The TAC Classic Rock Radio Listening Party

[wolfking]

Don't know that Pink Floyd or Tesla song.

ACDC I have never ever liked a single thing about them or any of their songs.  Can't stand anything from them.

Ten was a big album for me as a kid.  Getting into the harder style of music, Pearl Jam was an easy commercial choice to start learning.  Classic album and while not one of my favs from the album, classic classic song that has aged amazingly well.

[jingle.boy]

Don't know that Pink Floyd or Tesla song.

Seriously mate... go fix that right now.  I suspect you'll be pleasantly surprised.  If I'd known that, I'd have played it in a roulette for you.

I guess as an Aussie, the AC/DC thing is understandable... even if it's blatantly wrong.   

[wolfking]

You did.  You sent me Edison's Medicine.  It was pretty cool.  After that I managed to get a couple of their albums for a few bucks each, but never really listened to them.

[Lowdz]

You did.  You sent me Edison's Medicine.  It was pretty cool.  After that I managed to get a couple of their albums for a few bucks each, but never really listened to them.

Go listen to the first two right now Kade.

[jingle.boy]

You did.  You sent me Edison's Medicine.  It was pretty cool.  After that I managed to get a couple of their albums for a few bucks each, but never really listened to them.

oh yeah....

Put this IN YOUR PIPE AND SMOKE IT!!!!!!

[King Postwhore]

What a crappy game to see Tim.  I'm sorry.  Boy is this team letting us down.

You got the f'n W. Quit whining.

A win?  The C's had a 28 point lead only to lose by 14. 

Yeah, you Boston sports fans have it rough.

This C's team had high expectations this year and they are a major disappointment.  With the talent they have they shouldn't play this way.

[jingle.boy]

Ahh... missed the "Celtics" mention of Tim's comment.  Thought we were talking Bruins.

Yeah... that Celtics game was a complete fluster-cuck.

[TAC]

Yeah,  Celtics last night blew.

Bruins today.



Kade, you hate money that much? That first Tesla album is great.

[wolfking]

Kade, you hate money that much? That first Tesla album is great.

That haul with Tesla and some other stuff I can't remember was like the final straw of my random cd buying addiction.  I realised I didn't need to buy them, but I will check which albums I got and report back.  And yeah, I do okay for myself so that didn't help my addiction.

[TAC]

So sitting at the Boston Sports Grille a block away from the Garden before last night's Celtics game...

They were blasting some great 70's and 80's tunes. And I mean blasting. Lots of songs that I haven't heard in a long time.

So many songs I could use for this thread, but I'll pick two:

Bon Jovi-You Give Love A Bad Name

Go ahead. Try not to like this song. I dare you!
I liked Bon Jovi well enough. I didn't think they sucked. They were a legit band with real talent. I saw their first tour in 1984 opening for Scorpions. They blew me away. They really did. I bought their debut the next day!

I remember seeing the video to YGLABN. They were posing, for sure. The song was catchy for sure. But there was just an undeniable quality about Bon Jovi. I realize they didn't start the Hair Metal movement. They just made it popular, and opened the floodgates for so many bands.


Led Zeppelin-Whole Lotta Love

So right after the place plays Metallica's One (I considered this song for the thread, but I listen to it all the time. To me, this is about songs that I personally hardly ever listen to, though have impacted me in some way)…anyway, as soon as One ends, The Lovely Mrs TAC turns to me and says "It's not even that the music is bad. It's the screaming that ruins it."
And right on cue, the opening riff to Whole Lotta Love starts, to which I respond, "Speaking of needless screaming".

As an 11 or 12 y/o kid, I was turned onto LZII. Whole Lotta Love made a huge impact. I remember liking it for the most part at first, though it was always about That Solo. Seemed like with every new Zeppelin song I heard, WLL kept getting pushed down in my rankings. Honestly, as an adult, I find the song obnoxious. I really do. Even The Lovely Mrs TAC said" for a 5 minute song, it's 4 1/2 minutes too long." When I was a kid, I found the song intriguing, even if I never loved it.

[King Postwhore]

Two classics that I never play anymore but hearing like you did Tim, I'd be singing and air guitaring in public. 

[TAC]

Two classics that I never play anymore but hearing like you did Tim, I'd be singing and air guitaring in public.

Joe, you ever been there? It's next door to the Boston Beerworks on Canal St.

[wolfking]

Fuck I hate LZ.

Never liked Bon jovi either but only know their hits.  Will check out the early albums one day.

[King Postwhore]

But of course Tim.

[TAC]

Yeah, I figured.

I got the BBQ fried chicken sandwich on sourdough. It was amazing!

Tons of great tunes. But it was loud as hell. I was air drumming and banging the table. My family was ready to move away from me!

[KevShmev]

Whole Lotta Love is one of those great songs I can hear a thousand times and always enjoy. 

[TAC]

I feel like the older I've gotten, the less I enjoy it.

[KevShmev]

If I turn on LZ now, it is almost always the lesser known songs, but II is the one album of theirs I will still crank up from start to finish.

[ytserush]

Never owned a Bon Jovi record in my life. Not going to start now.

Rock N' Roll and Black Dog are probably the two Zep songs I never need to hear again.

That reminds me I haven't been on a Zep kick in I don't know how long. Should probably do something about that.

[Cool Chris]

Only really liked Bon Jovi's hits, and that was probably my favorite of theirs.

Was a big LZ fan in my classic rock heyday (early 90s). But... <flame suit on> I always thought II was overrated. IV was in my top 3 albums (until I was introduced to DT and this weird new prog/metal genre), and I got a lot more airplay out of HotH and PS.

[Kwyjibo]

That Bon Jovi tune is a good catchy rock song. They sure had some talent and up to Keep The Faith they were a really good band.

I love Led Zeppelin, but I never loved Whole Lotta Love. I can understand the impact at the time it was released and the riff is kinda cool, but I agree with TAC, the song is too long. When I was younger, I totally hatedn the atmospheric middle part, now I came to tolerate it, but it's still too long, imo. But the guitar solo ist stellar. 

[Stadler]

I love Zeppelin; i mean REALLY love Zeppelin. They have like, maybe four bad songs in the entire catalogue, and damn well two maybe three records that are, basically, perfect (IV, Physical and MAYBE, if I'm tolerant of Fool In The Rain, Out Door) and maybe three or four that are but a song off from that (I, II, Houses at least).

WLL is definitely a lower tier song for me, even at the best of times.  I'm not a blues guy, so some of that ("Womun!  YEWWWWWW need it....LuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH") I can do without.

Oddly, I saw that tour in '84 and was REALLY impressed with Bon Jovi live; they KILLED it.   But I never really got into the studio stuff much, and I can't really tell you why.  Maybe because there were just more distinctive singers and guitar players out there.   I mean, I hear five notes from Randy or Ozzy or Blackmore or Dickinson and I know exactly who it is.  I'm not sure I can do that with Richie Sambora.   

[KevShmev]

Tolerant of Fool in the Rain?  Jeez, that is only the best song on the record.

[Stadler]

Tolerant of Fool in the Rain?  Jeez, that is only the best song on the record.

True, after I'm Gonna Crawl, In The Evening, Carouselambra, South Bound Suarez, and All Of My Love.  (I haven't forgotten Hot Dog, but I might give you that one). 

[King Postwhore]

The one thing I always think of when listening to Led Zep is the variety of styles of music they could do.  That was the 70's.  Today's band seem limited in the styles and sound they can play around with.  Zep could do blues, rock, country,reggae, prog.  Only a handful of bands are this adventurous as it was in the 70's.

[bosk1]

Wow, great collection of songs.  (I can't believe I just wrote that in response to something TAC posted)  4 for 4.  My takes:

-Back in Black:  I never bought and AC/DC album.  And I never will.  But as Kev said, this is a song I can never get tired of hearing.

-Hey You:  I am a pretty casual Floyd fan.  I have a small number of albums, as I've posted elsewhere, and that collection does not include The Wall (which I have always intended to remedy some day, but it has just somehow never been a high enough priority to pull the trigger).  But what a great song.  It is simultaneously mellow and intense, which is a feat on its own.

-Jeremy:  I got into Mother Love Bone pretty hard in 1990, so when Ten dropped, I was one of the few people who even knew about Pearl Jam.  Of course, that changed within a few months as they became radio and MTV darlings.  Jeremy was one of those songs that struck me right away as something special.  I've long since fallen out of love with this band, but Jeremy is one of those songs that I hear and still respect as a great artistic statement.

-Modern Day Cowboy:  I remember this song being all over MTV.  I liked it a LOT, but still hadn't gotten the album by the time I saw them open for Def Leppard on the Hysteria tour a few months later.  After seeing them live, I was hooked.  This is perhaps THE definitive Tesla song.  It just rocks from start to finish in flawless form.

[Anguyen92]

The one thing I always think of when listening to Led Zep is the variety of styles of music they could do.  That was the 70's.  Today's band seem limited in the styles and sound they can play around with.  Zep could do blues, rock, country,reggae, prog.  Only a handful of bands are this adventurous as it was in the 70's.

I don't think it is matter of them being limited of what they can do as it is whether they either want to do that style or the public response to that style change.  Also it may come down to their fans, record labels, promoters, etc. willing to embrace that switch-up in styles and have the fans not call them sellouts, etc.

I mean imagine the reaction some people may give to DT if they incorporate reggae or country in their music.  It may be even worse than the responses regarding The Astonishing.

[KevShmev]

Tolerant of Fool in the Rain?  Jeez, that is only the best song on the record.

True, after I'm Gonna Crawl, In The Evening, Carouselambra, South Bound Suarez, and All Of My Love.  (I haven't forgotten Hot Dog, but I might give you that one).

Hot Dog gets a bad rap, but it's a fun little tune, even if it is a bit of an odd duck for LZ.

[pg1067]

AC/DC-Back In Black

. . .

Pearl Jam-Jeremy

. . .

Pink Floyd-Hey You

. . .

Tesla-Modern Day Cowboy

. . .

Taking these out of order

The Wall came out when I was in 7th grade.  I was not yet a fan of popular music, so I didn't know anything about it, but "We don't need no education. . ." was all over my school.  After I got into popular music, I bought a 45 of whichever the most well known part of ABITW is.  But that's it.  Don't like Floyd at all, but that song was a part of my very early popular/rock music education.

Pearl Jam's Ten came out during a very transitional phase both in the music world and for me personally.  Obviously, metal was trending down and grunge was bursting onto the scene.  The earliest grunge I heard wasn't labelled as such, and the songs from Ten were generally considered to be metal, although there was obviously something different about them.  I dig "Jeremy" and some of the other songs on Ten.  It's the only PJ album I ever bought.  For me personally, my long-time band broke up in late 1991 because our drummer and his wife moved out of the area, and the guitarist and I didn't have the energy to go through yet another drummer search.  Not a good time for me at all.

I was introduced to AC/DC by "For Those About to Rock."  MTV played a video that I guess was made with live footage over the studio version of the song.  The guitar intro drew me in instantly, and the pyro and cannons impressed 14 year old me.  I wasn't a huge fan of the vocals, though.  I don't remember when I first heard "Back in Black," but I know that it was at a time when I still thought Brian Johnson was a terrible singer.  Eventually, his voice grew on me, and both of these songs are all-time classics -- I much prefer FTATB, though.  When I first learned to play bass, my instructor had me start with "Back in Black," so it holds a small special place in my heart for that reason.

I generally don't think much of Tesla, but "Modern Day Cowboy" kicks ass, and it's one of those songs that I tend to forget about until someone randomly brings it up, and I say, "oh yea...that's a really good song."  I always felt like it got somewhat overlooked because of the "other cowboy song":  Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive."

Bon Jovi-You Give Love A Bad Name

. . .

Led Zeppelin-Whole Lotta Love

. . .

I HATED "You Give Love a Bad Name" when it came out, but now I dig it, although I don't go out of my way to listen to it.  Just a fun song.

In 6th and 7th grade (1978-80), kids were putting "Led Zeppelin" on their Pee-Chees and otherwise decorating them with music stuff.  I wasn't yet into popular music, but I wanted to be "cool."  Unfortunately, I didn't know that "Zeppelin" had two "p's," so my plan backfired big-time.  I didn't really start getting into LZ until the mid-80s.  I worked at a Baskin-Robbins in a local mall, and the manager was a big fan of 70s rock.  I went through one of those phases where I went back and bought all of the old albums.  I even read the (since discredited) biography Hammer of the Gods.  "Whole Lotta Love" was awesome...at first.  Eventually, the middle section got excruciatingly boring.  So many better LZ songs out there.

Tolerant of Fool in the Rain?  Jeez, that is only the best song on the record.

True, after I'm Gonna Crawl, In The Evening, Carouselambra, South Bound Suarez, and All Of My Love.  (I haven't forgotten Hot Dog, but I might give you that one). 

Ugh..."I'm Gonna Crawl" is awful.  "Fool in the Rain" is really good.

[Samsara]

Cool thread my man.

AC DC - BiB - I don't like AC/DC. There, I said it. Sure, I dig them well enough on the radio once in awhile. But generally speaking, I've never gotten the fanatical devotion to this band. Just like KISS - I don't get it.

Pearl Jam - Jeremy. When did this drop? 1991? I was in 10th grade, I think. I dug it. A lot. It was funny, because even then, I didn't do this whole "grunge" drama thing. If it rocked, I liked it. Jeremy rocked, it was good, and I picked up Ten and still love that record to this day.

Pink Floyd - Hey You. I don't remember the first time I heard this song. But i liked it. It was on the radio, it was catchy, etc. I became a bigger fan of classic Pink Floyd (what I consider to be Meddle through The Wall) about 10 years ago, when I was on a kick to discover the influences of MY favorite band of all time (the original lineup of Queensryche). Still love "Hey You" to this day.

Tesla - Modern Day Cowboy. This song kicks all sorts of ass, and always has. I still listen to it a handful of times per year. I knew of Tesla around the time of The Great Radio Controversy, but I didn't become a Tesla fan until about 1999. Blew me away. Still wish they did, but sadly, I think member changes, weaker songs, and age have taken this band from me.

Bon Jovi - You GIve Love a Bad Name. Man, takes me back. Fifth Grade. I remember hearing nasty stories about Jon Bon Jovi that he drank buckets of semen during concerts. I have no idea WTF was up with that, I remember being revolted, and not quite sure at age 10 WTF that was anyway. But the story about it - shit, I remember that.  But the album, I had to have, and I did. I remember getting it from Pathmark (a supermarket on Long Island) on cassette, and having my mom ask the clerk to open the locked cabinet so I could get it.

That whole record is incredible. Sure, some of it sounds dated to the 80s thanks to David Bryan's keyboards, but much like Thin Lizzy, Jon Bon Jovi can tell a great story with song, and I still listen to Slippery When Wet a few times a year.

Led Zeppelin - II -- Whole Lotta Love. Classic tune. Much like Floyd, I became a Zepp fan a little later during a period of time that I was researching influences. I haven't listened to this particular song or the record, in quite a bit, but I love it.

[Ruba]

You Give Love a Bad Name is a fine track indeed, even though I'm not into Bon Jovi. They have some other singles I like (Runaway, Wanted Dead or Alive), but generally they're too much hair metal for me.

I was air drumming and banging the table. My family was ready to move away from me!

 

Also, I am sorry for off-topicy drunkposting the other night. But on the other hand, I had never heard Modern Day Cowboy before, which definitely was a shame. Great tune!

[KevShmev]

I'd just like to point out how strange it is for songs from the mid to late 80's to now be referred to as classic rock. 

[bosk1]

  I saw REO, Styx, and Journey in 2002 or 2003, and Tommy Shaw said something along the lines of, "So we're 'classic rock' now. I feel old!"

[Samsara]

  I saw REO, Styx, and Journey in 2002 or 2003, and Tommy Shaw said something along the lines of, "So we're 'classic rock' now. I feel old!"

Dude, Alice in Chains is now playing on classic rock stations. What. The. Hell. (Have I?) 

[Lowdz]

Zeppelin... no. Just no. That voice 🙉😫

Bon Jovi - great song. A big part of making hair metal such a big thing. And it’s nowhere near my favourite song on the album 😀