I liked most of your choices; many are favorites. I stood in line to see "Help" and "A Hard Day's Night" in the local theater. I was in second grade but everyone loved the Beatles! I still love the Beach Boys. Going through my teen years in the 70s meant Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd for me and my friends, which really freaked my dad out. The most important part was the music; the lyrics I could take or leave. It was always the music and still is. Thank you for the trip backwards. I really enjoyed it (obviously) and am looking forward to your next column.
Thank you for this feedback. If I had expanded my playlist, the Beach Boys would definitely have been included. Some Beatles later stuff Yes but especially George Harrison when he went solo. The All Things Must Pass triple album is a marvel.
He really got ripped off when he was sued for "My Sweet Lord" stealing the melody from "He's So Fine"! Remember how John Lennon's "Double Fantasy" album was tanking until he was assassinated? When the guys split up, I stayed with Paul and Ringo. George was very talented but not as mainstream as Paul and Ringo; they all were. John Lennon was a butthead IMO. And Yoko! Yikes!! That was probably why Double Fantasy was tanking. It's hard to believe that Ringo still tours.
Thank you for these additions to the 'Time Capsule'. I guess Where were you when you first heard She Loves You? is Boomer coming-of-age thing for many of us.
The era of daytime radio playing The Cure, Depeche Mode, Bon Jovi and The Cult was terrific. At the darker part of night, there was a weekly then twice-weekly show that gave me The Pixies, Violent Femmes and much more. There was a later period where I DJ'd Marilyn Manson and System of a Down to a 1000 people on a Wednesday. The clubs and bands died as the latest version of South Africa took over. I miss goth girls!
The Rolling Stone 500 was a very credible list until about ten years ago by People Who Don’t Like Rock. I set myself the mission of listening to each album and review it on my blog but only got about 100 albums in. It’s worth going back and finding the old list.
I’m a huge Bob Dylan fan. As a 20 year old, I made a pact with my roommates to name my firstborn Dylan. I always recommend that new fans skip the first album and start with Freewheelin’. That’s where the art began!
I discovered Nick Drake late in life. He should be on anyone’s list.
PS. I have a Substack of my own now. I write about philosophy for people who don’t know much about philosophy (yet). Check me out!
More controversially, although I spent much of my youth seeing myself as his representative on earth, I don't (unlike many others) think he has often been much good from the ealy 80's on - albeit with a few notable exceptions. (I have written pieces on Dylan elsewhere and got a very lot of angry flack for saying this!). Also so's we can have SOMETHING to disagree about, I think the first album is brilliant....and especially his version of House of the Rising Sun which I think leaves all other versions in the dust.
Yes I'll definitely subscribe to your 'Stack....but what's it called?
They're just two different things in my view. The Byrds jangly folk-rock version, played at full-blast volume is another one - like my comment about Be My Baby -that still does it for me same as near 60 years ago.
Tagged, I’m Gen X and my teenage daughter turned me onto Nick Drake. Gosh he’s good, Sunday AM bliss tunes. I always seem to gravitate back to jam bands. Probably my favorite is Rush. The amount of intricate notes put out by Pert, Geddy and Lifeson blows me away. Grateful Dead and Dire Straits (Sydney ‘86 live OMG) also up there. Seeing all these bands live cements things. Modern day, Thom Yorke’s The Smile is amazing (live). I used to dislike Frank Zappa as a youth, now I see his Muffin Man genius. There’s so many live recordings on YouTube I be can never be bored.
What's a classic? The Ronette's surely are but it would've been brand sexily new to a teen watching 'Dirty Dancing'. Hey, you can see Ronnie Spector in colour - https://youtu.be/AhzZIXvspI4 . But the Violent Femmes ' I Dig the Black Girls' - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lexLLtWMW0 - was as classic to me and three mates whilst we were young during the end of Apartheid.
Thank you. Yes, What a Classic! You're the first person who has said this in a reply....and your YouTube link is better than the one I used, so thanks for that too.
Politics may have distracted me so much it would be an insult to love to call music my passion anymore, but it occasionally provides respite. Your article went hand-in-hand with me watching a 70s soft rock/yacht rock docuseries a fortnight ago. But I can also get catharsis from System of a Down :)
I also understand your theme dilemma - I started a second substack to keep my creative feelings away from politics, though half what I post there will be dug from my past. I'd much rather someone read about Bakhmut than rock gods but as small trade for your recommendations, try this lass from a Namibian desert town - https://wickedmike.substack.com/p/andra-sound-or-something-more-music-review
I've just done a quick taste of Sound or Something More and it made me want to listen further when I have more time. The nearest I've ever got to Southern African music is Paul Simon's Graceland album which I love (hence the Boy in the Bubble link in my essay). I've subscribed to Wicked Mike's Ghosts by the way.
Wonderful! I'm glad when our music can be shared - there's a link there to the full album which is streaming for free on Bandcamp.
Sadly, most good bands broke up, and I lost all my CDs, but I kept mp3s of my favourites. If you take a holiday break, contact me and I'll upload a few that the world will never get to hear.
Sure, 'Graceland' was giant, and I respect it, and loved the documentary, but Black African music has never been a love. There are song exceptions from the like sof Johnny Clegg and Ladysmith Black Mambazo but I lament rock music being killed by awful, awful Kwaito.
Before my time, but living through my generation, there was classic Apartheid pop and rock e.g., Tribe After Tribe's 'Damsel (As I Went Out One Morning)', Rabbit's 'Charlie' and éVoid's ' Shadows'. Songs that should have been as big as any American song.
The artists we gave the world never looked back at us e.g. Dave Matthews, Trevor Rabin (Yes), Mutt Lunge (producer for Def Leppard, ACDC, Shania Twain). At least South Africans discovered Rodriguez was alive otherwise there never would have been that Oscar-winning documentary :)
Thanks for subscribing but note that I won't mind if you leave as there'll be a hodgepodge of stuff there... and the political stuff is more important.
Ideally I would have liked to have put way more of my choices in this post....and Yes Steely Dan would have been in there. I kind of nodded to the Eagles with Boys of Summer (although it was, of course a Don Henly solo). Have you seen that fairly recent Eagles concert in LA (with Glen Frey's son in the line up)...pure nectar?! Tom Petty would be in there with The Travelling Wilburys.
Yes! We saw the Eagles in 2018 also with Vince Gill. Joe Walsh stole the show! We will be going to The Long Goodbye concert in March. We also were lucky to see Steely Dan a few years back before Walter Becker died.
Yes that's the one I meant.... (it's been on Sky Arts a couple of times in the UK). I think it's one of the best live performances I've ever seen by anyone.. and Steuart Smith on guitar was amazing too.
100% agree about The Traveling Wilburys. As soon as my husband and I listened to that album we knew it was going on the desert island list. That was pure lightening in a bottle musically speaking. So amazing how it all came together.
As for other Bands I definitely have more than a few important to me ones, but these are a few (in no particular order) that I find myself often going back to and getting emotional over. Music has always been what I consider the soundtrack to my life.
David Bowie. I loved his Ziggy Stardust, Hunky Dory and Aladdin Sane albums. Favorite songs from each one would be, Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide, Life on Mars and Jean Genie. One of the best rockers from Britain ever. Such showmanship, as well! His albums were the kind I’d memorize all the song lyrics so I could sing along and pour over the lyrics that came with the album, searching for ever more meanings.
Warren Zevon. His Excitable Boy album really captured some of the zeitgeist of the 70’s and was my first introduction to him. I was always a fan of all his work after that. His tunes were so fun, or beautiful, or filled with pain. There really was no other singer/composer/wordsmith like him. He definitely was gone too soon. If I had to pick just one tune of his to highlight, I guess today it would be Carmelita. The words are so poignant and the beautiful Latin flavor of the music just melts me.
Queen. It’s hard to even know what to say about them that wouldn’t fall short of how unique and special that band was. They could do it all, and nobody did it better. No one will ever have that sound again. How could they, as there won’t be another Freddie Mercury. I was fortunate to have had a chance to see them live on three separate occasions and hands down, those were the best rock concerts I ever saw. The first song of theirs I ever heard was Killer Queen. It was so different sounding than anything else I’d ever heard before…rather campy, actually. It made me sit up and pay attention, and after that I bought every single one of their albums. Oddly enough, a lot of my favorite songs from them were some of the deeper cuts on their albums, and done usually by Brain May.
The Prophet’s Song was my personal favorite off the A Night at the Opera album
And I’ll finish up with a group I stumbled upon accidentally at a record store. The staff used to pick different albums that they liked and would have listening stations with headphones set up around the store to check them out. My husband also loves this group, and he once heard Alice Cooper on some tv program or podcast describe them as “the best band you’ve never heard of.” They were called The Refreshments when they started out, but their current incarnation is known as RCPM (Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers.)
Wonderful storytellers, each song captures people and places in a moment of time. It’s like reading short stories listening to their music. They have a unique southwestern flavor to their music and do it masterfully. Every year they do a festival down in Baja California and it was always a dream of ours to go there one day. Still hoping that might happen. We did get to see them in concert once up in San Francisco. They were just as good live as their albums. A favorite from their early years would be Nada from their Fizzy Fuzzy Big and Buzzy album. Every song off that is actually a favorite and it was really, really hard to pick just one.
I could go on and on, literally. LOL I guess because I have such a strong emotional connection to music my list of what I consider worthy of being on a greatest or all-time classic rock music list might be just a tad bit vaster than 500.
This has been very enjoyable reading about what does it for everybody. Quite a few names I’m not familiar with, as well as ones that I could say “ditto” to. Thanks to you, Graham, for starting such an interesting topic, as well as all the participants in this stack.
Such musical discussions do not happen to be my thing, so thanks for providing the heads up that this is only an occasional interlude, with political or other topics returning in future. :-)
I would be willing to bet that way more than 600 songs from the past 60 years will still be listened to regularly in the future ...
Except that the dominant factor in whether this happens has very little to do with music. For example, how many humans will be alive 100 years now? Possibly zero, in the worst AI catastrophe scenarios. Even without that, population is predicted to start declining around 2050. If that continues into 2124, then society may not longer have the technological sophistication to listen to _any_ recorded music.
But if humans continue to flourish and populations continue to grow, then I would imagine that many many more songs from this era will still be heard. Imagine a human sphere with 15 trillion people and all recorded songs available instantly from Solar System Spotify. Surely more than 600 songs from 1962-2024 will still be listened to regularly!
I liked most of your choices; many are favorites. I stood in line to see "Help" and "A Hard Day's Night" in the local theater. I was in second grade but everyone loved the Beatles! I still love the Beach Boys. Going through my teen years in the 70s meant Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd for me and my friends, which really freaked my dad out. The most important part was the music; the lyrics I could take or leave. It was always the music and still is. Thank you for the trip backwards. I really enjoyed it (obviously) and am looking forward to your next column.
Thank you for this feedback. If I had expanded my playlist, the Beach Boys would definitely have been included. Some Beatles later stuff Yes but especially George Harrison when he went solo. The All Things Must Pass triple album is a marvel.
He really got ripped off when he was sued for "My Sweet Lord" stealing the melody from "He's So Fine"! Remember how John Lennon's "Double Fantasy" album was tanking until he was assassinated? When the guys split up, I stayed with Paul and Ringo. George was very talented but not as mainstream as Paul and Ringo; they all were. John Lennon was a butthead IMO. And Yoko! Yikes!! That was probably why Double Fantasy was tanking. It's hard to believe that Ringo still tours.
I was 12 when The Beatles sang "She Loves You" on the Ed Sullivan Show. I'll never forget how I felt that night; that the world was about to change.
How about:
Pink Floyd's euphoric "Great Gig in the Sky" https://youtu.be/T13se_2A7c8?si=54sAI3WdEmKhA308
Scott McKenzie's anthemic "San Francisco" https://youtu.be/7I0vkKy504U?si=sUgxtefZ9f2ox2JE (now a requiem for what's been lost).
Thank you for these additions to the 'Time Capsule'. I guess Where were you when you first heard She Loves You? is Boomer coming-of-age thing for many of us.
I think so!
The era of daytime radio playing The Cure, Depeche Mode, Bon Jovi and The Cult was terrific. At the darker part of night, there was a weekly then twice-weekly show that gave me The Pixies, Violent Femmes and much more. There was a later period where I DJ'd Marilyn Manson and System of a Down to a 1000 people on a Wednesday. The clubs and bands died as the latest version of South Africa took over. I miss goth girls!
Gen X, then?
For sure, but with love for movies and music from generations before and after, but can only imagine Audrey Hepburn and Alicia Keys as gothic :)
ha ha... okay I just looked up Alicia Keys... a bit similar in style to Norah Jones.
https://youtu.be/Urdlvw0SSEc?t=12
As talented as she is beautiful.
Not much to disagree about today, Graham!
The Rolling Stone 500 was a very credible list until about ten years ago by People Who Don’t Like Rock. I set myself the mission of listening to each album and review it on my blog but only got about 100 albums in. It’s worth going back and finding the old list.
I’m a huge Bob Dylan fan. As a 20 year old, I made a pact with my roommates to name my firstborn Dylan. I always recommend that new fans skip the first album and start with Freewheelin’. That’s where the art began!
I discovered Nick Drake late in life. He should be on anyone’s list.
PS. I have a Substack of my own now. I write about philosophy for people who don’t know much about philosophy (yet). Check me out!
Thank you for this feedback. Since we're both big on Dylan, I'll take the opportunity to add two more to my list: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma7BK2MJNqo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12rUOLtbQDk
More controversially, although I spent much of my youth seeing myself as his representative on earth, I don't (unlike many others) think he has often been much good from the ealy 80's on - albeit with a few notable exceptions. (I have written pieces on Dylan elsewhere and got a very lot of angry flack for saying this!). Also so's we can have SOMETHING to disagree about, I think the first album is brilliant....and especially his version of House of the Rising Sun which I think leaves all other versions in the dust.
Yes I'll definitely subscribe to your 'Stack....but what's it called?
BTW You may have noticed that 'Ragged Clown' is a character from Mr Tambourine Man.
Ah Yes, of course! And since you mention it, this is another deeply-etched memory of my teens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnstCrL1_e0
I never did like the Byrds version — though I have it on a 7" single as I kept all the 45s when older siblings left home.
Live at Newport is the one you need!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeP4FFr88SQ
They're just two different things in my view. The Byrds jangly folk-rock version, played at full-blast volume is another one - like my comment about Be My Baby -that still does it for me same as near 60 years ago.
Agree on both songs!
I also like Bob's Rising Sun and he's done nothing good since Slow Train!
My substack:
https://raggedclown.substack.com/
Tagged, I’m Gen X and my teenage daughter turned me onto Nick Drake. Gosh he’s good, Sunday AM bliss tunes. I always seem to gravitate back to jam bands. Probably my favorite is Rush. The amount of intricate notes put out by Pert, Geddy and Lifeson blows me away. Grateful Dead and Dire Straits (Sydney ‘86 live OMG) also up there. Seeing all these bands live cements things. Modern day, Thom Yorke’s The Smile is amazing (live). I used to dislike Frank Zappa as a youth, now I see his Muffin Man genius. There’s so many live recordings on YouTube I be can never be bored.
I can’t believe this recording is 50 years old:
https://youtu.be/r7fyyhhuE7c?si=uMAJ8dgKDDz9Csjx
I was only 5 yrs old and too young to be at the Palladium on Halloween ‘77, but looks like NYC got the lights back on:
https://youtu.be/_UY38FDY35o?si=drwtalmx-vL2-Ihj
We share some very similar tastes, though I was born 2 years after the Beatles' first US hit. Songs you mentioned that would make my top 100 easily:
Desolation Row
Sultans of Swing (top 5)
Hungry Heart
Boys of Summer (top 20)
Heart of Glass (top 10)
Pride in the Name of Love
Baker Street (top 20)
Love is a Stranger (top 5)-of the 25 million views on the Eurythmics channel for this song, at least 200 of them were by me over the last 15 years)
Thank you for feedback....love your 'My Part In Eurythmic's 25 million!'
What's a classic? The Ronette's surely are but it would've been brand sexily new to a teen watching 'Dirty Dancing'. Hey, you can see Ronnie Spector in colour - https://youtu.be/AhzZIXvspI4 . But the Violent Femmes ' I Dig the Black Girls' - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lexLLtWMW0 - was as classic to me and three mates whilst we were young during the end of Apartheid.
Thank you. Yes, What a Classic! You're the first person who has said this in a reply....and your YouTube link is better than the one I used, so thanks for that too.
The Femmes, wonderfully, have more weird company.
Politics may have distracted me so much it would be an insult to love to call music my passion anymore, but it occasionally provides respite. Your article went hand-in-hand with me watching a 70s soft rock/yacht rock docuseries a fortnight ago. But I can also get catharsis from System of a Down :)
I also understand your theme dilemma - I started a second substack to keep my creative feelings away from politics, though half what I post there will be dug from my past. I'd much rather someone read about Bakhmut than rock gods but as small trade for your recommendations, try this lass from a Namibian desert town - https://wickedmike.substack.com/p/andra-sound-or-something-more-music-review
I've just done a quick taste of Sound or Something More and it made me want to listen further when I have more time. The nearest I've ever got to Southern African music is Paul Simon's Graceland album which I love (hence the Boy in the Bubble link in my essay). I've subscribed to Wicked Mike's Ghosts by the way.
Wonderful! I'm glad when our music can be shared - there's a link there to the full album which is streaming for free on Bandcamp.
Sadly, most good bands broke up, and I lost all my CDs, but I kept mp3s of my favourites. If you take a holiday break, contact me and I'll upload a few that the world will never get to hear.
Sure, 'Graceland' was giant, and I respect it, and loved the documentary, but Black African music has never been a love. There are song exceptions from the like sof Johnny Clegg and Ladysmith Black Mambazo but I lament rock music being killed by awful, awful Kwaito.
Before my time, but living through my generation, there was classic Apartheid pop and rock e.g., Tribe After Tribe's 'Damsel (As I Went Out One Morning)', Rabbit's 'Charlie' and éVoid's ' Shadows'. Songs that should have been as big as any American song.
The artists we gave the world never looked back at us e.g. Dave Matthews, Trevor Rabin (Yes), Mutt Lunge (producer for Def Leppard, ACDC, Shania Twain). At least South Africans discovered Rodriguez was alive otherwise there never would have been that Oscar-winning documentary :)
Thanks for subscribing but note that I won't mind if you leave as there'll be a hodgepodge of stuff there... and the political stuff is more important.
No Steely Dan? Shame, shame, shame. I prefer bands to songs, Supertramp (go blast “School”), Eagles, The Cars (pop or rock genre?) and Tom Petty.
Ideally I would have liked to have put way more of my choices in this post....and Yes Steely Dan would have been in there. I kind of nodded to the Eagles with Boys of Summer (although it was, of course a Don Henly solo). Have you seen that fairly recent Eagles concert in LA (with Glen Frey's son in the line up)...pure nectar?! Tom Petty would be in there with The Travelling Wilburys.
Yes! We saw the Eagles in 2018 also with Vince Gill. Joe Walsh stole the show! We will be going to The Long Goodbye concert in March. We also were lucky to see Steely Dan a few years back before Walter Becker died.
Yes that's the one I meant.... (it's been on Sky Arts a couple of times in the UK). I think it's one of the best live performances I've ever seen by anyone.. and Steuart Smith on guitar was amazing too.
100% agree about The Traveling Wilburys. As soon as my husband and I listened to that album we knew it was going on the desert island list. That was pure lightening in a bottle musically speaking. So amazing how it all came together.
As for other Bands I definitely have more than a few important to me ones, but these are a few (in no particular order) that I find myself often going back to and getting emotional over. Music has always been what I consider the soundtrack to my life.
David Bowie. I loved his Ziggy Stardust, Hunky Dory and Aladdin Sane albums. Favorite songs from each one would be, Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide, Life on Mars and Jean Genie. One of the best rockers from Britain ever. Such showmanship, as well! His albums were the kind I’d memorize all the song lyrics so I could sing along and pour over the lyrics that came with the album, searching for ever more meanings.
Warren Zevon. His Excitable Boy album really captured some of the zeitgeist of the 70’s and was my first introduction to him. I was always a fan of all his work after that. His tunes were so fun, or beautiful, or filled with pain. There really was no other singer/composer/wordsmith like him. He definitely was gone too soon. If I had to pick just one tune of his to highlight, I guess today it would be Carmelita. The words are so poignant and the beautiful Latin flavor of the music just melts me.
Queen. It’s hard to even know what to say about them that wouldn’t fall short of how unique and special that band was. They could do it all, and nobody did it better. No one will ever have that sound again. How could they, as there won’t be another Freddie Mercury. I was fortunate to have had a chance to see them live on three separate occasions and hands down, those were the best rock concerts I ever saw. The first song of theirs I ever heard was Killer Queen. It was so different sounding than anything else I’d ever heard before…rather campy, actually. It made me sit up and pay attention, and after that I bought every single one of their albums. Oddly enough, a lot of my favorite songs from them were some of the deeper cuts on their albums, and done usually by Brain May.
The Prophet’s Song was my personal favorite off the A Night at the Opera album
And I’ll finish up with a group I stumbled upon accidentally at a record store. The staff used to pick different albums that they liked and would have listening stations with headphones set up around the store to check them out. My husband also loves this group, and he once heard Alice Cooper on some tv program or podcast describe them as “the best band you’ve never heard of.” They were called The Refreshments when they started out, but their current incarnation is known as RCPM (Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers.)
Wonderful storytellers, each song captures people and places in a moment of time. It’s like reading short stories listening to their music. They have a unique southwestern flavor to their music and do it masterfully. Every year they do a festival down in Baja California and it was always a dream of ours to go there one day. Still hoping that might happen. We did get to see them in concert once up in San Francisco. They were just as good live as their albums. A favorite from their early years would be Nada from their Fizzy Fuzzy Big and Buzzy album. Every song off that is actually a favorite and it was really, really hard to pick just one.
I could go on and on, literally. LOL I guess because I have such a strong emotional connection to music my list of what I consider worthy of being on a greatest or all-time classic rock music list might be just a tad bit vaster than 500.
This has been very enjoyable reading about what does it for everybody. Quite a few names I’m not familiar with, as well as ones that I could say “ditto” to. Thanks to you, Graham, for starting such an interesting topic, as well as all the participants in this stack.
Thanks Nana for sharing all this and for your kind compliment on the piece......so will you be subscribing?
Gary Numan, from The Cars, never gave into age and those memory tours the USA is famous for. . He's still kicking, and went wonderfully heavier. "Savage' is a great album - https://musicmp3.ru/artist_gary-numan__album_savage-songs-from-a-broken-world.html
I think he had a song called Cars, he wasn’t a band member of The Cars.
I deserve that kick in my ignorant teeth. Thanks. Looked them up and now reminded it was Ric Ocasek. I enjoyed the first song on this solo album - https://musicmp3.ru/artist_ric-ocasek__album_nexterday.html - but Gary Numan rocks too.
Such musical discussions do not happen to be my thing, so thanks for providing the heads up that this is only an occasional interlude, with political or other topics returning in future. :-)
I would be willing to bet that way more than 600 songs from the past 60 years will still be listened to regularly in the future ...
Except that the dominant factor in whether this happens has very little to do with music. For example, how many humans will be alive 100 years now? Possibly zero, in the worst AI catastrophe scenarios. Even without that, population is predicted to start declining around 2050. If that continues into 2124, then society may not longer have the technological sophistication to listen to _any_ recorded music.
But if humans continue to flourish and populations continue to grow, then I would imagine that many many more songs from this era will still be heard. Imagine a human sphere with 15 trillion people and all recorded songs available instantly from Solar System Spotify. Surely more than 600 songs from 1962-2024 will still be listened to regularly!