Twenty Songs on Random

I'm getting a little anxious waiting for the Rangers vs. Penguins game to come on, so in the meantime I decided to write down the first twenty songs that were played on my Ipod in shuffle mode.

1. Pink Floyd - Welcome to the Machine
2. Metallica - Trapped Under Ice
3. Foo Fighters - Exhausted
4. Blind Melon - Toes Across the Floor
5. Tool - Message to Harry Manback
6. U2 - Pride
7. The Who - Water
8. The Beatles - All I've Got to Do
9. The Beatles - She Came in through the Bathroom Window
10. Creedence Clearwater Revival - Lookin' Out My Backdoor
11. A Perfect Circle - Judith
12. The Smashing Pumpkins - Bury Me
13. The Rolling Stones - Sympathy for the Devil
14. A Perfect Circle - Brena
15. Disturbed - Down with the Sickness
16. The Zombies - Andorra
17. Bob Dylan - Can't Wait
18. Beck - Earthquake Weather
19. A Perfect Circle - Hollow
20. Jim Croce - You Don't Mess Around with Jim

Weird, three songs from A Perfect Circle's "Mer de Noms" album. Well it is certainly a diverse list, and it looks like every decade from the 60s on was represented.

Asia: Phoenix Review

There are times when you need to put your biases behind you. In this case, I need to look past the fact that I find 80s pop-rock to be trite and uninspiring. It’s hard to admit that some of my favorite prog giants came together to form a band like Asia, but to my dismay it happened. But as I stated earlier, I need to look past my indifferences. When doing so I came to find an album that had enough hooks and catchy appeal to get me from start to end.

Asia’s Phoenix is a solid album which sounds like it came out in the wrong decade but yet is more authentic than much of the music out today. We find bands all over the radio today trying to channel the music of the 80s. Bands like The Killers and other indie groups are incorporating the sounds of 80s pop in their music. I suppose it was only time for this to occur, since it was these people who grew up listening to what I would call, a lackluster decade.

Phoenix offers enough fist pumping anthems to get any arena rock fan going, i.e. “Never Again” and “No Way Back”. The album also offers plenty of melodic power ballads that would be sure to prompt a Bic lighter fest, songs like "Heroine" and "Orchard of Mines" do the trick. Considering the original four members (Wetton, Howe, Palmer and Downes) haven’t released an album together since 1983s Alpha, they deserve a lot of credit. Phoenix has enough redeeming qualities to be considered a decent effort.

Grade: C

Notable Mentions

Considering it was so dificult for me to come to a conclusion on what band should have been number ten, I figured, why not post the bands who were contesting for that final spot. Here is a list of the bands that were battling with Gentle Giant for the ten spot.

1) Nektar

2) Van der Graaf Generator

3) Caravan

4) Camel

5) Eloy

6) Hawkwind

1) King Crimson

Finally, we’ve reached number one, and the band that tops the list may not come as a surprise to many. King Crimson just may be the most influential of all progressive rock bands. Yet so many don’t even know of their existence. Their relative obscurity may give them even more reason to take the top spot, due to their their ability to stick to their roots with long, dark, and experimental songs.

King Crimson practically created the prog genre. Bands before them like The Beatles will often get credit for being prog, but King Crimson made the genre as we have come to know it. With their debut album In the Court of the Crimson King, King Crimson shook up the rock scene. The music was longer, more obscure, more bombastic and harder than anything before them.

Their lineup has seen drastic changes over the years. Prog and rock giants have come and gone as members of the band, such as: Greg Lake, Bill Bruford, Boz Burrell, Ian McDonald, and John Wetton. All in all, King Crimson has seen 18 members come and pass through their lineup. The only stable member of the band is guitarist Robert Fripp who has kept the music true to the prog genre.

While they have seen an array of members, each album has been able to keep that King Crimson sound while being distinctive. All of their work manages to keep a dark and haunting tone influencing many metal prog bands in the future, notably, Tool has cited King Crimson as a major influence. They would go on to release some of the strongest work in the genre, albums like, In the Court of the Crimson King, Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, Red, and In the Wake of Poseidon.

King Crimson pushed rock to new possibilities, incorporating new instruments like the mellotron and an eclectic range of genres like jazz and classical. Not only did King Crimson define the genre, but they released so many of the genres greatest works.

Essential Albums: In the Court of the Crimson King and Red

The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder: John, Paul, Tom & Ringo Review

We've seen the bed in for peace, the interviews of the effervescent mop tops, and It's a Hard Days Night. The number of interviews of Lennon railing for peace and social justice have simply become monotonous. It's rare for the public to see Lennon for who he really is, a regular human like you and I, more than a man who is hidden behind his beliefs... The first disc is the final televised interview before Lennon's death. The first disc shows the re-airing of the interview which was aired the day after his death as well as interviews of two people who knew Lennon. The second disc contains interviews of Paul and Ringo along with their wives and other guests.

The fantastic thing about this DVD is it gives a gimplse of Lennon being himself. Not the joking mop top and not the peace pushing protester. Lennon is stripped down in this interview feeling self conscience while constantly looking at his profile in the cameras and trying to adapt to the setting. He answers questions about his music, interests, and person life. He delivers his answers with pure honesty whie cracking a few jokes here and there. If Lennon was to give more interviews like this, maybe people would have seen him as more than the crazy hippie who settled for less when marrying Yoko.

The second disc is merely an extra in comparison to the first disc. The first disc is the bread and butter and the second disc is the desert. The interviews on the second disc aren't anything special like Lennon's. They show the two other Beatles being themselves which they never shied away from portraying throughout their career. Many of the questions are family oriented because Ringo and Paul's wife are present. The second disc is definitely interesting enough to watch but once again, the first disc is why this DVD was published.

To think that a DVD of interviews could be this good is pretty impressive. John is in rare form during this interview, he seems to have matured from the naive hair peace-bed peace hippie, to the down to earth family man that he became right before his life was tragically stripped away. It's almost as if we can see the transformation right before our eyes.

Grade: A-

2) Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd is one of those bands that revolutionized music. Their ability to be inventive and constantly changing their sound and image while keeping their core soul intact is unparalleled to any band. Anyone can easily follow the progression of Pink Floyd music throughout their career from the outlandish psychedelia of Piper at the Gates of Dawn to what would become the most commercially successful Progressive Rock album ever, Dark Side of the Moon. Many will argue the merits of whether or not Floyd is a true prog band, but how can anyone deny their influence on the genre? Their crisp sonic textures, long experimental works, and concept albums scream prog. In fact, where would prog be without Pink Floyd?

Sure, many bands encompass the characteristics more purely than Floyd, but Floyd made prog a legitimate genre. Without Floyd, we could have quite possibly written off prog as some overly bombastic and pretentious genre. Sure, albums like Yes' Fragile and King Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King were released before Dark Side of the Moon, but neither of those quintessential albums made their ways into the homes of such a vast and diverse population. Pink Floyd had recorded some of the most ethereal and spacey music that has some how found a medium between being extremely grandiose and overly simplistic, this perfect positioning made Progressive Rock accessible. Even the twenty-three minute Echoes finds a way to attract casual listeners. During their prime, Floyd undoubtedly recorded some of the strongest progressive material to date, with works like Meddle, Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, and Animals. There are a handful of other albums which can be debated into that list, but to the average critic, those are the must have albums.

One of the most under appreciated factors which makes Floyd fit into the prog category is the guitar playing of David Gilmour. A Gilmour solo is quickly recognizable, it has an unbelievably clean sound-- it's polished and meticulously thought out, each note having just as much importance as the last. His authentic playing leaves the listener in a state of utter euphoria, with each note carrying the listener off in space.

Floyd's ability to release consistently inventive music which has such a high level of musical savvy leaves them as one of the strongest Progressive Rock bands in history. How people can argue that Floyd has no place in the Progressive Rock genre is mind boggling to me. They have all of the important traits and helped lay the foundation for progressive bands to follow.

Essential Albums: Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here