Hidden Treasures - Most Treasured

[Scott]

Typically this forum would try to look at deep cuts, music that contains some sort of hidden treasure.  I think we've uncovered some really cool music in the process, but what we haven't done, yet,  is expose the true treasures of our musical hearts. These are the songs that we guard with our lives, the best of best!

 

My list, at least the top 3, has always been a pretty big constant for me for quite a long time. These songs never get old, they could never-ever become overplayed, and if someone doesn’t like them , well then they are totally wrong! No two-ways about it.  So this week I’m challenging you to bring your Top 3 EVER and let the discussion begin.  Were not doing this because we are compiling another list, but because these are your most treasured songs, your best of the best...

 

Here's mine,

 

PLAYLIST --> http://snack.to/a1c8b9ph

	Fleetwood Mac - ST 1975 3 - Monday Morning My first ever album purchase consisted of Bob Seger's "Night Moves" and this self titled album. Monday Morning was one of the very first tunes I listened to "cranked up". I was sitting between two large speakers (which is most optimal) when my friend’s brother-in-law put the needle down and my life changed at that moment. After Bob Welch announced that he was leaving the band, Fleetwood began searching for a possible replacement. While scouting Van Nuys, California, the house engineer for California's Sound City Studios, Keith Olsen, played him a track titled "Frozen Love", which he had mixed there for an American band, Buckingham Nicks. Fleetwood liked it, and was introduced to the guitarist from the band, Lindsey Buckingham, who coincidentally was at Sound City that day recording some demos. Fleetwood soon asked him to join. Buckingham agreed, on the condition that his musical partner and girlfriend, Stephanie "Stevie" Nicks, also become part of the band. Monday Morning was written for a second Buckingham-Nicks album, but when they joined Fleetwood Mac they brought this with them along with "Landslide" and "Rhiannon." The song is about a guy who is really into a girl, but just can't get her to commit.
	Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy 1973 2 - Over The Hills And Far Away Best Acoustic riff and acoustic geetar in a song ever! This song grabs you right away and then just builds and builds. It also has the best pick-up line ever; "Hey Lady! You got the love I need". Tried it a few times, success rates may vary... Jimmy Page and Robert Plant originally constructed the song in 1970 at Bron-Yr-Aur, a small cottage in Wales where they stayed after completing a grueling North American concert tour. Page plays a six-string acoustic guitar introduction with a melody reminiscent of "White Summer" (A Yardbirds tune). Page repeats the theme with a 12-string acoustic guitar in unison. Through the pre-verse interludes and instrumental bridge, "Over the Hills and Far Away" stands out as an example of Jones and Bonham's tight interplay. Following the final verse, the rhythm section fades out, gradually replaced by the echo returns from Page's electric guitar and a few chords played by Jones on harpsichord. Set lists from Led Zeppelin concerts frequently contained "Over the Hills and Far Away", the song being one that the band introduced on stage well ahead of its studio release. The live recording on How the West Was Won, a combined edit of the concerts on 25 and 27 June 1972, was the second public performance of the song. In his spoken introduction to the song before the 27 June 1972 performance in Long Beach, California, Robert Plant says "we did this song once before, the night before last at the Forum, and it was too much, really great." The band continued to play it on the rest of the 1972 concert tour of North America and retained it consistently through 1979, before omitting it from their final tour of Europe in 1980.
	The Who - Who's Next 1971 1 - Baba O'Riley "It's only Teenage Wasteland" ... Name a better lyric? A better battle cry? A better written song? Can't do it! This song is simply the best classic rock tune ever written or recorded. Townshend originally wrote "Baba O'Riley" for his Lifehouse project, a rock opera that was to be the follow-up to The Who's 1969 opera, Tommy. He later claimed in an interview that, in part, "Baba O'Riley" was about what he witnessed during the Who's performance at Woodstock. He stated in an interview that "'Baba O' Riley' is about the absolute desolation of teenagers at Woodstock, where everyone was smacked out on acid and 20 people had brain damage. The contradiction was that it became a celebration: "Teenage Wasteland', yes! We're all wasted!'" Townshend wanted to input the life information of Meher Baba into a synthesiser, which would then generate music based on that information. That music would have been the backing track for "Baba O'Riley", but in the end, the frenetic sequence was played by Townshend on a Lowrey Berkshire Deluxe TBO-1 organ using its marimba repeat feature. This approach used for the synthesiser track was inspired by the work of minimalist composer Terry Riley. The names of Riley and Meher Baba were incorporated into the song title as a tribute by Townshend. Although they never actually did it in concert, The Who considered pulling a person from the audience and programming their vital statistics into a synthesiser that would, in effect, translate that person into a musical theme around which a song could be built, an idea later resurrected as The Lifehouse Method.

[Scott]

Thanks Niels!

I love that Queen track as well, but I have to be honest as it has reached "overplayed" status for me.  And the Elton John track is a great pick from a great album.   I really know nothing of Bowies older stuff, everything pre-Lets Dance is not really known by me (except for the standard radio tunes, Fame, Changes etc...) 

[Jon]

I cannot listen to "Bohemian Rhapsody" anymore. Blame "Wayne's World" for forever ruining it for me. 

YOu need Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars at the VERY least. Seriously.

[Michael J. Andrade]

Wuthering Heights - Great tune - I'm a Kate Bush Fan - I also heard she has never been in the U.S.A. because of Fear Of Flying !  True or Not - I never checked !

 

[Dannolonghair]

Well, as I said...much better chance at touching the moon. I will put 3 in here, but really it just depends on my mood of the day, so therefore with the way I am feeling today I will choose the following.

Alice Cooper - Halo of Flies. From the album KILLER. Of course I am going to throw out a Coop piece for this. This song has always been probably my top Coop song, next to Caught in A Dream or Long Way to Go. It is just one of those songs that takes you on a wild 12 minute plus roller coaster ride and has got some of Coop's best growls in it going.

Humble Pie - Red Light Momma, Red Hot! From the album HUMBLE PIE. Now I could put any of about 30 songs down here from HP, from Shine on (which was the very first song I ever really heard from this power house group) to Hot n Nasty, Roadrunner or Ninety Nine Pounds. But Light Momma just slithers in sex and drugs. And I like that in a song. It has got a real raunchy chunky groove to this tune and Marriott is just one of the most under-rated vocalists ever. I just love everything about this band.

Black Sabbath - Country Girl from MOB RULES. I could almost pick any song off this album This was actually my first Sabbath album I ever owned (on tape and I recall walking around the trailer park I grew up in with this cranking out of my blaster). I love the Dio days with Sabbath, and pretty much everything Dio did with them is worth noting. Don't get me wrong, the Ozzy years are irreplaceable by far, but this just brings back those memories. There is some GREAT guitar work on this album ion my opinion. Glas I got to see Dio with Sabbath before his demise.

...and there you have it. For today. Tomorrow will probably be a whole different line up of tunes.

[Scott]

Sweet!!!  Much better than what Jon will come up with I am sure..,

I know next to nothing about Humble Pie (except that Frampton played with them for a while) - What's a good starting point?

[Jon]

Well, since you said that, I am not participating.

[Scott]

You will...

[Dannolonghair]

Yes Frampton was with them for their first 4 albums but left before their live album was released which came out about the same time as their 4th album.

It's such a tough call as to where to start, although LIVE at the FILLMORE is one of their best. They went to number of line up changes and the sound would change with the line up change, although Marriott remained for all the albums and he was really the roots of the band (IMO) but Frampton was a great addition too.

Smokin' is probably one of their more popular albums along with Eat It.Eat it is a double album with one record being live and features the Blackberries who used to tour with Ike and Tina Turner and another time toured with Ray Charles. Thunderbox is really good, Rockin' is great, Streetrats has some great stuff...Man I am too biased. Its like asking me which Cooper album to start with.

[Jon]

Just curious, I don't own any Alice Cooper albums, which album(s) should I buy first?

[Scott]

Danno is the expert, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE "From the Inside", "Billion Dollar Babies", and "Welcome to my Nightmare".  I also own "Muscle of Love" which is solid...

[Jon]

That was directed to HIM, not YOU! Besides, your taste in music is excruciating, limp, obscene & yucky.

Just trying to have him make up for lost time so he can type something really long about which album to buy, why to buy it and then which albums to avoid.

[Dannolonghair]

Well gee. How many times can a guy touch the moon in a day.

With Cooper, I think you have to start right from the beginning. And by that I mean LOVE IT TO DEATH, which is my favorite. There are 2 albums before this but you can go back to these at anytime in the future. They don't really do anything to help you get the entire feel of what Coop is all about. LOVE IT TO DEATH wouldn't have even made an impact if it wasn't for Bob Ezrin getting his hands filthy dirty on this one. I mean you've heard "I'm Eighteen" I am sure. Well that was thanks to Ezrin. This album also put Ezrin on the map too. So without this album you may well never have heard Destroyer or The Wall and everything else Ezrin got involved with. Of course it is worth mentioning that it was Zappa that initially signed The Alice Cooper Group, so without him, really, non of this would exist I am sure.  

Coopers albums all change from one to the next. Alot of the subject matter remains the same, but his persona changes with each album. This band went from nothing to the top of the world in 3 years. You have LOVE IT TO DEATH in '71, Killer and School's Out in '72 and then they absolutely exploded in '73 with BILLION $ BABIES. They toured like there was no tomorrow.

Then comes MUSCLE OF LOVE, which for some they just don't get it. I do. In fact the song from this album "Hard Hearted ALice" I have always said I want to have played at my funeral. But this was a rushed album, trying to ride on the success of B$B's album and the production wasn't as tight. This is where the band imploded. The group wanted to slow down on the theatrics but Cooper want to punch it through the sky. So he went solo. Him and his manager Shep Gordon then personally financed WELCOME TO MY NIGHTMARE (another personal fav) and this tour blew B$B right out the water. Unfortunately though, this is where Coop really started to get sick from his heavy drinking.

He went on to record GOES TO HELL (again, another fav of mine) which is, once again, a different type of album and the upcoming tour was cancelled for this. It is very hard to find much as far tour merchandise or in store displays and what not for this album. I have a real cool huge poster for an instore promo for the album, and in all my years have never seen another one like it. 

Next in '77 is LACE AND WHISKY. He did a big tour for this and it got pretty strange. Even for Cooper. I like the album and there are some great songs on here. Cooper has hardly ever written a bad song. It was just tough for people to accept what he was doing because it would change so much.

Then in '78 came what is many people favorite, FROM THE INSIDE. How can you not like this album. This is one of the all time great concept albums ever. Just get it. You won't be disappointed.

Now we get into FLush the Fashion '80 and Special Forces '81. This was during Coopers blow days. Everyone was freebasing at this time and Cooper was no different. If you ever YouTube some of the Tom Snyder interviews you'll see what I mean.

Zipper Catches Skin was in '82 and the only way I ever heard of this album was when I watched a movie called Class of '84 and during the final credits I hear this song called "I am The Future" and I was thinking, damn that sounds alot like Cooper. Turns out it was. I had actually held the album in my hands a couple times but never knew who it was. Look it up and you might see why it was so hard to figure out who the album belongs to. Of course I went back and got it once I realized my error.

1983 gave us DADA, which Cooper has no recollection of recording. This is another great album and I put it up there with FROM THE INSIDE. Some funny tunes on here for sure.

Then we get into COnstrictor, Raise Your Fist and then once again POWWWW here comes another over the top album with TRASH. Followed by Hey Stoopid which has some of the best song writing Coop has ever done I think (except for the title track).

After that are another what 8 albums, which some are good, but nothing great. THE LAST TEMPTATION  I think was probably his last really good album.

If I can suggest albums to steer clear of it would be the groups first, PRETTIES FOR YOU, and Coopers last WELCOME TO MY NIGHTMARE 2

Hope this helps brothers. I could right for days on the Coop, but I just tried to keep this short.