Charlie Watts et al. – "Night Train" (2019)

 Soon after learning that Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts had died on August 24, I decided to do a series of 2 or 3 lines posts looking back on his career.

I sent e-mails to a number of friends and acquaintances who I thought might have something interesting to say about Watts or the Stones that I might be able to turn into a post.  Any topic that was somewhat Stones-related would be fine, I told them, and it didn’t have to be long – even a few paragraphs would be enough.  I would take it from there.

Charlie Watts in 2019

Almost all of them agreed to send me something.  I didn’t nag them as the dates I had reserved for my tribute-to-Charlie series of posts approached – I didn’t want to be a noodge.

So how many guest contributions did I receive?  Exactly zero.  

In other words, nada . . . zilch . . . zip . . . diddly-squat . . . bupkis . . . bugger-all.  (I could go on, but you get the idea.)

No matter.  What I have to say is likely much more interesting than anything that my guest posters would have come up with.

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It’s common for rock ’n’ roll drummers to play a steady stream of eighth notes on the hi-hat and strike the snare drum on the “backbeats” – that is, on the second and fourth beats of each 4/4 measure.  (Most drummers will also hit the bass drum on the first and third beats.)

But Charlie Watts rarely hit the hi-hat and snare at the same time.  From the February 1990 issue of Modern Drummer magazine:

One thing [famous session drummer Jim] Keltner pointed out to Charlie was his habit of coming off the hi-hat with his right hand whenever he would hit a backbeat with his left. “I was never conscious of it until Jim mentioned it,” Charlie comments. “But I do it a lot. I’ve noticed it on videos, and it actually annoys me to see myself doing it. It really comes, I think, from coming down heavy on the backbeat. I don’t use that [matched] grip that Ringo uses. I did for a few years, because I thought it was popular.  But then I was told to go back to the other way by Ian Stewart, who used to set up my drums.  He virtually ordered me to go back to what he called ‘the proper way of playing'” Charlie laughs.  “So I went back to the military grip, and I really do prefer it, but because of the amount you ride on the hi-hat, I suppose I got into the habit of pulling the other stick out of the way to get a louder sound.”

Click here to see an interview of Keltner, who says the first drummer to use this technique was Levon Helm of The Band.

Jim Keltner and Charlie Watts

Click here to see a video of the Stones playing “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.”  Note how Watts hits the hi-hat with his right hand, then pulls it back each time he hits the snare with his left hand.

Click here to watch a video of a drum instructor demonstrating Watts’s technique.  The drummer in the video speculates that Watts may have begun to play this way when the Stones got louder, and he needed to strike the snare louder to really accentuate the backbeats – which required him to pull his hi-hat hand back so he had space to raise his left hand higher to hit the snare drum harder.

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Watts used very different drumming techniques when he played jazz, of course.

Click here to watch a 2019 video of the 77-year-old Watts playing Duke Ellington’s “Night Train” along with saxophonist Scott Hamilton, pianist John Pearce, and bassist Dave Green – who was a childhood chum of Charlie. 

Tim Ries – "Honky Tonk Women" (2008)

In his 2019 book, Sympathy for the Drummer: Why Charlie Watts Matters, Mike Edison described the late Rolling Stones drummer, Charlie Watts, as being “something like the straight man in a British sitcom, the sympathetic glue between the druggy, heavily armed, piratelike guitar player and the gender-bending lead singer.”

Watts, Richards, and Jagger in 1987

One night in 1984, Watts got so fed up with that gender-bending lead singer that he slugged him in the jaw.  Here’s Keith Richards’ account of that incident:

We were in Amsterdam for a meeting, Mick and I weren’t on great terms at the time but I said c’mon, let’s go out.  And I lent him the jacket I got married in.  We got back to the hotel about five in the morning and Mick called up Charlie.  I said, “Don’t call him, not at this hour.”  But he did, and said, “Where’s my drummer?”  No answer.  He puts the phone down.  Mick and I were still sitting there pretty pissed – give Mick a couple of glasses, he’s gone – when about 20 minutes later there was a knock at the door.

There was Charlie Watts, Savile Row suit, perfectly dressed . . . I could smell the cologne!  I opened the door and he didn’t even look at me, he walked straight past me, got hold of Mick and said “Never call me your drummer again!”

Then he hauled him up by the lapels of my jacket and gave him a right hook.  Mick fell back onto a silver platter of smoked salmon and began to slide towards the open window and the canal below.

And I was thinking, this is a good one, and then I realized it was my wedding jacket.  And I grabbed hold of it and caught Mick just before he slid into the Amsterdam canal.  It took me twenty-four hours after that to talk Charlie down.

That’s by far the most famous story about Charlie Watts, and Mike Edison thinks he knows why people love it so much:

I think everyone likes to hear that the world’s most urbane drummer, an accidental rock star with a reputation as an old-school gentleman, was not to be f*cked with.

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Tim Ries is a jazz saxophonist, composer, arranger, and university professor who has accompanied the Rolling Stones on several of their tours.

Between stops on the Stones’ A Bigger Bang tour in 2005, Ries recorded a number of his arrangements of Jagger-Richards songs, which were released later that year on an album titled The Rolling Stones Project.

The Rolling Stones Project album

The album includes two arrangements of “Honky Tonk Women.”  One sounds a lot like the original which is not surprising given that Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood, and Charlie Watts played on it.  

The other version – which is today’s featured recording – is a modern jazz arrangement that features Ries on sax, Larry Goldings on organ, and Watts.

Charlie Watts started out as a jazz drummer, and jazz remained his true musical love throughout his life.  His drumming on the two versions of “Honky Tonk Women” on the Ries album couldn’t be more different.

Click here to listen to the Ries-Goldings-Watts recording on “Honky Tonk Women.”

Rolling Stones – "Come On" (1963)

 

All day long I’m walking ’cause I 

Couldn’t get my car started

Charlie Watts first appeared with the Rolling Stones at the Ealing Jazz Club in London on February 2, 1963.  From that date until in death in August, he was the drummer every single time the Stones performed.

Watts had met Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Brian Jones at that club the previous summer, when the three came to hear Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated, the most popular English rhythm and blues band of that era.  

Charlie Watts in 1963

Watts, who had a day job as a graphic designer for a London advertising agency, had been playing in jazz bands prior to joining Blues Incorporated.  It took him some time to figure out how to play rhythm and blues.  “I didn’t know what [rhythm and blues] was,” he told an interviewer in 2012.  “I thought it meant Charlie Parker played slow.”

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The day after the Rolling Stones hired Andrew Loog Oldham as their manager, the nineteen-year-old wunderkind scheduled a recording session for them at Olympic Sound Studios in London.  

Only after reserving the studio for three hours on the evening of May 10 did the Stones decide what to record, choosing Chuck Berry’s “Come On.”

A few days later, the Stones signed with Decca Records – who were still smarting on taking a pass on the Beatles the year before.  “Come On” was released as a single on June 7, and reached #21 on the UK charts thanks largely to Oldham’s efforts.  (Decca did little to promote the record, but the Stones manager gave the band’s fan-club members the names of the record stores that were polled by the compiler of the singles charts, and urged them to go to those shops to buy “Come On.”)

The Stones followed up “Come On” – which they didn’t think much of – with a cover of Lennon and McCartney’s “I Wanna Be Your Man” (which was a #12 hit in the UK), a cover of Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away” (which made it to #3), and “Tell Me,” a Jagger-Richards original that became their first #1 UK hit about a year after they recorded “Come On.”

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“Come On” is not one of Chuck Berry’s better-known efforts, but it’s as clever and catchy as many of his hit songs.

Click here to listen to the Rolling Stones’ cover of “Come On” – the group’s first recording featuring the late Charlie Watts on drums.

Click below to buy the record from Amazon:

New York Philharmonic – "The Dance of the Coachmen and Grooms" (2013)

 

Desert Island Discs is a BBC radio program that first aired almost 70 years ago.

On each episode, a guest – usually an entertainer or other celebrity – is asked to choose eight recordings, a book, and one “luxury item” that they would choose to have if they were cast away on a desert island.  To date, over 3000 guests have appeared on the show.

The late Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts appeared on Desert Island Discs in 2001.  The eight recordings he said he would want to have if he were marooned on a desert island included nothing by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, or any other pop/rock artist.

The late Charlie Watts

Watts was a jazz drummer before joining the Stones, and continued to play and record jazz throughout his life.  His Desert Island Discs selections included recordings by Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra, Charlie Parker, and other jazz greats.

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Watts also chose a recording of a 1956 England/Australia cricket match – the fourth match of five played between those two countries that year for “The Ashes” trophy.

That match is known as “Laker’s Match” due to the extraordinary performance of English cricketeer Jim Laker, a right-arm off break bowler who took 19 out of a maximum 20 wickets in that match – a cricket world record that has never been equalled.  (No, I have no idea what any of that means either.)

Jim Laker lets one fly

Watts – who like Mick Jagger was a lifelong cricket aficionado – was 15 years old when that match was played.  It obviously made a huge impression on him.

I had assumed that Desert Island Discs selections had to be music recordings, but that’s not the case.  It’s good to know that if I’m ever asked to appear on the program, I’m free to choose a recording of a significant Yankees victory – maybe the 1978 one-game playoff (a/k/a the “Bucky F*cking Dent game”) or game seven of the 2003 ALCS series (a/k/a the “Aaron F*cking Boone game”).

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Watts picked the “Dance of the Coachmen and Grooms” from Stravinsky’s 1911 ballet, Petrushka, as his favorite of his eight “desert island” recordings.

I wanted to know why – that choice seemed to have come from out in left field – so I dug into the archives of Desert Island Discs on the BBC website, and listened to the recording of Watts’ appearance on the show.   

It turns out that Watts had a very personal reason for singling out “Dance of the Coachmen and Grooms.”  

Watts and his wife Shirley Ann Shepherd – they were married in 1964 – bred Arabian horses on a farm in Devon, England.  (At one time, they owned more than 250 horses, some of which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.)  Shirley chose to have a recording of “Dance of the Coachmen and Grooms” played during one of her horse shows – the title made it a very appropriate selection for such an event.  

Watts with his daughter Seraphina
and granddaughter Charlotte

According to Charlie, his only granddaughter – her name is Charlotte – immediately responded to Stravinsky’s music.  “I will forever see my granddaughter running around the room galloping to it,” he told the Desert Island Discs host.

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Desert Island Discs spots all its guests a Bible and a copy of Shakespeare’s complete works and asks them to pick a third book to take.  Watts chose Dylan Thomas’s collected poems.

As for the “luxury item” – which can’t be another person, and can’t be anything that could be used to get one off the desert island and back to civilization – one of the most popular choices is a piano.

Watts not surprisingly chose drumsticks as his luxury item.

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Petrushka (or Petrouchka) is the Russian name for the 16th-century Italian trickster puppet who was called Pulcinella.  (The English version is known as Punch – “Punch and Judy” shows featuring Punch and his wife have been a staple of popular English entertainment since the mid-1600s.)

A drawing of one of the costumes used in
the original 1911 production of Petrushka

Stravinsky’s ballet about Petrushka, which was first presented by the legendary Ballet Russes ballet company in Paris in 1911, has been described as the “perfect fusion” of the three fundamental elements of ballet: music, choreography, and set design.

Click here to listen to a 2013 New York Philharmonic recording of “Dance of the Coachmen and Grooms” from Petrushka.

Click on the link below to buy the recording from Amazon:

Earl Bostic – "Flamingo" (1951)

“The first record that I fell in love with was a thing called ‘Flamingo’ by a saxophone player called Earl Bostic,” the late Charlie Watts told a BBC interviewer in 2011.

Bostic was born in 1913 in Tulsa.  He attended Xavier University in New Orleans, then moved to New York City and achieved great success as a jazz performer, songwriter, and arranger. 

Many of Bostic’s contemporaries thought he was technically superior to any other alto saxophonist of his era – including Charlie “Bird” Parker and John Coltrane.

In 2011, fellow saxophonist Lou Donaldson told an interviewer that Bostic was the greatest saxophone player he ever heard:

[T]he man could play three octaves. I mean play ’em, I don’t mean just hit the notes.  He was bad.  He was a technician you wouldn’t believe. . . . [One night] Bostic was down at Minton’s [Playhouse, the famous jazz club in Harlem] and Charlie Parker came in there. They played “Sweet Georgia Brown” or something and he gave Charlie Parker a saxophone lesson. 

Legendary jazz drummer Art Blakely concurred in Donaldson’s judgment:

Nobody knew more about the saxophone than Bostic, I mean technically, and that includes Bird [Parker].  Working with Bostic was like attending a university of the saxophone.  When [John] Coltrane played with Bostic, I know he learned a lot.

Bostic’s records don’t fully capture his virtuosity.  He wanted badly to be a commercial success, and changed his style in order to appeal to a wider audience.  

“Flamingo” was a #1 R&B hit for Bostic in 1951.  Like many of his best-selling records, “Flamingo” has a heavy backbeat and is very danceable.  Bostic’s playing is raspy and bluesy – the record wouldn’t have sounded out of place at a burlesque joint. 

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Click here to listen to Earl Bostic’s “Flamingo.”

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Gerry Mulligan Quartet – "Walkin' Shoes" (1953)

The late Charlie Watts became interested in drumming when he was about 13 years old – in 1954 or thereabouts.

“I bought a banjo, and I didn’t like the dots on the neck,” Watts told the New Yorker in 2012. “So I took the neck off, and at the same time I heard a drummer called Chico Hamilton, who played with Gerry Mulligan, and I wanted to play like that, with brushes. I didn’t have a snare drum, so I put the banjo head on a stand.”

Chico Hamilton

Watts’s understanding parents forgave him for destroying the perfectly good banjo and gave him a drum kit.  He taught himself to play by drumming along to the jazz records that he bought.

Watts became world famous as a member of the Rolling Stones – he joined the group in 1963, and never missed a Rolling Stones concert for as long as he lived – but he was first and foremost a jazz drummer.  He released a number of jazz albums before dying last month.

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In 1952, jazz saxophonist, composer, and arranger Gerry Mulligan put together a pianoless jazz quartet with trumpeter Chet Baker, bassist Bob Whitlock, and Hamilton.  “Walkin’ Shoes” – one of Watts’s favorite Mulligan-Hamilton tracks – was released the next year on the group’s first album, a ten-inch LP titled Gerry Mulligan Quartet Volume 1:

Hamilton – whose real first name was Foreststorn – recorded some 63 albums as a bandleader between 1955 and 2013.  (He died that year at age 92.)  He also performed as a sideman with numerous legendary jazz greats, including Mulligan, Count Basie, Nat King Cole, Duke Ellington, Dexter Gordon, Billie Holiday, Lena Horne, and Charlie Mingus (who was his high-school classmate).

Click here to listen to “Walkin’ Shoes.”

Click on the link below to buy the track from Amazon:

Rolling Stones – "Time Waits for No One" (1974)

Time waits for no man

And it won’t wait for me

Time stopped waiting for Charlie Watts, the deservedly legendary Rolling Stones drummer, on August 24. 

Given his age, Watts’s death shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me.  But somehow it did.

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Earlier this year, the Stones announced that they would be touring the United States later this year.  I didn’t think much about it at the time – after all, the Stones are always touring.  If my math is right, the Stones have toured the United States 18 times previously, so the announcement of tour number 19 didn’t strike me as being anything remarkable.

It should have.  After all, Keith Richards is 77 years old, while Mick Jagger is 78.  And Charlie Watts turned 80 on June 2.

Think about that.  Watts was born before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.  Yet he was about to embark on a demanding series of two-hour-plus concerts in 75,000-seat football stadiums.

The Stones on their first American tour in 1964

Does that sound like something you’ll be up for when you’re 80 years old?

Me neither.

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“Time Waits for No One” was released in 1974, when Watts was a sprightly 33 years old.  

“Time waits for no man” is a proverb that dates to at least 1225, but is probably much older than that.   

Just because the song’s message isn’t particularly original doesn’t mean it’s not true.  It’s most assuredly true – in fact, I can’t think of a statement that’s truer.      

The Stones have never performed the song live.  I wonder if they will add it to the setlist for their upcoming tour as a tribute to Charlie Watts.

Click here to listen to “Time Waits for No One.”

Clink on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Bob Dylan – "Subterranean Homesick Blues" (1965)

Twenty years of schooling

And they put you on the day shift

Before I discuss today’s featured song, I need to discuss the elephant in the room.

The Rolling Stones’ one and only drummer, Charlie Watts, died in August.  Anyone who reads this blog knows that I believe that the Stones’ best records are the ne plus ultra of classic rock music, and Charlie Watts’s drumming was an absolutely essential element of those records.

So why have I waited so long to pay tribute to the late Watts?  

You need to understand that each 2 or 3 lines post is like a mighty ship – it takes a long time to bring it to a stop and turn it in a different direction.  (Remember that huge container ship that got ran aground in the Suez Canal earlier this year, blocking traffic through the canal for days?  2 or 3 lines is kind of like that ship.)

When Watts passed away, we were in the middle of a series of posts about this year’s group of inductees into the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” ALBUM TRACKS HALL OF FAME – one of which was the Stones’ “Monkey Man,” which features some very strong drumming by Watts.  And one simply does not interrupt a series of 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” ALBUM TRACKS HALL OF FAME posts in midstream.

But fear not – the very next 2 or 3 lines will kick off a group of posts that pay tribute to Charlie Watts.  After all, it is right, and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere, to give thanks for his life and his music.  (Amen.)

And now, it’s time to return to our regularly scheduled program . . . 

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“Like a Rolling Stone” is the best record Bob Dylan ever recorded – it’s arguably the best record made in the sixties – but “Subterranean Homesick Blues” has the best lyrics Dylan ever wrote.  

That’s saying something, because Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his song lyrics.  That was a ridiculous decision, of course – song lyrics need to be sung along with their accompanying music, not put on a printed page and read like poetry – but there’s no doubt Dylan wrote some amazing lyrics.

But Dylan’s lyrics would have been even better if he had run them by me before finalizing them – they could have used a bit of editing.

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To wit: consider these lines from “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again,” which are spoken to the singer of the song by a shady young woman named “Ruthie”:

Your debutante knows what you need

But I know what you want

Dylan is clearly saying that Ruthie is offering the singer something more satisfying than his prissy little debutante girlfriend if offering.

(Not the same Ruthie.)

But instead of saying that the debutante know what he needs while Ruthie knows what he wants, shouldn’t it be the other way around?  

I’m guessing that the debutante may know what the singer wants – or at least what he thinks he wants, and has told her he wants – but she can’t provide what he really needs deep down inside.  After all, he may not know himself what he really needs.

Ruthie can fulfill his needs because she has a much deeper understanding of him than he has of himself – and a much deeper understanding of him than the debutante.

So shouldn’t the line read as follows?

Your debutante knows what you want

But I know what you need

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Today’s featured song contains another example of a Dylan lyric gone awry.

Think about the lines quoted at the beginning of this post:

Twenty years of schooling

And they put you on the day shift 

Dylan is making the point that the world is F.U.B.A.R. – after all, it makes no sense for someone to be sent to school for twenty years and then given a factory job.

But Dylan should have used night shift in those lyrics – not day shift.  

The day shift is almost always preferable to the night shift.  Working the night shift will play havoc with your body clock, making it difficult for to sleep well.  And it will likely also play havoc with your relationships because most people work during the day, not at night.

It’s bad enough to go to school for twenty years and end up working the day shift at a factory, but it adds insult to injury to end up working the night shift – that’s a real kick in the pants, especially for someone with that much edumacation.

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I think Bob Dylan’s a little overrated – he did write a lot of bad songs, after all – but the genius of “Subterranean Homesick Blues” can’t be denied.  The lyrics are insane in the membrane, and I love the irregularity of the lines – the record’s herky-jerky line structure is something that differentiates it from every other record of that era.

Click here to listen to “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” which was released in 1965 on Bringing It All Back Home, Dylan’s fifth studio album.

Click below to buy the record from Amazon:

Megan Thee Stallion – "Savage" (2020)

 

I'm that b*tch

Been that b*tch

Still that b*tch

Will forever be that b*tch

In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine released a list entitled “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time,” which was based on the votes of selected musicians, critics, and other industry members. 

Here are the top ten records from the 2004 list:

1.  Bob Dylan – “Like a Rolling Stone”

2.  Rolling Stones – “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”

3.  John Lennon – “Imagine”

4.  Marvin Gaye – “What’s Going On”

5.  Aretha Franklin – “Respect” 

6.  Beach Boys – “Good Vibrations”

7.  Chuck Berry – “Johnny B. Goode”

8.  Beatles – “Hey Jude”

9.  Nirvana – “Smells Like Teen Spirit”

10.  Ray Charles – “What’d I Say”

As I said in the previous 2 or 3 lines, I think that’s a pretty good list.  While my personal top ten would be different, I could make a case for most of Rolling Stone’s picks.

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Rolling Stone updated its 2004 list in 2010 by adding a couple of dozen records from the oughts.  But it didn’t touch its original top ten – in fact, it didn’t touch its original top 25.

A few weeks ago, the magazine announced a new “500 Greatest” list.  Its 2021 list didn’t just incorporate some deserving recent records – it essentially tore up the original list and created a new one from scratch.

Here is Rolling Stone’s new top ten:

1.  Aretha Franklin – “Respect”

2.  Public Enemy – “Fight the Power”

3.  Sam Cooke – “A Change Is Gonna Come”

4.  Bob Dylan – “Like a Rolling Stone”

5.  Nirvana – “Smells Like Teen Spirit”

6.  Marvin Gaye – “What’s Going On”

7.  Beatles – “Strawberry Fields Forever”

8.  Missy Elliott – “Get Yer Freak On”

9.  Fleetwood Mac – “Dreams”

10. Outkast – “Hey Ya!”

Excuse my French, but what the f*ck?

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Before I start bellyaching about that list, there are a few positives that I should acknowledge.

First, the three songs from the 2004 top ten that are retained in the new top ten – “Respect,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” and “What’s Going On” – are all great songs by great artists.  They deserved to be in the original top ten, and I’m happy that they are still in the revised top ten.

Second, I think there has to be at least one hiphop record in the top ten – the 2004 list’s failure to include one needed to be addressed in the revised rankings.  I would have chosen N.W.A.’s “Straight Outta Compton” to remedy that failing, but “Fight the Power” is almost as good a choice.  (I’m shocked it was ranked #322 in the original “500 Greatest” list – Rolling Stone really dropped the ball there.)

Finally, Rolling Stone moved John Lennon’s “Imagine” down from #3 to #19.  That’s sixteen steps in the right direction, although I would have taken several hundred (or thousand) more steps in that direction.

So those are the things I like about the 2021 top ten.  Unfortunately, there are some things I don’t like about the new list. 

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For example, any top ten that leaves out the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys is highly suspect.  

To be fair, both groups have highly ranked records in the new “500 Greatest” list – “God Only Knows” was given the #11 spot, while “Gimme Shelter” is close behind at #13 – but they deserve to be ranked even higher.  That’s especially true when you consider who leapfrogged them into the current top ten.

(I find it interesting that “Gimme Shelter” is now ahead of “Satisfaction” in the rankings, and that “God Only Knows” is ahead of “Good Vibrations.”  If I had to pick the two greatest Stones records and the two greatest Beach Boys songs, those are the ones I would choose – but I would have a hard time picking a #1 and a #2 from each pair.)

Also, I wouldn’t have moved “Smells Like Teen Spirit” from #9 to #5.  (I thought #9 was a bit too high in the first place.)

And while I think “Strawberry Fields Forever” is a worthier song than “Hey Jude,” neither one is in the same league as “A Day in the Life.”  That’s the most fully realized recording the Beatles ever did – plus it’s one part Lennon, one part McCartney, and one part George Martin, so it sums up the Beatles perfectly.  (Apologies to George Harrison, a very underrated songwriter who was never given a fair chance by John and Paul.)

*     *     *     *     *

It bothers me that the new top ten replaces the Stones, the Beach Boys, Chuck Berry, and Ray Charles with Sam Cooke, Missy Elliott, Fleetwood Mac, and Outkast.

It’s fine if you want to swap Berry or Charles for Cooke – although I much prefer “Johnny B. Goode” and “What’d I Say” to “A Change Is Gonna Come.”

Outkast was very talented, with a very original style – “Hey Ya” is catchy as all get-out and sounds like no other record I’ve ever heard, although I don’t think it’s quite top ten material.

But Missy Elliott’s “Get Yer Freak On” and Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” instead of “Satisfaction” and “Good Vibrations”?  Horribile dictu!

“Get Yer Freak On” is a pretty good rap record, but I can think of about a hundred better ones without breaking a sweat.  

And the soporific Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” may be the worst song on the Rumours album – it’s incomprehensible to me how anyone could have voted it as one of the ten best pop songs of all time.

I noted above that the new #2 record, “Fight the Power,” was only #322 on the original 2004 list.

But “Dreams” was left off the 2004 altogether.  In other words, a song that the original Rolling Stone voters didn’t think belonged in the top 500 is now ranked among the top ten songs of all time.   That does not compute.

By the way, “Fight the Power” and “Dreams” were recorded in 1989 and 1987 respectively, so they were very familiar to the 2004 voters.  Nothing about those songs has changed since 2004 – what has changed are the voters.

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“We focused on having a very diverse votership, so the list ended up much more inclusive, fresher,” Rolling Stone music editor Christian Hoard told NBC News after the new list was announced.  

(In other words, Rolling Stone was more interested in political correctness than the quality of the records on its list.)

“It's reflective of what Rolling Stone is these days, it's not [just] classic rock.,” Hoard went on to say.  “It's a broad spectrum of music.”

Yet more than half of the songs on the list were recorded in the sixties and seventies.  And the artists with the most records on the list are the Beatles, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, and the Rolling Stones – that’s a whole bunch of old white guys.

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Rolling Stone characterized its more diverse “votership” as including “Angelique Kidjo to Zedd, Sam Smith to Megan Thee Stallion, M. Ward to Bill Ward.”  

I can’t view the new voter list without paying to subscribe to Rolling Stone.  (WHEN DONKEYS FLY!)  But if those names are representative of all the new voters, no wonder the new list sucks.

Megan Thee Stallion

My favorite from that group of voters is probably Megan Thee Stallion.  She is essentially just a Nicki Minaj copycat, but better a Nicki Minaj imitator than a Sam Smith original.  (Have you heard Sam Smith’s music?  Horribile dictu!)

Speaking of Megan Thee Stallion, the new “500 Greatest” list ranks her 2020 release, “Savage” – which is today’s featured record – above the Animals’ immortal  “House Of The Rising Sun.” 

Give me a f*cking break.

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Click here to watch the official animated video for “Savage.”

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: