Wasn’t that the album Jethro Tull used to beat Metallica for the Hard Rock Grammy?
I definitely agree - why is it that Smashing Pumpkins are so popular for their rock songs when the best ones are slow?
Well-known bands, obscure songs. Got it.
Queensryche: The Real World (“Last Action Hero” soundtrack), Someone Else (“Promised Land” album).
Rush (it had to happen): Second Nature (“Hold your Fire” album)
Bruce Springsteen: No Surrender (“Born in the USA” album)
Madonna: Promise to Try (“Like a Prayer” album)
Dire Straits: The Man’s Too Strong (“Brothers in Arms”), Lady Writer (“Communiqué”), Hand in Hand (“Making Movies”), so many more gems that never were hits in their own right.
I’ll think of some more later on.
One of Dylan’s best: Gates of Eden (the ‘B’ side of Like a Rolling Stone)
Deep Purple in Rock - infinitely better than Machine Head.
Jethro Tull: Benefit - so sweet, so sad, and so overlooked.
Pink Floyd: I agree 100% with RealityChuck about Atom Heart Mother. And have you ever heard Floyd’s The Nile Song? Unique and wonderful and forgotten.
Don’t know that one, Karl, but I never had “Relics.”
More choices:
Traffic – “Stranger to Himself”
Queen – just about anything on “A Night at the Opera” is great. I especially like “Good Company” and “'39”
10CC – Known best for “I’m Not in Love,” but my favorite is “The Wall Street Shuffle.”
Kinks – “Ducks on the Wall”
Grateful Dead – “Bertha”
Eric Clapton – “Further on Down the Road” from “The Last Waltz”
The Doors – “The Soft Parade” It’s too long for airplay, but it was great. “You cannot petition the Lord with prayer.”
Flash in the Pan – best known for “Hey, St. Peter,” but their second album is filled with gems like “Make Your Own Cross,” “Let the Captain Beware,” and “Atlantis Calling.”
Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show – “Roland the Roadie and Gertrude the Groupie”
Billy Joel – “Everybody Loves You Now” from his forgotten first album, “Cold Spring Harbor.” Also overlooked is “The Ballad of Billy the Kid” and “Somewhere Along the Line”
Santana – “Persuasion”
Jethro Tull – “Bourre” and “Fat Man” from “Stand Up.” Also, “Thick is a Brick,” though these days you only hear a five minute condensation of the entire 45-minute piece.
Ahhhh… such a classic:
“Roland the Roadie
Loved Gertrude the Groupie.
But Gertrude the Groupie
Loved Groups.”
Pink Floyd: Julia Dream, Pillow of clouds
Genesis (pre’80): Mad man moon and many many other unknown gems
Simon and Garfunkel: Kathy’s song, For Emily (way better than Bridge OTW)
Paul Simon: American tune
Carpenters: This masquerade
Joe Jackson: Not here not now
Janis Ian: Jesse
U2: New years day (better than anything they made after that)
Peter Gabriel: Family snapshot, Wallflower, San Jacinto, Biko, The rhythm of the heat, Suzanne, …
Kate Bush: The man with the child in his eyes, Mother stands for comfort
Stop me, before I list hundreds more…
Warren Zevon -
Most popular: “Werewolves of London”
Better: “Lawyer’s Guns and Money”, “Desperadoes under the Eaves”, “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner”, “Boom-Boom Mancini”, “The Vast Indifference of Heaven”, “Play it All Night Long”, “Carmelita”, “The French Inhaler”
Jethro Tull: I always thought it odd that their most played song (Aqualung) has no flute! How did that happen? A few by them that are sadly overlooked:
Wond’ring Aloud (and its ‘sequel’ Wond’ring Again)
*Reasons For Waiting
Cold Wind to Valhalla
Dun Ringill
Budapest
Broadford Bazaar
Chateau D’Isaster (scrapped version of what became Passion Play, finally released after 20 years)
Heavy Horses has some of Ian’s best lyrics, IMO
Rush:
Different Strings
Tears nearly brings me to them.
[sub]Argh, argh, argh…damned stuck italicisor!..[/sub]
A Perfect Circle. I can’t praise these guys enough. Best known for Judith and 3 Libras. Overlooked: the rest of the album, Mer de Noms. Magdalena and Thinking of You in particular.
Creed best known for My Own Prison and Arms Wide Open. Overlooked: Pity for a Dime.
Faith No More best known for Epic. Overlooked: the rest of the album, The Real Thing.
Zeppelin: Have yet to hear Tangerine or Ramble On on any radio station anywhere.
Megadeth, best known for, well I don’t even know what stuff the stations play of them now. Overlooked: Their first 3 albums. They don’t play any of the songs on tour (that I’ve heard of). Can’t even find the majority of the songs on Napster.
Great overlooked stuff by well known artists:
Metallica–Master of Puppets (well known to metalheads, but no radio play)
Devo–Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA
Pink Floyd–The Final Cut
Tool–H
Wu-Tang Clan–7th Chamber
Actually Master of Puppets gets quite a bit of airplay here, but one of our local radio stations plays an hour (or is it 30 minutes?) of Metallica every night. I’d say Master of Puppets is the second-most played song off of that album (#1 being ‘Welcome Home’, which actually got a bit of play back when the album was released as well) and is one of the favorites of most people who prefer '80s Metallica to that new dreck. It is a masterful song, but not my favorite. Here are some of my favorite songs off their earlier albums.
Ride the Lightning
Escape - love that first line, “Feel no pain but my life ain’t easy”, it’s a fairly straightforward rock song where everything works.
Trapped Under Ice - I liked this one more than the more popular ‘Creeping Death’ and ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’. Oddly enough, my tape had some kind of glitch that made it have some weird swirling wind-type sound over this entire track which I thought was intentional until I heard it elsewhere.
Master of Puppets
Leper Messiah - this song has a kick-ass groove and better-than-average lyrics for Metallica. Far superior to ‘Master of Puppets’ and ‘Welcome Home’.
Orion - my favorite Metallica instrumental
When I was a teen ‘Damage Inc.’ would get me REALLY pumped up, but the song doesn’t appeal to me much anymore.
…And Justice for All
Heh heh, the breakthrough hit for Metallica, ‘One’, is my least favorite song on this album. Athough ‘Justice’ is usually not my favorite Metallica album, I think it’s the most consistently good one - even ‘One’ is a great song, it’s just that every other one on the album is better. A couple stand out, though…
Harvester of Sorrow - Wow. It’s hard to describe it. It’s a slow, simple song, one of the few Metallica songs I can play ALL the guitar parts on. It feels like it should have been on ‘Master of Puppets’, more organic feeling than the other ‘Justice’ songs.
Dyer’s Eve - odd time signature, VERY fast, VERY powerful. I love the way it starts as a protest against controlling and over-protective parents, ‘Let me live my life’, and transforms to ‘My God, why didn’t you tell me life was so horrible?’
iawoot – Shel Silverstein was a genius.
A few more:
Steve Miller Band – “Your Saving Grace” or “Going to Mexico”
Rod Stewart – “In a Broken Dream” (as guest vocalist for Python Lee Jackson). Stewart is a lousy songwriter, but a great singer. This was one of the few times he had a song worthy of his voice. Second choice: his version of “Maybe I’m Amazed” with the Faces.
Elton John – I’d say “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters,” but this seems to be getting airplay. Second choice: “Burn Down the Mission”
Rolling Stones – “Let it Bleed” doesn’t seem to get the recognition it deserves. Same with “2000 Light Years from Home”
Mountain – “Theme from an Imaginary Western.”
Paul McCartney (solo): “Picasso’s Last Words (Drink to me)”
Steely Dan – “Don’t Take Me Alive” or “Haitian Divorce” “My Old School” wasn’t a hit for them, but seems to get plenty of airplay nowadays.
Crash Test Dummies – “Mmmn” gets the airplay, but “Superman’s Song” is truly great.
Spin Doctors – For some reason, “Jimmy Olsen’s Blues” wasn’t a big hit.
Yes, and let’s not forget She’s a Rainbow. Terrific and trippy!
Balance: You’re dead on about Skynard. Although, I can’t help thinking of “The Legend of Curtis Blow.” (Where did I put my Kangol?)
Badtz Maru: You were pretty much on the money about Metallica. The only song that I think you may have forgotten was “Whiplash” off Kill Em All.
Other songs:
Pearl Jam’s “Yellow Ledbetter”
Blind Melon is most famous for “No Rain.” However, their entire second album “Soup” is fantastic. They’re usually chalked up as a one hit wonder, but I think that if Shannon Hoon hadn’t gotten so whacked out on heroin and acted somewhat normal, their second album would have been huge. Then he went and OD’d. What’re you going to do?
As the British say, “Spot on!” My favorite is the live Woodstock version where the guitar solo has a few more notes including the nice high accent.
Big Brother & the Holding Company with “I Need a Man to Love” from the Cheap Thrills album, even though “Ball & Chain” and “Piece of My Heart” get the most airplay and attention.
Jethro Tull is more interesting on “Locomotive Breath” or “Hymn 43” from the Aqualung album than the overplayed title track.
Jefferson Airplane Jorma’s piercing lead guitar on “Good Shepard” from the Vounteers of America album still haunts after all these years.
**Al Stewart **“On the Border” from the Year of the Cat album and “Roads to Moscow” from Past, Present & Future.
And in regards to Dylan I’d have to say “Simple Twist of Fate” doesn’t get the respect it deserves. For that matter, other people often do incredible versions of his stuff (probably a whole ‘nother thread right there) including Hedrix’s “All Along the Watchtower” and Joan Baez’ “Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts.”
I can hardly claim the Beatles never got enough airplay, but there are a few songs that are mostly ignored.
- Old Brown Shoe, a great little George Harrison number
- Hey Bulldog, overlooked because it was only on the Yellow Submarine album
- Rain, my absolute all-time favorite B-side
And a couple more Skynyrd tunes I’d like to here once in a while (although if I never hear Freebird again that’s perfectly fine by me).
- Whisky Rock-a-Roller
- Call Me the Breeze
One that I’ve heard on the radio exactly once in my whole life that should get played more, by Little Feat: - Fat Man in the Bathtub
And just to complete the impression that I’m a complete fogey that stopped listening to any new music in about 1972, some CCR I wish they’d play once in a while instead of yet another spin of Proud Mary. - Long as I can see the Light
- Hey Tonight (this one does get a little airplay)
- Sweet Hitch-Hiker
- Someday Never Comes