Classic Rock Song of the Day (Deep Cuts now being featured!!)

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

The other thing I love about VH1 is that it starts off with a very straightforward, low-frills rock song.  Yes, great tone and delivery, but the song itself is one of the single easiest songs any band could ever attempt to learn.

Now imagine in 1978, you get this album and that's the first thing you hear - you're probably thinking "Well, that was cool, but nothing here is really grabbing my attention, I hope the whole album isn't like this."

Then Eruption comes on and your mind is repeatedly blown on every song for the remainder of the freakin' album.    What a ride!

[Orbert]

Yeah, to me, "Eruption" does break the flow of the album, but that's pretty much the point.  Van Halen's debut album was groundbreaking in many respects, and "Eruption" was part of the whole thing.  Stop for a minute and bow down to the new (for now) master of the guitar.  I'm fine with that.

But I'm not fine with calling it "VH1".  That always makes me think of the TV channel.

[KevShmev]

This EVH discussion provides a nice segue way into the next back-to-back, which I already had planned to do next, before this convo even started, I swear . 

Led Zeppelin - Heartbreaker / Living Loving Maid (She's Just a Woman)

I cannot imagine one of these songs without the other, which is crazy considering they were not intended to be played together like that, and the band never actually played the latter song live (cause Jimmy Page hated it).  While Heartbreaker is definitely the better of the two songs, Living Loving Maid is a good, fun tune.  But that riff in Heartbreaker is one of the most bad ass in the entire Zeppelin catalogue, and the solo is a beast (despite being a bit messy at times, which is part of its charm).

[JayOctavarium]

The solo in Heartbreaker is sooooooo sloppy it almost kills it for me. But I otherwise love it/them

[Bolsters]

Probably a somewhat controversial opinion, but even at the height of my Led Zeppelin fandom: I never liked Living Loving Maid.

Heartbreaker on the other hand, liked it a lot. But I'm with jay regarding the solo. Page would really push the upper limits of his playing ability on record and live and would come off as sloppy quite often as a result. It was always something I always wished he wouldn't do, I would have preferred he just stayed in his comfort zone and played well, if only on the albums.

[Orbert]

I like both songs.  Both have a great, catchy hook.  Yeah, "Living Loving Maid (She's Just a Woman)" is kinda silly, but I like that hook riff as well.  Jimmy had a knack for coming up with melodic licks that held their own like that.  And structurally, it's very clever.  Robert sings a line, then we get the riff, then the title phrase.  For the break, it's just the riff and the phrase, and for final verse, it's the line without the riff, then the phrase. 

[masterthes]

i love the solo on Heartbreaker

[Sycsa]

Quick question, what song is this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLbIeNR8Rwg

Just heard it on the MP Constant Motion DVD and I can't recall its title. There's a pretty interesting drum solo where he invites up a bunch of other drummers to jam to Van Halen, Slayer and Rush among others.

[BlobVanDam]

It's Iron Maiden - Run to the Hills

[Sycsa]

Much obliged

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

My old band used to play Living Loving Maid, sans Heartbreaker.  I know Heartbreaker is the more beloved tune in the Zep catalog, but I'm just not as big a fan.  Living Loving Maid's riff is just excellent and a much more fun song to do.

[Jaq]

Funny thing about this song is it's a moving target who hated it; I first heard it was Plant that didn't like it, but then it settled into being Page, but honestly, given the setlists for the tours they did, there never really was a place for it to fit in. It's a bit of an odd duck in the Zep catalog, an uptempo happy, fairly simple song. Which is kind of odd because lord knows the band was conversant with pop music-the medleys that dotted their early days certainly proved that-but the band rarely leaned on pop as an influence.

Heartbreaker in the studio is sloppy, but oh goodness could it turn into a train wreck live, especially as the years went by.

[Orbert]

My old band used to play Living Loving Maid, sans Heartbreaker.  I know Heartbreaker is the more beloved tune in the Zep catalog, but I'm just not as big a fan.  Living Loving Maid's riff is just excellent and a much more fun song to do.

See, that's what I'm talkin' about. 

[KevShmev]

Jimmy Page's hatred of that song is just more proof that musicians' opinions of their own songs should usually be ignored.

[jingle.boy]

I always thought they were a great counter-balance to each other... the hard edged Heartbreaker, with the hot-mess of a guitar solo and ripper riffs; then the smooth, simple, and melodic tone and feel of LLM.

And as much of a mess that the HB solo is, there are many solo's over the years that were inspired by it.  Triumph's Rock'n'Roll Machine comes to mind.  Page even ripped himself off with Absolution Blues (but that's more the riff than the solo).

[Orbert]

I saw a band years ago that played "Heartbreaker" by Led Zeppelin, then "Heartbreaker" by Pat Benatar, then "Living Loving Maid".  It kinda worked because the clean stop at the end of Zeppelin's "Heartbreaker" and the opening riff of Benatar's "Heartbreaker" worked, and you thought maybe it was cool that they played another song with the same title.  Then they kicked straight into "Living Loving Maid" and you thought okay, that's probably not as clever as they thought it was when they came up with it.

What they should've done is gone into "Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)" by the Rolling Stones for the triple play. 

[Bolsters]

Mostly related: Has there ever been a Led Zeppelin survivor?

[KevShmev]

I attempted once once a few years ago, but, for whatever reason, there wasn't a lot of interest in it - only five or six voters per round, and I don't believe a survivor is worth doing if you are only getting a single digit number of voters per round - so I abandoned it.

[Bolsters]

Ah, that's a shame.

[KevShmev]

ZZ Top - Waitin' for the Bus / Jesus Just Left Chicago

Two really good tunes.  Of the two, I probably prefer the latter, but I never listen to one without the other, and they have always been played together on rock radio, and since both are relatively short, they are easy to get through (about 6:24 combined).  The guitar playing of Billy Gibbons is in top form here.

[Orbert]

Older ZZ Top is still the best.  Yeah, they had a bunch of 80's hits with cool videos with the three babes and the Eliminator car, but give me the bluesy, Texas-style rock of the original six pack.

Two good tunes here, good for a quick ZZ Top fix.  For the longest time, I had no idea what the titles were.  I just figured the first one was "Have Mercy" (I can't be the only one who thought this) and didn't even realize that they were two separate songs, even though the break between them is pretty obvious once you know.

[KevShmev]

I'm not surprised that there wasn't much chatter for that duo.

Journey - Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin' / City of the Angels

Another duo that was never planned on being played together, but album rock radio just ended up doing it that way.  But Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin' was a big hit for Journey, while the other remained an unknown on the charts.  The former is definitely the much better song, while the latter has that cool chorus, but is otherwise not that interesting of a song.  It's not a bad song, but Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin' is just that much better.

[BlobVanDam]

What is it with American radio playing two album tracks together? Seems to be a lot of 'em here! I've never heard any of these songs played together here. (in the case of Journey I've never heard it on the radio at all)

Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin' is a good track. It has that nice swung groove to it, and builds up to the big outro chorus. One of the better tracks off the album.

City of the Angels just creeps me out. The harmonies, the chord progressions, don't like any of it. It's just off.

[Orbert]

The first Journey twofer, "Feeling That Way" / "Anytime", was glorious.  The songs were both great and the way they went together sounded very organic, like they planned it that way.  Which they probably did, after realizing that they could, with a little playing around with the arrangement.

Then they went and did it again, and it really seemed forced.  I literally laughed, out loud, when I heard it.  It was so obvious that they simply did it again because it was so cool the first time.  Sometimes, actually most of the time, it's better to just bask in the glory of how awesome the first time was.  Don't try to do it again, because it will not be as good.  And even if it is as good, that's still not enough, because if you do it again, it has to be better.  And this isn't better.

"Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'" is alright, but I'm not a big fan of slow shuffles.  They tend to sound like they're dragging, even if they're not.  And "City of the Angels" is just awkward.  But for the above mentioned reasons, I can't really judge these songs fairly.

[Jaq]

ZZ Top - Waitin' for the Bus / Jesus Just Left Chicago

Two really good tunes.  Of the two, I probably prefer the latter, but I never listen to one without the other, and they have always been played together on rock radio, and since both are relatively short, they are easy to get through (about 6:24 combined).  The guitar playing of Billy Gibbons is in top form here.

These two songs being played together was a happy accident. The miniscule gap between the songs is the result of an engineer cutting some blank tape during the sequencing of the album and cutting too much, resulting in the two songs basically running together. One of those things that just doesn't happen in this day and age, and it doesn't hurt that despite being written separately and considered separate songs, they work so well together that it feels like the universe decided to take a hand and stick them together.

Yeah, I still feel like ass or I'd have brought that story out earlier. 

I'm not surprised that there wasn't much chatter for that duo.

Journey - Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin' / City of the Angels

Another duo that was never planned on being played together, but album rock radio just ended up doing it that way.  But Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin' was a big hit for Journey, while the other remained an unknown on the charts.  The former is definitely the much better song, while the latter has that cool chorus, but is otherwise not that interesting of a song.  It's not a bad song, but Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin' is just that much better.

I have never heard these two songs be played together on the radio. 

[KevShmev]

What is it with American radio playing two album tracks together?

It was obviously a 70s thing.  Given that a lot of longer songs (meaning, songs in the 7-10 minute range) were played on rock radio back then on a regular basis, I am guessing deejays, who had more control back then over what was played, picked some back-to-backs so they had more time for bathroom breaks and whatnot.

And, as usual, good stuff here by Jaq and Orbert.

[Orbert]

FM radio in the United States, especially Rock and Roll FM radio, really came into its own in the 1970s, and the relationship between FM radio and the maturing of Rock and Rock was symbiotic.  You had better quality sound, which was important when the whole point of a lot of 70's music was to actually listen to it, not just dance to the groovy beat or put it on in the background at parties.  Artists and labels would take more chances on album-oriented rock, because they knew that there were radio stations out there which didn't just play the Top 40 hits, but dug into the album tracks.  Both sides benefitted.

So people got used to hearing certain songs back-to-back because they actually listened to albums, not just singles.  Hearing Led Zeppelin's "Heartbreaker" without "Loving Loving Maid" just seems wrong.  Whether the songs were "meant" to go together or not, it was cool to do it.  I think a lot of twofers came about that way.  Maybe it is just an American thing.

[masterthes]

I imagine if you were going to do something with Journey, it would have been Feeling That Way/Anytime (which is awesome by the way). I've never heard this other combination together. come to think of it, I have never heard City of Angels either

[KevShmev]

Feeling That Way / Anytime was already featured in this thread.  I didn't have the idea for doing a back-to-back week until recently, otherwise I probably would have saved that twofer for this week.

Great POV there, Orbert.  Hard to argue with any of that!

[Orbert]

*takes a bow*

I heard the other, lesser Journey twofer on the radio a lot right after Evolution came out and Journey was still really hot off of Infinity, which was their breakthrough around here.  Then it stopped because people realized that "City of the Angels" kinda sucked.

[KevShmev]

I'm not a big Journey fan at all, but while it was cool to have two different lead singers there for a few albums, with both Perry and Rolie, there is no denying that Cain replacing Rolie in the early 80s was key to their mainstream success.

[Orbert]

I won't deny it, but I don't have to like it.  I loved Gregg Rolie's voice, and the contrast between the two singers was great.  I stopped following Journey after Evolution because it seemed liked Steve Perry was singing all their songs with his whiney, wailing voice.  Then my monthly issue of Keyboard magazine came, and it featured "Jonathan Cain of Journey".  Apparently he'd left The Babys and Rolie had left Journey.  I never found any official (or unofficial) statement, but if I had to guess, I'd say that Rolie quit, disgusted that he'd been edged out of the band he had helped create, but I suppose it's possible that they fired him to get Cain.

[Jaq]

Rollie recommended Cain as his replacement, if memory serves. While I have no doubt he didn't like the change of direction, the split seemed to be amicable as I recall it.

[Orbert]

Interesting.  The one possibility I hadn't considered.

[KevShmev]

Time to end back-to-back week with...

Pink Floyd - Brain Damage / Eclipse

Now, these are two songs which cannot be isolated and played on their own, otherwise neither would sound right.  In fact, I remember being shocked that they were considered two separate songs.  When I got into Dark Side of the Moon, I just listened to it from start to finish repeatedly, without giving a lot of thought into what track started where, so it never occurred to me that Brain Damage and Eclipse weren't one single track.  But anywaaaaaaaay, these songs are obviously nothing short of magnificent, musically and lyrically, as they come from what I consider the best rock album ever.  Pretty much all-around.