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Post by HollyH on Jun 20, 2008 10:26:41 GMT -5
At last, a Rolling Stone list we can love... www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/20947527Greatest Guitar Songs of All time: 1. Chuck Berry, "Johnny B. Goode" 2. Jimi Hendrix, "Purple Haze" 3. Cream, "Crossroads" 4. The Kinks, "You Really Got Me"5. The Rolling Stones, "Brown Sugar"... |
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Post by uncleson on Jun 20, 2008 12:54:53 GMT -5
that's great!
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Post by Iñakink on Jun 20, 2008 15:21:28 GMT -5
Chuck Berry, Hendrix and Clapton higher than Dave!!!!!  ?   |
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Post by phobia on Jun 20, 2008 19:57:02 GMT -5
OK Clapton's gettin a pop in the snoot! Chuck and Jimi can stay.... and party w/Dave... "Brown Sugar" ? Get OUT!!! |
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Post by HollyH on Jun 20, 2008 23:54:44 GMT -5
Well, considering that the knee-jerk Rolling Stoners usually worship the ground Clapton and Hendrix walk on, that part's not surprising. I'm pleased to see Chuck Berry topping them all -- after all he invented rock & roll. ;D But usually the Kinks are down around #43. For once they actually beat out the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, AND The Who.
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Post by luis on Jun 22, 2008 3:57:30 GMT -5
I still can't believe this...
I have been looking for the Kinks in every list in the MM, and the NME and RS for decades, always to find them in place 43 or 143!!
Is this the dawning of a new era???
L
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Post by HollyH on Jun 22, 2008 11:47:02 GMT -5
I wish I could believe it was a trend.  |
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Post by kinkfrank49 on Jun 27, 2008 1:20:33 GMT -5
Chuck Berry was a legendary musician who wrote many great songs, and a very good showman in his early days. His guitar chops were unique but limited and if you really listen to his early records they have a flat, muted sound. He should get some props for being one of the most imitated rock guitarists ever. Johnny B Goode is not even his best guitar song, but from my many years of reading RS, it doesn't surprise me that they overrate it here.
Hendrix put out three albums that had several good guitar songs on each at the beginning of his career. He was overhyped, played sloppy and flashy (and two of the three times I saw him, awfully). If a tune he played on was to be rated as one of the top guitar songs of all time, it shoud be 'All Along the Watchtower', a song which is genuinely superb in the use of a wah-wah and fuzz face pedal to create psychedelic trance. Clapton was one of my idols as a teen, but 'Crossroads' was just a song that guitarists copied (me included) and while it is a good piece of blues rock playing, and was when it was released, is and was nothing that couldn't be played by many bar-band lead players around the same time. How it rates this high is a mystery. You Really Got Me is another story. I thought the first great rock guitar song was 'Memphis' by Lonnie Mack, and this was the first non-instrumental to have both a power chord structure and manic, aggressive lead guitar combined. It was more influential on future rock than any of the other tunes mentioned from a guitar standpoint, and frankly 'All Day and All of the Night' has an even better lead guitar solo in a similar power format at around the same time. It should also be on the list. The non-Kinks songs that should be in the top five is 'Devil with a Blue Dress/Good Golly Miss Molly' by Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, 'Look Over Yonders Wall' by Mike Bloomfield and 'Train Kept a Rollin' by Jeff Beck in the Yardbirds. I do not get why Ramones, Nirvana, and Curtis Mayfield songs are rated so high in a ranking of 'greatest guitar songs', or how RS ranks 'Brown Sugar' as the Stones' best guitar song above 'Satisfaction' and 'Jumping Jack Flash'.
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Post by HollyH on Jun 27, 2008 11:06:51 GMT -5
RS should hire you, KinkFrank -- that's a much more cogent analysis than they published! Yeah, I thought most of the choices were knee-jerk, but since I don't really play guitar, I couldn't judge the technical complexity of anything they listed. Perhaps they were just going for guitar-playing that changed the face of music, or a guitar sound that was great to listen to. I too was shocked to see the Ramones and Nirvana on there -- I thought the whole POINT of the Ramones and Nirvana was stripped-down rock without technical virtuosity.
And why there weren't any other Kinks songs on there confounds me. Business as usual from the Rolling Stones dweebs on that score, I'm afraid.
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Post by kinkfrank49 on Jun 27, 2008 19:57:23 GMT -5
Rolling Stone started out as a decent music rag, but started believing its' own press about 1970 and got real arrogant. In high school I knew Lester Bangs, who later became a reviewer for that magazine and then a big time writer and editor at 'Creem'. He was rather typical of their critic staff (Nick Tosches was another, who routinely trashed good bands like Spirit just because they were from LA).
You are dead on about the Kinks being left out of the guitar impact discussion. I am surprised that YRGM got pegged in the top 20 by RS, but think it should be at #1. And, in the top 10, no hesitation, 'Powerman'. I would also throw in the top ten 'Memphis' by Lonnie Mack, 'Over Under Sideways Down' by the Yardbirds, 'All Along the Watchtower; by Hendrix, and 'Cowgirl in the Sand' by Neil Young.
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Post by ginnie on Aug 22, 2008 15:01:30 GMT -5
At last, a Rolling Stone list we can love... www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/20947527Greatest Guitar Songs of All time: 1. Chuck Berry, "Johnny B. Goode" 2. Jimi Hendrix, "Purple Haze" 3. Cream, "Crossroads" 4. The Kinks, "You Really Got Me"5. The Rolling Stones, "Brown Sugar"... ...hmm, not a bad list but.. I'd have 'Satisfaction' instead of 'Brown Sugar'. 'You Really Got Me' should be there - I've heard it referred to as the 'first' heavy metal song. It's the sound of those first two chords - first use of distortion on guitar, I'm presuming... ...and Johnny B. Goode - I think its the most influential song for guitar players of all time. Listen to that beginning! That is the sound of rock'n roll. I love Jimi Hendrix - much prefer Voodoo Chile though ... Cream? Why not. Can't argue with it although I'm not a big Cream or Clapton fan. I'd put 'Whole Lotta Love' there instead... |
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