Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin is without a doubt on of the most overated rockbands of all time. Don't believe all those crowd-followers who yell that LZ is the best rockgroup of all time. Only dorks that believe all the bullshit that magazines like Mojo, Uncut or Rolling Stone write think that.  Every genuine rocker knows that bands like Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Iron Maiden and ZZ Top are hundred times better than Led Zep. The only reason people think that LZ is the best is because they are the most famous hardrock band therefore the only heavy rock group they know. This just shows the ignorance that most "music fans" have towards heavy metal because every real hardrocker knows that there are enough beter bands than Led Zep. You just know that somebody who thinks that Led Zeppelin is the best hardrock act is a fake-hardrocker. If somebody would ask a real heavy metal fan who his favourite band is he will say Judas Priest, AC/DC or Dio, he would also like Led Zep but it would certainly not be his favourite.Unfortunately a lot off "rock"fans nowadays are very badly informed and believe everything that the rockestablishment tells them so we must unfortunately endure the bullshit of all these ignorant retards telling you how incredibly great Led Zeppelin is even though they don't know the slightest thing about rockmusic. A lot of those guys who say that kind of stuff dont know (a few exceptions aside) any other heavy rock bands besides Led Zeppelin. How can you say that Led Zep. is the best HM band ever if you dont know bands like James Gang, Riot, Saxon, Jethro Tull or Mahogany Rush. It's clear that they miss the knowledge to have an opinion about this kind of music. Please, Led Zeppelin aren't the inventors of hardrock, they are not the roughest nor do they heve the best groove and they are certainly not the most varied 70srock band. With other words they are not that incredibly special

Led Zeppelin most varied band? Rubbish! Bands like Uriah Heep, Golden Earring, Rush, Eagles and offcourse Queen are a lot more varied than Led Zep. Also the use folk influences is not that special, just listen to bands like Jethro Tull, Wishbone Ash, James Gang, Doobie Brothers or Rory Gallager. In fact lot of bands in the 70s had acoustic songs or instrumentals or grandious sounding songs like 'Stairway To Heaven'. What irritates me the most is when people say that John Bonham has such a revoltionary drumming style. I'm sorry but bullshit! There were a lot of great drummers in that period. Just listen to Ginger Baker, Ian Paice, Don Brewer, Bill Ward, Neil Peart etc. He's just not that special. The same goes for the other members of Led Zeppelin. That's why I find it complete nonsense when people say that LZ is the Beatles of the 70s. No way. The Beatles where a really innovative band that were way ahead of their time and better than most other bands during the sixties. While Led Zeppelin were just one of the many hardrockbands to come up during the early 70s. Actually Led Zep. are more like the Rolling Stones of the seventies also a very overated band.I'm not saying that Led Zeppelin is a bad band. To the contrary they are a very good and influencial band. But there are whole load of other bands that were just as good and influencial as LZ. Only you don't hear anything about those bands. If you read something about heavy metal it's always about Led Zep. It would be nice for a change to hear something about bands like Scorpions, Iron Maiden, Aerosmith, Rush bands who are also really well known as well. But thats offcourse the whole point of that LZ-is-the-best-classic-rock-band-in-the-world scheme. Don't forget that all the music-papers are run by nerdpunks who all absolutly hate hardrock. The reason that they praise Led Zeppelin is not because they like 'em (actually they hate that band) it's because they want you to think that heavy metal is very superficial and limited music and that if you got a couple of Led Zep records you don't need to buy any other hardrock records because they all "sound like Led Zeppelin anyway". THIS IS COMPLETE HIPSTER BULLSHIT OF THE HIGHEST ORDER!!! Led Zeps music isn't even a fraction of the totall hardrock output. Heavy rock is very varied and interesting music with bands that all sound totally different from one and another and have their own style. A couple off Led Zeppelin albums is not enough for a credible HM collection not even a superficial one.

 

Guns N Roses

The bands that I have put in the overrated section are nevertheless all bands I really like. Bands like Led Zeppelin, King Crimson, Rolling Stones and Neil Young are all great bands that had a big influence on rockmusic the only problem I have is that there were a whole load of other bands that were just as good and influencial that you unfortunately hear nothing of. I can at least understand why they get a lot of praise even though I think it's sometimes a bit overexagerated. Guns n Roses on the other hand I don't understand at all. It's completely mindboggeling that such an unoriginal and totally not special band gets praised as one of the best hardrock bands that ever existed. It just shows that must people are completely ignorant when it comes to heavy metal because there are hundreds of bands that are way better than this mediocre band. You just know that somebody is a fake-hardrocker when he thinks that GNR is the best band or that Slash is a great gitarist. Guns n Roses has a very phoney and manufactured rebelious image as if an A&R manager had put them together because he thought "thats what the kids probably would like" even though they are not that exciting. I see Guns n Roses as the first attempt by the record componies to turn heavy rock into a soulles product.

Typical example is the frontcover of 'Appetite For Destruction' with the skulls of the bandmembers on the cross. Clearly the message of this cover is that hardrockers are stupid people that only like skulls and guys with stupid hats while heavy metal has a lot more depth to it than that. Can you take the skulls of the bandmembers of GNR and replace them with the ones of AC/DC or Iron Maiden or Scorpions? Ofcourse not! I think that Slash is a very overated gitarist. I can't believe that you get guys that think he is the greatest or are even inspired by him to play guitar. I have allways thought of him as a mediocre and corny gitarist. The only thing he inspires me to do is take his stupid hat of and crush it then grab his Les Paul and smash it over his head. What a lot of people don't realise is that the members of GNR aren't really hardrockers but just a bunch of shitpunks. The 'Spagetti incident' is record full of punkcovers what should serve as a clear warning sign. Every genuine hardrocker would throw up if he heard punk.

The worst thing is that there are actually people who say that GNR brought back real rockmusic. I seriously saw a program where a guy said that GNR made rock n roll populair again. Dickheads who say that seriously don't know anything about rockmusic from the 80s because there were enough bands playing that kinda music like Cinderella, Ozzy Osbourne, Motley Crue, Wasp, Quiet Riot and ofcourse older bands like Van Halen, Accept, Iron Maiden, Motorhead, Scorpions, AC/DC, the ruinited Deep Purple, Kiss etc. Seems to me that there was a lot of rock n roll going on when Guns n Roses came along. What's really unbelievable is that there actually people who think that Guns n Roses is a lot louder than all those (there we go again) "glammetal" bands. Don't make me laugh! Bands like Motley Crue, Dokken, Twisted Sister, Ratt, LA Guns are hundred times louder and more exciting than Guns n Roses. This is only because those bands wear make-up and GNR doesn't and clearly simple-minded fools think that for some reason that makes those bands wimpy. Even if GNR would have had beards as long as the members of ZZ Top they wouldn't sound as tough as any of those bands. Guns n Roses makes the same kind of music as those bands nothing new about that. This doesn't mean that GNR are a bad band I have also get their cd's. But GNR should never be your introduction to hardrock. Please got all those other HM-records that were made before GNR first than you can add 'Appetite For Destruction' and the two 'Use Your Illusion' records to your collection.

 

Manowar

I hate it when people think that Manowar is typical of how heavy metal bands sound. Lot of people probably think that all hardrock groups wear shields and swords and sing about knights, dragons and fairytales. Nowadays with all these powermetal bands and the general medieval state of mind in metal that's understandable. In the classic rock of the 70s and 80s they very rearly sung about that kind of stuff. Manowar was the only band with a 'warrior' image back then. The great majority of hardrock bands sang about ordinary everyday subjectmatter not about all that corny fantasy stuff. That was a typical Manowar trait not for heavy metal in general. The bombastic rockopera sound of Manowar has nothing to do with the simple ladsrock approach that heavy rock groups used to have. If you listen to Manowar it's like you are going to the opera. That's got nothing to do with rock n roll. The guys of Manowar dont seam to understand that the whole point of hardrock is that it sounds simple and straightforward and that all that overblown classical stuff has no place in heavy metal. This doesn't mean that I don't like Manowar they made some good music in the eighties. The stuff they made in the 90s/00s is absolutely crap filled with mindless bombast that serve as perfect example what not to do as a heavy rock band. You just know that people who think that Manowar is the greatest band or consider them the "kings of heavy metal" are complete posers.

 

Iggy Pop/ Stooges

Iggy Pop and his old band the Stooges belong to the sacred cows of popmusic. This is completely "understandible". The Stooges were the forerunners of punk and at a time when you had all these wimpy flower-power hippies who sung boring Scott McKenzie-type 'love and peace' songs the stooges were playing wild and raucous rock n roll. Don't even think about critisizing this. This is exactly the kind of nonsense that gets reapeated ad infinitum by the ignorant press. And the hipster-army just swallows it without hesitation. It goes without saying that this is complete bullshit because the bands from the hippie era were not dull-sounding at all. To the contrary they fuckin kicked ass probably a lot more than the Stooges. What hippie bands are we talking about? Bands like Mountain or Led Zeppelin those kind of soft and gentle sounding hippie acts? Because they are the bands I think of when people talk about music of the late sixties/early seventies. Bands that sound really tough and whose music sounds heavy, agressive and ass-kickin or with other words 100% pure rock n roll. The music that the Stooges make doesn't sound that different at all from how other bands sounded at the time. Just listen to bands like Blue Cheer or Grand Funk Railroad and you will hear the same ragged, unpolished sound with a lot of wah-wah gitar. Yet people still consider Iggy and the Stooges as a hip punkband and bands like Blue Cheer and Grand Funk are boring classic rock bands that only your grandfather listens to. This is a clear case of how people divide music in a very artificial way. 

You will still get rocknerds with their dorky glasses who will tell you that "Funhouse is such a dirty rockrecord". Complete bollocks! Just listen to 'Deep Purple in Rock' from Deep Purple and you will hear that that record sounds a lot more exciting, faster and rousing than 'Funhouse'. Iggy and his Stooge-boys are nothing compared to the simple power of that band. Bands like Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep and Budgie leave the Stooges biting in the dust. So why is Iggy Pop put on such a pedastal and why are the Stooges seen as the godfathers of punk? The awnser is quite simple: there is no good reason for it. The Stooges just like the equally overated MC5(more about that later) are just deemed cool by the press and unfortunately you get all these fools that believe it. The other reason is that poeple think that the Stooges were misunderstood in their time but later generations got what they were about. NOT! The reason that the Stooges weren't popular in their time isn't because the "ignorant" hippie generation didn't get it. It's because there were a whole load of bands back than that were not popular. There is only a small amount of groups that become really popular the rest of the bands remain unknown. Ever heard of bands like May-Blitz,Gun, Toe Fat or Dust? No? The Stooges were one of those bands. Another reason why the Stooges were not very popular is because they were just simply not that good. The reason why bands like Alice Cooper, Styx or Blue Oyster Cult were very huge bands is that they played well, wrote good songs and were original and unlike the Stooges they didn't play sloppy music or take drugs all the time. This doesn't mean I don't like them. The three records the Stooges made are special and Iggy Pop's solo records are also quite good but nothing more than that.

 

Eddie van Halen

When Black Sabbath Guitarist Tony Iommi was asked what he thought of Ozzy Osbourne's new guitarist Randy Roads he said "O god not another one of these Eddie van Halen guitarists". Even though I consider Eddie van Halen a great guitarist I know exactly what he means. Eddie van Halen is ofcourse nowhere as bad as Yngwie Malmsteen but he is the one that made the first step into that soulless and typical American shredstyle where style is more important than substance. And during the 80s we started to get all these guitarplayers who thought that breaking the worldrecord fastplaying is more important than playing a decent and catchy solo. From the nineties onward the shredstyle has unfortunately become the norm and taken over entirely from the emotional blues approach at least with guitarists that still play solos. Dont get me wrong I like EvH a lot but he is definitely not the best guitarist of the late 70s- early 80s. It's baffeling that the readers of the guitarworld voted EvH best guitarist of the year six times in a row. Its clear that the readers of the magazine are a bunch of naieve idiots who just base their opnion on what the majority think. In those days there where a lot of fantastic guitarplayers like Alex Lifeson, Tom Scholz, Rick Emmet(Triumph), David Meniketti(Y&T) or Mark Reale(Riot) but you wont hear anything of them in the Guitarworld let alone be voted the best guitarist of the year. But what do you expect with such a shitty paper. 

I seriously had a guitarlearning book which clearly was written by people of that magazine and it said that Eddie van Halen was the best guitarist since Jimi Hendrix! Outside the fact that there are enough better guitarists than Hendrix i can think lots of other guitarplayers that are just as good or even better than EvH. Michael Schenker, Tony Iommi, Angus Young, Ritchie Blackmore, Jimmy Page, Steve Howe, Ronnie Montrose, Ted Nugent. Best guitarist since Hendrix? MY ASS!! And there have been much better and more interesting guitarplayers since. But do you know why Eddie van Halen is considered the best guitarist ever? Because Van Halen are from Los Angeles and the guitarindustry which the Guitarworld and the Guitar Institute Of Technology are part of is based there. If Eddie van Halen had come from Kentucky nobody would have cared about him even if he would have played in the same way. Have you noticed that all these American guitarpapers hardly ever write about British bands. Iron Maiden, Thin Lizzy and Def Leppard have just as good guitarsolos as Van Halen but you dont hear anything about them in the established magazines even though they are just as popular. This way we get those American views about guitarplaying served to us so that people hear the same names and dont get motivated to listen to other guitarists who sound different. So I consider Eddie van Halen a fantastic and influencial guitarplayer but he is definitele not ''the best guitarist since Jimi Hendrix''.

 

King Crimson

Don't let them fool you King Crimson isn't the best progressive rock out there. And even more important they dont sound any different from the rest. I do not understand that people think they are so different from all those "boring" symphorock bands. Well thankfully you still got a lot of trendy dorks that hate them. Yet for some reason there are guys that like this group but who hate bands like Pink Floyd, Yes, Emerson, Lake & Palmer or Genesis. They sometimes also like Van Der Graaf Generator and maybe Gentle Giant. Dont ask me why maybe it's because they have a saxophone player and that is such an incredible important instrument. This has nothing to do with the music but with the status of the musicians. Robert Fripp has often played with hip artists like David Bowie, Brian Eno or Talking Heads. This has given some fashionable types the wrong impression that King Crimson makes artisticly credible music that sounds nothing like all those beard-hippies with their never-ending noodling. Well sorry folks but King Crimson is a 100% pure symphonic rock band. If you like this you can also like Jethro Tull, Genesis or Camel.

This band simply does not differ from other sympho-bands. Or at least they don't sound more different from the rest than that all the other groups sound from each other. Progressive rock is a very varied genre were all bands have there own style. King Crimson fits perfectle between all the other bands. It is completely random that KC are seen as the best. If David Gilmour, Greg Lake or Steve Howe had played with David Bowie or Brian Eno all those ignorant herdfollowers would have considered them as cool musicians and the groups they played in as the best symphorock act. It also irritates me when people think they are different from other progressive rock bands because they sound so dark as if all those symphorock groups all make happy flower-power music. This is a pure lie because all those bands had scary sounding pieces. The song 'Devils Triangle' may sound creepy but so does ELP's 'Tacotta' or 'Sysyphus' by Pink Floyd or 'Magnum Opus' by Kansas. Nothing special. The most important thing is that King Crimson is not the first progressive rock band. If KC wouldn't have existed you would have still had symphonic rock. There were a lot of groups in the late 60s early70s that made interesting records. Progressive rock just like hardrock is a style that gradually came into existance through all different bands. There is no such thing as a key-band who started this type of music. So King Crimson isn't any better than the other bands who made just as interesting music as KC. You either like all progressive rock acts or you hate them all.

 

Cheap Trick

Don't listen to all those fools who claim that this band is different than typical late70s acts like Journey, Boston, Angel, Foreigner etc. They are just talking a load of crap. It is exactly the same music. Lets be clear about one thing: Cheap Trick is not a powerpop band! Cheap Trick is 100% pure AOR and they sound nothing like Blondie, Knack or Big Star. But au contrair! According to websites like Powerpop Overdose or AV Club Cheap Trick is the ultimate example of this style and all those brainwashed followers just totally believe it. They were even featured on certain powerpop compilation albums. Yet in the late seventies nobody considered them a powerpop group and they were still seen as an unremarkable hardrock band who were hated by punks. There succes had nothing to do with new wave. People liked them for the same reason they liked REO Speedwagon, Styx or Bryan Adams. The singer of CT has the same kind of voice as Tommy Shaw, Kevin Cronin or Rick Springfield. I allways hate it when people call rockbands 'pop'. Popmusic is soft commercial music with no prominent roll for guitars. Michael Jackson or Simply Red are pop. The excuse they allways use is that they write catchy songs. Sorry but rock n roll is by definition catchy music. All hardrock acts from the pre-Metallica period wrote song-orientated music. You can just as well start calling bands like Dio, Aerosmith or Quiet Riot popmusic. I also think that CT's humor occasionally works on my nerves. Humor belongs in hardrock but theirs is a bit uncalled for. They are definately not better than other AOR groups. If you like this band you should also like Boston, New England, 707, Styx, Blue Oyster Cult and so on. So i have decided to listen to this great ARENAROCK band. Powerpop? Do you mean that kind of music that Cheap Trick does NOT make.

 

Beach Boys

This is another one of those bands that has made good music but isn't that super-duper great. I do not understand remarks like 'greatest american band' or better than the beatles'. There are at least twenty other American bands that I think are a lot better. They don't come anywhere near the level of greatness of the Beatles. I think lot of American musicfans are just jealous that they do not have such great bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones so they constantly use the Beach Boys as an example that they also have a band like that even though they are not as good. Especially the record 'Pet Sounds' is very overrated. It's good but it has a bit of a wimpy and a whimsical feel to the record. You can just see the Lorax and the Oompa Loompa's dancing around. The rock n roll has clearly disappeard. The heavy use of orchestra and other instruments gives the music a fairground sound that makes the album somewhat impenetrable. The Beatles even with their more experimental songs still sounded more direct and down to earth.  What also irritates me when people hate Mike Love and say that he's a talentless musician and that he has ruined the Beach Boys and turned them in a to soulles greatest hits machine. Typical the kind of rubbish badly informed Mojo readers spew out. Ofcourse he is not as important as Brian Wilson but he is definately not any less important than the other bandmembers. Don't forget that he sang on most of the early Beach Boys hits and aside from Brian Wilson wrote or co-wrote the most songs. Not exactly an unimportant bandmember. And he had the best live-presence of the band and allways knew how to connect with the audience. Brian Wilson may have been a great composer but live he had a charisma of a sack of patatos. But ofcourse the musicscene is run by all these geeky dorks who can't stand a machojock like Mike Love even though he is just as good a musician as his cousins.

 

Savatage

Savatage is musiccritic-metal par excellence. If something is boring, corny or pretensious you know the reviewers of Kerrang or Metal Hammer are going to like it. Nevertheless they made reasonably good music in their early days. Nothing special that is anywhere near the greatness of great rockacts of the time like Dio, Ratt or Dokken but at least it sounds like genuine hardrock music. A typical okay band ala Gun's n Roses that you can also add to your collection. In the nineties Savatage became a rockopera band that nobody cares about. After gitarist Chris Oliva died it all started to get worse. At least he still had an eighties duderock attitude. Without him Savatage became another faceless longsleeve-metalband with whimsical lyrics. Savatage thinks that if you make overblown concept records that your music automaticly is gonna sound special but their albums sound very workmanlike. They overate themselves enormously. They once said in an interview that they had to be very concentrated and focused when they are making records because it's more diffecult to make a conceptalbum then it is to write a book or make a record. Complete nonsense. Ofcourse it's more easier to make a conceptrecord than it is to make a book or a film because rockmusic is a much more simple medium than books or films. If the songs on a concept-cd sound like they belong together and there is some kind of narrative structure that's good enough. You don't need to add complicated details or deeper layers to the music if the music and lyrics give you enough clues so you know what they record is about. But that is something Savatage will never learn.

 

Velvet Underground/ Lou Reed

"Velvet Underground is the most important rock group ever", "the sound from the street", "at odds with the hippie generation". If somebody makes one of these statements again I'm gonna shoot them. I know lots of bands that are more important than Velvet Underground. Ofcourse all those hipster-geeks want you to believe that in the 60s there were only boring Woodstock-hippies who all made the same music. In reality the music that VU made was not that different than the rockmusic that was popular at the time. Bands like the Doors, Blue Cheer, Pink Floyd, Yardbirds, Iron Butterfly, Jimi Hendrix made just as original and inovative music as Velvet Underground. The most irritating myth surrounding the VU is that nobody bought their records but the few that did started their own bands. This is the kind of nonsense that only naive Guardian readers believe. Even though their records weren't a succes they still charted in the American top-200 which means they still must have sold at least 10.000 copies. Their first album sold better in the US than say 'Ace Of Spades' by Motörhead. If everyone who bought their records would have started their own band there would have been thousands of VU-type groups in the early seventies. This has clearly not happened so we can file this under the catagory of typical punk-bullshit. The more rational explanation for the popularity of VU is that it's simply cool to like them. Ofcourse the succes of Lou Reed's solo-career in the 70s made people interested in his old band but it is also because the rock-elite forces the opinion that the VU are the greatest rockact ever down everyone's throat. The pack-mentality does the rest. If Pitchfork or Rolling Stone said that ZZ Top was the most influencial group ever the the ignorant rock-herd would consider that the best band ever. It's as simple as that. Velvet Underground is certainly a good band but not better than other groups of that time.

 

Rolling Stones

Have you all got your scarfs and banners with you. THE GREATEST ROCK N ROLL BAND IN THE WORLD HAS ARRIVED!! NOT! Stop uttering this bullshit. They are not that good. I do not understand why their cd's end so high in greatest albums lists when there are a lot of other bands who are more desserving of that. Its boring Rolling Stone or Guardian writers that constantly pat each other on the back and never critisize their ignorant views that think this. Often people who believe this are stuck in the sixties and think that there wasn't any good music made after this. Well sorry guys but the music of the 70s and 80s is superior to the music of the 60s. Bands like Uriah Heep, Black Sabbath, Samson, Riot, Ted Nugent, Magnum are way better than Beatles, Stones or Byrds. Period! Unfortunately lot of people suffer from chronic ignorance when it comes to rockmusic. For rockaficionado's like me it's just painfull to see all these greatest bands lists of people on internet with the same predictable names on it like 'Led Zeppelin', 'Pink Floyd', 'David Bowie' or 'Rolling Stones'. Guys, don't you know any unknown bands! Groups like Budgie, Yesterday & Today, Triumph, Loudness and Motley Crue are just as good as the bands listed above. So it is time to start listening to lesser known bands. There also certain albums by the Stones that are very overrated and some underrated. The main suspect is the incredibly overrated Exile On Mainstreet. If somebody thinks this is the best RS record than you that person is a poser that does not know what he is talking about when comes to rock n roll. That cd is no better than other Rolling Stones about just as good. The album 'Their Satanic Majasties Request' on the other hand is criminaly underrated. Everybody that says that this isn't good or that they were "trying to go psychedelic" is just copying the views of other people. This is the best RS record with original and intresting music. A truly unique album. Also the eighties output(sounds dated!) has stood the test of time just as good as Deep Purple or Black Sabbath cd's of that time. Lets not forget their early RnB orientated records from the mid sixties. So the Rolling Stones are great band  but not better than the rest. On to the next overrated band.

 

Nirvana

The main perpetrators behind the alternative rock explosion that killed of hardrock. The era of real rockmusic has ended and is being replaced by crummy bands like Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam and Flaming Lips. The new generation of musicfans who do not know how genuine rock n roll is supposed to sound like so these dorkbands have free reign. Nirvana made punk popular. Punk?! "But they are grunge band and have long hair". You imbecile! (punch in the face) How often do I have to explain this! Grungers are also punks. You may think that they are hardrockers but if you ask them what their influences are it's gonna be stuff like Black Flag, Husker Du, Replacements, Clash and all the other predictable names. The kind of groups genuine rockers don't like. I mean they were in a rockumentary called '1991 the year punk broke'. Which clearly shows where his interests lie. That title just sums up the situation perfectly. Because 1991 is the year that punk (unfortunately) through the succes of Nirvana and grunge broke through much more than with the punk of the late 70s. I think drummer Dave Grohl is an idiot. Led Zeppelin is his favorite band and John Bonham is his big idol. It's clear that he knows nothing about hardrock which is examplary for the ignorance of alternative rock musicians. If Nirvana didn't exist the course of rockmusic would not be very different. There were a lot of bands back then making the same kind of music. Obviously there would have been some other band to fill in their place causing the same devastation. The nerds have ruled the world of rock for far to long. It's time that the jocks seize control again!

 

Ramones

You have to have been living on the Southpole to escape the presence of the Ramones. Everywhere you see posters, T-shirts, stickers, wallets etc. of the moronic foursome of New York. Most people waring those T-shirts don't even though who they are. They probably think that's some kind of clothing company's logo. Not aware of the evil that lurks beneath. You allways see kids with Ramones posters in their bedroom in a lot of films nowadays. Totally unrealistic because most young people only listen to Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber. Can't they have posters of Ritchie Blackmore or Michael Schenker on their walls that is a lot better than all that punkcrap. You never hear hardrock in movies. Kudo's to Men In Black 2 that features the song 'Speeddemon' by Keel in the post office scene. Cool finaly a bit of heavy metal in a film. They should do that more often. But what I'm going to tell you now is of paramount importance so listen well. Do not let anybody tell you especially all those curly moustache hipsters that the music of the Ramones is "how rock n roll is supposed to sound". People that say that don't know what that word means. "Yes but it sounds simple"  is the argument that is often used. The music of the Ramones may be simple but it lacks power. The agression of the Ramones and all that other punk stuff sounds insincere. Classic rock groups like Riot, AC/DC, Mountain or Survivor may be more varied but they just kick more ass. Alternative rock bands have to play fast and simple to sound tough. Hardrock musicians understand that you can write songs that are complex, gentle or slow and that you can still have a simple approach to your music. A band like the Ramones is only liked by geeky nerds not by working class rockers.

 

Megadeth

I was walking through town minding my own business suddenly this guy up to me and says "have you listened to Megadeth today". This happens a lot. As if everybody that likes hardrock automatically is a huge Megadeth fan. It's never gonna be "have you listened to Twisted Sister or Tank". Clearly they read that name somewhere in a magazine and thought that was a good conversation starter. I just tell them to talk a walk and go waste somebody elses time with their limited knowledge of rock. They are not that special. Just like a lot of other speedmetal acts their songs consist of a lot disjointed riffs that have little cohesion. This is done to give you the illusion that what they doing is very interesting but the clinical Joe Satriani playing techniques give the music a very tired and impenetrable approach. Than you have Dave Mustaine's annoying whining voice which starts grating after a time. Just like the predictable lyrics with that typical childish metal rebelion that nobody takes serious. Lot of these people also seem to think that Megadeth is a very heavy band. They are actually fairly mainstream sounding. It is baffeling that some people think that they used to be a thrashmetal band and later on they became more commercial. Megadeth has never made thrash. They are not even really speedmetal. Their music has allways been fairly slow. I mean come on! This is not Kreator or Dark Angel. Even Metallica sounds louder. I don't get people who think Megadeth is a lot heavier than Metallica. This is only because Dave Mustaine played in that band and they are less popular so therefore with typical ignorant metal reasoning "they must be louder". Metallica's music sounds a lot darker and heavier than Megadeth's. CD's like 'Rust In Peace' and 'So Far So Good' have a glossy arena-friendly production. Even Anthrax is louder. It is only good thing that they are a softer band because I hate these groups that try to sound dark and evil. I can't stand it if people call them and Anthrax and Metallica the "big four of thrash". If somebody uses this discription for any of these bands you have my full permission punch his face in. Only Slayer is a real thrashmetal group. The other three are just ordinary metal. Megadeth is metal with clear hardrock roots. Enjoyable but not more than that.

 

Yngwie Malmsteen

If you are looking for a guitarist for your band and he mentions Yngwie Malmsteen as one of his influences. Avoid that person! There is nothing that a guitar fanatic hates more than neoclassical shredsolos. Yngwie Malmsteen is the inventor of all that shallow noodling. Put on Youtube and you can watch all these videos of East and Southern European metalheads with uncool ringbeards explaining to you in crummy English how you can also play in such a corny way. This only scares of potential guitarplayers. I allways hate it when idiots in the comment section on youtube say rubbish like 'I hate guitarsolos' followed by 'just listen to Yngwie Malmsteen'. I feel like punching somebody like that in the face because guitarists didn't used to play like that. The shred-style is designed by punks to give competent guitar playing a bad name. The majority of the guitarists that played in a fast and flashy style were very creative and special. Just listen to Gary Moore, Robin Trower, Steve Hacket or Dave Murray all guitarists with a very unique style. I'm sure if all those people would hear people like this they wouldn't utter such nonsense they said a few sentences back and not listen to all that alto-crap. Yngwie Malmsteen is a very bad example of what classic rock guitarists sound like. I think people have this idea that all guitarsolos are the same and somebody who likes Rory Gallagher or Ritchie Blackmore will also like Yngwie Malmsteen or Steve Vai. No fucking way! People who like those bands hate all that lunkheaded racing over the strings. There are lot of different styles and approaches to soloing. The neoclassical style is just one of many. The shredstyle is a very modern way of playing solos that only became popular in the 90s. "But Yngwie Malmsteen is an eighties gitarist and they all played fast like that back then and in the nineties grunge became popular and everybody stopped playing solos" AAAAHHHH!!!! This ignorance is just painfull! Yngwie Malmsteen only started making music in the late 80s so nobody played that kind of classical style noodling in the early 80s. Aside a few GIOT guitarists on the Schrapnel lable nobody played like that in the late eighties. It is only in the nineties that you got all these Beethovens on guitar especially in the powermetal everybody started to play solos like that. That alternative music became popular and made guitarsolos unfashionable does not change the fact that shred solos where much more popular after the eighties. Something can be popular without being fashionable. Yngwie Malmsteen makes reasonably good music he is to much of an 80srock guitarplayer to be bad. As long as you do not play in that style it's allright. Lets hope proper guitarplaying comes back. Let the shred-style disappear of the face of the earth.

 

Mercyfull Fate / King Diamond

It is obvious that horror lyrics were are complete rarity in the 80's. Sex, drugs, love and rock n roll were the common subjects that they sung about but also songs about political things are a part of heavy metal. The established rock-elite will do anything in their power to ruin the good repution of hardrock. They want to fool you that hardrock is just as moronic as modern day metal and stupid lyrics about murder, death and satanworshiping are part of that. Mercyfull Fate together with Venom are the only band who sung about evil subjects so they get picked out constantly to emphesize that incorrect view. Like they are saying "look bands back then also sang about that stuff". The fact that no other band sang about that stuff back than proves how much it doesn't belong in that kind of music. People will never mention somebody like 'Phil Lynott' of Thin Lizzy or 'Dave Hill' from 'Demon' or 'Davey Patterson' from 'Gamma'  those guys write great lyrics and the Kerrang-Mojo establishment will do anything to stop you from realising that. It's allways punks who like bands like Venom and Mercyfull Fate and and the stupid thrashmetal acts who came out of that. Members of Sonic Youth and Dead Kennedys all praise that kind of stuff instead of high quality groups like Whitesnake or Highway Chile. This just shows that they listen to music in a very shallow way. Dave Grohl's Probot project is a perfect example of that which also features King Diamond. This is a so-called tribute to heavy metal music but the singers featured on that record are all from totally abysmal bands that every genuine rocker hates. No Rob Halford, Sammy Hagar, Geddy Lee or Don Dokken but instead of that the singers of Sepultura, DRI, Celtic Frost and all that metal-crap. Not even the ordinary speedmetal groups like Testament or Flotsam & Jetsam but complete unlistenable nonsense like Voivod, Kreator and Napalm Death. This makes sense because the big ignorant alternative rock herd must think that this stuff is real heavy metal. Don't listen to bands like Satan, Touch or Bowwow you might accidently get good taste. Dave Grohl says it himself: 'dont listen to bands like Judas Priest or Iron Maiden thats just the mainstream stuff you should listen to the underground bands'. Lets be clear about this. Underground music fuckin sucks! The big bands are the best. The groups who played on the Probot record are proof of how bad underground music can be. Dont be fooled but all the rhetoric. Notice that he linked Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. A clear red flag. People will do anything to give hardrock a dark image that is totally inappropiate. It's a bit like the film Hellgate. A terrible movie. For the people who do not know that film (actually thats good thing). Its about a group of kids that find a record buy a German heavy metal act (why should this band be german is that supposed to be creepy or something) to open the gateway to hell. This is absolutely not what heavy metal bands in the 80s sung about especially not german ones. Maybe they mean Kreator or something like that but when if your talking about the ordinary German hardrock. Dont make me laugh! Ordinary german heavy rock bands like Sinner, Scorpions, Accept, Krokus, Bad Steve, Thunderhead etc. sing about normal subject matter and they would never sing about worshipping satan or about monsters and all that bullshit. I really feel like searching for the makers of 'Hellgate' and everybody else that tries link heavy metal and horror and beating the crap out of them.

 

Eric Clapton/ Jeff Beck

Don't you just get mad when you read a magazine (probably Guitarworld) when they are making a list of greatest guitarists it is allways Jimi Hendrix, Eric Capton Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page at the top sometimes mixed with Eddie van Halen, Slash(baaah) or Stevie Ray Vaughn How predictable! They have absolutely no imagination. You will constantly read about these guitarists in the same magazines as if other great guitarists don't exist. They want you to believe that Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton where the highpoint of that flashy guitar style and that everybody else was just following in their footsteps. Especially punks use this excuse to discredit traditional rock and to promote their crummy guitar playing. In reality that was just the beginning of that type of guitar playing. There are about 50 other guitarists that play guitar just as well as the above mentioned quartet. People like Mark Farner, Glen Tipton, Ted Nugent, Johnny Winter are just as talented as Eric Clapton or Jimmy Page. You are getting that same myth being perpetueted by boring old fart baby boomers. The sixties was the greatest and everything that followed was mediocre forgettable music. What A nonsense! Rockmusic of the 70s/80s is way superior to the sixties stuff. The quicker you realize this the better. There is a whole archive of great guitar players that you never hear of and it's such shame because they definately deserve it. To be frank i dont think Eric Clapton is that special. His stuff with Cream was great. Some of his other stuff with Blind Faith, John Mayall was decent but everything after that was fairly dull and forgetable. Jeff Beck comes of as even worse. Stuff like Yardbirds or Jeff Beck Group is fairly enjoyable but a record like Beck-ola is no British Steel or Led Zeppelin I or Magicians Birthday. Just like his jazzrock stuff there are so many good fusion gitarist like John Mcclauglin, Pat Methany or Al Dimeola he is not the only one. Its time to open the great guitarist archive.

 

T. Rex

Punk music is generally the starting point of all that is crap in rockmusic. But even before that there where allready signs of things going the wrong direction. Enter glamrock. Glamrock has that style over substance mentality that is typical of a lot of modern day rock music. Critics like to tell you that glamrock is very special. Dont get fooled by that. Most glam artists are not better or different than other 70srock groups. To the contrary they are actually less good than standard 70srock (as if there is such a thing). There is just no excuse for the fact that a crummy band like T. Rex is seen as such an important band while great bands like Uriah Heep or Blue Oyster Cult are seen as bland forgetable music. That's just crazy! But glamrock is just a fad and most people especially critics just want to like what is fashionable even if its fairly disposable. Glamrock isn't really a style of music. It's not defined by how it sounds it is defined by how they look and all the bands have little in common with each other except for having an extravagent look. Glamrock is one those genres that is totally manufactured by the musicpress to lure easily impressable kids to buy mediocre music. Basically it's the forerunner of a lot of those empty trends that music papers like NME or Trouser Press like to spew out once every while. I get very suprised that people talk about T. Rex as if it is very tough or straightforward music. The cover of 'Electric Warrior' that has Marc Bolan standing in front of a huge speaker giving you the impression that this very loud and raucous music. In reality the music featured on that album is really wimpy music made only worse by his annoying whiny voice. April Wine or Status Quo this is not. I often notice that if a band gets the glamrock tag they are suddenly deemed credible for some reason. A perfect example of this is the band Mott The Hoople who started out as a standard blues/boogierock group who wasn't seen as hip at all. Suddenly they got a glamrock makeover with 'All The Young Dudes' and they were considered cool. While the music is totally not different. This just shows that what bands are seen as good or bad by the critics is totally random.

 

MC5

If you hear somebody talking with great enthousiasm about the Stooges, MC5 or the New York Dolls that's a huge warning sign that that person is not to be trusted. MC5 is a name that people like to drop to gain credibilty and ofcourse it is totally not deserved. MC5 is a good band but they are not that special or different from what was going on in rock at the same time. MC5 is not different from bands like Steppenwolf or Bloodrock. It is the same loud blues-based rock everyone else were making back then and it has nothing to do with punk. At least the stooges has that depraved heroin junkie approach that you expect from punkbands Mc5 hasn't even got that. "But they are political" is another annoying excuse that people like to make. This the hippie era. Lot of bands from that time were political. Just think of all those protest marches you had in the sixties with a lot of violent clashes with the police and even the army. Hardly the sweet flower power mentality that the punks are trying to sell you. But this is wild Detroit rock that is reacting against all that polite Simon and Garfunkel music that the hippies were making. When somebody talks about detroit all the time you should allready instinctively know that you are dealing with a poser. There's nothing perticular tough or agressive about the music from Detroit. Is just a word people like to throw around because it sounds cool and to create the false notion that the music they are making is very rowdy. The White Stripes is a often used as an example of Detroit rock and its one of the most wimpiest bands that you can get. The real reason MC5 or the Stooges are rated so highly is because Creem magazine is from Detroit and they are gonna promote their own bands. If Stooges or MC5 had come from Louisiana nobody would have cared about them and punk figureheads like Lester Bangs or Nick Kent wouldn't have givin them the thumbs up If Creem had put James Gang or High Tension on the frontcover all these pseudorockers would have liked those bands. It's just that random.

 

Frank Zappa/ Captain Beefheart

There is a café were I occasionally go to that has a picture of Frank Zappa on the wall at the back. There is a subtext to a picture like this that says 'we are serious musiclovers that are cultured and we are not into stupid redneck bands like Aerosmith or Magnum'. I feel like tearing that picture from the wall and replacing it by one of Lou Gramm or Ronnie James Dio.This reminds me when I used to go to rockclubs you allways had these typical serious musicians that were big fans of Frank Zappa or Primus and looked down on bands like Deep Purple or AC/DC because they sounded to simple. I can't stand this. Its that incorrect notion that because bands are complicated they are better than bands that play simple music. I have allways been of the opnion that good songwriting and rousing rock energy is a lot more important than if a band is strange or experimental sounding. The humour that Frank Zappa uses often detracts from the music rather that it adds anything of value. Living proof that bands that try to be very funny end op just being very annoying. Humour should be inserted in a subtle manner done with appropiate moderation. i never liked bands that use a lot of satire. Often the people who satirize something dont know much about the thing they are trying to make fun of. Which just makes them seem like fools not the target they are trying to poke fun at. Its a bit like people who satarize nuclear energy as this dangerous threat to society despite it being a very safe form of energy while the wind and solar energy are pretty bad at generating enough energy to supply the population. So your attempt at satire falls flat on its face.

Captain Beefheart is even more overrated than Frank Zappa. Frank Zappa Hasnt got any albums reviewed by pitchfork for instance. He is clearly more of a baby-boomer artist. No Captain Beefheart is the real deal. Forget about Zappa he is still to technical. Long live the sloppy musicianship of the Captain. That just shows that its never good enough for these people. It allways has to be the weirdest of the weirdest. Ordinary weird like Yes or Pink Floyd will not do. While the music they make is actually much more intresting then that of Captain Beefheart. If you play Emerson, Lake and Palmer's 'Tarkus' and Captain Beafhearts 'Trout Mask Replica' in a supermarket both will sound strange and crazy to the people that are shopping. The difference is that the music of ELP has genuine musical value in it that reveals itself after repeated listening while Captain Beefheart is just a bunch a people randomly banging away on their instruments recording anything that just pops up in their head even though the results are pretty crummy. And there lies our problem. People nowerdays think being innovative means that your music must sound amateurish, badly recorded filled with bum notes and people screaming their heads of and if you do not do this you are a square conservative type who is only into formualic music. The progressive rock bands from the seventies prove that you just need to play your instruments well have good songstructures and just use your imagination to make innovative and challenging music. You dont need to do all that freaky stuff that people like Frank Zappa and Tom Waits do. You dont have to make complicated music to sound intresting. Bands like Black Sabbath, Journey and White Lion are straightforward bands but their music has character and originality to it. Thats why I hate these avantgarde types that have infiltrated rock n roll who ruin the selfconfidence of young people who are in to music by telling them that their music is predictable and that it does not sound weird enough. Enough of This! Your music that you are making is that special. Its time to kick those morons out in bring rockmusic back to its working class roots

 

Stevie Ray Vaughan

I was recently looking through an old guitar magazine. While i was reading i noticed a page with custom made guitars based on guitars of famous musicians. Aside from the standard  Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and Slash replica's there where noticible a lot of Stevie Ray Vaughan guitars. Oddly enough lot of replica's of guitarists i think are lot better where absent. Why dont they make a Tom Scholz guitar or one of Michael Schenker. One of those black and white flying-V's. Nope just forget about them. Stevie Ray Vaughan thats the shit. Even though hardrock guitarplayers made a much bigger impact on the music of the eighties than blues musicians like Stevie Ray. But magazines like guitarworld are still run by the same bunch of blues fanatics who are calling the shots in the guitar playing scene since the sixties. Hardrock to them is just an unremarkable ofshoot. That while heavy rock was much more important music during the final couple of decades of the 20th century than blues. In the early part of the 20th century blues was really innovative music but in the latter half of the century rock became the dominant force in music. Blues musicians like Muddy Waters, BBKing or Elmore James made great music but it is nowhere as good as what rockguitarists like Neal Schon, Angus Young or Steve Clark are doing. They have a much wider musical range than blues music that is limited by its twelve bar structure. But blues gitarists are highly praised as unique sounding musicians while rockmusicians all just sound like Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page of Jimi Hendrix. Who do you think your fooling! There are tons of great guitarists who are just as good those guitarists. All the KK Downing's, the Don Felder's, the Steve Howe's people that should be part of your musical upbringing. But now we come to the reason why Stevie Ray Vaughan gets pushed all the time. You are supposed to think that this was the most interesting that was going in the 80s and not much else was happening. The long list with fantastic guitarplayers i regular mention says otherwise. But they are going to do everything they can to stop you from listening to hardrock.

I dont understand why people get inspired by him to like blues. 'Without Stevie Ray i wouldnt have bacome a bluesfan' somebody said on Amazon. People like that would've liked blues without him. They are just naturaly drawn to authentic music like the blues. There were others that made blues back then like George Thorogood, Robert Cray, Jeff Healey his brother Jimmy Vaughan. So they would have been inspired by those people to listen to the blues.I think the arrival of guitarists like Stevie Ray, Jeff Healey, Walter Trout, (90s) Gary Moore saw a shift within bluesmusic. This was the beginning of the blues as a clear defined genre with a built in audience with strict musical bounderies where nothing new happens. Just like we've been having with country and western for years. That used to be different. In the sixties the blues was still very fresh and energetic that appealed to a lot of young people. Ofcourse you had the real blues before that that was made by black people. In the 60s and 70s the blues was the basis for a lot of exciting music. It was the motor behind the sound of a lot of bands even if they do not play blues. But from the nineties onwards blues became like a fairground attraction. The blues started to get a suburban VH-1 image. They do regularly organize blues festivals from time to time but that only serves to scare of young people from liking blues rather than that it creates new fans. The present day blues scene only exists to keep the tradition alive you are not gonna hear fresh new music. Just sit down have a beer with that and lie down in the grass while the music plays in the background. You can just as well go to see brass band performing carnaval music.

But thats exactly the point. They want you to get the impression that classic rock is outdated music that doesn't fit into the current era. And its working. When you go to an alternative music festival it atracts a lot of young people. They do not like blues at all. That something for old geezers. You will occasionally get a young kid that likes blues but they are just as rare as teens liking classical music. Since people tend to link blues to classic rock you wont see new fans being attracted to this music. Did the first wave of performers of the new bluesboom like Michael Katon, Omar and the Howlers and ofcourse Stevie Ray himself still sound rowdy and spontaneous. Eventually you started to get blues musicians who were starting to play 'boring old fart rock'. You know who im talking about. people like Joe Bonnamassa, Scott Henderson, Eric Gales, Greg Bissonette, Michael Landau and you can name the rest. All fine musicians but they sound so lifeless. They are like a piece of cheese thats out of date and is covered by fungi. This is all supported by the guitar institute of technology and they will get lotsof praise by guitarworld but aside from a few bluesrock fanatics nobody is going to like them. Especially not young people. They would rather listen to  rap or house or to metal or trendrock and they get turned of by classic rock. That is a shame because i think that if lots of kids would get exposed to 70s/80s rock they will like it. The music must be presented in a respectfull manner that will actually attract people. It should stay miles away from hyperactive nerds who destroy the good name of hardrock by pairing it with ofputting associations like occultism, murder or fantasy stories that any proper rockfan absolutely detests. I call it the 'spinal tap syndrome' a movie that has little to do with reality. The current blues scene with its associations with balding guys with beer belly's and oversized bandshirts also plays a role. In that way Stevie Ray Vaughan plays a same role for blues that Guns n Roses plays for hardrock or Yngwie Malmsteen for guitar solos. You are being discouraged to like that kind of stuff. That is why its important to add new intresting musical ideas to classic rock so that a fresh wave of inspiration flows through the scene so that young people might also like it and they dont get confronted with boring Joe Bonnamassa types but original gitarists with a new attitude.

 

Roxy Music

If musicians say that their heroes are David Bowie and Roxy Music you know that means bad news. This is one those deadly pairings like MC5 and Stooges or Iron Maiden and Judas Priest that you just can figure out that the person stating it is just a fake rocker that is just repeating what he is hearing other people say. People who think that Roxy Music and David Bowie (sometimes combined with T.Rex) are make great music are often elitist people who look down on proper rockfans. Roxy Music is symbolic for those artschool types that have taken over rockmusic and will do anything to give the ordinary 70s/80s rock music a bad name. Apparently the music of the seventies all sounded the same and Roxy Music came along to save us from all that sludge. Yeah pull my leg! Roxy Music made perfectly fine music but what they are doing isnt any more special than what Uriah Heep or Golden Earring are doing. All those bands back then where making very original music. If people actually took the effort to listen to other music that was made back then besides Roxy Music or Velvet Underground they would realise that ther were lots of great bands like that. But you will not hear those on your hip mixtapes. They want you to think that Roxy Music was a very creative band that explored new sonic territory with amateurish enthousiasm that wasnt like all that bombastic "progrock" that is all just about virtuosic solos without any substance.  You can probably guess that this is totall crap. Lots of symphonic rock acts used strange sounds or unusual textures  Just listen to the futuristic synthesizer sounds on Pink Floyd's 'Shine on you Crazy Diamond' or the hovering flying saucer sounds that Keith Emerson uses on 'Pictures of an Exhibition' or the booming tuning fork bass sounds of Chris Squire on the 'The Fish' from Yes or the haunting jungle sounds of 'Larks Tongues in Aspic' of King Crimson. So lots of experimentation on progressive rock records. This may come us a surprise to some people but you can be virtuosic and still make artisticly intresting music. Good musicianship and trying out new musical ideas are things that go hand in hand more so than with all that amateurish dross. A lot of those naieve alto's probably think that musicians like David Gilmour, Steve Howe of Keith Emerson sound just like those shallow shred guitarists. That they are doing something similar to what John Petrucci is doing or those idiots on youtube like Shredmaster Steve or Axes Of Creation who are damaging the reputation of accomplished guitarplaying. Roxy Music does not make amateurish sounding music. The bandmembers are all excellent musicians. The guitar, the piano, saxophone, drums all sound perfectly fine. Brian Ferry even though i find his court jester voice a bit grating is a good singer. Some people seem to view amateurism as something of a badge of honour and good musianship to be something to be ashamed of. Its the world turned upside down. The bands of the past prove otherwise including Roxy Music.

 

Big Star

Cultbands are an essential way for hip musicfans to distinguish themselves from the ignorant mainstream masses. If you like these bands you are signaling to other geeks that your part of the incrowd. Unknown reggae singers are a must for cultfans. But also a band like the Meters. Never heard of them. That is a perfect example of a cultband. Another example is Dr John. Nice music but not that special. Believe it or not Dr John and the Meters have even made music together. Similar types seek each other i guess. But you cant call yourself a musicnerd if you own nothing by Big Star. They are the precursor to all those charming janglebands that you got in the 80s and 90s. Think about the themesong of friends by the rembrandts. Want to know a secret. They would have sounded the same without Big Star. This is a typical case where a certain band is given a legendary status they dont quite deserve. This gets blindly accepted by all those autistic neckbeards and gets repeated over and over. Bingo the cultstatus of a band is born. Then you hear it pop up everywhere. A while ago i was reading this discusion page where  a guy said that 'your parents claim to be fan of Big Star but in reality they liked Foghat'. Thats supposed to be wrong because? Foghat just happens to be a really good band a lot better than Big Star. Were people such big fan of that band back then. I did not know that. That just shows how much people knew about music back then. When i was young all the kids at school liked house music like 2 Unlimited ann Dr Alban. Nobody listened to rockgroups of that time like Nirvana and Pearl Jam. So its great to hear there was a time they did do that.

They have an obsession with bands that just released a few records that didnt sell well. Stooges, Velvet Underground, Nick Drake, Big Star etc. Something tells me if those bands had become popular they would probably not been held in such high esteem as they do now. That would not have been cult. As a credible musiclover you cant like popular music. Have you lost your mind. You ofcourse can not like groups like Kensington or Blink 182. Thats music for the common people. That isnt hip. If they like unknown music so much why dont they listen to those NWOBHM bands like Hellanbach, Wildfire or Samson. They are obscure bands that nobody has heard of that deserve a lot more recognition. But i guess the 'less wellknown the better' rule doesnt apply to hardrock music. The kids should get protected against that as much as possible. It doesnt come as a suprise that Big Star is not that good of a band. Nice music but not that different from other seventies music. Just listen to Stealers Wheel the band that made 'stuck in the middle with you'. They make the same music as Big Star. The same mix between electric and acoustic songs. But they had a hit so i guess they are not that cool. I think most present day music lovers know nothing about music in the seventies otherwise they would have known there are more bands like this.

 

Neil Young-Joni Mitchell

Neil Young has been on my wishlist for a long time lets use this Joe Rogan issue to get that done. Neil Young is clearly a coronabeliever who cant stand it that there are people think this plandemic is nonsense. Someone like that must be stopped immediatly. We cant have such displays of independent thinking. So he wants Joe Rogan kicked of spotify or he will take his music of the music providers site. Great let him take his records of there. He is not that good of a musician. Nice to see that Neil Young is a big fan of censorship. Just shows that he has never been a rebel. He has found an ally in fellow canadian Joni Mitchell. Joni Mitchell wasnt on my list but now she has shown up on my radar. So that wasnt a good idea. It looks like Neil and Joni are a bunch of coronacranks. That makes sense because they of the same country as Justin Trudeau who is a big fan of taking away freedoms in the name of this fakepandemic. I think its fantastic that the truckers are taking a stand against that retard. Lets scare these tiranical people away. Should have happened a lot earlier. Even eric clapton who is fighting against this covidcrap has taken the jab and has experienced for himself how dangerous that is. Better late then never. But he could have realised a lot quicker that the whole corona thing is untrue.
Neil Young allways gets presented as an honoust musician that isnt like all the slick sounding bands from the time like Yes, Doobie Brothers or Ted Nugent. He is the loner that reacted against the corrupt musicbussiness of the seventies that was only releasing boring predictable music like the Eagles. They were a laidback band that made snoozeworthy ballads while Neil Young was such a wild rocker. Really? You have been fooled again. The music of Neil Young isnt different of that of the Eagles. This is the musicpress trying to create a certain perception and all those musicnerds just believe it. You wonder if any of the critics have ever listened to an Eagles album. They could've heard for themselves that they had louder songs like 'Chug all Night' 'Out of Control' 'Allready Gone' or 'Life in the Fast Lane'. They are no different than the wilder songs of Neil Young including the ones with Crazy Horse. While lot of his songs like 'Heart of Gold' of 'Down by the River' dont overwhelm you with their intensity. Not like hardrock songs of the time like Look at Yourself of Uriah Heep or Stormtroopin from Ted Nugent who blow mr. Young's dull countryrock songs to pieces. But he is consciously trying to cultivate an image that he isnt like his colleagues of the 70s. Thats why he plays with bands like Devo or has a band like Sonic Youth on tour with him. Like he is trying to say 'im not one of those boring babyboomer types im cool'. But he is no different than all his 60s peers. He can play with Devo all he likes he will never sound as strange as that band. He is just as normal as Bruce Springsteen. His music doesnt sound as sloppy as what Sonic Youth does. His alliance to a band like that will not change the fact that he is making typical countryrock music. But neil young knows that gestures like that make him seem like a hip musician and the ignorant musiccritics get fooled by this despite not being any different than Jackson Browne. But jackson browne does not act like he is a cool musician he is just an avarege joe that enjoys making good music and admits this. He does not align himself to trendy musicians.
Joni Mitchell is cut from a similar cloth. She pretends like she is a proper artist that is not like shallow mainstream singers like Carole King of Carly Simon while she is no different. She has these pretentious looking frontcovers like 'turbulent indigo' where she is trying to look like Vincent van Gogh or another one where she is dressing up like a black dude. She probably thinks she is trying to make an artistic statement but she just looks ridiculous. But she trying to come other as a credible musician just like Neil is doing. They are trying to be edgy but the fact that they are fooled by this plandemic shoes that they are just a bunch of conservatives that are easily scared by the scare tactics of our rulers. There is nothing progressive about these people. All their ideas about progress are outdated. Everything from the non-existant environmental problems like global warming or the burning of the rainforests to the anti-racism nonsense that just serves as an excuse to censor people like for instance Joe Rogan are totally not new anymore. They are part of the old guard that needs to be overthrown as soon as possible so that genuine new ideas can take root. Just like the rich kids that write for Pitchfork or Vice that praise this kind of censorship. Its like everything they say comes straight from the CIA. It wouldnt surprise me if there are spooks writing for such a magazine. Its frightning how little distrust they have for their gouvernment. Which is the purpose of rock n roll. But they do not like rock n roll. The fact they like garbage like Kendrick Lammar or Adele just proves this. Speaking of canadian bands why dont they praise hardrock bands like Rush, Triumph and Bachman Turner Overdrive who are much more deserving of all that praise than Neil or Joni. But the critics are all sensitive singer-songwriter fans who dont like proper rock

 

Prince

Prince has a very diverse audience. Maybe a little to diverse. He is liked by people that usely cant stand 80smusic. These are the kind of people that constantly tell us how great the underground music is from the eighties and that they were rightly rebeling against all those terrible mainstream artists like Phil Collins, Hall and Oates and Whitney Houston with all those gated drums, DX-7 synthesizers and "hairmusicians" gitaarsolos. This is suddenly no issue van Prince does it. I do not think he is as great as lot of people think he is and statements like 'he is a musical genius'  or 'best musician of the 80s' just sound laughable. In particular that youtube video where he together with Tom Petty and Jeff Lynn play 'While my Guitar Gently Weeps' of the Beatles that has the title 'greatest guitarsolo ever'. Nice solo but its not of the level of Jimmy Page's solo in Stairway to Heaven or Michael Schenkers spitfire solos in UFO's Lights Out or Neal Schon's solo in 'Winds of March' from Journey. The thing is he isnt simply overrated but also in a very specific way. For some strange reason that is unclear to the more levelheaded musicfan he gets a pass while other unfashionable musicians are kept at bay. This works on my nerves

I often hear people say they hate mainstream 80smusic but love the music of Prince. Which is something i cant wrap my mind around. You can think he is great but he is clearly a typical mainstream musician that makes slick sounding music with highly technical musicianship and crisply produced albums. They sold in the millions and the singles became big hits. Clearly not alternative rock. So the popularity he has with an indierock audience is a bit of mystery. So what would the reason be. Its definitely not his technical chops on guitar and other instruments. Thats something trendrock musicians dont care about. Could it be his extravagent stage presence and lifestyle that is surrounded by an air of mystery. But you had that with Michael Jackson and Madonna and they were shuned by the hip underground audience. Maybe because he has sexually explicit lyrics that were seen as shocking to certain sections of the establishment and that he was revered by alternatives for that reason. But that theory also does not make sense because lots of uncool bands did that too. A lot of untrendy heavy rock acts also sang about that stuff which is also the reason trendy people think they are corny. songs like Animal Fuck Like A Beast from Wasp or Girls Girls Girls of Motley Crue have the same sexual provocative lyrics like Prince has. But do you see punks enjoying their music. They dislike hardrock bands just as much as the popmusic of that time. It would be strange of they liked him for that reason because they dont sing about sex and girls. They will consider that sexist. Cheesy simpleton lyrics for dirtfarmers from the southern states

It could be that the appreciate him because he is black. You often see elitist musiclovers like black music out of a misplaced sympathy for the black community. That is why you see altrockers like complete garbage music like hiphop. But that is not true either because they find singers like Lionel Ritchie or Billy Ocean just as crummy as the white music from that time. Boring suburban music for people that walk around with Bill Cosby sweaters. You have probably figured it out allready there is no good reason for why they like him. Its just empty praise that is examplary for the herd mentality that is the norm for punks. It is as if people held a lottery and that the winner is aloud to be liked by the trendy music establishment. What is just baffeling. Dont get me wrong i think he is a great artist but i like 1980's popmusic. I like stuff like Rick Springfield, Kim Wilde or Simple Minds so it makes sense that i also like Prince. But that type music is loathed by them while Prince seems to get away with it. This just makes me mad. That mentality that this music is off limits but this or that musician gets our stamp of approval so 'you are aloud to like him'. In the eighties there were a lot of great music that was made not just Prince. Dont let them convince you that only underground music like Black Flag, Nick Cave or the Replacements were good. The mainstream music of that time blows that punkshit away.

 

sixties garagerock

In the sixties you know that terrible decade with wimpy bands like Cream, Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and the Beatles were ruling the scene a counter movement was starting to brew. Bands like Sonics, the Seeds, ? & the Mysterians rebelled against corny shit like the Byrds and the Who with their rowdy gutterrock and were the forerunners of punk and sounded nothing like their contemporaries. The april fools jokes just keep coming at us in the world of rock. You'll know by now that this is complete B.S. This is only believed by facebook yuppies who still think they are tough. Just like parents who give their babys tshirts of bands like Nirvana or the Clash. The garagerock bands fit perfectly well with the souns of the sixties. They make the same music as the aformentioned more famous artists. The musicnerds would make as believe that they were far ahead of their time where we should be gobsmacked by that notion and go 'did they do that back then' but they actually want to have something exclusive. "We have discovered this". The only thing we have discovered is that they sound nothing like the Sex Pistols or the Ramones stuff that you've got ten years later.

I think its comical that compilation albums with this kind of music feature creepy creatures on their cover like werewolves riding around in cadilacs or swampmonsters that eat your pet labrador. You can have as many tombstones on your covers or zombies with greaser haircuts the real rockfanatic knows the are just a bunch of dorks. Recordshop owners who write for discogs. The think they can impress you with titels like 'raw garagepunk' or 'real punk from the sixties'. The alerted musiclistener knows that this has nothing to do with punk. There was nothing going on back then that could be discribed as punk. It started in the late 70s. You can draw a line there. There was nothing before that. Were the bands from the sixties respectable rockacts that made praiseworthy music the bands that made garagerock from punk onwards were shabby muck that cant make a dent in a packet of butter. With each generation it became worse. Bands like Yeah Yeah Yeahs, White Stripes and the Hives represent the current batch of garagerock often lauded with the standard 'its wild rock n roll' rhetoric. Its all schlock.

Punks try to project things on this kind of music that they did not intend. The members of garagerock bands are misfits that live in slums and who are against the capitalist society. Just like punkgroups they play in a sloppy manner and have the same screwed up view of the world. This is a complete fairytale. There just ordinary blokes with a 9 to 5 job and who just went to have a bit of fun. Just like the traditional rockmusic that was popular before punk. You as unknowing musiclover is getting the wrong idea of that music that you got to figure out isnt true. I always hate it when punks talk about a 'fuck you attitude'. Thats very tough and reckless sounding but people who say this are amoeba visiting dorks who join exctiction rebbelion demonstrations. Thats just as much an meaningless trendy statement like 'do it yourself'. Which is also such an empty slogan. Its like the picture of Johnny Cash that you have undoubtedly seen were he sticks up his middlefinger. Punks see this as proof that he is an ally that also hates mainstream society. "Look he also has a 'fuck you mentality'". In reality it has nothing to do with that. That was an incident at a live performance were the cameraman was constantly bothering him. At a certain point he had enough of that and told him to stop. In a moment of anger he gave him the finger and he caught that on camera. See a clear explanation. This was not a promoshoot for an albumcover. Johnny Cash would never lower himself to such cheap shocktactics. The famous country singer cared very much about what happens to the common man as you can hear in songs like 'the hard way' or 'johnny 99'. He would kick those vegaburger eating shitpunks in the ass.

The garagerock myth gets promoted because there was once a primevil time were rock was raw and pure and it later got lost because of devilish commercial powers and only punk and similar music retained the original spirit. Ofcourse the mainstream rock of the 70s and 80s are the sworn enemy. Both the pop and the hardrock of that period is just schmaltz that the garagerock bands rightly were rebelling against. Hardrock bands act tough but are just a bunch of dorks. Then they clearly werent paying attention because bands like Ratt,Triumph, Hellanbach and Status Quo are lot rowdier than all that sixties muck. Who are they fooling here. As if rickety groups like Electric Prunes or Count Five make tougher music then heavy rock acts like Bachman Turner Overdrive or TT Quick. I thought not. Even people who do not know much about music can that such music is more powerfull and agressive. Garagerock acts make the huge error to think that if you play sloppy that your music will automaticly starts sounding more agressive but they opposite is true. Put records on like 1987 from Whitesnake or the first two records by Boston albums that are crisply produced and there is a lot more energy and wildness to them than you get with garagerock albums that have a lot less impact because of the murky sound. So you see that clean sounding records can sound a lot more tougher than sloppy ones.