Do you like Rod Stewart?

[JohnT]

I have no problem with Rod Stewart, but my tastes in music are pretty pedestrian.

[Tamerlane]

@Penfeather

It’s quite possible to dislike Rod Stewart as not being to your taste, but to dismiss him as a sleazy talentless hack is absurd

Talentless hack? Absolutely not. Sleazy? Well…there have been more than a few criticisms of his personal character by former bandmates and what not ;).

until you remember that he wrote and sang songs like Mandolin Wind

Which Ronnie Lane always claimed to have written the melody for and was pissed Stewart claimed sole songwriting credit. That sort of thing.

[Peanuthead]

@AnalogSignal

He is like a musical cockroach.

Perfect! There are a number of others who fit that description as well. (I’m thinking David Bowie.)

[Shagnasty]

My father has always LOVED Rod Stewart and I spent a good part of my early years listening to nothing but hours of Rod Stewart cassettes during road trips. I don’t know if it was the exposure or genetics but I really like him too.

I always thought his voice, style and showmanship are excellent. He has a raspy voice and distinctive voice but so does Bob Dylan, Bonnie Tyler and Stevie Nicks and I like them too. I don’t like rock voices that sound like they were mass produced in the glee club.

I consider myself a pretty big fan and I respect him a great deal. He has been around for a very long time so I suspect lots of other people do too.

[Barkis_is_Willin]

Any artist who puts out the sheer volume of content that Rod Stewart has is guaranteed to have some crap mixed in there. And Rod’s no different. But he’s definitely got a lot more stuff that I really like than stuff I don’t.

[Typo_Negative]

A pretty good rock singer that did some good work, then sold out and became an abomination.

Right around “Tonight’s the Night” and “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy”. Utter crap from there on out,

[DrCube]

Like an unfortunately large group of older musicians, there’s a point in time which, before, the musician is one of the very best, and after, is one of the very worst. Rod Stewart passed this point sometime in the mid to late 70s. But his early work was so good I chose “like more than dislike”, but if this poll was specifically about the lizard who took over Rod Stewart’s body and sang “Do ya think I’m sexy?”, the answer would be otherwise.

[PapSett]

Love him. Seen him in concert twice. One of my all time favorite performers.

[El_Kabong]

@Penfeather

He was top-drawer with the Faces, and his first few solo albums were terrific: apart from anything else, the guy can sing, he’s a fine interpreter of other people’s songs, and he can both pen a deft tune and craft a good lyric. Unfortunately, in the latter half of the 70s he turned into a sort of cartoon character and has never really recovered from that. Still, he’s had fun and you can’t really begrudge him banging out Christmas albums for grannies now.

Said it better than I could. I would also like to state for the record that no, I do not think he’s sexy.

Fun fact: Rod Stewart is majorly into model railroading, with a huge H0 -scale layout in his home that in part replicates a large American city of the 1940s. Most of it he built himself, and when on tour he travels with several valises of modeling gear that he works on during idle time.

[Drunky_Smurf]

I’m not a fan of his music but I like his TV work.

Rod stewart pooped his pants!

[stillownedbysetters]

One of Stewart’s early recorded pieces was a version of Stone Crazy that he recorded with the Aynsley Dunbar Group. It is a slow blues tune that suited his whiskey rough voice perfectly, and he totally delivers on it. I think when the world of pop gained a singer of mediocre radio tunes, the world of blues lost a potential standout. You can still hear some of his blues background in his hits with the Small Faces, mostly in the passion with which he delivered the lyrics. I loved this early iteration of Stewart, but he lost me when he abandoned blues and rock and turned solely to pop.

Sorry I can’t link at the moment, but the song is available on YouTube and well worth a listen

[Penfeather]

@stillownedbysetters

You can still hear some of his blues background in his hits with the Small Faces, mostly in the passion with which he delivered the lyrics.

Steve Marriott sang for the Small Faces; when he left for Humble Pie {which was beneath his considerable talents} and the group disbanded, Ronnie Lane, Ian MacLagan and Kenny Jones regrouped with Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood and the Faces were born.

[stillownedbysetters]

You are correct. I mistyped and didn’t catch it before submitting.

[Penfeather]

I’m a guy; there are entire cortexes of our brains devoted to remembering band lineups. Drives my wife nuts.

[DrumBum]

Like other posters, the early material was much better than the disco years.

[tenacious_j]

The only Stewart song I ever really loved was Reason to Believe. That one still gets me. If I never heard him sing anything else again I wouldn’t miss it.

@DrumBum

Like other posters, the early material was much better than the disco years.

This. And the disco years are still better than the elevator-music crap he’s put out since the '90’s. Is his target audience now the same people who grew up on Faces and Jeff Beck, who have moved from rock to standards, or is he aiming for even older people now? I have always wondered why as musicians get older they tend to mellow out so much and become boring, and Stewart seems like the prime example.

[RealityChuck]

@NDP

Anyway, in terms of white British singers who began their careers copying black R&B singers, who do you think was better during their prime: Rod Stewart or Joe Cocker?

Cocker by a wide margin. Mad Dogs and Englishman alone eclipses Stewart’s entire output.

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

@Idle_Thoughts

Do you like Rod Stewart?

Will there be a follow-up thread, about if you think he’s sexy?

[John_Mace]

@Penfeather

It’s quite possible to dislike Rod Stewart as not being to your taste, but to dismiss him as a sleazy talentless hack is absurd: he might have coasted on his ability for 40 odd years, until you remember that he wrote and sang songs like Mandolin Wind and The Killing of Georgie. Nobody could sell a story in song quite like Rod Stewart.

Reason to Believe. He didn’t write it, but his version is definitely the best.

[Ukulele_Ike]

@JacobSwan

I’m not a great fan of his music, but he is a neighbour after all and one of his kids was in the same class as one of mine for a while. So I have to kind of like him. We say hello if we bump into each other at the supermarket, but I’ve never invited him to a bbq or anything. My wife doesn’t like me talking to his wife.

I found this screamingly hilarious.

There are quite a few rock stars I can picture pushing a shopping cart full of Cheetos and diet Mountain Dew down at the Giant Eagle, but Stewart isn’t one of 'em.