CLASSIC ROCK TRACKS POLL: THE RESULTS

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

I'm pleased with that album list-- Boston and Petty made the top ten, Bowie and Beatles did not. Very much in the spirit of CR. (Do they even play songs from "Ziggy Stardust" much? When I hear Bowie on the radio these days it's usually "Space Oddity," "Fame" or "Heroes")

"Suffragette City" is still huge on CR in Pittsburgh

nice results!

my worst & albums ballots:

MOST HATED:
1. Toto - Rosanna
2. AC/DC - Big Balls
3. Foreigner - Urgent
4. Toto - Africa
5. John Cougar - Hurts So Good
6. Steve Miller Band - Rockin' Me
7. Billy Joel - Big Shot
8. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Our House
9. Don Henley – Dirty Laundry
10. The Doors – Roadhouse Blues

ALBUMS:
1. The Cars - S/T
2. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Damn The Torpedoes
3. Boston - S/T
4. Fleetwood Mac - Rumors
5. Led Zeppelin - III

4 outta 5 on the albums! Led Zep III is a critic's choice anyway

"Fame"/"Space Oddity"/"Changes"/"Under Pressure" are definitely the dominant Bowie radio recurrents but "Suffragette" and "Ziggy" get play and the Ziggy feels like his biggest AOR cornerstone album (although Young Americans is gaining on it).

10 worst tracks
The Guess Who – American Woman
The Pretenders – Brass In Pocket
The Eagles – Hotel California
Pink Floyd – The Happiest Days of Our Lives / Another Brick In The Wall Part 2
The Moody Blues – Nights In White Satin
The Doors – Break On Through
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Woodstock
Don Henley – Dirty Laundry
Eric Clapton – I Shot The Sheriff
Grateful Dead -- Touch of Gray

5 albums full of deep classic rock cutz
Aerosmith, Rocks
Stones, Exile On Main St.
Van Halen, 1984
Queen, Night At The Opera
Bowie, Young Americans

you can tell i live in boston by that #1 album pick

also cmon guys fuuuuck pink floyd

fp'd u for 'brass in pocket' tho

i hate the pretenders for reflexive reasons that i don't even understand

Much as I love Young Americans I wouldn't even classify it as CR to begin with.

i can see being sick of "Brass" but damn across-the-board Pretenders hate? :(

totally have your back on "Another Brick In The Wall" though

maura i love u but besmirching pink floyd, girl idk

am i srsly the only one who hates Stroke

It made my best of list. Not high, but made it.

well of course

Aerosmith Rocks Natick, specifically

This poll is helping me refine my road trip compatibility table.

I was one of the 2 votes for Harvest in the albums poll. That album is so much more than its singles!

so are we all changing our DNs for the countdown?

That would be a no.

Billy Squier spreading his ear pollution far and wide to VG's disdain

;_;

xxxp: I'm game.

lol

True story - I have a friend who was Billy Squier's bass player at the height of his career (1982). He was touring with Foreigner and when they did "The Stroke", they'd get some of the guys from Foreigner and crew guys and any friends of the band to come onstage and sing the "stroke me, stroke me" part and do this very exaggerated jerking off hand motion. I got recruited in Pittsburgh, Philly, and Cleveland. They were my shining moments.

― Sandy, Tuesday, June 24, 2014 5:02 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i always liked "The Stroke" but i like it even more after this story.