Not sure if it was growing up in close proximity to Ontario housing or the lack of an older sibling with a penchant for Ozzy, but my formative music discovery years (from age 8 to 14) were more about funk, top 40 pop, disco and early rap than hard rock/metal. Don't think it's worthwhile listing any disco tracks, for obvious reasons (I'm not doing cardio, dancing at a wedding, or doing lines off Truman Capote's ass at Studio 54). If I were to list the top 5 seminal hip-hop recordings of this period (1978-84), to the forementioned Sugar Hill Gang track, I'd add:

• "Buffalo Gals" - Malcolm Mclaren (1983)
• "Planet Rock" - Afrika Bambaataa (1982)
• "The Message" - Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five (1982)
• "Beat Box" - The Art of Noise (1984)

The Malcolm McLaren video was not only the first video I recall ever seeing on tv, but also was the first breakdancing I'd ever seen. The use of scratching, loops, and samples are pretty much the building blocks of all future hip hop tracks. The Afrika Bombaata and Art of Noise tracks owe more to Kraftwerk and 70s German synth/electronica than they do perhaps to the music coming out of the emerging urban (black, inner city) American music scene but again, the sampling, and in the case of the former, the emphasis on black consciousness, mark the significance of their contributions to this genre. Grandmaster Flash's 'The Message', on the other hand, continues the trend of bringing the diy, rhyming over beats live performances and cassette recordings of the northeastern US 'street' into the mainstream, or at least mainstream enough for a late pre-teen, early teen in Scarborough, ON to catch wind of it.

Hope you enjoy the clips and sorry for not posting sooner. Three back-to-back west coast business trips, followed by catchup and prep for a mini vacay next week has left me w/ little spare time for posts. Will try to be a little more active here. Thanks to Mike and Bri for picking up the slack.

When I was in those formative headbanger years, I was attending an American high school overseas. There was also a strong contingent of Southern rock bands that I didn't mention because they weren't my particular favorites. These included Lynyrd Skynyrd, Molly Hatchet, REO Speedwagon (yes, they were a hard rock band before they turned into a bubblegum pop band) and .38 Special. The other large music camp was the disco camp, which was into things like The Commodores, Earth Wind and Fire and the Bee Gees. As I recall, the first rap song to make it big came out at that time - "Rappers Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang. And as Brian has admitted to discounting the heavy metal genre, I must admit that I have been guilty of doing the same with the disco/dance/rap/house/ genre(s). So perhaps somebody who has been tracking aqnd appreciating that music over the years can come up with the top 5 albums of that genre...

Wow, what a moribund blog we have these days. Mike, thanks for your input. I was always more into sixties music as a kid, so the "rock" was never as "hard" (though I could put together a pretty good list of acid/psych rock records), but you couldn't live in the 70's without hearing a lot of big assed rock. The two (OK three) that stick with me as absolutely essential aren't on your list, so I'll add them in there. (1) Led Zeppelin 2 was the one that I went back to time and again, learned all of the riffs on, postured to, etc...and in a lesser way (2) Led Zeppelin 4. (3) the other one that got a lot of air time was Deep Purple's Machine Head, you know, with Smoke on the Water, Highway Star, Lazy, Space Truckin' (OK, I have to go home and download this one now)....great record. I would probably add Black Sabbath's Paranoid in there as a fourth.

Interestingly, these are all British bands, which I'd never really thought about before.

My choices for the best hard rock albums of all time would be different now than they were then, I expect, and given that I was deeply into the genre at the time, perhaps my teenaged choices would be more significant. Looking back, the albums that I was fondest of at the time were probably (roughly ordered by descending preference):
Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti
Pink Floyd - The Wall
Rush - 2112
Black Sabbath - Volume 4 or possibly Sabotage
Boston - Boston
Aerosmith - Toys in the Attic
Blue Oyster Cult - Some Enchanted Evening
Deep Purple - Made in Japan
Van Halen - Van Halen
Ted Nugent - Double Live Gonzo
AC/DC - Back in Black

As I grew older, some of these bands lost their appeal rapidly, while there are others that I can still listen to happily. Also, I discovered The Who rather late for some reason, so although I didn't listen to them in my early years, they became my favorite band in university. And although I did consider Pink Floyd to be hard rock in those days, I would not include them in that category now. If I had to list the top 5 today, I would go with:

Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti
The Who - Who's Next
Blue Oyster Cult - Some Enchanted Evening
Boston - Boston
Aerosmith - Toys in the Attic

By the way, I realize that I'm omitting some of the usual suspects - Jimi Hendrix and Cream for example. I'm deliberately skewing this list toward my own personal favorites, rather than the albums that I think were most significant.

A couple of other emusic pop recordings to check out are Venice is Sinking, a moody full blown pop band, and Throw Me the Statue, who offer more of a quirky lo fi approach, emphasis on lyrics and melody (whom I'm thinking of checking out tomorrow night at the El Mo).  Also, looking back at a month on at my recommendations from a few weeks ago, Headlights seems to be the one that is getting the most rotation chez DoylePod.  Pure effervescent pop of a very high quality....check out "Market Girl".

So Mike, what are your nominations for best hard rock / heavy metal albums of all time. Say, top five?

I cut my musical teeth on the "hard rock" of the 70's. At the top of my list was Led Zeppelin, with my favorite of their albums being Physical Graffiti. I was also into Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Ted Nugent, Blue Oyster Cult and Rush to name a few. I expect that you are familiar with the releases of all of those bands. I was just getting into some newer hard rock such as Judas Priest when I moved to a new high school and fell in with a different group of friends. Under their influence, my tastes started to soften, so I never really became familiar with the next wave of heavy groups – Iron Maiden, Motley Crue, Metallica, etc. My older son is now listening to some of that stuff – his favorites seem to be the older groups. Specifically AC/DC and Kiss. I think that you’re right to classify this genre as puerile; the demographic to which it appeals is almost exclusively teenaged males. But I remember a few scattered scenes from my youthful days strolling down the street with friends while “Paranoid” or “Sweet Emotion” blared out of the speakers of the ridiculously large ghetto blasters that we used to drag around with us. My connection to that music at that time was probably more primal and powerful than any other musical connection I’ve experienced since.

Pretty quiet in the blog-o-sphere, boys. Stuart's laid up, Derek's MIA, everyone else is therefore (using the distributive property) urgently in need of a blog thread. Stu and Derek do too, using the communicative property.

So here it is.

I was scanning the Allmusic best of 07 list recently, and one of the numerous concerns expressed by readers was that Allmusic had ignored the "great" metal records of the year, focusing on softer pop, which undeniably is more in vogue these days. To which I thought, bloody right.

Partially this is me being 43 now and slowly losing my appreciation for LOUD, partially this is that I've always found metal (or heavy metal as it was once called) largely puerile, with few exceptions. I would say in my defense that I loved early period grunge, as well as a lot (though certainly not all) of punk. I would tend not to include these in a discussion of metal though.

So I'm throwing open the floor to the more open-minded among you to suggest great (heavy) metal records - current or classic - that I need to hear. Feel free to open up the discussion to include the more palatable 70's category of "hard rock", though I (smugly?) feel like I know most of those already.

Hey Mike, maybe you could look at doing "Roscoe", by Midlake - I know you like that album, and the song meets most of the criteria (relatively simple musically, features a harmony throughout), and is a fantastic song.  Not sure if is familiar enough to the Tech Rocks crowd though  :).  What do you think? 

My company has entered "Tech Rocks", the local battle of the bands for high tech companies. The rules stipulate that each band must play an original song, a Canadian song and a third song that is unconstrained. Based on previous experience with this contest, I believe that the song selection is crucial. I think that the ideal choices are familiar but somehow unusual or unexpected. I'd appreciate any suggestions that this group might have. Our band has a very solid drummer and a very capable lead guitarist, but also a couple of relatively inexperienced players - one on rhythm guitar player and one on bass. Two of us are doing the singing, and something with nice harmonies always goes over well.

Kyle - well done. I was a huge fan of the G/harvas at one point, probably saw them five times in a six month period. They always put on a great show....ah the early days of alt/grunge.

I've heard from our convalescing amigo Stuart, who has asked that I post the following question (the spelling mistakes are mine....:)):

"What 5 movies to rent while laid up. Turns out my local video store has a wide range of classics old and new . Anything goes S"

I will make one suggestion, a little known but I believe classic piece of mid-seventies cinema, Elia Kazan's (in his final turn as director) The Last Tycoon, well suited to lying about, given its languid pace, this is a gorgeously observed study of early Hollywood, based on Scott Fitzgerald's last, unfinished novel of the same name. A huge, star studded cast headed up by Rober DeNiro (long) before he started making a movie every six weeks in a wonderfully quiet performance as movie mogul Monroe Stahr.

For all you Gandharvas fans out there, and to commemorate today:

I'm always a sucker for a Radiohead cover so thanks for pointing me to Gillian Welch's take on 'Black Star', Mike. For those who haven't heard it, you can get it on emusic or check out the live clip on youtube.

Some of my favorite purchases and downloads from last year? What music fan could resist such an invitation? I don’t really have any theme or system to the music that I buy – I’m woefully ignorant of new artists, and so I rely on people like Brian to point me in the right direction (that’s one of the reasons that I was excited to join this blog). And the backlog of music that I expect I’d like but haven’t yet bought is so enormous that I don’t particularly focus on new music. Of the CDs I’ve recently bought, highlights would include Orphans by Tom Waits and Beauty and Crime by Suzanne Vega. I also bought We Shall Overcome by Bruce Springsteen last year and really enjoyed that. On the other hand, I bought Bone by Tim Booth (who was the vocalist in the band James), but it wasn’t as good as I’d hoped. Same great voice, but weaker songwriting. I’ve been a big Paul Simon fan for ages, and I bought his latest (Surprise). It was pretty good, I thought, with some nice lyrics, but it doesn’t match his best work. My downloading is almost entirely from emusic, which limits the field somewhat. Some of my favorites from there have been live albums - Near Truths and Hotel Rooms by Todd Snider, Karma to Burn by the Waterboys, Just an American Boy by Steve Earle and Live at the Bottom Line by Steve Forbert. I also really like Picaresque by the Decemberists and The Trials of Van Occupanther by Midlake (which was something Brian introduced me to). I’ve downloaded quite a lot of Janis Ian songs, some of which I like a lot, and others which don’t do much for me. I really like The Trumpet Child by Over the Rhine, which I’ve already mentioned once before. I also downloaded a cover of Radiohead’s Black Star by Gillian Welch and David Rawlings that I think is great.

A quick search of the metabeats blog for 2007 references yields no Do Make Say Think mention so you're the first. I didn't know they were still around....really liked their first two discs. Since it's available at emusic and is only 8 tracks, comes recommended by Brian, and has a great title, I'll have to pick it up.

New Destroyer disc out today....

Another great record from last year is/was Do Make Say Think's latest. I'm being lazy....did anybody peg it among their best of 07?

Hey Mike, any interest in rhyming off some of your favourite purchases/downloads from last year, since they will likely be pretty different from this incestuous bunch's?

Hey Stu, glad to hear you're re-visiting Mahler and enjoying it.    I don't know all of his symphonies, though I own recordings of many/most of them, but the ones I am drawn to are the 1st and the 5th (with the 6th coming next).    Incidentally, I do agree with you that he is a slow burn, and tries for many (many!) things in each of his symphonies.   If I said otherwise in the past, I must have been drunk.   

So, in the case of the 1st and 5th , my fondness is mostly for the grandness, the massive sweeping romanticism (which yes, could use a little reigning in at times), plus the integration of (what I've always assumed to be) traditional Austrian folk melodies into the slow and scherzo movements.   There are some pretty thrilling moments in both 1 and 5, so give them a try sometime if you haven't already....of course, it's Mahler, so allow appropriate time.    #1 isn't too long, but the fifth is more typically interminable at (I think) around 90 minutes.  

Derek, thoughts on the Big M?

Not Mahovlich.

i may have to eat my hat a little bit (once again ) brian.... I picked up a copy of mahlers 4th symphony as I was curious about there being a vocal component...(Rennie Fleming and Abbadio version)....am loving it....nothing like the typical Mahlerian everything and the kitchen sink about this symphony...very etherial, almost Sibelius like....do you know if there are any others in his file like this particular symphony?......
ps I am in to the hospital shortly and I cannot respond to blogs on my blackberry, but I can still read the posts....should I feel up for it, I will email (which i can do) to one of you yobs and perhaps you could clip and paste it for me...

I don't think artists ever did make money on the recordings - at least not most artists. I read an article on the Jayhawks at one point that made this claim - at that time, they had the biggest hit of their carreers with "Blue" and they were touring, but one of the band members commented that the roadies were making more money than they were. He said that all of the money that the record company had invested in creating and promoting their albums and videos had to be repaid from the band's share of the royalties before they would get any money from the recordings, and even with a big hit like "Blue", they couldn't forsee a time when that would happen. I heard a similar comment later on from one of the members of the Rheostatics (if memory serves). It was in response to a question about the impact of peer-to-peer downloading on his income, and he said that they didn't make any money from their recordings. They made money from playing shows.

I wonder if this is partly why the cost of concert tickets is so absurd now. I recall when I was in high school and even university, I could go to a major concert for a reasonable amount of money. The cost of an album was $12 or $13, and a concert ticket was 2-3 times as much. Now if you want to catch a major act, the cost of a ticket is 10x the cost of a CD or more. Maybe they're trying to recoup the cost of all that downloading with the concert tickets.

I cant see this monthly charge thing working for all of the reasons you all have mentioned.....in fact, I think its over for artists making money via album purchases in any form, at least for most artists, (perhaps Britney and the like will still add to their fortunes)... I think the future lies with alternate means of income, primarily touring.... This , may be a handicap to electronic bands and others more suited to the studio...

As we have pointed out in earlier blogs, many big bands have only a brief moment in the limelight, when they are young...Most bands (arguably) are focused not on saving money for your retirement, but , on the music itself, stardom, girls (or boys, whatever...), and having a good time, when they first start out, (and not necessarily in that order)..So......perhaps the future financial penalties won't affect things that much, in terms of emerging new young artists....

1) you still have the urges driving youth forward to create the music
2) you now have a wide market available online to have the artists get their message out
3) you still make decent money touring in an early career (at least enough that it seems like a lot to a typical teenager or early 20 something
4) you still get the girls, fame, party life

but it will mean you dont get to maintain the lifestyle for long because you dont have the serious money required to sustain it...