poptimists | Jop Tournament: Semi Finals

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Nissy vs Madge! Jacko vs Britney! Go go go!

[Poll #931988]

Turnout was down last round, maybe because of all the complicated extra questions (or maybe because people are sick of the poll - almost over now!), so I've kept this one simple.

Oh, comment away of course, but please no chat on the lines of "Who I will vote for in the final" :)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

koganbot

I claimed in Why Music Sucks #2 that "Billie Jean" rocked as hard as any current rock and that Teena Marie's "Lips To Find You" rocked harder. Actually at that time was willing to argue that elevator music rocked harder than current rock, and "Billie Jean" wasn't just rocking hard but rocking harder. This didn't mean that I thought "Billie Jean" and "Lips To Find You" should have been reclassified as rock ("Lips" comes closer), but that if you wanted to hear "rock" you had to go to nonrock to hear it. (Then "Welcome To The Jungle" came along to upset that theory.) Anyway, of our four semifinalists, "Get Ur Freak On" is the closest to hard rock as I once knew and loved it; also is the one I could most imagine myself having created. Which doesn't necessarily mean I'll vote it in the finals (if it makes it), since "Billie Jean" is also worth doing; but with "Billie Jean" I just may have less capacity to identify with the doing. In any event, "Get Ur Freak On" is way closer to the rock I grew up with than (e.g.) "Common People" is. (Which doesn't mean that something like "Get Ur Freak On" is better than something like "Common People" in principle, though I happen to think in this instance that "Freak On" is way better, and so do my viscera. Lots of hip-hop is closer in feeling to the original garage rock than the White Stripes are, but again that doesn't automatically mean that it's all better than the White Stripes [though a lot of it is].)

The "rock" in "hard rock" has a double meaning: one, it's hard like a rock; two, it has a strong rocking back and forth motion. Can't think of many of the "rock" songs in the P&J since 1979 that are hard rock in this combined sense. Without looking back through all the P&J's, "Welcome to the Jungle" is the only one that comes to mind as a "rock" song that really rocks (don't think "Violet" made the P&J [just checked; it didn't, kinda fell between two years; the look back reminds me that "Sabotage" and "Fight For Your Right" rock pretty well, though neither pulls my heart strings like "Violet" or "Jungle"], but "Jungle"'s not as rocking as "Set It Off" or "Bring The Noise." "Keep On Rocking In The Free World" is ecstatic and wonderful, but Neil Young is less rhythmically adept than a busy single or a dragging tail pipe.

From:

koganbot

less rhythmically adept than a busy single

Than a busy signal. Grrrr, need to type slower.

From:

http://users.livejournal.com/xyzzzz__/

"Common People" was never really rocking in terms of riffs/song, more that its lyrics kinda spoke something. Of course, the album version has that ranty angry bit toward the end to reinforce its "point" that got cut in the single version (I think).

Looking at yr second para: would something like "La Bamba" qualify for "hard rock in a combined sense", or isn't the riffage hard enough? What about "Jump"? That is probably hard, but I don't know if it has a strong "back and forth motion" (does it?)

From:

koganbot

Well, "Like A Rolling Stone" would qualify in my combined sense ('cept damn, it needed a better bass player, so it doesn't do the back and forth as well as it should); and of course the chorus to "Like A Rolling Stone" was taken from "La Bamba." Dylan's said so (and even if he hadn't, the chords say so).

If you're talking about the Van Halen "Jump," I'd say maybe, but I'd almost say it falls down on the rock as-in-igneous-thing bit (which is fine; that just makes it disco with rock riffs, which is pretty much what I'd say about "Beat It"; and of course, disco is great, at least as good as rock, though it's not "my music" in the way that rock once was). Stuff that might really qualify as my "double hard rock" would be Jimi's "Purple Haze" and "Voodoo Child" and Funkadelic's "Funky Dollar Bill" and Sly's "I Want To Take You Higher" and the Contortions' "I Can't Stand Myself" and maybe even James Brown's "I Can't Stand Myself" (certainly the closest he ever came to hard rock). Of course, many rock fans wouldn't count those as rock at all, and I have to say that my favorite rock band is the Stones through about 1971 (conventional choice) though I'll acknowledge that they do fall somewhat short on the back-and-forth bit. This is why I think hard rock's greatest moments may still be in the future, though they almost certainly won't be called "rock." "The Real Slim Shady" was a great hard rock moment. The Lil Jon slammer that opens the Ciara album could qualify, 'cept I haven't heard it since AOL streamed the album on their Listening Party the week of its release. If someone with a Jagger-type self-critical mind were to do crunk or snap or hyphy...?

From:

koganbot

Jimmy Castor Bunch "Troglodyte"!

From:

freakytigger.livejournal.com

"Troglodyte" got the most 'WTF is this' reactions of anything I've played at Poptimism I think. I didn't see anyone making a back and forth motion though :(

Frank where do you stand on Status Quo?

From:

koganbot

Barely know the Quo; "Pictures of Matchstick Men" was their only hit in the U.S., came across more as psychedelic than as hard rock (not that you can't be both).