Rutlefan

Three come to mind for me. 1. Coming Up -- Paul McCartney. Driving home the other day I heard the live version, the b-side of the original '80s single. That's the first version I had heard; only years later did I hear the studio version. When I finally heard the studio version it hit me like freezing water (it was a jolt, not just an unpleasant surprise); I thought it was thin and weak and somewhat weird compared to the live version, which is a song I really loved. To this day, I only like the live version. 2. No Quarter -- Led Zeppelin. First heard the song on my first Zeppelin album, TSRTS. After that epic I've never really been able to warm to the HotH version. 3. By-Tor and the Snowdog -- Rush. Like TSRTS, my intro to Rush was a live album (ATWAS), and as good as By-Tor might be on FBN, it just doesn't compare to the ATWAS version. Same might be said of In the End, but I feel it especially with By-Tor.

With the exception of Allentown, anything by Billy Joel. I can't explain it but I'm allergic to the guy. Most '80s hair metal. Almost any pop country song peddling schlock nostalgia with "small town" or "home town" in the title, or any that mention dating one's high school sweetheart who of course was a cheerleader (and the singer was probably the quarterback, whether he really was or not, when he wasn't fishing with his friends, or maybe his dad; and he drove an old pickup with just the right amount of rust). I'd listen to death metal before these.

Slow day at work so I have really overthought this. To the OP, I wouldn't say dislike but I'm not a fan. When it came out I liked it more than Signals, which had profoundly disappointed me (though I've now grown to like it). Though GUP wasn't a return to form at least it was kind of edgy and aggressive whereas at the time I had thought Signals a flaccid, wimpy puzzlement. Over time though it hasn't worn well with me, unlike Signals, for three reasons I think. First is that it so sounds like a product of its time. Unlike MP and others, which seem to me timeless, GUP sounds pure mid-'80s, like a brooding, angry The FIXX. The second is that though the songs work very well together -- and the album is full of good songs (objectively, I think it is a really excellent album, just not a great Rush album) -- those soungs have such a unique sound compared to other Rush releases, even contemporaneous releases like Signals and PoW, that they don't mix well with other Rush material. Stylistically, GUP lives on its own island, an island living right in the middle of the '80s no less. The third is that though the songs do work very well together, making a very cohesive whole that flows well from beginning to end, the songs themselves don't work well to me apart from the flow of the album. CttH, TSoR, Limelight, etc can stand on their own apart from their albums; I don't hear any songs on GUP that can do that. Again, not that they aren't good songs, but that the album's sound is so distinctive that I can't really listen to any of the songs apart from the others. It's like listening to a song from a concept album separate from the album (like "No One at the Bridge" apart from The Fountain of Lamneth). In short it: 1) is distinctly '80s; 2) doesn't mix well with other Rush; 3) is made up of songs which don't stand up well separated from their album mates. So, I think musically -- songwriting, production, musicianship, etc. -- it's a really impressive album, I just don't like it much as a Rush album. I'd almost like it more if it as done was a side project under a pseudonym, like Stephen King's Richard Bachman. It would really be a favorite of mine then, I'd guess. p.s. a younger geekier self used to group Rush albums together, in ways different from the conventional studiox4/live/studiox4/live/etc sequence. The two albums that were always hard to deal with were the debut and GUP as they just didn't play nicely with the albums around them. Both great albums in isolation though.

^ My dad was into this as well. Big Band, Swing, classic (and modern) Jazz, all that stuff. I never disliked it but definitely appreciate more now than when I was young.

Here's one of my favorites when needing a lift ;) (The The "Perfect"..."Oh what a perfect day to think about my silly world; my feet are firmly screwed to the floor, what is there to fear from such a regular world?...):

Healthy attitude...if you’re a teen. Then you grow up and realize that what you grew up with was influenced by what your parents listened to. Teen me would never have predicted current 38 year old me listening to Steely Dan but here I am. I see where you’re coming from if they listened to Cetera era Chicago and Michael Bolton, though. Pearl Jam and Neil Young come to mind for me personally. For sure there was a lot of my parents' music that I had, and will never have, any interest in, but on top of those that I did like that I already listed, my dad was a huge Johnny Cash and Louis Armstrong fan, among other legends. How could I not like them just because my dad liked them? But I get it if your folks had terrible taste in music.

I should add, though, props to Nikki Sixx for being sober 17 years and counting! Has supported Covenant House too (a shelter and drop-in center for homeless teens). Played music there, raised money. Good on him.

However you'd like. Can be intentional or not. Band might be aware they're idiots, or not. On that note, they might not be idiotic but are just being tongue in cheek. Very subjective obviously.

So we have to guess the band? If you'd like, or you can click on a link. Any of them work. Guess I won't know since you cannot make the effort to tell us who the band is. That's great, whatever turns you on.

So we have to guess the band? If you'd like, or you can click on a link. Any of them work.

^ exactly :goodone: (Sailing the Seas of Cheese wasn't meant as a serious artistic statement!?!).

Tough call between Sir Paul and Benjamin Orr but I went with the Cars crooner. I understand why he wouldn't be on the list but an honorable mention to the late Mark Sandman of Morphine...

^ Speaking of things Canadian, my dad was a big Gordon Lightfoot fan (I think he sympathized with recovering alcoholics, especially if they were good storytellers). I used to listen to his Gordon albums. Of course I loved The Edmund Fitzgerald but my favorite song was Early Morning Rain. Still really love that.

^ I think so. To this day he's ruined King of Pain for me; all I hear is "There's a sale on our gaberdine suits today, they're all 30% off from yesterday..." (from King of Suede). Seriously, and King of Pain was my favorite track from Synchronicity. p.s., after re-visiting King of Suede on YT (that's not going to help me get past it) I watched the Headline News video, the parody of the obnoxious Mmm Mmm Mmm song. Hilarious!

As in, if they weren't in a band, they'd be the recipient of a Darwin Award, or featured in one of those I Can't Believe How Stupid These People Are videos (people who stack ladders, or topple cranes trying to lift a bulldozer over an embankment, etc etc). I love these guys but I'm surprised they're still alive (they're a hard drinking, hard living lot). Even more amazingly they released a third album earlier this year and it's really good! Wonder of wonders. Stupid, but catchy; catchy, but stupid: Very British humor: Stupid, but brilliant; a post-rock I am the Walrus methinks:

p.s. I definitely prefer the Eagles of Death Metal!

Three Dog Night... various though I remember the live album, Around the World with... the best. Simon and Garfunkel... my folks might have had one of the early ones also but the only one I remember was Greatest Hits, which I wore out. I think I would have remembered Bookends and Bridge Over Troubled Water if they had them. 2001: A Space Odyssey soundtrack. The music is epic, of course, along with some pretty weird sh*t that I'm sure I just skipped over. I loved staring at the McCall artwork, just carried away by it. The cartwheel space station with the Pan Am shuttle blasting out of it was on the cover, and the gatefold interior art was of the sprawling moon base. Great stuff. Oddly, I also loved to listen to Graham Nash's Immigration Man while staring at the 2001 cover, though the song had nothing to do with space. I just liked the way they went together I guess. Jean-Luc Ponty's Imaginary Voyage. I loved this LP, especially the opening track New Country and the space-y (there's the sci-fi geek in me again) Wandering on the Milky Way. Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack. Certain tracks mainly. Everything's Alright was really my favorite; still sounds great. Elton John Greatest Hits. Along with Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits, this was the soundtrack of my early home life. I was really obsessed with Elton's music for a good while, until he started getting into the disco stuff with Philadelphia Freedom and Don't Go Breaking My Heart. I didn't hate it but it was no longer my music. I started following my older brother's lead, leaving my parents' music behind. From Elton I went to Kiss, then Zeppelin, then Rush, then Aerosmith. Zeppelin, Rush and Aerosmith were the kings of my music taste for years, with other bands coming and going until I got into post-punk (I retroactively came to appreciate New Wave). p.s. I was really really into Wings Over America around the same time I had discovered Zeppelin (my brother convinced me to spend my allowance on The Song Remains the Same for entirely selfish reasons, but it turned out well for me anyway); I think that came from my parents' collection but not so sure as I was buying my own music by then, or listening to my older brother's. In any event, Wings Over America was a pivotal collection of songs. I still get chills hearing that cover of Richard Cory.

1. Permanent Waves 2. A Farewell To Kings 3. Hemispheres 4. Fragile - Yes 5. Blood Sugar Sex Magik - RHCP 6. Achtung Baby - U2 7. IV - Led Zeppelin Bonham's drums reverberate like they were recorded in a cathedral yet Page's guitar is so immediate, crisp and shimmering. As near a perfect LP as exists.

Overlooked Jane's Addiction. Jane Says and Mountain Song definitely belong on my list.

I'm with The Dude. Outside of Hotel California, can't listen to them, though I love Joe Walsh.

^ That's great! I'd heard of this but never listened closely before. Love it :guitar: . p.s., I imagine there's a lot of "Southern" rock which will fit this bill. Which is cool. Not my expertise but I love a good song, especially one with many many guitars.

Add the Beatles' blue album and a Beach Boys compilation (Good Vibrations) and those are my early five for rock. You certainly didn't build your musical house on sand; that's as strong a foundation as I can imagine! I oddly didn't "discover" The Beatles until I was in college. Though I liked their individual stuff, the contrarian in me rejected The Beatles over the years because they were so big, so popular, so everything. I couldn't imagine they deserved the press and adulation so I sort of scoffed at them as puffed up Monkees. Then I heard Tomorrow Never Knows, Dear Prudence, Across the Universe, Long Long Long, the Help! LP, etc etc, and I thought, WTF have I been missing! It was a conversion experience, seeing something for the first time that had been in front of my face for many years. I still look back fondly at the first two to three years where I got to revel in The Beatles as an adult (or adult-ish I suppose). Imagine hearing Sgt. Peppers or the White Album for the first time as a twenty year-old. Let's see...I was, mm, 17 when I first heard Sgt. Pepper's (maybe 16), and probably about 18 when I first heard the White Album (heck, maybe even 19). I'm now 20. Ha! Unless you were intentionally avoiding them, like I was, I don't get how that's possible, assuming you're into music. Then again, I read that after Danger Mouse put out The Grey Album that many people were like, "I had no idea The Beatles were that good!" I know a guy in his fifties who's been a music freak his whole life. A music freak among music freaks, actually (sadly, his self-identity is caught up in it, like a fourteen year-old who never grew up). He takes pride in claiming he's never once listened to a Beatles album. I think that borders on pathology, actually. By missing out on RS, Revolver, Sgt Peppers, White Album and Abbey Road, at least, you're missing out on five of the greatest albums ever, no matter what you think of The Beatles or John/Paul/George/Ringo. It's silly bordering on rank stupidity IMO.

Favorite songs featuring at least three guitars, on top of bass? Of several Radiohead songs that would work, "Paranoid Android" and "Knives Out" are as good as any: More recently by The Church, 2017's "I Don't Know How I Don't Know Why" and "Another Century":

Despite listing a couple Tones on Tail tracks, I overlooked Bauhaus, one of my favorites from the early '80s. Two standouts for me, the incomparable Bela Lugosi's Dead and the amazing Brian Eno classic, Third Uncle. Bad audio but has the great opening scene from The Hunger: Great cover:

Black Sabbath! JS PS MJ TC The Clash, pre-Topper Headon MS MM BB PB edit, RNB beat me while I was figuring out a new band