Dirt Nap City - History's Most Interesting Dead People
Dirt Nap City is the podcast about history's most interesting dead people. In each episode, Alex and Kelly dive into the life of a famous person that you have heard of, but probably don't know much about. Our stories are about actors, entrepreneurs, politicians, musicians, inventors, explorers and more! We also cover things that used to be popular but have fallen out of favor. Things like pet rocks, drive in theaters, Jolt Cola, and many other trends of yesterday make up our "dead ends". But whether we are talking about interesting historical figures or past trends, the show is funny, light-hearted, entertaining, informative and educational. You will definitely learn something new and probably have some laughs along the way. Everyone will eventually move to Dirt Nap City, so why not go ahead and meet the neighbors?
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Dirt Nap City - History's Most Interesting Dead People
Is Rock and Roll Dead? (Part 1 of 2)
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After a visit to the Rock and Roll hall of fame earlier this year, Alex and Kelly found themselves wondering if today's rock and roll is the same type of music that they grew up listening to...and the answer is definitely "no, it's not." But just because rock and roll is changing and evolving, does that mean that it is dead? In this episode, we explore that question by defining the common elements of rock and roll music, talking about how age relates to our relationship with music, and even listing the worst rock and roll songs of all time.
And because there is so much to cover on the topic of rock and roll, we decided to split this into two episodes. So be sure to check out PART 2 to learn about music, have some laughs and find out if rock and roll is really dead OR if rock and roll can never die!
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https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7o7X7oS91MkaHV0LENfZ5W?si=ab0a66b7a3ba4f43&nd=1
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Dirt Nap City is the podcast about the most interesting dead people in history.
Subscribe and listen to learn about people you've heard of, but don't know much about.
Someday we'll all live in Dirt Nap City, so you should probably go ahead and meet the neighbors!
Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Dirt Knap City, a show about interesting dead people. And Kelly, we have a good one today. We're gonna talk about lots of interesting dead people today.
SPEAKER_06More than one. What do you call a group of dead people? You know, there's like a gaggle of geese or a murder of crows. What is would it be a murder of dead people? Yeah, probably a murder, I would say. If if that's if that's good enough for crows.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I heard one about flamingos the other day. That uh a group of flamingos is it's like a a flock? A committee or uh something. It's something that's very human. Um that um that I I can't remember what it was, but it was a very human word. And they have found a bunch uh flamboyance.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_05Flamboyance. That's right. Which makes all the sense in the world. If you're flamboyant, you're kind of flamingo-like. Um so a flamboyance of flamingos is uh is a group of flamingos.
SPEAKER_06I wonder what you call a group of dead rock stars, you know. Some would be a flamboyance as well, I suppose. See, that's that right there is highlight highlight uh YouTube worthy. Very good.
SPEAKER_05All right, well, today we're gonna ask the musical question Is rock and roll dead? Dun dun dun. So, you know, this question has been asked in uh some it's been answered and asked in in a lot of songs. Um there's a Lenny Kravit song called Rock and Roll is Dead. You ever heard that song? I don't think so, no. Um, this says that uh they say rock and roll uh rock is a red place, but the rocky. Like when you're aging and you're thinking back about rock and roll, is it still rock and roll if you enjoy it when you're old, or is it something that only young people can enjoy? Just by nature of being 80 years old and listening to it, does that mean it's still rock? But we can get into all of that. Um, but this question came up because uh over the summer we went to you and I went to the rock and roll hall of fame. We did with our buddy Alfred. We went together. And um, so for those of you out there who have never been to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it's in Cleveland, Ohio. And uh it's what kind of review would you give the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? How would you how would you review this?
SPEAKER_06Uh exceeds expectations. It it was it was um I mean I I I will tell you this, I generally tend to keep my expectations in check about stuff like that because I don't want to be disappointed. And so I think I was expecting it to be interesting and good. We walked into that place the minute it opened, right? We we were there as the doors opened, and we walked out, they were closing the doors when we walked out. It was like, you know, you can't you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here, kind of thing. We were there about seven hours. And I never got bored. I was I was ready to I was ready to continue on and would have continued on. It was definitely an experience that I think if you are a musical fan, and you know, it's funny because you don't have to be a rock fan, you don't have to be a metal fan, you don't have to be uh any kind of uh specific genre fan to appreciate what they have there.
SPEAKER_05I agree. Um one of the reasons I wanted to go with you was because a lot of people in my life that I went would go with, I think I would be afraid that they might be bored or might think, okay, I've seen enough guitar picks for a day. And there are a lot of guitar picks. Yeah, there are. And just guitars in general. I don't know how many guitars we probably saw, but I mean, we had to at least have seen 500 guitars, right?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah. And and and of course, the artifacts are part of the thing. But I think what was most interesting about it was the way they told stories around the different artifacts and kind of what the significance of them was. Also, the um the timeline looking at some of the really early stuff that was done for for rock and roll, quote unquote, up until modern times, they did a really good job of kind of encapsulating a bunch of different decades, right? So you could you could look at the 50s, which is kind of when arguably rock and roll started, right? With Alan Freed in Cleveland, by the way. You know, he was he was the guy that really popularized the term rock and roll. Now, did you know that um it's been said that Alan Freed didn't actually invent that phrase?
SPEAKER_05Oh, that was probably it's probably an African American uh thing that he that he turned around. I mean, that's that was another kind of theme uh of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That's early influences. Well, we might think it's the 50s in white America that um we uh the white America stole a lot of that stuff from uh black America that had already uh had the roots, the roots of that stuff had been planted in the 30s, right?
SPEAKER_06The term rock and roll was already being used as early as 1946 by Billboard magazine. So Billboard was already using that term, but it wasn't something that was used regularly, and it wasn't to describe an entire genre of music. Um but yes, you're right. It came from RB, it uh came from um blues, it came from some country, you know, rock and roll. As a matter of fact, Alan Freed had a really great two great quotes. I'll I'll read them both to you real quick. One was Rock and Roll is really swing with the modern name. It began on the levees and plantations, took in folk songs, and featured rhythm and blues. And then he continued by saying, Rock and roll is a river of music which has absorbed many streams, rhythm and blues, jazz, ragtime, cowboy songs, country songs, folk songs, all have contributed to the big beat. And I love that idea of it being a river that's taken on a bunch of streams. If you think about all those other smaller genres as the streams, it uh the rock and roll becomes this river that is a combination of all of them, yet not exactly like any of them.
SPEAKER_05Hmm. Well, that's pretty pretty deep. I I never really considered the phrase uh rock and roll before. It's a kind of an interesting probably nothing like that was coined before. Uh Keith Richards said that people um everyone loves to rock, but sometimes people forget how to roll.
SPEAKER_06Well, you know, you know, there was some some discussion about whether it was a euphemism for uh sex. And well, Alan Freed said it wasn't. He he he uh there yeah, there was a song I I didn't I didn't write it down here, but there was a song that kind of talked about rock and rolling all night with with the ladies, and you know it it so I think some people initially, you know, in the puritanical fifties were turned off by the idea that rock and roll was just a euphemism. Kiss Kiss won a rock and roll all night, party every day. Every day, actually. Uh Bill Haley and his comments was really the first um official rock and roll song, would you say?
SPEAKER_05Sure, sure. The rock around the rock around the clock.
SPEAKER_01One, two, three o'clock, four o'clock, rock. Five, six, seven o'clock, eight o'clock, rock. Nine, ten, eleven o'clock, twelve o'clock, rock. We're going to rock. Around two o'clock, tonight. What's the case?
SPEAKER_061955. Um, sort of considered a novelty at that time. It was it was interesting because it was something that that was very much interesting to younger people, but didn't want their parents to listen to it. They considered it their music and not their parents' music.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and that was kind of the beginning of the teenager, also. That uh there weren't really people didn't consider. We might have talked about this on a previous episode when we talked about kind of the rise of teenagers. Yeah. That that wasn't even a thing prior to the baby boomers being teenagers. Nobody ever considered that group like a demographic or people that uh had their own anything. But the baby boomers, when they became teenagers, there were so many of them. Um, they kind of dominated the culture. So everything from rock and roll in the 50s to Woodstock in the 60s was all driven by that just huge generation that are now, you know, people in their 70s and 80s.
SPEAKER_06And uh, I'll just tell you a quick interesting little story. I've been going to uh the YMCA. Jody and I joined the YMCA, and we've been taking this class. It's a it's a you know just a workout class, and you do some weights. It's definitely it's challenging for me because I haven't worked out in a few years, so it's like getting back into it. But I've done harder classes in the past, but I'm also older now, right? Older and and uh trying to get back into the shape I was in a few years ago. So they're playing music, and you know, I'm listening to these songs, and one of the songs that comes on is ACDC, right? And I'm looking at this class, and I'm actually one of the younger people in the class, and you know, there's probably people in there, definitely in their 60s, 70s, and maybe even 80s, um, you know, and I'm in my 50s, and I'm like, wow, people in their 80s listening to AC DC and just kind of like jamming along to it in the class. It makes you think about, you know, that was considered rebellious music. That was considered even even satanic music by a lot of people, you know, in the time when people were burning records, right? And and now it's just something you play in your in your over 50 exercise class, ACDC. You know, how would how would ACDC feel about that? I think they'd be fine with it today, but how would young ACDC have felt about it? Right.
SPEAKER_05That music is 45 years old, though, you know. Yeah. I mean, a lot of a lot of that stuff came out in the late 70s and and early 80s, back in black, I think came out in 1980.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Uh, but I kind of think the opposite sometimes. That I've I not too long ago, I visited a nursing home and they were playing like Glenn Miller and stuff for those for those people. But I was thinking, you know, some of these people were in their 30s and 40s when like Billy Idol was out. Why don't why aren't they playing Billy Idol? Why do they just assume that old people like old people music? And I was wondering, did it could and I don't know why Billy Idol came into my head, but I was wondering, could any of these people listen to Billy Idol when they were in their 30s and 40s and want that music? Or was that music strictly for us young people at the time? When we were listening to music when we were 10, 11, 12 years old, what we didn't realize was that music wasn't being made for us, but we were the primary consumers of the music in the world.
SPEAKER_06And have been for years, right? We're the ones that continue to listen to those uh album-oriented rock or AOR stations.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. I think about that kind of stuff all the time about who this music is meant for and who's actually listening to it. You know, KISS is a great example that you know, we were in elementary school when KISS was made a big, right? And we were probably probably their primary listeners, people in element. I mean, I wasn't a big KISS fan. I wasn't either a lot of my friends were, and they had the Kiss lunchboxes, and just the fact that KISS had a lunchbox showed you that that was their market. The adults, I can't imagine when they were out at the time that 35-year-old people were listening to KISS. It's just so juvenile. Yeah what I mean. Yeah. And those same people are the people that are listening to KISS today. Like their group never, it was always the same people.
SPEAKER_06But but would it be the same people in a nursing home?
SPEAKER_05I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_06I mean, would it be you know those those those younger people that are now older would you know, let's say you were on the top end of a as a KISS fan. You were you were like a 35-year-old KISS fan when they came out, so now you're in a nursing home.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I don't think a lot of those people exist, but I think there are bands like U2, for example, that were have main, I don't know how relevant they are now. I mean, they just had that big opening at in Vegas. Yeah, yeah. I don't know how young people, if young people love them or not, but they've certainly been around for a long time, and I think they've made they're more relevant probably than the Rolling Stones, who also their fans kind of aged with them. Right. But um, but KISS I think is the opposite of of that. I think they had always had the same finite number of fans.
SPEAKER_06In within the same demographic. Do you think do you think young people today like KISS or take KISS seriously, or do they just see them as these you know goofy old guys?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, no, I think I I I think young people today aren't really listening to rock. I mean, and that's um that's one side of this argument. So the reason we're talking about this on Dirt Nap City is we're trying to figure out if rock is dead, right? Yeah, and so one side of that argument is that yeah, rock and roll is probably dead. Oh, young people aren't listening to it anymore. It's something that has kind of aged out. I'll tell you what, rock may not be dead, but a lot of rockers are dead. That's true. Uh on that trip that we went on, uh, after we went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, we went to see Leonard Skinnard. Yep. Right?
SPEAKER_06And happened to be in town and happened to be playing at the venue right next to our Airbnb down to the city.
SPEAKER_05Literally, like right like we could have listened to it from our balcony. Do you remember the name of that venue? Um, yeah, it was the Jacobs Pavilion.
SPEAKER_06Jacobs Pavilion in Cleveland. If you've been there, let us know. Email used to not at Dirt Knapp City and let us know if you've been to Jacobs Pavilion and who you saw there.
SPEAKER_05So, Leonard Skinner, there's a first of all, they have a bunch of members. There's probably 10 guys up there, right?
SPEAKER_06Plus, plus backup singers, all that stuff.
SPEAKER_05And not a single one of the people that we saw were part of the original lineup. Every one of them had died. The very last one that was part of the original lineup had just passed like a year ago. No, I think it was I think we went in May, and I think he died in January. Yeah. So it had just been a few months, and there was a part of the show where I think it might have been during Freebird, actually, where they uh they had a PowerPoint. A powerpoint of all the people in the band that had died, and it was represented as candles. It was like 15, 20 people. It was like 22 or something, it was crazy. It was just kept going and going and going. Yeah. And um, so at the time, I was thinking, oh yeah, rock and roll is dead. Like these rockers are all dead. All the original guys and and women that created this form of music are no longer with us. So all we're doing now is just kind of replicating rock and roll, but we can never, like it'll never have a resurgence. That whatever it is, it's just hanging on.
SPEAKER_06Well, right, that that's an argument. That's another that is definitely an argument, and and it it comes down to how you define it. And again, I think it does have a lot to do with your age, right? I think that people like us, we want to hold on to it as long as we can.
SPEAKER_05I think that when we were growing up, we would have never even pictured a time though when we would even be asking this question that we always assume that rock would be the prevailing popular form of music. Um and um, but it's it's it's definitely aging. If it's not dead, it's aging. And I just can't picture a time when there's like a second act where what we traditionally knew as rock and roll is gonna make a a comeback. But I could be wrong about that.
SPEAKER_06Well, you know, there are occasionally these these records that come out. And I say records, that's not even a thing anymore, right? It's it's all ones and zeros at this point. But there are bands that put out a collection of songs that we'll call a record or an album or a CD or a cassette or an A-track or whatever you want to call it. Um, that sometimes they do go very much in the traditional vein of what rock and roll was. I'll give you a great example from probably 10 years ago, the band called Jet. Do you remember that band? No.
SPEAKER_05Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Are are you gonna be Are You Gonna Be My Girl? Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Sure. You don't need the money when you look at that to your money, very straight ahead, you know, three chords, uh, you know, drum bass guitar kind of thing. And and so I'm I'm always really impressed when I hear a band like that that can do it well. Because I think it's I don't think it's too hard to play songs like that, but it's hard to play songs like that that are new and sound fresh.
SPEAKER_05Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I think the white stripes did that, but that that's going on like 20 years ago now, right?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, that's true. I mean, if I I'm trying to think of a more recent Greta Van Fleet. Greta Van Fleet, yeah. That's a that's a good example of it.
SPEAKER_05So but but what do people say about Greta Van Fleet? That they sound like Gled Zeppelin, right? Yes, exactly.
SPEAKER_06So they always compare them to some other band that was around 20 years ago, 50 years ago.
SPEAKER_05There's a band called Inhaler now. Uh that's a cool band, but that's Bono's son. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, you actually told me about you told me about them when we were in Cleveland and I I played some stuff on Spotify and I like it.
SPEAKER_05It's amazing how much it sounds like old U2, though, right?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, so Alex, I guess before we go much further, I kind of want to interject um this little thing I have, and it is really when you talk about rock and roll as the overarching genre. Um I came up with 25 different subgenres of rock and roll. And I wanted to see what you thought. And if you were if you would be able to just um even throw in a couple of examples for a couple of these, um it'd be difficult to do every one. Although I think we could, but I think it would take a while. So we'll just we'll roll with sub genres. Uh number one, rock and roll. Number two, classic rock. Right? So, what would be a classic rock?
SPEAKER_05Well, or the time period, right? It amazes me how you could turn on classic rock now and they're playing grunge music. Right, right. When classic rock first came out was when grunge was new. So classic rock, I remember when I was a kid, there was a station that played only music from like the 50s. Right. And then classic rock expanded that to the 60s and 70s. I personally consider classic rock anything before 1980. And then if they're playing like the cars on a classic rock station, I think they've gone too too new.
SPEAKER_06Right, because the cars could be considered uh either pop rock or new wave. Sure. Uh we we said rock and roll, classic rock, hard rock, heavy metal. So, what do you think is the difference between hard rock and heavy metal? I think heavy metal has a very distinct sound. Um hard hard rock. To me, um, hard rock could be something like um trying to think of uh like I'd even say Ozzy Osbourne was more hard hard rock, and heavy metal would be more like um of course Metallica is the classic example of heavy metal. Got it. Like it's it's it's that double bass drum. There's indie rock, right? So indie rock was kind of a thing when we were in college, you know, college room.
SPEAKER_05And at the time they called it college rock.
SPEAKER_06Oh, yeah, I don't even have that on the list, but I was gonna say alternative rock too was another another version of that, right? There was indie rock. As a matter of fact, the radio station at the University of Texas, the the tagline was Austin's Alternative.
SPEAKER_05So I think REM would be indie rock or college rock, or alternative rock. And then, but I was gonna say the cure would be like alternative.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, but then there's also there's also um glam rock. That's definitely not the cure, although they did wear makeup. But uh be more the poisons of the world.
SPEAKER_05Uh there's country rock glam rock the same as hair metal.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah. Glam well, I see hair metal, that's a little bit of a different take on glam rock because glam rock to me was more poppy and hair metal more metal-y. So ban Bon Jovi would be hair rock and and Wasp would be um would be uh I'm sorry, Bon Jovi would be glam rock, and wasp would be uh country rock, of course. You know, there's there's there's a big country scene of you know, you got Wilco's kind of in that category, um punk rock, folk rock, you know, folk rock was a was a big thing in the 60s and 70s. So it's gonna be like Joan Baez, yeah. Crosby still is an ash. Yeah. Puff the magic dragon. That's Peter, Peter Paul, and Mary, right? Yeah, Peter Paul and Mary. Prog rock. Um would you call rush prog rock? They yes. I think they were at the time. I think now prog rock is more like uh Cambria and Koheed, or Coheed and Cambria. If you've heard those guys, they're very um prog. Yes. Yes, the band?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yes, the band, Emerson Lake and Palmer. That's all prog rock, right?
SPEAKER_06From from yes, the definition of it by by that time period. Punk rock, of course, is is one that we can clearly, you know, from the Sex Pistols on through to probably the 80s, the 90s. I feel like punk rock became more power pop later, like more of a stuff that they play on, you know, like Blink 182 and stuff like that. Do you think the Hall of Fame did a good job of presenting punk rock? I do actually. I was pleasantly surprised by that. Uh Art Rock? Oh, is that like talking heads, you think? Well, there's also psychedelic rock and new wave. Those all kind of fall, but yes, I think the talking heads could be considered art rock for sure. Uh surf, surf rock. So is that like the Beach Boys or is that like yellow card? I'd say both. I'd say both. And even even um, even what was you know, kind of the guitar, that surf guitar sound? Uh, what are some examples of Dick Dale? Dick Dale, yeah. I think that was surf rock. Yeah, like the pulp fiction uh stuff, right? Soundtrack. Yeah, we talked about grunge rock um a little bit back, you know, again into Nirvana and the flannel days.
SPEAKER_05How many years do you think that spanned?
SPEAKER_06Grunge Rock? Yeah, I'd say about eight, seven or eight, probably with with um all all those guys from Seattle, right? Um Stone Temple Pilots and uh Pearl Jam, I consider kind of grunge rock. Sure, sure. Blues rock, blues uh blues rock.
SPEAKER_05So this would be like John Lee Hooker and uh and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, uh Alabama Shakespeare Shakespeare, that's a good example, and um G Love, G Love and Special Sauce. Sure, blues rock, rockabilly, you know, straight cap stuff. Uh Garage Rock. So I don't know where garage rock falls in with all of this. Garage Rock? Yeah, like you know, stuff that sounds very DIY produced in the garage.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so give me an example of that.
SPEAKER_06Uh well, I think that's like the Ramones, is that garage rock? The Ramones would be well, kind of in there with indie rock, punk rock, and garage rock. But yes, and I was gonna say that band jet, you know, that we were talking about earlier, that sounds very a lot of distortion, yeah. And just sounds a little bit underproduced, lo-fi kind of sound. Southern rock, of course, we were talking about Skinnerd earlier. Sure, sure. Pop rock, is that a is pop rock a thing, do you think?
SPEAKER_05Uh so that's a good question. Once it becomes Pac, is pop, is it still rock? Yeah, or does it take away its credentials? Are you getting Rick rolled at that point? Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Uh soft.
SPEAKER_05I mean, are the foo fa the foo fighters? Are they rock or are they pop rock?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, that's or indie rock. I mean, they're not indie rock, they're they're mainstream as as can be, but um but yeah, are they pop rock or indie rock?
SPEAKER_05I mean some would say that all this stuff starts off at one of those, and then the minute the mainstream hits it, or it gets produced or like you say, overproduced, or played in a commercial, in a in a uh Affleck commercial.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, that's good. Uh Soft Rock and Yacht Rock. Now you've heard of Yacht Rock, right?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's becoming a resurgence. There's a band out there called Yachtly Crew. Have you ever heard of that?
SPEAKER_06No, but I I actually know a guy who's in a band called Yahtzee. That's uh they're yacht yacht rock.
SPEAKER_05I actually hate that kind of music. I really I can't stand it. Not even ironically, I don't like listening.
SPEAKER_06So so the question though is you know, if you think about yacht rock and soft rock, um, they're a little different because I think yacht rock is a little more braggy. It's a little more like um, it's almost like you know how rappers like to rap about chains and money.
SPEAKER_05So this would be like Christopher Cross, yeah, and uh Michael McDonald.
SPEAKER_06Michael McDonald, 100%. Um Novelty Rock. Now I'm thinking of the stuff like they'd play on Dr. Demento, you know, sure.
SPEAKER_05Weird owl, the king of that kind of music, right?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, disco duck. Disco duck, Rick D's in his cast of idiots. That was the disco duck.
SPEAKER_05So is disc disco, is that one of your subgenres?
SPEAKER_06No, no, I can't say that disco is a type of rock, I don't think. Okay, okay. Um, and then the last one I had was although although I will say that there's bands like L C D Sound System, right? Have you ever heard them? Um, they have kind of a dancy kind of vibe going on. MGMT. Yeah, or uh car seat headrest. Very, very dancey kind of rock music, but still with guitar and distortion. And then I just put modern rock. I don't really know what modern rock means, but I'd had to get 25, so that was my 25th.
SPEAKER_05Modern rock, would that be like in excess?
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_05Modern rock from 30 years ago. That's the they probably did call it modern rock.
SPEAKER_06Here's the funny thing about in excess is I was um a moderate fan in high school and college when they were when they were really big, and I have to say I've become a much bigger fan today. Yeah, I I really, really appreciate in excess. And it's funny because they were not very well represented at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. No, not at all. No, it's funny neither was you two, really, that much.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's funny when we left there that night we were talking about hey, I didn't see any of this band. Or yeah, yeah. Uh yeah, they there's definitely some that are almost overrepresented, right? They everywhere you turn, you see stuff from some of They had a huge Beatles thing going on. Um that was more of an exhibit, though, and they and probably they should be.
SPEAKER_06Um I want to I want to talk about Beatles for a second if we can. Sure. Have you ever heard there's another type of music that I want to ask you if you ever heard of? Have you ever heard of Skiffle? No. It's a type of music or a band? No, it's a type of music, a genre.
SPEAKER_05I know ska, but I don't know skiffle.
SPEAKER_06No, skiffle, skiffle was from the early 19 or early half first half of the 20th century. Um, it was originally formed in the US, and it was had a lot of influence from folk music, uh, blues, country, bluegrass, jazz, and it was a very lo-fi, very DIY kind of early form of music because they used things like wash tubs and jug jugs, you know, the boom boom boom to play the bass line, uh, washboards to do the to do the um, you know, kind of whatever that thing is called, scraping on the washboard, uh, homemade guitars, banjos. Um, that was skiffle. And it was actually one of these things that was popular in the early 20th century, first half of the 20th century in the US, and then had a huge following in England during the 1950s. And actually, there was a guy named Lonnie Donnegan who was pretty famous, had a few hits in Skiffle called like one called Does Your Chewing Gum Love It's Lose Its Flavor?
SPEAKER_05Oh, on the bedpost overnight.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah. I know that sound. That was that was Lonnie Donnegan, who was a skiffle, a skiffle artist in in England, an English skiffle artist. Well, guess who else had a skiffle band back then? You in the 50s. Oh, in the 50s. Uh who? John Lennon. No kidding. His his first band was called the Quarrymen. They were kind of a skiffle band. They played with a banjo that was tuned like a guitar, or maybe it was a guitar that was tuned like a banjo. Yeah, I think it was actually the second thing because I think John Lennon originally learned to play the banjo, and but he couldn't play the guitar, but then he tuned his four top four strings of his guitar like a banjo and could play it. And the banjo is, I think, five-string instrument, right? Okay, okay. Well, I think you can tune a banjo like a guitar, but you can't necessarily tune a guitar like a banjo. So uh, but yeah, he was in a skiffle band called the Quarrymen, and then of course they changed their name to the Beatles, and one of the one of the reasons they picked the name the Beatles, do you know why? No. And of course it's B-E-A-T, so it's a little play on the word, like beat. Um yeah, it was a tribute or a nod to the crickets, Buddy Holly's crickets.
SPEAKER_05Oh, really? Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_06Buddy Holly from Lubbock, Texas. From Lubbock, Texas, yeah. Lots of people, lots of uh famous Texans on this show. Um and so the quarrymen became the Beatles, you know, it was B-E-A-T, and that kind of leads me into this idea that rock and roll has a few common elements, or at least it did, and one of them was was rhythm, right? And and that was something that was different than like Big Band or some of the swing or boogie woogie. Well, boogie woogie had rhythm, but but do you know what I'm saying? It was like one of the first things to have that strong infectious beat.
SPEAKER_05Was that a beat that was like punctuated by heavy drums or something? I mean, every every song has rhythm to it.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah, but uh, but if you think about if you think about the rhythm section of a big band or a quartet, you know, like a string quartet, or even an orchestra, it's not as pronounced. Okay. For for me, rock and roll has certain elements, and one of them is a beat. And and and all of those, all of those genres we went through, all 25 that we talked about a minute ago, from prog rock to country rock to blues rock to rock ability, they all have that beat, I would say is a common factor.
SPEAKER_05All right.
SPEAKER_06And then a hook, that was the other thing.
SPEAKER_05Oh, of course, a hook, yeah.
SPEAKER_06The song the song's gotta have a good hook so that you know when you when you hear uh paint it black or the winds of change or nothing else matters, like that little part of the song sticks in your head. That's the um that's the earworm part.
SPEAKER_05I think though prog rock doesn't have that. Like if some of those genres I think are marked by the fact that they don't have a hook. That it's different kind of music, like prog rock or art rock. Um, I mean, there's some there's some uh rush songs that don't have a hook.
SPEAKER_06Okay.
SPEAKER_05So so um maybe that's what turns it into more of a pop thing.
SPEAKER_06Well, or more of a hit, right? Maybe that's why Tom Sawyer is such a such a big hit or spirit of radio was such a big hit because because of the hook. Whereas the trees didn't have a hook. Yeah. Interesting. And boy, when you start googling, you know, best best or worst rock songs of all time, uh there's lots of hate for the trees by Russ. Oh, yeah, really? Yeah. I love that song personally, but I think the worst rock song of all time is We Built the City on Oh, dude, you just stole my thunder because I have a list, and that is that is the worst. I don't think they get any worse. Yeah, okay. Well, that was that was too obvious, but I've got some others we'll talk about. Um but yeah, as far as as far as those things go, um, and then the other thing that's probably more traditional, especially back in the days of you know, Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly and Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry and you know, those guys was the solo. There was there was always a little instrument solo, right? And and and that's another Usually a guitar, usually electric guitar and yeah, but it could be a keyboard or a piano or a bass. I mean it it it it really just kind of followed that uh chorus, uh verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, cur, verse, chorus formula, or whatever that formula was, right? Okay. All of that said, for me, I agree that you know what you said earlier about rock and roll has been declining in in recent years in terms of popularity, but there's a lot of other genres, uh genres that didn't exist. Hip hop didn't exist before the 70s, right? With the Sugar Hill gang and some of those original um bands. And I think that's really kind of either become one of those streams that's flowed into the river of rock and roll, or it's become a current that's taken water out of the rock and roll river and diverted it, right? And that's kind of that's kind of how you look at it. But um, there's there's really four things that I see as future of rock and roll trends. And and uh one of them is increased diversity. You know, rock and roll was very much um well, white males, but as you said, uh taken from black music, right? And so white and black males were initially the the first big rock people, and then of course there were a lot of girl bands, but nobody knew their names, right? They knew the Chevelles or they knew the Supremes, or they knew, but very off very few, you know, with the exception of like Tina Turner and people like that, did people actually know the names of those girl bands, would you say? Sure, sure.
SPEAKER_05Uh next girl, they weren't even bands, they were girls, girls, girl singers, singers, right?
SPEAKER_06They weren't they weren't playing the instruments to yeah, until the go-go's hit. Right, yeah. Uh technology. So integrating technology into rock and roll. If you think about all the things that were going on during the 60s, you know, after after rock and roll switched over from just the traditional, you know, guitar, bass, and drums, you started adding synthesizer. And a really great example of that that I think um is still being used today in in terms of um, you know, sampling and looping and different synthesized types of music started with a song called Baba O'Reilly by The Who. Love that song. I do too. And did you know that that was originally going to be called Not Going to Get Us Any More? No, I did not know that. Was the original title. And and do you know that it was named after a um spiritual leader?
SPEAKER_05No, I didn't I never knew who what that song had to do with, and they never say the Bob O'Reilly in this song. I think a lot of people think the song's called Teenage Wasteland.
SPEAKER_06Correct. Yeah, that's the that's the hook, right? Is Teenage Wasteland. So there was a guy named Meher Uh Baba, who was a spiritual master from India, and you remember in the 60s, you know, the Beatles and the Who, and a lot of these rock people were looking for spiritual enlightenment. You know, it was one of the things that sometimes got associated, especially with hippies and rock. Meher Baba was an Indian spiritual master that Pete Townsend subscribed to and was really inspired by. And then there was a minimalist composer named Terry Riley who used repeating repeated patterns to create this sort of hypnotic and meditative music. And so Baba O'Reilly was a tribute to both those guys. Interesting.
SPEAKER_05Well, I think the at the rock hall, they um they have a whole category called early influences, right? There's there's only about 40 people that have been inducted this way, but these are people that had their early influence, and one of those, speaking of technology, one of those that got in was craft work. Oh, yeah, yes, and it's funny because craft work is an early influence, and you go through the early influence section, and it's all these old-time, mostly black artists from the 1940s, um, the muddy waters type of uh of folks, and then craft work at the end, but they definitely had that technology early in the world.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah, they were they were using technology that no one else had used. And do you know, do you remember their song? It's actually I have a list of some of the longest rock songs of all time, and this is on the list. Do you remember that song that was one of their longest?
SPEAKER_05No, I craft work. I'm not huge on their catalog, I don't know a lot of that. Autobahn. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_06Is that the one that's uh barn farn out being auto barn?
SPEAKER_05I think you used to sing that in high school.
SPEAKER_06So so my dad had that record, and the song basically, I think the limit for one side of a record was like 23 minutes, and this song was 22 minutes and 43 seconds. So it took up the entire side, but it had it had the you know, the Doppler shift when when uh when a car goes by that sound effect. We've talked about that before. Um that sound is throughout it, and sounds of a freeway and sounds of a synthesizer, and and sort of sampled voices repeated again and again was something that Kraftwork did way before anybody else was doing it. They had another song called Computer World that was like that. But yeah, technology, and then I had two others on that list, and and then I'll then we can move on because I know I've sort of hijacked this episode. Um, globalization, and that's really, you know, other countries besides the United States where rock and roll sort of originated starting to have their own take on things, right? So, you know, if you think of Bollywood and and uh but but Bollywood as the movie version of that um globalization of Hollywood, there's rock bands all over the world that are singing in their native language and that are playing maybe traditional instruments in a rock and roll kind of um style or formula for the songs.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's definitely that's definitely true. In fact, that there's a Cambodian band that um that I got turned on to um uh uh a while back as part of a a musical that I watched, so it's that's really good. Um yeah, that's that's all really interesting on how you how you phrase uh so that's your categorization of what rock and roll, how it's evolved.
SPEAKER_06Well, these are just the things that the trends that have been going on, and then there's there's a fourth one, and that is subgenres, right? And so if if you think about rock and roll like we like we started with those 25 sub-genres, um if you think about rock and roll as an overarching thing, and then these subgenres fall under it, then that makes a little more sense to say, okay, it's still rock and roll. Um, you know, like Billy Joel says, everybody's talking about the new sound honey, but it's still rock and roll to me. It gets funny, not honey.
SPEAKER_05Oh, is it is everybody's talking about the new sound funny? New sound funny, but it's still rock and roll to me.
SPEAKER_06Oh, that's a little okay, that makes more sense. I thought he was like just talking to talking to his honey.
SPEAKER_05And you know how I know that is because records used to have on the sleeve, they used to have all the lyrics. And yeah, memorize all the lyrics to these songs. That's another thing that doesn't happen anymore.
SPEAKER_06Another thing about records that I don't know if I think you knew or were aware of this, but if you picked up a record and then you held it kind of sideways and you looked on the inside, like where after the grooves finished, where where the records where the needle would kind of like just go to to skip or you know get automatically put back, there'd be writing. Have you ever noticed that? No. So a lot of records uh would have something written in there. It would have a little um uh or a little etching of some words. And so you had to hold the record just at an angle and then look in that center space and it would say something.
SPEAKER_05You know, that's probably a whole other conversation, but I don't think that yeah, obviously that'll never come back because, like you said, music is just ones and zeros these days. But something that will never come back is the idea of physically holding on to a record and having that be your record that you just you know, and when we were kids, I remember you save up for a record, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, like it was like eight bucks for a for vinyl, and then CDs were like 12.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, imagine paying 12 bucks for 10 songs.
SPEAKER_06So, so but do you really think that's true? Because it seems like it seems like at least vinyl is coming back, and and it's it's niche, but kids kids aren't buying vinyl. Hmm. You think it's old people?
SPEAKER_05I don't think people our kids' age have any sense of owning any music. Music is just out there to be accessed, just like you know, any any kind of natural resource that it's just out there and you uh you stream it on whatever platform, but you own if you subscribe to something, you win all the music, and you can play all the music, and you and that's an awesome like if somebody would have told us that that when we were younger that that was our future, we would have loved it. But as old people, we we have the right to lament what we missed about that. I'm sure we're romanticizing. I mean, who wants to pay 12 bucks for 10 songs? That's stupid. But there was something about sitting in your room and putting on the record that you just bought and right, right?
SPEAKER_06Pulling off that plastic, that layer of plastic, and being really careful to get the sleeve out and holding it so that you held the edge with your thumb and the center with your finger, but you didn't touch the record itself.
SPEAKER_05Such a tactile experience, right? And then you just sit there and you listen to it, and you wouldn't just listen to it once and then go listen to something else. You would play that record, your new record. You'd play it at least 10 times before you left your room.
SPEAKER_06I remember playing uh the first side of um Deaf Leopard's Pyromania like 50 times in a row. I I yeah, it was like I just thought I thought Photograph was such a great song, but there were so many other great songs on that, and and that was just one side. And then I was like, okay.
SPEAKER_05The way we're romanticizing it, even a cassette tape didn't do it for me. You know what I mean? Like, there's just something about the record itself. Yeah, I remember in my PE class when I was in middle school, they only had three records.
SPEAKER_06It was for for for square dancing, they would just play it.
SPEAKER_05No, just like we were like open gym, and they would play, and it was one of those record players that came out of the wall in a gym. Yeah, and uh they would play the three records, and anytime I hear a song from any of these three records, I just it takes me back to PE in junior high. It was Journey Escape. Oh, yeah. It was uh Fleetwood Mac Rumors and Ozzie Osborne Um Um Howl at the Moon. Bark at the Moon. Bark at the Moon. Yeah, Ozzie Osborne Bark at the Moon. Yeah, those three records, and it would just like cycle through those three, and those always give me the feels.
SPEAKER_06Um when I those those those were your gym teacher having more impact on your life than he or she realized, right? Seriously, man. So do you do you have a record player?
SPEAKER_05No, no, no, and but what I was gonna say is you know you we romanticized the the little pops of the record, but do you also remember the first time you ever heard a CD and how amazing it was? Oh yeah, and how you can just push a button and skip right to the next song, and it sounds so clear and fresh, and you know, so I mean these all have to do with memories. Um, I don't know. You you recommend that a young person listen to a record to me, they might think, well, what's the big deal? This thing sounds dirty and scratchy, and why would you want to listen to music this way? It's like the difference between candlelight and the light bulb. Yeah, I mean, I think maybe it's also maybe the difference between uh listening to something that's produced versus something live. You know, it just sounds more authentic if it's live, and it sounds more maybe there's something about a record that just sounds grittier and um I don't know, like like watching um film versus video or something too, you know.
SPEAKER_06You know, you know, it's interesting you mentioned live recordings. Um I've always found it interesting that there's a couple of big hit songs that only the the only big hit version is the live version. Cheap Trick, I want you to want me. Yes, yes. I was thinking of that one. And you mentioned earlier KISS, uh, rock and roll all night, right? And party. Okay, yeah. Uh that that's that's live as well.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. And it seemed like back in the day a lot of the live albums were double albums, too. You get you get two records, and that was such a bonus. Usually were about the same price or a little maybe a couple bucks more, but it was definitely a value.
SPEAKER_06So, so I I had Exit Stage Left by Rush um live. And I so the first Rush record I had was Moving Pictures, and then I got Exit Stage Left, and I learned a lot of the songs, a lot of the classic Rush songs from that Exit Stage Left album. And then when I actually heard the original recording of them, like Spirit of Radio, let's say that's the first song on Exit Stage Left, which was a live version, and he's Getty Lee starts off by saying, This is the spirit of radio. And then I heard the recorded version of it, and it was hard to get used to. It was like I expected Getty Lee to scream something at the beginning. I expected to hear the crowd going wild. I expected to hear, you know, all the things that were on the live recording. It's kind of funny how it hardwires your brain to associate that song. Um now, of course, I love their I love the um permanent waves version of that song, but I can't say that when I first heard it, I loved it because I was like, it doesn't sound like the live version.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, that's funny. I felt the same way about uh um Led Zeppelin, the song remains the same. Um this is from a movie actually, but it's a live uh recording, and I like some of those songs better just because of the little ad libs that they they put in that in that song. Yeah, when I hear the um the studio version, I like to like put in my own little comment. You you ad lib it. Yeah. Does anyone remember laughter?
SPEAKER_06He says that so um I I just read an article yesterday about Roger Waters. Did you see this article about how he had a concert and people walked out because he spent the first 30 minutes talking about his pets and reading notes from his texts and stuff like that?
SPEAKER_05No, but it reminds me of the story about you going to the cake show.
SPEAKER_06Oh, yeah. You know, I'll just tell it real quick. Cake, Cake is a great band, but I saw them live, took my kids, you know, and all my kids, they know a few songs. They wanted to hear Let Me Go. They wanted to hear um I think it's called Guitar or My Guitar. Um, they wanted to hear, of course, distance, go in the distance and short, short, long jacket, long jacket. They didn't play any of those. They just rattled on about a bunch of stuff. And politically, I actually agreed with every word they said, but I didn't want to hear it at a concert. It was it was awful.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, the worst thing that somebody can say at a concert is uh this is from our new record.
SPEAKER_06So so my buddy Chris actually went to see Billy Joel. He and his wife went to New York and they went to see Billy Joel, and uh he actually said, I used to play stuff from my new records, but I don't write anything new anymore, so I'm just gonna play the hits. And everybody went crazy. Oh wow. Interesting. Yeah, he just kind of you know said, All right, I know what people want to hear. And of course, Billy Joel's got enough hits to last forever. So um, so so we mentioned a little while ago about uh kind of technology, and I think one of the other things about rock and roll that is really ingrained, at least it has been in the past, although I don't know if it's still um the case or not, is rock and roll being associated with social and cultural change.
SPEAKER_05Oh, definitely. Um more so back in the day than now, but sure, yeah.
SPEAKER_06So you think you think that's still a uh sort of attribute of rock and roll is that you know, something like for what it's worth by Buffalo Springfield, for example.
SPEAKER_00There's something happening here, but what it is ain't exactly clear.
SPEAKER_05I think that I've been disappointed that in the last 15 years that rock and roll hasn't taken that mantle. I remember in 2016 thinking, oh, there's surely gonna be a song, and surely rockers are gonna start coming up with all this, you know, stuff to to talk about how ridiculous everything is, and they never really did. I was I'm disappointed that um you know that only hip hop has anything to ever say about social justice or anything anymore that rock, and maybe this is one of the arguments for rock being dead, is that they don't do that anymore. Like there are no like anti-establishment songs anymore outside of hip-hop since Rage the Machine, Rage Against the Machine, like they were the last.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah. Uh I agree on the surface. I guess you know, if you're thinking about it though, do we actually um critically listen to enough new stuff to actually say that with confidence?
SPEAKER_05But some of the songs that you're talking about, those were like hit songs. Now, maybe that's because the baby boomers, there were so many of them, like we were talking about.
SPEAKER_06Oh, I mean, yeah, protest songs and I mean Sunday Bloody Sunday, right? Think about that song. You know, that was about a massacre uh in Ireland.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, but that was 45 years ago.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah. But but but you're right, you know, it's you you wonder, or maybe there's just too many atrocities in the world these days, you know. It's like they can't, we can't, there's not one we can focus on. There's so many going on.
SPEAKER_05But hip hop does a great job of pointing that stuff out, you know?
SPEAKER_06100% agree. And I love you know, I love that stuff. I love I love when Public Enemy talks about that. I love when um KRS1 talks about that, you know. I mean, I guess I'm talking about older, older hip-hop.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and we mentioned Rage Against the Machine too. So yeah, yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_06And they're pretty they're pretty genre-bending, you know, talking about Rage Against the Machine because they did have a sort of yeah, rap and funk kind of element to their lyrics and to the cadence of their music. And of course, Tom Morello's guitar playing is just, you know, very innovative, totally different than anything people had heard before. Shreds, for sure. And that and that's one of those things where you go back to technology, right? He's breaking ground with a new style of guitar that no one had really done or heard of before, you know, just like just like Pete Downson did with that keyboard at the beginning of Bob O'Reilly, you know. For sure. Well, you you and I talked a minute ago about Autobahn by craft work being 22 minutes long, almost an entire, well, an entire side of a record. Um, do you know? I I was looking for the longest rock song of all time. Um, the doors had the end, which was 1143. What about and it got a Davita? Yes, uh Iron Butterfly.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it was like 27 minutes or something like that. They say that the radio DJs used to put that on so they could go like when they had errands. If they had errands to run, they would just go uh and they would go put that song on.
SPEAKER_06There was a two-minute and fifty-two second, 45 RPM version of that song, but the album version was 17 minutes. 17 minutes? Huh? Yeah. Which doesn't seem that long compared to uh Kraftworks 22 minutes. Yeah. But here's the one that blows them all away. And and I'm gonna I'm gonna give you an opportunity to guess who did it. It's a band you would expect to do something like this. It's a band that has was pretty relevant during our college days and is still fairly relevant today. And they had one kind of hit about using jelly. She don't use jelly. She don't use cheese, she don't use napkins or any of these. She uses Vaseline. You don't know that song? Who's that? It's the flaming lips. Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, yeah, you that would make sense that they would have uh a long so they have a song called Seven Skies H3, and it is uh 1,440 minutes long, um which is 24 hours. They have a video for that? It's a 24 hour song. So so uh they they when did they release this? Uh I don't uh oh oh it was April of 2014. They had a 50-minute version that they released on a CD because I think again, CDs were limited to um how long they could be 15-minute data they could get. Or bridged version. But then they then they had this 24-hour version. The original uh 24-hour version was sold in a limited edition. They had 13 copies, and they sold them in a flash drive encased in a real human skull. Oh, nice. And each each one was five thousand dollars. Did they record it in one take? No, it says it was actually recorded in uh takes ranging from 25 minutes to seven hours. So that's not impressive.
SPEAKER_05It would be impressive if they just recorded it.
SPEAKER_06If they'd done 24 hours, yeah. Uh well, longest the longest song, 24-hour song. Do you remember that song uh by um Lionel Richie All Night Long? Yes. Have you ever seen uh Good Mythical Morning or um Rhett and Link? Have you ever seen Rhett and Link? No. So they did a thing where they actually uh did all night long, they played that on a continuous loop and they walked around a city all night long just singing that chorus over and over for tw all night long, like from from you know 6 p.m. till 6 a.m. or something.
SPEAKER_05Does that launch somebody into the art rock category once they do something like that? Yeah, I think so. So flaming lips.
SPEAKER_06Actually, actually, I'd say they were more the um uh novelty rock. No, I'm talking about the flaming lips. Oh, yeah, that's a good question. Because like she don't use jelly. Do you know the song I'm talking about? Yeah, now that you say it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, so that song, I you know, it was kind of a goofy song and a little bit novelty. Like I could see Dr. Demento playing that, but but at the same time, very musically really good. And and it wasn't a parody, it was an original song. So I don't know if it's art rock, novelty rock, or just alternative rock or indie rock. I mean, you know, how do you categorize the flaming lips? That's a good question. Wimp rock, limp rock, sell it to a pimp rock, it's still Billy Joel to me. That's a that's a line from a uh Weird Owl song. Yeah, okay called It's Still Billy Joel to me. So you mentioned earlier worst worst songs of all time, and you already kind of blew the blew the surprise by saying we built this city by Jefferson Starship was the worst. Uh, what are some of your other least favorite or just that you feel like deserve the moniker of worst rock song of all time?
SPEAKER_05I mean, that's the one that that comes to my head. It's just uh an earworm in the worst way that it's one of those that you don't want to to be in your in your head. I would think um yeah, that that's that's the one I can think of. What else you got?
SPEAKER_06Well, I I put a list of 10 together, and I'm not saying these are the worst songs, but these are, in my opinion, really awful songs that were very popular.
SPEAKER_05You might insult me on some of these.
SPEAKER_06I I might, I might insult a lot of people, but uh one of them was Sleeping Bag by Z Top. Oh, yeah, that's a bad song. It just it's just like you've got this blues rock band that is so well respected. And they would probably agree with you too. Dude Looks Like a Lady by Aerosmith.
SPEAKER_05That's a terrible song. And uh I would add to that uh the one about uh is it Janie Got a Gun?
SPEAKER_06I actually like that song.
SPEAKER_05Really? No, I no, you're you're right though. That's uh anything like that era, Aerosmith.
SPEAKER_06Well, Love in an elevator, that was a pretty bad song, too. All that stuff is so bad. But dude looks like a lady. That just that just is, you know, with pronunciation everything now. Well, yeah. And then and then there was this song that was really popular, you know, a lot of people just thought it was the great alternative rock song, you know, kind of yeah, stick it to the man. Epic by Faith No More.
SPEAKER_05Oh, yeah. No, no, um Faith No More, like they're one of those bands that you thought had potential. Like they were they had the look and they had like the kind of music that we were just talking about, but yeah, it just fell a little bit short.
SPEAKER_06Um, Hip to Be Square by Huey Lewis in the news.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's a bad spot. This is a great list.
SPEAKER_06I love this list. I used to work for a guy, he owned a small company that I worked at, and he loved Huey Lewis, and he he played that one. And I think Huey Lewis had a song called A Couple Days Off. And you know, whenever we had finished a big project, he'd say, All right, it's time for a couple days off, and he'd play it. Uh okay. This is one that probably could almost rival We Built This City on rock and roll. Uh, it is Highway to the Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins.
SPEAKER_05That that is known as the Top Gun uh song, though. Yeah, that's that's Lord. In fact, in the new in the new Top Gun movie, I think they play that song, like or a little, like at least uh little echoes of that of that song.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, it just Kenny Loggins. I mean, just I mean, Footloose was not even that great of a song, but it was a big hit.
SPEAKER_05But Kenny Loggins dominates those yacht rock uh stations too, you know. Yeah, from his earlier stuff. Yeah, but it went when it's he got a little harder. Yeah, that was that's a rough, yeah. That's a great list.
SPEAKER_06So I got well, I got three more, and they're all from bands. Oh no, no, no, wait. Yeah, I've three. I I have four more. Let me let me start with this one, um, and then I'll and then the other three all have something in common. So this one is the final countdown by Europe.
SPEAKER_05I don't hate that song, and they play that song a lot in sports venues. It was written for that.
SPEAKER_06You think? Oh, yeah. I think I think so many. Do you know that song They're Coming to America by Neil Diamond? Yeah, that's a bad thing. You know, he wrote that just to be in in fireworks shows. Oh yeah. Or drone shows as it is today. Yeah. Uh I don't hate that uh that Europe songs. Final countdown.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_06Okay. Uh well here's my last three. And these three all come from artists that I actually have a lot of respect for and generally like, but I think these were big misses by all of them. First of all, Steve Miller with Abracadabra.
SPEAKER_05Oh, yeah. Yeah. Not not like anything else that Steve Miller ever did. That's great. Reach out and grab you. Bad lyrics, um, just off brand for him. Uh, yeah, not a great song.
SPEAKER_06With that sound effect in it, too. Yeah, very eighteen. Yeah. Uh dido-doo-doo, did da da da by the police. Oh, yeah. I mean, what? I love the police, but that one, that one, and then of course, this one is another one that didn't age well. Um, because it pretty much seems homophobic these days, but it's Money for Nothing by Dire Straits. I never liked that song to begin with, and I like it even less now. The album Brothers in Arms, which is what that was on, is is actually a great album, song for song, with the exception of that song.
SPEAKER_05And Sting is on that song too. So Sting made your list twice. Yeah, and and you know what, Sting's got more. Like if you were to expand that list.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I mean, like set them free. Uh, you know, if you love somebody, set them free. Ugh.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's yeah, it's I'm not a hu I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan. I like some of the older police stuff. Um I think Rock and Hall of Fame. Uh I believe so. It seems like somebody that Rockin' Hall of Fame would like, but um but I've let's see, I've got the list here. You think the police this guy they've gotta be, right? Yeah Class of 2003. Okay. So yeah, they were they Yeah, they deserve it.
SPEAKER_06I mean, no, I I love the police. I love Dire Straits. I love Mark Knopfler. Um you know, and again, if you if you think Dire Straits is just money for nothing, then then you're missing a lot because they have so many great, great songs.
SPEAKER_05Well, and if you think that Jefferson Starship is more than you know, I mean they were they were when they were they jumped the shark with that one. When they were Jefferson Airplane, you know, they were part of that counterculture kind of hippie music.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And they were more like a jam band, like The Grateful Dead or something back then, too. I think. Great slick, right? Man, they they really jumped the shark with that one though. Yeah. And I'm sure they have more. Another band like that that uh used to be good, but then as soon as they got overproduced, uh to me is Heart. And um What About Love and that kind of music. I just that that's yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_06If you listen to the the riff, the guitar riff and Barracuda.
SPEAKER_05Oh my god, Barracuda is is awesome.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_05But uh What About Love, you can you can have that one, Kelly.
SPEAKER_06But yeah. And and also again, breaking the mold with uh female lead and female guitarist, you know. Um well, so what have we learned? We've been talking for over an hour about this. Uh and we haven't even gotten to my part.
SPEAKER_05So you told me to to take this one. You took it. So maybe this is two episodes. Maybe, honestly, maybe this is two episodes.
SPEAKER_06Well, okay, well, why don't I apologize for taking over and then oh yeah, we didn't even play your clips. No.
SPEAKER_05Um that's what I'm saying. I have a whole bunch of stuff. I loved everything we've done so far. And this is predictable, right? Well, we should have known this is gonna happen. But so I don't hate anything that we did, but I think we have other fun stuff to do too.
SPEAKER_06Okay, well, why don't I apologize for taking over? No apology necessary. So, Alex, you know, we've talked a lot about uh about rock and roll, we've talked a lot about different types of rock and roll, all the different genres. We've talked about technology and diversity and subgenres and bands that have jumped the shark with horrible songs and uh what skiffle was and all kinds of stuff. Um but I don't think we've really established if rock and roll is dead or not.
SPEAKER_05Do you think I think I need to think about it some more.
SPEAKER_06Well, then why don't we come back in two weeks and do a part two to this episode? I think we need to do that. Okay. Well, that said, uh listen, everybody, if you enjoyed this, please, please send us a quick note uh to not at dirt nap city and let us know your favorite rock song. Let us know if you think rock and roll is dead, and let us know what Alex should talk about in two weeks.
SPEAKER_05Tell us your least favorite songs. I'm sure we've missed a bunch. Once you started talking about those bad songs, I just started thinking about a lot of bad songs.
SPEAKER_06I'm glad Sleeping Bag was on your list too.
SPEAKER_05There's whole radio stations that they play at the dentist office that all they do is play those bad songs.
SPEAKER_06That's that's so your mouth will be a gape the whole time so they can work on your teeth, right? They're just like, ah, what? Yeah. All right, guys. See you next time. This was fun. We'll see you next time. Until then, rock on.
unknownI wanna rock!
