the absofreakinlutely best music of your generation: name the anthems.

[Blackdog Lin]

(with thanks to Iris Lily for the idea.)

What was the best of the music (of course it was rock-n-roll) that made you, that defined you and your peers? Your generation? We're all different ages, so the defining music is and was all different.....

I was a child of the 70's. Kinda missed the 80's with the kid and all (wait, was Billy Squire the 80's? and Def Leppard? maybe I didn't miss those years completely.) And then I came to appreciate and love the new stuff in the 90's with my son: Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alanis Morrisette, and most of all THE OFFSPRING! OMG, I was (and could continue to be, given the proper circumstances) a huge Offspring fan. Oh yeah, forgot about GreenDay. More good music.

Anyway, what I'm thinking is, what are the anthems of your generation, to you? What was the absofreakinlutely BEST music of your teenage years? The years when music moved you, made you stop what you were doing and quiver inside? The music that made you feel that yours was the ONLY generation to feel the way you felt?

Top 5 albums or collections only. Gotta limit it somehow. I'll start. (and take your time. Coming up with the best 5 isn't easy.)

my personal list from the 70's:

- Aerosmith - Get Your Wings
- Deep Purple - Smoke on the Water
- Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
- Led Zeppelin - IV
- Head East - Flat as a Pancake

Next.

[Zoe Girl]

Clash!
Black Flag
Social Distortion (came to them later actually)

some 'poppy' stuff too like The Cure, Howard Jones, a handful of Echo and the Bunnymen, Roxie Music, Siouxie and the Banshees,

dang it now I need to learn my i-pod better and get all this music.

[iris lily]

For me personally it is Sounds of Silence. That's the first song I heard on the radio that mesmerized me and that would have been about 45 or 46 years ago.

[Jilly]

I did not fit in well enough to have actual peers :~), although I remember what those kids liked. Back then I was just weird, not so much the delineation of nerdiness we now know me to be. One of my sisters liked Elvis and I sort of liked the Beatles, although I forged my molars on Josh White, Will, Ezell, Bessie Smith, The Monk, Dave Brubeck, Leadbelly, Holiday, Fitzgerald, Vaughan, Miles, Parker, all of them. I was the only person who was familiar and like classical, especially Baroque. I listen to all of that now, mostly in the car.

There is, or at least was, a radio station connected with a tech school in Milwaukee, that played obscure 60s rock on Saturday mornings. I cannot remember any of the band names right now, but, man, did that program take me back to a gentler time. Man.

[Jilly]

Iris Lily, have you listened to the album of standards that Art Garfunkel recorded? Outstanding. He is in my car, too. There's a somebody I'm longing to see...

[Sad Eyed Lady]

'60's here: Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Cat Stevens, Van Morrison, Gordon Lightfoot, and of course, Joplin, Hendrix, and the Beatles.

[goldensmom]

'60's here: Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Cat Stevens, Van Morrison, Gordon Lightfoot, and of course, Joplin, Hendrix, and the Beatles.
I totally agree but once I got to college all I had time for was Haydn, Mozart, Bizet, Handel, Brahms, Bach, Chopin, Wagner, etc, etc.,

[catherine]

Well, my door to music opened the moment I heard a song on the radio when my best friend's mother was driving us to school, and she said it was "I Want to Hold Your Hand" by the Beatles. I said, "Who are the Beatles?" And she said, "You NEVER heard of the BEATLES?" That was about a week before their first performance on Ed Sullivan. I became a diehard Beatles fan almost to the point of obsession. (The only music concert I've been to since 1975 was a Paul McCartney concert a few years ago)

So, I would have to say the some of the anthems that I think of that for me define me/my generation are:
--She Loves You / Yesterday / the whole Sergeant Pepper album and White Album
--Sounds of Silence (I agree with Iris lily for sure)
--Like a Rolling Stone (Bob Dylan)
--Me and Bobby McGee
--A Whiter Shade of Pale
--Respect (Aretha Franklin)
--House of the Rising Sun (The Animals)
--You Can't Hurry Love (The Supremes)
--White Rabbit (Jefferson Airplane)
--I Can't Get No Satisfaction (The Rolling Stones)
--Bad Moon Rising (Creedence Clearwater Revival)


Those are a few, anyway! Anthem or no anthem, I also get zapped back in time every time I hear MacArthur Park, Lady Madonna, Hair, and even Love Grows Where my Rosemary Goes (I remember singing that song out loud with my friends when we were cruising around after getting our driver's licenses. Great sing-along song.

[Weston]

For me it was/is all about the early/mid-70s but I tend (and still tend) to lean towards lesser known performers (e.g. Steve Goodman, David Bromberg) or relatively unknown performers long before they went on to become superstars (e.g. Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Springsteen) The anthems for me would include City of New Orleans - Steve Goodman Give it Up- Bonnie Raitt Vahevalla - Loggins and Messina Kitty's Back- Springsteen Sharon- Bromberg Suffragette City - David Bowie Baba O Reilly- The Who

[rosarugosa]

Alice Cooper - everything, but especially Billion Dollar Babies & Love it to Death
J Geils Band - House Party
Aerosmith - Get Your Wings
David Bowie - everything, but especially Ziggy Stardust
Elton John - everything, but especially Don't Shoot Me, I'm Only the Piano Player, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
(The Grateful Dead thing is relatively recent in my life; I didn't really go for them when I was younger).

[iris lilies]

When I was pre-teen I heard The Beatles, my little friends had Beatles records, but they didn't strike a chord with me.

It was Paul Simon's Sounds of Silence that called to me. After that, it was always Paul, nothing bu Paul, Only in recent years did I let go of that obsession. Practically 15 years after I met him and talked with him was I able to let go of The Obsession. Relating this to Simple living, I am jettisoning my Paul Simon collection (rather small and insignificant) but I am done with him. Our politics are too different. RIP Paul Simon Obsession.

But my secondardy Obsession has always been with Mick Jagger. I will today stop what I am doing to watch, slacked jawed, Mick, the rubber faced man. There is no one like him.

[happystuff]

Child of the 60's and teen in the 70's... Beatles, Moody Blues, Cat Steves, etc.

But most influential of all... John Denver. Give me flowers, kids, love, nature and life is good! :)

[iris lilies]

Iris Lily, have you listened to the album of standards that Art Garfunkel recorded? Outstanding. He is in my car, too. There's a somebody I'm longing to see...

Oh Artie, he is completely secondary to Paul. sorry!

[Alan]

It was Paul Simon's Sounds of Silence that called to me. After that, it was always Paul, nothing bu Paul, Only in recent years did I let go of that obsession.
Iris, I learn something new about you every day! I've always believed that Paul Simon had two modes, artiste extraordinaire and occasionally miserable hack. As a songwriter/composer, when he's good, he's very, very good and when he's bad, well, let's just say he's bad.

After many years of examination, I've finally decided he's best when he performs solo, with just his guitar. To help get you back on the Simon bandwagon, enjoy my current favorite performance, a re-work of the Beach Boy's Little Surfer Girl.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmjj5Orjnl0

[Jilly]

Oh Artie, he is completely secondary to Paul. sorry!

Of course! But, it is a quirky album, especially if you like those old songs.

[pcooley]

I was in high school in the first part of the eighties. I moved from listening to AC/DC in middle school to listening to the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and then into the blues -- Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, and their ilk. In college, it was mostly Dylan, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and the Blues. I loved Arlo Guthrie's music, and was a subscriber to the Rolling Blunder Review, when he was still publishing it. I've seen him in concert a few times, Taj Mahal a few times, Bob Dylan once. I never did like much of the music that was contemporary in the eighties. Later in college, I became a big fan of Greg Brown. I like Pete Townshend's solo work, and I still love the Who's Quadraphenia.

Now, I mostly listen to Pandora -- the Incredible String Band channel, the John Lee Hooker channel, the Bert Jansch channel and the Donovan channel.

Oh, and I can't leave out Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Thelonious Monk, and John Coltrance.

I'll add a video of Townshend singing his version of Meher Baba's "Universal Prayer." It's one of the most beautiful prayers put to music I know. For me, this is THE anthem across my adolescence and all the way through my adult life, though this rendition is not really the best.


http://youtu.be/cmbesngWux8

Edited to add: when I'm out running, I usually listen to the Rolling Stone's "Exile on Main Street."

[ToomuchStuff]

No music made me. It spoke to me, it (still) reminds me of events/places/people, but I was never naive enough to think it hadn't affected others. Never really been sure of the term, peer, as there were those that I hung around in school (which were generally the outcasts), but I was even an outcast from them (never seen or spoke with any since). My friends were all older then me, and some of my music even older then them (I didn't know FM radio existed, until I was 8 so I grew up with my mom's old 45's of people like Fat's Domino, etc). She stopped with Elvis, and I heard so much of him, that with the exception of a couple songs, RARELY, I can't stand to listen to him. Dad's music was the Beetles and Simon and Garfunkle.
There were "theme songs" for my generation, typically something is considered from around the time you graduate. (examples Everybody wants to rule the world, and The Breakfast Club thing). But even clicks had their own music (not everyone liked rock, we had some country folk in our school).
I went through a period where it was mostly new age, synthesizer music (Tangerine Dream, Exit album, and a few other songs)
But I still have so many varied tastes, I can go from Mozart, to listening to the Zimmers doing their cover of My Generation (and if you don't know who they are, check them out on Youtube, as they are all over 70).

EDIT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNV5bgsv984

[happystuff]

Back again. :)

My anthems change as my moods/circumstances change. Right now, my anthem is "Carry On" by FUN.

[pinkytoe]

Child of the 60's and teen in the 70's Me too.
I was 13 when I went to my first Jimi Hendrix concert. During that time, I listened to Cream, Traffic, Iron Butterfly, Leon Russell, Buffalo Springfield. I also liked a lot of the cowboy outlaw music of that era - Waylon Jennings, Bonnie Raitt, Willis Alan Ramsey.

[iris lilies]

Iris, I learn something new about you every day! I've always believed that Paul Simon had two modes, artiste extraordinaire and occasionally miserable hack. As a songwriter/composer, when he's good, he's very, very good and when he's bad, well, let's just say he's bad.

After many years of examination, I've finally decided he's best when he performs solo, with just his guitar. To help get you back on the Simon bandwagon, enjoy my current favorite performance, a re-work of the Beach Boy's Little Surfer Girl.

haha, that was nice. thanks. yes, he is uneven but I supposed that is to be expected when you've been around as long as he has.

[Weston]

Iris, I learn something new about you every day! I've always believed that Paul Simon had two modes, artiste extraordinaire and occasionally miserable hack. I've got to disagree Alan. I have heard Paul Simon songs that I haven't liked at all. But nothing that would justify the label of "miserable hack". I think his newest album is outstanding. It is clear that after decade upon decade of fame and fortune, he still considers himself an artist, not a product. He also clearly tries to write and perform songs that he considers artistic expressions of his own world view. With the possible exception of Dylan and Springsteen I can't think of a famous songwriter who has acted less like a hack than Paul Simon. How many artists can you name who are still turning out original, high quality material almost 50 years after their first hit? Pretty much everyone that I can think of it is either rehashing the same stuff or turning out crap.

[Alan]

I've got to disagree Alan. I have heard Paul Simon songs that I haven't liked at all. But nothing that would justify the label of "miserable hack". I think his newest album is outstanding. It is clear that after decade upon decade of fame and fortune, he still considers himself an artist, not a product. He also clearly tries to write and perform songs that he considers artistic expressions of his own world view. With the possible exception of Dylan and Springsteen I can't think of a famous songwriter who has acted less like a hack than Paul Simon. How many artists can you name who are still turning out original, high quality material almost 50 years after their first hit? Pretty much everyone that I can think of it is either rehashing the same stuff or turning out crap.
LOL, miserable hack was probably a poor choice of words. Ocassional crap would have been more appropriate.

I actually love the majority of his work although I find I have to stack each release in one of two columns, brilliant and crap. For every "American Tune" there's a "50 Ways to leave your lover", for every "Duncan" there's a "Kodachrome", for every "Homeward Bound" there's a "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard", for every "The Boxer" there's a "Slip Slidin Away".

Of course my descriptors are subjective and extremely biased, and I probably wouldn't be so hard on the one stack if I didn't have so much respect for the other. If a lesser artist did everything in my crap column, I'd probably just consider them "meh".

[Weston]

LOL, miserable hack was probably a poor choice of words. Ocassional crap would have been more appropriate. I actually love the majority of his work although I find I have to stack each release in one of two columns, brilliant and crap. For every "American Tune" there's a "50 Ways to leave your lover", for every "Duncan" there's a "Kodachrome", for every "Homeward Bound" there's a "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard", for every "The Boxer" there's a "Slip Slidin Away". Of course my descriptors are subjective and extremely biased, and I probably wouldn't be so hard on the one stack if I didn't have so much respect for the other. If a lesser artist did everything in my crap column, I'd probably just consider them "meh". Clearly it is a loser's game for any singer/songwriter to hold themselves to Paul Simon's standards. This is true even if you're Paul Simon. When I first got the albums (a few days after release) I liked Kodachrome, Julio and Slip Sidin. It was only after hearing them a hundred times on the radio that they started to sound bland and hackish. I think they work very well in the context of the albums themselves. Not so much after unremitting playing time on the radio.