I select in the Album category, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles
Quote:
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the eighth studio album by the British rock band The Beatles. Recorded over a 129-day period beginning on December 6, 1966, the album was released on 1 June 1967 in the United Kingdom and the following day in the United States. Sgt. Pepper's is often described as The Beatles' magnum opus, and one of the most influential albums of all time by prominent critics and publications. It was ranked the greatest album of all time by Rolling Stone in 2003.
With our 4th rnd pick Neon Dion And The Iggy Pops are thrilled to select in the Songwriter Category, Neil Diamond.
Neil Leslie Diamond[1] (born January 24, 1941) is an Americansinger-songwriter and occasional actor.
Neil Diamond is one of pop music's most enduring and successful singer-songwriters. As a successful pop music performer, Diamond scored a number of hits worldwide in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Critic William Ruhlmann wrote of Diamond, "As of 2001, he claimed worldwide record sales of 115 million copies, and as of 2002 he was ranked third, behind only Elton John and Barbra Streisand, on the list of the most successful adult contemporary artists in the history of the Billboard chart."[2]As of May 2005 Diamond had sold 120 million records worldwide[citation needed], including 48 million records in the U.S.[3]
Though his record sales declined somewhat after the 1980s, Diamond continues to tour successfully, and maintains a very loyal following. Diamond's songs have been recorded by a vast array of performers from many different musical genres.
Diamond was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984, and in 2000 received the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award.
I'd be down for doing that as well. Love the idea of a music draft, so much potential to hear new stuff, and so much fun.
I think when we get to later picks we'll be getting into more recent and less-known bands, right now everybody is rushing to get all the guys from those top bands.
I know I've got some less-known picks ready, I'm just holding them off for later because I doubt that they'll be taken whereas I'm sure what I've got already would be gone should I wait.
With my 4th round pick Hot Banana Thrust is ecstatic to select one of my favorite albums of all time.
Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
In 1978, it won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. As of 2007 the album has sold more than 30 million copies, and is on the list of best-selling albums of all time.
In the two years since the previous album, things had become rather difficult within the group. Mick Fleetwood separated from his wife Jenny. Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, who were in a relationship when they joined the group, were separated, and John McVie and Christine McVie also separated, although all five remained in the band. This meant that, as Stevie Nicks later pointed out, long hours were spent and some very awkward times were had between people who would otherwise not be in each others' lives. Christine McVie later remarked that they were all writing about each other, hence the title of the album. They didn't realize this immediately, but finally realizing that they had created such a good album together lifted them out of their misery.
"Go Your Own Way" was believed by Stevie Nicks to be a gloomy reference to the break-up of her relationship with Lindsey Buckingham.
"Dreams" was Stevie Nicks attempt to be more optimistic. The song was the only U.S. number one hit for the group, and remains one of their best-known songs.
"You Make Loving Fun" referred to an affair between Christine McVie and the group's lighting director.
"Gold Dust Woman" was a reference to Stevie Nicks's own struggle with drugs.
"Don't Stop" was written by Christine McVie after her divorce with John McVie, and it provided an optimistic outlook on their newly-separated lives.
"Oh Daddy" was almost certainly a reference to Mick Fleetwood, the spiritual father of the group who largely held it together, and the only member who was a parent at the time.
"Songbird" Christine McVie described as "a little anthem" and said it was for "all of us". It took a long time to record because it had to be one continuous take.
The final section of "The Chain" was written first, but at that point there wasn't a song for it to be the end of. Stevie Nicks had written that quite separately, and as she put it "gave it to them". Lindsey Buckingham then had an idea about how it should begin and the first section was re-recorded.
Rumours is the kind of album that transcends its origins and reputation, entering the realm of legend — it's an album that simply exists outside of criticism and outside of its time, even if it thoroughly captures its era. Prior to this LP, Fleetwood Mac were moderately successful, but here they turned into a full-fledged phenomenon, with Rumours becoming the biggest-selling pop album to date. While its chart success was historic, much of the legend surrounding the record is born from the group's internal turmoil. Unlike most bands, Fleetwood Mac in the mid-'70s were professionally and romantically intertwined, with no less than two couples in the band, but as their professional career took off, the personal side unraveled. Bassist John McVie and his keyboardist/singer wife Christine McVie filed for divorce as guitarist/vocalist Lindsey Buckingham and vocalist Stevie Nicks split, with Stevie running to drummer Mick Fleetwood, unbeknown to the rest of the band. These personal tensions fueled nearly every song on Rumours, which makes listening to the album a nearly voyeuristic experience. You're eavesdropping on the bandmates singing painful truths about each other, spreading nasty lies and rumors and wallowing in their grief, all in the presence of the person who caused the heartache. Everybody loves gawking at a good public breakup, but if that was all that it took to sell a record, Richard and Linda Thompson's Shoot Out the Lights would be multi-platinum. No, what made Rumours an unparalleled blockbuster is the quality of the music. Once again masterminded by producer/songwriter/guitarist Buckingham, Rumours is an exceptionally musical piece of work — he toughens Christine McVie and softens Nicks, adding weird turns to accessibly melodic works, which gives the universal themes of the songs haunting resonance. It also cloaks the raw emotion of the lyrics in deceptively palatable arrangements that made a tune as wrecked and tortured as "Go Your Own Way" an anthemic hit. But that's what makes Rumours such an enduring achievement — it turns private pain into something universal. Some of these songs may be too familiar, whether through their repeated exposure on FM radio or their use in presidential campaigns, but in the context of the album, each tune, each phrase regains its raw, immediate emotional power — which is why Rumours touched a nerve upon its 1977 release, and has since transcended its era to be one of the greatest, most compelling pop albums of all time.
I really like Never Going Back Again. Fleetwood and McVie were one of the best rythym sections in rock.
Love Rumours. I think Lindsey Buckingham is an underrated guitarist as well. He plays some pretty unique stuff.
__________________ I am in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection, but with Montana it is love." - John Steinbeck
With the 4th round Pick (79th) Hanna Sniper's EC and the G-String Band, selects in the Songwriter category, from Baltimore, MD, USA. Not one the best musicians of our time but THE greatest musician of our time Mr. Frank Zappa
Quote:
In his 33-year career as a professional musician, Frank Zappa established himself as one of the most prolific and distinctive musician-composers of his era, and critics still use the term "Zappa-esque" to describe the musical styles and devices and the humour for which he became well-known. It is not unreasonable to describe Zappa as a "Renaissance Man" and, in terms of his prominence in his field and the sheer volume and scope of artistic output, his only contemporary rival in the United States was probably Andy Warhol (and it is interesting to note that both men came from a background in commercial art).
Although Zappa had only a high-school education and was almost entirely self-taught in music, he was literate, highly intelligent and extremely articulate, both musically and verbally, and his musical knowledge and ability had few equals in the rock world. By the end of the Sixties he had become a Counter-culture icon, renowned for his innovative and often challenging music, his wide-ranging intellect, his iconoclastic views and his penetrating wit.
Although he was sometimes inaccurately portrayed in the media as a drug-crazed freak, Zappa in fact almost never used (illegal) recreational drugs, and he famously described drug-taking as "a license to be an ". By his own admission, he tried cannabis ten times in his life (and disliked it. "It gave me a sore throat and made me sleepy. I couldn't understand why people liked it so much") and he sacked several band members, including Lowell George, when their drug use interfered with his work. He drank alcohol only in moderation, although he was a lifelong chain smoker and coffee addict who playfully categorised coffee and cigarettes as "food".
A legendary workaholic -- by his own account he spent up to nineteen hours a day in the studio -- he created hundreds of recorded and written musical works, spread over some sixty music albums released during his lifetime (plus several posthumous releases). Almost all his compositions were original or collaborative efforts and there is no doubt that he would have produced hundreds more had he lived longer. In addition to his many albums of music, he created feature-length and short films, long-format music videos, music video clips, graphic art, album covers, books and many other works.
Zappa is best-known as a "musician's musician" of the rock scene -- a renowned electric guitarist and a prolific and enormously accomplished composer, arranger, and producer. He worked in almost every musical genre and his oeuvre includes pieces written and arranged for rock bands, jazz ensembles, synthesisers or symphony orchestra, as well as radiophonic works constructed from pre-recorded, synthesised or sampled sources. He was also a prolific film-maker, a band-leader, an author, and a TV, radio and film personality whose scathing social satire and caustic world-view made him a much-quoted figure and a performer of international celebrity.
Zappa was a gifted and innovative record producer and recording engineer who possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of studio technology and all phases of the recording process. He was probably also one of very few figures in rock music who combined the talents of composer-musician-producer and whose career spanned almost the entire technological history of the postwar recording industry, from one-track analogue tape decks to multitrack digital hard drives and ProTools. His albums of the late 1960s and early 1970s have been widely hailed as landmarks of record production technique. He self-produced almost every recording he made with The Mothers or as a solo artist (except his 1966 debut album), he produced many notable recordings for other artists -- including the famous 1969 Captain Beefheart album Trout Mask Replica and the debut recording by Alice Cooper -- and he amassed an enormous archive consisting of hundreds of top-quality live recordings spanning almost all of his performing career.
In a commercial environment that was often hostile to the needs and rights of artists, Zappa achieved a degree of creative control over his works that few other rock musicians equalled, and he was also an avid technophile who worked across multiple media, embracing every new musical and visual format as they emerged during the late 20th century -- he was a pioneer of music video, he released the first-ever 3-inch CD single, and in the late 1980s he was one of the first rock musicians to undertake a complete reissue program of his earlier recordings in the new CD format.
Politically, Zappa was a self-proclaimed "practical conservative", an avowed supporter of capitalism and independent business, and his sometimes rancorous dealings with transport and musicians' unions left him with a lifelong dislike of the trade union movement, of which he was openly critical. He was also a strident critic of mainstream education and organized religion, and he repeatedly lampooned the emerging "born-again" Christian movement with songs like "Jesus Thinks You're A Jerk" and "Heavenly Bank Account".
Zappa was also a forthright and passionate advocate for freedom of speech and the abolition of censorship, and his work embodied his deeply skeptical view of established political processes and structures. -- not surprisingly, this made him an underground culture hero in the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War era. Thanks to his often ribald humour and his caustic social observations, Zappa and his work were at the forefront of debates about censorship many times in his career, especially during his well-publicised clashes with the pro-censorship group PMRC in the 1980s. His staunch support for free expression and individual liberty prompted him to give serious consideration to running for President of the United States in 1988 on the Libertarian Party ticket. see [1]
His music spanned virtually every musical genre of modern history, and he was noted for his unique amalgam of high art, rock music, absurdity and surrealism, scatological and sexual humor, and caustic social and political satire. Although he only occasionally achieved major commercial success -- his first gold album award was Apostrophe in 1974 -- he maintained a highly productive career that encompassed composing, recording, touring, producing and merchandising his own and others' music, as well as many other business and creative activities. He received multiple Grammy nominations and won a Grammy award for 'Best Rock Instrumental Performance' in 1987 -- although, with appropriate irony, it was awarded for his avant-garde instrumental LP Jazz From Hell.
Zappa was also the leader of a series of renowned bands, and was noted as a spotter of talent and conductor of extremely stringent auditions and rehearsals -- on his final 1988 tour his backing band reportedly had to learn over 250 pieces. His various groups featured leading rock and jazz musicians including Adrian Belew, Terry Bozzio, Aynsley Dunbar, Bruce Fowler, Lowell George, Jean-Luc Ponty, Ian Underwood, Ruth Underwood, George Duke, Chester Thompson, Vinnie Colaiuta, Mike Keneally and Steve Vai.
Zappa has a large and dedicated worldwide following, particularly in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, The Netherlands and Scandinavian countries. His albums and musical style were a strong influence on many other groups from The Beatles to Devo. As demonstrated by his many disparaging comments about the music business, Zappa cared little for mainstream acclaim, yet his work enjoyed sporadic mainstream success in the mid 1970s and early 1980s, with albums like Apostrophe and Zoot Allures and quirky hit singles such as "Don't Eat The Yellow Snow", "Dancin' Fool" and "Valley Girl".
The Illinois Enema Bandit
Peaches En Regalia
Zoot Allures & Trouble Every Day
__________________ 2018 OHL CHAMPIONS
2022 OHL CHAMPIONS
Frank Zappa was one of the most accomplished composers of the rock era; his music combines an understanding of and appreciation for such contemporary classical figures as Stravinsky, Stockhausen, and Varèse with an affection for late-'50s doo wop rock & roll and a facility for the guitar-heavy rock that dominated pop in the '70s. But Zappa was also a satirist whose reserves of scorn seemed bottomless and whose wicked sense of humor and absurdity have delighted his numerous fans, even when his lyrics crossed over the broadest bounds of taste. Finally, Zappa was perhaps the most prolific record-maker of his time, turning out massive amounts of music on his own Barking Pumpkin label and through distribution deals with Rykodisc and Rhino after long, unhappy associations with industry giants like Warner Brothers and the now-defunct MGM.
sorry about that trout, I was actually surprised he wasn't already picked and when I seen how much disappointment there was after Terry Bozzio was drafted by HD I figured there were too many Frank fans among us that I jumped off my scripted picks
The PMRC bit was gold, I was actually going to post those and the crossfire interview... but I'm sure the music is more fitting
__________________ 2018 OHL CHAMPIONS
2022 OHL CHAMPIONS
With the 4th round Pick scwf's Creeping Death, selects in the “Songwriter” category, Mr. Steve Earle
Quote:
In the strictest sense, Steve Earle isn't a country artist, he's a roots rocker. Earle emerged in the mid-'80s, after Bruce Springsteen had popularized populist rock & roll and Dwight Yoakam had kick-started the neo-traditionalist movement in country music. At first, Earle appeared to be more toward the rock side than country. He played stripped-down neo-rockabilly that occasionally verged on outlaw country. His unwillingness to conform to the rules of Nashville or to rock & roll meant that he never broke through into the mainstream. Instead, he cultivated a dedicated cult following, drawing from both the country and rock audiences. Toward the early '90s, his career was thrown off track by personal problems and substance abuse, but in the mid-'90s he re-emerged stronger and healthier, producing two of his most critically acclaimed albums ever.
Born in Fort Monroe, VA, but raised near San Antonio, TX, Earle is the son of an air-traffic controller. At the age of 11, he received his first guitar and, by the time he was 13, had become proficient enough to win a talent contest at his school. Though he showed a talent for music, he was a wild child, often getting in trouble with local authorities. Furthermore, his rebellious, long-haired appearance and anti-Vietnam War stance was scorned by local country fans. After completing the eighth grade, Earle dropped out school and, at the age of 16, left home with his uncle Nick Fain, and began traveling across the state. Eventually, he settled in Houston at the age of 18, where he married his first wife, Sandie, and began working odd jobs. While he was in Houston, he met singer/songwriter Townes Van Zandt, who would become Earle's foremost role model and inspiration. A year later, Earle moved to Nashville.
Though his career was taking off, Earle's personal life was becoming a wreck. He had divorced his third wife, married a fourth named Lou, whom he quickly divorced, and then he married a sixth wife named Teresa Ensenat, who worked for MCA. He was also delving deeper and deeper into drug and alcohol abuse. With his third album, 1988's Copperhead Road, Earle's rock & roll flirtations came to the forefront and country radio responded in kind; none of the songs from the album charted or received much airplay. However, album rock radio embraced him, sending the album's title track into the album rock Top Ten, which helped make the album his highest charting effort, peaking at number 56. Not only had Copperhead Road been accepted by AOR, but it established him as a star in Europe; the duet with the Irish punk-folk group the Pogues on Copperhead Road signalled he had an affection for the area. In the late '80s, Earle frequently toured England and Europe and even produced the alternative rock band the Bible.
Earle's acceptance by the rock community didn't please the country establishment in Nashville. Although it seemed for a time that Earle wouldn't need Nashville anymore, his newfound success quickly began to collapse. Uni, a division of MCA Records, had released Copperhead Road instead of MCA proper, and just before the album went gold, Uni went bankrupt, taking Copperhead Road along with it. Meanwhile, Earle's addictions and fondness for breaking rules began spinning out of control. On New Years' Eve, he was arrested in Dallas for assaulting a security guard at his own concert; he was charged with aggravated assault, fined 500 dollars, and given a year's unsupervised probation. Sandie, his first wife, sued for more alimony and he was served with a paternity suit by a woman in Tennessee. The title of his 1990 album, The Hard Way, reflected his problems, as did the record's tough, dark sound. Though the record was critically acclaimed and spawned a minor AOR hit with "The Other Kind," it received no support from the country market and quickly fell off the charts.
The commercial failure of The Hard Way was just the beginning of a round of serious setbacks for Earle. Later in 1990, he recorded an album of material that MCA refused to release. Instead, the label decided to release the live album Shut Up and Die Like an Aviator in 1991. At the end of the year, MCA decided not to renew Earle's record contract. For the next several years, Earle was severely addicted to cocaine and heroin and had several run-ins with the law. In 1994, he was arrested in Nashville for possession of heroin and was sentenced to a year in jail. He served in a rehab center instead of jail. This time, the treatment worked.
Late in 1994, he was released from the rehab center and he began working again. In 1995, he signed to Winter Harvest and released the acoustic Train a Comin', his first studio album in five years. Train a Comin' received terrific reviews and strong sales, despite Earle's claim that the label botched the album's song sequence. The attention led to a new record contract with Warner Bros., who released I Feel Alright in early 1996, again to strong reviews and respectable sales. Earle had returned from the brink and re-established himself as a vital artist. In the process, he won back the country audience he had abandoned in the late '80s. The Mountain, a bluegrass record cut with the Del McCoury Band, followed in 1999, and a year later Earle returned with Transcendental Blues.
While Earle had long displayed a strong political streak (particularly in his opposition to the death penalty), his leftist views took center stage on his 2002 album Jerusalem. Written and recorded in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Jerusalem dealt openly with Earle's divided feelings about America's "war on terror" and the West's ignorance of the Islamic faith, and included a song about John Walker Lindh, a young American who was discovered to be fighting with Taliban forces, called "John Walker's Blues." Earle's refusal to condemn Lindh in his lyrics quickly made the song (and the album) a political hot potato, but Earle embraced the controversy and became a frequent guest on news and editorial broadcasts, defending his work and clarifying his views on terrorism, patriotism, and the role of popular artists in a time of crisis. Earle's tour in support of Jerusalem was documented in the 2003 concert film and live album Just an American Boy, and in the summer of 2004, as the American occupation of Iraq dragged on and an upcoming presidential election loomed in the minds of many, Earle released The Revolution Starts...Now, an album of songs informed by the war in Iraq and the abuses of the George W. Bush administration. Live at Montreux, recorded at a 2005 show, was released in 2006, followed by Washington Square Serenade in 2007.
The Revolution Starts now
Rich Man's War
Jerusalem
City of Immigrants
Last edited by socalwingfan; 06-10-2008 at 07:40 PM.
Hüsker Dü and R.E.M. were the two American post-punk bands of the '80s that changed the direction of rock & roll. R.E.M. became a superstar band; Hüsker Dü never was more than a cult favorite. Nevertheless, their albums between 1981 and 1987 have proven remarkably influential; they provided the sonic blueprint for the roaring punk-pop hybrid that crossed over into the mainstream in the early '90s. Not only did they shape the sound of the music, they shaped the way independent bands made the transition to the major labels; they showed other bands that it was possible to record uncompromising music on a major label without losing any integrity or creative control. From the Replacements to Nirvana, the Pixies to Superchunk, nearly every major and minor band that appeared in the alternative underground in the late '80s and '90s owed a major debt to Hüsker Dü, whether they were aware of it or not.
Hüsker Dü is widely regarded as one of the key bands to emerge from the 1980s American indie scene. Music writer Michael Azerrad asserted in his book Our Band Could Be Your Life (2001) that Hüsker Dü was the key link between hardcore punk and the more melodic, diverse music of college rock that emerged. Azerrad wrote, "Hüsker Dü played a huge role in convincing the underground that melody and punk rock weren't antithetical." The band also set an example by being the first band from the American indie scene to sign to a major record label, which helped establish college rock as "a viable commercial enterprise."
Hüsker Dü's sound has been influential on several bands on through the 1990s, including the Pixies, My Bloody Valentine, Nirvana, Superchunk, Soul Asylum, and Green Day. Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong has said, "The Replacements and Hüsker Dü are probably the bands that influenced me the most", particularly in his approach to creating chord progressions.
Could You Be The One
Don't Want To Know If You Are Lonely
Makes No Sense At All (With B Side, Love Is All Around, Mary Tyler Moore Theme)
Think of all the talent that got started at First Aveune in Minny - Husker Du, The Replacements, Prince, etc. . . http://www.first-avenue.com/
THIS is ROCK. Not rock'n'roll - not swingin', groovy, lean and compact. Not even raunch. This is ROCK - powerchords that would crack apart the sky. Husker Du don't belong with the new authentics, bar bands sweating out a closeknit clinch with their fans. Unlike Springsteen (who by sheer presence can shrink stadia back to the dimensions of the primal R&B joint), there's no intimacy, no sweat, nothingearthy. Husker Du are distant, dazzling the mind's eye with a skyseraping sense of scale and reach. Husker Du are making a monument, a mountain, a glacier, out of rock again, rather than burrowing along at grass roots. [Melody Maker, review of Warehouse: Songs And Stories, 1987]
