Coming home last night with the fam from dinner, The Hollies‘ “The Air That I Breathe” came on. My wife commented that when she was younger she always thought it was Bowie. To which I replied that I always thought “Long Cool Woman in a White Dress” was CCR. Which got me thinking, how could this band make both of these songs which are 1) stylistically night and day and 2) both kinda rip-offs, if you ask me.
I’m not a big Hollies know-er. Little help?
As some of you know, I’ve long been troubled by the critical acclaim The Byrds have received over the years relative to some of their contemporaries, some of whom I like better than The Byrds and others who have the sole advantage of not having included the annoying modern-day Roger McGuinn. It’s petty and pointless of me to harp on these feelings, but are not petty and pointless harping among the reasons we enter the Halls of Rock?
The Hollies, “Carrie Ann”
The band I have felt has been most slighted by The Byrds’ inflated legacy is The Hollies. If I want to hear jangly guitars, lots of harmonies, and songs about wanting to hold hands with girls the singer is too shy to even say “Hello” to I want to hear The Hollies. The teenage-geek longing in their songs is moving, their beats are driving, and the abundance of harmonies never strikes me as saccharine. They don’t hit me with a bunch of second-hand hippie philosophy. Like The Easybeats, another one of my favorite second-tier ’60s bands, they were a pop band fully focused on the task of making pop records.
So, after years of harping on this issue, I’m just about ready to let it go. I’ve finally figured out why The Hollies never match the critical acclaim heaped upon The Byrds, that frequently lauded ’60s band I most often find least satisfying compared with the hype…
