Taking a page...

Taking a page from Bill. A Top 7! Well, not really a top 7 of anything particular. A friend of mine is hosting an iPod DJ night at the Middle East tonight, and part of the deal is that if you bring a playlist of 7 songs, he'll play it. So why not, I've got some time to kill before I head over. We're going with a 70's rock theme here.

1) You're Time Is Gonna Come - Led Zeppelin. (OK, this actually came out in '69, but whatever.) There are only three bands/artists I can think of that have had debut albums that have been so good your jaw drops. Zeppelin is one, and despite the greatness of the other two (Guns N' Roses and Jeff Buckley) Zeppelin's is the one that makes you wonder how four people so good could come together and play something so amazing and cohesive. Nowadays if there's a premiere player in a popular band, (not that this happens much anymore), the band seems to be about him. Here there were 4 great players that fit so well together.

2) Jailbreak - Thin Lizzy. If I was picking my favorite Thin Lizzy song ever, it'd be Borderline, but that's way too depressing. We're here to rock, people.

3) Sway - The Rolling Stones. Guns N' Roses ripped this song in a couple of ways, but so subtly that I can't tell you what songs of theirs they did it on. There's just something about the melodies and chord progressions that I know I've heard Gn'R play. But it's not a surprise considering that Izzy Stradlin' was the lost Stone, he was just born a couple decades too late.

4) Flying - The Small Faces. Rod Steart was untouchable in the late 60s and early 70s. His solo albums, his work with Jeff Beck, and of course The (Small) Faces. (The first album went under the name The Small Faces which was their name with a previous singer. The next three albums they were The Faces.) Flying is the first song from them I ever fell in love with. Intricate yet loose. Great organ sound.

5) Room Service - Kiss. And we ain't talking about food.

6) Home Tonight - Aerosmith. OK, one slow song. But these guys were probably so drugged up when they wrote/recorded/played/forgot about this song it hardly counts.

7) If You Want Blood (You Got It) - AC/DC. Gotta close strong, and it don't get much stronger than this. I hated AC/DC when I was in high school. In arguments about them I accused them of making the same album for 30 years. But now I realize, that album is so damn good, why not do it over and over again. You can be simple. You can be great. But to mix the two so consistently is an art form all its own. And the guitar sound.....oooh, damn!

OK, I'm done. Not that I dislike the music I grew up with, I like it very much, but do you ever listen to something and think how great it would have been to have discovered it as it was first coming out? I was alive when most of the albums these songs were on was first released, but far too young to enjoy them. That makes me nostalgic for an age that I didn;t really grow up in. Weird. Anyway, gotta go refresh my beer and see what's happening with the Heat/Pistons game.