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Classic Album Discussion Thread: The Kinks-Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Pt. 1 (1 Viewer)

As for The Dead, they never did anything for me. I don't hate them, they're just kinda "meh" to me. But I agree that AB and WMD are probably their studio peak as albums (they cut better individual songs later, but I've already mentioned them).

Back In Black is like Thriller - it's so massive that it's difficult to assess it properly anymore.

My brother is two years younger than I am (we were both born in the early/mid-60s) and he's the one who turned me onto AC/DC when Highway To Hell came out (I was a funkateer in those days, as mainstream rock seemed played out to me). Then I was able to backtrack through earlier Bon-era records. AC/DC had gotten pretty popular, but they one among many. Then Scott died.

Then Back In Black came out. That record hit like a nuclear bomb. There was nothing like it on the radio. And then there was a LOT like it. Queen ripped off the title song, along with Chic's "Good Times", and combined them into "Another One Bites The Dust". Most of the hair bands spent the decade rewriting "You Shook Me" or "Shoot To Thrill". 

AC/DC is a one-note band. But what a note.

 
KarmaPolice said:
I think Paranoid is a tad more mainstream than the doom of their self titled, and also keep in mind there are a lot of subgenres of metal as well and it did morph a bit in the decade after Sabbath's debut.   Like I said, I usually compare it to what else was around at that time in the 60s/70s, and then I think it's a slam dunk case.   
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I remember in the 10th grade me and my buddy were always arguing who was better Sabbath or Grand Funk.  I was the big Sabbath fan.  He always claimed Funks Paranoid was better than Sabbaths.  He was wrong of course.  If you haven't heard Funks Paranoid here it is.  I will say Farner  was a pretty good guitarist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdcs7F-MWhA

 
rustycolts said:
A band I always thought was great that was hard rock but not quite metal was Montrose.  Space Station #5 and Bad Motor Scooter were bad to the bone.  Sammy Hagar and Ronnie Montrose were great together.
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If Montrose had been himself instead of trying to be Jimi Hendrix, he'd have been better off. Same with Robin Trower. They were both really talented.

 
AC/DC is a can't miss. Have seen them 6 or 7 times. Great shows. Angus. Yes, it's all very similar sounding. Except for maybe "Big Balls". By can't miss, basically that's throw on an AC/DC album, let it play while tossing down some beers. I'll be givin the dog a bone on that. 

One thing though. For Those About to Rock. By around the 4th or 5th time or so seeing them, I literally had to cover my ears for the cannon shots. Couldn't hear for a day after that. Thought I may have heard in most recent years they turned that down.

 
Producer Mutt Lange deserves some credit for the sound that helped AC/DC break through commercially.  The band's early records (up to Powerage) were produced by Australians Harry Vanda and George Young (Angus & Malcolm's big brother) who had previously found success in the Easybeats and Flash & The Pan. 

AC/DC's label forced them to switch to an in-house producer when it came time to record Highway to Hell.  The initial candidate Eddie Kramer didn't work out which caused them to turn to Lange.  Mutt had worked with bunch of new UK acts like the Boomtown Rats and Graham Parker.  He'd also produced Savoy Brown's 1978 record Savage Return which has some definite similarities with how he recorded AC/DC.

Highway to Hell and the Lange-produced records that followed weren't a radical reworking of the band's sound.  To my ears, the biggest differences are the drums are pushed forward in the mix and there's more vocal multi-tracking on the choruses.  It's a cleaner sound but one that manages to retain most of the band's grittiness.

 
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timschochet said:
The Byrds’ first two albums,  Mr. Tambourine Man and Turn Turn Turn! won’t be discussed here per se, since they’re considered “oldies” and not classic rock. But these albums created folk rock and the “California sound”. Both Tom Petty AND the Eagles were their heirs. 
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Big fan of The Byrds and TP, I can do without most of the Eagles.  More importantly, I don't see any reason why The Byrds wouldn't qualify for this thread - is there really that much of a difference between 1965 and 1968?

 
Mister CIA said:
As a stand up kind of guy, and I'll fight y'all on this topic (tonight only). Tull put out a couple dozen great tunes. 

Maybe you should not listen to ####ty Tull songs.
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I've never heard a single song of their's that I like but give me some of your favorites and I'll take a listen if I'm not already familiar with them.

 
American Beauty - very hit or miss for me.  Sugar Magnolia and Ripple are great tunes but half the songs on it are just meh for me.  Not an album I would listen to

Back in Black - top 10 hard rock album for me.  I'm still struggling with classic rock vs. metal vs. hard rock, etc...I love AC/DC and The Beatles but I don't consider them in the same category but here we are.  Favorite song on BiB is Shoot to Thrill.  I frequently play this album in the morning to get me moving.

 
The greatness of Back in Black almost goes without saying. I rarely turn on AC/DC anymore, but BiB is a timeless record where almost every song is a classic.  People can talk about Appetite for Destruction all they want with it comes to no frills, down and dirty hard rock, but Back in Black kicks the crap out of it. 

 
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Uruk-Hai said:
As for The Dead, they never did anything for me. I don't hate them, they're just kinda "meh" to me. But I agree that AB and WMD are probably their studio peak as albums (they cut better individual songs later, but I've already mentioned them).

Back In Black is like Thriller - it's so massive that it's difficult to assess it properly anymore.

My brother is two years younger than I am (we were both born in the early/mid-60s) and he's the one who turned me onto AC/DC when Highway To Hell came out (I was a funkateer in those days, as mainstream rock seemed played out to me). Then I was able to backtrack through earlier Bon-era records. AC/DC had gotten pretty popular, but they one among many. Then Scott died.

Then Back In Black came out. That record hit like a nuclear bomb. There was nothing like it on the radio. And then there was a LOT like it. Queen ripped off the title song, along with Chic's "Good Times", and combined them into "Another One Bites The Dust". Most of the hair bands spent the decade rewriting "You Shook Me" or "Shoot To Thrill". 

AC/DC is a one-note band. But what a note.
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One of my favs

 
Todem said:
listen to "Highway Star" - that's a damned speed metal record.
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When this comes on while I'm mowing the lawn with my bluetooth headphones on, I get done a lot faster. (Might not be the straightest of lines, but I do some ### kicking on that mower)

 
Rod Stewart- Every Picture Tells A Story (1971)

Side One

Every Picture Tells A Story

Seems Like A Long Time

That’s All Right

Tomorrow Is A Long Time

Side Two

Maggie May

Mandolin Wind

(I Know) I’m Losing You

(Find a) Reason to Believe

Probably my favorite rock album of all time. Though this is presented as a solo album, like Stewart’s first two albums it’s really a Faces studio record in that all of the band contributes, and if you listen to Faces music at the time it’s pretty interchangeable. Of the band members, beyond Rod himself the guy most responsible is Ron Wood, whose arrangements here are superb. 

For my money, there are 3 songs that are simply brilliant: Rod’s interpretation of Bob Dylan’s “Tomorrow Is a Long Time”, and his own original compositions “Maggie May” and “Mandolin Wind”. All 3 of these represent the ultimate in acoustic based folk rock and Rod’s singing skills are never better. “Mandolin Wind”, the best of the songs, got plenty of AOR exposure, while “Maggie May” of course became a standard, perhaps overplayed (but not for me.) 3 more songs approach brilliance: the title song, Tim Hardin’s “Reason to Believe” and the soul tinged “Losing You” (which I know a lot of people love the most on the album.) The other two songs are just very good. The cover of “That’s All Right”, while pretty standard, features a memorable “Amazing Grace.” 

Most people know what happened to Rod later; how he became a caricature of his former self in the 70s and 80s, the poster child of the “sellout” Artist. None of that diminishes the greatness of this masterpiece. 

 
I want to give a mention here to Maggie Bell, who is the contributing vocalist on “Every Picture Tells a Story.” She was the lead singer of the underrated band Stone the Crows, and known, because of her bluesy scratchy vocals, as the “Scottish Janis Joplin.” Great singer. 

 
Getting laid was no sure thing for a teen in 1971. No act in Christendom could, on its own, get a boy closer to home than taking a girl to see Rod Stewart during the Maggie May frenzy. 

 
wikkidpissah said:
Getting laid was no sure thing for a teen in 1971. No act in Christendom could, on its own, get a boy closer to home than taking a girl to see Rod Stewart during the Maggie May frenzy. 
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I take it you speak from personal experience? You saw the Faces in their glory years? What was that like? 

 
Stewart isn't a songwriter but he's always shown excellent taste in choosing material to perform.  The songs he's covered have been well suited to his chops and helped to mold the man's man/ladies' man image that's furthered his career.

 
Still listening to American Beauty. 

Rod Stewart can suck a fat one for all I care. But Faces rule. Never forget the comment here about Ronnie Wood about a posted video. "Rod, you just lost your guitarist."  

That's my two cents.  

 
Eephus said:
Stewart isn't a songwriter but he's always shown excellent taste in choosing material to perform.  The songs he's covered have been well suited to his chops and helped to mold the man's man/ladies' man image that's furthered his career.
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Just a couple of corrections to your first sentence: I would agree that Stewart isn’t a ubiquitous songwriter, but some of this stuff he has written over the years is quite lovely, never more so than “Maggie May” and “Mandolin Wind” on this album. 

And I wish he has always shown excellent taste. Sadly that’s just not true, but I won’t diacuss some of his later output any further; it depresses me. 

 
timschochet said:
I take it you speak from personal experience? You saw the Faces in their glory years? What was that like? 
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Well, the 2nd concert i'd seen (Doors/Blue Cheer was the 1st) was Small Faces (opening, believe it or not, for the great Lee Michaels) and i literally wore out my first copy of Beck Ola, so i really didn't appreciate the Great Unwashed horning in on my territory. I saw them in many venues because i was a runaway, hitching around the country and they were EVERYWHERE that spring, it seemed. If they were the right kind of pissed, they were about as kickass as kickass can be. The really famously sloppy Faces/Stewart shows werent a regular occurrence til '73/74

 
Back In Black is my favorite album of all time.  Now, if I heard it for the first time today, it wouldn't be, but the memories of listening to that album... absolute classic.  One of the greatest rock records ever.  Would be on top of the list of albums I wish I could hear for the first time all over again, as I don't remember the last time I put it on.  I mean, 30 years listening to classic rock on the radio puts a damper on it, as most of that album has been overplayed to extremes.

Quick aside, for my 30th birthday my wife gave me a copy of Back In Black, all black cover vinyl, autographed in silver sharpie by every member of the band that played on that record.  It is probably my most prized possession.

 
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When tim started this thread, I thought sure this album would get posted quickly. In fact, I'm shocked he didn't lead with it given his years of pimping it here.

It's a fantastic record. 

I DO disagree that Rod sold out, because I despise the entire concept. I can't stand "Tonight's The Night" because the music sounds lazy to me - it was #1 for a gazillion weeks, though. "Everyone who bought the record is wrong and I'm the only sane one"?

Back to the album..... He did a fine job on "(I Know) I'm Losing You", but he was fighting a losing battle there. While I agree with @Eephus that Rod chooses his songs cannily - and did so here - he was outmatched by the original. David Ruffin's band was better, his backup singers were way better, his arrangers were better, and - for all of Rod's famed grittiness vocally - NO ONE can out-grit David Ruffin when he's singing from his knees.

 
A great classic rock album and the only studio album by Stewart that I own tho I do have the 4 disc Storyteller set. Back when I still had this on LP I probably played side 2 at least 3x more than side 1.

 
wikkidpissah said:
Getting laid was no sure thing for a teen in 1971. No act in Christendom could, on its own, get a boy closer to home than taking a girl to see Rod Stewart during the Maggie May frenzy. 
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Saw Rod Stewart in 75 at the Lakeland Civic Center.  Don't remember much but I definitely remember it did not get me laid.  Jeff Beck and Aerosmith also played that night.

 
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Uruk-Hai said:
As for The Dead, they never did anything for me. I don't hate them, they're just kinda "meh" to me. But I agree that AB and WMD are probably their studio peak as albums (they cut better individual songs later, but I've already mentioned them).

Back In Black is like Thriller - it's so massive that it's difficult to assess it properly anymore.

My brother is two years younger than I am (we were both born in the early/mid-60s) and he's the one who turned me onto AC/DC when Highway To Hell came out (I was a funkateer in those days, as mainstream rock seemed played out to me). Then I was able to backtrack through earlier Bon-era records. AC/DC had gotten pretty popular, but they one among many. Then Scott died.

Then Back In Black came out. That record hit like a nuclear bomb. There was nothing like it on the radio. And then there was a LOT like it. Queen ripped off the title song, along with Chic's "Good Times", and combined them into "Another One Bites The Dust". Most of the hair bands spent the decade rewriting "You Shook Me" or "Shoot To Thrill". 

AC/DC is a one-note band. But what a note.
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Obligatory

 
Fleetwood Mac- Rumours (1977)

Side One

Second Hand News

Dreams

Never Going Back Again

Don’t Stop 

Go Your Own Way

Songbird

Side Two

The Chain

You Make Loving Fun

I Don’t Want to Know

Oh Daddy

Gold Dust Woman

Almost a soft rock greatest hits album of the late 70s. The introduction of Americans Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham on the previous album changed the nature of this formerly British blues band (and by the way, they were a very good blues band, especially when they featured Peter Green.) The other factor, besides the two yanks, was Christine McVie’s development as a songwriter of very accessible pop melodies. I’m not sure which album is better between this one and Fleetwood Mac, but this one is the (slightly) more famous with (slightly) better hits, so I chose it for now. 

To the music: it’s timeless. There’s not a weak song on the record. All 3 songwriters, McVie, Buckingham, and Nicks are at the top of their game. A truly flawless album that deserves all the praise it has always received. 

 
I hated - HATED - Dreams when it came out. You couldn't run from it, hide from it, or nuke it out of existence. Bunch of wimpy garbage.

But I was 15 years old and they weren't writing or playing this music for knuckleheads like me.

Some time in the 80s, it clicked for me. I don't need to hear these songs much anymore, since I've heard them so many times. But I always enjoy when one of them pops up on the radio these days.

Personal fave: "You Make Loving Fun"

Best, IMO: "The Chain"

 
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