Let’s kick off Once and For All February with a subject that hits on a large segment of the Hall’s demographic, involving a favorite band, Rock Superpowers, and the all-important issues of Look. Let’s determine—once and for all—The Beatles’ Coolest Collective Look.
The nominees and the RTH People’s Poll follow…after the jump!
Reg Presley, singer for The Troggs, has died at 71. The band had a handful of excellent garage-rock classics, but they will forever be known for their version of “Wild Thing,” a song so simple and direct that just about any band has covered it at one time or another. However, no one has come close to matching The Troggs’ hit version, not even Jimi Hendrix, who felt compelled to light his guitar on fire to try in effort to keep pace with Presley and his mates’ incendiary performance. If a singer ever owned a song it was Reg Presley owning “Wild Thing.” Not even Brian Jones-era Mick Jagger could have out-snarled and out-leered his way through that song.
There would be no Stooges’ “No Fun” without Presley and his mates’ take on “Wild Thing.” What kind of world would we be living in without “No Fun”? I shudder the thought. There’s only one thing left to say…after the jump!
As an offshoot to the whole MBV thing, and the relationship between (bear with me) masterpiece and follow-up, I got to thinking of analogous album pairs.
On the color wheel, we have groups of color arranged next to each other, with a dominant color (such as red, at let’s say 12:00), and then adjacent colors (orange-red at 1:00, orange at 2:00, red-violet at 11:00, and so forth).
I’m curious to know of such pairings with essential albums, and their follow-up or predecessor (as in the case of Sticky Fingers:Exile on Main Street). Are there pairs of albums, released in consecutive order, where one is the “acknowledged masterpiece” and the other is just as good, if not better, and you always listen to that one more often anyway.
Does this make sense? Give me a red, and an orange-red. I’ll give another example. OK Computer (yes, watershed, that is known and accepted,and I love it) to Kid A (not as critically lauded, but damn, that’s the one for me!).
The All-Star Jam is the place to do your thing, tell your story. Don’t let anything hold you back.
Still hate the face, but now find myself rooting for Kobe, especially when he’s up against youngblood pretenders, like LeBron.
During the Super Bowl power outage Townsman Chickenfrank and I touched on the fantastic comeback season enjoyed by Peyton Manning. Over the years we both came around on that guy. For years we rooted against the Manning Dynasty hype, Peyton’s old-school Look, and his animated audibles at the line of scrimmage. Finally, we were worn down by his greatness. Chicken cited Kobe Bryant as another example of an athlete whose greatness over time outweighed our initial, highly negative perceptions in the face of all statistical evidence to the contrary.
Is there a rock artist whose greatness wore you down?
Only Led Zeppelin’s musical greatness could eventually wear down my resistance to all a shot like this suggests.
Led Zeppelin was a Peyton Manning or Kobe Bryant for me. There came a point when the power of their records moved me past the hype, past the idiots who’d glorified them since my high school days, past the dumb lyrics… I was worn down by greatness.
The Super Bowl is over. God has spoken. Pitchers and catchers don’t report for another week. To help ward off the February Blahs, Townsman Al has suggested we initiate Rock Town Hall’s very own Awards Season: Once and For All February.
To avoid the folly of trying to stay hip and current, the same folly that awarded Dances With Wolves and Christopher Cross, for instance, top honors mainly because they were new and voters didn’t have the necessary perspective to understand how quickly these works would wilt in the test of time, we will target only categories and entrants that are worthy of such a definitive honor. Once and For All February is an effort to get the year off to a regret-free start: settling age-old debates and giving credit where credit is due. As the year progresses, there may still arise a need to take a collective stand—once and for all—on a key issue in rock, but Once and For All February will put a number of debates that threaten to tear the fabric of the Hall behind us early in the new year, allowing 10 months of smooth-sailing consensus to come.
The first order of business includes identifying our categories and nominees. Targeting more than 10 topics to rule on—once and for all—in such a concentrated time, would be more than even our community could bite off. In the next 2 days, let’s determine 10 topics and 5 nominees worthy of settling—once and for all—the most heated, knowledgeable barroom debates. Once the topics and nominees have been settled we will discuss, debate, and vote on the winners. By month’s end we will know—once and for all—who’s who and what’s what.
Following are 6 suggested topics. Please suggest your own topic in need of a definitive, once and for all answer, and please suggest possible nominees for any or all of these categories. Through the month we will roll out individual threads dedicated to each of the categories.
Once and For All February will culminate in identifying—once and for all—Rock’s Most Recognizable Single Opening Note or Chord.
Al has spoken.
So it happened. It really happened. After a 22-year wait My Bloody Valentine has released its follow-up to Loveless. Take that, The La’s!
As I admitted last week, MBV totally passed me by. I was one of those people Slim Jade suspected knew more about the bands they influenced than the band themselves. I have not yet heard the new album. I can’t imagine what a next album by that band would sound like. Where does a band go with that sound…after 22 years?
Fans of My Bloody Valentine, as you get your head around this thing, was it worth the wait?
My friend Jonathan Valania at Phawker is getting enough satisfaction. The following sequence of observations from his Insta-Review may say it all:
…[the] album craps out midway (tracks 4-6) when they peel back the wall of noise to reveal that there ain’t that much there there. It’s like seeing your mom naked. I don’t need to see that. But it picks up again…
The FAQ page on the band’s new website ignores the most obvious question:
