The History Of Rock Part Alpha and Omega aka You Got No Secrets To Conceal

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I've still not decided (see yesterday evening's poll) about what to do with the P&J results, but it struck me reading epicharmus' suggestion of a poll of polls (the very thought!) that it's frustrating the the Village Voice didn't do singles/tracks polls before 1979. How can the opinion of Poptimists towards older music be best assessed?

Not like this, probably. What we have here is a poll based on the most recent Rolling Stone Top 500 Songs Of All Time. I ran out of patience after a mere 45 songs so this is the much-pored-over cream of the "rock canon" in its single-tracked form (not in 'singles form' - a few weighty album numbers sneak in). I removed the tracks that also appeared in Pazz and Jop polls, for comparability purposes with the gigantic spreadsheet. In practise this was only THREE songs - can anyone guess which they were (without peeking at rollingstone.com)?

Anyway I thought it would be interesting to get some poptimists perspectives on the 'rock canon' as it has been handed down to us by J Wenner Esq and friends.

You get FIFTEEN picks from an inapt 45 tracks.


[Poll #907822]


The second 'week in pop' poll will appear tomorrow, for the selfish reason that I can listen to a few of the tracks in it before then.

Comments

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Oh, and "A Day In The Life" I still love, and "Tutti Frutti", though I'd have preferred "Good Golly Miss Molly".

And I know that at any moment love for Dylan might come upon me again, even if I'm not feeling it this particular day.

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I think Dancing In the Streets and the Stones tracks I actually came across while I was growing up, so are just music, whereas most of the rest I first heard after I had been infected by ideas about what I should or shouldn't like. + some of the stuff I don't like is just icky. Still never 'got' the Beatles, mind.

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

by 'so are just music' I guess I mean 'I can hear them independently of preconceptions' but this is obviously not true and I'm rewriting history. I'm happy to have always liked and to still like 'Dancing in the street' whereas I've liked, disliked and liked that era of Stones material, while a lot of the other stuff I've either heard a lot and never particularly cared for, or probably liked and then disliked. I mean I must have liked Stairway to Heaven at some point, I was a 14 year old metalhead for crying out loud, but I can't ever remember being particularly into it, although I did tape my dad's Led Zeppelin album at some point.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

My 13 year old nephew at Christmas (likes The Fratellis, Killers, Kaiser Chiefs, Oasis etc) upon being played an excerpt from Stairway to Heaven (the acoustic bit at the start): "that's not rock music".

[koganbot]

I think "Stairway To Heaven" is maybe the fourth or fifth best track on Zoso. I do love Jimmy's solo, however. Also the fact that my friend Mark Hatton once said, "If I hear a bustle in my hedgerow, I'm reaching for my shotgun."

I way prefer "Purple Haze."