74 Of '74

"The 74 Best Albums of 1974": https://t.ly/F9W5j

This article could not be more wrong.

I'll make it simple, the second New York Dolls album, "Too Much Too Soon," is #8, and Bad Company's debut didn't even make the list. Everybody knows it's about the first Dolls album, produced by Todd Rundgren, with "Personality Crisis," the second one, produced by Shadow Morton, of girl group fame, was received so badly, and was so mediocre that the band broke up and there were no more records, because sans hits there's no money and that's it. Now if you want to talk about David Johansen's solo debut, with not only "Funky But Chic" but "Frenchette"...now that's some great music.

Number one is Neil Young's "On the Beach." I don't think there's a person who was alive back then, not even Neil himself, who would agree with this. There are those who laud the 1975 follow-up, "Tonight's the Night," but other than on this cockamamie list, I've never heard a single person extol the greatness of "On the Beach." I bought it when it came out, I know it, I liked it, and it's interesting return to the studio after "Time Fades Away," but far from an album you'd leave on the turntable ad infinitum.

And the media has been waxing rhapsodic regarding the fiftieth anniversary of Jackson Browne's "Late for the Sky," but it only made it to #31 on "Rolling Stone"'s list. And speaking of Southern California, I know everybody hates the Eagles, but if you rank "On the Border" last at #74 behind KISS's debut...YOU'RE DELIRIOUS!

"Diamond Dogs" was a commercial success but a critical disappointment, but Bowie's 1974 LP is listed at #14. It was pooh-poohed so much by the cognoscenti that Bowie pulled back, re-evaluated and came back as the Thin White Duke with "Young Americans."

Oh, just to make you laugh, Eno has got two albums in the Top 20, "Here Comes the Warm Jets" at #5 and "Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy."

Now let's be clear, I OWN ALL THESE ALBUMS! (Other than KISS's debut, I wouldn't buy that trash), I paid for them, I listened to them, but I'm not invested in one more than the other, I can cast a critical eye.

But I was 21 in 1974, and the people compiling this list... Probably weren't even born yet.

And "Rolling Stone" is behind a paywall. And trolling for clicks. I mean why else create this bogus list. I mean who's sitting at home wondering...what were the best 74 albums of 1974, hmmm... Maybe the Top Ten, but this is media today, they want you to read and discuss...

It's just dross.

But what bothered me most was the exclusion of Bad Company's debut. That band of seasoned musicians fronted by possibly the greatest rock vocalist of all time owned the airwaves for years, and it started immediately with "Can't Get Enough," which blasted out of stations on both the AM and FM dials in August 1974, it was ubiquitous.

But even better was the moody, but ultimately powerful eponymous track, "Bad Company." With Paul Rodgers's piano and humming and then Mick Ralphs's guitar... And then that singing like he's out on the high prairie, evaluating the landscape, like it's life or death.

"I was born six gun in my hand
Behind the gun
I'll make my final stand, yeah"

Isn't this an even better expression of the "Desperado" ethos than most of the songs on that Eagles album?

"That's why they call me
Bad company
And I can't deny
Bad company
'Til the day I die"

That's rock and roll. The other. You didn't want your daughter to date a Rolling Stone and you didn't want them to date a member of Bad Company either, whose record came out on Led Zeppelin's label.

And how about the sound of Mick's guitar at the beginning of "Movin' On," the track sizzles, this is the music you listened to that made you feel good, that squeezed out the rest of the world.

"Rock Steady" had a groove, in the pocket, raw rock and roll. But Ron Wood's barely listenable pedestrian "I've Got My Own Album to Do" is #48 on "Rolling Stone"'s list.

And there's the killer slowed-down version of "Ready for Love," which first appeared on that Mott the Hoople album.

But the piece-de-resistance is the closing track, "Seagull." Sure, there's the sound, based on an acoustic guitar, but even more there's the mood, the feeling. The track soars, and it lifts you along for the ride, just like a seagull yourself. This is the ethereal yet real on wax rock sound that epitomizes the 1970s, and it's almost been written out of history.

Yet for some reason these doofuses believe that Harry Nilsson's "Pussy Cats," an execrable album made after Harry had blown out his voice, is #49.

And Bad Company only got bigger, with their next album, "Straight Shooter."

"Johnny was a schoolboy
When he heard his first Beatles song
'Love Me Do' I think it was
And from there it didn't take him long

Got himself a guitar..."

This is them, this is us. We heard the Beatles and we went electric, we all went out and bought Fenders or the best we could afford and amps.

But "Feel Like Makin' Love" was even bigger than "Shooting Star." All over the radio in the summer of '75, an anthem, right alongside Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion." Oh, those were the glory days.

FEEL LIKE MAKIN' LOVE!

With that staccato machine gun guitar.

It was everything then and seemingly nothing today.

Everybody wants to write this era and this music off. They just want to talk about punk. But that came after. And it wasn't a response to Bad Company or Aerosmith, neither was ever labeled corporate rock.

I could go on, Bad Company certainly did.

Hopefully every self-satisfied rock critic, member of the Hall of Fame, can get off their ass, out of their box, come down off their perch and be with the people who loved this music who never accepted them and acknowledge how great Bad Company was and immediately put them in the Rock Hall, give them their victory lap, because...

THEY DESERVE IT!

Playlist: https://t.ly/GBIMA


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