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Old 04-29-2019, 01:43 AM   #61
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Led Zeppelin Physical Graffitti
I loved the album cover. When it was first released I couldn't wait to hear it!

I was 95% impressed. Some really great tunes. Some of the best rock tunes ever. Certainly one of the best rock albums of all time. But it is two albums. That means there is going to be filler. No one is good enough to make a double album without filler. Not even The Beatles.

Physical Graffiti should have been two albums. One with the best tunes and one with the filler tunes. You can guess which one would have sold better.

The production was much better and the band was much tighter than Zep III.

Custard Pie is a pure Zeppelin, but the first tune on the album it should have been stronger. Fortunately, the record gets better the deeper you get into it. Much better.

The Rover has some really catchy parts, but the whole song is not catchy.

In My Time of Dying. 11 minutes and 4 seconds. Really Jimmy? What were you thinking? Way too much filler in this tune. This tune alone makes Physical Graffiti not as good as Who's Next.

Houses of the Holy. The opening to this tune is iconic. Classic Zeppelin. Great guitar sound. This almost makes up for In My Time of Dying. But only almost.

Trampled Under Foot is awesome! What a great riff -- Talkin' bout love... da da, da da da da da da da.

Kashir is mind blowing -- especially live when I saw them in 1977 with all the laser beams.

In the Light reminds me of firing up a joint on the way to high school in the morning. If you've never been stoned to this song you don't know what you're missing.

Bron-Yr-Aur is really nice.

I love Down by the Seaside. Such a great tune! It's one I would play 5 times in a row. I love Jimmy's guitar arpeggios with the tremolo effect. A country band should do this as a cover. It would work. And then the minor chord and rythm change that takes the song in a whole different direction. And then somehow they get back into the opening groove. Magical.

Ten Years Gone. Another mind blowing song. And then that incredible riff after the first few bars. And that crunching guitar. Damn! Page was SOOOOOOO good! And then just when you think he is going to repeat the riff, he instead goes into some spacey, jazzy lead solo. And the sound of his guitar. And then it just gets just gets better as it reaches a climax. Then he repeats from the beginning, but adds new guitar parts. ****ing genius.

Night Flight is a classic rocker. Not the best rock tune ever, but very strong. Reminds me of some of Rod Stewart's bets rockers from Blondes Have More Fun. Great drums and bass.

The Wanton Song. More classic Page guitar. The drum and guitar syncopation is great. Bonham is incredible on this tune. Yet another new sound from his guitar on the lead solo. Damn, he's good. Damn, they're good.

It's amazing how well their music holds up 45 years later.

Boogie with Stu is fun, but it's not a great tune. Just a typical 1-4-5 blues progression. Good rocker but its semi-filler.

There is a reason Black Country Woman is the second to last song on Side Four. It's not that good.

One song had to be last on this double album. If Sick Again was a good song it would not have been last.

Won't Get Fooled Again is the last song on Who's Next. Big difference.

Physical Graffiti has some amazing songs -- some of the best rock songs ever. However, it has a lot of filler. It's a double-album. There was bound to be filler. Who's Next is strong from beginning to end and for that reason Who's Next is a better rock album than Physical Graffiti.
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Old 04-29-2019, 02:11 AM   #62
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Sticky Fingers
Sticky Fingers was the 11th American Studio album by the Stones. They had so much experience by then. That's why albums like Boston and Nevermind fall so far short of Who's Next and Sticky Finger. Experience counts.

You know from the opening chord Sticky Fingers is something special. Brown Sugar. Iconic. The rock band at every high school dance had to learn this one. Every body danced when this was played. Nothing like a high school dance with 100 teenagers bouncing to Brown Sugar. Everybody knew every word. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, WOOOO!

Sway is commentary on the rock life. Maybe not the best song ever (that's why it's the second on the record) but it's message is powerful.

Wild Horses was recorded at Muscle Shoals. Great sounding recording. Very emotional tune Keith wrote as a lullaby for his son.

Can't You Hear Me Knocking is just a great song. Love the chords and sound of the guitar. It sounds like the 60s. But then it turns into an instrumental for about 5 additional minutes. That is filler. This is where it falls short of Who's Next.

You Gotta Move is a traditional blues tune. Nothing earth shattering.

Bitch is a good rocker and a good song to start Side Two. They put it first on Side Two for a reason. It was a single, but got no traction because of the title.

I Got The Blues is a terrific blues tune. Very nice melody at times, but not throughout.

Sister Morphine is average.

Dead Flowers gets a lot of play. It's catchy for some reason. So I can't knock it.

The album ends with Moonlight Mile. Not a great song. Who's Next ends with Won't Get Fooled Again. A great song.

Sticky Fingers has its moments, but there is too much filler and for that reason Who's Next is a better rock record.
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Old 04-29-2019, 02:43 AM   #63
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Boston's debut album - Boston
Scholz did a great job producing his debut record. And his songwriting is solid. His musicianship is outstanding. It's easy to see why he's also an electrical engineer. He has a precision about him. But that precision also lacks the soul of a Dylan or Stones song.

More Than a Feeling is a great song. That's why it's the first song on the record.

Peace of Mind is strong and has some great moments. It is not as good as More Than a Feeling, but still a terrific rocker. Scholz's guitar solos are outstanding -- Brian May-like.

There are a lot better lyricists than Scholz. He doesn't approach Dylan, Lennon, or Townshend lyrically.

Foreplay is two and a half minutes of filler, but it turns into Long Time. So I won't penalize it too much. Who's Next had no filler, though. If you're going to try to be artsy and take a departure from the record that's ok, but it has to be great. Foreplay is not great.

Long Time has some nice guitar parts, but the song is not a great one. The lyrics are average. It's a moon, June, spoon lyric. He stretches the song out by using different variations on the main theme. His guitar work is flawless, but also sterile. I can appreciate it, but it doesn't move me like Clapton's guitar work.

Rock and Roll Band is a terrific rocker. Nice melody. Nice story about being a rock and roller. Again, it falls short lyrically. The Who wrote the same type of song early in their career called Long Live Rock. So there was nothing groundbreaking in this song. It's competent, but not revolutionary like Won't Get Fooled Again or Baba O'Reilly.

Smokin' is another solid rocker. Nothing revolutionary. Average lyrics.

Remember, this is a debut album. So you can't expect them to have evolved as much as The Who had on Who's Next.

Hitch a Ride is a really nice tune. Nice harmonies. Nice change of pace that demonstrates Scholz' songwriting range. Some nice lyrics -- Day is night in New York City, Smoke, like water, runs inside, steel idle trees to pity, every living thing that's died. But then the hook is moon, June, spoon -- going to hitch a ride, head for the other side, leave it all behind, never change my mind, going to sail away, sun lights another day. Nice song, though. Wish I would have written it.

Something About You is classic Scholz. Nice rocker, but lyrically it is average.

Let Me Take You Home Tonight. Another really nice Scholz song that turns into a rocker. Some really nice guitar and bass work early on in the interludes between verses. However, when it turns into a rocker at the end it sounds forced and he drags it out to the point of being boring.

He is a terrific songwriter and producer. He has really nice melodies. His recordings sound great. His musicianship is outstanding.

Every song with the exception of Foreplay is listenable. But there are not a lot of Holy-Shit-I-Never-Heard-That-Before moments like with Jimmy Page on Physical Graffitti or Townshend on Who's Next. Where Scholz especially falls short of Townshend is lyrically.

Boston's first record is a definitely a contender, but for all the reasons mentioned above Who's Next is a better rock album than Boston.
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Old 04-29-2019, 03:06 AM   #64
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I will second The Eagles Hotel California.
Hotel California is iconic.

I love New Kid in Town. One of my favorites. Great second song on any album.

Life in the Fast Lane has a great riff, but is not their best.

Wasted Time is filler.

Victim of Love is average compared to all the other great tunes mentioned in this thread.

Joe Walsh's Pretty Maids All in a Row is a really nice tune. It reminds me of Two Lonely Old People on McCartney's Venus and Mars. It's the second or third best tune on the record after Hotel and New Kid.

Try and Love Again and The Last Resort are so so. They're filler. The Eagles have Henley, Frey, Walsh, and Felder and they couldn't come up with something better than these two to end the album?

Again, Who's Next ended with Won't Get Fooled Again.

Hotel California is a contender, but barely. Easy decision. Who's Next is a better rock album than Hotel California. Don't forget Townshend wrote 7 of the 8 songs on Who's Next. Henley, Frey, Walsh, and Felder shared the workload. Are you kidding me? They could have done a lot better.

Who's Next wins.
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Old 04-29-2019, 03:19 AM   #65
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Joshua Tree has so much filler after the first three songs that I won't even bother discussing it. Who's Next is a much better record than Joshua Tree.

Candy O by The Cars is a solid first record. Let's Go is really catchy. But The Cars always reminded me of a combination of Bowie and Talking Heads.

Since I Held You has some nice guitar parts. The song is above average, but not revolutionary. Too many moon, June, spoon lyrics.

It's All I Can Do is also above average. Nice synth parts.

The album gets weak in the middle, but it does end stong with Dangerous Type. But Danger Type is not in the same league as Won't Get Fooled Again.

I like Candy O a lot. Some really nice songs. It brings back a lot of memories.

But hands down Who's Next is a better rock album than Candy O.
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Old 04-29-2019, 03:36 AM   #66
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A lot of people like Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground. I never was drawn to them. Maybe it's like comparing ET the movie to Ghandi the movie? Maybe it's a refined taste?

I'm going to listen to Reed and Underground again with fresh ears to see if I missed something the first time around.

Someone also mentioned Dark Side of the Moon being better than Who's Next.

I have listened to both of them many times and I can confidently say Who's Next is better.

The very first minute of Dark Side is filler. Speak to Me breath is great if you're stoned otherwise it is boring. Then there is another 5 minutes of sound effects filler before On The Run. The Beatles did the sound effects thing on their White Album. Nothing new.

The Great Gig in The Sky is interesting, so I'll give it a pass.

Money is a classic.

Then there is a lot of filler before Us And Them which is another classic.


Any Colour You Like is all filler.

Brain Damage is classic. The lunatic is in the grass.

Eclipse is filler.

Too much filler on Dark Side. Who's Next is easily a better record than Dark Side of the Moon.

So far no one has convinced me there is a better record than Who's Next. I don't know if I've convinced you Who's Next is the best of all time, but that's ok. Music is subjective just like all art. However, the greatest art is appreciated by almost everyone and there is little dispute. Who would argue that the Mona Lisa is not a masterpiece? Is it the greatest work of art ever? I don't know.

Is Who's Next the greatest album of all time? I don't know. It's a masterpiece for sure. But greatest of all time? Hard to say with absolute certainty. To me it is the greatest of all time that I've heard. And until someone shows me a better record I will consider it the greatest of all time.

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Old 04-29-2019, 08:09 AM   #67
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loved whos next,but my favorite who album is quadraphenia.The total package that just flows from start to finish on a double album.Loved Physical graffiti but think that zep 4 may be underrated with every track on it very solid with the diversity of rocking songs like stairway and rock and roll with acoustic greats like battle of evermore and going to california.Born to Run by bruce could also be mentioned as one of the best but like great race horses their is no definitive answer on who is best.
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Old 04-29-2019, 08:22 AM   #68
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I get what you're saying. Daltrey is no McCartney. But like you said Who's Next is iconic -- especially Daltrey's scream in Won't Get Fooled Again.

Love Ain't for Keeping is not the best song on the record, but it's still pretty strong. It's also by far the shortest clocking in at only 2:10. It's a change of tempo piece after the first two rockers that start the record.

The lyrics are pretty strong for a love song. Love ain't for keeping is a poetic way of saying let's have some great sex right here, right now!
When I think of rock vocalists, Daltrey or McCartney wouldn't make my top 5 or even my top 10. But we're talking about the album and most rock music aficionados would call Who's Next iconic. That said, The Wife and Love' Ain't are filler, lyrics aside. The only thing thing that makes Love Ain't interesting is Entwhistle's "lead" bass lines. It's as if he knew the chord progression was amateurish and he needed to make something out of nothing. I am hard pressed to think of any album that doesn't have at least one filler song no matter how much I like the band or the record.

If I could only listen to five or 10 records the rest of my life Who's Next would NOT be one of them. Still, I can recognize the impact the album had and its place in music history.
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Old 04-29-2019, 09:18 AM   #69
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I know, I know. Who's Next is a better rock album but Selling England by the Pound and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by Genesis are two of my favorites. I'm surprised no one has mentioned Fleetwood Mac's Rumours.
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Old 04-29-2019, 10:59 AM   #70
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And if "hits" are what you judge an album on then something from The Beatles or Elton John would be the better than Who's Next.
If you want to use albums sells as a gauge, Boston beats the Who's Next as well. IMO Schultz blows away Townsend as a guitarist. The Who is a classic act, but I don't think of them as a guitar heavy band as say bands like led Zeppelin, G&R or Boston. Lyrics wise, I have no opinion - I'm more into the instrumentation.

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I'm surprised no one has mentioned Fleetwood Mac's Rumours.
Me too, good call that was one hell of an album. You might say the same thing for Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA. He wrote good songs but instrumentally, they were not in the top tier.
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Old 04-29-2019, 11:25 AM   #71
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If you want to use albums sells as a gauge, Boston beats the Who's Next as well.
Believe it or not, me and my brother were looking through the bargain bin at Fay's Drug Store in either 1973 or 74 and my brother found Who's Next. He knew what it was but I hadn't heard of it. I became a big fan after listening to it.
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Old 04-29-2019, 12:20 PM   #72
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The Wall

Blood On The Tracks

Born to Run

London Calling

Pet Sounds

Elephant

Rust Never Sleeps

Tommy

Deja Vu

Yellow Brick Road

Ramones

Back In Black

Graceland

Innervisions

What's Going On

Abbey Road
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Old 04-29-2019, 01:30 PM   #73
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Like xtb and delay said, I'm surprised no one mentioned Rumors. I was wondering how long it would take to appear. It's a classic.

Simple arrangements. They understood that an artist should not overwork the canvas. The empty spaces are as important as the filled in spaces. Just like in filmmaking the shadows are as important as the light.

Surprisingly, I don't hear any use of Autotune. LOL Back then musicians made it on talent.

Second Hand News is the first song on the record. It's not the strongest. Not sure why they chose to put it first. It has 5 million clicks on youtube. Dreams, the second song, has 95 million clicks. I guess you never know what will sell until you start selling it.

The snare drum and bass guitar/bass drum in Dreams are prominent and alternate every beat as the loudest instruments on the track (and throughout the record) and gives it a bouncy, tight feeling. Stevie's voice is perfect.

Never Going Back Again is the third track and has very few youtube clicks compared to the first two, but it's a really nice little ditty. Terrific finger picking on the guitar. Buckingham is a fantastic guitarist.

Don't Stop is a classic Christine McVie tune. Huge hit.

Go Your Own Way is another classic. Back to back classics. That's rare. Three classics out of the first 5 songs. Impressive.

Songbird is not my favorite, but it does set a mood. So I can see how a lot of people would like it. However, because it is a little weak, it hurts the record's chances at being the greatest ever.

The Chain is another huge hit. It has a swampy, delta sound.

You Make Loving Fun -- another huge hit! Amazing how many hits this record produced! The rhythm section of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie held the sound together. They had played together for so many years and are the two original members. It was their tightness that made the band sound great.

I Don't Want to Know is one of the weaker songs on the record, but it is the sound that made Buckingham/Nicks great.

Oh Daddy is also one of the weaker songs. That's why it was stuck at the end of the record.

Gold Dust Women has touches of that swampy delta bluesy sound that Nicks likes. It's a fairly strong song. Not the best on the album, but it's not filler like the previous two.

Overall, Rumors is a classic record and the number of hits from this record is impressive. It's too bad they couldn't have had one more hit and dropped I Don't Want to Know and Oh Daddy. Then this might have been the greatest record ever made. I can't rate it higher than Who's Next, but it is hard to say it is not as good. It's right up there with Sgt Pepper and Abbey Road.

One criteria for being a great record is the total count of the number of songs you skip over after repeated listenings. I would skip over Songbird, I Don't Want to Know, and Oh Daddy.

I oftentimes skip over Maxwell's Silver Hammer and Octopus's Garden on Abbey Road. Abbey Road's side two is probably the best side of a record ever made. The tension that is created by the simple 4 or 5 note progression that segues from Polythene Pam into She Came In Through The Bathroom Window has never been equaled. The only thing that I have ever experienced that comes lose is from the experimental film Andalusian Dog by Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel where a sliver of a cloud slices across the moon and then is followed by a razor blade cutting open a cow's eyeball. Amazing juxtaposition.

I oftentimes skip over Within You and Without You on Sgt. Pepper.

I oftentimes skip over My Wife on Who's Next.

Un Chien Andalou (Andalusian Dog):


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Old 04-29-2019, 04:11 PM   #74
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Wish You Were Here was as perfect a combination of blues and rock as I can imagine. David Gilmour has the right guitar touch throughout the album. I've listened to the album some hundreds of times.

Everybody has their own favorites. Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars was an album without a bad track. Bowie was a genius and had a voice that could easily shift genres.

Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run was great from beginning to end.

If you go back farther the Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow captured a lot of imaginations. Great group of singers and musicians.

Bob Dylan's Highway 61 revisited I could listen to over and over.

Finally I'll mention Jethro Tull's Aqualung album. It noses Thick As a Brick as the group's best work
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Old 04-29-2019, 04:18 PM   #75
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Beech Boys Pet Sounds was a cutting edge Sgt Pepperish album for those guys.

Agree Ziggy Stardust was a great one.
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