Ooh baby, baby!

The first thing that jumps at out you when you look at Rolling Stone’s Women Who Rock: The 50 Greatest Albums of All Time (by women), is that there had to be a lot of stretching to come up with a list that long.

Here’s the Top 10:

 1. Aretha Franklin, I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You

 2. Joni Mitchell, Blue

 3. Dusty Springfield, Dusty In Memphis

 4. Fleetwood Mac, Rumours

 5. Patti Smith, Horses

 6. Adele, 21

 7. Missy Elliott, Under Construction

 8. Blondie, Parallel Lines

 9. The Supremes, Anthology

10. Bikini Kill, The Singles

No one, I mean no one, is going to argue with Aretha being number one, even though she was the Queen Of Soul.  Close enough.  But Taylor Swift?  Bjork?  Dolly Parton?  Yoko Ono?

I know I go on endlessly about how it was so much better before we splintered into so many subcultures, but Dionne Warwick?  Donna Summer?  It’s supposed to be Women Who Rock, not Queens of Pop.

Stevie Nicks, Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, Janis Joplin, Chrissie Hynde, Joan Jett?  Absolute rockers.

Carole King, Dolly Parton and Dionne Warwick?  Nope.

Listen:  there’s a lot of talent on this list and all of the names are deserving of respect.  I know rock is a verb that has also come to mean, “cool.”  But rock is rock, and not all these ladies do.

Twisted, Sister

How do people even come up with this stuff?  Rolling Stone did a reader’s poll on 10 Artists Who Should Return As Holograms.

The poll was taken after Snoop Dogg had a hologram of Tupac Shakur during a concert, or something.  So, the morbid question is “Hey kids!  What dead people do you want to see on stage?  Cool!  Fun!  Woot!” 

And the list is: Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, John Lennon, Freddie Mercury, Jim Morrison, Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin, Michael Jackson, Bob Marley, Notorious B.I.G..

Hey kids!  Anybody not guess who would be on the list?  OK, I guessed Keith Moon instead of Notorious.  Drummers never did get enough respect.

More than a little sick, and absolutely pointless.

Oh, and apparently there is some ongoing tour out there featuring an Elvis hologram.  Talk about the heebie-jeebies!

I liked it better when they just sold those Elvis-on-black-velvet paintings at corner gas stations.  When it comes to cheese, I’ll take low tech.

Back To The Garden

The Woodstock Festival ended 43 years ago today.  For a year or so afterwards, everything was so cool, so groovy, so possible.

Woodstock was a feeling, an attitude, a nation.  Then it became a ghost, a legend, maybe even a joke.

When did it die?  Five months later when a Hells Angel stabbed someone at the Stones concert at Altamont?  When Hendrix, Joplin and Morrison added their names to the celebrity death roll?  When the Vietnam War ended and there was no longer a unifying cause?  When glam rock, disco and prog rock snuck onto the scene?  Or was it already dying while Hendrix played his plaintiff guitar instrumental as people picked through the mud and the garbage to find shoes to wear home?

In the end, it was just a music festival, I guess.  A few nice ideas, but no substance.  But it could have been so much more.

One thing is for sure:  we’re no longer all feeding each other.

Queens of Rock

Saw a PBS special a while back entitled Women Who Rock.

I usually put such shows on as time fillers, not expecting to learn - or be entertained - all that much.

It was pretty good though. Cyndi Lauper did an impressive job as host. Knowledgeable, passionate – and, of course, fun.

Lots of familiar territory and expected coverage: Carol King, Janis Joplin, Aretha Franklin, the Wilson sisters from Heart. But a couple of surprises. Never heard of Wanda Jackson before. Don't know how I missed her, but glad to have that little gap in my history databanks plugged. The other surprise was no coverage of Fleetwood Mac.

You kidding me? Weren't they like the biggest band in the world for a couple of years, with not one but two women singing, playing and writing? Kinda strange.

Two small insights came at me:
1) Sister Rosetta Tharpe really was vastly influential. The male testosterone dominated pantheon of guitar heroes borrowed a lot from her. A lot.
2) Madonna has a lot to answer for. The show covered a lot of female artists who have arisen in the last 20 years, and made a big deal about the music scene actually being (finally) dominated by women. That may be, but are they rockers or dancers? With a few notable exceptions, like, say, Christine Aguilera, the voices aren't noteworthy at all. But the dancing's pretty good, I guess.

It kinda confirms this uneasy feeling I've had for a long time now. It's about the marketing, not the music. Eye candy and Broadway, not rock and roll. Would Janis Joplin or Chrissie Hynde even get a record deal now?

You gotta admire what Madonna has accomplished, but I'm not sure she did us any favours.

10 Greatest Dead Rock Stars

I gotta stop reading Rolling Stone.  This Top 10 Greatest Dead Rock Stars list is kinda morbid.

It's also utterly predictable.  Like, you would have come up with the same list - and the same sequence.  It would have been, dare I say it, dead easy.

Sorry.

Here's the list:
 1. John Lennon
 2. Jimi Hendrix
 3. Kurt Cobain
 4. Jim Morrison
 5. Elvis
 6. Freddie Mercury
 7. Janis Joplin
 8. George Harrsion
 9. John Bonham
10. Keith Moon

It would be interesting to see who numbers 11, 12 and 13 were.  25 years ago Buddy Holly would have made the list, as would Duanne Allman (not sure who else).  It's not surprising that Kurt Cobain, Freddie and George pushed them off the list.  But it does beg the question:  who on this list could be pushed off?  At this point, some of them are almost more famous for being dead than for being rock stars.

Better stop.  This is definitely morbid.

Take Another Little Piece of My Heart

Last week I saw a show billed as "Woodstock Festival Tribute."

The featured tribute artists were Melanie, Santana, CCR, Janis Joplin, Joe Cocker, CSNY, and Jimi Hendrix.  Also on the bill were The Doors and Jethro Tull.  Curious, really, since these two acts were not at Woodstock.

As it turned out it didn't really matter.  CSNY only did Neil Young solo songs - all from after August, 1969.  Tull and Santana also featured songs that couldn't have been performed at Woodstock.

But we live in an age when minor details and facts don't seem to matter.

Bending the truth a little might have been a smaller offence if the show had been good, but it was just OK.  Some good, some more bad.  When you find yourself thinking, sheesh, even the wig is bad, then you know it's pretty bad.

At least they didn't try and re-create the festival itself.  You know, warnings about bad acid and would you “please get down off the towers.”

I guess I made this point before, but: cover bands yes, tribute acts, I dunno.  Actually I do; no thanks.  I get manipulated enough as I go through life without paying for it.  Unless the act is mind-blowingly accurate, it's not entertainment, it’s just creepy.