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Best of the
Blockbusters, Part One: Setting the Stage
I think it's time to take on the third in our series of periodic music geek essays,
structured head-to-head style, following in the footsteps of The Worst Rock Band Ever
and Rock's Greatest
Secret Band.
I'm calling this one "Best of the Blockbusters," and here's the
premise: at the time of this article, there are 99 albums, ever, that have
been certified by the RIAA as having moved 10 million units or more. These 99
albums are, from a sales standpoint, the most successful records ever
released. Some of them are good records. Some of them are not. So of the 99
records most likely to be found in an average music listener's collection,
which one of them is the best? What record is . . . the Best of the
Blockbusters?
As has been the case with prior music geek essays here, each round will
feature a head-to-head competition between two records (once we get past the
preliminary stage, that is, which is designed to get us to 64 records, more
on that below), until we get to the final four, at which point a winner will
be selected via round robin of the four surviving records. After each round,
surviving records will be re-sorted from top to bottom, on basis of sales,
and the highest surviving record will go head-to-head against the lowest
surviving record, again, based on sales, not quality.
As always, this essay comes with the following three caveats . . .
1. Readers, please note well that I don't hate you if I end up eliminating
your favorite record(s), I don't think you're stupid if you like record(s)
that get eliminated, and I'm not insulting you if you if I insult your
favorite record(s). I'm insulting the record(s) themselves. There's a
difference. I welcome e-mail feedback of all varieties, except this format:
"Dude . . . [your favorite record(s) name here] rocks . . . and you
suck!"
2. Yes, of course this is all subjective. All music criticism is subjective.
If there was an objective standard for judging music, then we wouldn't need
music critics, and we wouldn't need record labels, and we wouldn't need press
flacks: corporations would just put out a very small number of records that
met the objective standard for "good music" and everyone would buy
and listen to the same small number of things. It's subjectivity, both in
terms of artists' aspirations and talents and critical and commercial
response to them, that makes music exciting. You can't have a happy train
wreck or an inspired mistake in a world ruled by objectivity.
3. Yes, of course this is just my opinion. But, ultimately, it's me that's
making the call. But, then, ultimately this is my blog, innit? Why would I
fill my blog with somebody else's opinion? If you want to know what Kurt
Loder or Dave Marsh or Greil Marcus think about these records, go read their
blogs.
Okay . . . those formalities out of the way, let's get through the
preliminary rounds and set our first 32 competitions between 64 records.
What's that I say? 64 records? Didn't I say there were 99 records that
qualified? Yes, I did. In order to weed that list down to 64, I'm talking a
World Cup approach. Records 1-48 (i.e. the 48 highest selling records of all
time) automatically move into the competition bracket. Records 49-99 are
clustered into qualifying groups, which I run through a simple round robin
review to carry only the strongest contender from each group into the final
field of 64. I'm not going to spend a lot of time explaining my
justifications for the qualifying rounds, although when you look at them, I'm
thinking that the reasoning will (most of the time) be pretty obvious, from a
critical standpoint.
Each of the record listings in the following groups (forgive the all caps
thing; that's how they appear on the RIAA website and I don't want to retype
all of the information when I can cut and paste it instead) are in the
following format:
Sales Rank, Number of Units Moved (in millions), Record Title, Artist, Label
Here's how each qualifying round works: each record in a group (of three or,
near the bottom, four records) is compared to the others in the group. The
better record gets two points, the worse record gets zero points. In the case
of a tie, they both get one point. The record with the most points in the
group moves on to the field of 64.
Here's how I parse numbers 49-99 . . .
QUALIFIER GROUP A
49, 12, FORREST GUMP, SOUNDTRACK, EPIC
50, 12, THE WOMAN IN ME, TWAIN, SHANIA, MERCURY NASHVILLE
51, 11, SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND, BEATLES, THE, CAPITOL
Shania (2) beats Gump (0)
Beatles (2) beat Gump (0)
Beatles (2) beat Shania (0)
Totals: Beatles (4), Shania (2), Gump (0)
Group Winner: 51, 11, SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND, BEATLES,
THE, CAPITOL
QUALIFIER GROUP B
52, 11, HUMAN CLAY, CREED, WIND-UP RECORDS
53, 11, FALLING INTO YOU, DION, CELINE, 550 MUSIC
54, 11, EAGLES GREATEST HITS VOLUME II, EAGLES, ASYLUM
Creed (1) ties Dion (1)
Eagles (2) beat Creed (0)
Eagles (2) beat Dion (0)
Totals: Eagles (4), Dion (1), Creed (1)
Group Winner: 54, 11, EAGLES GREATEST HITS VOLUME II, EAGLES, ASYLUM
QUALIFIER GROUP C
55, 11, PIECES OF YOU, JEWEL, ATLANTIC
56, 11, DEVIL WITHOUT A CAUSE, KID ROCK, LAVA
57, 11, HOUSES OF THE HOLY, LED ZEPPELIN, ATLANTIC
Kid Rock (2) beats Jewel (0)
Zeppelin (2) beats Jewel (0)
Zeppelin (2) beats Kid Rock (0)
Totals: Zeppelin (4), Kid Rock (2), Jewel (0)
Group Winner: 57, 11, HOUSES OF THE HOLY, LED ZEPPELIN, ATLANTIC
QUALIFIER GROUP D
58, 11, NO STRINGS ATTACHED, 'N SYNC, JIVE
59, 11, TITANIC, SOUNDTRACK, SONY CLASSICAL
60, 11, CRAZYSEXYCOOL, TLC, LAFACE
N'Sync (1) ties Titanic (1)
TLC (2) beats N'Sync (0)
TLC (2) beats Titanic (0)
Totals: TLC (4), N'Sync (1), Titanic (1)
Group Winner: 60, 11, CRAZYSEXYCOOL, TLC, LAFACE
QUALIFIER GROUP E
61, 11, JAMES TAYLOR'S GREATEST HITS, TAYLOR, JAMES, WARNER BROS.
62, 11, DIRTY DANCING, SOUNDTRACK, RCA
63, 11, UP!, TWAIN, SHANIA, MERCURY NASHVILLE
James (2) beats Dirty Dancing (0)
Shania (2) beats Dirty Dancing (0)
James (2) beats Shania (0)
Totals: James (4), Shania (2), Dirty Dancing (0)
Group Winner: 61, 11, JAMES TAYLOR'S GREATEST HITS, TAYLOR, JAMES, WARNER
BROS.
QUALIFIER GROUP F
64, 10, AEROSMITH'S GREATEST HITS, AEROSMITH, COLUMBIA
65, 10, DAYDREAM, CAREY, MARIAH, COLUMBIA
66, 10, THE HITS, BROOKS, GARTH, LIBERTY
Aerosmith (2) beats Mariah (0)
Aerosmith (2) beats Garth (0)
Garth (1) ties Mariah (1)
Totals: Aerosmith (4), Garth (1), Mariah (1)
Group Winner: 64, 10, AEROSMITH'S GREATEST HITS, AEROSMITH, COLUMBIA
QUALIFIER GROUP G
67, 10, 1, BEATLES, THE, CAPITOL
68, 10, MUSIC BOX, CAREY, MARIAH, COLUMBIA
69, 10, UNPLUGGED, CLAPTON, ERIC, REPRISE
Beatles (2) beat Mariah (0)
Beatles (2) beat Clapton (0)
Clapton (2) beats Mariah (0)
Totals: Beatles (4), Clapton (2), Mariah (0)
Group Winner: 67, 10, 1, BEATLES, THE, CAPITOL
QUALIFIER GROUP H
70, 10, PYROMANIA, DEF LEPPARD, MERCURY
71, 10, LET'S TALK ABOUT LOVE, DION, CELINE, 550 MUSIC/EPIC
72, 10, FLY, DIXIE CHICKS, MONUMENT
Leppard (2) beats Celine (0)
Leppard (2) beats Dixie Chicks (0)
Dixie Chicks (2) beat Celine (0)
Totals: Leppard (4), Dixie Chicks (2), Celine (0)
Group Winner: 70, 10, PYROMANIA, DEF LEPPARD, MERCURY
QUALIFIER GROUP I
73, 10, BEST OF THE DOOBIES, DOOBIE BROTHERS, WARNER BROS.
74, 10, LEGEND, MARLEY, BOB & THE WAILERS, ISLAND
75, 10, PLEASE HAMMER DON'T HURT 'EM, HAMMER, CAPITOL
Marley (2) beats Doobies (0)
Doobies (2) beat Hammer (0)
Marley (2) beats Hammer (0)
Totals: Marley (4), Doobies (2), Hammer (0)
Group Winner: 74, 10, LEGEND, MARLEY, BOB & THE WAILERS, ISLAND
QUALIFIER GROUP J
76, 10, VAN HALEN, VAN HALEN, WARNER BROS.
77, 10, COME AWAY WITH ME, JONES, NORAH, BLUE NOTE
78, 10, GREATEST HITS, JOURNEY, COLUMBIA
Van Halen (2) beats Jones (0)
Journey (1) ties Jones (1)
Van Halen (2) beats Journey (0)
Totals: Van Halen (4), Journey (1), Jones (1)
Group Winner: 76, 10, VAN HALEN, VAN HALEN, WARNER BROS.
QUALIFIER GROUP K
79, 10, TAPESTRY, KING, CAROLE, ODE
80, 10, LED ZEPPELIN, LED ZEPPELIN, ATLANTIC
81, 10, HYBRID THEORY, LINKIN PARK, WARNER BROS.
Zeppelin (2) beats King (0)
King (2) beats Linkin Park (0)
Zeppelin (2) beats Linkin Park (0)
Totals: Led Zeppelin (4), Carole King (2), Linkin Park (0)
Group Winner: 80, 10, LED ZEPPELIN, LED ZEPPELIN, ATLANTIC
QUALIFIER GROUP L
82, 10, THE IMMACULATE COLLECTION, MADONNA, SIRE
83, 10, 'N SYNC, 'N SYNC, RCA
84, 10, GREATEST HITS, PETTY, TOM & THE HEARTBREAKERS, MCA
Madonna (2) beats 'N Sync (0)
Petty (2) beats 'N Sync (0)
Petty (2) beats Madonna (0)
Totals: Petty (4), Madonna (2), 'N Sync (0)
Group Winner: 84, 10, GREATEST HITS, PETTY, TOM & THE
HEARTBREAKERS, MCA
QUALIFIER GROUP M
85, 10, FAITH, MICHAEL, GEORGE, COLUMBIA
86, 10, LIKE A VIRGIN, MADONNA, SIRE
87, 10, NEVERMIND, NIRVANA, DGC
Madonna (1) ties Michael (1)
Nirvana (2) beats Madonna (0)
Nirvana (2) beats Michael (0)
Totals: Nirvana (4), Madonna (1), Michael (1)
Group Winner: 87, 10, NEVERMIND, NIRVANA, DGC
QUALIFIER GROUP N
88, 10, TRAGIC KINGDOM, NO DOUBT, TRAUMA/INTERSCOPE
89, 10, LIFE AFTER DEATH, NOTORIOUS B.I.G., BAD BOY/ARISTA
90, 10, SPEAKERBOXXX / THE LOVE BELOW, OUTKAST, SO SO DEF
91, 10, DOOKIE, GREEN DAY, REPRISE
BIG (2) beats No Doubt (0)
Outkast (2) beats No Doubt (0)
Green Day (2) beats No Doubt (0)
Outkast (2) beats BIG (0)
BIG (2) beats Green Day (0)
Outkast (2) beats Green Day (0)
Totals: Outkast (6), BIG (4), Green Day (2), No Doubt (0)
Group Winner: 90, 10, SPEAKERBOXXX / THE LOVE BELOW, OUTKAST, SO SO
DEF
QUALIFIER GROUP O
92, 10, CAN'T SLOW DOWN, RICHIE, LIONEL, MOTOWN
93, 10, THE LION KING, SOUNDTRACK, DISNEYLAND
94, 10, OOPS!...I DID IT AGAIN, SPEARS, BRITNEY, JIVE
95, 10, THE JOSHUA TREE, U2, ISLAND
Ritchie (1) ties Lion (1)
Richie (1) ties Britney (1)
U2 (2) Beats Ritchie (0)
Lion (1) ties Britney (1)
U2 (2) beats Lion (0)
U2 (2) beats Britney (0)
Totals: U2 (6), Ritchie (2), Lion (2), Britney (2)
Group Winner: 95, 10, THE JOSHUA TREE, U2, ISLAND
QUALIFIER GROUP P
96, 10, THE STRANGER, JOEL, BILLY, COLUMBIA,
97, 10, 1984 (MCMLXXXIV), VAN HALEN, WARNER BROS.
98, 10, SONGS IN THE KEY OF LIFE, WONDER, STEVIE, MOTOWN
99, 10, ELIMINATOR, ZZ TOP, WARNER BROS.
Van Halen (2) beats Joel (0)
Wonder (2) beats Joel (0)
ZZ Top (2) beats Joel (0)
Wonder (2) beats Van Halen (0)
Van Halen (1) ties ZZ Top (1)
Wonder (2) beats ZZ Top (0)
Totals: Wonder (6), Van Halen (3), ZZ Top (3), Joel (0)
Group Winner: 98, 10, SONGS IN THE KEY OF LIFE, WONDER, STEVIE, MOTOWN
To summarize all of that, here are the records that advance to the field of
64 from the bottom part of the top 99:
51, 11, SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND, BEATLES, THE, CAPITOL
54, 11, EAGLES GREATEST HITS VOLUME II, EAGLES, ASYLUM
57, 11, HOUSES OF THE HOLY, LED ZEPPELIN, ATLANTIC
60, 11, CRAZYSEXYCOOL, TLC, LAFACE
61, 11, JAMES TAYLOR'S GREATEST HITS, TAYLOR, JAMES, WARNER BROS.
64, 10, AEROSMITH'S GREATEST HITS, AEROSMITH, COLUMBIA
67, 10, 1, BEATLES, THE, CAPITOL
70, 10, PYROMANIA, DEF LEPPARD, MERCURY
74, 10, LEGEND, MARLEY, BOB & THE WAILERS, ISLAND
76, 10, VAN HALEN, VAN HALEN, WARNER BROS.
80, 10, LED ZEPPELIN, LED ZEPPELIN, ATLANTIC
84, 10, GREATEST HITS, PETTY, TOM & THE HEARTBREAKERS, MCA
87, 10, NEVERMIND, NIRVANA, DGC
90, 10, SPEAKERBOXXX / THE LOVE BELOW, OUTKAST, SO SO DEF
95, 10, THE JOSHUA TREE, U2, ISLAND
98, 10, SONGS IN THE KEY OF LIFE, WONDER, STEVIE, MOTOWN
But what about the blockbusteriest of the blockbusters? What about the Top
48? Here they are . . .
1, 28, EAGLES/THEIR GREATEST HITS 1971 - 1975, EAGLES, ASYLUM
2, 27, THRILLER, JACKSON, MICHAEL, EPIC
3, 23, THE WALL, PINK FLOYD, COLUMBIA
4, 22, LED ZEPPELIN IV, LED ZEPPELIN, ATLANTIC
5, 21, BACK IN BLACK, AC/DC, EPIC
6, 21, GREATEST HITS VOLUME I & VOLUME II, JOEL, BILLY, COLUMBIA
7, 20, COME ON OVER, TWAIN, SHANIA, MERCURY NASHVILLE
8, 19, THE BEATLES, BEATLES, THE, APPLE
9, 19, RUMOURS, FLEETWOOD MAC, WARNER BROS.
10, 17, BOSTON , BOSTON , EPIC
11, 17, THE BODYGUARD (SOUNDTRACK), HOUSTON, WHITNEY, ARISTA
12, 16, THE BEATLES 1967 - 1970, BEATLES, THE, APPLE
13, 16, NO FENCES, BROOKS, GARTH, CAPITOL
14, 16, HOTEL CALIFORNIA, EAGLES, ASYLUM
15, 16, CRACKED REAR VIEW, HOOTIE & THE BLOWFISH, ATLANTIC
16, 16, GREATEST HITS, JOHN, ELTON, MCA
17, 16, JAGGED LITTLE PILL, MORISSETTE, ALANIS, MAVERICK
18, 15, THE BEATLES 1962 - 1966, BEATLES, THE, APPLE
19, 15, SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER (SOUNDTRACK), BEE GEES, RSO
20, 15, DOUBLE LIVE, BROOKS, GARTH, CAPITOL NASHVILLE
21, 15, APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION, GUNS 'N ROSES, GEFFEN
22, 15, PHYSICAL GRAFFITI, LED ZEPPELIN, SWAN SONG
23, 15, DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, PINK FLOYD, HARVEST
24, 15, SUPERNATURAL, SANTANA, ARISTA
25, 15, BORN IN THE U.S.A., SPRINGSTEEN, BRUCE, COLUMBIA
26, 14, BACKSTREET BOYS, BACKSTREET BOYS, JIVE
27, 14, ROPIN' THE WIND, BROOKS, GARTH, CAPITOL
28, 14, BAT OUT OF HELL, MEAT LOAF, CLEVELAND INTERNATIONAL
29, 14, METALLICA, METALLICA, ELEKTRA
30, 14, SIMON & GARFUNKEL'S GREATEST HITS, SIMON & GARFUNKEL,
COLUMBIA
31, 14, ...BABY ONE MORE TIME, SPEARS, BRITNEY, JIVE
32, 13, MILLENNIUM, BACKSTREET BOYS, JIVE
33, 13, WHITNEY HOUSTON, HOUSTON, WHITNEY, ARISTA
34, 13, GREATEST HITS 1974-1978, MILLER, STEVE BAND, CAPITOL
35, 13, PURPLE RAIN (SOUNDTRACK), PRINCE AND THE REVOLUTION, WARNER
BROS.
36, 13, BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & E STREET BAND LIVE 1975 - '85,
SPRINGSTEEN, BRUCE, COLUMBIA
37, 12, ABBEY ROAD , BEATLES, THE, APPLE
38, 12, SLIPPERY WHEN WET, BON JOVI, MERCURY
39, 12, II, BOYZ II MEN, MOTOWN
40, 12, NO JACKET REQUIRED, COLLINS, PHIL, ATLANTIC
41, 12, HYSTERIA, DEF LEPPARD, MERCURY
42, 12, WIDE OPEN SPACES, DIXIE CHICKS, MONUMENT
43, 12, BREATHLESS, KENNY G, ARISTA
44, 12, LED ZEPPELIN II, LED ZEPPELIN, ATLANTIC
45, 12, YOURSELF OR SOMEONE LIKE YOU, MATCHBOX TWENTY, ATLANTIC
46, 12, TEN, PEARL JAM, EPIC
47, 12, KENNY ROGERS' GREATEST HITS, ROGERS, KENNY, LIBERTY
48, 12, HOT ROCKS, ROLLING STONES, THE, LONDON
Now, finally, to stage the first round competitions, we pit the highest
selling album (EAGLES/THEIR GREATEST HITS 1971 - 1975, EAGLES) against
the lowest surviving album (SONGS IN THE KEY OF LIFE, STEVIE WONDER)
in round one. Then the second highest against the second lowest, third
against third, etc. This creates the following first round matchups (and at
this point, I will start cleaning up some of the all caps stuff, deleting the
record labels and total sales, and just leaving their sales rank):
1. EAGLES/THEIR GREATEST HITS 1971 - 1975, The Eagles vs.
98. SONGS IN THE KEY OF LIFE, Stevie Wonder
2. THRILLER, Michael Jackson vs.
95. THE JOSHUA TREE, U2
3. THE WALL, Pink Floyd vs.
90. SPEAKERBOXXX/THE LOVE BELOW, Outkast
4. LED ZEPPELIN IV, Led Zeppelin vs.
87. NEVERMIND, Nirvana
5. BACK IN BLACK, AC/DC vs.
84. GREATEST HITS, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
6. GREATEST HITS VOLUME I & VOLUME II, Billy Joel vs.
80. LED ZEPPELIN, Led Zeppelin
7. COME ON OVER, Shania Twain vs.
76. VAN HALEN, Van Halen
8. THE BEATLES, The Beatles vs.
74. LEGEND, Bob Marley and the Wailers
9. RUMOURS, Fleetwood Mac vs.
70. PYROMANIA, Def Leppard
10. BOSTON, Boston vs.
67. 1, The Beatles
11. THE BODYGUARD (SOUNDTRACK), Whitney Houston vs.
64. AEROSMITH'S GREATEST HITS, Aerosmith
12. THE BEATLES 1967 - 1970, The Beatles vs.
61. JAMES TAYLOR'S GREATEST HITS, James Taylor
13. NO FENCES, Garth Brooks vs.
60. CRAZYSEXYCOOL, TLC
14. HOTEL CALIFORNIA, The Eagles vs.
57. HOUSES OF THE HOLY, Led Zeppelin
15. CRACKED REAR VIEW, Hootie and the Blowfish vs.
54. EAGLES GREATEST HITS VOLUME II, The Eagles
16. GREATEST HITS, Elton John vs.
51. SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND, The Beatles
17. JAGGED LITTLE PILL, Alanis Morissette vs.
48. HOT ROCKS, The Rolling Stones
18. THE BEATLES 1962 - 1966, The Beatles vs.
47. KENNY ROGERS' GREATEST HITS, Kenny Rogers
19. SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER (SOUNDTRACK), The Bee Gees vs.
46. TEN, Pearl Jam
20. DOUBLE LIVE, Garth Brooks vs.
45. YOURSELF OR SOMEONE LIKE YOU, Matchbox 20
21. APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION, Guns n' Roses vs.
44. LED ZEPPELIN II, Led Zeppelin
22. PHYSICAL GRAFFITI, Led Zeppelin vs.
43. BREATHLESS, Kenny G
23. DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, Pink Floyd vs.
42. WIDE OPEN SPACES, Dixie Chicks
24. SUPERNATURAL, Santana vs.
41. HYSTERIA, Def Leppard
25. BORN IN THE U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen vs.
40. NO JACKET REQUIRED, Phil Collins
26. BACKSTREET BOYS, The Backstreet Boys vs.
39. II, Boyz II Men
27. ROPIN' THE WIND, Garth Brooks vs.
38. SLIPPERY WHEN WET, Bon Jovi
28. BAT OUT OF HELL, Meat Loaf vs.
37. ABBEY ROAD, The Beatles
29. METALLICA, Metallica vs.
36. LIVE 1975 - '85, Bruce Springsteen
30. SIMON & GARFUNKEL'S GREATEST HITS, Simon and Garfunkle vs.
35. PURPLE RAIN (SOUNDTRACK), Prince and the Revolution
31. ...BABY ONE MORE TIME, Britney Spears vs.
34. GREATEST HITS 1974-1978, Steve Miller Band
32. MILLENNIUM, Backstreet Boys vs.
33. WHITNEY HOUSTON, Whitney Houston
And, hey presto, there we go. Those 32 competitions will be analyzed and
winners picked tomorrow (or whenever I next sit down at the computer to think
about and type this thing), thereby moving us one step closer to declaring .
. . The Best of the Blockbusters!
Best of
the Blockbusters, Part Two: First Round, Top Half of the Bracket
Okay, it's looking like a slow and quiet night tonight, whereas tomorrow is
looking like a long and busy one (got a concert in the evening and a full
slate by day), so I think I'll knock off the top half of the bracket of the
first round. To see how this first round was derived, and get the rules and
regulations, read Part One (below) before this part, if you're catching this
post before you've caught the intro.
The first 16 head-to-head pairs in Best of the Blockbusters (i.e. what's the
greatest record in the 10 million units moved and over category) are as
follows:
1. EAGLES/THEIR GREATEST HITS 1971 - 1975, The Eagles vs.
98. SONGS IN THE KEY OF LIFE, Stevie Wonder
2. THRILLER, Michael Jackson vs.
95. THE JOSHUA TREE, U2
3. THE WALL, Pink Floyd vs.
90. SPEAKERBOXXX/THE LOVE BELOW, Outkast
4. LED ZEPPELIN IV, Led Zeppelin vs.
87. NEVERMIND, Nirvana
5. BACK IN BLACK, AC/DC vs.
84. GREATEST HITS, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
6. GREATEST HITS VOLUME I & VOLUME II, Billy Joel vs.
80. LED ZEPPELIN, Led Zeppelin
7. COME ON OVER, Shania Twain vs.
76. VAN HALEN, Van Halen
8. THE BEATLES, The Beatles vs.
74. LEGEND, Bob Marley and the Wailers
9. RUMOURS, Fleetwood Mac vs.
70. PYROMANIA, Def Leppard
10. BOSTON, Boston vs.
67. 1, The Beatles
11. THE BODYGUARD (SOUNDTRACK), Whitney Houston vs.
64. AEROSMITH'S GREATEST HITS, Aerosmith
12. THE BEATLES 1967 - 1970, The Beatles vs.
61. JAMES TAYLOR'S GREATEST HITS, James Taylor
13. NO FENCES, Garth Brooks vs.
60. CRAZYSEXYCOOL, TLC
14. HOTEL CALIFORNIA, The Eagles vs.
57. HOUSES OF THE HOLY, Led Zeppelin
15. CRACKED REAR VIEW, Hootie and the Blowfish vs.
54. EAGLES GREATEST HITS VOLUME II, The Eagles
16. GREATEST HITS, Elton John vs.
51. SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND, The Beatles
Let us begin at the beginning . . .
1. Their Greatest Hits, 1971-1975, The Eagles vs.
98. Songs in the Key of Life, Stevie Wonder
Let me say this right up front: I don't think the Eagles are as bad as most
people of a critical bent seem to. Back in their Bernie Leadon days, (i.e.
1971-1975, the span covered by this greatest hits collection), they did a
pretty interesting job of merging country and rock and making hits with the
combo, as opposed to languishing in critical obscurity like Gram Parsons
and/or The Flying Burrito Brothers (who also counted Leadon among their
members). There is no doubt that Their Greatest Hits is, indeed, the
best Eagles album of the era, since only Desperado managed to hold
together from beginning to end, the others coming across as padded delivery
units for the hits. If you want the Eagles biggest hits, here they are. Same
can be said to some extent of Songs in the Key of Life, which spawned
"Sir Duke," "I Wish," "Isn't She Lovely," and
"As," all of them big spanking popular numbers, with both the
critics and the music buying public. Where Key of Life separates
itself, however, is with its amazing cohesiveness and the span of its social,
political and emotional concerns. "Already Gone" just can't hang
with "Village Ghetto Land," and "Take It
Easy" doesn't pack the thoughtful musical and philosophical punch that
"Have A Talk With God." A record-company cobbled hits collection by
a band that blazed a few trails before ending up defining the SoCal slick sound
vs. the masterwork by one of the century's most gifted and creative spirits?
That's an easy pick.
The winner: 98. Songs in the Key of Life, Stevie Wonder.
2. Thriller, Michael Jackson vs.
95. The Joshua Tree, U2
It's hard to imagine a time when Michael Jackson was cool, isn't it? But Thriller
really was an impressive blast on the collective radio psyche at the time of
its release . . . and the months and months and months that followed as its
singles and videos kept bouncing up the charts. Thing is, though, that it was
such a defining soundscape of its era that it sounds terribly dated
these days, and the John Landis video for the title track is positively
painful to watch at this point. The Joshua Tree is definitely a piece of the
'80s as well, but U2 still manages to make its sounds and styles work for
them, so it doesn't have the same stale synth sounds and beats that Thriller
clangs against the contemporary listening aesthetic. (Note to wannabe
hitmakers: do not buy the latest and greatest and synthesizer at the time you
make your breakthrough album and use all the preset patches and tones . . .
nothing will date your music faster than that).
Winner: 95. The Joshua Tree, U2
3. The Wall, Pink Floyd vs.
90. Speakerboxx/The Love Below, Outkast
I love me some Pink Floyd. And I love me some Outkast. These discs are their
best selling records . . . but in neither case are they the artist's best
records. The Wall, a sweeping two disc set, marked the point where
Pink Floyd really ceased to exist as a band, as Roger Waters and David
Gilmour duked it out after canning Rick Wright and bringing in loads of
session players and guests to fill in the spaces. Speakerboxxx/The Love
Below, a sweeping two disc set, marked the point where Outkast really
ceased to exist as a band, as Big Boi and Andre 3000 each delivered their own
solo disc, filled with session players and guest to fill in the spaces. The
Wall spawned one of the most catchy, recognizable and replayed hits of
its era: "Another Brick in the Wall, Part II." Speakerboxxx/The
Love Below spawned one of the most catchy, recognizable and replayed hits
of its era: "Hey Ya!" Both albums adressed themes of love, sex,
lust, fame, money, music, God and excess. Both could have been improved with
some better interplay between their principal creators and lots of editing.
Still . . . at least Pink Floyd's key members appeared on the same tracks
together, and two vinyl albums are a lot shorter than two CDs.
Winner: 3. The Wall, Pink Floyd
4. Led Zeppelin IV, Led Zeppelin vs.
87. Nevermind, Nirvana
Oh man . . . this pairing probably has no business occuring in the first
round, since you could make a very good case that Led Zeppelin IV
(that's the officially untitled one, also known as Zoso) was the sound
of the '70s, and Nevermind was the sound of the '90s. But, hey, the
draw is the draw, and we deal with it. Now . . . long time readers of
Flexible Tetragrammaton/Giant Nylon Hair Net will have read the Anti-Nirvana
Rant. Despite that rant, I don't bear any particular ill will toward Nevermind,
I just think that its influence has been way, way, way overstated. I think it
is without question Nirvana's high point, and I'm one of the few people who
evidently actually likes the crunchy production that Butch Vig (later of
Garbage) gave the record; it's certainly nicer on the ears that the Steve
Albini produced In Utero. Zep IV, as well, is a production
masterpiece: Andy Johns, George Chkiantz and Jimmy Page made one of the
greatest sounding rock records ever. Stylistically, Nevermind covers
one base: "grunge." (Oh, how I hate that word, but you know what it
means, so I will use it). Zep IV is a polyglot of styles, with
slamming hard rock dancing with folk, blues and metal, sometimes all in the
same song. That's hard to argue with.
Winner: 4. Led Zeppelin IV, Led Zeppelin
5. Back in Black, AC/DC vs.
84. Greatest Hits, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
I like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Their Greatest Hits album is
better than most such compilations, because Petty writes smart pop songs, has
a unique and instantly recognizable vocal style, and works with a superior
band who routinely rise above the "backing" status that so many
other "Name and the Band" type outfits earn and deserve. But I love
AC/DC, and Back in Black is such an archetypal, titanic example of a
genre that it's hard to imagine any career-spanning collection by any band,
even one as good as Petty and Company, knocking it off its podium of big,
loud, stupid rightness. Toss in the fact that it was recorded mere
months after the band replaced its dead, founding lead singer, Bon Scott, and
its cohesiveness and quality are all that much more impressive. You may say
"that's just because the music is so rudimentary that anyone could have
sung that album," and you may be right in saying it. But it's still the
better record.
Winner: 5. Back in Black, AC/DC
6. Greatest Hits Volume I and II, Billy Joel vs.
80. Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin
I have a special spot of loathing in my heart for Billy Joel, because I moved
to Long
Island as a teenager right around the time that he became a superstar, and
his local hometown fans were positively disgusting in their slavish,
obnoxious devotion to his music. Particularly when it came to the girls that
I wanted to make out with. Nothing was more annoying than going to a teenage
grope party, making your best moves on a girl, and then at the moment when
mutual lust seemed ready to work its magic, having her jump up to dance
around the middle of the room with her friends, pantomiming "Scenes from
an Italian Restaurant". I guess it could have been worse. They could
have pantomimed "Piano Man." Zeppelin's first album is
probably the least appealling and engaging of their early discs, but at least
their powerful take on (or theft of, depending on your perspective) classic
blues was groundbreaking, and didn't give high school girls as many
opportunities to leave their boyfriends on the couch, frustrated.
Winner: 80. Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin
7. Come On Over, Shania Twain vs.
76. Van Halen, Van Halen
Van Halen's first record changed the way people hear the electric guitar,
mainly in guitar stores where teenage boys try to impress each other by
hacking away at "Eruption." Come On Over changed nothing,
other than the way that lite, country-flavored music could be marketed when
it was delivered by a sultry, sexy woman who happened to be married to a
calculating craftsman of a record producer. I don't really need to explain
any more about this one, do I?
Winner: 76. Van Halen, Van Halen
8. The Beatles, The Beatles vs.
74. Legend, Bob Marley and the Wailers
The Beatles is The White Album, for those who didn't know that
it actually had a title. Or not, if a band's name doesn't count as a title.
It's a classic stew of a record made by a dysfunctional band falling apart in
the studio, taking too many drugs and experimenting with too many
experiments, some of them interesting, some of them not. I like the first
disc of the two record set, but haven't listened to the second record all the
way through in years and years and years. Legend is, sadly, all the
Bob Marley that 90% of the American listening public has ever heard, and will
ever hear. Not sadly because it's a bad compilation (it's not), but sadly
because there are so many deep cuts on so many other albums
that it doesn't do justice to Marley himself, much less the classic Wailers
(Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer), who only appear on a few cuts from this
'70s-skewed collection. For sheer easy listening pleasure, you'd probably be
happier popping Legend in the stereo, but I still have to choose the
Beatles own trainwreck to a compilation slapped together to capitalize on the
death of its title artist.
Winner: 8. The Beatles, The Beatles
9. Rumours, Fleetwood Mac vs.
70. Pyromania, Def Leppard
Rumours was unspeakably huge when it came out, an amazing pop
confection from a blues-based band that had labored for a decade in
semi-obscurity before tacking on a couple of Southern California granola
heads to make things go down sweet and smooth for the radio. Like Thriller
a few years later, it just dominated radio for months and months, as single
after single was released to chart success and acclaim. And even its
non-single cuts have since permeated the collective consciousness of the
music world; if there's a record that's as recognizable as this one, start to
finish, every cut, odds are it's a greatest hits album, not a standalone work
like this one. Pyromania was similarly unavoidable in its day,
although that was largely due to the fact that it was a product of the MTV
era, and the video for "Photograph" played constantly, everywhere
that videos had any reason playing, and many places where they didn't.
Looking back, Rumours now seems far slicker than it needed to be, but
the same complaint applies to the buffed-to-a-sheen production given to Pyromania
by Robert John "Mutt" Lange (a.k.a. Mr. Shania Twain). Since
"slick" is probably an expected and desirable quality for Southern
California pop, and it is not an expected and desirable quality for
metal, we're gonna pick the Mac.
Winner: 9. Rumours, Fleetwood Mac
10. Boston, Boston vs.
67. 1, The Beatles
As Beatles compilations go, 1 is without doubt my least favorite. The
concept (put all the songs that were chart toppers in the USA, UK or both on
one disc) seems sound . . . until you look at the track listing and realize
that means that 80% of their interesting stuff doesn't make the cut. Not the
deep album cuts, mind you, but just the quirky things that didn't have the
sheen of treacle and gloss that so many of the Beatles most pandering hits
(most of them McCartney's) bore. 1 is just dull without some of those
oddball cuts. Boston is dull too, for the most part, and the studio
hacks and flacks that shepherded it into the public domain were probably just
as crassly motivated as Capitol Records was when it burped up 1 . . .
but, still, they didn't know that it was going to be a hit, and that
element of risk-taking has to count for something, as does the fact that Boston
did add some rock to a radio continuum at a time when the final, disgusting
death throes of disco were still dominating the airwaves.
Winner: 10. Boston, Boston
11. The Bodyguard (Soundtrack), Whitney Houston vs.
64. Greatest Hits, Aerosmith
I don't really have to explain this one, do I? If so, I think you are
probably reading this website by mistake and might be happier and more
comfortable elsewhere.
Winner: 64. Greatest Hits, Aerosmith
12. The Beatles 1967-1970, The Beatles vs.
61. Greatest Hits, James Taylor
This particular Beatles record is "The Blue Album", the two
disc set with the hairy, hippy Beatles looking down from an apartment balcony
on the cover. It's much better than the much later 1, because it
doesn't just nab the popular hits of that particularly era of the Beatles
history, but at least deigns to sample some of the more electic, experimental
stuff as well. (Although I'd much prefer to have George Harrison represented
by "Within You, Without You" than with "Old Brown Shoe.")
Still . . . even an incomplete late Beatles compilation has got more going
for it than a complete collection of James Taylor's early '70s hits on Warner
Brothers, since his more interesting (and, hence, less popular) stuff came
later on Columbia Records.
Winner: 12. The Beatles 1967-1970, The Beatles
13. No Fences, Garth Brooks vs.
60. Crazysexycool, TLC
As fluffily consumable pop albums go, Crazysexycool was pretty darned
good stuff, and it was a breath of fresh air at the time of its release,
featuring as it did more funk and soul and sass and musical arrangement and
thought than most of the crossover pop-rap making it to the radio at the time
did. These days, it doesn't sound particularly special or extraordinary,
because so many manufactured pop divas and diva collectives (this means you,
Destiny's Child) have followed the template put down by the La Face Records
brain trust. No Fences also does not sound special or extraordinary
today, but, then, it didn't when it came out either. Tepid country fluff that
would have at least looked more entertaining if Shania Twain had delivered
it.
Winner: 60. Crazysexycool, TLC
14. Hotel California, The Eagles vs.
57. Houses of the Holy, Led Zeppelin
"D'yer Mak'er" is Led Zeppelin's most annoying song, and sadly
probably their best known, after "Stairway to You Know Where." Rock
snobs will correct you if you pronounce it the way it's spelled, since it's
actually pronounced "Jamaica," after a lame post-music
hall joke and/or its podgy, stodgy reggae beat. (Zeppelin were a lot of
things, but they were not a reggae band). So that's annoying too. As
is much of Houses of the Holy, actually, the first album where the
seams began to show in Zeppelin's ambitions. I suppose it's a necessary step
between the titanic Zoso (IV) and Physical Grafitti, but much
of its eclecticism seems forced and strained and just not a whole lot of fun.
Now . . . Hotel California also carries copious baggage, standing as
it does as the quintessential document of the generally odious Southern California rock movement of the '70s. It's
the first Eagles album without the under-appreciated Bernie Leadon, and they
replaced him with Joe Walsh, for heaven's sake. Joe Walsh! Sheesh!
Still, though, it's a catchy beast of a record, a disc that you (and I) just
hate to love, even though we probably do. "Life in the Fast Lane"
is one of the hardest rocking hits of the era, a darn good slab of chunky
'70s riffmongering that could have fit seamlessly on a Van Halen record, if
you didn't mind hearing the singer's voice crack on the high notes. The title
track is, (like "Stairway to Bustle in a Hedgerow"), one of those
long epics of the '70s that you just can't quite bring yourself to turn off
until it winds its way to its conclusion, by which point you've probably
given up and started singing along. Sniff . . . sniff . . . sniff . . . you
know what I think I smell? I think I smell rock and roll heresy.
Winner: 14. Hotel California, The Eagles
15. Cracked Rear View, Hootie and the Blowfish vs.
54. Greatest Hits Volume II, The Eagles
Yowch. I'm not going to go back and edit what I just wrote, but had I peeked ahead
to see this matchup looming, I might have rethought my critical heresy from
the prior contest and given Zeppelin a little more love than I gave the
Eagles. But . . . we deal with what we have before us. Personally, I think
that the greatest mass musical delusion of my adult lifetime was the success
of Hootie and the Blowfish, who somehow managed to convince millions and
millions and millions of people that they need to hear a moderately
entertaining bar band while sitting in the comforts of their own homes. I am
certain that if I was drunk at 11 PM on a Friday night in a bar in South
Carolina, then listening to Hootie and Friends singing their Van Morrison
wannabe clone songs might just make me want to order another Scotch and Soda
. . . but I just can not conceive of how anyone, anywhere would have
wanted to take that home with them. So . . . Greatest Hits Volume II,
huh? By definition, that's going to cover the post-Bernie Leadon era, and
will probably include things sung by the frighteningly-haired Timothy B.
Schmitt. Still . . . I'd rather listen to the ex-Poco bassist warbling
"I Can't Tell You Why" than anything that Darius Rucker has to
offer.
Winner: 54. Greatest Hits Volume II, The Eagles
16. Greatest Hits, Elton John vs.
51. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles
When's the last time you actually listened to Sgt. Pepper's all the
way through? I mean, really listened? It's been awhile, hasn't it?
Yeah, I know it has. After decades of having every music critic in the world
singing its many and manifest praises, it's become one of those artistic
documents that everyone knows about and understands . . . but nobody listens
to. It's the Citizen Kane of music. And, you know, that's probably
with good reason. I mean, there's the title track (two versions), the
incredible and amazing "A Day in the Life" and "Lucy in the
Sky With Diamonds," and the fluffy pop hits "With A Little Help
From My Friends" and "When I'm Sixty Four." There's the
slighty lesser known but sometimes still played on the radio, "Lovely
Rita." There's George's sitar workout, "Without You, Without
You," which should have been included on The Blue Album, but
wasn't. And then there's some other stuff, much of which nobody ever pays
much attention to, even if you might recognize it if it was played for you.
"Fixing a Hole," anyone? "Being for the Benefit of Mister
Kite?" Can you hum either of those without hurting some brain cells?
Probably not . . . although I'll bet you can hum every single song contained
on Elton John's first (and best) Greatest Hits compilation. You know
it's true. You know you can. Mmmmm . . . they sound good, don't they? And,
yes, I think so too. They do sound good. Except for one cut:
"Candle in the Wind," the most odious, unctuous and yucky single
Elton ever issued, made even worse by its association with Princess Diana
after her untimely (and sickly overhyped) death. I was thinking of posting an
upset here, but I can't pick an album that contains that song. I just can't.
You understand?
Winner: 51. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles
Okay . . . so there's the first half of the first round. 64 albums have now
become 48. When next I post, I will tackle the other half of the first round,
and 48 will become 32. At that point, when we know who and what survived the
first round, we will resort the list from highest selling survivor to lowest
selling survivor, and post the matchups for the second round. I'm guessing it
will be Saturday before I get to that, maybe even Sunday. But I may surprise myself.
If schedules allow tomorrow, we will see what we will see.
Best of
the Blockbusters, Part Three: First Round, Bottom Half of the Bracket
Today we
will finish the first round of the Best of the Blockbusters competition and
set the matchups for Round Two. The bottom half of the first round bracket
looks like this:
17. JAGGED LITTLE PILL, Alanis Morissette vs.
48. HOT ROCKS, The Rolling Stones
18. THE BEATLES 1962 - 1966, The Beatles vs.
47. KENNY ROGERS' GREATEST HITS, Kenny Rogers
19. SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER (SOUNDTRACK), The Bee Gees vs.
46. TEN, Pearl Jam
20. DOUBLE LIVE, Garth Brooks vs.
45. YOURSELF OR SOMEONE LIKE YOU, Matchbox 20
21. APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION, Guns n' Roses vs.
44. LED ZEPPELIN II, Led Zeppelin
22. PHYSICAL GRAFFITI, Led Zeppelin vs.
43. BREATHLESS, Kenny G
23. DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, Pink Floyd vs.
42. WIDE OPEN SPACES, Dixie Chicks
24. SUPERNATURAL, Santana vs.
41. HYSTERIA, Def Leppard
25. BORN IN THE U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen vs.
40. NO JACKET REQUIRED, Phil Collins
26. BACKSTREET BOYS, The Backstreet Boys vs.
39. II, Boyz II Men
27. ROPIN' THE WIND, Garth Brooks vs.
38. SLIPPERY WHEN WET, Bon Jovi
28. BAT OUT OF HELL, Meat Loaf vs.
37. ABBEY ROAD, The Beatles
29. METALLICA, Metallica vs.
36. LIVE 1975 - '85, Bruce Springsteen
30. SIMON & GARFUNKEL'S GREATEST HITS, Simon and Garfunkle vs.
35. PURPLE RAIN (SOUNDTRACK), Prince and the Revolution
31. ...BABY ONE MORE TIME, Britney Spears vs.
34. GREATEST HITS 1974-1978, Steve Miller Band
32. MILLENNIUM, Backstreet Boys vs.
33. WHITNEY HOUSTON, Whitney Houston
So let's get listening!
17. Jagged Little Pill, Alanis Morissette vs.
48. Hot Rocks, The Rolling Stones
When Jagged Little Pill came out, I really didn't get it. Probably because
I have never been an attractive, yet angry young woman (who happened to have
access to a studio flack producer-songwriter like Glen Ballard), and the
album doesn't really have a lot of psychic universality outside of that
demographic. I found the songs that got played on the radio over and over
again annoying for the same reason I find the Cranberries' songs that got
played on the radio over and over again annoying: hiccuping is just not
an appealling vocal trick. And, you know, I'm sorry your boyfriend was a
jerk, but get over it, huh? Even when you sound mad, it's still whining.
(Take note, Eminem). Hot Rocks, on the other hand, I get: it's a
collection of hits and album cuts from 1964-1971, a good layman's primer to
what made the Stones so darned good. Here's a hint: they didn't whine about
their breakups.
Winner: 48. Hot Rocks, The Rolling Stones
18. The Beatles, 1962-1966, The Beatles vs.
47. Greatest Hits, Kenny Rogers
Okay, so this Beatles compilation is The Red Album, the one
with the young, clean shaven Fab Four looking down at you from that iconic
apartment block balcony. It covers the group's evolution from their earliest
radio successes up through Revolver, arguably their best album.
(Although it leaves off that record's greatest and most influential track,
"Tomorrow Never Knows", which seems somewhat inexcusable, although
in 1972 when this compilation was released, I don't think anybody yet knew
how inflential it would be). As for Kenny Rogers, I don't think it's
possible to use his name and the word "influential" in the same
sentence, unless it's a sentence that reads something like this: "Kenny Rogers was influential in the
watering down of country music, a trend later exploited to maximum effect by
Garth Brooks and Shania Twain" or "One of the most influential
lyrics on contemporary television's presentation of professional poker was
'You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em' by Kenny Rogers." And those are
stretches.
Winner: 18. The Beatles, 1962-1966, The Beatles
19. Saturday Night Fever (Soundtrack), The Bee Gees vs.
46. Ten, Pearl Jam
These two records really tapped and, to a certain extent, defined the spirits
of their respective ages, with Saturday Night Fever providing the
highwater mark for commercial disco, and Ten providing the point at
which "the Seattle sound" became a movement, not a Nirvana-driven
anomaly. I think most cultural commentators would observe that the return of
guitar driven rock and flannel shirts in the '90s was probably a better development
than the mass popularization of disco culture in the '70s. And I wouldn't
argue with that. What I would argue with is the worthiness of these records
as defining points of their respective canons. Saturday Night Fever is
a very, very good disco record. Ten is not a very, very good '90s
guitar and flannel record, if for no other reason than having inflicted
"Jeremy" (the song and the video) on the world. I get
actively annoyed whenever I hear Eddie Vedder doing his "woo woo"
part at the end of that song. The Bee Gees and friends just bemuse me. And
I'm a lesser of two evils guy.
Winner: 19. Saturday Night Fever (Soundtrack), The Bee Gees
20. Double Live, Garth Brooks vs.
45. Yourself or Someone Like You, Matchbox 20
Ewww . . . even as a lesser of two evils guy, this is an icky pick. Yourself
or Someone Like You is the template for mostly harmless '90s rock, the
record that just would not go away, as radio hit after radio hit kept oozing
off of it. If you are not a Matchbox 20 fan, you probably don't know the
names of any of them . . . but I guarantee you have heard them. Garth's Double
Live is one of the more crass albums of the '90s, a career spanning
double disc recorded at a couple of dozen different venues and then buffed to
a polish in the studio, and released just in time for the holidays in 1998,
with a special discount price and all sorts of different versions to ensure
that the punters purchased as many units as possible. And purchase the
punters did, although even compared to the rest of Garth's reductive canon,
this record feels tepid and wan. I guess in this case I'm just going to have
to go with the record with fewer cowboy hats on its cover.
Winner: 45. Yourself or Someone Like You, Matchbox 20
21. Appetite for Destruction, Guns n' Roses vs.
44. Led Zeppelin II, Led Zeppelin
Holy Moly. I thought the first round duel between Nirvana's Nevermind
and Zep's Zoso was a bad one to have so early, but this is worse. Appetite
for Destruction is one of the most phenomenal, world-changing records
ever released, a slap upside the head to radio, video and everyone who
watched/listened to them at the time of its release. Do you remember where
you were the first time you heard "Welcome to the Jungle"? I do.
And I bet you do, too, if you think about it. Metal was never the same after
this record hit the streets, for better or for worse. (Probably better from a
musical standpoint, and worse from a posing/appearance standpoint). Zep II
is equally influential, as its relentless, thudding and thundering whallop
set the template for pretty much everything metal, and heavy, and heavy metal
that followed. For sheer shock value, though, one has to lean in the
direction of the Gunners: these guys were nobodies when Destruction blew
modern radio apart, while Zep already had a reputation for awesomeness when
they belched out Zep II in between dates on an international tour that
had them playing packed houses on multiple continents. Nobody really thought
they could be Zep, because at least a couple of those guys had ten years of
A-list studio and other band work on their resumes before they started
playing together. Every weedy metal kid thought he could be like Guns n'
Roses, though, since they were a bunch of bozos from the sticks who happened
to put out exactly the right record at exactly the right moment. That has to
count for something, since rock music is ultimately the soundtrack to teenage
boy fantasies.
Winner: 21. Appetite for Destruction, Guns n' Roses
22. Physical Graffiti, Led Zeppelin vs.
43. Breathless, Kenny G
Heh. Heh heh. Snrrk! Giggle. Pffft! Heh. Heh heh. Yeah, that's a funny one.
Phew.
Winner:
22. Physical Graffiti, Led Zeppelin
23. Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd vs.
42. Wide Open Spaces, Dixie Chicks
As tame country-flavored pop goes, the Dixie Chicks aren't as bad as some of
their compadres, since there's some legitimate instrumental and vocal prowess
tossed in among the costume changes and the big hair. Still . . . that's
faint praise, in case that isn't obvious to you. Dark Side of the Moon
is one of the most tenacious albums in music history, in that it remained on
the Billboard Top 200 album charts for something like 327 years. It's a
record that every teenager discovers and loves for a few months, usually
right after they have bought their first Kurt Vonnegut book. Most of them
outgrow it, though, although that's a pity, since it's a fine,
forward-looking album filled with all sorts of studio trickery and technology
that would become more than standard in the years that followed. (Pink Floyd
was sampling before there were samplers. Pink Floyd was looping before there
were loops. Pink Floyd was playing in 7/4 before there was math rock). Not
much a contest, really.
Winner: 23. Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd
24. Supernatural, Santana vs.
41. Hysteria, Def Leppard
This is a contest between pieces of product. Supernatural was
Santana's big comeback move, a slick record filled with collaborations with
young, fresh, mostly harmless folks like Matchbox 20's Rob Thomas. It
succeeded admirably, as product. Hysteria was the squeaky clean and
perfect follow-on to Def Leppard's squeaky clean and perfect (as product) Pyromania.
It succeeded admirably, as product. Thing is, I don't expect anything more than
product from Def Leppard, or just about anybody produced by Robert John
"Mutt" Lange (a.k.a. Mr. Shania Twain) for that matter. Carlos
Santana, on the other hand, is capable of transcendence and wondrousness and
beauty and art. I have to gig him for settling for product accordingly.
Winner: 41. Hysteria, Def Leppard
25. Born in the U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen vs.
40. No Jacket Required, Phil Collins
I really like Genesis a lot. Even the first half or so of the Phil Collins as
lead singer era. I like the copious amounts of studio work he did throughout
the early part of his career, pretty anonymously lending his chops to great
albums by the likes of Brian Eno, Robert Fripp, Peter Gabriel, Brand X and
all sorts of other prog and near-prog bands. I loved his debut album, Face
Value: while "In the Air Tonight" has been over-played into
insignificance (of not annoyance) in the years since it hit, it was truly an
impressive and unusual hit for its era. Hearing a Genesis chestnut like
"Behind the Lines" done up as a soulful, horn-fueled funk fest was
fun and eye-opening. I wasn't quite as thrilled with Phil's second solo
album, Hello, I Must Be Going, largely because of the stiff cover of
"You Can't Hurry Love," a because it seemed like a track-by-track
mirror of the first record, with poorer songs. No Jacket Required,
unfortunately, was closer to the latter than the former. I was receptive and
ready to receive it, and was crushingly disappointed when I actually heard
it. I think that's when I stopped liking Genesis too, so unpalatable did it
make Phil. As for Springsteen, I never liked him. Nope. Not one bit. Other
than Patti Smith, I'd rate him as the most over-rated artist of the past 25
years, easy. No amount of "Oh, dude, you need to listen to Nebraska"
or "Whoa, man, he's the voice of blue collar America" or "Hey,
bro, 'Blinded By the Light' is freaking poetry" is going to change my
mind. That said, Bruce never let me down. The way Phil did. With No Jacket
Required. Disappointment is a powerful emotion.
Winner: 25. Born in the U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen
26. Backstreet Boys, The Backstreet Boys vs.
39. II, Boyz II Men
I'm not real big on the whole "pretty young men singing sweetly
together" school of pop music, so this contest offers me very little of
tangible enjoyment to assess. My gut, though, and my memory for radio fodder
tells me that Boyz II Men were (a) better singers, (b) less of a manufactured
commodity and (c) of authentic urban roots, not urban roots that they bought
at the mall. Plus, I have actually met the Backstreet Boys on a television
commercial shoot, and the number of empty helmets among their ranks is high.
(If you ever have to work with them, I suggest you don't have them read cue
cards. Ahem). Boyz II Men may be dumb as a box of hammers, too, but I don't
know that first hand. Authenticity and talent and critical distance score
over prefab prettiness and up close cluelessness any day of the week.
Winner: 39. II, Boyz II Men
27. Ropin' the Wind, Garth Brooks vs.
38. Slippery When Wet, Bon Jovi
Bon Jovi was one of the four finalists in the Worst Rock Band Ever
competition. But they didn't take the overall prize. If I did a "Worst
Country Artist Ever" competition, there is little doubt in my mind that
Garth Brooks would take the title in a cake walk. Plus . . . when things are
wet, they are slippery, so that album title makes sense. What the hell does Ropin'
the Wind mean, though? It sounds like some cryptic name for a fart to me.
Winner: 38. Slippery When Wet, Bon Jovi
28. Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf vs.
37. Abbey Road, The Beatles
I can hear what you're thinking: "Sheesh, that album is over the top!
Could you possible over-produce something more than that? And those pop
hooks: just totally pandering to the radio listeners! And what's up with how
long all the songs are? And all those fake strings and orchestrations? And
the over-emoting on songs that don't really require it?? Please! This record
is just too much!" And, yeah, I kind of agree: Abbey Road is a bit too rich for its own
good, and the Beatles should have known better. Meat Loaf, on the other hand,
fresh from his support role in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, brought
his appetite for bombast with him and vomited up an album so over the top
that it almost became sublime again. It's like Abbey Road without the pretention. Or a
Bruce Springsteen record, only fun, and not about people in New Jersey who I don't care about. How can
you argue with that?
Winner: 28. Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf
29. Metallica, Metallica vs.
36. Live '75-'85, Bruce Springsteen
Metallica is better known as The Black Album, because it is,
uh, black. It's the Metallica record that Old School Metallica fans most love
to hate, the place where they sold out and started having hits and writing
songs with recognizable riffs and singing them in understandable voices and
producing them with a degree of sonic clarity that made them sound like more
than thrashy slabs of screaming and dissonance. So, you know, that's all bad
. . . even though the record is very, very good, and got very, very popular,
which is the thing that most annoys the Old School Metallica fans. Live
'75-'85 is a five-disc beast that provides an overview of Springsteen's
live career from, uh, 1975 to 1985. It's the box set that launched the box
set era, when the record industry realized that people would pay big bucks
for packages of songs they've already heard, delivered with thoughtful liner
notes by semi-famous music critics, and with lots of pictures for the
don't-read crowd. While there are those who would say that Bruce and the E
Street Band were the pre-eminent live concert act of the era, most of these
live cuts don't do justice to either (a) their studio versions, or (b) the
actual concert experiences from which they were culled. Did you feel like a
chump when you realized this?
Winner: 29. Metallica, Metallica
30. Greatest Hits, Simon and Garfunkle vs.
35. Purple Rain (Soundtrack), Prince and the Revolution
Yeah, sure, the songs on Simon and Garfunkle's Greatest Hits are
pretty great, can't argue that. But almost every one of them sounds and plays
better in its original album configuration than it does on this compilation.
Case in point: "I Am A Rock" and "The Sound of Silence"
are the anchor tracks of the album Sounds of Silence, the most dismal,
depressing and dark (in the good senses of those words) pop album ever
released, bar none. (Read the lyrics if you don't believe me . . . this is a sad
record). On Greatest Hits, however, "The Sound of Silence" and
"I Am A Rock" follow "59th Street Bridge Song (Feeling
Groovy)." That just ain't right. Purple Rain, on the other
hand, despite being a soundtrack record, stands a solid, cohesive whole, a fully
integrated record whose songs actually suffer when they're taken out of
sequence and placed in other contexts. It is Prince's Sounds of Silence,
only its about having sex instead of feeling sad.
Winner: 35. Purple Rain (Soundtrack), Prince and the Revolution
31. . . . Baby One More Time, Britney Spears vs.
34. Greatest Hits, 1974-1978, Steve Miller Band
Steve Miller gave us the Pompatus of Love. Britney gave us the Pudenda of
Tease. Miller was a joker, a smoker and a midnight toker. Britney is a faker, a
shaker, and a midnight mistaker. Miller sang about
taking the money and running. Britney did it.
Winner: 34. Greatest Hits, 1974-1975, Steve Miller Band
32. Millenium, Backstreet Boys vs.
33. Whitney Houston, Whitney Houston
Whitney Houston is a paradox, blessed with one of the greatest voices of her
generation, which she applies to some of her age's most tepid and treacly
material. Plus, she can't dance. The Backstreet Boys dance real well, offer
similarly wan material, and are not blessed with five of the greatest voices
of their generation. This being an essay about music, I'm going to have to
pick the singer before the dancers, even if both of their music is tedious
and tired.
Winner: 33. Whitney Houston, Whitney Houston
So! There we have it! Round One is complete! How do we set up Round Two? We
take our 32 winners, sort them from highest to lowest in terms of sales (the
numbers listed in front of each album title), and then pit the highest
survivor against the lower survivor, second highest against second lowest,
etc. and so forth.
What does that give us for round two? It give us this . . .
3. The Wall, Pink Floyd vs.
98. Songs in the Key of Life, Stevie Wonder
4. Led Zeppelin IV, Led Zeppelin vs.
95. The Joshua Tree, U2
5. Back in Black, AC/DC vs.
80. Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin
8. The Beatles, The Beatles vs.
76. Van Halen, Van Halen
9. Rumours, Fleetwood Mac vs.
64. Greatest Hits, Aerosmith
10. Boston, Boston vs.
54. Greatest Hits Volume II, The Eagles
12. The Beatles 1967-1970, The Beatles vs.
51. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles
13. CrazySexyCool, TLC vs.
48. Hot Rocks, The Rolling Stones
14. Hotel California, The Eagles vs.
45. Yourself or Someone Like You, Matchbox 20
18. The Beatles 1962-1966, The Beatles vs.
41. Hysteria, Def Leppard
19. Saturday Night Fever (Soundtrack), The Bee Gees vs.
39. II, Boyz II Men
21. Appetite for Destruction, Guns n' Roses vs.
38. Slippery When Wet, Bon Jovi
22. Physical Graffiti, Led Zeppelin vs.
35. Purple Rain (Soundtrack), Prince and the Revolution
23. Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd vs.
34. Greatest Hits 1974-1978, Steve Miller Band
25. Born in the U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen vs.
33. Whitney Houston, Whitney Houston
28. Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf vs.
29. Metallica, Metallica
Tune in next time, when we boil these 32 albums down to the round of Sweet
16. It'll probably happen over the weekend, but I ain't making any promises.
Best of
the Blockbusters, Part Four: The Second Round, Top Half of the Bracket
Okay, sports fans (or music fans)(or music and sports fans) . . .
today we identify half of the Sweet Sixteen survivors in our Best of the
Blockbusters competition. If you're jumping in late, full rules and caveats
are available if you scroll down to Part One. The short form: what record is
the best of the 99 albums that have been certified as Ten Times Platinum?
The matchups for today, in the top half of the second round, are as follows:
3. The Wall, Pink Floyd vs.
98. Songs in the Key of Life, Stevie Wonder
4. Led Zeppelin IV, Led Zeppelin vs.
95. The Joshua Tree, U2
5. Back in Black, AC/DC vs.
80. Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin
8. The Beatles, The Beatles vs.
76. Van Halen, Van Halen
9. Rumours, Fleetwood Mac vs.
64. Greatest Hits, Aerosmith
10. Boston, Boston vs.
54. Greatest Hits Volume II, The Eagles
12. The Beatles 1967-1970, The Beatles vs.
51. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles
13. CrazySexyCool, TLC vs.
48. Hot Rocks, The Rolling Stones
Without further ado, here's how it breaks down for these eight contests . . .
3. The Wall, Pink Floyd vs.
98. Songs in the Key of Life, Stevie Wonder
This is an interesting contest, with a pair of titanically popular and
influential two-disc sets from the 1970s, offering competely divergent views
of life and the world and how people live in it. The Wall, of course,
presents Roger Waters' dire and dismal view of rock stardom, with back story
that includes a dead father, a domineering mother, cruel and sadistic
schoolteachers, a sadistic harpy of a wife, substance abuse, war and Lord
knows what else. The concept album's protagonist steadily builds a wall to
isolate himself from the world around him, until in the over-the-top,
operatic "The Trial," he is forced to tear down the wall, exposing
himself to his deepest fears and the scathing views of those he has hurt and
damaged throughout his life. The album's most popular radio tracks are about
children being churned through the meat-grinder of public education, a
superstar being drugged before taking the stage, a young man cruising for sex
and running like hell from some unspoken psychic menace. Grim stuff, mated to
some of the hardest, harshest music that Pink Floyd ever produced. Songs
in the Key of Life, on the other hand, is a powerfully affirming document
of Stevie Wonder's love of and, uh, wonder at the world around him.
Considering the hand that life dealt him, one could excuse Stevie for being
as much of a bitter crank as Roger Waters, but there's nary a glimmer of such
negativity on this disc, although it does examine some of the darker
sociocultural issues of its day. Both records are triumphs, although they
both sound today to be very much products of their days, with a bit more
stridency and obviousness than it chic in critical circles these days. Both
have their annoying bits: the cooing baby at the end of "Isn't She
Lovely" goes on far longer than is necessary, and the "wanna take
bath" sequence on side two of The Wall is imminently skippable in
the digital fast-forward age. Which, I guess, takes us back to the music:
absent it's story, The Wall isn't one of Pink Floyd's greatest or
signature recordings, and Side Three (in the vinyl format) is positively
sluggish. Strip the lyrics off of Key of Life, and you're still left
with a wild cornucopia of styles and talent, without a 25% dead spot in its
middle. That decides it, I think.
Winner: 98. Songs in the Key of Life, Stevie Wonder
4. Led Zeppelin IV, Led Zeppelin vs.
95. The Joshua Tree, U2
Led Zeppelin's last studio album came out in 1979 (if you don't count 1982's
posthumous Coda), and U2's first hit in 1980. The case has been made
many times that these two groups were the greatest rock and roll bands of
their eras, so between them you can pretty much cover the top of the rock
mountain from 1969 to the present, if you subscribe to that notion. Of
course, their philosophical, lifestyle and musical approaches were radically
different from each other, as were the facts that U2 has been a fairly
successful singles band all along, while Led Zeppelin never was. Zep IV
(Zoso) and The Joshua Tree are not only their respective creators'
largest selling works, they're arguably their most influential and creatively
significant productions as well. (An overlap that's sadly not typical, as
evidenced by the amount of blockbuster dreck we've already had to shed just
to get to this round). Zep IV's eight tracks have all become fairly
archetypal and easily recognizable over the years: you may not know their
titles, but if you've spent any time listening to radio since the mid-'70s,
then you can sing (or at least hum) along with everyone of these cuts. The
Joshua Tree, on the other hand, has got one awesome side of solid radio
fodder, and one side that's not quite as bracing, familiar or, frankly, good.
Personally I want the full glass, not the half full one (which is, after all,
also half empty).
Winner: 4. Led Zeppelin IV, Led Zeppelin
5. Back in Black, AC/DC vs.
80. Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin's first album, unlike Zep IV, isn't anything close to a
full glass. It was influential, it provided a statement of intent from the
as-yet-corononated greatest rock band of the '70s, it's got its high points .
. . but the sound, as a whole, is pretty monochrome compared to the creative
breadth they'd tackle in the years ahead. You've got to start somewhere,
sure, but you don't have to keep going back and revisiting it once you've
grown into something better. Back in Black was AC/DC's sixth album,
but the first recorded after Brian Williams replaced the croaked Bon Scott.
It's not AC/DC's greatest album, (I'd give that nod to Scott's swansong, Highway
to Hell), but it contains the template on which pretty much all '80s
metal was built, and it took metal away from the more ethereal, highminded,
thoughtful practitioners (a la Led Zeppelin) and gave it to the scurfy masses
who wanted to chase beer and babes while listening to songs about chasing
beer and babes . . . as opposed to chasing beer and babes while listening to
songs about battles for everymore, songs remaining the same and their times
of dying. Back in Black made popular metal dumb, and that was the
smartest thing that could have happened to it. Even if Robert John
"Mutt" Lange (a.k.a. Mr. Shania Twain) had to produce it.
Winner: 5. Back in Black, AC/DC
8. The Beatles, The Beatles vs.
76. Van Halen, Van Halen
The Beatles' White Album (as everyone calls it, except for music
snobs) contains 30 songs, about 17 to 19 of which are pretty good. Most of
those 17-19 songs are clustered on the first disc of this two-record set.
Most of the time, I never listen to disc two accordingly. Van Halen's debut
disc has 11 songs, and they're all pretty good. No need to ignore any parts
of this record. The White Album includes an instrumental
("Revolution 9") that nobody ever listens to, except for music
snobs and conspiracy theorists. Van Halen has an instrumental
("Eruption") that in less than two minutes completely changed the
way that people listened to and played the electric guitar, the biggest
single seismic change in rock music's instrumental approach since Jimi
Hendrix gargled vomit. The White Album has a plain white cover with
the name of the band simply typeset on it, and four headshots of the Beatles
inside, all looking thoughtful and pensive. Van Halen features garish
cover shots of the group's four members rocking out like rockstars (even
though they weren't, yet, when the images were shot), and the band's name is
in a cool logo that looked great when carved into your desk in eighth grade.
Seems like a no brainer, when you get right down to it.
Winner: 76. Van Halen, Van Halen
9. Rumours, Fleetwood Mac vs.
64. Greatest Hits, Aerosmith
Like Zep IV, Rumours is one of those records with near
universal recognition factor, beginning to end, every song on it having been programmed
into some pop radio niche since its release, with the possible exception of
"Oh Daddy," a clunker by the otherwise usually tasteful Christine
McVie. You'd think that a greatest hits album by a band as great as Aerosmith
would be able to meet that same criteria, but it really doesn't: beyond
"Dream On, "Sweet Emotion" and "Walk This Way," odds
are the casual non-fan listener wouldn't recognize the rest of the cuts on
this 1980 collection. Well, except I guess for Aerosmith's deconstruction of
the Beatles' "Come Together," culled from the odious 1978 film
disaster, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. That cover is
followed sequentially by another terrible cover spin through "Remember
(Walking in the Sand"), and when you cut those two mistakes out, you're
left with about half a record worth of crunchy solid goodness. "Oh
Daddy" aside, Rumours is a better, longer top to bottom spin.
Winner: 9. Rumours, Fleetwood Mac
10. Boston, Boston vs.
54. Greatest Hits Volume II, The Eagles
Do you really want to buy a collection of the best songs the Eagles released
after their first Their Greatest Hits collection? If so, the record is
called Hotel California. The record actually called Greatest Hits
Volume II just takes several cuts from Hotel, plus the later (and
extremely lackluster) The Long Run, creating something in the process
that's woefully inadequate and direly misnamed. (I mean . . . if I was an
Eagles fan, and I was going to shell out for this second hits collection,
shouldn't it at least include the charting single-only release "Please
Come Home for Christmas" from that era? Isn't that what compilations
like this are supposed to do?) Anyway. Buy Hotel California and Their
Greatest Hits (first volume) if you want an instant Eagles collection.
It's the best combination of their work you can get. As, I suppose, Boston
is the best combination of Boston's work you can get, largely because every
Boston record that followed it was essentially the same record, with more
anal oversight by mastermind Tom Scholz, and less quality control of the
material contained thereon. At least when the first Boston album came
out, we didn't yet know they were all going to sound the same.
Winner: 10. Boston, Boston
12. The Beatles 1967-1970, The Beatles vs.
51. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles
Hmmm . . . Beatles vs. Beatles, eh? Well . . . I suppose in a case like this,
we really do have to advance the album that the Beatles themselves conceived,
as opposed to the one that the suits in their offices conceived when the cash
flow started to look a little dicey in the early '70s. Although as far as
Beatles' compilations go, this one really was the best, but that's not enough
to dislodge their signature studio record, is it?
Winner: 51. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles
13. CrazySexyCool, TLC vs.
48. Hot Rocks, The Rolling Stones
If Hot Rocks was going up against Exile on Main Street, then
I'd take exactly the same approach I took with the Beatles above, and say the
band-created record has to advance against the suit-created record. But when
you put the suit-created Hot Rocks up against CrazySexyCool,
which is a very, very good pop-funk-soul disc, you're dealing in a case where
the material the suits had to work with is of such a different order of
magnitude in influence and quality, that even if they wanted to mess it up,
they couldn't. "Waterfalls" was a nice fluffy single, but it can't
stack up against "Satisfaction". (I have to note, too, that while
I'm sorry she died young, Lisa Lopes was the least appealing part of TLC to
me . . . the La Face production team was awesome, and I liked listening to
T-Boz and Chilli a whole lot more than I liked listening to Left Eye. May she
rest in peace.)
Winner: 48. Hot Rocks, The Rolling Stones
Tomorrow (or whenever I next have time), we will tackle the bottom half of
the second round, and when that's done, we will pair our Sweet Sixteen
finalists top to bottom and get on with the Elite Eight brawling. As preview
and reminder, here's what coming next time:
14. Hotel California, The Eagles vs.
45. Yourself or Someone Like You, Matchbox 20
18. The Beatles 1962-1966, The Beatles vs.
41. Hysteria, Def Leppard
19. Saturday Night Fever (Soundtrack), The Bee Gees vs.
39. II, Boyz II Men
21. Appetite for Destruction, Guns n' Roses vs.
38. Slippery When Wet, Bon Jovi
22. Physical Graffiti, Led Zeppelin vs.
35. Purple Rain (Soundtrack), Prince and the Revolution
23. Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd vs.
34. Greatest Hits 1974-1978, Steve Miller Band
25. Born in the U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen vs.
33. Whitney Houston, Whitney Houston
28. Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf vs.
29. Metallica, Metallica
Tune is soon to see which eight of those records join today's eight winners.
Best of
the Blockbusters, Part Five: Second Round, Bottom Half of the Bracket
Moving right along, today we finish round two and identify our Sweet Sixteen
Finalists for the Best of the Blockbusters tourney. (For complete
rules/caveats, scroll down to Part One). Here are today's contests:
14. Hotel California, The Eagles vs.
45. Yourself or Someone Like You, Matchbox 20
18. The Beatles 1962-1966, The Beatles vs.
41. Hysteria, Def Leppard
19. Saturday Night Fever (Soundtrack), The Bee Gees vs.
39. II, Boyz II Men
21. Appetite for Destruction, Guns n' Roses vs.
38. Slippery When Wet, Bon Jovi
22. Physical Graffiti, Led Zeppelin vs.
35. Purple Rain (Soundtrack), Prince and the Revolution
23. Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd vs.
34. Greatest Hits 1974-1978, Steve Miller Band
25. Born in the U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen vs.
33. Whitney Houston, Whitney Houston
28. Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf vs.
29. Metallica, Metallica
And here's what we do with them . . .
14. Hotel California, The Eagles vs.
45. Yourself or Someone Like You, Matchbox 20
As noted in yesterday's contest, Hotel California should actually be
titled Eagles Greatest Hits Volume II, since it contains everything
you need from their catalog after Their Greatest Hits Volume I. Hotel
California marked the end point to any claim the Eagles once had to being
a country-tinged act, as founding picker Bernie Leadon was replaced by
fleet-fingered, slick soloist Joe Walsh. To their credit, Walsh and Don
Felder really do crank up some big, big stadium styled riffs and leads on
this record, most particularly on "Life in the Fast Lane", which
musically really wouldn't have sounded too out of place on a contemporaneous
Led Zeppelin disc. The biggest problem with Hotel California, though,
is how front-ended loaded it is: the second side of the record gets saddled
with Randy Meisner and Joe Walsh's token songwriting credits, while the good
stuff (relatively speaking, I mean) is pretty much over and done with after
three cuts. Still . . . a quarter of a century later, most folks know the
titles and tunes of "Hotel California," "Life in the Fast
Lane" and "New Kid In Town," whereas 25 years after Yourself
or Someone Like You's release, I doubt that anyone will be able to name
or hum any of its endless series of mediocre, middle of the road lite rock
hits, unless somebody in 2020 decides to cover them, tapping into the aging
Gen Y's middle-aged nostalgia node.
Winner: 14. Hotel California, The Eagles
18. The Beatles 1962-1966, The Beatles vs.
41. Hysteria, Def Leppard
The Red Album (a.k.a. 1962-1966) covers the Beatles career from
Meet the Beatles through Revolver, charting the Fab Four's
evolution from fun-loving mop tops to serious artistes. As I've noted before,
I consider it fundamentally flawed for excluding "Tomorrow Never
Knows" from Revolver, their greatest recording accomplishment,
but I suppose in 1972 when trance, rave, electronica, world music and
darkwave weren't really blips on the horizon yet, it might have been hard to
appreciate its pending influence. Of course, there's plenty of other
influential cuts on this compilation, since the Beatles' were the first
internationally successful rock band to include singers, players and
songwriters as a self-contained whole, the template on which all modern rock
music is based. (Pop music, on the other hand, is still for the most part
created as product, by committee, each cog in the manufacturing line chipping
in their little piece, never actually working or interacting with the other
cog-providers, until a shiny new confection rolls off the end of the line).
And speaking of shiny new confections: Def Leppard's Hysteria, the
fluffiest piece of metal-coated pop ever crafted. Under, of course, the
supervision of uber-polisher Robert John "Mutt" Lange (a.k.a. Mr.
Shania Twain). Hmmm . . . isn't kind of disturbing how many times I've needed
to type Mr. Twain's name in this essay? Let's do something about that.
Winner: 18. The Beatles 1962-1966, The Beatles
19. Saturday Night Fever (Soundtrack), The Bee Gees vs.
39. II, Boyz II Men
Here's a (probably) surprising statistic for you: Boyz II Men are the most
commercially successful R&B act in history. That surprised me, anyway,
although it probably shouldn't have, since II (their biggest seller)
came out during a particularly dire era for popular radio. Mariah Carey and
Whitney Houston first rocketed to superstardom in this same period, if you
need some refreshing comparisons. While Boyz II Men's material wasn't as bad
as the product shipped by those well manufactured divas, it was still
committee-based, over-polished, assembly-line pop, and as such doesn't really
stick in the head or heart with much staying power. It was what it was, when
it was. Then it wasn't. Saturday Night Fever, however, has stuck
through the ages, for better or worse, as the landmark recording of the disco
era, the Bee Gees' singularly greatest commercial moment, but yet the moment
that also effectively destroyed their already long and varied careers
completely when disco was finally shuffled off of popular culture's center
stage. (Well . . . I suppose, actually, that their involvement in the
spectucularly bad Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band movie didn't
help them either. Or Peter Frampton, for that matter). It's worth noting, for
those who don't remember, that Saturday Night Fever isn't completely a
Bee Gee's effort: although their involvement as producers and songwriters
extends well beyond the cuts on the album that actually bear their names,
Yvonne Elliman, Tavares, Walter Murphy and David Shire also bear credit (or
responsibility) for this overwhelming divisive cultural artefact. It's hard
to argue with influence (positive and negative) like this record had,
especially when comparing it to something as passing and fleeting as Boyz II
Men's nice enough lite R&B music, that could have (and has) been made by
any number of people, any number of times over the past fifty years.
Winner: 19. Saturday Night Fever (Soundtrack), The Bee Gees
21. Appetite for Destruction, Guns n' Roses vs.
38. Slippery When Wet, Bon Jovi
Slippery When Wet was the big flavor of metal-flavored rock in 1986, a
slick and shiny confection of prefab guitar-based pop, delivered by a quintet
of mostly harmless, good dude, pretty boys, the sorts of fellows who the girls
in the audience could idolize without making the guys in the audience
jealous, since they wished they could go drink beer with them, too. One year
later, Appetite for Destruction blew up the shiny, happy world of
parent-friendly metal that Bon Jovi had so diligently and thoroughly crafted,
re-introducing to radio all the scaly, ugly, mean and sociopathic facets of
metal that had been festering just below the surface all along. This one's a
non-contest, really.
Winner: 21. Appetite for Destruction, Guns n' Roses
22. Physical Graffiti, Led Zeppelin vs.
35. Purple Rain (Soundtrack), Prince and the Revolution
Physical Graffiti is Led Zeppelin's White Album, a two-record
set with moments of towering brilliance intercut with moments that might best
have been left on the studio floor, or slapped on a B-side somewhere, had
Zeppelin ever bothered to release any singles. While its length allows Physical
Graffiti to cover a lot of musical moods and styles, Zeppelin had proven
that they could do that equally well, and far more concisely, on the
single-disc Zep IV (Zoso) four years earlier. Zep wobbled on for
another four years (with two more studio albums) before Bonzo's permanent nap
ended their decade of debauchery and distinction, but Physical Graffiti
is the point where all the cracks in the facade really begin to show, again
like the Beatle's White Album. Purple Rain, on the other hand,
is the place where Prince patched up the cracks that had marred his earlier
work and created the most prominent and appealling musical ediface of its
age, one of those rare music soundtracks that works equally well on the
screen and on the turntable. What Saturday Night Fever was to the
'70s, Purple Rain was to the '80s, only Purple Rain was a
better, tighter and more diverse album. It's more akin to Zep IV than
it is to Physical Graffiti accordingly, and like Zep IV (and Saturday
Night Fever), it moves on.
Winner: 35. Purple Rain (Soundtrack), Prince and the Revolution
23. Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd vs.
34. Greatest Hits 1974-1978, Steve Miller Band
I liked me some Steve Miller Band during the period that's covered on this Greatest
Hits album, which would be 1974-1978, for the less observant among you.
The 14 cuts on this compilation are culled from a mere three records, and
represent pretty much all the Steve Miller Band stuff you need, since the
stuff that came before and (especially) after these songs isn't quite up to
the same standards of smooth and tasty rock. ("Abracadabra,"
anyone? Didn't think so). Of course . . . I've pretty much said everything I
can say about this compilation in these three sentences, whereas tomes and
troves can (and have) been written about Dark Side of the Moon, the
first Pink Floyd record to stand as a fully integrated suite of Roger Waters'
dark and troublesome lyrical visions, supported by some of the group's most
appealling performances, and some pretty cool studio trickery that still
sounds fresh over 30 years later. I never turn the radio off when a Steve
Miller Band song from 1974-1978 comes on, but I always turn the radio up
when a Dark Side of the Moon cut appears. Plus, anything that's warped or
shaped the sociocultural perceptions and self-images of three or four
generations of teenage boys is a pretty good thing in my book. The lunatic is
in my head, indeed.
23. Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd
25. Born in the U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen vs.
33. Whitney Houston, Whitney Houston
I believe I have mentioned the fact that I don't like Bruce Springsteen at
all. Not one bit. Not even Nebraska, so don't suggest it. I am not,
however, stupid or deaf.
Winner: 25. Born in the U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen
28. Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf vs.
29. Metallica, Metallica
Bat Out of Hell is an album that the world's simple, lo-fi souls would
likely hold up as an archetypal example of everything they stand against:
over-produced, bombastic, hyperbolic, needlessly baroque and emotionally
shallow. Metallica (or The Black Album) is an album that the
world's Metallica fans would likely hold us as an archetypal example of
everything they stand against: it is popular among non-Metallica fans, and it
is not Kill 'Em All. Lo-fi weenies may hate Bat Out of Hell,
but at least Meat Loaf fans like it. Radio listeners may like like Metallica,
but most "serious" Metallica fans hate it. And it's hard to pick an
album that offends its creator's most ardent fans, isn't it?
Winner: 28. Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf
Okey dokey. That's it for round two. We have 16 records surviving, and when
we sort them from highest selling to lowest selling, and pit the highest
survivor vs. lowest survivor, all the way through the list, we end up with
the following third round contests:
4. Led Zeppelin IV, Led Zeppelin vs.
98. Songs in the Key of Life, Stevie Wonder
5. Back in Black, AC/DC vs.
76. Van Halen, Van Halen
9. Rumours, Fleetwood Mac vs.
51. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles
10. Boston, Boston vs.
48. Hot Rocks, The Rolling Stones
14. Hotel California, The Eagles vs.
35. Purple Rain (Soundtrack), Prince and the Revolution
18. The Beatles 1962-1966, The Beatles vs.
28. Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf
19. Saturday Night Fever (Soundtrack), The Bee Gees vs.
25. Born in the U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen
21. Appetite for Destruction, Guns n' Roses vs.
23. Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd
Next time, we boil these sixteen records down to eight. There's gonna be some
tough picks . . .
Best of
the Blockbuster, Part Six: Third Round
It's a dreary, dismal, rainy weekend, and I'm not inclined to sit in front of
the television anymore after watching the Jets squeaking one out against
Tampa Bay, and then the Cowboys putting a big whipping on the Eagles. So I
think I'll move another round forward, taking sixteen records to eight. If
you haven't read this page in a couple of days, and you don't want to miss
anything in this contest, scroll down to pick it up at the applicable point
where you left off. Once this is done, I will de-blog it, reverse the order
so it reads top to bottom instead of bottom to top, and put it on its own
page, like the Worst Bands
and Secret Bands
pages, so it's easier to read. I'll also edit it for typos and grammar, since
when I'm doing this the first time, I'm generally letting the fingers fly as
the thoughts fall out of my head, and not going back and re-reading (and
re-thinking as a result) my initial gut reactions to each of these matchups.
Okay, having said that, here are the third round contenders:
4. Led Zeppelin IV, Led Zeppelin vs.
98. Songs in the Key of Life, Stevie Wonder
5. Back in Black, AC/DC vs.
76. Van Halen, Van Halen
9. Rumours, Fleetwood Mac vs.
51. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles
10. Boston, Boston vs.
48. Hot Rocks, The Rolling Stones
14. Hotel California, The Eagles vs.
35. Purple Rain (Soundtrack), Prince and the Revolution
18. The Beatles 1962-1966, The Beatles vs.
28. Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf
19. Saturday Night Fever (Soundtrack), The Bee Gees vs.
25. Born in the U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen
21. Appetite for Destruction, Guns n' Roses vs.
23. Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd
Let's make an Elite Eight out of them . . .
4. Led Zeppelin IV, Led Zeppelin vs.
98. Songs in the Key of Life, Stevie Wonder
I think one of the worst aspects of the digital age, when it comes to
recorded music, is the fact that a compact disc holds about 80 minutes worth
of music. This means that most single-disc recordings these days have a lot
more music on them than they should have, since creative impulses tend to
expand to fill space made available to it. Back in the vinyl era, albums
tended to typically run in the 30-40 minute range, and since you didn't
necessarily flip them over and play both sides, you often digested an
artist's material in 15-20 minutes slugs. That seems ideal to me, as it
limits the amount of filler you have to endure to get to the really choice
cuts. Led Zeppelin IV runs at about 43 minutes, and there's not a
minute of fluff or filler in there, as each of the albums eight songs packs a
wallop in its own particular way. Songs in the Key of Life was a
double vinyl album in its original configuration, clocking in at about 87
minutes. (In its CD incarnation, four extra tracks have been tacked on, and
they really don't do the overall album any favors). With a little bit of a
trim (like, say, cutting down the baby babbling at the end of "Isn't She
Lovely"), Key of Life would be just a typically lengthy release
of the CD era. Of course, Stevie Wonder is a better singer, songwriter and
band leader than most folks putting out 80-minute slabs of plastic these
days, so a single disc Songs in the Key of Life would still pack more
emotional and creative punch than the average contemporary filler-rich
release. But, still, when you get right down it, 80 minutes is a lot of time
to dedicate to a single listening project, even one as good as this. When I
listen to Zep IV, I don't come across a single thing that I'd slice or
skip to improve it. When I listen to Songs in the Key of Life, there
are a couple of point when I tend to reach for the "skip" button to
get on to the best stuff sooner. I used to work for a guy whose motto was
writing was "Sorry for the long note . . . I didn't have time to write a
short one." I think that philosophy ultimately has to pertain to
recorded music as well.
Winner: 4. Led Zeppelin IV, Led Zeppelin
5. Back in Black, AC/DC vs.
76. Van Halen, Van Halen
When I think about heavy rock history, my brain always puts AC/DC in the
chronology ahead of Van Halen, which is correct, in terms of their founding
dates: AC/DC put out its first album in 1975, while Van Halen's debut disc
hit in 1978. Thing is, though, that while VH's debut was their defining disc
in both commercial and critical terms, AC/DC didn't hit their creative
pinnacle until Back in Black, which was released in 1980. Which from a
hard rock chronology seems wrong: creatively speaking, Back in Black
feels like a precursor to Van Halen, because it is absolutely and
completely uninfluenced by Eddie Van Halen's guitar pyrotechnics, which
tended to infuse just about everything else in rock and metal that followed.
It's as if AC/DC created Back in Black in a time vortex that allowed them to
jump straight from 1975 to 1980 without being affected by or picking up any
pointers from anything that came between those dates. Had Back in Black
come out before Van Halen, I think I would have had to pick it as the
winner of this contest, noting that Van Halen wouldn't have been to able to
do what they did without AC/DC having blazed the trail for them. But given
the actual time sequence of these recordings, I find myself having to
penalize AC/DC for clinging (however tenaciously, and however successfully)
to a pre-Van Halen musical world, after Eddie had changed it for everyone
else. Plus, Van Halen managed to rock the world titanically without help from
Back in Black producer Mr. Shania Twain (a.k.a. Robert John
"Mutt" Lange), and it's much easier to stomach leering misogynistic
lyrics from the charming and (at the time) buff David Lee Roth than is it to
take them from Brian Johnson, who looks like the sort of guy who would most
likely have to pay for the erotic acts he sings about, from women who aren't
likely to appear in either rock videos or teenage fantasies. That settles it.
Winner: 76. Van Halen, Van Halen
9. Rumours, Fleetwood Mac vs.
51. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles
I think Lindsey Buckingham is a flat out, no holds barred musical genius: a
brilliant guitar player, a wonderful singer, an insightful and clever
songwriter, and a sonic technician of the highest caliber. I also think
Christine McVie is a classy and distinguished musician blessed with copious
skills in the singing, writing and keyboarding departments. Furthermore, I
believe that John McVie and Mick Fleetwood make up one of the most
under-appreciated rhythm sections in rock music history; everyone gets all
gushy over the various singers and guitarists who have passed through
Fleetwood Mac over the years (Buckingham, C. McVie, Stevie Nicks, Bob Welch,
Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer, Danny Kirwan, etc.), but not a one of them would
have sounded anywhere near as good as they did without J. McVie and Fleetwood
anchoring them with just perfect rhythmic frameworks, unobstrusive most of
the time, and admirable precisely for that reason. I really like all those
other guitarists, too, even Bob Welch, who tends to get ridiculed and
critically bashed for being the guy who left the band to let Buckingham take
them into the big leagues. But there's one part of Fleetwood Mac that I
really don't like one bit, and that part's name is Stevie Nicks. Stevie
contributes three cuts to Rumours: "Gold Dust Woman" (marginally
annoying), "I Don't Wanna Know" (above average annoying) and
"Dreams" (extremely annoying, especially the "when the rain
wa-SHES you clean, you'll know" bit). The usually dependable Christine
McVie also drops a rare clunker on Rumours with "Oh Daddy,"
which is uncomfortable if you think she's singing about her father, but really
gets skeevy and weird when you learn that she's singing about her
soon-to-be-ex-husband, John. It's a testament to the work that Buckingham,
John "Daddy" McVie and Fleetwood do on this record that it's gotten
as far as it has, because they are good enough to outweigh the Stevie and
(one time only) Christine clunkers. That's kind of the case for the Beatles,
too, when it comes to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band: there are
certainly annoyances on that disc ("When I'm Sixty Four" and
"Fixing a Hole" pop to mind), but they're relatively easy to gloss
over when confronted with the brilliance of such cuts as "A Day in the
Life" or "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" or "Within You,
Without You." At the bottom line, though, even at their most
annoying, the Beatles never produced anything as teeth-grittingly bad as
"Dreams" or "Oh Daddy." Well . . . at least not when they
were playing together, anyway.
Winner: 51. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles
10. Boston, Boston vs.
48. Hot Rocks, The Rolling Stones
I have to admit that it's been bothering me a bit to keep carrying Hot
Rocks forward, because there's a part of me that says that a compilation
of greatest hits and selected misses can't be taken as seriously as a fully
artist-conceived record can. But when it comes to the Rolling Stones, this
sort of seems appropriate . . . in case you didn't notice, Hot Rocks
is the only album that the Stones got into the 99 ten times platinum list.
The Beatles placed several hits compilations on that list, and it's easy to
let them go because they have so many of their original studio albums also on
the list. Not so with the Stones. This is the group that can arguably claim
to be rock's greatest band, and in large part that's because of their
unbelievably good singles, not because of the albums that spawned them. Which
isn't to say that they don't have some great, cohesive albums. They do,
certainly: Let It Bleed, Exile on Main Street and Beggar's Banquet
are every bit the peers of the Beatles greatest artistic accomplishments. But
they didn't sell as well as the Fab Four's discs did, leaving Hot Rocks
as the Stones' sole Blockbuster, as defined in this survey. So . . . am I
willing to chuck a collection of singles from the greatest rock band's
greatest era (1964-1971) for a non-compilation album by Boston, the
nearly-transparent band of ciphers created to bring studio weenie Tom
Scholz's musical visions to life? I don't think I am. I don't think I should
be expected to. I don't think I will.
Winner: 48. Hot Rocks, The Rolling Stones
14. Hotel California, The Eagles vs.
35. Purple Rain (Soundtrack), Prince and the Revolution
As noted in the prior round, Hotel California is about half of a great
album, with a tight and memorable first side backed by a B-side of true
B-sides. (Note to CD era readers . . . once upon a time, records and tapes
had two sides. I encountered both of these albums for the first time during
the vinyl era, and will always regard them in A and B side configurations
accordingly, even if they are all on one side on compact disc). Purple
Rain, on the other hand, has "Let's Go Crazy" at the top of its
first side, and a second side framed by "When Doves Cry" and
"Purple Rain". There are six other cuts on the record as well,
every one of them a keeper. There are no songs written by Randy Meisner and
Joe Walsh on Purple Rain. Ultimately, that's enough, isn't it?
Winner: 35. Purple Rain (Soundtrack), Prince and the Revolution
18. The Beatles 1962-1966, The Beatles vs.
28. Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf
The Rolling Stones' Hot Rocks caught some slack for being the sole
representative of that formidable group in the original list of 99
deca-platinum records. It's hard to grant The Beatles 1962-1966 the
same pass, because they have other original studio recordings on this list,
and because its not even the best Beatles compilation out there. (I'd give
that nod to its companion disc, 1967-1970, which had the misfortune to
go against stiffer competition earlier in the brackets than The Red Album
did). But then I think, "Seriously, self . . . can you really pick a
Meat Loaf album over anything the Beatles did?" And then I think
"Self . . . I think you need a cookie" and I go and get one, and
come back and sit in front of the computer some more, and actually pop Bat
Out of Hell into the CD player while chewing, and think "You know .
. . it is overwrought, sure, but there are some great melodies and
lyrics here, and they are recorded and delivered with such enthusiasm and
lust for life, that, sure, I can see picking this over a Beatles compilation,
absolutely, especially while eating a cookie." So I do.
Winner: 28. Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf
19. Saturday Night Fever (Soundtrack), The Bee Gees vs.
25. Born in the U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen
Once again, I have to note: I really dislike Bruce Springsteen. Wholly,
completely and totally. Him at Patti Smith, probably my two least favorite
famous and critically regarded musicians of the past 50 years. The fact that
they actually recorded a song together ("BE-cause . . . the NIGHT")
actually allows me to package all of my loathing into a dense ball of disgust
and shuddering, which I can invoke at will just by finding and playing that
odious little nugget of badness. Still . . . I'm neither deaf, nor stupid,
nor insensitive to the fact that I'm a minority in my Bruce loathing, no
matter how good and satisfying it may be. (And, truth be told, I like the Bee
Gee's pre-disco stuff a whole lot more than I like Saturday Night
Fever.) I shudder with disgust, but I do the right thing when it needs to
be done.
Winner: 25. Born in the U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen
21. Appetite for Destruction, Guns n' Roses vs.
23. The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd
Oh dear . . . this is a tough one. Both of these albums are classics, both of
them destined to be discovered and loved by generation after generation of
young people looking for music that matches the confusion and rebellion they
feel as they begin sawing away at the apron strings that attach them to their
childhoods. Dark Side of the Moon offers a world view that questions
authority, challenges assumptions, and admits to confusion and consternation
when confronted by a world that seems hell bent on its own destruction. Appetite
for Destruction, on the other hand, is less concerned with the
destruction of the world than it is with the destruction of the self, through
risk-taking, drugs, sex, drugs, alcohol, drugs, risk-taking, sex, drug,
alcohol and drugs. The music featured on these two discs couldn't be more
different: Dark Side of the Moon is the place where space rock and
prog most seamlessly mesh, where drones and blips and whooshes are perfectly
integrated with true virtuoso playing, most of it of a hashed out,
world-weary variety. Appetite for Destruction, on the other hand,
sounds like Aerosmith on crack, a bruising, straight-ahead, blues-based rock
and roll record with two guitars sparring and dueling atop a
four-to-the-floor rhythm bed that rumbles when it needs to rumble, and swings
when it needs to swing. As I jostle back and forth between these two discs, I
keep coming back to Axl Rose and Roger Waters, the pair of misanthropes who
provided Guns n' Roses and Pink Floyd with their lyrical messages. When I
read the lyrics of these two records, I see Roger Waters as a man who hates
humanity because he thinks it should be more noble and pure than it actually
is, while Axl Rose stands as the man who hates humanity because he thinks its
nobility and purity are keeping him from doing and being what he wants to do
and be. Neither Waters nor Rose were (or are) particularly stellar singers,
although they're both distinctive in their own ways. Waters, to his credit,
often enlisted Rick Wright and David Gilmour to deliver his words, while Axl
was never willing to let the mic be pried out of his fist. And that,
ultimately, is the Achilles Heel of Appetite for Destruction: I can
only take so much of Axl's squealing before it overwhelms the boss and
righteous work of Messrs. McKagan, Adler, Stradlin and Slash and starts
making all the songs sound the same. And that's one thing that never happens
on Dark Side of the Moon, as Waters, Wright, Gilmour and guest diva
Claire Tory keep things sounding different and fresh from track to track to
track. That variety tips the see saw in Pink Floyd's direction.
Winner: 23. The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd
And guess what? That takes us down to eight finalists, pretty quickly, no
less. We stack them up, top to bottom, in terms of sales, put the highest
against the lowest, and end up with the following contests, which will take
us down to the Final Four:
4. Led Zeppelin IV, Led Zeppelin vs.
76. Van Halen, Van Halen
23. The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd vs.
51. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles
25. Born in the U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen vs.
48. Hot Rocks, The Rolling Stones
28. Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf vs.
35. Purple Rain (Soundtrack), Prince and the Revolution
An advance reminder: when we get to the Final Four, we shift back into Round
Robin mode, where each album competes against all three of the others, and
the champion is the one that earns the most points in that multi-disc
competition. One more day of weeding and we will be there. Golly gee.
Best of
the Blockbusters, Part Seven: The Fourth Round
I didn't originally intend to get through this thing so quickly, but having a
rainy, yucky three-day weekend to play with lends itself to typing,
especially since the week that follows is looking a bit tight on the work and
family front. That said, let's take our Elite Eight down to a Final Four
today. Here are the contenders:
4. Led Zeppelin IV, Led Zeppelin vs.
76. Van Halen, Van Halen
23. The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd vs.
51. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles
25. Born in the U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen vs.
48. Hot Rocks, The Rolling Stones
28. Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf vs.
35. Purple Rain (Soundtrack), Prince and the Revolution
And here's the analysis:
4. Led Zeppelin IV, Led Zeppelin vs.
76. Van Halen, Van Halen
Feh . . . I wish this contest came in the Final Four, because I think both of
these albums are seminal, influential and just flat-out damn good listens. Zep
IV was the place where Page, Plant, Jones and Bonham put all the pieces
together perfectly for the first (and, arguably, last) time, merging the
blooze and boogie of Zep I with the power sludge and noise of Zep
II and the acoustic mythologizing of Zep III into a grand,
cohesive whole. Zep's timing was impeccable, too, as they launched this beast
on the world right around the time when freeform FM radio stations were
opening up the airwaves to long, deep album cuts. Epic songs like
"Stairway to Heaven" and "When the Levee Breaks" might
never have gotten spun into the communal psyche had they been released five
years earlier. Another thing about this record that doesn't get written about
much (or at least I haven't read it anywhere else) is how accessible it made
some really, really weird music: "Four Sticks," "Misty
Mountain Hop" and "Black Dog" are all eminently head-bangable
these days, but if you actually listen to them, there are some unique,
unusual things happening rhythmically and melodically, things that not many
other people have attempted, much less gotten radio play with. It's
impressive to hear ambitious music like that work so well. Zep IV is a
mature, fully-realized album for the ages. Van Halen, on the other
hand, is nothing if not brash. Eddie, Alex, Roth and Michael Anthony (a.k.a.
the other guy whose name people never remember) popped up seemingly out of
nowhere with a bizarre and influential new take on rock guitar, glamtastic
stage moves and songs, and a simple, yet alluring, pulse-like rhythmic style
that really defines the band's sound, even more than Eddie's
oft-since-immitated guitar (and synths) or the efforts of their rotating cast
of singers over the years. I would normally gig a band for putting two cover
cuts on an 11-track album, but fact of the matter is, I'd rather listen to
the Van Halen versions of "You Really Got Me" and "Ice Cream
Man" than the originals. Like Zep IV, Van Halen (I) is
filled with songs that have become classic rock radio staples over the years.
Unlike Zeppelin, though, the VH guys actually released some of them as singles,
scoring in the pop charts as well as the album sales charts. And, ultimately,
I think the ways in which radio embraced these records ultimately tips the
scale on this distressingly tight contest. Whenever anything from Van
Halen comes on, I'm going to turn up the radio and enjoy the snot out of
whatever it is, for no more than four minutes, and probably closer to three.
But when "Stairway to Heaven" comes on the radio, odds are I'm
going to lose interest before the eight-plus minutes have run their course.
And when "Rock and Roll" comes on, I'm going to think "Damn,
those new Cadillacs are ugly cars." I think I'm going to pick brash,
tight and less co-opted over mature, sprawling and commercially compromised.
Winner: 76. Van Halen, Van Halen
23. The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd vs.
51. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles
There's certainly no arguing the titanic influence of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely
Hearts Club Band: it made the album an art form in and of itself, as opposed
to having be little more than a compilation of singles with some fluff to
round out the running time, it introduced the lyric sheet to the world,
making what singers say nearly as important as how they said it, it was
arguably the first "concept album" of thematically linked songs
telling a story, it was a masterpiece of packaging and marketing. As I've
said earlier, it was the Citizen Kane of music. Like Citizen Kane,
though, it changed everything that came after it so fundamentally, that when
you go back to the source with modern eyes, you often find yourself wondering
"What was the big deal?" Citizen Kane doesn't look that
radical now, since it altered the way we look at film. And Sgt. Pepper
doesn't sound that radical now, since it altered the way we listen to albums.
A concept album like The Dark Side of the Moon never could have
existed without the Beatles having blazed the trail with Sgt. Pepper.
So that means we have to pick Sgt. Pepper here, right? No, not
necessarily. Let's take a more reductive view of origins vs outcomes: The
Jazz Singer was the first movie released with sound embedded on its film,
as opposed to sound being provided by in theatre musicians or foley artists.
(Did they call them foley artists back then? I don't know!) The first feature
film to use three-strip color was Becky Sharp. Does that make The
Jazz Singer the greatest "talkie" ever and Becky Sharp
the greatest color film ever? No. Pioneers are important, but they aren't
necessarily the pinnacle of their craft, and more often than not, probably
aren't. And I think that's the case in this contest: The Dark Side of the
Moon owes a great debt to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,
but its scope, its execution, its material and its overall, lasting effect
strikes me as greater and more powerful than its precursor.
Winner: 23. The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd
25. Born in the U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen vs.
48. Hot Rocks, The Rolling Stones
Alright, Bruce . . . hit us with your best shot from Born in the U.S.A.
"Glory Days," you say? Touche! Hot Rocks counters with
"Sympathy for the Devil" and "Streetfighting Man." Oh,
you want to offer the title track instead? En garde! The Stones counter with
"Satisfaction" and "Jumping Jack Flash". "I'm On
Fire" you say? Hotcha! "Time Is On My Side" and "You
Can't Always Get What You Want" and "Wild Horses" can out love
ballad that one anyday. "Dancing in the Dark"? Jab! Parry! Thrust!
"Let's Spend the Night Together" doesn't mince around with
euphemisms for bumping uglies. And it's a better song to boot. Gonna put a
picture of your ass on an album cover? Pssh . . . a late, lame copy of the
Stones' infamous crotch shot on Sticky Fingers, one of the records
anthologized on Hot Rocks. Face it, Bruce. You made it this far on the
luck of the draw, facing tepid competition all along the way. Your E Street
Band can't begin to compete with 1964-1971 vintage Stones. Game, set, match.
Winner: 48. Hot Rocks, The Rolling Stones
28. Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf vs.
35. Purple Rain (Soundtrack), Prince and the Revolution
Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell is one the most over-the-top, hysterical
pop artefacts ever created, with seven songs spread out over 46 minutes,
bombast and pomp oozing from every single second of every single one of them.
Jim Steinman's songs scan like mini-operas, with big stories of big passion
and lust and more lust and passion and big, big lust serving as the perfect
vehicles for the big man born Marvin Lee Aday's big belt-tastic performances.
This is a big, big, big record: in its ambition, in its sound, in its
uniqueness (no one else every tried anything like this, and even Meat Loaf
wasn't able to duplicate it) and in its instrumental performances, which
(trivia time) were mostly delivered by producer Todd Rundgren and his Utopia
bandmates (John Willie Wilcox, Roger Powell and Kasim Sulton), with assists
from E Streeters Roy Bittan and Max Weinberg. Not to mention some choirs and
philharmonic orchestras, of course. Recorded and released 28 years ago, it still
sounds big to modern ears. Prince and the Revolution's Purple Rain, on
the other hand, suffers a bit on the sonic front to the modern ear: while
Bobby Z's boom-pock electronic percussion was hotsy hot in 1984, it badly
dates this recording today, and leaves it sounding more trebly and shrill
than it should have. Wendy and Lisa's psychedelic flourishes were appealingly
retro in the '80s, but again, they date this record to the Paisley
Underground era, and that's not really appealling with 20/20 hindsight. Don't
get me wrong: Purple Rain is a trememdous album, and one of the
defining recordings of its era. But Bat Out of Hell completely
transcends time, sounding as giggle-inducing and garish now as it did in
1977, or as it would have had it come out in 1963. Or 1927. Or 1726. It's cheese
for the ages.
Winner: 28. Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf
So, looky looky . . . we have a final four:
23. The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd
28. Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf
48. Hot Rocks, The Rolling Stones
76. Van Halen, Van Halen
The next time I type, I'll name a winner. As was the case for prior contests
of this ilk here, the Final Four get to go head-to-head with all three of
their competitors, not a simple single elimination. Points are tallied in the
round robin (as was done in the preliminary round of this competition) and
the record with the most points is dubbed, for Flexible Tetragrammaton
purposes, the Best of the Blockbusters.
It should happen within the next 48 hours. Stay tuned.
Best of
the Blockbusters, Part Eight: This is the End
Alright. Let's go ahead and kill this thing. I'm having a hard time imagining
working on it during the week ahead, and it's started feeling more like a
long weekend project than a sustained effort anyway.
Here are the final four:
23. The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd
28. Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf
48. Hot Rocks, The Rolling Stones
76. Van Halen, Van Halen
Rules are as follows: each record will be compared to each other record, for
a total of six round-robin competitions. (Six? yes, six, because Van Halen
vs. Meat Loaf is the same thing as Meat Loaf vs. Van Halen). The winner of
each mini-competition will get two points. The loser gets no points. If the
records tie, they get one point each. At the end of the six mini-contests, we
tally the points. The record with the most points is the winner. If there's a
tie, we'll go a level deeper with a sudden death track by track analysis,
winner takes all. I'll figure out how that works if I have to. Since I've
spent eight installments going over these records, I'm not going to do a lot
more analysis in this round. It's summary and decision. Rug cutting time.
With that as preamble, let the judging begin . . .
The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd
Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf
I've got a fond spot for Bat Out of Hell because it came out when I
was a horny teenager, and hadn't yet been trained to realize what an uncool
album it was. The bombast doesn't bother me, really, on five of the album's
seven cuts. Those are the rockers of the set. The place where this one bogs
down is when Meat gets a little too deep in the balladry on "Heaven Can
Wait" (a short tune, by his standards, clocking in at just under five
minutes) and "For Crying Out Loud" (nearly nine minutes long). Now
. . . those nine minutes were one thing when you were putting your best moves
on your girlfriend at a high school house party and you wanted the mood
sustained for as long as possible, but outside of such circumstances, and 28
years later, it's kinda tough to ride 'em out. Dark Side of the Moon has
a dodgy spot, too, ("Any Colour You Like," the instrumental jam
between "Us and Them" and "Brain Damage/Eclipse"), but
it's only about three minutes long. It also features "The Great Gig in
the Sky," which is almost as bombastic and dramatic (though wordlessly
so) as anything Meat Loaf, Jim Steinman and Todd Rundgren concocted. Still .
. . if given the choice, it would be a rare day that I didn't choose Dark
Side over Bat for an afternoon of entertaining listening.
Result: Dark Side of the Moon (2 points) beats Bat Out of Hell
(0 points).
The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd vs. Hot Rocks, The
Rolling Stones
I've been carrying Hot Rocks forward on the justification that it's
the best compiled batch of classic Rolling Stones singles, and the only
Stones record represented in this contest of the blockbusters. The material
contained on it is, obviously, pretty darned good . . . although it's missing
one important piece, to my ears, of the Rolling Stones story from its
coverage period (1964-1971): their psychedelic period. Their Satanic
Majesties Request has been slagged repeatedly over the years by those who
insist the Stones must adhere to their straight up blues riff roots, but it's
not really that awful a record, and two of its songs ("She's A Rainbow"
and "2000 Light Years from Home") certainly should have been
included on Hot Rocks to make it a complete overview of that period of
the Stones existence. There's another factor working at Hot Rocks,
too, from an historical perspective: it was not officially sanctioned by the
Stones, and was released as a "ha ha gotcha" type deal when Jagger
and pals left ABKCO to start their own label. Ironic, I guess, since it's the
best-selling album ever to bear the Rolling Stones name. But that's a further
strike against it.
Result: The Dark Side of the Moon (2 points) beats Hot Rocks (0
points).
The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd vs. Van Halen, Van Halen
This is a much tougher choice. Both of these records are tight, both of them
are sanctioned and embraced by the artists whose music they contain, both are
very influential, both continue to sell well, both generated pop and album
oriented rock radio singles. Dark Side of the Moon is a gentler and
darker record than Van Halen, but that's a strength. Van Halen
is more life-affirming and rousing than Dark Side of the Moon, but
that's a strength too. Both records feature sterling guitar parts (Eddie Van
Halen certainly was more of an innovator than David Gilmour, but the Floyd's
string-bender was no slouch working within his own chosen idiom, and he sang
and played synths to boot, that last point being something Eddie V had to
wait five albums for before David Lee Roth would let him do it)(at which
point, Eddie tossed him out of the band) and both feature workmanlike (but
perfectly appropriate) rhythm work. At this level of the competition, these
two albums are equally superb, each in their own way.
Result: Dark Side of the Moon (1 point) ties Van Halen (1
point).
Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf vs.
Hot Rocks, The Rolling Stones
As a recorded artefact, Bat Out of Hell is hard to top: even Phil
"Wall of Sound" Spector never managed to cram as much sonic
activity into a pop song as Meat Loaf, Jim Steinman, Todd Rundgren and their
cohorts did on this disc. This was product, but it was product with a lot of
love and labor poured into it. As noted above, Hot Rocks contains some superb
songs, but it was a product with a lot of greed and spite poured into it.
Creative intent has to count for something.
Result: Bat Out of Hell (2 points) beats Hot Rocks (0 points).
Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf vs.
Van Halen, Van Halen
Not really much of a contest, honestly. While not as bombastic as Meat Loaf,
David Lee Roth was at least his equal, and probably his superior when it came
to over-the-top vocal and stage theatrics, and it only took three other guys
to make all of the noise Van Halen made, not a studio filled with several
dozen violinists and tympani players. Van Halen tied Dark Side of
the Moon, and Dark Side of the Moon beat Bat Out of Hell .
. . so if we apply stable logic here, the choice is obvious.
Result: Van Halen (2 points) beats Bat Out of Hell (0 points)
Hot Rocks, The Rolling Stones vs.
Van Halen, Van Halen
Not much more to be said here than we've said already: tight, influential
debut disc by revolutionary thirdd generation rock and roll band, long (but
still incomplete) corporate concoction built around the work of a
revolutionary second generation rock and roll band. Sorry, Rolling Stones. A
collection you didn't collect yourselves can only carry you so far.
Result: Van Halen (2 points) beats Hot Rocks (0 points).
So that's that, but what does it leave us with?
Van Halen, Van Halen: 5 points
The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd: 5 points
Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf: 2 points
Hot Rocks, Rolling Stones: 0 points
Hmmm . . . a tie. That hasn't happened before when I've done these sorts of
things, but I guess I'm really not surprised, since Dark Side of the Moon
and Van Halen were sort of clearly superior records to their
competition at this stage of the contest. But I didn't set out to make this
thing end in a tie, so we're going to go one level deeper and do a quick
song-by-song sort, and see what we end up with.
Van Halen has 11 songs, listed thusly:
1. "Runnin' With the Devil"
2. "Eruption"
3. "You Really Got Me"
4. "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love"
5. "I'm the One"
6. "Jamie's Cryin'"
7. "Atomic Punk"
8. "Feel Your Love Tonight"
9. "Little Dreamer"
10. "Ice Cream Man"
11. "On Fire"
Dark Side of the Moon has 10 songs, originally listed thusly (some CD
re-releases combine "Speak to Me" and "Breathe" as a
single track, some combine "Eclipse" and "Brain Damage"
as a single track, but this is how they were listed and tracked in its initial
release):
1. "Speak to Me"
2. "Breathe"
3. "On the Run"
4. "Time"
5. "The Great Gig in the Sky"
6. "Money"
7. "Us and Them"
8. "Any Colour You Like"
9. "Brain Damage"
10. "Eclipse"
Let's go track by track through the records and see what a comparison does
for us that way, keeping a running tally as we go . . .
1. "Runnin' With the Devil" vs. "Speak to Me": No
contest, as Van Halen's kick ass introductory statement of intent dusts Nick
Mason's tape collage any day (Van Halen: 1, Pink Floyd: 0).
2. "Eruption" vs. "Breathe": Eddie Van Halen's guitar
solo was short, but it carried long influence, as it was the most concise and
comprehensible introduction to his then novel fret tapping solo style. Still
. . . it was just a guitar solo, while "Breathe" is a lush and
fully realized song, and more interesting to listen to, once the novelty of
"Eruption" wore off. (Van Halen: 1, Pink Floyd: 1).
3. "You Really Got Me" vs. "On the Run": While "You
Really Got Me" is a very good cover, it's a very good cover of a pretty
tired song. "On the Run" may well be the quintessential Pink Floyd
instrumental cut, the place where all the headphone and tape and synth tricks
click into a collage that actually works brilliantly. Advantage, Floyd. (Van
Halen: 1, Pink Floyd: 2).
4. "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" vs. "Time": I consider
"Love" to be Van Halen's greatest track, a perfect combo
platter of chops, attitude and performance. "Time" is one of Dark
Side's more accessible numbers, but it's intro clock fest gets a little
tiresome after repeated listens, much like "Eruption". (Van Halen:
2, Pink Floyd: 2).
5. "I'm the One" vs. "The Great Gig in the Sky": A pumpy,
jumpy rocker against a sweet Rick Wright melody capped with a Meat
Loaf-worthy vocal performance by guest diva Clare Torey. The shrieking gets
old. The leering and posing doesn't quite as much. (Van Halen: 3, Pink Floyd:
2).
6. "Jamie's Cryin'" vs. "Money": Toughest pairing so far,
a great album cut by Halen toe to toe against Dark Side's hit single.
While I like the descending "Whoa whoa whoa" part of "Jamie's
Cryin'" a lot, I'm going to have to pick "Money" in this
contest, if for no other reason that because it's a hit song in seven time,
and there's not a whole hell of a lot of those around. (Van Halen: 3, Pink
Floyd: 3).
7. "Atomic Punk" vs. "Us and Them": "Atomic
Punk" strikes me as the one cut on Van Halen that's somewhat dated,
probably because of it's title, which seemed cool in 1978, but not so much
now. "Us and Them" is Dark Side's greatest track to my ears, a
beautifully written and sung song, the lyrical centerpiece of the whole
album, really. (Van Halen: 3, Pink Floyd: 4).
8. "Feel Your Love Tonight" vs. "Any Colour You Like":
Weakest contest so far, with a marginal Van Halen rocker up against a
transition piece that links "Us and Them" to the final "Brain
Damage/Eclipse" suite. Still, though, at least "Feel Your Love
Tonight" is a song. (Van Halen: 4, Pink Floyd: 4).
9. "Little Dreamer" vs. "Brain Damage": Another of Van
Halen's weaker cuts, paired against the moody and evocative "lunatics
are in the grass" ditty from Dark Side, featuring (surprisingly
to most folks) the first Roger Waters solo lead vocal on the entire album.
The scale is tipping. (Van Halen: 4, Pink Floyd: 5).
10. "Ice Cream Man" vs. "Eclipse": A fun and fluffy cover
frolic against the capping track of Dark Side, the track that ties up this
evocative concept album and gives it its title. Soaring transcendence vs.
double entendre giggle. The scale has tipped. (Van Halen: 4, Pink Floyd: 6).
11. "On Fire" vs. nothing. "On Fire" isn't a great song,
either, really. But, hey, it's better than listening to the needle in the
fade out groove on Dark Side. Point to Van Halen, too late. (Van
Halen: 5, Pink Floyd: 6).
And, voila, with that narrow victory in a song by song shoot out, Pink Floyd
narrowly eclipses Van Halen, and we declare . . .
Dark Side
of the Moon
by Pink Floyd is the Best of the Blockbusters!
Does that feel good in my gut right now? Yeah, I think it does. Right now,
anyway. Sometime over the next week, I will turn this whole thing around and
set it up on its own independent page, reading in proper order, not backwards
blog order, so if you want to read it again, or send someone else to read it,
it will be easier for them to track and scan.
Thanks for following along, those who did. And thanks for the e-mailed
comments and suggestions, for those who sent them. I considered them, but as
is always the case when I do these sorts of things, the final decisions were
mine and mine alone.
Musical Dissections by J. Eric Smith:
The
Worst Rock Band Ever
Or . . . Rock's Greatest Secret Band
Or . . . Best
of the Blockbusters
Or . . . Slaughtering the Sacred Cows
Or . . . March of the Mellotrons
Or . . . Flexible
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