How to make a good Rock -n- Roll album 101
So I was listening to some music today. Which I do everyday. I have been in this mode of listening to old 80's and 90's rock. Now VH is a constant for me. The other stuff that I listened to growing up I tend to neglect though. I busted out Motley Crue and GNR this week.
on the way home I was listening to Appetite for Destruction. Which in my opinion, is one of the greatest rock and roll albums ever made. Unreal how good it is. I love it. It did bring to my mind though, what makes a good rock and roll album. Here are my thoughts.
Point#1- Your parents must HATE it
In my opinion there is no way around this point. If your parents can like it, it can not be considered a great rock album. Now, for some of us, this can have some play. My ex-mother in law, for instance, could listen to Zep and Bowie, both who have put out some great stuff. Her parents however must have hated both, so they can be included in the discussion. it's really a decade specific thing.
I bought GnR's Live Like a Suicide on the day it came out (this was well before Appetite was released) . I made the purchase soley on the fact that in the record shop that I used to go to each week (after I saved the lunch money my folks gave me everyday by stealing cheesburgers everyday from St. Francis Prepetory's cafeteria) was playing the album and the thing that caught my ear was Axel screaming, before their cover of Mama Kin "This is a song about your fucking mother!". Sold! Where do I find that! Guess what? Parents.....not pleased. Job well done.
My other favorite example of this was the time my dad's favorite classical radio station changed it's format to all hard rock all the time. In the week leading up to the new format, they played AC/DC for a week straight, 24 hours a day. So the family jumps in the car. Dad, behind the wheel, searching for some lovely piano sonatas in G, is greeted instead by Bon Scott screaming "Fourt'two thirt'ninefiftysix
You could say she's got it all!!!!!!" Dad was so mad (for those of you who know my dad, he NEVER curses, except about halfway through doing some household chore) "What did you do to the radio?!?" He actually thought that I had somehow, in my electronic genius, rigged the radio to play only AC/DC! I do dirty deeds, dirt cheap but I am not that adept at anything. (Maybe one or two things, but the are not mechanical aptitudes)Ahhhh! The satisfaction!
Point#2-Subject matter
A truly great rock and roll album must have at least one song containing the following subject matter.
Fucking (this can also include the blanket subject of women..those being the ones you have, or would like to, engage(d) in said fucking with)
Drinking
Doing Drugs
Partying (and I think the previous three all fall under this category)
Driving fast
Motley Crue (10 seconds to Love), Motorhead (I'm so bad), DLR Van Halen (Panama-Which I might add is about drinking and driving and has the little slow down part with the sexual innuendo) and many others have achieved this.
Sorry Elton John, Sorry Queen...too much love, loneliness, and happiness. Sammy VH? Way too positive. Like them all, but not great rock and roll.
One more note on content. This will exclude a lot of earlier great rock and roll records, but a well placed curse word can always elevate a good rock record into a great one. Fuck, shit, and bitch are good...but then who among us can't smile at a well placed "motherfucker" in a song? Not me, that's for sure.
Point #3-The effect on the listener
Or-What this makes you want to do. A good rock and roll record should make someone want to do the following
Fuck
Drink
Do Drugs
Party
Drive Fast (Seeing a theme here?)
Smash something
I added the last one because while I believe good rock and roll should lead you to want to smash things (skulls, windows, phone booths, NYC bus stop shelters) they don't necessarily HAVE to sing about it. I listen to "Out to Get Me" and I really, at 32, want to break something. Smash it into the atoms from whence it came.
Point #4-Melody and attitude
The music has got to be rough around the edges and have an arrogant "My cock is twelve inches long and as thick around as a loaf of Salami! Want me to slap you upside the head and back into reality with it?" attitude about it. This will be the most masoginistic thing you will ever read on my blog, but this is also why so very few women, over the course of history, have truly rocked. It's a penis party.
Talent and musicianship tend to take a backseat to attitude in truly great Rock and Roll. Who rocked harder? The Ramones or ELO? No argument, Joey and the boys, HANDS DOWN. Who could play their instruments? Not the gone but not forgotten products of Forest Hills High School. The Ramones couldn't play worth shit. It didn't stop them from making Rocket to Russia though.
Point #5-The look
A good Rock and Roll band should look like the stuff of a parents nightmares. Lock up your daughters, lock up the liquor cabinet. What is wrong with those boys. Point is. They need to look scary. No clean cut, good teeth havin, well dressed young lad has ever rocked worth a shit. Peircings. tattoos, long hair all were great in their times. Any look that would discount you from any respectable work is the stuff rock is made of.
So that's my thoughts. I am SURE that I missed quite a few things in here that you all can add to the list. These are just some basic points I thought of. Thoughts people?
GOODNIGHT BOISE! WE LOVE YOU!
on the way home I was listening to Appetite for Destruction. Which in my opinion, is one of the greatest rock and roll albums ever made. Unreal how good it is. I love it. It did bring to my mind though, what makes a good rock and roll album. Here are my thoughts.
Point#1- Your parents must HATE it
In my opinion there is no way around this point. If your parents can like it, it can not be considered a great rock album. Now, for some of us, this can have some play. My ex-mother in law, for instance, could listen to Zep and Bowie, both who have put out some great stuff. Her parents however must have hated both, so they can be included in the discussion. it's really a decade specific thing.
I bought GnR's Live Like a Suicide on the day it came out (this was well before Appetite was released) . I made the purchase soley on the fact that in the record shop that I used to go to each week (after I saved the lunch money my folks gave me everyday by stealing cheesburgers everyday from St. Francis Prepetory's cafeteria) was playing the album and the thing that caught my ear was Axel screaming, before their cover of Mama Kin "This is a song about your fucking mother!". Sold! Where do I find that! Guess what? Parents.....not pleased. Job well done.
My other favorite example of this was the time my dad's favorite classical radio station changed it's format to all hard rock all the time. In the week leading up to the new format, they played AC/DC for a week straight, 24 hours a day. So the family jumps in the car. Dad, behind the wheel, searching for some lovely piano sonatas in G, is greeted instead by Bon Scott screaming "Fourt'two thirt'ninefiftysix
You could say she's got it all!!!!!!" Dad was so mad (for those of you who know my dad, he NEVER curses, except about halfway through doing some household chore) "What did you do to the radio?!?" He actually thought that I had somehow, in my electronic genius, rigged the radio to play only AC/DC! I do dirty deeds, dirt cheap but I am not that adept at anything. (Maybe one or two things, but the are not mechanical aptitudes)Ahhhh! The satisfaction!
Point#2-Subject matter
A truly great rock and roll album must have at least one song containing the following subject matter.
Fucking (this can also include the blanket subject of women..those being the ones you have, or would like to, engage(d) in said fucking with)
Drinking
Doing Drugs
Partying (and I think the previous three all fall under this category)
Driving fast
Motley Crue (10 seconds to Love), Motorhead (I'm so bad), DLR Van Halen (Panama-Which I might add is about drinking and driving and has the little slow down part with the sexual innuendo) and many others have achieved this.
Sorry Elton John, Sorry Queen...too much love, loneliness, and happiness. Sammy VH? Way too positive. Like them all, but not great rock and roll.
One more note on content. This will exclude a lot of earlier great rock and roll records, but a well placed curse word can always elevate a good rock record into a great one. Fuck, shit, and bitch are good...but then who among us can't smile at a well placed "motherfucker" in a song? Not me, that's for sure.
Point #3-The effect on the listener
Or-What this makes you want to do. A good rock and roll record should make someone want to do the following
Fuck
Drink
Do Drugs
Party
Drive Fast (Seeing a theme here?)
Smash something
I added the last one because while I believe good rock and roll should lead you to want to smash things (skulls, windows, phone booths, NYC bus stop shelters) they don't necessarily HAVE to sing about it. I listen to "Out to Get Me" and I really, at 32, want to break something. Smash it into the atoms from whence it came.
Point #4-Melody and attitude
The music has got to be rough around the edges and have an arrogant "My cock is twelve inches long and as thick around as a loaf of Salami! Want me to slap you upside the head and back into reality with it?" attitude about it. This will be the most masoginistic thing you will ever read on my blog, but this is also why so very few women, over the course of history, have truly rocked. It's a penis party.
Talent and musicianship tend to take a backseat to attitude in truly great Rock and Roll. Who rocked harder? The Ramones or ELO? No argument, Joey and the boys, HANDS DOWN. Who could play their instruments? Not the gone but not forgotten products of Forest Hills High School. The Ramones couldn't play worth shit. It didn't stop them from making Rocket to Russia though.
Point #5-The look
A good Rock and Roll band should look like the stuff of a parents nightmares. Lock up your daughters, lock up the liquor cabinet. What is wrong with those boys. Point is. They need to look scary. No clean cut, good teeth havin, well dressed young lad has ever rocked worth a shit. Peircings. tattoos, long hair all were great in their times. Any look that would discount you from any respectable work is the stuff rock is made of.
So that's my thoughts. I am SURE that I missed quite a few things in here that you all can add to the list. These are just some basic points I thought of. Thoughts people?
GOODNIGHT BOISE! WE LOVE YOU!
posted by TD at 7:07 PM
11 Comments:
once again, you are too funny and clever for words. hehe. i laughed so hard, and you know what parts made me laugh bc i immediately IM'ed them to you, so i wont paste here. good times.
"Dont bring me doooooown, BRUCE!"
(I dont know what ELO are saying here...but I think it's "Bruce", so that's what it is) ;)
GREAT ENTRY Salami Man! Loved it. You so funny...you make me laugh longtime!
Dont ever get in a time machine with crystals and go back to 1982 please Uncle Rico! Though you know your 80's like a Mofo, we want you here! (I knew you liked Motorhead!)
You know, I must say that the mood of this blog has swung full circle since yesterdays entry. Much like that little demonstration you gave me n Nikki on our deck...defining how your moods, um...SHIFT. hehe Me too baby...its what makes us exciting...in fact see my comment yesterday on your blog if you want inspiration to drive your car into a bridge embankment. yeaaaahhh...
Anyway-- thanks for that little tutorial...it was excellent! You should write a lil column! And on your bad days where you are depressed and cant think of anything to write, we'll just send you to South Africa with Dave Chapelle...you sad, sad, SAD clown.
ROCK ON!
ps: Freddie Mercury is cursing you from heaven.
TB...will you burn me a copy of Appetite and mail it to:
ha! As if I would put my addy on here with all the freaks I dont want to know where I live. Oh wait...you're all my friends. Hmmm....
Anyway...wil ya? huh? huh? :)
where do we go now? eiy eiy eiy eiy eiy eiy eiy...where do we goooooow now? where do go oh-ee-ohh-eeoh--eeeoh--eeohhh now
now now now now now now....oh where do we go, sweet chiyeeyild, sweet chiyiyild, sweet chiyiyie-yie-yyie-yee-yieeeeyild of miiiiiiyuuuuuyiiiine...
:) on the Jack now. I'm just doing all this commenting b/c you say we never comment. You aaaaasked for it! you goooooooooooot it!
That reminds me. Have any of you seen that movie, "Forget Paris" with Billy Crystal and Deborah Winger? Her dad, the old dude walks around muttering that: "You assssked for it...you gooooot it." Also in the car he would say the name of everything they passed:
"Ned's Laundry. Mailboxes Etc. Tony's Pizza..."
funny :)
Niiiice!
I made one a while back thinking everyone's parents wouldn't like it, but they all wanted a copy. So I guess I broke a rule.
I think it was mostly monster ballads. But monster ballads are the shit!!
We're barbecuing yesterday and Niel's ipod is cranking out some good tunes... Nirvana, GnR, etc. And Mom says, "Turn this noise off, it's not music."
Yes.
Rock-n-Roll!
Rocked yerself out there huh Tommy?
coooome baaaaack to uuuuus! have we lost our little blogger to the bad bad world of....ROCK AND ROLL!!! ?
blog soon babydoll, your fans miss you.
You don't want to see the few blogs I haven't posted over the last few days. not fun stuff. Thanks for the encouragement though
I've been told I've made people feel like to doing the following:
Fuck
Drink
Do Drugs
Party
Drive Fast
Smash something
I'm an Aries. I bring out the best in people (NOT!)
Laura, even though I can't stand Billy Crystal because he's even annoying to just look at, but the best line in "Forget Paris" with D. Winger was, "It's like having one of those 'Pigeon stuck to your head' kinda days." It makes me laugh just thinking about D. Winger screaming and driving to the hospital with the rat trap paper stuck to her hair and forehead with a giant flapping pigeon stuck to the rat-trap sticky paper.
Post a Comment
<< Home