eum of Fine Arts in Boston: Hang the DJ - An Alternative Book of Music Lists. It makes GREAT road trip fodder to pass those long miles without decent radio (another bow to the realm of satellites, I know) and is often ironically spot-on in describing the sublime joys of listening to the Stones sing American country and western.Here's the opening list just for kicks: "Spit it out! 10 Essential Stutter Songs." Properly employed, there's nothing catchier, cooler, weirder or funnier than a rock'n'roll stutter. The sung stutter is a vocal expression of one's inner funkiness. It is the sound of a voice dancing. It's not always pretty, but you have to respect the effort...
10. "My Sharona" - The Knack. A quintessential one-hit wonder.
9. "Movin' Out" - Billy Joel. He is brilliant on "heart attack-ack-ack-ack!"
8. "Fidelity" - ReginaSpektor. A less well-known essential.
7. "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet" - Bachman-Turner Overdrive. Cheesy but awesome.
6. "Changes" - David Bowie. A lift from the darkness into the light.
5. "Welcome to the Jungle" - Guns N'Roses. Badass energy over a relentless riff.
4. "Lola" - The Kinks. The rarest of rock'n'roll stutters: a SINGALONG stutter.
3. "My Generation" - The Who. Garage band energy filled with spite and bravado.
2. "Pshycho Killer" - Talking Heads. Qu'est que c'est?
1. "Peggy Sue" - Buddy Holly. The grandfather of them all who is so convincing that "you can smell the unplanned pregnancy waiting just around the corner."
What more can you say after reading such a list as this... except, maybe, I gotta buy that bad boy!?! So I did... blessed Sabbath.
3 comments:
Lola, controversial in its time, and somewhat confusing to North American listeners, who thought that Lola actually was a woman (but couldn't be !) simply because the British use "she" for a gay male. Terrific chord progressions, too!
And a mystery solved: exactly hopw Ray Davies got that down and dirty guitar sound. A National Steel, for heavens sakes...
Isn't that cool.... I LOVE that song on every level.
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