CLASSIC ROCK TRACKS POLL: THE RESULTS

My student job was dogsbody in a hardware store in the South Side of Glasgow. Occasionally there'd be this old dude in the shop, buying screws or something, and whispers would go round the staff that the guitarist from Thin Lizzy's dad was in the house. I never found out which guitarist,

Could've been Midge Ure's dad! Cos he was from Glasgow, but I guess Thin Lizzy is the thing he's probably least famous for.

It's also the title of an awesome SF novel by Diana Wynne Jones.

― before you die you see the rink (Jon Lewis), Friday, August 1, 2014 4:27 PM

ty for this!

i voted for 'do ya'

also lol

266. (tie) Jethro Tull – Aqualung 472 points, 7 votes
266. (tie) Billy Squier – The Stroke 472 points, 8 votes

Tuesday's Gone is on the list twice. Would have been top 200 otherwise. Still, it was a lot of fun and that Ian Thomas thing is the only one I don't know by name.

I feel most guilty about "Do Ya" that song is THE elo jam and it needed me and I wasn't there for it.

The Move version was in my top five

Also I was out tonight and missed the chance to deploy my Thin Lizzy story:

My student job was dogsbody in a hardware store in the South Side of Glasgow. Occasionally there'd be this old dude in the shop, buying screws or something, and whispers would go round the staff that the guitarist from Thin Lizzy's dad was in the house. I never found out which guitarist, or even tbh which old dude it was, but I did look up the members' resumes once and TL did once have a guitarist who was born in Clarkston, so the story checks out. Whether he knew it or not, old dude was our house celebrity.

― Ismael Klata, Friday, August 1, 2014 4:16 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

In the late 80s/early 90s my sister owned a flat in Newlands (South Side of Glasgow) and her next door neighbour was Brian Robertson's mother - a 100% working class wee Glasgow wifie, except that her flat was packed with memorabilia, photos etc of Thin Lizzy, Motorhead and tons of other rock bands and celebs. In her toilet was a framed, signed picture of Rod Stewart and he had written on it "Thanks for the bacon sandwiches, love Rod".

Placement above toilet makes that dedication super gross

Was "Amie" the highest-placing write-in?

"Badge" placed about 10 higher.

Just caught up. some dude and gr80 loved the radio station concept and loved the puns/intros to the songs accompanied by the images! good fun all around.

I kinda hate a lot of songs in the top 100 :) and have only heard maybe half of the top 20!

I'm trying extremely hard right now not to figure out what that might mean.

104. Argent – Hold Your Head Up 805 points, 13 votes, 1 first place vote
108. (tie) Manfred Mann's Earth Band – Blinded By The Light 784 points, 14 votes

robbed imo

Wow, wow, wow. Sorry to have missed the last day of the big rollout. Great reading, great posts, great memories shared. I have no beef with the way the final results played out, except that I was one of the high voters for Dobie and wished he'd made it - I feel like each of my top ten items hits a different sweet spot of "what classic rock is all about": magic, escape, road-trippin, sex, feeling all right, etc. It's the flipside of "Come Sail Away," which is my biggest "holy shit, how did that not place?" You can't have classic rock without Styx exhorting you to board a starship and COME SAIL AWAY (rock as adventure, rock as redeemer for the teenage soul)! But you also can't have it without Dobie's warm, full-hearted drift away: rock as a lazy river, rock as balm for an adult's cares at the end of a long day or a long life. While that song's playing, I pretty much don't want it to stop, or for any music to sound any different from it. Note: if you have never heard Drift Away, look on YouTube - Spotify has only soundalike re-recordings.

Would happily trade most of the Stevie parade here for those cuts, no offense - the Aorta definitely rocks pretty hard when it wants to, but are we missing some of the sweetness, the struggle for meaning, honey-thick luxuriation in rock's uncharted depths and powers? At least we have two Boston cuts. Will have to review my ballot when I get home and see what my highest non-placers were.

Torn between wishing the rollout had gone down to 150, and knowing how much it would have galled me to stop right before "Rock and Roll, Hochie Koo" while Joe Jackson and Pat Benatar became classic rock artists somehow. Maybe 125 - that'd get "Foreplay/Long Time" and admit Dylan and the Doors, who should be here (for better or worse). Also fucking BLINDED BY THE LIGHT, how did that miss the top 100 and yet we have TWO songs by 38 Special. ffs!

And aww, Sandy, thanks. :) Looking forward to it!

Anyway, though - an endless wash of arena applause to some dude, gr8080, and all the staff down at the Aorta. Thanks for the joy that you've given me, the rhythm and rhyme and harmony.

I'm on zing, so it's hard to get back to the full 500 list-- where did 'Renegade' end up?

156. Styx – Renegade 661 points, 11 votes

you better believe I'll be drifting away this evening. This thread has been the bright spot in a fucked up work week.

Cheers to the on-air crew at the AORta.

In a perfect world both Crazy on You AND Barracuda place in the top 10.

― Man, when I tell you she was cool, she was red hot, I mean she was (intheblanks), Friday, August 1, 2014 8:31 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Didn't realize it before this poll, but it's obvious now that we live in a perfect world

Doc Casino your thoughts on classic rock have been a total highlight since this poll began.

so gr8080 tell us more about the pics

aloha friday
internet k-hole?
ship fam?

awwwwwww, that's really nice of you to say, intheblanks! It turns out I actually know very little about the genre, as has been fairly systematically shown, but I love the stuff I know (and have known since childhood, or possibly since before birth), and it's been a really great joy to a) get some educatin' (go to school!) from ILM and b) just revel in other people's joy and memories and unabashed excitement for music that, you'd think, we'd have all been just become totally inured to through ubiquity. It's infectious.

(Shoutouts down the line: Veg was a major hero here as always, and, not to state the obvious, but Sandy has been a serious breath of fresh rockin' air. But there were no bummer posters on this thread; everybody kept the party going, right down the line, and not one toke over.)

Doc Casino OTM, especially here:

It's the flipside of "Come Sail Away," which is my biggest "holy shit, how did that not place?" You can't have classic rock without Styx exhorting you to board a starship and COME SAIL AWAY (rock as adventure, rock as redeemer for the teenage soul)!

it was my #25 and it blows me away to realize that even a #1 placing wouldn't have helped it

then again, it made the "most hated" list

So did "Don't Stop Believin'!" Really amazing how things turn around on this board... I would have assumed Styx was a total lock for this poll. (Of course, as some dude has pointed out, every vote mattered.) OTOH I think I did call the BOC win at some point, just based on my subconscious sense of the ILX hivemind, but I'm definitely not rifling through all the threads to find it.

i am bummed that work was too busy for me to fully rock along, i wanted so bad to CAPS LOCK ROCK as is my wont, but hey, shit was awesome no matter what

now occupies #2 spot in my heart right behind the legendary action movie poll for best poll ever

for those that don't know and those who just can't let the party go...

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

written by Paul Williams' brother(?)

Cannot overstate how much fun this has been. Obviously I am older than most of you (maybe all of you?) and I got to experience all of this music in the moment, but that also means that I've had many more years to grow weary of some of it. Everybody's enthusiasm, and Doc Casino's awesome reviews, made me remember how much I love so much of this music, and how lucky I was that I got to be around some of the people who made it. You people rock so hard.

Veg, your CAPS LOCK ROCKIN made me laugh so so hard, so many times, 'cause I am a CAPS LOCK ROCKER too.

i am a caps unlock rocker, but i caps locked by dn for this thread in tribute to the awesomeness of the two of you.

yeah what with some dude's hard work, gr80's images, the side thread w/Dr C's reviews of FCC's curveballs/Sandy's awesome anecdotes, and everyone's general enthusiasm ITT, this has really been a treat.

My first place was outside of the top 500: Robert Palmer - Sailin' Shoes/Hey Julia/Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley. Have to admit that it's definitely not the most "classic rock" of songs, but it squeaks in under Little Feat. I probably should have given more points to Skynyrd or something.

― love is how's life tonight (how's life)

Sailin' Shoes/Hey Julia/Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley was the last song I cut, and maybe the one that was the hardest for me to cut. Love it sooooo much.

my robert palmer vote was for "you're gonna get what's coming," though i understood it was hardly a top 500 candidate, never mind a top 100 candidate.

Hey guys, I heard that the owners of AORta are selling the station to some assholes who want to turn it into a Sports/Talk station with Limbaugh and Hannity and traffic on the 9s. But if we can throw a HUGE BENEFIT ROCK SHOW we might keep it blasting out the rock forever!

Oh ha, I've heard "Drift Away" a million times but didn't know the title or artist.

First time I heard "Drift Away" was when Bon Jovi did it in concert in '87 (final song of the encore)

In the late 80s/early 90s my sister owned a flat in Newlands (South Side of Glasgow) and her next door neighbour was Brian Robertson's mother - a 100% working class wee Glasgow wifie, except that her flat was packed with memorabilia, photos etc of Thin Lizzy, Motorhead and tons of other rock bands and celebs. In her toilet was a framed, signed picture of Rod Stewart and he had written on it "Thanks for the bacon sandwiches, love Rod".

― everything

Brian Robertson's ex-wife is Dee Harrington, who was Rod Stewart's live-in gf in the early-to-mid 70s. She's the one he dumped for Britt Ekland. Which makes that picture in the bathroom extra goofy to me.

The first show I ever worked as a production assistant was a Thin Lizzy show. They were playing a very old theatre (mookieproof, it was the Stanley), and the dressing rooms were up on the third floor. The backstage elevator was one of the old hand-crank types, and it was my job to bring them down to the stage. And it was my first day on the job and I was the only female who worked for the promoter, and the local stagehands were being quite mean to me all day, and nobody bothered to show me that there was a trick that you had to do to get the elevator door to open. So I have the band in the elevator, and I can't get them out. And we can hear everybody getting restless and the band were trying so hard to help me figure out how to open the door and I am almost in tears. We finally get it open, and my boss is right there waiting and he started screaming at me and Phil Lynott said "hey, I'm not going onstage until you apologize to her." And of course, the boss immediately apologized. Phil Lynott was such a gem.

awesome

Excellent

Love that BOC won this. I've been running around the house shouting "praise Balthazar!"

XP Oh wow. Great story (as always) Sandy!

man, they just helped you save face

so gr8080 tell us more about the pics

aloha friday
internet k-hole?
ship fam?

plz remind me to answer this on monday. don't have the time/not sure how i want to go about doing so until then.

i'm djing a wedding for two early 30's art professors tomorrow at a beautiful louisville mansion and despite the carefully curated playlist i've got ready to go, i'm totally fighting the urge to just let our top 100 rip all nite

omg sandy that is the best

that is just great.

sandy i don't know if i'll ever hear "kashmir" again without thinking of your friend tossing the PG 8track out the window, your friend otm

xxpost gr8080 you gotta!!

sandy, i seriously think you might be my spirit animal/ long lost cool older sister

omg phil

(mookieproof, it was the Stanley)

not the syria mosque?

so i'm still about three days behind on this thread, can't wait to read it.

for some reason "ride like the wind" makes me think of driving while having to go to the bathroom really bad

I was gonna suggest a Sandy Stories poll, but now I think it's pretty clear what would win. Holy shit.

via lyrics.wikia.com, i offer you the quintessential classic rock lyrics:

Woo!

Slow ride, take it easy
Slow ride, take it easy
Slow ride, take it easy
Slow ride, take it easy

I'm in the mood
The rhythm is right
Move to the music
We can roll all night

Oooh slow ride
Oooh

Slow ride, take it easy
Slow ride, take it easy

Slow down, go down, got to get your lovin' one more time
Hold me, roll me, slow ridin' woman you're so fine

Woo!

I'm in the mood
The rhythm is right
Move to the music
We can roll all night

Oooh
Slow ride, take it easy
Slow ride, take it easy

Slow down, go down, got to get your lovin' one more time
Hold me, roll me, slow ridin' woman you're so fine

Slow ride, easy, slow ride, sleazy
Slow ride, easy, slow ride, sleazy

Slow down, go down, got to get your lovin' one more time
Hold me, roll me, slow ridin' woman you're so fine

Slow ride, take it easy
Slow ride, take it easy

Slow down
Go down
Slow down
Go down

Come on, baby
Take a slow ride with me
Come on, baby
Take a slow ride

Oh, feel good
Mmmm, feels so good
I like it, yeah
I feel good
Oh, I feel all right

You know the rhythm is right
You know the rhythm is right
We've got to rock all night
We've got to rock all night

You know the rhythm is right
We've got to rock all night
You know the rhythm is right
We've got to rock all night
You know the rhythm is right
Woah, come all night

Slow ride!

i just gotta say, the guitar solo in "sultans of swing" is the absolute bomb.

both of em i mean