CLASSIC ROCK TRACKS POLL: THE RESULTS

22 so far for me, though I have a feeling that a lot of what I voted for will end up in the top 20

how is sweet emotion the only aerosmith song on here?????

also my ballot is so lol compared to this :\

a couple other Aerosmith songs juuuuuuust missed the list. the full top 500 will be posted after the countdown ends.

I've occasionally heard "Mr. Soul" and "Cowgirl In The Sand" on CR radio.

Not sure i've heard "Time of the Season" though - that's oldies.

I noted in the nomination thread that no Yardbirds tracks were listed. More than any other band I can think of, the Yardbirds fall through the Oldies/Classic Rock cracks. To CR radio program managers, "For Your Love", "Shapes of Things", and "Heart Full of Soul" sound like oldies so they don't play them. To oldies radio program managers, they sound like classic rock so they don't play them.

I know it varies from station to station, but the Yardbirds get occasional airplay here: "Shapes of Things," "Heart Full of Soul," "For Your Love" (but I don't think I've ever heard "Over, Under, Sideways, Down" on the radio. And Neil Young is possibly the 5th or 6th most played artist after Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones. But, you know, Toronto.

Songs I've never heard: "Walk Away," "Twilight Zone" (I don't think, anyway), one or maybe both of the .38 Special songs, "Jane."

Songs that would never in a million years get played on the station here: "Jane," "Lido Shuffle."

In the early-mid '70s, the only time I was ever on-air on 1050 CHUM, the dominant Top 40 station, was requesting "Mississippi Queen."

neil young has always lived on the outskirts of classic rock; he's a quirky, boutique-y, collegiate taste compared to skynyrd or zeppelin or aerosmith. but the outskirts are still within classic rock's rather large municipal borders, and some of his riffs are all-time, and none more so than "cinnamon girl." top 10 for me.

This is true to an extent, but Harvest was a #1 record with a #1 single ("Heart of Gold")! After the Gold Rush was a top 10 album too, and Ohio was a top 20 hit. He was in a hugely popular supergroup!

This doesn't make him less quirky--obviously he's a weirdo. But I think that "boutique-y" understates Young's pretty broad success in the early 70s, before he "headed for the ditch." I also feel that others (not you, fcc) are writing him out of classic rock because he's too liberal or an acquired hipster taste or whatever are actually underestimating the fact that he's a beloved classic rock artist.

Totally agree on classic rock's municipal borders, though. And the RIFFS!

i am growing concerned that despite the best efforts of johnny fever and i, and perhaps la lechera and sandy, the recognition and glory due to donnie iris may not be forthcoming

I think Neil was one of those guys who had a bunch of big FM radio tracks from before there were airplay charts, so stuff eventually fell through the cracks.

In the midwest circa 70's & 80's, Cinnamon Girl was just as ubiquitous on CR radio as any Zeppelin or Rush song. I can recall lots of dudes who looked like the guys in gr8080's pictures playing Cinnamon Girl covers at keg parties.

Also, I voted for Donnie Iris! Although I'm afraid a showing this high is doubtful.

This is true to an extent, but Harvest was a #1 record with a #1 single ("Heart of Gold")! After the Gold Rush was a top 10 album too, and Ohio was a top 20 hit. He was in a hugely popular supergroup!

all true of course, and all huge throughout the '70s, but a lot of his big, beefier, spacier rock jams, the down by the rivers and like a hurricanes, always seemed to me to be second-tier fm radio fodder, and by the time classic rock was being codified as a thing in the 1980s, he didn't have quite the catalog of automatic rock party favorites that the aerosmiths and skynyrds had. plus, for whatever it's worth, his songs tend to sound sadder than theirs do. more minor keys and stuff (and that voice of his). maybe that's part of the problem for cr programmers? really just guessing here, though.

i threw donnie iris some love but maybe not enough

tbf i haven't heard ah! leah on the radio since back in the day and tommy tutone probably gets more and isn't any less classic rock (which is to say, not very) but hell if i'm going to miss a chance to vote for it anyway

The big Alice Cooper track on CR radio in Belgium/Netherlands was Halo Of Flies, which to this day continues to be a listeners favourite with the same status as Stairway To Heaven and Bohemian Rhapsody. Wasn't even released as a single anywhere else. Another oddity is Child In Time which was similarly inescapable on rock radio and to this day continues to enjoy all-time top 5 status in a select number of European countries only.

Conversely, many US classic rock stalwarts like Skynyrd, Journey, .38 Special, Allman Brothers, Marshall Tucker, Styx and Boz Scaggs failed to made much of an impact here. And obviously, CR radio here had/has dozens more Scorpions and Golden Earring songs on their playlist than the few tracks nominated here. Still, it's pretty remarkable that (even locally) there were so few non-anglophone CR classics.

24 songs of mine so far. So glad I don't have to work today!

Of course I voted for Donnie Iris but I can't imagine him placing this high, will be interesting to see where he falls in the top 500 though.

I think when it's finished we should do it all over again.

^^LABOR DAY WEEKEND

fwiw, the airplay lists i've seen have very little Neil Young (just "Rockin' In The Free World" in the top 500, not even any CSNY). I thought that was kind of odd, though, I definitely hear "Cinnamon Girl" and "Southern Man" on the radio enough to be sick of them, maybe he's a stronger presence in some regions than others.

I think when it's finished we should do it all over again.

― PEOPLE LIVING IN COMPETITION (Sandy), Friday, August 1, 2014 3:51 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^LABOR DAY WEEKEND

― Randall "Humble" Pie (C. Grisso/McCain), Friday, August 1, 2014 4:13 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha there's definitely a part of me that wants to just go "hey gr80, can you make images for 101-200?" but i think we'd all start growing sideburns and quitting our jobs if that happpened.

now we begin our ALL REQUEST FRIDAY to finish the countdown. This one goes out to one way street, askance johnson, and staggerlee, who all had this song at #2.

http://i.imgur.com/pHGbbvV.jpg

20. The Rolling Stones – Gimme Shelter
1496 points, 18 votes

*exhales with an open mouth to make a sound similar to a stadium crowd*

My favourite song ever. Wasn't going to vote for it in *this* poll but I caved in the end. My no.69.

Until 20 Feet From Stardom I always thought the female vocals were singing "Hey children, it's just a step away" but it's actually "Rape, Murder." Eww.

This one goes out to Whitey on the Moon.

http://i.imgur.com/usKy2ei.jpg

19. Fleetwood Mac – Go Your Own Way
1497 points, 23 votes

fun fact abt the "gimme shelter" photo: the page I found it had a caption that suggested its subject is rolling his first joint after returning from Vietnam.

wow

Stevie's fifth and likely last appearance on the poll. Not sure anyone's going to beat that except maybe Plant.

Songs I've never heard: "Walk Away," "Twilight Zone" (I don't think, anyway), one or maybe both of the .38 Special songs, "Jane."

I have heard all of these on the local classic rock station, WNCX Cleveland, in the last week.

GYOW never gets old.

Go Your Own Way nearly dead center in the Venn diagram of songs I love, and classic rock.

Stevie's fifth and likely last appearance on the poll. Not sure anyone's going to beat that except maybe Plant.

― Ismael Klata, Friday, August 1, 2014 8:05 AM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

6th, actually: Go Your Own Way, Edge of Seventeen, Dreams, Rhiannon, Stop Draggin' My Heart Around, and The Chain.

this one goes out to omar little.

http://i.imgur.com/O6ZoTzb.jpg

18. Led Zeppelin – Immigrant song
1510 points, 21 votes, 1 first place vote

Amazing song obviously, my number 6.

Obligatory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApxnAr6pRt0

We want Donnie! We want Donnie! We...well, okay.

Actually the ''ahhs'' here would go well before the word ''Leah.'' They shoulda teamed up, mightve helped Mr. Zeppelin get a litle exposure on the charts.

So that's 6 Stevie, 5 Mick and John (iirc), 4 Zep, 3 the field?

There's probably a bunch of session hacks can top six though.

I can imagine when LZIII was first released, fans of the first two albums putting it on the turntable and banging their heads to "Immigrant Song". Wonder what their initial reaction was when they found the rest of the album is mostly slow blues and folk.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers 4 (and Mike Campbell 5 with "Boys of Summer").

"the field"?

Even I cannot resist the charms of Go Your Own Way, and voted for it

This one is for crutis, the reason The Aorta is 107.7 on your FM dial. The first appearance by a track from the #1 LP in our albums poll.

http://i.imgur.com/0E5aIvW.jpg

17. The Cars – Just What I Needed
1560 points, 21 votes

Also C'MON THE WAITING, plz make Mike Campbell the king of clsssic rock

"Immigrant Song" is the only Led Zeppelin song to refer to an Arkansas city by name.

― Pleasant Plains, Sunday, July 29, 2007 9:02 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Re: Zep III, I think of it as rocking super hard, but this may just be distorted memories of my high school bus buddy and I raving endlessly about the coolness of that big booming riff on "Bring It On Home." Which in fact is preceded and followed by somewhat labored blues/folk sections which we characterized as "a bumpkin on a log."

that was from Zep II

I'm hoping for a top ten placement for the Buffett still.

And Neil Young is possibly the 5th or 6th most played artist after Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones. But, you know, Toronto.

Yeah, same in Ottawa (although Rush and AC/DC probably get a little more play than the Beatles tbh). I'm surprised to learn that he's considered a niche CR artist in the US. Bigger than Skynyrd here!

"Heart Full of Soul" was a CR staple when I was growing up but I haven't heard it in a decade. I know Q107 plays more 60s stuff.

I'm a little surprised that you don't know "Walk Away", though.

xps: in Stairway to Heaven, Plant does sing "there's still time to change the Toad you Suck". Possibly a reference to AR.

that was from Zep II

― Lee626, Friday, August 1, 2014 9:16 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hahaha oh man, my classic rock bona fides are shot

I just got a call requesting this song from Euler, who told me a very long, involved story of how his night moves that, frankly, the FCC would not allow me to even paraphrase for you.

http://i.imgur.com/ZdYC7zP.jpg

16. Bob Seger – Night Moves
1567 points, 21 votes

With summuh clooooosin iiyyunnn.