The 100 Greatest Songs of 1977 #1. Come Sail Away (1 Viewer)

[Ghost Rider]

I'm wondering where the other punk was. The Heartbreakers, The Damned, The Dead Boys, and Wire weren't even mentioned. Some of the other rot could surely have received the heave-ho given the weight of these bands in critical and popular consciousness.

Serious question: Why should what critics think matter? I feel it never should, but it seems like fans of certain genres always pimp songs from it with the "it was critically acclaimed" addendum, as if that somehow makes it better (hint: it doesn't). I mean all this in the nicest way possible , but it just boggles the mind sometimes.

 

[rockaction]

Why should what critics think matter?

I think the important term there was "popular consciousness" in addition to the appeal toward authority with the critical acclaim. It means that both critics and the public were united in liking something, and there's something to be said for that. It was just indisputably good to a lot of people.

 

[rockaction]

Of course, I could go on about why the critic is important. But I'll let Oscar Wilde do it.

"An age that has no criticism is either an age in which art is immobile, hieratic,
and confined to the reproduction of formal types, or an age that
possesses no art at all. There have been critical ages that have
not been creative, in the ordinary sense of the word, ages in which
the spirit of man has sought to set in order the treasures of his
treasure-house, to separate the gold from the silver, and the
silver from the lead, to count over the jewels, and to give names
to the pearls. But there has never been a creative age that has
not been critical also. For it is the critical faculty that
invents fresh forms. The tendency of creation is to repeat itself.
It is to the critical instinct that we owe each new school that
springs up, each new mould that art finds ready to its hand. There
is really not a single form that art now uses that does not come to
us from the critical spirit" - Oscar Wilde, The Critic As Artist

In other words, artists function as critics through the very art they put out, especially when a new form or method arises. Such it was with a band like Television, to use one example.

 

[FairWarning]

Come Sail Away is awesome. Styx is great. Haters be damned. Great pick for number 1.

I tend to not be totally Team Tommy or Team Dennis. I get that Dennis was their biggest driving force during their mainstream peak, but I suspect he was a pain in the *** to work with, so the band is likely a lot happier now without him around. Plus, I can count on one hand the number of good song Dennis has written in the last 40 years, while Styx has released two legit great albums in the last five years, so there is that as well.

Plus Tommy had the Damn Yankees side gig.

Unrelated Styx info - they played at my HS’s prom in the early days. My uncle represented Tommy Shaw in his divorce. Have a nice signed Paradise Theater album from the band also.

 

[zamboni]

Come Sail Away is awesome. Styx is great. Haters be damned. Great pick for number 1.

I tend to not be totally Team Tommy or Team Dennis. I get that Dennis was their biggest driving force during their mainstream peak, but I suspect he was a pain in the *** to work with, so the band is likely a lot happier now without him around. Plus, I can count on one hand the number of good song Dennis has written in the last 40 years, while Styx has released two legit great albums in the last five years, so there is that as well.

Plus Tommy had the Damn Yankees side gig.

Unrelated Styx info - they played at my HS’s prom in the early days. My uncle represented Tommy Shaw in his divorce. Have a nice signed Paradise Theatwr signed album from the band also.

What woman would divorce Tommy Shaw? Ingrate

 

[Ghost Rider]

Why should what critics think matter?

I think the important term there was "popular consciousness" in addition to the appeal toward authority with the critical acclaim. It means that both critics and the public were united in liking something, and there's something to be said for that. It was just indisputably good to a lot of people.

But, is there?

If there are two things that are great, but one is loved by critics and the other is hated, does that mean that one the critics love is "better"? I would say no. Looking at just the rock genre, many of the greatest rock bands ever were ones critics in general crapped all over in real time.

And I really think that most serious music artists secretly hate all critics, but most know they have to play the game. It was like 12-13 years ago when Taylor Swift (yes, I am using her as an example, so save the puns ) played at the Grammy's and sang Mean, her song about one particular critic who ripped her for supposedly not being able to sing (and her younger, teenaged vocals were a bit of a mixed bag for sure), and when the performance was over, she got a massive standing ovation from the crowd, which was filled with other artists. Some of that was certainly for her due to her ability to win over crowds, but I suspect many artists there just loved a popular song that unapologetically went scorched earth on a particular critic.

Come Sail Away is awesome. Styx is great. Haters be damned. Great pick for number 1.

I tend to not be totally Team Tommy or Team Dennis. I get that Dennis was their biggest driving force during their mainstream peak, but I suspect he was a pain in the *** to work with, so the band is likely a lot happier now without him around. Plus, I can count on one hand the number of good song Dennis has written in the last 40 years, while Styx has released two legit great albums in the last five years, so there is that as well.

Plus Tommy had the Damn Yankees side gig.

Unrelated Styx info - they played at my HS’s prom in the early days. My uncle represented Tommy Shaw in his divorce. Have a nice signed Paradise Theatwr signed album from the band also.

As a Styx fan, I don't quite have the mad love for Paradise Theater that some fans do, but that's a nice story.

And it is worth repeating: if you are a Styx fan, check out The Mission (from 2017) and Crash of the Crown (from 2021). They are both legit great Styx records.

 

[rockaction]

But, is there?

Generally, yes, especially regarding a new advancement, form, or format. When critics and audiences alike are aligned about something new, it's often taking into account the expertise of the critic in addition to the sympathies of the layperson's appreciation of the form. Both sides of the coin are covered. One on hand, you get a careful consideration of the form and all that has come before it, on the other hand, in terms of music, you get whether or not the noise is palatable to the listener. Raw theory won't suffice, it has to sound good, too, for the audience to appreciate it. Nor will simple and redundant songs and lack of innovation be rewarded; that's the critics job.

Taylor Swift has made hand over fist in cash out of careerist-minded vulnerability and often overdone hurt at the slightest of slights. It's no wonder she sang that song.

And yes, musicians put up with critics but I'd bet no critique moves them so much as a review that is sound critically and praises their particular work for being forward-thinking. No doubt in my mind. Of course, there are some people that want nothing to do with the whole game, but often that impulse comes just as much from the artist believing it's their proper place to assume the prominent critical role through the musical composition itself. Indeed, often the artist thinks it is his or her role to be the critic of him or herself because other people either are too simple, too narrow, or just don't get what they're trying to do. I think of Van Morrison when I think of that attitude.

So yeah, you get a lot of people that don't like critics, but they run the gamut from those who are not praised by critics for a host of valid reasons to those who don't like critics because they think critics are not their proper intellectual peers. There's a lot of that. Doesn't mean it's right. Simply because the artist (or artists) eschews criticism does not impugn the validity of the opinion of a learned critic.

 

[Ghost Rider]

But, is there?

Generally, yes, especially regarding a new advancement, form, or format. When critics and audiences alike are aligned about something new, it's often taking into account the expertise of the critic in addition to the sympathies of the layperson's appreciation of the form. Both sides of the coin are covered. One on hand, you get a careful consideration of the form and all that has come before it, on the other hand, in terms of music, you get whether or not the noise is palatable to the listener. Raw theory won't suffice, it has to sound good, too, for the audience to appreciate it. Nor will simple and redundant songs and lack of innovation be rewarded; that's the critics job.

Taylor Swift has made hand over fist in cash out of careerist-minded vulnerability and often overdone hurt at the slightest of slights. It's no wonder she sang that song.

And yes, musicians put up with critics but I'd bet no critique moves them so much as a review that is sound critically and praises their particular work for being forward-thinking. No doubt in my mind. Of course, there are some people that want nothing to do with the whole game, but often that impulse comes just as much from the artist believing it's their proper place to assume the prominent critical role through the musical composition itself. Indeed, often the artist thinks it is his or her role to be the critic of him or herself because other people either are too simple, too narrow, or just don't get what they're trying to do. I think of Van Morrison when I think of that attitude.

So yeah, you get a lot of people that don't like critics, but they run the gamut from those who are not praised by critics for a host of valid reasons to those who don't like critics because they think critics are not their proper intellectual peers. There's a lot of that. Doesn't mean it's right. Simply because the artist (or artists) eschews criticism does not impugn the validity of the opinion of a learned critic.

Okay, but remember that I said that critical acclaim shouldn't matter, but it obviously does, in the sense that it can make or break artists who are on the brink of making it or not. I suspect most artists realize that a positive review is good for their bottom line, so while I am sure they enjoy the compliments and platitudes a positive review can offer, they know that being a critics darling means you get to jump to the head of the line. Meanwhile, if critics hate you, you are constantly fighting an uphill battle when it comes to acceptance on a broader scale. I will use Rush as an example. They were hated by critics for most of their career. Heck, some even tried to invoke the silliness of them being Satanists back in the day, because critics will go to any lengths to trash a band they hate, especially one that is doing well with fans, but the younger generation of critics have been a lot kinder to them, much of which likely stems from the realization that continue to trash a band that was that successful just makes you look stupid. The masses spoke, and they didn't care what critics thought. Sorry for the tangent, but it's relevant to me in the sense of a band like Styx, who also gets trashed or ignored by critics. They were a highly successful rock band that still has around a dozen songs that get played on classic rock radio (not many can say that), yet they are still not taken seriously by some as an all-time band. Even if you don't like them, to not acknowledge their status is insulting IMO, and people get to do it when using the "critics hated them, so I was right" shield, even if they don't actually say it. I don't like Pearl Jam at all, but I fully acknowledge their status as a classic band.

 

[Ghost Rider]

Also, I am a big fan of Radiohead and U2, both of whom got serviced by critics on a regular basis. I love both bands, but both certainly benefited by the constant genuflection. So, this is not me railing on critics just because they hated some of my favorites. They loved some of my favorites as well.

 

[rockaction]

And the critics hated Led Zeppelin at Rolling Stone, IIRC, too. But are these exceptions disqualifying as a whole? I mean for every Rush and Led Zeppelin, there's a Radiohead or Beatles, music that critics and people alike both love. Just because critics take aim at a particular band at a particular time doesn't disqualify the criticism. It doesn't make the criticism "stupid," the criticism just falls upon the deaf ears of the people who go for it. Calling Rush satanists sounds like an overboard critic or three, but nothing that disqualifies the role of the critic as a sweeping whole.

Look, my first genres of music that I listened to were reviled by critics. Van Halen was the first band I really liked with a passion aside from childhood favorites culled from Top 40 radio. Then I liked hard rock and hair and other metal of the '85-'88 era. In '86 I began to get into punk rock, which was always "the music made by people who couldn't play" to most critics who weren't located in big cities. By '89 I loved thrash, another reviled genre. I know what it's like to think that the people are trumping the critics because something reviled is getting airplay or is hitting consciousness. That doesn't mean I think those critics were stupid in their criticism (in fact, in retrospect a lot of them were right about the machine that kept churning out these ****ty bands), it just means the critics weren't able to capture the ears of the general public's tastes and the public found what they liked through airplay or direct marketing or indirect marketing. And here's something else about criticism and the public. Sometimes the public shapes the critical history of the music itself.

An example of that is your favorite whipping boy, punk. Punk was not a critical darling until recently. It was the artists themselves and their outré ways and self-made zines that came up from the rubble of the overbloated prog era of rock to captivate the public, but the critics hated punk. Most of them did, anyway. But something funny happened with that. The critics of old got replaced through dialectic by the critics of the new. The prisoners were now in charge of the institutions that dispensed criticism, and punk's upheaval of everything became fashionable sometime around Nirvana, actually. That's when the critical war for punk -- in a historical context -- was won. But it wasn't the ossified critical institutions that did it, it was the people who were actually the outsiders of everything that did it until the general public caught up with them. The older critics, save for a few, never got punk. It was the outsiders infiltrating the critical institutions. Rolling Stone for the punks? Who would have ever thought.

So yeah, it's all a tender thing, and the people have their say eventually. Doesn't dismiss the critical role of the artist, the public, and the critics themselves.

 

[Dr. Octopus]

Serious question: Why should what critics think matter?

I don’t think it matters on an individual basis - most people like what they like and won’t be swayed by reviews (although if they respect/align with the critic they may seek something out, they wouldn’t have otherwise).

In this exercise, while Tim’s criteria haven’t ever really been laid out (or I missed them), I know he isn’t making a purely subjective list (that, he’s said before). So if these are some combo of subjective/objective rankings, critical acclaim should be considered, along with popularity or impact. If this was just Tim’s personal rankings - then none of that stuff should matter.

 

[Ghost Rider]

Fair points, @rockaction , but based on everything I have seen and read over the years, punk in the 70s, generally speaking, got rave reviews by critics. Just a quick glance at wiki shows that, "The Ramones' debut album was greeted by rock critics with glowing reviews." And I recall that being the case for others as well. Hell, the Clash were so loved by critics that they were given the "only band that matters" moniker.

And to be fair, I wouldn't say punk is my whipping boy, haha. I am not much of a fan, but I'll take it over certain other popular genres (of which I won't mention, as I do not want to go down that rabbit hole).

My personal feeling is that most gatekeepers of genres give it a bad name. I am a big fan of prog rock in general, although I listen to it far less than I used to, but the attitude of the average prog rocker gets on my nerves, as they act like prog is where it's all at and everything else is garbage. But, that is a topic for another day... See, I get thinking too much.

 

[FairWarning]

Other bands that RS loved - Sonic Youth, Material Issue, The Lemonheads. Punk bands they loved - The Clash, Sex Pistols. Of course it depends on the critics also.

 

[Ghost Rider]

Serious question: Why should what critics think matter?

I don’t think it matters on an individual basis - most people like what they like and won’t be swayed by reviews (although if they respect/align with the critic they may seek something out, they wouldn’t have otherwise).

In this exercise, while Tim’s criteria haven’t ever really been laid out (or I missed them), I know he isn’t making a purely subjective list (that, he’s said before). So if these are some combo of subjective/objective rankings, critical acclaim should be considered, along with popularity or impact. If this was just Tim’s personal rankings - then none of that stuff should matter.

Honestly, given how much Tim loves the media , I was initially stunned that he had Come Sail Away at number 1.

Lists like that are always good to be taken with a grain of salt, and it's all just in good fun. It gets us talking tunes, for which I always down.

 

[Uruk-Hai]

My personal feeling is that most gatekeepers of genres give it a bad name.

And there's the problem. Orthodox rock history has been written primarily by one entity. So much so that, generations later, people take it as a given on what even constitutes "rock and roll". It's hard to breed this contagion out of people and get them to look at things differently. We had it drilled into our heads (in my case) for 50 years on who was "good" or "aithentic" and who wasn't.

Prog got the shaft by Wenner, but their dis was nowhere near as extreme as what Rolling Stone did to black, female, and country artists. They got othered into oblivion. Hell, Wenner hated PAUL freaking MCCARTNEY because Jann was butt-buddies with John Lennon.

Ever hear how the Beatles "saved" rock and roll? You know, Buddy Holly died and everything else in rock did until the Beatles played Ed Sullivan? That's Wenner's doing. It's a garbage take, as anyone with ears can hear. Yet, here we are - 50+ years later and still dealing with it.

Hip-hop replaced white-guys-with-guitars as the language of the world's youth 40 years ago, but you wouldn't know it by those still struggling to keep the flame of "If you didn't play Woodstock or were a Punk, you didn't matter".

 

[HellToupee]

This ended up with some turds

 

[squistion]

This list was just as good as I expected it to be.

Some omissions IMO (not in any particular order and not including the really obscure tunes from that year that I liked)

Odyssey - Native New Yorker
L.T.D. - (Every Time I Turn Around) Back In Love Again
Mink DeVille - Cadillac Walk
Sanford Townsend Band - Smoke From A Distant Fire
Chris Spedding - Hurt By Love
Dave Edmunds - I Knew the Bride (When She Used to RocknRoll)
Eric Clapton - The Core
Cheap Trick - I Want You To Want Me

 

[massraider]

Shame there was no soul, R+B, or funk released this year

 

[FairWarning]

This list was just as good as I expected it to be.

Some omissions IMO (not in any particular order and not including the really obscure tunes from that year that I liked)

Odyssey - Native New Yorker
L.T.D. - (Every Time I Turn Around) Back In Love Again
Mink DeVille - Cadillac Walk
Sanford Townsend Band - Smoke From A Distant Fire
Chris Spedding - Hurt By Love
Dave Edmunds - I Knew the Bride (When She Used to RocknRoll)
Eric Clapton - The Core
Cheap Trick - I Want You To Want Me

STB and Cheap Trick for sure.

The funk was released in 1978, massraider.

 

[zamboni]

This list was just as good as I expected it to be.

Some omissions IMO (not in any particular order and not including the really obscure tunes from that year that I liked)

Odyssey - Native New Yorker
L.T.D. - (Every Time I Turn Around) Back In Love Again
Mink DeVille - Cadillac Walk
Sanford Townsend Band - Smoke From A Distant Fire
Chris Spedding - Hurt By Love
Dave Edmunds - I Knew the Bride (When She Used to RocknRoll)
Eric Clapton - The Core
Cheap Trick - I Want You To Want Me

STB and Cheap Trick for sure.

That version of “I Want You To Want Me” was the studio one, which IMO pales in comparison to the later Budokan version.

 

[Dr. Octopus]

Shame there was no soul, R+B, or funk released this year

Isn’t his #2 song R&B?

 

[squistion]

This list was just as good as I expected it to be.

Some omissions IMO (not in any particular order and not including the really obscure tunes from that year that I liked)

Odyssey - Native New Yorker
L.T.D. - (Every Time I Turn Around) Back In Love Again
Mink DeVille - Cadillac Walk
Sanford Townsend Band - Smoke From A Distant Fire
Chris Spedding - Hurt By Love
Dave Edmunds - I Knew the Bride (When She Used to RocknRoll)
Eric Clapton - The Core
Cheap Trick - I Want You To Want Me

STB and Cheap Trick for sure.

That version of “I Want You To Want Me” was the studio one, which IMO pales in comparison to the later Budokan version.

We will have to agree to disagree as I heard the studio version first, then found the Budokan release disappointing.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

The critics got together and they started a game
You get your records for nothing and you call each other names

 

[squistion]

This list was just as good as I expected it to be.

Some omissions IMO (not in any particular order and not including the really obscure tunes from that year that I liked)

Odyssey - Native New Yorker
L.T.D. - (Every Time I Turn Around) Back In Love Again
Mink DeVille - Cadillac Walk
Sanford Townsend Band - Smoke From A Distant Fire
Chris Spedding - Hurt By Love
Dave Edmunds - I Knew the Bride (When She Used to RocknRoll)
Eric Clapton - The Core
Cheap Trick - I Want You To Want Me

Here are other songs that would make my own personal Top 100 for 1977 but not well enough known that I would expect to find them on Tim's or most other people's list here (and probably most have not even heard these songs).

Cheap Trick - Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace
Eddie Money - Wanna Be A Rock 'n' Roll Star
The Clash - Police and Thieves
Eddie Hazel - California Dreamin'
Maze featuring Frankie Beverly - While I'm Alone
Pousette-Dart Band - Amnesia
Jerry Riopelle - Candy Barr
Frankie Miller - Be Good To Yourself
Steve Gibbons Band - Tulane
Bob Marley & The Wailers - Waiting In Vain
Shine A Light - The Dingoes

 

[John Maddens Lunchbox]

Ive almost got another 100 ready to go. Should be fun