CLASSIC ROCK TRACKS POLL: THE RESULTS

who's next is the classic rockiest of all classic rock albums as far as i'm concerned, but i didn't vote for it because i'm way beyond sick of the two classic rockiest anthems on it.

there are three tracks from rumours in my top 60. it didn't even occur to me to vote for the album. i have no idea why.

I feel like there're three possible no.1s now, each of which will make for a radically different tracks countdown.

fingers crossed

Unless it's Abbey Road, then I won't know what we're getting.

1. The Cars – The Cars
105 points, 12 votes, 5 first place votes

YES

note the razor thin margin between the top 3 in points.

<3 you ILM

man "love ain't for keeping" is so good

― resulting post (rogermexico.), Sunday, July 27, 2014 1:17 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Dig this live version:

http://youtu.be/m5RH8HIjFD8

DONCHYASTOPDONCHYASTOPDONCHASTOP

ILM's Top 25 Classic Rock Albums

1. The Cars – The Cars
105 points, 12 votes, 5 first place votes

2. Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
104 points, 13 votes, 3 first place votes

3. The Who – Who’s Next
102 points, 12 votes, 4 first place votes

4. Boston – Boston
80 points, 10 votes, 1 first place vote

5. Led Zeppelin – IV
65 points, 8 votes, 2 first place votes

6. (tie) Pink Floyd – Dark Side Of The Moon
55 points, 7 votes, 2 first place votes

6. (tie) Tom Petty – Damn The Torpedoes
55 points, 7 votes, 2 first place votes

8. The Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers
46 points, 5 votes, 1 first place vote

9. The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Are You Experienced?
39 points, 5 votes, 1 first place vote

10. Led Zeppelin – Houses of the Holy
34 points, 4 votes, 1 first place vote

11. David Bowie – The Rise And Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
27 points, 3 votes, 1 first place vote

12. Lynyrd Skynyrd - (Pronounced 'lĕh-'nérd 'skin-'nérd)
26 points, 3 votes, 1 first place vote

13. The Rolling Stones – Exile On Main St.
25 points, 3 votes

14. The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Electric Ladyland
24 points, 3 votes, 1 first place vote

15. (tie) Lynyrd Skynyrd – Street Survivors
19 points, 2 votes, 1 first place vote

15. (tie) ZZ Top - Eliminator
19 points, 3 votes

17. Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here
18 points, 2 votes

18. (tie) Neil Young – Harvest
17 points, 2 votes

18. (tie) Led Zeppelin – Physical Graffiti
17 points, 2 votes

20. (tie) Van Halen – 1984
15 points, 2 votes

20. (tie) Fleetwood Mac – Tusk
15 points, 2 votes

20. (tie) Pink Floyd – The Wall
15 points, 2 votes

20. (tie) Bob Seger – Night Moves
15 points, 2 votes

20. (tie) Rush – Moving Pictures
15 points, 2 votes

20. (tie) The Police – Synchronicity
15 points, 2 votes

My lonely crusade for The Wall continues.

s/t Van Halen wuz robbed (I didn't do an albums ballot tho)

it strikes me that seven of our top 10 were basically born as classic rock albums while the other three had to immigrate to the format. cars and petty albums were very much new wave albums upon release, while fleetwood mac album was top 40.

Oh man I was kind of torn between ziggy stardust and dark side... REGRETS

Argh no Back In Black, no Brothers In Arms ... at least Remain In Light isn't there

yeah I didn't even think to vote for rumours.

did think to vote for the cars but it slipped off in favor of classic rockier stuff. awesome surprise finish.

lol Remain In Light.

DON: While we were in the midst of recording The Long Run, we had the chance to hear an advance copy of the Cars' debut. It was like listening to music from an unsettling future. Garage rock with hovercrafts. We wondered where we'd fit in.

GLENN: ...And five minutes later we had "The Greeks Don't Want No Freaks" in the can, and we were back on our merry way--Which is to say I had sex with a chick named Mary!

DON: Well, yeah.

My albums & most disliked tracks. Not sure I've ever heard "Bad To The Bone".

Albums
01. Supertramp – Breakfast In America
02. The Cars – s/t
03. Electric Light Orchestra – A New World Record
04. Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
05. ZZ Top – Eliminator

Ugh
01. Eric Clapton – Wonderful Tonight
02. The Turtles – Happy Together
03. Foreigner – I Want To Know What Love Is
04. Peter Frampton – Baby, I Love Your Way
05. Dire Straits – Walk Of Life
06. The Beatles – Let It Be
07. REO Speedwagon – Keep On Loving You
08. John Waite – Missing You
09. Rick Springfield – Jessie’s Girl
10. Procol Harum – Whiter Shade Of Pale

since I'm very eager to show off gr80's handiwork, I'm gonna go ask the station manager if we can arrange a little preview for our Sunday faithful...

XP If you've seen a mainstream Hollywood film from the late '80s/early '90s, then you've heard BTTB.

http://i.imgur.com/zInNePs.jpg

100. Ram Jam – Black Betty
817 points, 14 votes

a note about the scoring system, btw, since I don't think I've explained it yet. your #1 track gets 109 points, each track after that gets one less point, and so on until your #100 track gets 10 points.

Dig the font!

And this is the Spotify playlist for the results:
http://open.spotify.com/user/1219464571/playlist/7pw9uBSg3Vb49ONnFZEn3O

Black Betty was in my top 10!

it's funny, i don't remember hearing that song much at all growing up, but at some point in the last 15 years it started to feel ubiquitous

I always think of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulC0Lerkkbc

p sure i already posted this in the noms thread, but this 90s house remix is kind of amazing http://youtu.be/UKAKKEGtPO8

I heard the Spiderbait version about a dozen times on a Qantas flight back to L.A. from Sydney.

The song is definitely timeless, just like crossing the International Date Line from the west.

Love the visual, it looks like any random photo from one of my FB photo albums, I lived this shit, people.
Also changed my DN for the festivities.

Ram Jam owns

The "Black Betty" remix is by Ben Liebrand, one of the best remixers of all time, IMO. (Check out his remixes of "Precious Little Diamond", "Housequake", "Love Can't Turn Around", the "ALF" theme [seriously!], "Holiday Rap", etc, etc.) He sometimes gets a bad rep for the Art of Noise-sampling breakbeat remix of Bill Withers' "Lovely Day", but I think that one's kinda cool in its own way too.

He also did this other classic rock remix, which I think clearly beats the better know Sure Is Pure remix of "Long Rain Running":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOcrI6LAVWA

One of my big takeaways from the Petty doc I watched a couple weeks ago is that drum sound they fine-tuned in the studio during the Torpedoes sessions (and maintained through the rest of the 80s until Jeff Lynne butted in). It is SO IMPORTANT to the success of top-tier Petty songs.

― Johnny Fever, Sunday, July 27, 2014 12:00 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this sounds like my kind of documentary!

The 'dullness' of the albums list seems dead on IMO - "things that are boring but good" and maybe this is the part of the poll where we really work out our acceptance of certain aspects of the relatively monolithic canon of Classic Rock: it's a pretty solid list of ten rock records worth owning and listening to if you like the genre, and if radio has worn their highs into the ground, you can at least sorta understand why, and amazingly I'm usually still stoked to hear most (not all) of the recurrents from these records. Boston is probably what I most want to listen to as an album in its own right, but only because I discovered it pretty late in life and really don't know it in and out like the others.

Wow, the Cars though. Again, just never thought of them as remotely Classic Rock at all, and I think the only record I've listened to as a record is Candy-O. Guess I should check this one out? Never would have remotely expected it to be the consensus #1, but that's why I'm reading ILM and not a Rolling Stone list. Always always will remind me of this post:

no no you guys this one's pretty easy

"I look outside my window and I watch the Cars" - Paul is in London where Roy Thomas Baker is producing their debut, he sees them arriving at the studio daily for tracking
"I fear I'll do some damage one fine day" - he is thinking of covering one of their songs in his own style
"but I would not be found guilty by a jury of my peers" - old hippies will love my Cars cover no matter what it sounds like
"still crazy after all these years" - I am an axe murderer

― pathos of the unwarranted encore (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Tuesday, August 30, 2011 12:57 PM (6 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm not sure I ever heard "Black Betty" til I moved to Ohio, and at that time I figured it was much later than it is - has this revivalist feel, like it could be the Black Crowes or even Jet. It's fine, but I can't really pull much of it to mind besides the refrain.

Loving the font and feel here, great job on the graphics.

If you watched MTV Europe back in the early 90s, there was this classic rock compilation ad that played there literally for years, and it started with "Black Betty"... The tune was burned to my mind forever based on that ad alone! Though I think the house remix also did kinda revive it, at least in Europe, IIRC it was often played at discos etc.

Was hoping to see Led Zeppelin II in the albums poll. Not my favorite Zep record, and not the best one, but the one that feels the most CR to me.

…probably due to my home station having 6 of its tracks in heavy rotation throughout my childhood.

The Petty documentary is fantastic, a must-see. Long, but worth every minute.

Albums

1. Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy
2. Boston - Boston
3. Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
4. Jimi Hendrix - Are You Experienced?
5. Van Halen - Fair Warning

Worst tracks

Eric Clapton – Wonderful Tonight
Led Zeppelin – D’Yer Mak’er
Peter Gabriel – Solsbury Hill
Crosby, Still, Nash & Young-Teach Your Children
Steve Miller – Take The Money
Queen – Crazy Little Thing Called Love
Jethro Tull – Aqualung
Supertramp – The Logical Song
America - Horse With No Name
The Doors – Hello, I Love You

My worst of list:
1 Billy Joel – Piano Man
2 Don McLean – American Pie
3 Lynyrd Skynyrd – Sweet Home Alabama
4 Eric Clapton – Wonderful Tonight
5 Led Zeppelin – D’Yer Mak’er
6 Three Dog Night - Joy to the World
7 Pink Floyd – Young Lust
8 Joe Cocker – With A Little Help From My Friends
9 Stephen Stills – Love The One You’re With
10 Kansas – Carry On Wayward Son

I'm glad to see "Margaritaville" make the list, I meant to include it on mine. Also glad to see Moving Pictures in the top 20 albums.

Oh I had assumed that was a typo, and ILM meant Making Movies.

don't be a sore Wenner

a Knopf shutout is my worst-case scenario for this poll

inspired by Sandy I too have changed my DN

gr8080 big ups on visuals preview! looks super sweet!

tip of the hat to the Shipley Family Archive for the photos as well

Hell yeah VegemiteGrrl I knew you would be with me on totally embracing the spirit of this thing