Still Crazy After All These Years

Oh.  So Rolling Stone ran a readers’ poll on the Greatest Rock & Roll Rebels, and it makes a bit more sense.

Including the intro, which says these rebels pushed boundaries and refused to conform.  That’s a little more on point.

Here’s the list: Jim Morrison, Dylan, Zack de la Rocha, Keef, Iggy Pop, Johnny Cash, Lennon, Zappa, Axl Rose, Bowie.

All in all, there’s a lot more cohesion here than in the previous list.  Interesting that Johnny Cash is the only name to appear in both versions.  And also interesting, I guess, is that I’m more qualified to be a reader than an RS editor, since my list was closer to the general public’s.  Of course, the editor guys’ job is to spark discussion and debate.  Like we’re gonna conform!

Anyway.  Play by your own rules.  That’s the message.

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.

Dazed and Confused

Back on the lists. This one is The Rolling Stone Best Lead Singers Of All Time list - and it's wrong.

I mean, it's good and has most of the names I expected to find, but it's not right.

BTW, there was a previous list published by RS. That one was created by "experts." This one is a reader's poll thing.

Here's the list:
1. Robert Plant. Look. Zeppelin was great. He was fantastic. But best ever?
2. Freddie Mercury. Stronger case. Amazing singer. So powerful on stage.
3. Bono. Ditto, but not quite top 5 in my book.
4. Mick Jagger. The older I get (he gets?) the more I respect him. Definitely Top 10.
5. Jim Morrison. Aw, I dunno. Decent voice, powerful persona. Just wasn't really ever a fan.
6. Roger Daltrey. I'm an on-again-off-again Who fan. Sorry, but one scream does not a singer make.
7. Eddie Vedder. Well, the last two decades have been a bit of a wasteland, so sure.
8. John Lennon. Number 1. Hands down. Versatile, energetic, passionate, haunting, perfect.
9. Chris Cornell. Not a big Soundgarden fan so can't really comment.
10. Kurt Cobain. See Eddie Vedder. Personally, I would have Liam Gallagher as a "recent" pick.

Where in hell is Paul McCartney? Where's Elvis? Aretha? Sam Cooke?

Methinks this list is child of the corporate Classic Rock playlist.

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.