The most buttrockin' song on Buddy Blue's list of the top 50 Butt Rock Anthems (search term: buttrock)

ironically it's easier for a female singer to channel the sexual aggressiveness of cock rock than it is for her to channel the tedious male homosociality of butt rock. I respect Joan Jett and Pat Benatar's efforts to run with the butt boys, but I don't think either of them has produced a whole-ass butt rock staple that you can grunt along to at the bar with your shithead bros without feeling the need to unleash a string of "no homos" afterwards. sad case of a genre failing to live up to the inclusiveness of its name (everyone has a butt!) and growing even more male-dominated in its '00s post-grunge incarnation

otm and well put

yeah, that was such a good post

list is much better without "Black Betty" imo

I agree with this:

I still don't get why anybody would call Black Betty butt rock. It's crazy showoff syncopated and tricky. Should you be able to dance to butt rock?

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, February 7, 2020 2:33 PM (one week ago)

applying the looser criteria of polyvalence to buttrock: you can include Born in the USA because there are plenty of people who hear it and think, "I was born in the USA! Yay! USA!" ... and hear "Slow Ride" and think "Slow Ride! Cars cruising! Yay! Slow Ride!" idk

There's definitely something to this- unintended butt-ness. Locomotive Breath is butt, because "Got him by the balls, YEAH!" even if it is Tull's only throughly buttrock moment.

voted for black betty, but woulda voted for hair of the dog if it were an option.

Sorry to go way upthread, butt:

foreigner and Foghat et al feel so “American” that i think ppl are often shocked when they realize thats not the case

Butt iirc the thing about Foreigner was by having both American and Britishes members, the name would be true everywhere they went.

Foreigner bridged '70s butt rock to '80s Mutt rock.

I can buy "Hot Blooded" and "Jukebox Hero" as butt rock.

Much of the rest of Foreigner's output has a thorny/spiky/icy quality that I don't think associate with butt. "Cold as Ice," "Head Games," "Urgent" - synthy nervous songs rather than joyously dumb power-chord guitar songs. They are underlain by paranoia and attempted sophistication.

Put concisely: they are not keg-party singalongs. Note: Not all keg-party singalongs are butt rock, but all butt-rock songs are keg-party singalongs. It's sort of in the DNA of the genre.

My definition of butt rock definitely has to do with the intended audience and said intended audience's reaction, but it's very rooted in a specific time and a specific way of life. So for me, a true butt rock track must have engendered a certain kind of response from that specific audience at that specific place and time.

When a butt rock song comes on the stereo at a party in a wood-paneled basement, a butt rocker will either lift his beer in the air and say FUCKEN A or FUCK YEAH. Alternatively, he can keep his beer hand close to his chest and raise the other hand in a devil-horn gesture.

The arch-butt-rocker has a used El Camino or Firebird purchased with earnings from Trak Auto. He owns and wears a Confederate-flag headband. He lives in his parents' basement but it has a separate entrance so chicks can come in and out without being introduced to his parents. There may or may not be a black-light poster of a panther.

In this view butt rock is a musical genre that reflects a lifestyle, indeed a state of mind.

> Does The Cult fit in here?

Rick Rubin kept the flame going didn't he? Buttrock's tangential legacy was bringing the wallop to early Def Jam, so much of which had a "FUCK YEAH" quality to it. He then spent the 90s attempting to elevate a lot of Foghat/Nazareth type bands of varying levels of self-awareness.

license to ill is buttrock for gen x

buttrap.

(Not to be confused with, like, 2 Live Crew)

“No Sleep till Brooklyn” (that riff at that tempo) is perfect post-Rubin butt for the mid to late 80s

the correct answer is Bertha Butt Boogie by Jimmy Castor Bunch

https://youtu.be/4LQJYgs1sxc

all my life I thought Foreigner were German, a bit like The Scorpions

What is "License to Ill" if not the spiritual meeting place of Jimmy Castor Bunch and butt rock?

all my life ...

And while I know the line starts "In my life ...," I nonetheless immediately started humming "I Want to Know What Love Is."

lol at Black Betty winning this -- clearly an example of the votes for songs based on ilxors' tastes in music as opposed to "voting for the most butt song" (the Nick Cave verson of Black Betty slays btw, first version I heard). Still, congrats to a significant portion of voters keeping it real by voting for actual butt jams like Slow Ride, American Band, and Butt to the Bone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaQv3Cl06ow

Slow Ride voter here

Slow Ride voter here

― sorry for butt rockin (Neanderthal), Saturday, February 22, 2020 1:09 PM (one hour ago)

my man!

lol didn’t know nick cave covered but black Betty”. but like omg of course he did

here's how this poll's top finishers placed in ILM's never-to-be-forgotten Classic Rock Tracks Poll:

"Black Betty" by Ram Jam 100
"Slow Ride" by Foghat 5
"Bad To The Bone" by George Thorogood Did not place
"We're An American Band" by Grand Funk Railroad 218
"Tush" by ZZ Top 276
"American Woman" by the Guess Who 268
"Mississippi Queen" by Mountain 51
"Hot Blooded" by Foreigner Did not place
"Highway Star" by Deep Purple 369

does Bon Jovi's "It's My Life" count, or is it too pop, or too nerdy?

idk but I want to call it out as the nadir of rock music

https://i.imgur.com/JNogpz6.jpg

good thread. the first time i read it i was thinking about butt rock way more than i really wanted to, lol.

here are my butt rock thoughts. the subject matter of dumb good times is key, but it has to be genuinely dumb about it. "tush" is about dumb good times but it's practically nietzschean compared to say "slow ride". also buttrock has to be rhythmically clumsy and flat-footed. zz top is not that. foghat on the other hand, definitely. basically i don't believe butt rock can be good, categorically speaking, and i am not down with pure butt.

the verses of 'its my life' have butt elements, but the chorus is too dramatic for it to be truly buttrockin imo

And here are my butt-thoughts: most 70s rock was blues derived to some degree, but if a band's blues influences are too readily apparent (ZZ Top, Thorogood, Foghat, although the latter crosses the line occasionally) then to me they are blues-rock. Real buttrock is probably based on the same three chords, but emphasizes the rock rather than the blues. Hence why I would have voted for Grand Funk in this poll.

My textbook definition of buttrock is basically generic, anonymous, shirtless hard rock with lyrics about women, whiskey, and partying. Here are The Boyzz from Illinois, whom I once saw warm up for REO Speedwagon, Rush, and Blue Oyster Cult.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_MwihQSO50

"It's My Life" is butt rock because Max Martin. That is, it's not really any more butt rock than Backstreet Boys (JBJ's vox aside). Or, you know, this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuMre7PGsZA

I still contend that "Black Betty" is way too syncopated and tricky to be butt rock. Especially compared to the next few on the list.

xp damn, the boyzz rule!

why were they not the Boyzz from Illinoiz?

lol they kinda got booed off the stage. The show started late and the crowd was impatient. Rush had just released 2112 had a huge laser show; although I'm not a fan it was obvious they'd never be third band on the bill again. REO were so boring I fell asleep and woke up in the middle of BOC.

Well, "fell asleep," it was 1976 after all...

Where does this fall on the butt spectrum?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uG8auUjhZEI

Copyright 1885 Hacienda Records. Antique cockrock that shouldn't have been brought to the refinishers for the hairmetal varnish. Oh my that attempt at a DLR split is painful looking. A+ for enthusiasm though!

Black Oak did some buttrock, although they were such a weird band. And this... buttrockers would think Jim Dandy had gone new wave. I've never heard/seen this before, it's hilarious. A tossup between this and the video for "Music Time" by Styx posted elsewhere this week for most astoundingly misbegotten new wave cash-in.

i'm the king of butt
there is none higher
All would-be butt rockers should call me Sire
To burn my butt, you must use fire
I won't stop buttin' til I retire

If you want butt, you got it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW22JDVEejk

Loverboy is Buttrock in spirit butt Post-butt by necessity, what with the keyboards and Steinberger bass and collared shirts. Cars-like adaptations so more dire New Wave like B-52s may be fended off - "Lovin' Every Minute of It" video most explicitly. True Buttrock could only happen in the 70s, when there were no challenges to the throne of rock power.

All those live videos of the Boyzz are great! Buttrockin' but also very Radio Birdman.

Interesting that this thread that ended several days before the official start of the pandemic in the US has come back to life now that the country is opening up. What, I wonder, is the relation between normalcy and the existence of buttrock debate?

Trvmp rally music is not all Buttrock in form, but is certainly Buttrock if reception theory holds

https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2020/06/20/trump-rally-playlist-tulsa/

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7673XgxqA16yhdVEFvpYyh?si=acde744669f64a2b

I can't believe I missed this thread! I feel like if I have a wheelhouse aside from dadrock and classic rock, it's def buttrock lol

I think you can stretch the cutoff to maybe 1982 but i agree that generally 1979 is the cutoff

It has to be songs with a bluesy/boogie kind of bass. But not necessary blues-boogie songs?
Should suggest fucking but it doesn't have to be ABOUT fucking.
Which kind of leads to my main thought, that there needs to be an air of sleaze. Either lyrically, or musically, or both.
Out in the world, I feel like buttrock is to me the songs that make those messy drunk couples that were the cheerleader & the football star in highschool but now they're the hairdresser & the contractor go into full makeout mode at nostalgia concerts & Rocklahoma, etc.

worthy additions
I'm On Fire - Dwight Tilley Band
Hot Legs - Rod Stewart
Your Mama Won't Like Me - Suzy Quatro
Hittin & Runnin / Rockin into the Night / Wild Eyed Southern Boys - 38 Special
Head Games / Feels Like the First Time - Foreigner

the main reason to stretch the cutoff is that early .38 Special definitely belongs in this genre

also maybe Loverboy, though they're kinda too synthy.
And I really want to try to get Night Ranger in there but I don't think they make it. Don't Tell Me You Love Me is close, but perhaps too pleading?

No Molly Hatchet, no credibility. I kinda think "Flirting with Disaster" should be in such company.

Maybe they play MC5 in Michigan somewhere on the FM radio, but I doubt it was played ANYWHERE outside of maybe college radio shows. That record was also out of print for well over a decade before it came back into print in CD, it was pretty obscure.

I get it fits riff wise and perhaps sonically, but there was no one jamming that in their Bitchin' Camaro in '77.

"Rock You Like A Hurricane" by the Scorps should probably be here too.

It and "Too Young to Fall In Love" by the Crue fit better here than "Enter Sandman".

Basically, if you had a video where you are in a cage with women in shredded clothes writhing on the bars - you probably are playing something pretty damn butt rock.

I'm glad this thread has been revived because I think buttrock overlaps a lot with the "music to listen to while shooting pool" genre from the ZZ Top thread.

Earlnash, you will find uncontested support upthread for your opinion that "Flirtin' with Disaster" by Molly Hatchet should have been included in this list. The original list has certain flaws that have been hashed over throughout the thread in the interests of creating a more perfect conception of buttrock. I would personally caution against the idea that stripper rock a la Motley Crue and the Scorpions is proper buttrock. I realize both are coming from sleaze, but hair metal is more of a post-quaalude era sleaze, for lack of a better description.

Also I must admit that when I did a quick review of this thread I wondered, "where was Vegemite in this conversation?" so it's good to have her input. Definitely agree that .38 Special belongs here; imo they put an emphatic period on the whole era, although Loverboy and Billy Squier should be discussed in this light as well.

Billy Squier should NOT be discussed bc I hate him but ok :)

I agree that Molly Hatchet could easily slot in here
And maybe the cutoff should be 1983 so we can get those ZZ Top Eliminator classics in there

I think UFO definitely has some stuff that fits here. Maybe not Doctor Doctor (it's a bit too fast?) but stuff like Too Hot to Handle or Only You Can Rock Me.

and unfortunately pretty much every song from the late 70's that raves about boning 17 year old girls. Yes, Babys, I'm looking at you.

oh and whoever said upthread that Kiss doesn't belong here is forgetting Love Gun.