Not Your Average Slow Dance

This week we’re going to return to rock one last time to talk about one of the most powerful forms of any music ever: rock ballads.

aerosmith

Popular rock group ‘Aerosmith’ during a performance in the 1970s.

For those of you who know rock ballads, even casually, the image you associate with them is probably much like the one of the left: a stereotypical “hair-band” with tight-fitting latex suits and big stage productions. For those of you who don’t really know about rock ballads, this image can be a pretty good indicator of what’s to come.

 

Rock ballads are not technically a sub-genre of rock, they are more of a style or type of song. Because of this nearly every rock group at some point in their career has put out a ballad. Now, I’m going to talk about rock ballads as they exist in classic rock and among the groups associated with classic rock, although there are most certainly rock ballads in modern, punk, or alternative rock. And as a final introductory note, if you’re the type of person who switches the songs (be it radio, Spotify, etc.) every time they hear the beginnings of a slow song I would implore you to pay close attention to this post, you don’t know what you’re missing.

Ballads, in general, refer to (you guessed it) slow songs. The definition of a ballad is a song that contains a narrative or story, and this typically translates to romantic or sentimental songs in practice. Good rock ballads typically make you feel something, or at least that’s what they do to me. As a general rule ballads usually start relatively slow and simple and gradually build until a final climactic point. I almost always get goosebumps at the climatic moment of the song, just after the precisely placed impact- and hopefully you’ll experience some of this later. In general, I identify two broad types of rock ballads: power ballads and non-power ballads. Let’s look at non-power ballads first.

Non-Power Ballads:

Non-power ballads don’t really have a unifying theme, other than the fact that they aren’t power ballads. So here I’m just going to present a few different examples to give you an idea of what I’m talking about.

The song you’re listening to right now is ‘Little Wing’ by Jimi Hendrix and I personally believe this is one of the greatest songs ever written. Jimi Hendrix was a ridiculous guitar player and this is by far my favorite guitar solo of his, or perhaps anyone. You can feel the emotion he pours into it and understand why it can be considered a ballad. His lyrics here, as in most of his songs, are rather cryptic, which leaves them up to interpretation but also allows for the perception of many hidden and significant possible meanings.

So it’s worth noting that the next artist whose song I will talk about it Elton John. Elton John, in my mind, is a classic rock artist but many people would disagree and say he is a pop artist. Thus many people compromise and say pop rock, which is generally accepted. Anyway, Elton John wrote and performed countless ballads, including (but not limited to) ‘Candle In the Wind‘, a very moving song which he performed at Princess Dianna’s funeral, ‘Tiny Dancer‘ which nearly everyone is familiar with, and ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road‘ which I think everyone ought to know. Here’s ‘Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me’.

You can instantly see how this song differs from ‘Little Wing’. Most of the song is sand relatively conservatively (compared to what Elton John can do) and we see this come out towards the end of the song, at the climax. You also see something here that we haven’t seen yet. The song’s verses are less intense and simpler musically compared to the choruses. This is especially seen in the way the drums play into the song, remaining absent until the first chorus, the leaving again only to reenter with the next verse and add to the building up of the song. Although not seen here, ballads often return to the simpler structure of the verses for a brief time after the climax.

Power Ballads:

Power ballads are able to be defined because of their distinct sound and structure. While their verses are typically slow and soft like those of any ballad, their choruses are follow particular brand of harder rock with distorted guitars and a driving drum beat. Check this popular one out:

This song is “Home Sweet Home” by Mötley Crüe I hope from this song you can see where the name power ballad comes from. The singer never really changes his style of singing, it remains loud and powerful like that of many of the hair bands of the 1970s and ’80s. This song also contains the return to the softer music after the hard-hitting impact which I talked about earlier. The guitar solo here, as in many power ballads, is markedly different from ones in songs like ‘Little Wing’ because they usually are more complex and intense than non-ballads, which serves the purpose of driving the song and building to the release point.

This song is “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” by Aerosmith (yes, from ‘Armageddon’ with Bruce Willis). I like this song because Steven Tyler (the singer) has one of the most iconic voices in all of classic rock (think Dream OnWalk This WayDude (Looks Like a Lady)) and I think this song is entirely driven by his voice. The raw power displayed in this song shows how many of these power ballads are driven and the passion is part of what makes them great.

Check out these two great power ballads which you probably already know:

Queen- “We Are the Champions”

Styx- “Come Sail Away”

 

As always, I hope you found something in this post that you might come back and listen to at some point. Or, at the very least, found traces of something that you might want to investigate further. I personally believe that rock ballads is are of the most powerful forms of music. I don’t think all they make you feel sad, although some do (which isn’t a bad thing by the way), but rather some sort of cathartic release can leave you with a warm yet subtle feeling. I hope you can find this.

Until next time,

Aaron

 

PRO TIP: If you thought you liked a song or you want to hear something similar, a good way to explore similar music is to start a Pandora station with it or simply go off suggested videos on youtube.

Posted in Fall Semester | 1 Comment

Motown the Blog Post

The next genre I’m going to talk about R&B, more specifically as it relates to Motown. Motown is a record company that was founded in the late 1950s in Detroit. They are known for having signed an amazing number of famous artists including Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, the Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder, and so many more. I would venture to say that, even if you don’t know the many specific artists by name, you

The Four Tops, most famous for their song 'I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)'

The Four Tops, most famous for their song ‘I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)’

would recognize many of their hit songs. Although they recorded artists of varying styles, they are most famous for producing the “Motown” sound of R&B. This “Motown” sound is not necessarily specific to the company, but the company did popularize it. This genre is popular for presenting itself in one of two fashions: an energetic and upbeat song with catchy vocals and carefully constructed background music, or slightly more relaxed and emotional ballads. Either way, these songs were never complex or musically difficult, which allowed them to feed into pop music and made them extremely catchy. Motown songs often stuck to the “Kiss Principle”- keep it simple, stupid.

I believe that most people will recognize at least some of the songs that I’ll present to you, but many of you probably didn’t know the specific names of the songs or artists who performed them. I will not talk about the Jackson 5 (if you don’t know about them we have a serious problem here) or Marvin Gaye (‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ ‘I Heard it Through the Grapevine’) but I will talk about Stevie Wonder, or rather Little Stevie Wonder. So let’s dive right in.

I swear I was going to share this song before the whole “clown hunt” thing so this is really just an unfortunate coincidence for me. The song you are listening to now is “Tears of a Clown” by Smokey Robinson & The Miracles and this song, for me, is great on so many levels. This is probably one of the most complex songs in Motown’s repertoire because of its circus-esque interjections, but during the main versus and chorus you can really hear the relatively simple backing music and vocals that are still incredibly upbeat. The driving drum beat, grooving base line, and unique backing vocals all contribute to that distinctive Motown sound.

This is the Stevie Wonder I was talking about. Stevland Hardaway Morris was originally discovered and brought to Motown Records at age 11, where he was given the stage name ‘Little Stevie Wonder’ due to his youth and status as a child prodigy. This entire song really only jumps between two chords and has a very catchy melody that people generally get the hang of after a relatively short amount of time. This song also includes another element of classic Motown songs: a horn section. In addition to backing vocals, many Motown songs include a horn section which usually consists of a trumpet, trombone, a tenor saxophone, and sometimes (though not in this song) a baritone saxophone (which can be heard in the main parts of ‘Tears of a Clown’). If you’re interested, Stevie Wonder performs a song called ‘Fingertips, Part 2’ in which he shows off some of his musical abilities.

 

This song, which you may have heard before, is entitled ‘My Girl’ and is performed by The Temptations. Its a little bit slower than some of the other songs I’ve shown, so it falls into that second category of Motown songs I’ve talked about. The Temptations are a good representation of a classic Motown style of band. There is one main singer and a few (in this case four) backup vocalists. When they perform they have a specific uniform and a choreographed dance that they all participate in. Some other groups like this would be The Four Tops and The Supremes (which is how Diana Ross was founded). Here’s ‘Stop! In the Name of Love’ by The Supremes to give you an idea of what I’m talking about.

 

As always, I hope you found something in this post that you might come back and listen to at some point. Or, at the very least, found traces of something that you might want to investigate further. Motown songs are super easy to listen to and they don’t require a lot of attention paid to them. If you enjoy Stevie Wonder or the Jackson 5 (or you enjoy the music from Remember the Titans) I would strongly suggest checking out some of this music.

Until next time,

Aaron

 

PRO TIP: If you thought you liked a song or you want to hear something similar, a good way to explore similar music is to start a Pandora station with it or simply go off suggested videos on youtube.

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Southern Roots

This week we are returning to the realm of rock, but with a different twist. Because rock is so broad there are many subdivisions within it that can have as much depth as some other complete genres. I am speaking, of course, about southern rock (aka country rock).

Southern Rock group The Allman Brothers Band

Southern Rock group The Allman Brothers Band

I prefer to call it southern rock because I believe country rock is a slight misnomer. First off, country rock implies that it has a strong tie to country music, which it does not. There is some overlap, but the two styles of music really didn’t have a whole lot in common in the 1960s-80s, and they especially don’t have a lot in common today (country music has gone in a completely different direction). I believe that the distinct sound of southern rock is due to its artists’ southern roots rather than their ties to country music. But this is completely and totally my non-expert opinion, country rock and southern rock both have their own wikipedia pages that talk about many of the same things.

The most famous southern rock group (in my mind) would have to be Lynyrd Skynyrd. Although they weren’t actually around all that long, their music is very good and remains extremely popular to this day. Everybody knows (or should know) some of their hits like ‘Sweet Home Alabama,’ ‘Free Bird,’ or perhaps ‘Simple Man,’ which are so popular that they are often used in movies or ads as a means to invoke “the south” (think NASCAR, ‘Murica, freedom, etc.). It generally looks something like this. No southern rock group comes close to the popularity of Lynyrd Skynyrd, so I’ll have a lot to talk about here, but I’ll preface the rest of this post by saying that not all of the groups in southern rock make the same style of music as they do. Skynyrd produces a very hard rock (distorted guitars, rawer sound) whereas some other artists tend to make a more mellow, even “folksy” (although it is by no means folk music), brand of southern rock.

The song that you are listening to right now is ‘Already Gone’ by the Eagles. Now, in fairness, the Eagles are a very popular group, and I would bet that most people have heard of them, or at least their biggest hits (‘Hotel California,’ ‘Life in the Fast Lane‘). The reason I am putting them here, despite their popularity, is because the songs I mentioned above (which most people know) aren’t really southern rock. The Eagles started out as a southern rock band, and most of their early work falls along the lines of ‘Already Gone,’ but later in their career they moved away from this. So I encourage you to take a look at some of the early work of the Eagles (or later work too, I just happen to be talking about southern rock right now). Their songs are much more mellow than Lynyrd Skynyrd’s are which makes them very easy to listen to casually. You can find most of their more popular southern rock hits here.

One of the great things, in my opinion, about southern rock is the talent level of the musicians, especially the guitarists. Southern rock groups are known for their ability to extend a song in order to include more for guitar solos, or even keyboard solos. Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Eagles both do this well, but in my mind no one does it like The Allman Brothers Band, especially in the song I’ve posted above, entitled ‘Ramblin’ Man.’ I’ll put it out there that The Allman Brother Band is probably one of my all-time favorite groups, so I’ll try not to throw too much at you (but it’ll be hard). Southern rock songs, and especially those of this band, contain some of my favorite guitar and keyboard solos (if you haven’t listened to the last four minutes of ‘Free Bird’ you should go back and do that). I’m just going to put two more Allman Brothers songs and not ruin them for you by talking about them, but you can look at their greatest hits album here.

‘Midnight Rider’

‘Whipping Post’

 

The last group I’ll briefly mention is Creedence Clearwater Revival. Here’s one of their more popular songs:

You’ve probably heard ‘Have You Ever Seen the Rain’ before and if not, now you have. CCR is probably the most “southern” or “country” band in that its lead singer has the most southern inflection and their style of music is more related to country. I don’t have a lot to say about them but I believe that they are worth mentioning, look here for some more of their songs.

As always, I hope you found something in this post that you might come back and listen to at some point. Or, at the very least, found traces of something that you might want to investigate further. Southern rock isn’t everyones cup of tea but I think it has a lot of great artists and songs within it. Perhaps the harder rocking Lynyrd Skynyrd is more your style, and that’s completely okay. I would simply encourage you to dive a little bit deeper and see if you can find one or two other song/bands that you like as well.

Until next time,

Aaron

 

PRO TIP: If you thought you liked a song or you want to hear something similar, a good way to explore similar music is to start a Pandora station with it or simply go off suggested videos on youtube.

Posted in Fall Semester | 1 Comment

Now It’s Time to Get Funky (funky… funky… funky…)

(Thank you to the Cha Cha Slide for bringing us this week’s title)

 

You’re going to want to do yourself a favor and turn up the bass for the duration of this post.

 

The band Wild Cherry, most famous for their hit song "Play That Funky Music"

The band Wild Cherry, most famous for their hit song “Play That Funky Music”

Funk. It’s probably hard to put into words exactly what it is that defines funk music. This could be because a lot of artists who put out funk songs are considered R&B, soul, or possibly disco musicians like James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Earth, Wind and Fire, or even Prince. What’s the difference, you ask? To be honest I couldn’t exactly tell you. The best way to describe it would be this: It’s that cool groove that gets you to tap your foot and nod your head. It’s those tight horn stabs that keep you on your toes and interested in where the song is going. And it’s that ridiculous bass line which can only be described as ‘funky’. In short, you know it when you hear it. It can be one of the rawest and most aggressive forms of music ever developed, sometimes containing very little structure either because the musicians are improvising most of the song and/or so much emotion is being put into the song that it just ends up being that way (think James Brown). So for the purposes of this blog, I am only going to talk about artists and songs which are clearly funk; so let’s get started.

Everybody knows the most popular funk hits (i.e. “Brick House,” “Super Freak,” “Play That Funky Music,” etc.), but these songs barely represent the tip of the iceberg for funk music.  In my opinion (which could in no way be considered ‘professional’) there are two main subdivisions of funk: what I’ll call ‘classic’ funk (70s and 80s -ish) and ‘modern’ funk (2000s-ish I suppose). These differences will become more obvious when I talk about them.

‘Classic’ Funk:

If this song doesn’t make you want to move, even if it’s a single toe tap, then I don’t know what to tell you. ‘What is Hip?’ by the famous funk group Tower of Power is a perfect example of what I mean when I say ‘classic funk.’ It’s got a smooth groove set up by the rhythm section (guitar, bass, keyboard, and drums) with tight horn parts and an insanely funky bass line. Most classic funk artists present themselves in band settings and their songs generally contain easy lyrics that compliment the rhythmically complicated music. These songs are both easy to dance to and easy to sing along with and they were ‘disco’ songs before ‘disco’ came to be. There isn’t a whole lot of variety here (or at least good variety) so most of the songs are structured in this way. If you’re interested I think I’ve found the one good funk ballad which you can check out here. Other than that I would suggest looking into groups such as Sly & the Family StoneWar, and Kool & the Gang. I’ll leave you with another great song, ‘Hollywood Swinging’ by Kool & the Gang.

‘Modern’ Funk:

Although I do love classic funk, I would have to say I am much more into, and knowledgeable about, modern funk. For me, there is a lot more variety in terms of the difference between songs. With classic funk you can get into a place where every song sounds vaguely similar and I would say that is not the case with what I am about to show you.

‘Hurricane Season’ by Trombone Shorty is a great starting point for modern funk. It’s distinctly different from classic funk yet it clearly falls into the genre of funk. Modern funk, and Trombone Shorty in particular (check out some songs here), consist of a type of funk that’s almost closer to rock. The drums are present as a more driving force and there’s a lot of distortion in the guitars. I would also use the term ‘dirty’ to describe some modern funk songs: they’re edgy and aggressive and the people who play them seem like they’re jamming rather than performing.

A perfect example of ‘dirty’ funk is the band lettuce. Here’s they’re song ‘Makin’ My Way Back Home’.

Lettuce and other artists like them are simply amazing musicians. They make great funk songs and they are legitimately talented. Many people flock to see them live because their live performances are always amazing to watch because of their ability to play great improv solos, which makes their songs new and different every time: they’ll never play the same song in the exact same way twice. Check out ‘Lettsanity’ to see what I’m talking about (studio version vs. live version).

As an interesting side note, Jason Mraz frequently plays a funk song ‘Cop Chase’ at his concerts. It’s really good and easy to listen to so I’d suggest checking it out.

As always, I hope you found something in this post that you might come back and listen to at some point. Or, at the very least, found traces of something that you might want to investigate further. I got into funk by listening to my friend’s Spotify playlist ’24-hours of Funk’ (named so because it contained over 24 hours worth of funk songs). Hopefully I didn’t fling too much at you, I like a lot of funk groups so it was kind of hard for me not to just list a bunch of them (because there are plenty more good ones).

Until next time,

Aaron

 

PRO TIP: If you thought you liked a song or you want to hear something similar, a good way to explore similar music is to start a Pandora station with it or simply go off suggested videos on youtube.

Posted in Fall Semester | 1 Comment

Don’t Hate on Jazz

This week I’m going to talk about jazz. Now, a lot of people inherently dislike jazz at the mere mention of it, and why is this? I think it could be one a few reasons.

  1. They think its old and boring because it sounds like this.
  2. They think its dull and boring because it sounds like this.
  3. It’s not always catchy like more modern genres.
  4. They think the people who claim to enjoy jazz are stuck up and snobby (and, let’s face it, sometimes they are).

Anyway you splice it, I believe that people generally dislike jazz because of whatever negative connotations they associate with it. But I’m here to say that jazz is an incredibly broad term, even more broad than rock, so if you look in the right places, I’m sure anyone can find some jazz they enjoy listening to. For the purpose of this post I will divide the realm of jazz into vocal jazz, solo jazz, and big band jazz. This is really for organizational purposes, the actual subdivisions for jazz would be things like dixieland, latin, bebop, etc.

Vocal Jazz:

The most recognizable vocal jazz artists would include people like Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Louis Armstrong (check out the hits section). If you don’t know of any of these people you should definitely look them up (for Louis Armstrong you may have to be careful because not all of his songs are strictly vocal), but I’m going to talk about some other people right now. So let’s begin.

aviom_buble-brass-drums_8

If you recognize this voice I would not be at all surprised, its Michael Bublé. And, I hate to break it to you, but Michael Bublé is a jazz singer. Also, in case you think this song is too interesting and too not boring to be jazz, I have some more bad news for you. Don’t believe me? Here’s Michael Bublé singing a jazz standard (a standard is widely popular jazz song).

A popular thing that’s going on right now is jazz covers of famous non-jazz songs. Check out this version of ‘Say Something.’ There has been some pretty cool songs to come out of this with some of them, I would say, being better than the originals.

As a side note to any Family Guy fans out there Seth MacFarlane put out a vocal jazz album which you can check out here if you feel so inclined (I personally don’t love it but I think it’s cool that he did it).

Solo Jazz:

‘Solo Jazz’ is by no means a technical term, I’m using it to describe the area of jazz that usually involves a single person who is featured most of the time and who is backed up by a few other people in a small group setting. This isn’t really my favorite area, the people who enjoy it are usually more hardcore jazz listeners, but I’ll share it nonetheless.

This song is entitled ‘Señor Mouse’ and it is a popular latin-jazz standard. Songs like these generally feature a ‘head’ section, which would be the melody of the song. After this these songs go into individual solo sections and then end by returning the the head. A person’s ability to enjoy these songs completely rests on their personal preference in style as it relates to the specific artist, so it might be a little hard for new jazz listeners to find what they like.

Big Band Jazz:

Jazz Big Bands are probably what most people think of when they think of jazz bands: a rhythm section (drums, guitar, bass, piano), a brass section (trumpets and trombones), and a woodwind section (saxophones and occasionally flutes and/or clarinets). I find that I personally prefer the sound of big bands, they are more versatile and can provide more exciting music.

The song you are listening to now is entitled ‘Birdland’ and it is being performed my Maynard Ferguson and his band. Maynard Ferguson is well known for playing extremely high notes on the trumpet (which is one of the hardest things to do) but also for leading a resurgence of jazz in the 1980s. His songs are often catchy and easy to listen too, but also they are incredibly interesting and versatile in their styles. Maynard Ferguson is one of my favorite musicians and his songs rank among my all time favorites. One hing I would recommend is listening to his jazz big band covers of famous songs such as The Beatles’ ‘Hey Jude‘ or Elton John’s ‘Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me‘. If you don’t feel something, anything, when you listen to ‘Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me’ I think you need to seriously consider re-examining what does gives you a case of the feels.

As a side note, you might want to check out this live version of ‘Birdland’ here. In most of his live performances Maynard Ferguson was almost certainly high on cocaine and, while this did lead to his eventual death, it can provide some personal comedy in the form of his “dancing.”

Another good big band would be Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band. They also have a lot of high energy and fun-to-listen-to songs that I think could provide a different aspect when compared to Maynard Ferguson. Here’s them doing the popular ‘Play That Funky Music‘ or another good song ‘High Maintenance‘. The entire album ‘The Phat Pack‘ is pretty good if you find you want to hear more of their stuff.

As always, I hope you found something in this post that you might come back and listen to at some point. Or, at the very least, found traces of something that you might want to investigate further. Jazz music is tough to tackle, at first, but once you find something you like it can become extremely rewarding.

Until next time,

Aaron

 

PRO TIP: If you thought you liked a song or you want to hear something similar, a good way to explore similar music is to start a Pandora station with it or simply go off suggested videos on youtube.

Posted in Fall Semester | 1 Comment

Starting With the Classic

Where to begin? As much as I enjoy music and am excited to blog about it, I found it tough to select a place to begin. Should I go chronologically? Probably not, this isn’t really a music history blog. Least favorite to most favorite? Well this kind of defeats the purpose, this blog isn’t necessarily about finding music you like more than whatever you currently listen to, it’s more about finding new types you can enjoy along side your current tastes. Also, I’m not sure I actually differentiate my posts like that, and even if I could I’m not sure my rankings would be so rigid. So what I decided to do was essentially pick one and run with it. So this week, let’s talk about everybody’s favorite: Rock N’ Roll.

Rock group Led Zeppelin

Rock group Led Zeppelin

I have yet to find a person (and I hope I never do) who cannot find a single song under the large umbrella of rock music that they enjoy. Rock N’ Roll covers such a vast array of distinctly different sub-genres, that I could not possibly talk about all of it in this one post. Therefore I will limit the scope of this post to include what is known as “classic rock” (basically your stereotypical rock music) which will cover from about 1960-1990, more or less. And this will still not do the time period justice.

Classic rock has a few artists that are almost universally known, this list almost definitely includes artists like The Beatles (earlylate), Billy JoelLed ZeppelinQueen and so many others. If you don’t know who those artists are (or want to get to know them more) I would suggest clicking on the links and viewing some of the songs on their “Greatest Hits” albums. I will not talk about these artists because I believe that most people have a good understanding of who they are and what kind of music they made (although I would always suggest digging deeper into the ones you like to find lesser-known but equally-as good-tracks), and the point of this blog is to introduce you to new music. So first thing’s first: let’s set the mood.

The song you’re (hopefully) listening to right now is “Bat Out of Hell” by the artist Meat Loaf, who is most well known for his operatic style of rock music. Many of his songs are longer and have style changes in them which compliment his level of talent and his exceptionally strong voice. Unfortunately for this blog there really isn’t anyone else in the rock world who was able to do this unique style of rock well so I don’t really have anyone to compare him to. Freddie Mercury- the lead singer of Queen- is perhaps the most comparable the Meat Loaf, especially in Bohemian Rhapsody (which I haven’t included the link to because if you don’t know this song you haven’t lived on earth since 1975). Queen, however, had more variance in their music so we don’t always see this side of them. Another one of Meat Loaf’s most popular songs is Paradise by the Dashboard Light which can be found here.

I know, I know, Bat of Hell isn’t over yet and probably won’t be for at least another eight minutes, but there will be plenty of time to listen to that later. Right now we’re moving on to “Touch Me” by The Doors, who came a bit before Meat Loaf. This early classic rock group was headed by Jim Morrison who is part of the infamous 27 Club. Their style generally features a more traditional (in that its an older) style of rock, which tends to stick more to basic instrumentation (guitar, drums, bass, possibly keyboard) and is meant more to back vocals then be interesting to on its own (although this song is definitely an exception to most of those trends).

The last group I’ll talk about right now (and I know I’ve barely scratched the surface of scratching the surface of rock) is Steely Dan.

“Reelin’ In the Years” is a good representation of the perhaps more “laid back” rock group Steely Dan. I would define them as being somewhat of a “jam band” which means that they put out a lot of songs where most or all of the time is comprised of instrumental music or solos (they need to be extremely talented musicians to do this). Not all of their songs are like this, however, but all of their songs are generally easy to listen to and I think they are great to listen to when doing some kind of labor or task (i.e. mowing the lawn, cleaning your room, putting up a new coat of paint as you redecorate a living room), but then again I’ll listen to anything and everything in these situations. I believe this style is also echoed in some of the work done by The Steve Miller BandThe Moody  Blues, or The Doobie Brothers.

Anyway I hope you found something in this post that you might come back and listen to at some point. Or, at the very least, found traces of something that you might want to investigate further. Classic Rock is an extremely diverse genre and I would implore you to do some digging of your own, I guarantee you will find something you like!

Until next time,

Aaron

 

 

 

PRO TIP: If you thought you liked a song or you want to hear something similar, a good way to explore similar music is to start a Pandora station with it or simply go off suggested videos on youtube.

 

 

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