The 45 Masters

Gibson’s 10 Greatest Singles Bands reminds you why radio used to be do darned good.  Here’s the list:

 1.  The Beatles

 2.  The Rolling Stones

 3.  Creedance Clearwater Revival

 4.  The Smiths

 5.  The Who

 6.  The Eagles

 7.  The Kinks

 8.  Oasis

 9.  The Guess Who

10. The Dave Clark Five

The singles from these bands makes for a pretty good playlist and a decent party.  With the exception of The Dave Clark Five, who understood their market and gracefully retired with the advent of FM radio, all these bands were pretty good on the album front too.  A key point, I think.

The article points out that although 45 RPM singles gave way to albums (then CD’s), in this digital age we’re back to buying singles.

Well, the singles were always there and were always the way to get attention and exposure.  So what sends the bands on this list apart?  For me, it’s a combination of volume and balance.  A multitude of hits to distinguish themselves from the one-hit-wonders, plus the ability to appeal beyond the constraints of the 3 minute pop song.  Each album had a few hits on it, plus some great album rock that proved these bands had depth.  That distinguished them from the pop groups who could churn out singles, but disappeared with the next fad.

The music from the bands on this list will not fade away.

A Decade In The Life

Here's an interesting list: the Rolling Stone Top Ten Songs Of The Sixties

Good list, and I guess all pretty much predictable. You quickly see that we have the usual, expected suspects, and they each get one tune (except The Beatles and Stones, who get two, and that's fair).

Here's the list:
1. Like A Rolling Stone - Dylan
2. A Day In The Life - The Beatles
3. Satisfaction - Stones
4. Gimme Shelter - Stones
5. My Generation -The Who
6. Light My Fire - The Doors
7. Hey Jude - The Beatles
8. Whole Lotta Love - Zeppelin
9. All Along The Watchtower - Hendrix
10. God Only Knows - Beach Boys

No point in debating relative placement. They are all wonderful songs (except God Only Knows, and, and, well only He does).

You could have pretty much guaranteed which groups would have been represented. What's interesting is which songs got selected. Satisfaction? Watchtower? Whole Lotta Love? Zero surprise factor.

Gimme Shelter? Nice, especially since it came so late. But it certainly captured the downer mood that undid the Woodstock high and kicked us into the 70's.

My Generation? Classic Rock radio revisionism. No one listened to this song when it first came out. OK, they did, and it was respected, but it wasn't as big or influential at the time as I Can See For Miles or Pinball Wizard.

Hey Jude? Sure. #1 for a zillion weeks. A Day In The Life? Nice. Trippy. Best representation of The Fab at their psychedelic best. But She Loves You started everything. And tunes like Day Tripper summed up what set them apart from everyone, why everything else was second best.

Like A Rolling Stone? If you asked me to pick one song that best represented the 60's I might just pick this one. But it feels like more revisionism to me. Ya, there's the legendary booing at Newport and all that, but it didn't get played much (at least initially). Sure, it marked Dylan's transition from folk to rock, but in the end it feels arbitrary. Blowing In The Wind or The Times They Are A Changing are better representations of what was happening at the time.

So, the thing is this was a reader's poll. And it's the voice of the people and the people are never wrong. The real thing is, how much have we all been manipulated by what we constantly hear, by what we're told to remember?

If you had done a poll on January 1, 1970, you probably would have got the same artists. Not sure you would have got the same songs.

With Or Without You

Between radio, restaurants, bars, sports venues, shopping malls and our friend's MP3 players we tend to get subjected to the same songs over and over and over and over and ...

I don't know about you, but some of the songs have worn out.  And some can't.  It's a personal thing, of course, but some songs grab me every time I hear them.

Some songs I tend to enjoy sometimes, and sometimes not so much.  It depends on the mood, I guess.

Some songs, well, they've just plain overstayed their welcome.  Played too many times.  You know, the first million times or so were OK, but after that  ...  So they've slipped from "love 'em" (or at least "like 'em") to "can't stand 'em".  Familiarity breeds, and all that.

So here's a sampling of my three lists:

Grabs Me Every Time
While My Guitar Gently Weeps, The Beatles
Running On Empty, Jackson Browne
Woodstock, CSNY
Black Dog, Led Zeppelin
With or Without You, U2

Depends
Sultans of Swing, Dire Straits
Stairway to Heaven, Led Zeppelin
Smoke on the Water, Deep Purple
Won't Get Fooled Again, The Who
No Time, the Guess Who

No More, Please
American Woman, The Guess Who
Life In The Fast Lane, The Eagles
Light My Fire, The Doors
We Are The Champions, Queen
pretty much everything by April Wine

So, hey all you people voting for - and compiling - the long weekend "best ever" list, do us a favour and mix it up a bit next time.

Variety (Part 2 ... or 3)

Here's some more arithmetic for you:

I have just over 4,000 songs on my iPod, which is apparently 11.3 days - 271 hours - of music.  With commercials and babbling, that's over 450 hours of music for a radio station.  Almost 19 days before a song repeated.

19 days on my iPod, 4 hours on the radio.  450 hours, 4 hours.

So why would any of us listen to the radio?  Sure, when we hear a new song and like it we want to hear it over again.  But every four hours?  To the exclusion of all the other great music we love?  Are we that forgetful?  Are we that dumbed down?

Maybe the bigger question is:  since they know we all have the technology, why do radio stations stick with the ridiculously short playlists?

I have my favourite artists and preferred playlists, so it takes me months - but I listen to every song on my iPod.  Every one of them.  You see, the 4,000 songs represent only a subset of my CD collection.  They are my favourites.

I have an older iPod, with a puny 20 GB.  The current 160 GB model is capable of storing 40,000 songs.  That's six months before a song repeats.

Even if radio stations wanted to play it safe and only play "hits", there have been about 10,000 of those since rock's inception.  They could still favour current and recent "hits" but have months worth of addditional material keep things interesting.  And that's just rock.  Imagine another 2-3 months worth of tunes crossing over from country, jazz, blues and folk?

Wouldn't that be cool?

Yes, by the way, there is Frank Sinatra on my iPod.

When FM Became AM Radio

I remember how excited my friends and I were when CHUM FM switched from classical music to album rock.  Now we could hear not just the commercial stuff, but the trippy songs too.  Now we could hear artists on the fringe.  We could hear experimental music, blues, folk, jazz fusion, hard rock, acid rock, and progressive rock along with pop.

And yes, we could hear more Jimi Hendrix and less Petula Clark.

Looking back, there was stunning variety on the CHUM AM, but at the time the main attraction of stations like CHUM FM was even more variety.

Then over time the formulas crept in, the suits took over, and the genres splintered and formed the base of separate sub-cultures.  The AM stations became all talk and the FM stations became Top 40, but all specialized.

Who decided variety was a four letter word?

A few years ago a radio station in Florida announced it was switching to an all Led Zeppelin format.  I remember thinking, "cool publicity stunt, but stupid."  I mean, what are we talking about, 120 songs?  150 if you count the live stuff?  Ridiculous, right?

Not really.  I read a while ago that the average radio station has a playlist of 36 songs.  Each week, they rotate 4 songs out and 4 new songs in.  So it takes around 9 weeks for the playlist to turn over.  If the Led Zeppelin station has used that process it would take 30 weeks.  Not bad considering you'd get hard rock, blues, folk, prog rock and straight up rock and roll in the process.  You wouldn't get that kind of variety over any 30 week period on any station out there today.  You'd get the same cloned voices shouting "you piss me off" or whining "you're such a loser."  Or you'd get the same song from the same artist you've heard a million times, and wonder, "did he only record this one song?"

With today's 36 song play list, you'll go about 4 hours before the songs start repeating, given commercials and babbling.  Hmmm ...  and if the Led Zeppelin station went straight through the song catalogue you'd go 13 hours.

So there you go, an all Led Zeppelin radio station would give you three times the variety of your average station out there today.