Clearly The Greatest, but "The Best?"
(This was drafted before Mr. Mod’s recent Scarface thread. I didn’t send it since I was concerned that it might be less than well defined. I doubt it could be as misinterpreted as Scarface, but who knows. An RTHer grasp should exceed his reach…)
[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/2-01-Tell-Me-Momma.mp3|titles=Bob Dylan & The Hawks, “Tell Me Momma” – Manchester Trade Hall – May 1966]I was thinking about and discussing with Townsman geo the topic of 1966 & prior Dylan and post-1966 Dylan. Now, there are varying opinions of how great post-1966 Dylan is (and that will be the gist of a future thread), but I think it’s generally agreed that 1966 & prior Dylan is clearly the Best Dylan. Or if someone wants to disagree about “clearly the best” than perhaps we should say the “consensus best.”
This got me to thinking about other artists. Do any other artists have such a “clearly the best” portion of their career? The clearest other example I can think of comes from outside rock. There’s Columbia-era Sinatra, there’s Capitol-era Sinatra, and there’s Reprise-era Sinatra—and you’ll find little disagreement that Capitol-era Sinatra is the best.
The Beatles are often broken down into Revolver & prior and Sgt. Pepper & after, but is there a consensus on which era is greater? Others?
Let’s narrow things down a little though. An artist’s non– “consensus best” period has to still be noteworthy (so if you want to opine on Brian Jones Stones vs. Mick Taylor Stones, that’s fine but not pre- and post- Tattoo You). And death can’t be a demarcation (eg, pre- and post- death of Jimi Hendrix).
Crosby, Stills, & Nash pre-“Crosby, Stills, & Nash.” While inside Mama Cass’s living room they were absolutely legendary. Afterward, eh, not so much to me.
aloha
LD
GBV-Bee Thousand, Alien Lanes, Under The Bushes……
Everything before it is cool.
Some of what came after those 3 albums was great.
but those 3 albums. so good!
The Kinks, 1966-71 (Kink Kontroversy to Muswell Hillbillies). Pre-Kontroversy, a good band with a few great singles and uneven albums; post-Muswell, highly erratic, occasionally great, often lousy, sometimes just dull. But in that timeframe, almost peerless brilliance.
I agree: Clearly The Best!
Not to take away from the Brian era which was fabulous, but the Mick Taylor era was Clearly The Best
Island Records-era Tom Waits was Clearly The Best!
DLR Van Halen was Clearly The Best (I actually don’t care about this last one).
I disagree – strongly. The clarity of your argument is gone. That’s the magic of what al’s saying. Who in their right mind would argue that post-1966 Dylan is better? At the same time (unlike Van Halen), post-’66 Dylan continued to be good for some time.
I understood what Al was saying. Who in their right mind would argue that Brian-era Stone are better than Mick Taylor-era Stones, even though the Brian-era provided some nice moments.
Good call, but I’d put the ending date at 1972 to include “Celluloid Heroes”, one of their best songs.
Peter Gabriel-era Genesis was far superior to the later band led by Phil Collins. Hardcore prog rock vs. vaguely arty pop.
I’d say that Jones/Taylor-era Stones was Clearly The Best compared to Wood-era.
Alice Cooper (the band) up through Billion Dollar Babies was Clearly The Best compared to Alice Cooper (showbiz personality).
yep!
I basically agree with cdm, though I think the best of the Stones began slightly before Taylor joined (can’t ignore Beggars Banquet) and ended slightly after he left. But yeah if we’re only going by guitarist eras, Mick Taylor all the way.
NRBQ – All Hopped up through Tiddlywinks.
U2 – War up through Joshua Tree
Is there consensus on these? I’d like to see someone take on Stevie Wonder.
Steve Wonder was an amazing singles artist, if you ask me – really groundbreaking in that format through most of the ’70s – but I think he’s way too spotty overall at all points in his career to qualify for a Clearly The Best (CTB) era. Does anyone but HVB disagree?
COP OUT! 😛
I strongly disagree – and it pains me to reach that conclusion!
Me – to the grave!
I have to agree with Mod, to the extent of the terms of this thread. I think a case can be made for the greatness of the Brian Jones era, so that the waters are just a little too muddy to declare an unquestionable winner.
Deep Purple, from In Rock through Burn. Hardly my favorite band, but it’s clearly their best era–and the fact that they had an earlier era with a few hits and some art rock cred means that they did have a second worthy era. I mean, within their limits.
Mark Olson era Jayhawks. I like their later records without him, but they’re not as good.
I think “within their limits” says a lot. Maybe it’s only about my ignorance though.
I agree — but I do like Rainy Day Music — we get to see if they can rekindle the magic later this year.
For U2 — I think you can include their first albums through Joshua Tree. The Red Rocks live album relies on some of the first two records to make it is what it is. I rarely listen to U2 anymore, but still dig Gloria.
http://youtu.be/ybYgP48X2DY
The four albums from Innervisions through Songs in the Key of Life are all impressive, even if the latter is stretched a little too thin. The years from 1973 to 1976 were Stevie’s CTB era.
The Scarface thread had me thinking about R.E.M.. Chronic Town through…I dunno…Lifes Rich Pageant (?) is clearly their best era. Should it be shorter? I see that as a fairly unified trajectory.
Nursery Cryme
Foxtrot
Selling England By the Pound
Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
Those four albums are just about as good as prog rock got in the 1970s and Selling England is one of the very best albums of the 1970s, period. Even that old anti-prog crank Robert Christgau gave it a B rating.
What made Gabriel-era Genesis great was the fact that even though they could play as complex as anyone, they embraced songs and stories as well as group interplay over instrumental prowess and noodling solos. Not that they lacked in prowess either – Phil Collins was a great drummer and the rest of the band were very capable too. None of the Collins-led albums even come close.
Listen to Aftermath or Beggars’ Banquet. The Taylor albums could be just as great, but I wouldn’t necessarily say they’re better. But they’re all better than the Wood albums.
You know, I started typing to argue that the hit singles years before those four albums was the CTB era. But first I decided to check iTunes so as to list all those hit singles and was surprised at how few there were (Fingertips, I Was Made To Love Her, Uptight, Yester-Me, Signed Sealed Delivered, For Once In My Life) and how lame some of them were (My Cherie Amour, A Place In The Sun).
So, despite Signed Sealed Delivered being one of my all time favorite songs and despite this hit single era being very worthy, I’m with you tonyola.
Our agreement on Drama notwithstanding, clearly, Yes’s best work spans from their first album to Close to the Edge.
I know many people don’t think much of the Hackett era — first album and Time and a Word — but I like them both very much.
I have my moments with Tales, but all in all it’s just bloat.
I like Relayer, but it’s clearly not of the heights those first two albums promised, and that the next three delivered.
You are welcome to make a case for Tales and Relayer, but I’m drawing the line at Going for the One / Tormato.
I hesitated including Boy and October because I thought they were a little meandering and not the sound of a band that had come into their own. Regardless, they are still quite listenable. I really dig A Day Without Me.
Ummm, yeah sure, …. well….Oh never mind… Whatever I say Misterioso will just disagree with me anyways.
Hackett was never in Yes – you’re thinking of Peter Banks, who was the guitarist before Steve Howe. Yes’ CTB period was from The Yes Album through Close to the Edge. The first album is quite good but Time and a Word is somewhat spoiled by the orchestrations which too often get in the way of the music. Topographic Oceans would have made a dandy single album but it’s stretched way too thin as a double. The first side of Relayer (“Gates of Delirium”) is terrific, the rest not so much.
Stevie did have fine singles in his early years, but the albums were pretty bad in typical ’60s Motown fashion – a couple of hits buried in a sea of lousy covers, show tunes, MOR standards, and other junk. Wonder had to fight to get control of his output, and once he did, he started coming out with great albums as well as singles.
I know. I’m just poking the crab.
In agreement.
I knew it was a guy who shared a name with someone in genesis (hackett and banks).
i really have a soft spot for that first album, but am willing to take a pass on Time and a Word
(the treatment of the title track on yesshows is way better than the studio version).
You don’t like Sound chaser?
“Sound Chaser” has impressive moments but it never gels as a song. Too thrown-together sounding – “Hey, let’s cram this hot Moraz solo in there somewhere.”
I can argue that the Brian era was better, even though I don’t tend to believe, essentially based on the strength of Exile alone. But Mick Taylor joined a band that was already The Rolling Fucking Stones, and all he had to do was not fuck up.
After Exile Mick The Quitter’s influence got stronger and stronger. The results were Goat’s Head Soup and It’s Only Rock N Roll. I know people generally don’t care for Black and Blue, but if Mick The Quitter was still around, I don’t think that album would have ever been finished.
Sat, I really like Going For the One. I don’t hate Tormato, but I haven’t played it since high school. Maybe I do hate it, but I don’t think so.
I’m not too hip on Drama, though.
Sound Chaser is cool stuff.
Tormato is kind of a stinker. My least favorite pre-90125 Yes album.
If you’re trajectory conscious — and I was HYPER trajectory conscious when I got into Yes — then Going for the one really loses out. Considering it in the context of the albums that came before it and after it, I always felt like it should be called “Going Through the Motions.”
It’s a merely competent Yes album, as if they knew that being Yes was a trick they could all turn: let’s get Wakeman back in the band and put it on auto pilot.
The title track finds them stretching.
Parallels does too, but it’s not exactly the most compelling stuff, is it? If predicting the overblown bloat-pop sound of bands like Journey is compelling, then this is your bag!
“Awaken” is the obligatory long form song, but a tedious one.
Wonderous Stories is a half-assed reminder of the “your move” section of All Good People.
All the while, Wakemen doesn’t bother to change the setting on his synth, unless it’s to move over to the church organ.
Tormato? I always felt like something was horribly off about Tormato, from top to bottom, cover art and all, that album is just sad.
Interestingly, the recordings from that tour find them in fine fettle, playing better than they did at their “YesSongs” heights.
Given the way they spiralled down and out, I think Drama is a really impressive regrouping.
And since the two most argumentative guys on RTH agree on this, the rest of you don’t stand a chance.
And another thing; what’s the deal with Vitruvian Man male ass sandwich album covers by prog bands from the mid 70s? Yes and Rush both mooned their fan bases in ’77 / ’78. Gross!
by the way, 2k: thanks for the support on Sound Chaser. I dig that song!
I actually like the title cut of Going For the One and “Awaken” is OK, but I agree that on the whole, the album is a fall-off for Yes compared to the previous albums.
Love the 70s hits, but the albums are marred by 7-minute ballads to the Creator _ two per lp.
Loved the albums with him. Could not stand those without.
Well, I don’t hear the songs or follow the stories. I line some solo Gabriel, but early Genesis, excepting 2 songs turns me off as much as any band. They’re a rare band u hate mire as u grow older and mellower. I wish they’d noodles and stop being so precious.
“I wish they’d noodles…”?
This is your Moderator on drugs. Far out, dude.
Ha, that was me typing with my right hand only while helping my son with his headache. You know what I mean, Genesis makes my skin crawl.
Agreed. Like U2 — once you get out of the 80s — besides a few good singles, R.E.M. just petered out for me.
I like Rainy Day Music a lot too, especially the first half, and play it a lot. Sound of Lies may be my personally favorite record of the band, though I don’t think it’s their best. Something about it is just perfect for long drives. Smile is okay too, if the least interesting of the post-Olson records.
Well, yes and no. They weren’t exactly geniuses, that’s for sure. But the run of their best albums are eminently playable hard rock. Granted, you have to like that sort of thing and be able to laugh at it some, but I think their music has convincing energy during their best period, ludicrous keyboard licks notwithstanding.
Saturn, I was considering making the same argument, and also ending it with Life’s Rich Pageant. I like some of their later records and songs, but not as much.
Pre-death Buddy Holly/Post-death Buddy Holly. The stuff overdubbed with the Fireballs and released after his death is atrocious.
Psh. Those “ludicrous” keyboard licks are the foundation for Deep Purple’s distinctive sound. Without Jon Lord, they would have been just another faceless rock band of no special merit.
I’m a Tom Staley era NRBQ fan. I understand the appeal of Ardolino, but his style is not for me. Ther stuff through the Workshop rocks harder and my be even more wide ranging that the later albums.
For Kajagoogoo the White Feathers album is Clearly the Best. After Limahl left, their sound became much less gutsy, and the creativity just wasn’t there.
Those keyboard licks certainly are distinctive, tonyola, but last I checked, distinctive and ludicrous were not automatically opposites.
hahahaha!
I can agree with that. Those two are better with both of their voices in the mix.
Stand Up through Thick As A Brick is CTB Jethro Tull.
Although I like a few off of War Child and Too Old To Rock N’ Roll, those can’t really be called good albums. There’s that two-album best of type thing, and then the painfully boring Passion Play which netted merely four bits in store credit for me in it’s return to circulation. Actually, I dunno if I could listen to all of Thick As A Brick ever again, but as a supposed parody and goofy off-kilter item of it’s times, I think it belongs in the best period.
I invite the wisecracks.
True, a great song, but that record is all the heck over the place; whereas between ’66 and ’71 there is scarcely a lapse in quality, unless you count a few of the dodgier Dave “solo” tunes–and even those are generally quite ok.
I for one am glad you’ve finally come out of the Tull Closet. Mod, is there a thread in here somewhere? Bands you were once deeply ashamed to like, but who you now openly admit to loving?
My personal Tull Closet band: hmmm… have to think about that one.
* “about as good as prog rock got in the 1970s…”
Man, that is one big-ass asterisk that has to be appended.
Definitely. Innervisions is, in my opinion, by a good distance the best of that batch, but they are all very good, Mod’s valid points notwithstanding.
You are dead wrong! I agree. Didn’t see that coming, did you? Through Life’s Rich Pageant is safe.
Hilarious! Last week I heard some Tull song on the car radio–that “Jesus save me” song (sorry, I am tipping my hand here on)–and I find myself thinking how nobody ever mentions Tull here. Not even tonyola, whom I suspect of owning all fifty-five of the Tull box sets.
Hymn 43. HVB and I used to call Jethro Tull “ponderock”, which is defined by it’s ponderously pretentious and heavy nature, somehow underpinned with enough silliness that the songs cannot be taken seriously enough to do anyone real harm.
Admit it, you love Martin Barre. Why, the fellow is living those chords!
Incomplete sentence: “sorry, I am tipping my hand here on Tull”
Yes, I’ll see if I can dig out such threads later today. One that comes to mind is something I posted years ago regarding my belief that Jethro Tull has a number of elements that suggest they could have been considered GREAT – without reservations or excuses – if only some serious tinkering could have been done.
Here are two Tull-based threads that may help us continue to work through our Tull Issues:
https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/index.php/bands-you-don-t-really-like-that-neverth/
https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/index.php/working-through-some-tull-issues/
I haven’t read those yet but I saw a link to Tull’s R&R Circus performance, which is surprisingly not terrible. Thanks to Tony Iommi?
I especially enjoy Barre when he plays Bourre.
Sorry, that’s “Bouree.”
I don’t hate Tull. I only own Warchild which I bought in freshman year of high school. I recognize that this is out of character for me because the flute is probably my least favorite instrument, I don’t like proggy things, and I am decidedly anti cod piece, but every now and then, they come up with something cool.
Y’know how John and Yoko had Hair Peace and and Bed Peace and so forth…How did they never come up with Cod Peace?
Cod Peace? Now, what would that support?
Sackism!
Post of the month!