Rod Stewart: Classic Or Dud

That inspired Scotland teams to fail to progress beyond the initial group stages at two successive World Cups! Huzzah!

There's a great anthology called Reason To Believe that has all the early solo lps on 3 or 4cds. Think it has some bonus stuff too. Used to be pretty cheap a few years back.

The man who brought Loaded culture to music and influenced Tesla, the Quireboys and Bryan Adams. Not a glimmer of intelligence, taste, or any artistic point whatever.

Vs

all you suckers are arguing over him while he's bareback with another blonde not surfing the net for one.

As always the truth is somewhere in between

Well, he did help out Her Maj with that No. 1 single back in '77.

STILL DUD

Rod just shot up in my estimation.

same

The LED sun when it’s on your face really shows your second chin

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/1521A/production/_109645568_photo-by-steve-crise-_2007-.jpg

he's good now

in related news: he was never bad

Outtake from 1975's ATLANTIC CROSSING, with Booker T & The MGs (and without the overdubbed strings that appear elsewhere). Wish he had done more like this - he reportedly left behind Faces and the UK to record a soul album, but what they actually put out wasn't quite that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mJUFv3ysVU

The voice is amazing. The ballads are really dodgy.

The dodgier, the better if you ask me.

There's a recent-ish David Lee Roth interview on YouTube where he tries explaining the basic concept of Van Halen, but keeps getting sidetracked by the radio host who clearly doesn't see where he's is going with all this and he never quite makes the point he's building up to. First, he compares Toto and their catalog to 'West Side Story' - undeniable classic songs, but the performers are interchangeable. It doesn't matter who the players are, the material is the real substance of the thing. As an example of the inverse -the KING, in fact- he names Rod Stewart.
From there, he loses focus but the suggestion is presumably that for Van Halen, as Rod Stewart, the material was merely a vehicle for the personalities of the performers. They could do whatever kind of song, it didn't even have to be 'good'. As Van Halen were obviously the best and most important rock band ever, I'm inclined to concede to DLR's view.

Look at that storyteller thumbnail, I mean, you don't even have to listen to the record, you don't even need his face on the cover. The hair says it all. Rod Stewart is David Lee Roth without the winks, and you can't teach that. ObvIously DESTROY ALL MANDOLINS tho, ffs.

Have you checked this out?

DON'T LET THEM PUT YOU DOWN: The Official ILM Track-By-Track ROD STEWART 1975-1988 Listening Thread

Thanks for the link. That era's close to a wasteland for me, but I posted a track list of what I'd listen to from that time. (Things went downhill fast - nothing past 1980.) The best stuff from Faces, the first four Mercury albums and his 1973 single "Oh No Not My Baby"/"Jodie" are unimpeachable, and even though his prior sessions with Jeff Beck never sustained their full potential, they cut some good stuff. After that, I think the "Unplugged" special, a reunion with Ronnie Wood, is surprisingly charming, and the one rock album he recorded in the '90s is supposedly not bad, but I've yet to listen to it.

"Sex is cool and sex is nice/Sex will leave you in paradise/Sex is good for everyone/C'mon people let's have some fun"--Rod Stewart, "Kookooaramabama" (2021)

— Stephen Thomas Erlewine (@sterlewine) November 8, 2021

he got the lyrics wrong to "I Want Your Sex" I guess

There's a great anthology called Reason To Believe that has all the early solo lps on 3 or 4cds. Think it has some bonus stuff too. Used to be pretty cheap a few years back.

― Stevolende, Saturday, June 11, 2016
Yeah that would still be the one to get, if it gets as far as the non-genius but in my case much played Never a Dull Moment, but also cherrypick his Faces stuff--keeping prob all of Nod Is Good As A Wink, also cherrypick some rarities on his first Best of and Atlantic Problem and a bunch of later singles and shit (I liked "If You Think I'm Sexy" to the extent that the chorus of course suited his rooster crow, and scanned better than "Taj Mahal"'s title sufficed as its chorus, despite Jorge Ben's excellent voice)

Also the Rod-inclusive Faces box, Five Guys Walk Into a Bar . . ., would have to be worth cherrypicking, if I could only find it cheap enough.

Atlantic Problem would be a good title for overview of later arc, but Atlantic Crossing is the one I meant, the Rubicon move, spirit of '76---as wiki sez:
The album contained two of Stewart's most popular songs, "Sailing" and "I Don't Want to Talk About It”, and classic rock favorites "Three Time Loser" and "Stone Cold Sober".

With Atlantic Crossing, Stewart ended his association with Ronnie Wood, Ian McLagan and the stable of musicians who had been his core collaborators on his classic run of albums for Mercury Records, fusing soul and folk. Instead, he used a group of session musicians, including The Memphis Horns and three-quarters of Booker T. and the MG's. The album was produced by Tom Dowd, the famous engineer and producer on records by so many of Stewart's heroes during Dowd's time on staff at Atlantic Records. The only song performed from this album on The Faces' final US tour in autumn 1975 was "Three Time Loser", and the rest of the group heavily disliked Stewart's change in musical direction on this album. Following the success of the album, and his move to the U.S., Stewart announced his exit from the Faces by the end of the year.

ROD STEWART has a model train set based on an industrial US city which took him & two friends 26yrs to build.

Sex Drugs & Rock ‘N Roll(ing Stock) pic.twitter.com/8fjiNi9Qj2

— Michael Warburton (@MichaelWarbur17) October 5, 2022

I am reading his autobio…almost every page has a howlingly funny line… he really seems like a funny, pleasant guy, and this job of ghostwriting this book had to have been the easiest lift of the ghostwriter's career, being that his authentic voice exudes forth… he describes his model trains and his football fandom in ways that very much interest a non-adherent like me… the only thing where he does not come off well is his womanizing, like when he wants to mend his relationship with Kelly Emberg or whoever after banging some other model, then meets Rachel Hunter or whoever, completely abandons his intentions, shrugs his shoulders and rolls his eyes in the telling, "oh well, what are you gonna do? I"m the lad of all lads!" Yeah well, it's just gross as fuck when you can't curtail this behavior when you have like 10 children and you're pushing 60.

That train set is awesome. I'm going to put this here for some that might not have come across it before. It's pretty funny and definitely classic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baCeALX2vlM

Autobiography is an excellent read so far - up to the Tom Dowd chapter but Stewart's wonderfully charming and self-effacing. I love how he describes his first attempt at songwriting with Ronnie Wood.

I hear "Forever Young" in the wild ar least twice a week.

Speaking of '80s favorites, I never saw the video for "People Get Ready" until I was doing a deep dive of Jeff Beck over the weekend. Starts off with Stewart hand writing a letter to Beck on a standard post office mailbox in the middle of nowhere saying "Jeff, why not come to L.A. and take up the guitar professionally? Rod" I love how much fun they're having at the end, like they clearly think this is corny (rightfully so) but go with it and do all the hand gestures and everything.

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

Can you get an abridged version that stops in 1972?

rude

Lol