ZEE 2014: de aftermovie

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No. 18: The Doors, ‘L.A. Woman’– Top 100 Classic Rock Songs

 

 

Elektra Records

Released in April of 1971, ‘L.A. Woman’ was the final album the the Doors made with Jim Morrison. Within three months of its release, the singer would be dead. Sad as his lost is, talk about going out on a high note!

The track holds up as one of the finest recorded statements from one of rock’s greatest bands and lands itself here at No. 18 on our list of the Top 100 Classic Rock Songs.

So many things about this album are truly iconic, one of which is certainly the title track. In nearly eight minutes of glory, the Doors take the listener on a wild ride down a road that winds, bends, twists, and turns as the vehicle accelerates, then let’s it’s foot off the gas slightly, before driving us off into the sunset.

It is certainly one of the Doors’ brightest shining recorded moments. With the opening sound of auto acceleration leading straight into the driving beat of John Densmore, Ray Manzerek’s pulsating organ and Robbie Krieger’s slithering guitar line, the ground work is laid for Morrison’s gruff and demanding vocal.

The “Lizard King” certainly rises to the occasion. More than ever, he conjures up the old bluesman within that contradicts the 27 year old man at the mic, with his world-wise, take-no-prisoners attitude in full force. The band, and Morrison, play like the ship is going down, which of course, it was.

Written by all four members, the song captures all the best elements of the group’s music. The haunting sense of mystery and road-weary poetry lock up with primal instinct, below the waist rock and roll, to create the definitive Doors song.

No. 19: ZZ Top, ‘La Grange’ – Top 100 Classic Rock Songs

 

 

London

We can’t say for sure the last time we heard ‘La Grange,’ ZZ Top‘s ubiquitous musical calling card. But if it wasn’t today, it was probably yesterday, and it could have reached us from a hundred different sources.

It may be hard to believe, listening to the radio today, but there was a time when ZZ Top had trouble even getting noticed.

It certainly wasn’t due to a lack of talent — the trio had the attention of their peers right from the start, with Jimi Hendrix naming frontman Billy Gibbons “America’s best young guitarist” early in their career.

However, despite releasing two extremely solid albums — including 1972′s ‘Rio Grande Mud,’ which just turned 40 –  and developing a reputation as a powerful live band, large-scale success eluded the group until ‘La Grange’ knocked down the door in 1973. The song nearly hit the Top 40 and propelled their third album, ‘Tres Hombres,’ to the top reaches of the album charts.

A loving lyrical tribute to Texas’s favorite little whorehouse, the track found the band enhancing a souped-up but otherwise highly traditional blues boogie with their own distinctive twists and turns.

Part of what’s made ZZ Top so special over the years has been their ability to expand, mutate and transcend the blues genre on songs such as ‘Cheap Sunglasses’ and ‘Sharp Dressed Man.’ But ‘La Grange’ shows them connecting to their original inspirations in extremely pure and undeniably appealing form.

Gibbons didn’t need any trickery to work his magic on this track, telling Guitar World about the song’s recording: “That is straight guitar into amp: a 1955 Strat with a stop tailpiece through a 1969 Marshall Super Lead 100. That fuzz sound in the lead and in the front and back end of the composition is just pure tube distortion.”

If you need another reason to justify ‘La Grange”s placement on our Top 100 Classic Rock Songs list, simply go to the movies, turn on your radio or watch television for a few hours. Odds are you’ll hear the track setting the mood for at least one film, TV show, commercial or video game before too long.

It’s a testament to both the song’s immediate appeal and enduring quality that despite all this airplay and multi-media placement, it’s still a thrill every time Gibbons launches into his deep growl for that famous intro: “Rumour spreadin’ a-’round in that Texas town / ‘Bout that shack outside La Grange…”

No. 20: Eagles, ‘Hotel California’ – Top 100 Classic Rock Songs

 

‘Hotel California’ might very well be the Eagles‘ best-known song — but if you ask a dozen people what the lyrics mean, you’ll quickly find out this entry in our Top 100 Classic Rock Songs countdown has at least that many explanations.
The band itself has described the six-minute song as its “interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles,” with Don Felder, who wrote the music, explaining, “If you drive into L.A. at night … you can just see this glow on the horizon of lights, and the images [are] of Hollywood and all the dreams that you have.”
Don Henley, the song’s primary lyricist, once said, “It’s basically a song about the dark underbelly of the American dream and about excess in America, which is something we knew a lot about.”
But all that aside, listener imaginations ran wild. One group of Christian evangelists insisted ‘Hotel California’ referred to a San Francisco hotel converted into a Church of Satan, while other people thought the song’s title was about a state mental hospital.
Henley’s always been resistant to explaining exactly what the metaphors in the song mean, but here’s what we do know: the word “colitas” in the first stanza is Mexican slang for the buds of the Cannabis plant (oh stop looking so surprised), and the phrase “steely knives” was a playful nod to Steely Dan, who referenced the Eagles in their song ‘Everything You Did.’
Do with all that what you will, but there’s no mystery about the electric guitar interplay between Felder and Joe Walsh at the end of the song.
Walsh recently told us he remembered his recording session with Felder fondly, saying, “We decided we would each have a personality to each of our guitar parts, and we would work together in the body of the song — and then we would have a go at each other at the end. We brought out the best in each other. We were real competitive … if he played something great, it was like ‘Oh yeah? Watch this!’”
The magical combination of metaphors, allegory and some bad-ass guitar work took ‘Hotel California’ to the top of the charts in May of 1977, and the song earned the Eagles a Grammy Award for Record of the Year as well. In addition, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ranks it among the ’500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll,’ and Rolling Stone magazine calls it the 49th greatest song of all time.
Pretty lofty stuff for a song most people still don’t even understand.

No. 100: Sammy Hagar, ‘I Can’t Drive 55′ – Top 100 Classic Rock Songs

 

 

Geffen Records

Who better to get our Top 100 Classic Rock Songs list off to a fast start than Sammy Hagar and his anti-speed limit anthem ‘I Can’t Drive 55?’

Nearly a decade of constant touring and increasing record sales — remember ‘Your Love is Driving Me Crazy?‘ — had already established Hagar as a rock star prior to the release of his 1984 ‘VOA’ album.

But the Red Rocker really hit a nerve with the message of this track, the record’s first single, which quickly made him a household name and bona-fide arena headliner, aided by a truly entertaining video.

We’re not saying Hagar was directly responsible for the late ’80s national law changes that allowed states to once again set speed limits higher than 55, but it certainly couldn’t have hurt. This new level of fame also paved the way for him to join Van Halen in 1985.

‘I Can’t Drive 55,’ as Hagar has explained many times, was inspired by a real-life incident that found him pulled over for doing 62 late at night on an empty highway in upstate New York. We’re guessing record sales from this song have paid for that ticket many times over by now.

 

Watch ‘I Can’t Drive 55′ by Sammy Hagar

Filed Under: Sammy Hagar, Top 100 Classic Rock Songs

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Blizzard of Ozz

 

 

 

 

Ozzy Osbourne’s 1981 solo debut Blizzard of Ozz was a masterpiece of neo-classical metal that, along with Van Halen’s first album, became a cornerstone of ’80s metal guitar. Upon its release, there was considerable doubt that Ozzy could become a viable solo attraction. Blizzard of Ozz demonstrated not only his ear for melody, but also an unfailing instinct for assembling top-notch backing bands. OnetimeQuiet Riot guitarist Randy Rhoads was a startling discovery, arriving here as a unique, fully formed talent. Rhoads was just as responsible as Osbourne — perhaps even more so — for the album’s musical direction, and his application of classical guitar techniques and scales rewrote the rulebook just as radically as Eddie Van Halen had. Rhoads could hold his own as a flashy soloist, but his detailed, ambitious compositions and arrangements revealed his true depth, as well as creating a sense of doomy, sinister elegance built on Ritchie Blackmore’s minor-key innovations. All of this may seem to downplay the importance of Ozzy himself, which shouldn’t be the case at all. The music is a thoroughly convincing match for his lyrical obsession with the dark side (which was never an embrace, as many conservative watchdogs assumed); so, despite its collaborative nature, it’s unequivocally stamped with Ozzy’s personality. What’s more, the band is far more versatile and subtle than Sabbath, freeing Ozzy from his habit of singing in unison with the guitar (and proving that he had an excellent grasp of how to frame his limited voice). Nothing short of revelatory, Blizzard of Ozz deservedly made Ozzy a star, and it set new standards for musical virtuosity in the realm of heavy metal.