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Written by 3wiseasses - View Profile
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Thursday, 12 April 2007 |
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The greatnessof a song is not demonstrated by how much radio airplay it gets. We explain...
DAN:
OK, that's it.
I just heard Tom Sawyer, again, for the 3,507th time in the last year.
It is, in fact, the ONLY song I have heard from Rush on any radio station in the last three years.
Radio has turned our favorite acts into a series of one hit wonders. Lynyrd Skynyrd is now "Sweet Home Alabama," for instance. I personally hate that song because it was so overplayed. "Pour Some Sugar on Me" haunts Def Leppard. "You Got Another Thing Comin'" is a great song but it's not all that Judas Priest has done.
The problem is these artists have deep, wonderful catalogues of music that deserve to be played. "Sweet" is not Lynyrd's best song, and "Tom Sawyer" doesn't even crack my Rush Top 5. Def Leppard has some awesome songs, and "Pour Some" ain't one of them. I suppose Priest had a lot of songs that were too hard to be played on the radio, but what about "Breaking the Law?"
That's pretty damn catchy.
I know that many artists from my day really did have only one or two songs that are worthy to be played over and over. The Tubes really only had one great hit, "She's a Beauty," even if Jared convinced us (sorta) that they were NOT a one-hit wonder band. Madness had a few minor hits, but you'll only hear "Our House" in my iTunes collection. And there's even a few songs,like "Every Little Step," that were good songs by terrible artists such as Bobby Brown but aren't bad as songs by themselves.
But we shouldn't turn every rock act into a one-hit wonder. Let's play those deep cuts every once in a while. After all, there's nothing like discovering a second song from a band that you thought only had one decent song, such as Accept's "Balls to the Wall." I just heard "Fast as a Shark" the other night, and Jared's right. It's a great song. I downloaded it right away.
JARED:
I agree with 99% of what you're saying (that Tubes thing still bugs me!
... the "other" song is "Talk to Ya Later")... The one that bothers me the most is Y&T. Everybody knows "Summertime Girls."
It's not a bad song, but wouldn't be in my top 10 Y&T songs (Forever, Black Tiger, Open Fire, Mean Streak, Midnight in Tokyo, Barroom Boogie ... just to name a few).
I hear a lot of Lynyrd Skynrd on the radio, but "Sweet Home" is probably
the most played (I still turn it up when it tells me to ... it's a learned response). Rush is another major casualty to the one hit. My roommate in college was a huge Rush fan and that's what turned me on to them. Hearing the non-hits. (Still like Tom Sawyer, though).
Agree with Def Leppard. They should be forced to play every song off Pyromania before they can play "Sugar" again.
A couple other bands that suffer from this: Metallica (they did exist
before the Black album!), Ozzy (Crazy Train is fine, but there's better!), Kiss
(all you hear is Rock and Roll All Nite or maybe Detroit Rock City or maybe Beth if you're lucky ... how about Strutter, Shock Me, I Was Made For Loving You, or even God of Thunder???), Priest (How about "Green Manalishi"?), Queensryche (Silent Lucidity!?!? C'mon! Where's "The Lady Wore Black"?), Sammy Hagar (Can't Drive 55 was cool in the day, but he's done WAY better), Squeeze (Everybody plays "Tempted" but "Black Coffee in Bed" and "Pulling Mussels From A Shell" are great tunes!), and Ted Nugent (Cat Scratch doesn't even scratch how good he is!).
And, finally, did you REALLY bring Bobby Brown into this discussion?!?!? Iworry about you. I really do.
DAN:
It's a great song and that only proves my point, even if it IS Bobby Brown. I did call him terrible, remember. That's hardly a compliment.
You came up with a lot more artists that are now considered one hitters than
I did. I did think of Kiss but it seems to me that "Heavens On Fire" and other songs do get their fair share. You nailed Ozzy and Metallica and Hagar and Nugent.
No response on "Fast as a Shark?" I thought you'd flip over that!
JARED:
That is very cool. That is actually the song that got me into them WAY back
in the day. They are a hugely underappreciated band. Songs like "Balls" and
"Son of a Bitch" (which is also a good song) got them pegged as a group that
just wrote dirty lyrics, but they were awesome (and probably why those
aren't huge radio hits!). "Princess of the Dawn" is probably one of the
best. "Get Ready" and "Neon Nights" and "Metal Heart" and "Love Child" and
"Living for Tonight" and "Screaming for a Love Bite" are all awesome!
Just for fun, I went to see what lead singer Udo Dirkschneider is up to
(http://www.udo-online.de/) . Dude certainly doesn't look like a metal
singer. Looks like a retired butcher.
DAN:
Or a retired serial killer.
JARED:
Another band we forgot about: Iron Maiden. Run to the Hills is a great song, but they have SO many more.
So, if we were running the radio station, we'd pull the multi-million repeats of those hits and replace them with what?
Obviously some of the "other" songs from those same groups.
But what about some of the other bands in the 80s who don't get airplay ... like:
Black N Blue
The Law
Alcatrazz
The Eric Martin Band
HSAS
Loudness (!!!) | |
amen to that
Written by BriansBLog on 2007-05-22 08:07:12
You guys naiLed it. Great bands worst songs get the most airplay. Y & T stood out to me. A nice hard crunchy metal band (played at the White Buffalo last year) and the only song you'd ever hear from them is Summertime Girls. The best thing about that song is the video! (see:You Tube) I have recently discovered all my favorite 80's metal videos are still out there, on You tube. I've got a computer in my kitchen and it's loaded with almost 6000 songs. I have playlists created with about 150 songs that I'll que up, shuffle, and it'll play all day and all night with nary a commercial or a bad song in between. I'm new to this site, as mine died, and I can tell right away I'm gonna enjoy your guys' stuff. |
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3 Wise-asses (15)
writen by: 3wiseasses
We're not that bright, even though in our own little world, we're geniuses. We like 80s hair bands and one-hit wonders, but among us we have respectable tastes, too. Metallica, Iron Maiden, U2. Pursuit of all things trivial is a lifestyle, not just a game. We like some sports, love other sports, and can find something to say about anything. We watch TV and movies and we've read a book or two, even a few classics (Yes, Classic Comics count!)
We call it insight, you call it what you will. |
|  | "Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is Alchemy's first law of Equivalent Exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world's one, and only truth." | |
| | We're not that bright, even though in our own little world, we're geniuses. We like 80s hair bands and one-hit wonders, but among us we have respectable tastes, too. Metallica, Iron Maiden, U2. Pursuit of all things trivial is a lifestyle, not just a game. We like some sports, love other sports, and can find something to say about anything. We watch TV and movies and we've read a book or two, even a few classics (Yes, Classic Comics count!)
We call it insight, you call it what you will. | |
|  | Felix Wong is an outdoor enthusiast living in Fort Collins. A mechanical engineer by day, he is especially passionate about bicycling, running, and backpacking. | |
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I am a recent college graduate of Minnesota State University Moorhead. After recieving my B.A. in English and Mass Communications this past August I moved down to Colorado.
I enjoy long walks on the beach, candlelight dinners, and heavy metal. My hobbies include reading and writing, music, movies, and getting drunk. Some of my favorite contemporary authors include Bret Easton Ellis, Chuck Palahniuk, and Kurt Vonnegut. My top movies are anything directed by Kubrick. I enjoy listening to anything that rocks.
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