Before The Flood

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

This is a poll about John Peel's Festive Fifty, 1976. Just tick all the songs you like from the list of 50 (counting down from #50 to #1, as it happens). I've put it up because i) I'm curious about the results, ii) I'm probably writing a pitchfork column about the F50.

[Poll #1137239]

And some more general questions I'd like to think about - they're quite big questions though:

- What does rock do better now? What does it do worse?
- How does the stuff that won respect and adoration on this poll differ from the stuff that critics and fans enjoy now (a VERY broad formulation, I know)?
- Where's the modern equivalent of the audience suggested here - Pazz and Jop? the Pitchfork Readers Poll?
- What were Poco and can we eat them?

Comments

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

But presumably bearing the usual slant towards stuff released that year: "Desolation Row" is fkn awesome but not really one of Dylan's top five.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

There's a recency effect for some acts but not for others. "Echoes" is basically a first draft for "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" (I misticked it cos I'd got it confused with "One Of These Days") but places higher, I guess because it had settled in longer.

Racing Cars were 1976 though!

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Yes, Racing Cars is the big WTF in this chart! (I like it - a lot - but the top ten placing...)

[sbp.livejournal.com]

"Echoes" is basically a first draft for "Shine On You Crazy Diamond"

Sez who?

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Aye, this a VERY odd take on it. A first draft for Bark Psychosis's Hex would be much more accurate!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Another boring record!

I was basing it purely on the Live At Pompeii thing I was watching on YouTube. I wouldn't defend the comparison too much further than "nice atmospherics, sh1t drummer" though, which I guess does apply to more than just those two PF songs. Shine On has a more memorable vocal hook.

[koganbot]

Also was released eleven years earlier (did you mean to say "Hurricane"?).

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

No, I just have no solid timeline for when these songs appeared. My main path into Dylan was three tapes containing Bringing it All Back Home/Blonde On Blonde/Highway 61 Revisited/Blood On The Tracks/Oh Mercy which I played to death with some sense* that the last one was later than the others but not much apart from that. So in 1976, the Peel consensus was that Desolation Row was actually the one for the ages? That's kind of awesome.

* the sense obviously being hearing, though I wouldn't be surprised if I could smell the many cigarettes Bob had worked his way through in the intervening.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Looking at the other consensus picks the fact that it's a very long song can surely not be discounted!

[koganbot]

Bringing It All Back Home 1965
Highway 61 Revisited 1965 (contains "Desolation Row," which I might not even put on the top 5 on that album; well, maybe at number 4)
Blonde On Blonde 1966
Blood On The Tracks 1975
Oh Mercy 1989