Saturday, May 29, 2010

Psylent Chord from the Vocal Transcendent-C

 
Why ask Why? Haven't you ever seen a guy play the curtain?! I hope not.

I just liked the sound of the title this time as it sounds like a prog-rock track that's way too long for radio airplay. Yeah, cool!! Let's mess with the minds of radio DJ's and request long songs. haha

It's interesting that some people don't get the beauty of really great progressive-rock and art-rock songs, or any very artistic songs.

Hey, this is Friday, so I'm gonna cut loose and just write what comes to mind.

Time for three more songs on my 100 Best Rock Songs and they are all very tight, well-played songs and obviously three of my favorite songs too.

"Siberian Khatru" by Yes, "In A Glass House" by Gentle Giant, and "Cebuana" by Urbandub are all great songs and I can hear excellent bass lines, guitar playing, the drumming and singing are outstanding as well. And talk about terrific melodies!

The song by Yes, in it's live version, was one of my favorite songs when I was a teenager. I'm not sure when I first heard the Gentle Giant song -- which has a great 'prog-grass' beginning, with violin and bluegrass sound in a progressive way -- but I did get the CD "In a Glass House" some years ago. I've only known about this song by Urbandub recently but I am very impressed that its a very clean, beautiful rock song. All three songs are somewhere in the middle in terms of how hard they rock, and in my opinion all three songs are progressive rock but not the real proggy prog-rock which while nice to listen to, requires wide-awake thinking skills to process all of what's going on.

Congratulations to Urbandub, Yes, and Gentle Giant.

The list was something I had hoped to publish in a newspaper I wrote for back in the '90s. I wanted it to appear in the newspaper in the year 2000, but my job ended in early 1998 so I didn't write an article with a Rock 100 list at that time.

I'm thinking about starting another blog to publish the list and do more writing on rock music. However, I will continue writing about rock songs here too.

Well, it's Saturday morning now. I was going to finish sooner but got some sleep first. Now I'll listen to some more rock songs, etc. Take care.
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Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Monday, May 17, 2010

I am NOT

 
and I will say this again for the hard of reading,
I am NOT a Steely Dan album cover.

That's just in case someone wondered. haha

And if some guy, or gal, is thinking, hmmm, but I'll bet some days he feels like one. Yes, in fact that would be fun because they had some of the best album covers and among my favorite songs.

One time I was eating out, and I'm fairly sure I was at a Carl's Jr. (tie-in to fast food because after all, this is a fast food blog, just don't try to eat the blog) so anyway, to complete this absolutely gawd awful sentence, what the heck was I saying. Oh, I forget now.

Oh yeah, I was eating -- and it was a long time ago so don't ask me what I ordered -- and on comes the song "Doctor Wu" by Steely Dan. I love that song.

So then, I was happy and maybe there wasn't even a pretty girl with me. I say maybe because I can't remember because girlfriends come and go but Steely Dan's fabulous music isn't ever going to leave me.

Yeah, I am getting sort of emotional. But other than the obvious, Steely Dan will be on my 100 Best Rock Songs List but I'm not sure how much because I'm trying to be objective too, which I won't be if I ever get another date. It's a long dry spell in my love(less) life.

But now I'm getting sidetracked, and what I wanted to write was the following:

Some of the songs on my 100 Best Rock Songs List are the single version of the song or the one that was on the radio and my thinking is that many people heard those songs. However, I don't assume anything these days, and also many great songs don't get played by radio DJ's and that really, really sucks!

To the best of my ability, I do try to include album tracks in my decision making process, so some of the songs on the list will be songs on albums. I'm using that word "albums" in a general sense, and I do mean CDs, records, LPs, and cassette tapes, even a few 8-track tapes which they sold in stores in the past. But I'm also considering singles, the songs of music videos, and some Live songs as long as I strongly believe those were by the recording artists and those Live versions were available to a large number of listeners. But it doesn't matter to me whether it was a big hit or not. People can be wrong. Right?

I'm in favor of everyone, everywhere being able to receive the recognition they deserve if their songs are among the best, so yes there will be songs by foreign recording artists (countries where English is not the main language or first language) on my list of 100 rock songs. However, I'm not creating spots for those artists, so if their songs are on the list, it means they really were -- in my opinion-- among the very best songs over the last forty years.

Also, with so many people on the Internet these days, it's appropriate and important to find out what other people are listening to, and while I do not base my decisions on what other people think or their lists, though it does provide one with a chance to know about more songs. Yahoo Music, YouTube, Playlist.com and other sources of information, in my opinion, are ways for people to hear great songs. So thank you to all recording artists who allow music listeners to find out about their music and hear their songs, and also giving us more information on new albums and soon-to-be-released albums and where we can see them in concert. Good luck to everyone!

There's a video on YouTube (says it's a fan-made video) and I think it's a very good one. Electronic music can get on my '100 Best' list and the song "Roygbiv" by Boards of Canada, is one of the best electronic songs I've ever heard -- so it's going to be on the list.

It's a crossover song/recording artist (there will be more on my list) and if I were writing a list of 100 best electronic songs, "Roygbiv" certainly would be on that list and much closer to the top.

Note: The publication dates/posting dates (I mean the order of of the announcements of songs making my 100 Best Rock Songs List) have nothing to do with its number on the list. I have chosen to do it this way in an effort to be as objective and unbiased as possible, and to honor the recording artists for their great songs. However, in the end there's no doubt my own personal tastes in music and my opinion of what makes a great song will play a key role in whether or not a song makes the list and which number it gets to on the list.

I am not responsible for the linked to videos or linked to websites and those are the property of its owners. Also I didn't post music videos and haven't commented about music there for a long time so those are not my comments at YouTube. I've noticed some individuals' comments on YouTube go way too far and can be quite offensive, so if that bothers you, then please don't read those offensive type of comments. If I can think of more to add, I will do so later.

I'm glad Boards of Canada got on my 100 Best Rock Songs List.

Sunday, May 09, 2010

Stone Temple Pilots' song from '90s on my 100 Best Rock Songs List

Good hard-rock songs can be hard to find. That was especially true during parts of the '90s. I think music has gotten better, both soft and hard rock, thanks to influential bands from the past, including the grunge-rock era.

One of the best hard-rock songs of that time period was "Trippin' On a Hole In a Paper Heart" by Stone Temple Pilots. It will be on my 100 Best Songs list, which is basically songs from 1970 to 2010, but could overlap a bit to 1969 and 2010. No problem, if so, I'll explain my reason later.

The STP song is exciting to listen including the album/studio version (probably the version to be on my 100 Best Rock Songs List) and watching/listening to the videos of their live concerts.

I liked Stone Temple Pilots' live performance of "Trippin' On a Hole In a Paper Heart" on YouTube more than I can express in words. It really makes me want to see them in concert and buy one of their albums.

Because people are able to watch videos, they can get turned on to bands like STP and bands want more fans, right? It's hard to know about all the great rock music now and in the past, so it's great to have this way to learn more about the music we love.

Thursday, May 06, 2010

I'm Not STOPPIN'

 
Even if I can't sign in for some reason.

Though I can say this for sure:




Regarding my list of 100 Best Rock Songs,

STP is 'IN'




Yeah, that's way, way different than stoppin. And by the way, from what I hear, STP is back. Also with any luck, I'll be back to name that song and tell you what the heck I'm writing about, if the Internet doesn't destroy me in the meantime.
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