Rolling Stone Top 500 Rethought

After being reminded how outraged I was at seeing Freebird at 191, I take back my favorable tone of this list. I think there was a bit too much deference to stature and less to the actual sound of the song. In the end, to me, what makes a song great is what it says to you, how it makes you feel when you listen to it. Freebird is an anthem of freedom that makes my heart sing, when those three guitars crank it up. Listen to the longing in Layla or Tears in Heaven as Clapton lays it all on the line. Check out the hot simpatico of Rob Thomas and Carlos on Smooth. Stairway to Heaven, Dark Side of the Moon (or are we only considering 3 min. songs?)....come on! These are all better songs than Like a Rolling Stone, their #1. How many times in a row could you listen to that, or Teen Spirit? When it comes to music, and song evaluation, social relevance comes in second to sound. Any song is all the more important for affecting music, culture, society. All of that needs to be considered.

What is the best song ever written? My pick would be Johnny B. Goode. It set the tone for rock & roll. It all gets back to Chuck Berry in the end. You cannot get around Berry riffs in rock & roll, ask any musician. That simple little song is so well crafted, it is perfection. It's a great dance song and that should count for a lot...remember the evaluator all the kids used on Bandstand..."the beat". It doesn't have the complexity of a Layla or Stairway to Heaven but it does deserve the #1 spot and What's Going On, deserves to be #2. While the Berry anthem expresses the optimism, Gaye shows the let-down. What the hell happened to the rock & roll revolution folks? Same thing that happened with the dot com bust. People realized there was no magic bullet, you gotta go keep on fighting, till you just decide to hand the baton off for a while & rest. We got our music from Africa, so don't be puttin 3 white boys up there first, ok? Respect should be #3. BTW, Dylan himself was embarassed, John would have been and Mick probably is too. It bothers all those early British blues/skiffle/rock artists that their own idols got such short shrift.

Anyway, I'm listing some of the songs they put too high, some they put too low, and some they actually left off the list completely. I mean, someone tell me I'm wrong but did they actually leave off songs like Smooth, which is not only an incredible song but spent 50 weeks on the charts, 12 of them at #1, won 8 Grammy's & sold 15 million copies. How can you even give credibility to a list like this? There were so many obscure songs on there, some I've never even heard, so I'm gonna go actually listen to them and then tell you how awful they are...(I did, they were). There were all sorts of little factions overrepresented (Joni Mitchell, one of the judges, got 3 songs in) while a lot of mainstream, great songs, that were number #1, for weeks, got overlooked. Girls, Latins and singer/songwriters all got shafted.

Too Highly Rated:

Smells Like Teen Spirit - 9
What'd I Say - 10
A Change is Gonna Come - 12
Maybelline - 18
One - 36
Help - 29
Waterloo Sunset - 42
Heroes - 46
Bo Diddley - 62
Tangled Up in Blue - 68
Walk on By - 70
Mystery Train - 77
Hot Stuff - 103
Rock n Roll Music - 128
Cathy's Clown - 149

I could go on endlessly, there were hundreds of them, but since these were actually all rated above 150, they needed outing the most.

Underrated Songs:

Layla - 27
Stairway to Heaven - 31
Won't Get Fooled Again - 133
Bohemian Rhapsody - 163
Freebird - 191
Pretty Woman - 222
Moondance - 226
Fire & Rain - 227
Sexual Healing - 231
Gimme Some Lovin - 244
Chain of Fools - 249
Somebody to Love - 274
Ain't No Sunshine - 280
Whipping Post - 383
Baby I Need Your Lovin - 390
Ooh Ooh Child - 391
Summer in the City - 393
Roxanne - 388
Just My Imagination - 389
Sweet Emotion - 408
Smoke on the Water - 426
Lola - 422
Piano Man - 421
Mustang Sally - 434
Penny Lane - 449
Runaway - 466
Suite:Judy Blue eyes - 418
My Sweet Lord - 454
White Rabbit - 478
I Love Rock n Roll - 484
Under the Boardwalk - 487
Brown Sugar - 490

Left Out!

Smooth
American Pie
Song For You
Danny's Song
Riders on the Storm
Roundabout
Low Spark of High Heeled Boys
Takin Care of Business
Long Cool Woman
I Try
Superman
Inna Gadda da Vida
Truly Madly Deeply
You've Got a Friend
Love Child
Hello, I Love You
Karma Chameleon
Centerfold
Come On Eileen
Drops of Jupiter
If You're Gone
Air That I Breathe
Young Girl
Town Without Pity
Summertime
So Happy Together
Play that Funky Music White Boy
Whip It
Susie Q
Wild Nights
Spooky
Rock This Town
Come Away with Me
My Sharona
Let's Go
American Woman
Dig In
Feelin Alright
All Right Now
Use Me
Mony Mony
Devil Inside
She Drives Me Crazy
Smooth Operator
This Love
Falling
Family Affairs
Simply Irresistable
Fire
Ain't No Mountain High Enough
Everybody Hurts
At Last
Crazy in Love
Crazy Little Thing Called Love
Circle of Life
Angie
Time is on my Side
Get Off My Cloud
Stand By Me
Money
Feel Like Making Love
Ain't Too Proud to Beg
Locomotive Breath
Black Magic Woman
Wish You Were Here
Get This Party Started
Where is the Love?
Blackwater
Truckin
Waterfalls
I Can Feel it Coming
Wicked Games
After Midnight
Boys Are Back in Town
Smokin in the Boys Room
Sweet Melissa
Complicated
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
I Can't Hold Out
No Such Thing
Some Kind of Wonderful
Rout 66
Pride & Joy
Crazy Love
Just a Girl
Hit Me With Your Best Shot
Beautiful
Game of Love
Man, I Feel Like a Woman
You Make Me Feel (Like a Natural Woman)
Foolish Games
Breathe
Allstar
I Will Always Love You
Livin La Vida Loca
It's Raining Men
Addicted to Love
Twisting the Night Away
Emotional Rescue
Kiss Me
Dessert Needs Rain
Like a Virgin
Tuesday Afternoon
Here Comes the Rain Again
Turn Turn Turn
These Boots Are Made For Walkin
Hanky Panky
Crimson & Clover
I Want to Know What Love Is
Careless Whisper
Don't You (Forget About Me)
Aquarius
Venus
I'll Be There
Homeward Bound
Hero
Maneater
Mind Games
Reelin in the Years
Joy to the World
Give a Little Bit
Fly Like an Eagle

Again, I could go on, but these should replace the hundreds of lame songs on that list. It's too much of a pain to keep going back to the list, which is not cross-referenced alphabetically, just to make sure I'm not crazy (ok, I just found an index inside a pull-out ad). Let's just say they left off tons of great songs. They also missed all the current stuff that WILL be viewed as seminal like all the great indie sounding females making it on their own names. They ignored all the earlier women too, from Carole King to Jewel. It's pretty outrageous, now that I think of it. Looking down their list of voters, I see some 90% are men. OK, now I'm really getting mad because I have always loved Rolling Stone and Jann Wenner, but women have had it tough enough in this world, not to mention rock and roll and believe, me, you don't even want to me to go THERE, cause I have been there personally, front row center. Given that some 99% of my own audience is male, I won't go off on y'all too bad but, I will say this. Take a look around - more and more sales for the women, bigger names, staying around longer & gaining clout, like Madonna. The Grammy's & other awards are giving them props. So, shame on you RS, they should have taken a look at it and gone out again to a bigger group. No one cares what VH1 thinks but, when you've been around over 30 years and have the stature you do, do a better job.

The little blurbs they had for each song gave a little insider rip but usually no real justification for its placement. A song that predates or inspires subsequent good music does not, in and of itself, make a song "great" in my book, just influential. The song needs to be good on its own and reach the kind of stature good songs are supposed to, i.e., lots of people are listening to it. Some of their picks didn't even chart at all. These insiders love to show off their knowledge of the obscure to each other, very clubby. They should have shown more respect for RS readers & the icon's populist roots.

And, one more thing, I see from the amount, size and placement of the ads that they made a forune off this list, undeservedly so.

Husband Swap: Is Pleasure a One-Way Street?

Yes, I've watched Wife Swap. I'm not proud, but, I love watching people get real... and that is so hard to do around here. I live around a lot of smart people, and their polish reflects it. These folks can spend hours talking about their expensive vacations, high-paying jobs, all the activities they buy for their kids...who the fuck cares? The interesting stuff is below and if they're in touch with it, which I often doubt (how sad is that?), they sure know how to keep it under gloss. When I was in HS, I was a huge jock, cheerleader, gymnast, went to huge parties of 500 kids every weekend...in the summer, every night. It was similar to here, big, superficial. But, before I was lured into the jock popularity scene, which, believe me, was fun, I hung out with the "field rats", so-called because we would meet in the field at night, get high & get real as only High Schoolers can. We would have "bullshit sessions" which were anything but. We would sit around and tell each other exactly what we thought of each other, and I mean really. We pulled no punches. It was brutal, but real. Reality does have the less pretty emotions and I guess that's why folks avoid it. But again, there is a cost. Now I see it more clearly with all these adults around me who wouldn't know a genuine feeling or an original thought if it bit them. They can't really talk to each other, and, after doing that long enough, they can't even talk to themselves in an authentic way. But, again, I digress.

For those of you uninitiated with this particular slice of life, the show is not nearly as sexual as one would think, from the title. Usually they swap wives. They take two radically disparate families and, you got it, swap the wives. They spend the first week trying to acclimate. You watch the neat freak in some pigsty trying to cope, or some fundamentalist dealing with devil-worshippers...the permutations are endless, and to be honest, I've only watched the show twice, but I can only imagine what they can come up with. The next week the new wife sets the rules and now the rest of the family tries to adjust. The adults may try to bend but the kids, who have probably been advised by their lawyers that, as minors, they can void contracts, say no fuckin way! My daughter and I usually laugh our asses off at that point. Speaking of points, I am on my way to making one here.
The last show traded hubbies. One had a beard down to what should have been his waist and one of the biggest Harleys I've ever seen. He put the wife in leathers, got her slingin drinks at the biker bar and took her out into the Rockies on that bike....she loved it! He took the kids, who had never seen TV or tasted candy, to an amusement park, and you can only imagine the joy on these kids' faces. It was at this point I explained to my daughter that we were able to keep candy and commercial TV away from her older brother till he was three, but she was tainted as an infant cause she did have an older brother. I made some effort, as an idealistic first-time mom, to insulate my son, but couldn't keep it up long.

The other guy was some squirrelly little tight ass control freak who justified it by his high minded ideals of saving the planet. I've met lots like him, though the justification varies. His new family despised him, though they did enjoy the party he made them throw. Apparently, they were not part of their own community beforehand, and they did appreciate his very real contribution there. So, now do you understand my original question? Is pleasure a one-way street? It's very easy to go from an aesthetic lifestyle to a more pleasant one. It's very, very hard to go the other way. Maybe this is why some people don't go down the street at all, they're afraid there's no way back. OK, it's time to discuss the marshmallow test. I've been meaning to do it.

They put a five year old in a room alone with a marshmallow. They tell the kid, if you don't eat the marshmallow... when I get back, you'll get another. Some kids are able to sit and look at that yummy marshmallow, in that boring empty room, and wait for the tester to come back with that second treat. What they found is that the kids who could do it, did remarkably well in life compared to the treat tasters. This is a classic psychological experiment because it was so accurately predictive of adult "success" at a young age. The factor is obvious. It's all about deferred gratification. Those who can defer gratification tend to do very well in school and the workplace. Why? They are able to grind along, working their brains out for a pay-off way far in their future. That is what it takes to "succeed" in this world. Now, you just know what my next question is. What is the cost? What if the success never feels as good as the pleasure would have, because you spent a lifetime denying your true needs in order to get that huge payout at the end? Yes, we all need money to survive, but is the money enough to compensate for what has been lost? And what if you don't even know what has been lost? Is that better? Maybe it is. Maybe those little girls would have had a happier childhood if biker man never gave them that cotton candy. Now, when stiff ass dad comes back, they're gonna miss the fun and joy. What does God want from us? Denial or indulgence? Definitely some indulgence. God put marijuana, which grows like a weed, on the earth for us to enjoy and expand our consciousness. Sugar is sweet, grows out of the ground, in cane, everyone loves it. Sex feels great..or should...god gave us bodies with feelings we can enjoy. Was this all to trap us, as the Christian twist on Adam and Eve would have us believe? Well, a lot of people seem to think so, and they usually have little songs and sayings to convince us. On the other wife-swap I saw, the
Christian-"right" mom told the new dad he should chew up a Snickers bar, get snot all over it, show it to his teenage daughter and tell her this is what she will be if she has sex before marriage. Squirrel guy made the new family sing some little Yoga song (Yoga is great, the song definitely was not). They have their tools, God has his. It's called nature, connection, joy.

We are meant to have joy. Not in an irresponsible, selfish way. But, if we cannot enjoy the bodies god gave us, the wonderful things all around us... then gratification has been deferred too long, and no amount of money can bring back those years of self-denial that have been lost. I gave up good sex for some 16 years, and, it actually did make me cry, real tears, when I thought of it, even though those 16 years held great happiness and accomplishment. We all make trade-offs. Just be aware of what you're trading off.

I guess I should try to answer my own question here. I don't know about one-way street, I think it's more like a river and when you try to fight your natural inclination toward fulfillment & joy, it feels like swimming upstream. And when you are fulfilling yourself, and you can still make money doing this, you are in the flow, swimming downstream, going with it, not standing there as life flows by. This is what Taoism and Zen emphasize. I know people who stood at the corner of that one-way street all their lives and died there. They saw others in the street, or river,or whatever, and stood by in judgement, never venturing in. Why? Because of the sin there? Fear? Ignorance? I see others now on the way to that end-up. Me? I'm in there, I'll wave happily as I go by, and wish all could be in there too. I don't see why everyone can't be, it's so much more fun that way. So, let the funky adventure begin. Jump in, the water's warm.

Now, here's the postscript topper on these shows. Apparently, there are two of them and one is suing the other for copyright infringement. You know, I want a copyright on reality. If anyone uses it, they will have to pay up. I'll be richer than Gates. It's all about who can own the lingua franca...right?

Apple/U2: A Downhill Battle

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. I take back my endorsement of these two, it was borderline anyway. Francis Hwang took the special edition ipod, uploaded Negativland's albums, changed the box, stated it was unauthorized and put it up for sale on Ebay as a work of art meant to comment on the 1991 case U2's label brought against Negativland for parodying Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, making "an example" of Negativland and outlawing the song. The comment was also about free culture, specifically mash-ups, showing the irony of putting U2 on a device meant to connote artistic freedom when U2 should stand for exactly the opposite. The bidding was up to $455. when Apple made a stink and Ebay pulled it. Most lawyers feel there was no copyright violation here, stringent as those laws are, I thought we still had a right to parody and artistic comment in this country. Silly me, I guess I was wrong. Is that right reserved for Bono and all the promo Jobs can buy? As it turns out, the GC at Ebay is a friend of mine, so I'll try to find out what went on here. If they are just buckling to Jobs, that's pretty outrageous.

Hwang intended the profits to go to yet another fledgling advocacy group called Downhill Battle (what an optimistic group - I would definitely classify this battle as uphill). The link to it is above. Anyway, Downhill Battle had a great piece from the guy who produced for Nirvana showing a typical record deal where 250k albums get sold (what is typical are the terms, not the sales, which sounds very high, to me). After grossing 3M, over a year of ball-breaking work, the band members get about 4k each. Who gets the rest? Guess? And you know what the labels do with that money? Spend it in DC. Who pays for that? Music lovers. In other words, if you love music and are willing to pay for it on records, you are essentially paying someone to go screw you over; do everything possible to keep music from you unless you pay and pay and pay. When I was active in the anti-nuclear movement, I did know people who were into civil disobedience, and it does have its place. Last night at the Billboard's they awarded OutKast for most LEGAL downloads, they should be accounting for all downloads, especially those willing to risk their own necks to apply pressure to those who want to inhibit very important freedoms. The legal downloads account for well under 1% of all downloads.

Anyway, this little expose also goes into these labels MO: it's just like the tobacco & alcohol companies, they pick someone young, that the bands will trust, to face these bands, he goes into the whole psychology of it; the control, the "we'll make you a star", ego stuff. Check out Damn Yankees, it's the deal with the devil.

Before Sunset

I saw this film twice in the theatre, rare for me. I hate these multiplexes and their film choices, which have a huge impact on what can and cannot get made in Hollywood. This was in one of the shrinking number of independant theatres. Even still, I greatly prefer DVD's cause I hate sitting in one uncomfortable chair for long periods and, basically, I'm hooked on commentary tracks. Watching a film without the commentary track, now that I'm spoiled, is like having sex without coming (this is a rough analogy, folks, commentary tracks are nowhere near orgasms, in my book). I want the whole deal, the movie and the director's analysis of it. Or something, Michael Moore let his interns do the commentary track, which was a good move. I like Mike, but he is a bit pompous in his own Midwestern effacing, modest way. Even when the director just drivels on about technical issues, it provides a much appreciated perspective, since I'm now directing films myself. Sometimes the commentaries are truly interesting, particularly with the great directors. Anyway, I digress, again.

I also saw Before Sunrise, which shows the principals meeting on a train in Europe and spending one wonderful day together. They, for some reason, don't exchange info but plan to meet one year later. The girl's grandmother dies and she can't make it, though the guy does. He writes a book, basically about the experience and nine years later, while promoting the book in Paris...guess who shows up? This is the setting for Before Sunset. They roam around Paris, again. He's supposed to get back on a plane to his wife and kid, but never quite makes it. As they go through their second date together you begin to realize that these two, although they've certainly gone on with their lives in the interim, never really got over each other. That original, though very brief, first encounter, was IT. But, they were both young and neither realized it at the time. It's only when they see each other again, with the benefit of nine years worth of perspective, that they can see it. It's an interesting twist because I think what happens 99% of the time is the exact opposite, two people come together in their twenties, everyone around them is pairing up, they do it too, and then realize later on that it was NOT the real thing, just the right time.

I guess one lesson I take from this is how difficult it can be to appreciate something without comparison, without perspective. Or how people's interests and goals, and what they look for in a partner, can change over time. But, also, how our basic natures stay the same. My son turns thirteen today. In my religion of birth, though never affiliation or practice...he is a man, now. Although he's grown quite a bit in these thirteen years, so much of what I see in him today is exactly the same nature I've seen at every point along the way since his birth. I've learned and grown incredibly, experienced so much in my life, but my own nature is essentially unchanged and will probably remain so. If people are lucky or strong their core does remain authentic and one can stay in touch with that always. But so much comes along in our lives to change us, change our fundamental relationship to our own inner nature. I think most people are compromised. Their egos damped down continually by demands of those around them. It is easy to lose touch with oneself, and I honestly believe the great majority of humanity does just that. Thoreau said it best, "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation".

So, when two people, "have chemistry", I think it's essentially the coming together of two genuine kindred spirits. It's powerful stuff, because, for whatever layers of platitude and compromise are involved, the real stuff always bubbles up, like weeds coming up through cracks in the sidewalk. BUT, that's only half the story, and, the film is equally attentive to the other critical component... timing. Sometimes we do meet the right person, but, it's the wrong time. Sometimes we meet the somewhat right person, and it's the right time. I've experienced both, not only with men but with jobs and artistic opportunities. So much of it is chance, or fate, out of our control. The only part we can control is to just be attentive to when those connections, that chemistry, does occur & try to appreciate and fulfill it. The most important part, I think, is staying true to that inner core and connection to our maker, that way you can trust your instincts, even when the noise around you is drowning it out.

Another David: IPac

Goliaths beget Davids. Whenever an entity egregiously abuses its power, someone will notice, and fight, weakly at first. The first David I met in this battle was Hank Barry (original Napster), and it was painful to watch these multimillion dollar forces attack with such vengeance, actually threatening his home, to his face. At the time, BTW, he was doing everything imaginable to work WITH them. He's a businessman, thought he could make a profit & they could too. But, they were greedy and arrogant, and behind the facade of fighting for artists, launched a major offensive. They made it so personal. He may have been one of the first, he certainly isn't the last. IPac is a recently formed political action committee. With its paltry $7k, it successfully supported the reelection of five freedom friendly congresspeople in 2004, including Rick Boucher who sponsored legislation reigning in RIAA etc. I urge everyone interested in creativity and personal freedom to check out their website. The link is above. This is an important issue, no one is immune, unless you live in a cave somewhere. Its only when attention is brought and the public is educated that real change will happen here.