THE STOOGES/ FUN HOUSE:
You might think I am lying but I really didn’t know much about The Stooges when I first starting recording. It was only after people would compare some of my stuff to The Stooges that I checked them out. I first bought Raw Power and well, didn’t think too much of it. Then I bought Fun House and everything was different. Ron Asheston’s guitar playing was like that of a long lost uncle I never knew I had, totally awesome. Fun House marks the peak and the end of what punk rock can be. Everything since has fallen short.
AC/DC/ LET THERE BE ROCK:
Bon Scott’s vocals are nastiest and yet so natural, they are almost Zen-like. As pale imitators struggle to be “rock” but sound more like they are struggling to poop, Bon sounds like he just rolled out of bed, laid down killer vocals and went to the bar with his friends. Oh yes, most of songs are awesome in their simplicity; a credit to Young brothers.
THE SEX PISTOLS/ NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS:
Although it is fashionable to dis’ on The Pistols as some sort of fake created boy band nowadays , when I first heard the song “Pretty Vacant” I said to myself, “now that is what I want to do, write songs that mean something like that, more that any babbling folk singer that is supposed to be so deep.”. The album still holds up 50 years later. For a brief moment in time, 4 guys that apparently actually hate each other, got together and created an accidental storm of what rock should be.
ALICE COOPER/ GREATEST HITS:
OK, so this may be a bit too corporate for Punk/DIY tastes. But before the others, there was Alice Cooper to comfort me. The hit songs and stage show were a teenage outsider’s dream/nightmare come to life. Cooper is perhaps the greatest rock “actor”vocalist ever. Listen with fresh ears to his vocal performance on “Eighteen” and the early albums. The man knows how to “sell” a song!
MITCH RYDER/ GREATEST HITS:
So I am just going to say upfront, that I could probably listen to Mitch sing the phonebook. If a “man-crush” on a voice is possible, I have it, I admit it. Nothing says Detroit like a Mitch Ryder song. It is perhaps no accident that Mitch’s vocals appear on two of the greatest pure Rock & Roll songs ever recorded; The Detroit Wheels’ cover of “Devil In A Blue Dress” and the band Dertroit’s cover of Lou Reed’s “Rock & Roll”. Mitch simply is The Man! There are no others!
HONORABLE MENTION:
SOCIAL DISTORTION/ GREATEST HITS
Songs for losers, about losers, by losers…nobody does it better!
THE RAMONES/MANIA
Required listening.
JIM WHITE/ NO SUCH PLACE
One of the best CDs ever that most people never heard of.
SNEAKER PIMPS/ BECOMING X
Pure ear-candy bliss.
(C) SKIDD FREEMAN 06.25.2023