Monday, August 15, 2011

Tommyg Rocks the World

The Prodigal Pawn lists his Top 15 Rock and Roll Albums of All Time!

I smell contoversy in the water!

Okay, his is a great list of great music for sure, and as he notes, these "greatest" lists are always going to be very personal.

Here are a few things I would note: There are really 17 albums (good one, Tommy!). There's nothing that was released after 2001 (the Radiohead) so I wonder if Rock is Dead? To be honest, that's about when I stopped keeping up with the pop music scene myself, and I don't have any suggestions for after that without an internet search of some kind. All my picks are from around or before that time too!

A few suggestions for additions to Tommy's list (I wouldn't dream of replacing anything):

System of a Down, Toxicity (2001)

I well remember seeing the video for the title song at a friend's house, having no idea who these guys were, and just being completely blown away. Completely. This album has more drive than a Ferrari and more intelligence than 99% of rock!

Red Hot Chili Peppers, Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991)

A magikal mix of killer musicianship, energy and styles.

Rolling Stones, Some Girls (1978)

Tommy, Tommy, Tommyg, how did you make a list without the Stones, man? This is the album that made the Stones relvant, after they threatened to become a bunch of jaded rock 'n' roll zillionaires. It also contains my all-time favorite song of theirs, "When the Whip Comes Down."

Queen, A Night at the Opera (1975)

To my mind, this group had some of the best musicians on the planet, and it was tough to chose just one album. The greatness for me is the ability of the band to nail multiple styles of music and produce an album that is a unified whole, not just great collection of songs.

There's my take--what say you, Rock and Roll Reader (yeah I know we got off the chess theme here, so sue me).

2 comments:

Tommyg said...

Hey Robert!

Good choices all! And Queen is one of the most underrated bands in rock history!

I am sorry about the Stones but they never quite hit me. (ahh the beauty of subjectivity,)

The only band I would quibble on (just for the sake of harmless controversy) is the Red Hot Chili Peppers. And that is due in part to how I feel about their drummer.

He is VASTLY overrated by the press and tends to act in a buffoonish manner which then perpetuates the rather silly public stereotype of drummers all being like animal from the muppets. (but at least Animal is funny!!)

But yeah Queen! They don't get the credit they deserve.

And I unfortunately don't know much about System of a Down.

Robert Pearson said...

Tommy--The "Toxicity" video on YouTube will show you all you need to know!