MB Civic

1. Neil Peart (Rush) So, Mr. Peart takes the number one sport in The 100 Best Rock Drummers Ever!. With his band Rush, Neil has demonstrated extraordinary technical ability, musicality, creativity, groove, and feel. His drum solos and fills are exquisete, and he can switch up and down gears with ease. Stylistically, he can do so much that it’s a little bit scary. His position at the top of our best rock drummers list is totally deserved!
2. John Bonham* (Led Zeppelin) Yes, it’s John Bonham. The guy who taught us all how to play heavy, powerful rock drums that ooze feel. With awsome bass drum technique and a big open sound, he sent Zeppelin’s tunes soaring. He embodies raw, emotional, rock drumming that comes straight from the soul. He’s a rock god and undeniably one of the best rock drummers ever.
3. Keith Moon* (The Who) –I disagree He wasn’t techically great. He wasn’t amazingly precise. But, he was totally unique and came up with a style and sound that broke through boundaries. He didn’t use hi-hats (often), and didn’t play conventional beats, but rolled, splashed, and double bass drummed his way all over the kit giving an incredible sound and feel to The Who’s music.
4. Carl Palmer (ELP) Wow. The chops delivered by Carl are something to behold! He inspired countless drummers, including Neil Peart, with his magnificent stadium-filling rock and showmanship. He also used his classical training in tuned percussion to great effect. He defines the word spectacle, and is one of the best rock drummers to come from Britain.
5. Ginger Baker (Cream) –I disagree With super-group Cream, Ginger pioneered double bass drums in rock, and always had a big untamed drum sound. His style was solid and seemed simple at times, yet it gave the songs exactly what they needed and then some. His delicate jazz skills are just as impressive, and show off his sublime technique even more.
6. Terry Bozzio (Frank Zappa) His playing with music giants like Frank Zappa would have been enough to put Terry this far up the list, but his own drum compositions on his huge kit further show off his killer technique, speed, musicality, dynamics, and creativity. He’s got it all.
7. Bill Bruford (Yes, King Crimson) Perhaps one of the main reasons that Bill is one of the best rock drummers we’ve had is that he always strives to evolve, grow, and change. He stays relevent and does it with an awsome technique and understanding of what works.
8. Hal Blaine (Session man) Hal was a session legend and played on more hit rock tunes than you’ve had hot dinners. His genius is that he could turn a good song into a great song by finding the perfect beat.
9. Ian Paice (Deep Purple) One of the speediest rockers we’ve seen, Ian combined his speed with spectular rolls, undeniable beats, and flair. His foot technique is also awsome and baffles mere mortals like us. He doesn’t even look like he’s trying…sigh…
10. Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater) With Dream Theater, Mike took techicality and complexity to new levels. The band are sometimes slated for concentrating on that instead of the song, but what they manage to come up with is exciting, inspirational, and mind-blowing.
11. Dave Lombardo (Slayer) Dave is one hell of an extreme metal drummer and one of the best rock drummers ever without a doubt. He has buckets of power, groove, and feel. Plus, his fills are often astonishing and leave you wondering how on earth he just pulled that off.
12. Danny Carey (Tool) Founder of Tool, Danny brought his mega complex polyrhythms to the band’s sound which helped set them apart from the likes of Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park. Solid grooves, power, and creativity are what make him one of the best rock drummers in the world
13. Ringo Starr (The Beatles) Many people say that Ringo wasn’t all that good, but that’s because they don’t truly understand what he did for The Beatles music. If you replaced Ringo’s drum parts, countles Beatles songs would be only half as good. He was inventive, and was brilliant at finding the best groove to add something special to the music.
14. Carmine Appice (Vanilla Fudge) Carmine was one of the rock drummers who showed the way for today’s big sounding, heavy hitters. He also influenced John Bonham, but is sometimes overlooked for his importance to the development of rock and rock drumming. Well, not here, as he takes a very respectable 14th on our best rock drummers ever list
15. Earl Palmer (Session man) Earl Palmer basically invented modern rock drumming. When other drummers where playing shuffles and swing patterns he played straight eighth notes on the hi-hat and emphasied the back beat. His playing can found on classic rock ‘n’ roll tunes by Little Richard, Fats Domino and many more. One of the very best rock drummers from the 50’s.
16. Benny Benjamin* (Funk Brothers) Benny is one of the best rock drummers ever because he brought his swinging big band style to Mowtown’s rock/pop sound and drove some of the best-loved tunes in the world with his lively beats. He totally understood how to play for the song, and he inspired thousands of others to do the same.
17. Jeff Porcaro* (Toto) Jeff was capable of playing some delicate and flowing grooves as well as some smashing pop-rock beats with the likes of Michael Jackson and Toto. His style was solid but creative at the same time, often with flashes of absolute brilliance.
18. Stewart Copeland (The Police) Stewart’s reggae/rock grooves, inventive fills, and textures helped make The Police’s sound stand out as truly unique. He squeezes as many interesting little rhythmic touches, splashes, and fills into his playing as possible without ever over doing it. Very creative with a great ear.
19. Tommy Aldridge (Ozzy Osbourne) Tommy is one of the absolute best rock drummers to come through the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and beyond having played with some of the top rock acts in the world. He can be a blaze of rolls, cymbal crashes, and double kicks, but he’s also a top groove player.
20. Bernard Purdie (Session) Not lacking in confidence, Bernard was one of the session world’s most in-demand drummers. Lending his tasteful playing to the likes of BB King, Roberta Flack and Steely Dan, his beats literally made songs into hits. Truly one of the best rock drummers ever
21. Bill Ward (Black Sabbath) One of the original heavy metal drummers who paved the way for those that followed. There’s a dark, brooding quality to his playing that is matched with bursts of intense power.
22. Steve Smith (Journey) Steve is like a jack of all trades when it comes to drumming – he can play any style excellently. His rock drumming demonstrates his ablity to play tight and often technically demanding grooves, with speed, great dynamics and perplexing time signatures
23. Mitch Mitchell (Jimi Hendrix) Mitch matched Hendrix’s guitar with his lighting fast reflexes and thunderous rolls. He brought a jazz sensibility to rock and used it to improvise and respond to Hendrix’s every move. He was very creative and had a sublime feel.
24. David Garabaldi (Tower Of Power) David has great taste and his magical beats are often much more complex than you might think. While very funky, he can also dish out a very mean rockin’ beat too
25. Mike Shrieve (Santana) Mike played the latin-rock rhythms that kept Santana ticking along nicely. He had plenty of limb indpendance, an ability to play polyrhythms and super cool grooves, but he also put a fat helping rock power into the mix as well.
26. Ainsley Dunbar (Jeff Beck) The list of top rock acts that Aynsley has played with is testament to his excellent drumming skills. Very adaptable, and able to play complex and odd drum parts, as well as keeping a killer groove ticking over. Whatever he plays, it’s done with feel and passion.
27. Cozy Powell* (Rainbow) Amazing chops, and excellent grooves are what made Cozy one of the best rock drummers of his time. He’s played with some of the biggest acts in rock music, and is hugely charismatic and talented. A class act.
28. Nicko McBrain (Iron Maiden) What makes Nicko McBrain one of the best rock drummers ever is his killer precision and tub thumping rolls. He’s got the techinque and is relentless in suppyling a driving, hard-edged, groove.
29. Carter Beauford (Dave Matthews) What makes Carter one of the best rock drummers ever? Well, as drummer for the diverse Dave Mathews Band, Carter uses his intricate grooves and ability to play many styles, keeping listeners guessing. His ride cymbal and hi-hat work is awsome as it dances around the on and off beats
30. Tim Alexander (Primus) Tim has a tight and tasteful style of playing that is precise and groovy. Unlike many other players who also have some astounding chops, Tim only brings them out if the music requires it. Odd and complex rhythms are no problem either.
31. Roger Taylor (Queen) Big stadium filling riffs need big drums, and that’s exactly what Roger brought to Queen. Some super fast rolls, a fat back beat, glorious cymbals, and great feel put him squarely in the top 100 best rock drummers ever.
32. Matt Cameron (Soundgarden) Funky, Zeppelinesque beats with a good helping of ghost notes and odd time twists are what give Matt his extremely musical quality. Combined with dynamics and a deep groove, it’s no wonder he’s considered one of the best rock drummers around
33. Zigaboo Modeliste (The Meters) The sharp, edgey beats played by Joseph combined with the angular riffs of The Meter’s to make some super cool tunes. He opened the door for the funk-rock drummers of Prince and The Red Hot Chilli Peppers.
34. Phil Collins (Genesis) Ok, yes he’s a sensitive singing kinda guy, but he is also one of the best rock drummers ever. His playing with Genesis alone would be awsome, but the creative drumming on his solo tunes like ‘In The Air Tonight’ further shows off why he’s meant to be behind a kit.
35. Al Jackson* (The MGs) If anyone could deliver rock steady beats that force you to pay attention, it’s Al. He wrote the book on playing for the song, he was never the main attraction in the MG’s but he sat back and blended the band together with his drum parts.

36. Vinnie Paul (Pantera) Woaaahhh! This guy is heavy! Vinnie is a hard hitting powerhouse that is always grooving hard too. That’s why he has been so heavily copied – power with an iressitable pocket = a great sound.
37. Topper Headon (The Clash) With his background in jazz and soul music, Topper brought many new dimensions to The Clash’s punk sound. Reggae, rockabilly, funk and more can be heard in their songs, and Topper played them all with power and grace.
38. Lars Ulrich (Metallica) Metallica drummer, Lars Ulrich doesn’t play over complicated, flashy drum parts. He doesn’t need to. Instead, he uses his single stroke rolls and double kick drum skills to maximum effect and throws some interesting rhythms into the mix for good measure.
39. Jimmy Chamberlain (Smashing Pumpkins) Chamberlin, who originally trained as a jazz drummer, cites jazz musicians Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Gene Krupa, and Buddy Rich, as well as rock drummers Keith Moon, Ian Paice, and John Bonham as major influences on his technique.He is known as “one of the most powerful drummers in rock
40. Bobby Jarzombeck (Rob Halford, Iced Earth) A hard hitting metal master, Bobby’s double kicks and fast rolls are super tight, accurate, and are played with great musicality. His chops totally rock!
41. Rod Morgenstein (Dixie Dregs, Winger) Best known for his work with 80’s rockers Winger and later jazz-fusion band Dixie Dreggs, Rod is comfortable showcasing his chops and grooves in many genres. Brilliant at keeping it steady or lighting up the kit.
42. Gene Holgan (Death, Strapping Young Lad) Gene is well known for his very impressive double kick drum rhythms, and his amazingly creative drum arrangements including the use of some unusual objects for percussive effect. His playing is highly technical, accurate, and extremely fast earning the nickname “The Atomic Clock”.
43. Martin Lopez (Opeth) One of the best rock drummers to come out of Sweden, Martin and his band Opeth hit death metal lovers right between the eyes with their powerful, deep sound.
44. Simon Phillips (Toto) Taking over the Toto drum seat from legend Jeff Porcaro isn’t easy, but Phillips does it with style and class. His feel for a groove is impeccable, and his playing is always tasteful, making him one of the best rock drummers ever.
45. Mike Giles (King Crimson, Giles, Giles & Fripp ) As drummer with prog rock experimentalists King Crimson, Mike was confident playing grooves, creating sonic soundscapes, and coming up with intricate rolls and touches that were a delight to hear.
46. Max Weinberg (Springsteen) Max has held the drum seat with Bruce Springteen’s E Street Band for many years now. why? Because Springsteen and the rest of us know that Max has the goods – a soild back beat, and colourful, explosive fills that breath added life into Springsteen’s hit songs.
47. Alex Van Halen (Van Halen) Always solid at the back of Van Halen, Alex uses his ability to lay the foundation for his brother’s guitar work. But, he is not sidelined and plays some killer double kicks and rolls, to earn his place on in the best rock drummers ever list.

48. Jon Theodore (Mars Volta, One Day As A Lion) Powerful and creative playing with the likes of Mars Volta has made Jon one of rock drumming’s most recent idols. He’s techically sound and can play odd time signatures with ease.
49. Brian Downey (Thin Lizzy) Brian is the man that put the strut in Thin Lizzy’s step with his rockin’ grooves. As the only member to stay in the band from start til finish, he made the band one of top hard rock acts around. His beats are driving and are played with creative flair. Superb.
50. Gavin Harrison (Porcupine Tree, session man) Gavin’s intelligent, technical rhythms and tighter than tight sound have gained him a lot of fans. He’s carved out a niche sound/style for himself and knows how to lay it down
51. Alan White (Yes) Best known for his 34 years with prog rockers Yes, Alan White uses an array of drums, cymbals and percussion along with his excellent technique to produce a quality, classy style.
52. Nick Menza (Megadeth) Megadeath’s intense sound needs and intense and passionate drummer, and that’s exactly what Nick brought to the band. He’s got devastating beats, fills, and doube bass drum skills.
53. Phil Ehart (Kansas) Classic, heavy, and tasteful. These words probably best sum up Phil Eharts playing with Kansas. A real solid technique and feel earn him a spot on the best rock drummers list.
54. Mark Zonder (Fate’s Warning) Mark Zonder’s thunderous beats and chunky fills have been the powering force behind metal rockers Warlord’s music. He’s got masses of energy, and can nail the perfect beat for the song.
55. Nick Mason (Pink Floyd) Nick Masons drumming with Pink Floyd was super cool, interesting, and inventive. He played a big part in creating the atmosphere and mood in those songs. A classic rock drummer.
56. Jaki Liebezeit (CAN) Stark, pummelling, and hypnotic. Those words probably best describe Jaki Liebezeit’s drumming with 70’s experimental rock band CAN. A super cool customer.
57. Scott Travis (Judas Priest) One of the best rock drummers in metal, Scott Travis has an unforgiving style that’s accurate and penetrating. He’s very handy on the double bass drums and has a killer sound.
58. Virgil Donati (Planet X) Virgil is one of those drummers whos just got excellent technique, feel, and groove. His style is precise and cutting while always being full of ideas and flair. He makes it look easy and is certainly one of the best rock drummers from Australia.
59. Jim Gordon (Derek And The Dominoes) Jim Gordon was a talented session drummer in the 60’s and 70’s. He played with many great groups, lending them his stylish licks. His classic drumming on the album Layla still stands tall today
60. Ron Bushy (Iron Butterfly) What makes Ron one of the best rock drummers ever? Well, With Iron Butterfly, Ron showed off his pounding, primal drum beats and super drum soloing in the track In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. A real rock-steady groover.
61. Richard Allen (Funk Brothers) As one of the talented drummers in the Mowtown house band, Richard took his jazz drumming background and turned it into some of the greatest pop/rock drumming ever. Full of feel with an irrestistable grooviness, and a master at playing for the song.

62. BJ Wilson* Procul Harum) BJ brought his creative grooves to Procol Harum’s rock tunes and also had a stint as Joe Cocker’s drummer too. He’s got great beats, fills, and touch.
63. Chad Wackerman (Zappa) The fact that Chad has played with people like Frank Zappa and Steve Vai goes to show how good he is. His technique, stamina, and limb independence are oustanding, not to mention his groove and style.
64. Ralph Humphrey (Mothers Of Invention) Drumming with Frank Zappa and the Mothers Of Invention, Ralph Humphrey showed his talent for coming up with great drum parts that were inventive and slick.
65. Josh Freese (A Perfect Circle, Desert Sessions) Josh’s versatility, speed, and precision have earned him the name The Bruce Lee Of Drums. His tasteful rock drumming has kept him in-demand for sessions with many big name artists. Cool.
66. Jojo Mayer (Nerve, session man) Starting out in jazz but moving into jungle and rock, JoJo has made a name for himself as a great technical player, and does clinics all over the world for his adoring fans
67. Brann Dailor (Mastodon) With metal band Mastodon, Brann Dailor has recieved a lot of acclaim for his drumming skills which incorporate elements of jazz and prog rock. A lot of cool, fast fills are is his trademark, and he’s seen as one of the best rock drummers of recent times.
68. Clive Burr (Iron Maiden) Clive Burr was drummer with Iron Maiden on their first 3 records. He was brilliant at coming up with drum parts to match the band’s guitar and bass riffs, and had a raw and powerful style.
69. Christian Vander (Magma) Christian Vander’s band Magma have a very unique sound and are generally labelled as prog rockers. His drumming with them is often virtuosic and is full of ideas and action. Some his drum solos are a sight to be seen – nuts!
70. Dennis Thompson (MC5) Dennis Thompson is best known for drumming with punk rockers MC5. He got the nickname “Machine Gun” because of his super fast, hard-hitting style resembling a Tommy Gun.
71. John French (Captain Beefheart) John’s creative, and stylish drumming with Captain Beefheart has influenced many other experimental musicans. His real drummer feel and grooves and right on the money.
72. John Weathers (Gentle Giant) John Weathers is best known for his drumming with prog rock band Gentle Giant. Apart from his drumming skills, he could pull some of the best drumming faces ever when he played.
73. Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth) Sonic Youth’s music has benefitted from Steve Shelley’s solid and groovin’ style. Great use of the toms, maracas, and super dynamics are just some of his qualities.
74. Pat Mastelotto (King Crimson) Pat Mastelotto has played with many great rock acts and has been an in-demand studio drummer too. He’s a powerful and driving drummer with heaps of feel, style, and creativity.
75. Greg Bissonette (David Lee Roth, session man)
76. Mick Fleetwood (Fleetwood Mac) As drummer for Fleetwood Mac, Mick Fleetwood has prooved that he can deliver the goods with style. Never one to over do it, Mick played with a lot of taste, making him of the best rock drummers in his day

77. Mike Mangini (Extreme) Mike’s skills have kept him in demand for sessions, Extreme, and guitar god Steve Vai. He has an amazing amount of speed and held 3 out of 4 of the world’s fastest drummer records. But, he backs that up by being awsome in every other department too.
78. Larry Mullen Jr. (U2) Often overlooked, Larry’s playing is deceptively clever. Simple drum parts can often be the best and Larry delivers them beautifully, but he can also turn it up a gear when it’s needed.
79. Clive Bunker (Jethro Tull) Clive played drums for Jethro Tull back in the 60’s and was friends with, and had similarities to both Carmine Appice and John Bonham. He quit in 1971 to be with his family, but his short contribution has had a huge impact.
80. Tomas Haake (Meshuggah) Haake is noted for his technical abilities; his drumming style is characterized by heavy use of polyrhythms while often maintaining a steady 4/4 beat. This signature style has become one of the most recognized features in the music of Meshuggah. He is also known for stacking his cymbals in a variety of configurations to give himself a desired sound.
81. Jabo Starks (James Brown, session man) John “Jabo” Starks is an American funk and blues drummer. He is best known for playing with James Brown Starks played on many of Brown’s biggest hits, either as the sole drummer or in tandem with Clyde Stubblefield, Starks ranks as one of the most sampled drummers on contemporary hip hop and R&B recordings.
82. Brian Mantia (Primus) What makes Brian ‘Brain’ Mantia one of the world’s best rock drummers is his versatility. That’s perhaps why he’s played with some of the most demanding acts around. He’s techincally great, and plays with a real intensity.
83. Scott Rockenfield (Queensryche) Not the most technical drummer in the world, but he doesn’t need to be. Scott has a great feel, and can turn up the heat when it’s called for. Slick and stylish.
84. Phil Taylor (Motörhead) Solid, powerful, fast, hard, and rockin’. These words really sum up the playing of Phil Taylor with Motorhead. Blazin’ rolls and cracking back beats launched him and the band into the rock ‘n’ roll big time
85. Vinnie Appice (Dio, session man) As the younger brother of rock drummer Carmine Appice, Vinnie comes from a super talented pack. He more than lives up to that and has his own unique style, not overplaying, but giving the music exactly what it needs.
86. Fred Coury (Cinderella) Piercing rock grooves and a solid, hard style are part of what makes Fred such a great player. He always brings his best to the table and plays with taste and class
87. Travis Barker (Blink 182) Travis is one of the best rock drummers in the world thanks in no small part to his great technique, and unique style – a blend of rock, ska, hip-hop, and jazz. He knows how to rock out and has a great time doing it too.
88. Phil Selway (Radiohead) Not ever overplaying on a song isn’t as easy as it seems, but Phil always finds the best groove for Radioheads music and adds interesting and intricate drum parts, earning him a place on our best rock drummers list.
89. Randy Castillo (Ozzy Osbourne) The late Randy Castillo was one of rock’s great showmen, and was one of the best rock drummers to play with Ozzy. Big beefy rock drums, huge tom rolls, and driving beats. Just brilliant, in your face rock drumming.
90. Zak Starkey (The Who, Oasis) Standing in as drummer for The Who, and doing a stint with indie rockers Oasis among others, has helped Zak truly step out of his dad’s shadow. He has earned his reputation as a creative and intelligent player.
91. Charlie Watts (Rolling Stones) Charlie’s style almost sounds out of time (in a good way), but it isn’t. He places the notes as far on edge of the beat as he can, producing a really lively feel. He’s the heart of The Stones’ music and can groove with the best of ’em.
92. Dave Grohl (Nirvana) Dave’s powerful, fat, hard rock beats with Nirvana and later with Queens Of The Stone Age, Juliette And The Licks, and Killing Joke all demonstrate why he is considered one of the best rock drummers around.
93. Tommy Lee (Motley Crue) Tommy has certainly lived the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, but is he one of the best rock drummers ever? Well, yes! He’s made a big contribution to the world of rock drumming including monster fills, power beats, and super solos.
94. Jose Pasillas (Incubus) Rock drumming with a hint of hip-hop and latin is probably the best way to describe Jose’s sound. His playing with Incubus is always thoughtful, tasteful, and for the song, and he can also provide an interesting solo too.
95. Ron Wilson* (Surfaris) Ron is a drumming icon. Back with The Surfaris in the 50’s, he tore it up with his fun-loving beats. Come on! The guy played the drum part on classic rock tune Wipeout…awsome.
96. John Densmore (The Doors) John’s playing with The Doors alone would be enough for him to earn his place in our best rock drummers list. His strengths are his real drumer feel and creativity. Not every note is perfectly in time, but that’s what makes it sound so good
97. Chester Thompson (Santana) Chester’s funky-edged rock style always brings a smile to the face. He has immaculate time and feel even when playing a tricky Frank Zappa song. But, partly what makes one of the best rock drummers ever is that he’s just as good when laying down a straight beat.
98. Matt Johnson (Jeff Buckley) Matt’s sometimes thunderous and exciting style can get you hooked on a song. His playing with the late Jeff Buckley also demonstrates how he can build a delicate groove into a magnificent wash of drums and cymbals full of passion
99. Van Romaine (Steve Morse) Multi-talented Van Romaine has proved himself to be cracking rock drummer, not lacking in ability, speed, creativity or anything else really. A great player in all departments
100. Sandy Nelson (solo)
Starting off the 100 best rock drummers list is Sandy Nelson. Drumming in the 50’s, Sandy was one of the guys that inspired countless people to pick up the sticks. His flowing style, and cool beats sound just as good today

Frank Zappa Quotes:
Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny.
Stupidity is the basic building block of the universe.
Tobacco is my favorite vegetable.
There is no hell. There is only France.
Don’t mind your make-up, you’d better make your mind up.
Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.
It is always advisable to be a loser if you cannot become a winner.
A mind is like a parachute. It doesnt work if it’s not open.
If we can’t be free at least we can be cheap.
Sometimes you got to get sick before you can feel better.
You can’t be a Real Country unless you have a BEER and an airline – it helps if you have some kind of a football team or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a BEER.
There will never be a nuclear war; there’s too much real estate involved.
Consider for a moment any beauty in the name Ralph.
Why do you necessarily have to be wrong just because a few million people think you are?
Outdoors for me is walking from the car to the ticket desk at the airport
You drank beer, you played golf, you watched football – WE EVOLVED!
You have just destroyed one model XQJ-37 nuclear powered pansexual roto-plooker….and you’re gonna have to pay for it.
Interviewer: “So Frank, you have long hair. Does that make you a woman?”
FZ: “You have a wooden leg. Does that make you a table?”
Without deviation from the norm, ‘progress’ is not possible.
Who are the brain police?
The people of your century no longer require the service of composers.
A composer is as useful to a person in a jogging suit as a dinsoaur turd in the middle of his runway.
There are more love songs than anything else.
If songs could make you do something we’d all love one another.
Hey, you know something people? I’m not black, but there’s a whole lots a times I wish I could say I’m not white.
Most people wouldn’t know good music if it came up and bit them in the ass.
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry.
There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life.
There are three things that smell of fish. One of them is fish. The other two are growing on you!
May your shit come to life and kiss you on the face.
Let’s not be too rough on our own ignorance, it’s what makes America great.
Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is THE BEST.
Beauty is a pair of shoes that makes you wanna die.
The creation and destruction of harmonic and ‘statistical’ tensions is essential to the maintenance of compositional drama. Any composition (or improvisation) which remains consonant and ‘regular’ throughout is, for me, equivalent to watching a movie with only ‘good guys’ in it, or eating cottage cheese.
Bumper Stickers I want!
Keep honking, I’m reloading
The Earth Is Full – Go Home
Your kid may be an honor student but you’re still an IDIOT!
If you think education is expensive, Try ignorance
Laugh alone and the world thinks you’re an idiot.
Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don’t.
Could you drive any better if I shoved that cell phone up your ASS?
Nothing political is correct.
Help! I Farted and can’t roll down my windows!
Some important thoughts
If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?
If all the world is a stage, where is the audience sitting?
If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do the rest have to drown too?
If you’re born again, do you have two bellybuttons?
Is a castrated pig disgruntled?
Why is it called tourist season if we can’t shoot at them?
If flying is so safe, why do they call the airport the terminal?
Why is ‘abbreviation’ such a long word?
What happens when none of your bees wax?
Why is there an expiration date on sour cream?
Should crematoriums give discounts for burn victims?
If a mute swears, does his mother wash his hands with soap?
The next time you feel like complaining, remember: Your garbage disposal probably eats better than thirty percent of the people in this world.
Dyslexics Untie!
A crowded elevator smells different to a midget
When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor home parked on a Seattle street, he got much more than he bargained for. Police arrived at the scene to find an ill man curled up next to a motor home trying to steal gasoline and plugged his hose into the motor home’s sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle declined to press charges, saying that it was the best laugh he’d ever had.
A Dutch veterinarian was fined 600 guilders (about $240) for causing a fire that destroyed a farm in Lichten Vourde, the Netherlands. The vet had been trying to convince a farmer that his cow was passing flatulent gas; to demonstrate, the vet ignited the gas, but the cow became a “four-legged flame-thrower” and ran wild, setting fire to bales of hay. Damage to the farm was assessed at $80,000. The cow was unharmed. AP
Californian Bill Helko was thrilled when he had the winning numbers in the local lottery, the first prize being $412,000.
He straight away went and ordered a Porsche, booked a family holiday in Hawaii and had a champagne dinner with his wife and friends at an expensive Hollywood restaurant. When he went to pick up the winnings he found that 9,097 others had also won first prize and his share of the jackpot was $45.
The 10 best rock bands ever How? Why? While I speak with the thunderous voice of truth, this list of “the 10 best rock bands ever” isn’t a purely arbitrary designation yanked from my nether regions. First, the winners had to be an actual band, which eliminated most of the first wave rock ‘n’ roll greats of the ’50s like Elvis and Chuck Berry, who were essentially solo artists with backup bands, other towering figures like Bob Dylan, and vocal groups. The bands had to be within the greater circle of “rock” music and generate most or all of their own material. I took into account musical and cultural influence, popularity over time (staying power), and the “It’s a Wonderful Life” factor: What damage would be done if the band were to be removed from rock history? — the greater the damage, the greater the band. Removal of any of the above 10 would render rock history unrecognizable.When tackling a project as audacious, slippery and fraught with diagnostic peril as “the 10 best rock bands ever,” one can either cower in anticipation of the monsoon of disagreement sure to come and load the package with every manner of weaselly equivocation, or one can swagger ahead blissfully secure in the universal righteousness of one’s judgment. Being American, I choose the latter.
1. The Beatles The Beatles are unquestionably the best and most important band in rock history, as well as the most compelling story. Almost miraculously, they embodied the apex of the form artistically, commercially, culturally and spiritually at just the right time, the tumultuous ’60s, when music had the power to literally change the world (or at least to give the impression that it could, which may be the same thing). The Beatles are the archetype: there is no term in the language analogous to “Beatlemania.”
Three lads from Liverpool — John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison — came together at a time of great cultural fluidity in 1960 (with bit players Stu Sutcliffe and Pete Best), absorbed and recapitulated American rock ‘n’ roll and British pop history unto that point, hardened into a razor sharp unit playing five amphetamine-fueled sets a night in the tough port town of Hamburg, Germany, returned to Liverpool, found their ideal manager in Brian Epstein and ideal producer in George Martin, added the final piece of the puzzle when Ringo Starr replaced Best on drums, and released their first single in the U.K., “Love Me Do/P.S. I Love You,” all by October of 1962.Their second single, “Please Please Me,” followed by British chart-toppers “From Me to You,” “She Loves You,” “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “Can’t Buy Me Love” (all Lennon/McCartney originals), and the group’s pleasing image, wit and charm, solidified the Fab Four’s delirious grip on their homeland in 1963. ..But it was when the group arrived in the U.S. in February 1964 that the full extent of Beatlemania became manifest. Their pandemonium-inducing five-song performance on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9 is one of the cornerstone mass media events of the 20th century. I was five at the time — my parents tell me I watched it with them, but I honestly don’t remember. I do remember, though, that the girls next door, four and six years older than I, flipped over that appearance and dragged me into their giddy madness soon thereafter. I loved “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” the Beatles’ first No. 1 in the U.S. (they had 19 more, still the record), more than any other song I have ever heard, or almost assuredly will ever hear, with a consuming intensity that I can only now touch as a memory.The Beatles generated an intensity of joy that slapped tens of millions of people in the face with the awareness that happiness and exuberance were not only possible, but in their presence, inevitable. They generated an energy that was amplified a million times over and returned to them in a deafening tidal wave of grateful hysteria.A partial result of that deafening hysteria was that the band became frustrated with their concerts and stopped performing live after a San Francisco show on August 29, 1966. Yet even this frustration bore fruit, as the four musicians, aided almost incalculably by producer Martin, turned their creative energies to the recording studio, producing ever more sophisticated and accomplished albums “Rubber Soul” (1965, “Drive My Car,” “Norwegian Wood,” “You Won’t See Me,” “Nowhere Man,” “Michelle”), “Revolver” (1966, Harrison’s “Taxman,” “Eleanor Rigby,” “Here, There and Everywhere,” “Yellow Submarine,” “Good Day Sunshine,” “And Your Bird Can Sing”), the majestic and epochal “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (1967, title track, “With a Little Help From My Friends,” “Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds,” “When I’m Sixty-Four,” “A Day In the Life”). Though centrifugal force began to take its toll, they still managed to produce three more album masterpieces, double-album “The Beatles” (1968, a.k.a. “The White Album,” with “Back In the USSR,” “Dear Prudence,” “Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da,” Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” “Blackbird,” “Birthday,” “Helter Skelter”), “Let It Be” (recorded in early 1969 but not released until 1970, with the title track, “Two Of Us,” “Across the Universe,” “I’ve Got a Feeling,” “The Long and Winding Road” and “Get Back”), and the fitting climax “Abbey Road” (1969, Harrison’s “Here Comes the Sun” and “Something,” Ringo’s “Octopus’s Garden,” “Come Together,” “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” “I Want You,” “She Came In Through the Bathroom Window”). They made an incredible promise and instead of backing down from that promise they delivered and delivered and delivered for eight years until the full implications of the promise finally hit them: they were staring into the jaws of an insatiable, ravenous beast that was no less beastly because it smiled and waved and gave them money. The Beatles finally suffered a collective inability to pretend that the beast was not a beast, and in 1970 they broke up and returned to being human.Beatlemania redux
A small but significant slice of the Beatles’ magic came back in 1986 with release of the classic John Hughes teen flick “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” wherein Matthew Broderick’s title character lip-syncs the early Beatles classic “Twist and Shout” (ironically, a song they didn’t write) from the top of a float in a downtown Chicago parade.John Lennon sang “Twist and Shout” as though the words were joyful corrosive poison, that his only hope of survival was to expel them with all the vehemence that his rhythm-besotted body could muster, and so does Ferris in the scene. Paul and George’s responses matched John’s zeal at the end of each stanza with their delirious “Ooohs.” They were enjoying themselves so much that this song seemed the most important thing in their lives at that moment. The Beatles knew the awesome responsibilities of pleasure.Ferris lips lustily, the frauleins on the float shimmy and shake and bounce off of Ferris like electrons, the thousands in the crowd sing along from the pits of their pelvises. Chicago jams as one, recreating the Beatles’ amazing real-life feat of a unifying mass-madness that changed people’s lives for a time.When I saw the movie in the theater in ‘86, people actually stood up and danced in the aisles. How could they not? The “Twist and Shout” segment was the most exciting and joyous musical moment in a movie since the Beatles own “A Hard Day’s Night” (1964), and was the perfect climax to Ferris Bueller’s film exploits.The public was so wistful for Beatlemania that “Twist and Shout” returned to the charts for 15 weeks that year, a brief but sweet reminder of the real thing.
2. The Rolling Stones When the Beatles ceased to exist in 1970, the title of “World’s Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Band” fell with very little dispute to the Rolling Stones, who by then were in the middle of such a wondrous creative peak that they might have challenged the Fab Four for the title anyway. It’s a title the one-time “anti-Beatles” haven’t relinquished since. Not only have the Stones been the greatest rock band in the world for more than 30 years, but they have been a functioning rock ‘n’ roll unit for more than 40, the longest run in history.Boyhood friends Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, along with guitarist Brian Jones and pianist Ian Stewart, formed the first version of the Rollin’ Stones in 1962, and with the crack rhythm section of Charlie Watts on drums and Bill Wyman on bass soon on board, were ripping it up in an eight-month residency at London’s Crawdaddy Club shortly thereafter. A young and ambitious Andrew Loog Oldham saw them there: “I saw them April 23, 1963 and then I knew what I had been training for,” he said in a phone interview from his home in Colombia. “The main thing they had was passion, which has served them to this day,” Oldham continued. Oldham’s first act as manager was to demote the shambling Stewart from the band’s live act for not keeping with his image of a lean, mean and sexy Stones (Stewart was the band’s road manager and recorded with them until his death in 1985).At the time the Rollin’ Stones (named for the Muddy Waters song, Oldham added the “g”) were a ragged R&B cover band, but their run at the Crawdaddy had generated much attention, and with the Beatles on their way up no one wanted to miss the next big thing. Oldham quickly got them signed to Decca Records, which was still smarting from having turned down the Beatles.In June of ’63 the Stones’ first single, a cover of Chuck Berry’s “Come On” went to No. 21 in the UK. The follow-up in November was a cover of the dreaded Beatles’ “I Wanna Be Your Man,” which rose to UK No. 12. By February of ’64, they reached the UK Top 10 with Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away,” which also cracked the Top 50 in the U.S. — the bad boys were on their way.Despite their advancing age, Mick Jagger, left, and Keith Richards and their band, the Rolling Stones, are a better band live now than they were in the 1970s. Oldham split with the band amid the insanity and media frenzy of drug busts in 1967, but he and the band generated some amazing music during the two years between the squirmingly lascivious “Satisfaction” — considered by many the greatest rock song ever — released in May 1965, and the hit-filled “Flowers” compilation, released in July ’67. Included was the incredibly self-aware narcissism of “Get Off Of My Cloud,” chamber music gentility and vulnerability of “As Tears Go By,” bemused urban modernity of “19th Nervous Breakdown”; and the Stones’ first classic album, “Aftermath,” with the simultaneously mocking and empathetic drug song “Mother’s Little Helper,” deeply groovy and misogynistic “Under My Thumb” and “Out Of Time,” lovely “Lady Jane,” and exotic, roiling “Paint It Black.”Then came the Stones classic late-’60s/early-’70s period between “Beggar’s Banquet” and “Exile On Main Street,” possibly the most productive run in rock history, when the Stones turned an unequaled alchemy of rock ‘n’ roll, blues and country into something dark, dangerous and enduringly deep.The 1967 busts seemed to spur Jagger and Richards to another creative level, but Brian Jones appeared beaten and sinking fast. He was absent from the devilish, riff-rocking “Jumping Jack Flash” single. He barely worked on 1968’s exceptional, bluesy “Beggar’s Banquet” (seductive, percussive and stinging “Sympathy For the Devil,” guitar-pounding “Street Fighting Man,” slashing and sinful “Stray Cat Blues”), was out of the group by June ’69, and dead at the bottom of his swimming pool less than a month later. Young Mick Taylor joined as Jones’s replacement, and his hefty bluesy leads were the perfect foil for Richards’ open-tuned rhythm work, and the sound and imagery grew darker and harder still on “Let it Bleed” (the sex and death apocalypse “Gimme Shelter,” Robert Johnson’s anguished blues “Love In Vain,” mysterious “Monkey Man,” the druggy camaraderie of the title track, powerful and murderous “Midnight Rambler,” and the oblique, uplifting coda “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”).
The band’s dance with the devil bore bitter fruit when they put on a free concert at Altamont Speedway outside San Francisco on December 6, 1969 (just three months after Woodstock) where a fan was stabbed to death in view of the stage by Hell’s Angels (all the mounting bad juju was captured for posterity in the film “Gimme Shelter”). “Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out” (1970), one of the most satisfying live rock albums ever, focused on their ’68-’69 hits, including an extended, definitive “Midnight Rambler,” and showed how integral Mick Taylor had become to the Stones’ roaring live sound.The band’s first release on their own Rolling Stones Records was the druggy, shambling, brilliant “Sticky Fingers” (1971), with the infamous working-zipper cover by Andy Warhol. Taylor again sparkled and the Jagger/Richards songwriting continued at the highest level: swaggering “Brown Sugar,” plaintive “Wild Horses,” jazzy grooving “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking,” horn-rocking “Bitch,” chilling “Sister Morphine” and countrified “Dead Flowers.”The murky, dense, jumbled double album “Exile on Main Street” closed the era of Stones invincibility in 1972. A yeasty blend of all the band’s roots influences — blues, country, soul, gospel and rock — “Exile” yields fresh revelations more than 30 years later, and “Rocks Off,” “Rip This Joint,” “Tumbling Dice,” “Sweet Virginia,” “Happy,” “All Down the Line” and “Shine a Light” are among the band’s best work.The Stones have been a different band ever since: Mick Taylor left in 1974, replaced by the stalwart Ronnie Wood. They have released a couple great albums: “Some Girls” (1978), their rough response to the challenges of disco and punk (“Miss You,” “Some Girls,” “Respectable,” “Beast of Burden,” “Shattered”), and “Tattoo You” (1981, their top-charting album ever — nine weeks at No. 1) with standouts “Start Me Up,” “Hang Fire” and “Waiting On a Friend.” They have also released a lot of simply good albums: the ’70s were better than the ’80s, which were better than the ’90s.But they have soldiered on, taking breaks but focusing more and more on getting the music out to the fans live, becoming particularly reinvigorated with the “Steel Wheels” album and world tour in 1989. I caught that tour in Los Angeles and the Stones came on with an air of eager assurance. All of the elements clicked: the guitars cut and slashed, the rhythm section locked in and rode it out, the songs were a perfect blending of old and new, the band was abundantly enthusiastic.Jagger didn’t exhibit a drop of Cool Star attitude: he worked, talked, sang with energy and attention to detail. He was obviously happy to be liked again. The collective joyous relief of the stadium buoyed Jagger to childlike vulnerability:“Do ya like the new songs?” he almost pleaded of the throng. ”We love them, Mick!” ”We love you!” ”Yeahh!”Maybe Mick was reminded of his quote from the ’70s, “Sometimes I prefer being on stage, sometimes I prefer orgasm.” That night, I’m pretty sure the stage won. In the 1990s, the band took in a staggering $750 million from three tours. When I watched them live from Madison Square Garden on HBO early last year my eyes confirmed that these craggy, gaunt guys are about 60 years old, but when the cameras pulled back 30 years melted away and the magic was real and grew in intensity as the night wore on.What a great show! The Stones are a better band live now than they were in the ’70s when their lives, bodies and minds were a quagmire of sex, drugs and alcohol. Age has focused them, yet taken away very little of their maniacal energy, and Keith Richards is still the greatest rhythm guitarist who ever lived. Long live rock ‘n’ roll — long live the Rolling Stones!
3. U2 Ireland’s U2 is the most important and influential band of the post-punk era, joining ringing guitar rock, punkish independence, Celtic spirituality, innovative production techniques and electronic experimentalism — all held together by singer/lyricist Bono’s transcendent vision and charisma.U2 — Bono (Paul Hewson), guitarist the Edge (Dave Evans), bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen — formed in Dublin in 1976 as a Beatles and Stones cover band while the players were all still in high school. In 1980 they were signed to Island Records and released their spectacular first album, “Boy,” produced by Steve Lillywhite.U2, with guitarist the Edge and lead singer Bono, is now a mature, confident, still amazing band that knows it doesn’t have all the answers, but isn’t afraid to keep asking the right questions. The band’s sparkling, radiant sound jumped from the grooves from the first note of “I Will Follow” and rode Mullen’s massive drums and the Edge’s angular, careening guitar into history. Neither “Boy” nor its follow-up “October” (with the glorious “Gloria”) tore up the charts at the time (though both are now platinum), but “War” — passionate, martial “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” melodic wailing “New Year’s Day,” and the fierce, new wavy love song “Two Hearts Beat As One”—turned U2 into a worldwide phenomenon in 1983.In preparation for 1984’s “The Unforgettable Fire,” producer Brian Eno had a long conversation with Bono, as he later told Q Magazine. “I said, ‘Look, if I work with you, I will want to change lots of things you do, because I’m not interested in records as a document of a rock band playing on stage, I’m more interested in painting pictures. I want to create a landscape within which this music happens.’ And Bono said, ‘Exactly, that’s what we want too.’”The results of this fateful change of direction were Eno productions of U2 standards “The Unforgettable Fire” (including “Bad,” “Pride In the Name of Love”); Grammy’s 1987 Album of the Year, the personal yet universal “The Joshua Tree,” which made the band superstars (with “Where the Streets Have No Name,” “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” “With Or Without You” and “One Tree Hill”); 1991’s “Achtung Baby,” a brilliant and emotionally dark move toward electronica (“Even Better Than the Real Thing,” “One,” “Until the End of the World,” “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses” and “Mysterious Ways”); and “Zooropa,” deeper still into Euro-dance music and electronics (‘93, with the title track, “Numb,” “Lemon,” “Stay”). Wow, what a journey.U2 was the leading rock band of the ’80s because its members, like perhaps only Bruce Springsteen in the U.S., still believed that rock ‘n’ roll could save the world, and they had the talent to make that notion not seem hopelessly naive.This earnestness and willingness to shoulder the heaviest of responsibilities led to soaring heights of achievement and escalating psychic and artistic demands that eventually led the band to adopt irony as its basic means of expression for a time in the ’90s.All bands want to be cool, and in the ’80s U2 almost single-handedly made earnestness cool, but it was hard, relentless work. After the gritty, chunky guitars-and-idealism of the ’80s, the ’90s saw the diaphanous chill of electronics-and-irony, which was literally and metaphorically cool, but ultimately not what the band is about.“All That You Can’t Leave Behind” (‘00) returned to what the band is about, and is the sonic and spiritual follow up to the “The Joshua Tree,” the band’s most idealistic, spiritual and melodically consistent album.Remnants of the band’s forays into electronics seasoned the album (especially the impressionistic “New York”), but the Edge’s guitar returned to center stage where his unique, chiming style belongs, though it never upstages the songs, every one of which is blessed with a memorable tune.Following the ecstatic release of the opening track “Beautiful Day,” the second song “Stuck In a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of,” states a seemingly modest but deeply profound, earnest and idealistic notion: “I’m just trying to find a decent melody A song I can sing in my own company”They have found it and then some. U2 is now a mature, confident, still amazing band that knows it doesn’t have all the answers, but isn’t afraid to keep asking the right questions.
4. The Grateful Dead Out on the road today/I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac/A little voice inside my head/Said ‘don’t look back, you can never look back.’ — Don Henley, “Boys of Summer”When Henley wrote “The Boys of Summer’ in 1984, he saw the sticker on luxurious Detroit steel as a contradiction of values: a symbolic matter/antimatter collision that obliterated the meaning of both. But Henley didn’t realize that his symbol of a Dead past was in reality a very powerful symbol of the present and future.
The Vietnam War was the perfect polarizer between youth and adult culture: it had no clear objective, it was far away, it cost many lives, and it was involuntary — the old made the decisions, the young died. After the war was mercifully killed in the mid-’70s, the nation came to realize that it had hated the internal confusion more than it had hated the external enemy — blood is thicker than ideology.The Grateful Deal, featuring the late Jerry Garcia on guitar, carries on its musical and cultural lineage to this day. As a result, both sides of the internal conflict embraced the perceived highlights of the other’s culture: adults lightened up — Johnny Carson grew his hair long and joked with the band about smoking pot — and the youth embraced the acquisitive materialism of their parents with the shamelessness of Midas.The Dead became the symbol of this blending of ideologies until Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995: a well-oiled money making machine ($50 million a year in concert revenue) that sold peace, love and understanding to a legion of internally divided admirers. The Dead sold out every show because a Dead show was a socially acceptable place to temporarily take a break from the rat race and try on ’60s hippie values without having to live them. People who didn’t do drugs any other time indulged and danced around like pixies to the Dead and their light, rhythmic, pleasant, sometimes inspired, extended musical journeys.On that musical front, Rhino’s “Very Best of the Grateful Dead” is an excellent representation of the band’s eclectic blending of country, folk, psychedelic rock, R&B, jazz and Afro-Caribbean rhythms on classics like “Friend of the Devil,” “Sugar Magnolia,” “Ripple,” “Truckin’,” “Uncle John’s Band,” “Casey Jones,” “Franklin’s Tower,” and their lone hit single “Touch of Grey.”“Grateful Dead” (1971) is my favorite live set by the band — it rolls along with “Bertha,” “Mama Tried,” “Playing in the Band,” “Johnny B. Goode,” “Not Fade Away” and “Goin’ Down the Road Feeling Bad,” showing great energy and versatility.
The Dead’s success inspired the entire jam band movement, which carries on its musical and cultural lineage to this day.
5. Velvet Underground Brian Eno has famously said that not many people bought the Velvet’s albums when they were originally released, but everyone who did formed a band. After bravely jousting the twin enemies of indifference and open hostility in its lifetime, the Velvet Underground has gradually been embraced as one of the best and most important bands in rock history.
Recording a mere four studio albums and one live album in the late-’60s, the group established an aesthetic so extreme, alien and ahead of its time that it has taken three decades for the world to catch up. The essence of that aesthetic is an unapologetic embrace of the opposite poles of the musical, emotional and thematic spectrum: naked power on the one end and exquisite beauty on the other, squalid Saturday night nihilism followed by pristine Sunday morning reverence conjured from the urban essence of New York.The Velvet Underground formed in 1964 when singer/guitarist/songwriter Lou Reed and Welsh multi-instrumentalist John Cale met and decided to form a rock band (eventually with Sterling Morrison on bass and guitar and Maureen “Mo” Tucker on percussion), drawing upon their mutual interest in R&B, the free-form jazz of Albert Ayler and Ornette Coleman and the avant-garde minimalism of John Cage and La Monte Young.The band sought not just to entertain, but to challenge, to prove that rock ‘n’ roll could be dangerous again. They gravitated toward Andy Warhol — who brought Austrian actress/model/chanteuse Nico into the fold — and became fixtures in Warhol’s multimedia organization, the Factory, and in the Village bohemian art scene.Live, the Velvets were a bizarre amalgam of vigorous R&B, pretty pop songs, extended experimental noise jams and the performance art of Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable. The original band lasted just two albums, “The Velvet Underground and Nico,” and “White Light, White Heat” (both 1967), the first of which stands among the greatest of all rock albums.“Waiting for the Man,” with a breezy rock groove, follows a Reed character in pursuit of drugs. Reed is almost giddy with self-contempt as his need for drugs drags his social status below that of ghetto dwellers, and that defiant self-contempt defines the Velvet’s status as the first post-modern band and the progenitor of the entire punk/new wave movement. “Heroin” takes the external adventure of obtaining drugs into the internal realm and captures the seduction of addiction with a power, beauty and grace that makes it all the more frightening. “Venus in Furs,” an unblinking examination of an S&M relationship, conveys ennui of almost black hole density. “All Tomorrow’’s Parties” is Nico’s finest moment, a towering aural monument to ephemeral glamour, with the pulse of dread and Reed’s destabilizing frantic guitar. Also on the record are two more pretty, Reed penned/Nico sung jewels, “I’ll Be Your Mirror” and “Femme Fatale,” and the loveliest song of Reed’s career, the preternatural “Sunday Morning,” which captures the hope and regret of a dawning Sunday with awe and delicacy.The group’s remaining three albums produced several more gems in “White Light, White Heat,” “What Goes On,” “Beginning to See the Light,” “Pale Blue Eyes,” “Sweet Jane,” and “Rock and Roll,” all of which and more can be found in the highly recommended box set “Peel Slowly and See.”
6. Led Zeppelin Over a 10-year, nine-album career from 1969-79, Led Zeppelin was the most popular rock group in the world, ultimately selling more than 50 million records in the U.S. alone (more than 200 million worldwide), developing the blues-based power trio-plus-lead singer archetype in many directions including mystical English folk-rock, Middle Eastern-influenced exotica, quirky pop and every manner of heaviness. They also came to symbolize the Dionysian excesses of the rock lifestyle.Their ubiquity on classic rock radio formats and the aforementioned excesses have led many to dismiss the band as overrated and symptomatic of the decline of rock ‘n’ roll in the ’70s. The super value collection “Early Days and Latter Days: Best of Vols. 1 and 2” (two discs) prove that, if anything, the band’s musical greatness is still underappreciated, due to the previously mentioned resentments and the fact that the band had no greater cultural impact — they didn’t much stand for anything.Led Zeppelin, with vocalist Robert Plant, left, and guitarist Jimmy Page, came to symbolize the Dionysian excesses of the rock lifestyle. The band, however, has sold more than 50 million record in the U.S. alone. Jimmy Page, who had led the last incarnation of the Yardbirds and had been an extremely successful session guitarist (Who, Kinks, Them, Donovan, Joe Cocker), formed the band in 1968 with veteran session bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, 19-year-old singer Robert Plant and Plant’s friend, drummer John Bonham. Commenting upon Page’s low expectations for the success of the band, Keith Moon suggested the name “Led Zeppelin.”They were both wrong: “Led Zeppelin 1” (“Good Times Bad Times,” “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You,” “Dazed and Confused,” “Communication Breakdown”), “Led Zeppelin 2” (“Whole Lotta Love,” “The Lemon Song,” “Hearbreaker,” “Living Loving Maid,” “Ramble On”) and “Led Zeppelin 4” (a.k.a. “Zoso,” with “Black Dog,” “Rock and Roll,” “When the Levee Breaks,” “Stairway to Heaven”) are among rock’s greatest albums.Plant’s vocals reached levels of deranged ecstasy matched perhaps only by Little Richard on lyrics typically either oozing with sexuality or derived from Anglo-Saxon myth and/or the occult. Bonham (whose accidental death in 1980 broke up the band) pounded his drums relentlessly like a nimble elephant dancing through the house. Jones’s bass and strategic keyboards glued the disparate elements together. And Page, who did most of the writing and production, played some of the most fundamental and memorable guitar in rock history — from the heaviest crunch to the most delicate acoustic finger picking.Proving the band’s vast enduring popularity, the band’s live two-DVD set “Led Zeppelin,” released last May, has sold more than 600,000 copies.
7. Ramones The Ramones — Dee Dee (bass, vocals), Joey (vocals), Johnny (guitar), Tommy (drums, later replaced by Marky) — were the American punk band, an endless wellspring of noise, energy, attitude, humor and (sometimes forgotten) great songs, who helped reinvent rock ‘n’ roll when it needed it most in the mid-’70s.Working for indie Sire Records in the mid-’70s, producer/talent scout Craig Leon became involved with the percolating New York underground music scene. One summer night in 1975 he went to CBGB’s and saw two bands, the Talking Heads and the Ramones.“I went to that show and there were literally four people in the audience besides me, but the bands were phenomenal,” Leon said. “A lot of people didn’t even think the Ramones could make a record. There were weeks of preproduction on a very basic level: like when the songs started and when they ended. Their early sets were one long song until they ran out of steam or fought. You could see it as a performance art-type thing, where you had a 17-minute concise capsule of everything you ever knew about rock ‘n’ roll, or you could see it as 22 little songs,” he said. They went for the songs.The Ramones’ first album (1976) is a roaring minimalist icon — the first real American punk record. Layers and layers of accumulated bloat and sheen were stripped away to reveal rock ‘n’ roll at its most basic and vital on songs like “Blitzkreig Bop,” “Beat On the Brat” and “Let’s Dance.” The Ramones’ sound was blazing early-’60s surf music played through the overdriven distortion of Blue Cheer and Black Sabbath. Yet, according to Leon, the Ramones saw themselves as a pop band. “In our naivete, we thought they were going to be bigger than the Beatles. They had even named themselves after Paul McCartney’s early stage name, ‘Paul Ramone,’” Leon said.While most agree the Ramones’ astonishing first album — which cut through the competition like a 747 in a paper airplane contest — is their most important album, it isn’t my favorite. My favorite is one of the band’s most eccentric, “End of the Century” — produced by the enigmatic pop icon (and now murder suspect) Phil Spector — and the album that explicitly acknowledged such a thing as “pop punk” for the first time.Recorded in 1979, the album made explicit the connection between early-’60s pop-rock and the punk band’s psyche, and holds up as both a Ramones and a Spector classic — Spector’s idiosyncrasies never overwhelm the roar of “Chinese Rock” or “Rock ‘N’ Roll High School,” and the Spectorish “Do You Remember Rock ‘N’ Roll Radio” rollicks with just the right retro touches. The band’s remake of the Ronette’s “Baby I Love You” is as touching as it is fun, and shed a whole new light on singer Joey Ramone (who died in 2002 after a long bout with cancer — I sure do miss that guy).The two-CD set “Hey! Ho! Let’s Go” is a spectacular overview of the band, with all of the above songs (except “Baby I Love You”) plus “California Sun,” “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker,” “Cretin Hop,” “Rockaway Beach,” “Teenage Lobotomy,” “I Wanna Be Sedated,” “She’s the One,” “She’s a Sensation,” “We Want the Airwaves” and many, many more.
8. Pink Floyd Pink Floyd is the most eccentric and experimental multi-platinum band of the album rock era, creating exceptional cinematic sound sculptures “Meddle,” “Dark Side of the Moon,” “Wish You Were Here,” and the band’s popular apex and conceptual death knell, “The Wall.”Beginning in the mid-’60s as a R&B-based hard rock band, the band (named after Piedmont blues men Pink Anderson and Floyd Council) — Syd Barrett on guitar and vocals, Roger Waters on bass and vocals, Richard Wright on keyboards, and Nick Mason on drums — mutated quickly into a strange combination of twee British psychedelia (“See Emily Play,” “Arnold Layne”) and long-form instrumental space rock (“Astronomy Domine,” “Interstellar Overdrive”), inspired by Barrett’s liberal LSD use: a Cambridge English garden transported to Mars.Guitarist David Gilmour joined the group as insurance against Barrett’s volatility in ’68, but when Barrett was forced out for unreliability his “backup band” became a democratic foursome sharing writing, singing and leadership duties. As Floyd headed more deeply into experimental symphonic explorations in the sonic chill of space — about as far removed from rock ‘n’ roll’s origins in amped-up American teenage hormones as possible — the more popular they became.“Meddle,” released in 1971, was the band’s transition album from the Barrett-influenced ’60s to the Waters-Gilmour Floyd of the 1970s, highlighted by a pillar of space rock greatness “Echoes,” over 23 minutes of confidently creative meandering, ingratiating harmony vocals from Waters and Gilmour, burbling organ from Wright, atmospheric axemanship from the incomparable Gilmour, otherworldly pings and drifting whale noises. You can hear the fertile seeds of “Dark Side of the Moon” here.“Dark Side,” released in ’73, stayed on the album chart for an outrageous 741 weeks, a masterpiece of creative studio craft and a remarkably unified exploration of time, greed and existence — the album is an indispensable rite of passage still. “Wish You Were Here” is an exceptional, ruminative, ambient, long-form look at the disintegration of Barrett intermingled with Roger Waters’ souring view of the world, and in particular, the music industry.That dim view of life found its ultimate expression in “The Wall,” which used its title to represent literal and metaphoric isolation. In elaborate theatrical presentations of the work, a wall was physically constructed throughout the performance, the collapse of which at the end of each show neatly presaged the group’s fate. Waters went solo in the early-’80s and the group has reunited periodically without him, but neither the group nor he have ever been the same since.
9. Bob Marley and the Wailers The greatest singer, songwriter, and cultural figure in Jamaican history, Bob Marley brought the righteous message and “positive vibrations” of reggae music to the world, and is the only towering figure of the rock era not from America or the U.K.Jamaican singer Bob Marley brought the righteous message and “positive vibrations” of reggae music to the world. Marley and his band, the Wailers, created transcendent music around the entrancing, inverted reggae beat and unforgettable melodies that equally decried poverty and injustice and celebrated physical and spiritual ecstasy — all of it grounded in Marley’s abiding Rastafarian faith. Marley’s influence is so pervasive, his music so seductive, and respect for him so great throughout the world that it is easy to forget the beliefs and customs of the Rastas are rather, in a word, odd: reverence of Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia as a living god who would lead the oppressed black diaspora back to an African homeland (rather more difficult after he died in 1975), smoking the holy herb of enlightenment, ganja (marijuana), as daily sacrament, growing their hair in dreadlocks.
Marley was born in rural St. Ann’s Parish in 1945 to a middle-aged white father and a teen-aged black mother, and left home for the tough Trench Town slum of Kingston at 14 in order to pursue a life in music. There he became friends, and formed a vocal trio, with Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer. They called themselves the Wailing Wailers, later shortened to the Wailers. They worked within the prevailing musical styles of the time, first the buoyant up-tempo ska, then the slower sinuous rock steady, which then gave way to reggae.The Wailers recorded with legendary producers Coxone Dodd and Lee “Scratch” Perry in the ’60s, recording great songs like “Simmer Down,” the original version of “One Love,” “Soul Rebel,” “Small Axe” and “Duppy Conqueror,” becoming greatly popular in Jamaica. But it was when the Wailers signed with Chris Blackwell’s Island Records in 1972 that their reach became global.The Wailers’ first albums for Island, “Catch a Fire” and “Burnin’” (both ’73), became instant classics and introduced “Stir it Up,” “I Shot the Sheriff,” and Tosh’s “Get Up Stand Up” to the world. Tosh and Wailer then both left to pursue solo careers and the Wailers became Marley’s vehicle of expression. Until his tragic death from cancer at the age of 36 in 1981, Marley generated anthem after anthem and brought hope and pride to the Third World, in addition to touching hearts and moving feet across North America and Europe.His hits collection covering the Island years, “Legend,” with sales of over 10 million copies in the U.S. alone, is the most popular and enduring reggae album of all time. Among its delights are “No Woman No Cry,” “Three Little Birds,” “One Love,” “Buffalo Soldier,” “Waiting In Vain” and “Jamming.”
10. Sly and the Family Stone Sly and the Family Stone made some of the most buoyant and thoughtful music of the late-’60s and early-’70s, uniting and transforming black and white music at a time of highest hope and deepest betrayal in America. Leader Sly Stone personified both extremes, as the truest of believers and a victim of his own disillusionment.Stone was a musical child prodigy who recorded a gospel song at age four. In the mid-’60s he produced hit records for the Beau Brummels and Bobby Freeman before his dream blossomed into the colorful, freaky Sly and the Family Stone. Sly wrote the songs, created the arrangements and handled the production, but allowed each member to express his/her individual identity. The Family blended blacks and whites, men and women: Sly’s brother Freddie Stewart on electric guitar, sister Rose on electric piano, Sly’s high school friends Cynthia Robinson on trumpet and Jerry Martini on sax, Martini’s cousin Gregg Errico on drums, and thumping, popping funk bass pioneer Larry Graham.It was on the band’s second LP, “Dance To The Music” (’68) that they really caught fire. The title song was a perfect representation of the live Family sound, a vibrant amalgam of positivity, fuzz bass, doo-wop, rock guitar and horns, gathered in the context of a traditional R&B revue.The summer of ’69 found Sly and the Family Stone rising to the heights of popularity and critical acclaim on the wings of their phenomenal album “Stand!,” which included the band’s first No. 1 hit, “Everyday People,” a song that defined the band’s social ideals in the way that “Dance” defined its musical thoughts. The charm of the nursery rhyme refrain cuts through centuries of cultural bias and reminds us of the simple truth that “we got to live together” or die separately. Also on the album was the orgasmic “I Want to Take You Higher.”That same summer, Sly and Family Stone stormed the stage at Woodstock in rainbow get-ups, flashing of sequins and electricity and came away superstars. If the attendees weren’t high enough, when Sly cried out “I Want to Take You Higher” at the end of the band’s set, many feel the festival — and an era — reached their frenzied peak.Unfortunately, Sly took his obsession with “highness” literally and came to confuse the easy high of drugs with the more difficult highs of music, love and the joy of existence. With the drugs came increasing paranoia and self-absorption that were expressed first and best on 1971’s “There’s A Riot Goin’ On,” where lassitude replaced spunk but Sly’s incredible talent still shined through the murk. Drummer Errico left during the production and Sly further damaged the family feel by playing most of the instruments on the album himself, isolated in a cocaine cocoon. Ironically, “Riot” was the “band’s” only No. 1 album. The dream and the reality then both fell apart, but the music remains.