Stones: “Gimme Shelter” (Merry Clayton)
Zep: “The Battle of Evermore” (Sandy Denny)
Floyd: “The Great Gig in the Sky” (Clare Torry)

You could even count Queensrÿche in this: Pamela Moore shares the vocals with Geoff Tate on one of the best tracks of the band’s masterpiece, Operation: Mindcrime: “Suite Sister Mary.”

I just noticed that each of the four female singers I listed have a double letter in their names (RR, NN, OO, RR). Spells RORNRORN. Which must mean something.

I’m going to have to go with AC/DC on this one.

As to the Stones, I’m a GenXer and I love them. I’m figuring they’ll be one of my top 5. Though I think they should have quit after “Tattoo You” or the one after that. The first time I heard “Satisfaction” was one of my dad’s compilation albums. It knocked me out!

Though I must say that Classic Rock is heavily represented, but I’m not sure what to do about that.

Well, you obviously like the song, but I don’t. I you want to state the worth of the song as though it’s a scientific fact, please help yourself, but I don’t have to accept it just because you say it’s so, do I? The first time I heard it, I was a kid in the 60s. I didn’t like it then and was stunned when it got so popular. So shoot me. I disagree with you.

Sheesh.

Now for a few responses/provocations:

Josh – Your “big three” don’t resonate with me at all. Rock has a long history now and this tourney covers from the Brit Invasion to the present – I subscribe to a “band of record” hypothesis/theory that posits that every decade from the 60′s to the 00′s has its own band/artist of record.

Here’s my “Big 5″ based on the above mentioned consideration: Beatles (60′s); Led Zeppelin (70′s); U2 (80′s); Nirvana (90′s); Radiohead/Coldplay (00′s). I understand there’s overlap here (LZ began its career in the 60′s, Radiohead its career in the 90′s, etc.).

@Sam: Classic rock arose as a format in response to Boomer complaints that “their music” was being forgotten. As you know, in the literary world we call this unintentional irony. As for your contention about Xers and the Stones, I’ve felt for a while now that Xers have grown just a tad past snarky with the Glimmer Twins’ quarter century dash for cash. (This is called, as you know, intentional irony).

@Lex: You have no idea how pleased Andrew Loog Oldham would be that you were taught this myth that he created to position the Stones vis a vis The Beatles as if it were truth. As you well know, this is how we get stuff like resurrection tales grafted onto the hagiographies of radical rabbis to cite one example….

JS: “Satisfaction” was and is a great song – tis a shame it got pounded into everyone ad nauseum so that its very real power (especially in its time) is now lost to us. And while Sam has noted your mistaken ascription of “Suffragette City,” its context is Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust” album, an album based on a mythic rock figure very like a certain Mr. Jagger. So maybe there’s a Jungian thing going on there….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2fDUb57_xk

..in the chorus!

Yep. You’re right. Bowie. Sure sounds like the Stones, though, to me. So, I guess I don’t have as much reason to like the Stones as I thought.

Of course, this kinda dovetails with our pervasive mythologizing of all things Boomer, doesn’t it?

I think that the younger generation’s distaste for the so called ‘greats’ might have something to do with the fact that they’ve all kind of been shoved down our collective throats our entire lives. Sure, the big three (Zep, the Stones, the Beatles) were comprised of talented musicans and they were influential and popular and everyone went nuts for em, but its pop music representative of an entire generation (I know, I know, my generation’s idea of pop music is significantly worse).

BUT, the fact remains that you can’t swing a dead cat without hearing one of the big three on the radio or on some stupid car commercial on the TV, and we’ve been dealing with it for our entire lives.

Based exclusively on personal preference, not on music history or influence.

I could take or leave both of the original monsters of rock, but i much prefer the Stones to the Fabs…but i prefer my blues straight, no chaser of pop to wash it down. (And so in both cases would greatly prefer to listen to Muddy, Hooker or Howlin’ Wolf than their British counterparts.)

As for the Stones, I think they were a good band, and I will readily cop to a plea of knowing little about music theory, history, and the like, so they may be more important than I know. That they were BIG and popular is without question, and that they have very long longevity is also obvious. To my very uneducated ear, though, their music always seemed simplistic and maybe just a bit … ummm … searching for a word … “predictable” is close, I guess. Hey, I have danced wildly many nights to “Suffragette City,” and screamed “Wham, Bam, Thank you Ma’am!” at the top of my lungs while the girl dancing with me was screaming the same thing, and I have blessed the Stones for that song. There are many of their songs that I enjoy. I just don’t find the music all that interesting.

I’m working on returning to posting at S&R with a series of pieces titled “Music is Life” and this Gen X distaste for The Stones (which I’ve discovered anecdotally is widespread) is just the sort of thing I’d like to write about. Boomers, as you know, revere the Glimmer Twins and Co. and Xers just – don’t, to put it mildly.

So any thoughts you’d be willing to share would be great to have….

The wipers of shitty shoes, yes. What of them?