must be exponentially more time consuming. This poll inspired me to grab the FM Soundtrack, as I realize how incomplete my life is without Lido Shuffle.

man I could totally vote for every Boston track

random assortment today

janie's got a gun - aerosmith
hold the line - toto
whole lotta love - zep
boys of summer (live) - ole fartbag henley
moving in stereo - the cars
cisco kid - war

I voted for both Boys of Summer and Lyin' Eyes. Voted The Heat Is On in the worst poll, but could have been any solo Glenn Frey.

Pump is great, but I think that's where I got off the bus. I even like the Aerosmith album they disavow (Done With Mirrors).

some dude thanks for doing this, especially the spotify playlist. I think I spent a good couple of days on my list, so I imagine running this must be exponentially more time consuming. This poll inspired me to grab the FM Soundtrack, as I realize how incomplete my life is without Lido Shuffle.

― campreverb, Saturday, July 12, 2014 8:11 PM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no prob! it is definitely time consuming, but it's also stuff i can get done easily in between writing assignments and has been a fun distraction. tabulating a lot of ballots ahead of the deadline so i can tell gr80 some song titles to work up graphics for has been a good way to motivate me to spread the work out over time. the excitement of seeing how every ballot dramatically effects the results makes it fun.

re: Three Dog Night

My friend's father used to often talk about how he helped write "Joy to the World" when he hung around with Hoyt Axton. Dunno if it's true.

I remember "Shambala" mostly from this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de8h27wsxpY&feature=kp

doesn't seem like the kind of thing you'd make up

Didn't know The Three Dog Night recorded "Never Been To Spain"; I only knew it from Elvis' overwhelming live version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PHp_o7zNp4

x-post

Oh, I don't doubt that he was friends with Hoyt Axton, but as for helping write the song... The guy was a bit of a storyteller; he also claimed that he slept with Linda Ronstadt while he was her limo driver.

just hit 30 ballots! keep 'em comin'!

I'm under 150 songs to review. I may actually get through this.

Ranking has been a slow process, but I'll definitely get a ballot in.

I'm down to about 130. But then I gotta rank them all...

i prefer ranked ballots because i think it makes the process more interesting and makes the results reflect people's passions more accurately, but if all you can do is an unranked ballot i'll accept it.

I won't accept it. Send me all unranked ballots and I'll rank them for you, then submit.

I think I can rank everything pretty quickly. It won't be perfect, but it will generally reflect my preferences/passions.

Can i make a last minute push for "Centerfield" in the 'worst' category? Soooooo tinny, tacky and awful, so obviously pitching to be used as soundtrack music on sports broadcasts but sounding more like a test-drive for the America's Funniest Home Videos theme... those wretched little digital claps, and the general rinky-dink atmosphere - and "new grass on the field"??! GROSS GROSS GROSS. Also, easily the biggest drop here from someone's 'classic' work to their late work, it almost justifies the mummification of the playlists: can't let anything else like THIS get through!

agree
that song sucks and i have always hated it at least as much as i hated playing sports

It's bad. But not as bad as American Pie.

i have a fondness for that song simply because when i was a kid my cousin Matthew misunderstood the lyric "put me in coach" as being sung from the perspective of an airplane passenger

omg, i might actually have this done. some dude, is it easier to compile text lists or spreadsheets?

I actually just cut American Pie from my worst list (or rather, bumped it down to #15). I've always been bored by it, and I bet if I heard it right now I'd remember how long it is and hate it more. But there are shittier songs.

"Centerfield" is the worst of the singles from the Centerfield album for sure. "The Old Man Down the Road" and "Rock and Roll Girls" should definitely be the CR staples instead.

hahaha, i have always preferred "Centerfield" as a pitch for an airline ad!

I love baseball but pretty much hate that song. It wasn't dud enough to make my Wurst-list though.

I also associate it very much with a friend of mine in Georgia having it stuck in her head for something like two weeks straight, it was relentless. "Cat Scratch Fever" ultimately defeated it, but man, that was a rough time for her.

I mean...I'm not wrong that it's supposed to be a really labored innuendo right?

Q-107 will still occasionally surprise me. Today they played "Come On Baby Let's Go Downtown" (Tonight's the Night version) on "Psychedelic Sundays." Not especially psychedelic, I know. The DJ even recited some of the lyrics afterwards.

some dude, is it easier to compile text lists or spreadsheets?

i prefer just text, i count it all up in a spreadsheet but anything sent to me in a spreadsheet is just going to be extracted into a word doc where i keep all the ballots.

uggghhh. some last-minute trigger-pulling down here at #100. sending 'er off - thanks again to some dude for the work on what is bound to be one of the most epic rollouts of all time! I suspect the results are going to end up being pretty weird - realizing how many arbitrary, vote-splitting decisions I made in the course of this thing, and how many things I just decided early on were top twenty, no discussion to be had. I think those decisions are true to how I relate to the songs but man...it's a weird-looking ballot is all I can say.

Bonus thanks to fact checking cuz and crew - in the end I added THREE songs that I did not know before the poll. They're low, on principle (gotta go with the lifelong barbecue playlist) but they're there!

moving in stereo - the cars

i would like to put in a last minute pitch for this one, the most classic rock track in the cars' catalog for my money. evocatively weird lyrics ("life's the same except for my shoes / life's the same, you're shaking like tremolo") and a great (and heavily processed) benjamin orr vocal that straddles an ever-shifting line between empathy and menace. and then that epic synth-and-guitar instrumental.

Bonus thanks to fact checking cuz and crew - in the end I added THREE songs that I did not know before the poll. They're low, on principle (gotta go with the lifelong barbecue playlist) but they're there!

so happy to hear that! and total respect to the lifelong-barbecue-playlist principle, which is, yeah, pretty much the essence of all of this.

I'm treating it like I moved to a new town - there's a few new tracks that are in the standard rotation round these parts, the locals are all sick of them but to me it creates the illusion that I've got a really dynamic, unpredictable station on my hands, and I'm excited about those tracks.

an ever-shifting line between empathy and menace
part of what i love about the cars!

someone to feed
someone to bleeeeeed

Voted.

down to, um, 400 tracks.

track that hurt to cut today but that i cut nonetheless: chicago "25 or 6 to 4." an all-time fuzz riff, obviously, but i couldn't shake the feeling that the whole thing is more am gold than fm rock. i've successfully done a lot of cutting that way. boz scaggs, i fear you may be next.

track that i realized i'm not at all sick of and needs to be top 25-ish: the who "behind blue eyes." who's next is probably the album that has always best defined classic rock for me. but whereas the album's two overplayed synth epics seem to be consciously aiming for the iconic, generational-anthem status that they achieved, "behind blue eyes" sounds much more personal and organic and lived-in. it's also prettier and rocks harder. it belongs to classic rock more exclusively than the other two, and it belongs to me in a way they never could.

i turned on the local classic rock station the other day and heard "25 or 6 to 4" and it just sounded incredible to me, like it does every single time.

fcc, dig this at 1:50:
http://youtu.be/GhxqdhFpk2E

that's awesome, tarfumes. thanks!

25 or 6 to 4 is probably their most CR-sounding song IMO, though Saturday In The Park (which sonically could slot in with the Turtles or Lovin Spoonful) is more key to a CR afternoon vibe.