Comments on: Tournament of Rock – Legends: the Elvis Costello pod

By: Darrell

Darrell — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:09:57 +0000

Uno, dos, tres, catorce!

By: Ubertramp

Ubertramp — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:35:38 +0000

hey. FBG was deep, man.

Hey I was just a skinny lad
Never knew no good from bad
But I knew life before I left my nursery
Left alone with big fat fanny
She was such a naughty nanny
Heap big woman you made a bad boy out of me

By: Retro Hound

Retro Hound — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:22:17 +0000

I’ll vote for Mojo Nixon!

As to U2 and Queen, I was going to say something about how U2 writes about deep meaningful things, not Fat Bottom Girls, but I don’t find it necessary to dog one great to build up another.

By: Mike Sheehan

Mike Sheehan — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 23:39:09 +0000

ELVIS IS EVERYWHERE!!!!!! Probably even this tourney!

By: leTerrassier

leTerrassier — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 23:22:15 +0000

Don Nixon? I’m stuffin’ ballots for Mojo Nixon!

By: Mike Sheehan

Mike Sheehan — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:50:31 +0000

Actually Ronnie Spector should be ahead of both EC and the Ramones and a bunch of other greats. They’ve all copied her “oh, oh, oh, oh” singing style many times.

By: Dr. Slammy

Dr. Slammy — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:39:18 +0000

He’ll take second, and The Beatles will finish third.

By: Mike Sheehan

Mike Sheehan — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:15:53 +0000

“Wait until the finals when I post U2 vs The Beatles, immediately vote for U2, then close the polls giving U2 a 100%-0% landslide victory”

Hm. I was expecting a write-in, Don Dixon, to win in a shocking squeaker.

By: Dr. Slammy

Dr. Slammy — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:01:32 +0000

Yup. Wait until the finals when I post U2 vs The Beatles, immediately vote for U2, then close the polls giving U2 a 100%-0% landslide victory.

Hamid Karzai wishes he were me.

By: Darrell

Darrell — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:47:02 +0000

JFK, 9/11, U2 all of a sudden getting the lead and the polls close. Seems like all inside jobs to me.

By: Dr. Slammy

Dr. Slammy — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:44:00 +0000

Voting ends whenever I can get to things in the morning. It has ended earlier and later. If you’re worried about it affecting the results, U2 had caught and passed Queen and it looked like the only result of holding it open would be to widen the gap.

So yeah, I have a job and work things in when I can.

By: Darrell

Darrell — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:41:41 +0000

I haven’t really been paying attention, but didn’t it seem like the voting ended for the last pod rather quickly?

By: Jim Booth

Jim Booth — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:15:35 +0000

This is a tough pod for me.

Should I vote for a personal favorite of mine, Elvis Costello, one of the five best songwriters in rock?

Or should I vote for The Ramones – who made punk possible? Hell, who are we kidding? They invented punk as most of us think of it….(with all due respects to Iggy Pop…)

I enjoy ZZ Top and their Southern boogie commitment, but I don’t think I find them a compelling candidate in this pod.

I have said in other pod comments that I often choose to privilege songwriting over other elements (including instrumental prowess, for those of you who privilege that – I’ve played in bands both amateur and professional for over 40 years, and I have what I believe is strong anecdotal evidence that virtuoso musicians are often not particularly good, much less great, songwriters – while great songwriters I know are often competent, but not virtuoso musicians – perhaps the best example of this latter phenomenon is another of our 5 greatest songwriters, Bob Dylan).

Of course musical virtuosity is not really an element in these deliberations.

But The Ramones are responsible for some fine songwriting themselves – “The KKK Took My Baby Away,” “Bonzo Goes to Bittburg,” and my personal favorite, “I Wanna Be Sedated.”

Elvis offers, of course, from roughly the same period, “Less Than Zero,” “Radio, Radio,” and my personal favorite, “Accidents Will Happen” – which, with all due respect to Joey, Johnny, and company is better songwriting.

And Elvis is a founding member of The New Wave – the wonderful musical movement that built on the punk revolution and gave us such talents as Costello, Graham Parker, and Joe Jackson….

With some ambivalence, I vote for Elvis Costello….

By: Mike Sheehan

Mike Sheehan — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:13:52 +0000

Ramones losing to Costello, if it happens, is not robbery. Hell, I’d be okay if The Beatles lost to Costello. “What’s So Fun” is as great a straight-up rocker as anything the Beatles ever did. Man’s been cranking out a wonderful cornucopia of clever, hard, soft, weird, ambitious, half-assed, kick-ass, loud, obnoxious, brooding, brutal, vital, melancholic, irate, funny, mind-numbingly brilliant music for over 30 years now and counting. Again, I love the Ramones, and I bet EC does too…

And yeah, Queen was robbed by that odd last-minute surge. ;-P

By: Dr. Slammy

Dr. Slammy — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:10:45 +0000

Dandretti: Wow. I’ve been trying to make a case about how people vote. You just did it a lot better than I could have. Thanks.

By: Ubertramp

Ubertramp — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:03:00 +0000

Queen was robbed. As, I suspect, so will the Ramones.

By: Dandretti

Dandretti — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:54:17 +0000

I can’t believe the drivel of U2 beat out Queen and Sabbath. Disgusting.

This is one of the hardest ones so far. No clear winner jumps out at me. I had to go with The Ramones based strictly on familiarity.

By: Dr. Slammy

Dr. Slammy — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:53:45 +0000

I’m about as torn as I have been at any point in the ToR. I can make a helluva case for either EC or The Ramones. I like The Ramones a lot more (at least, more than Elvis’s post-New Wave output), but that’s beside the point.

I’m going to have to think some more.

By: Mike Sheehan

Mike Sheehan — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:45:39 +0000

I love the Ramones and ZZ Top kicks ass, but no fucking way am I voting against EC. Just on the basis of ‘Imperial Bedroom’ alone, he wins.

By: Tom Shortell

Tom Shortell — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:58:35 +0000

I’m going to surprise even myself and vote for The Ramones. As great as Costello is, many of his greatest achievements have come in genres other than rock. So, although I think he’s one of the best musical artists of the last 40 years, I have to give this round to the guys who invented punk rock.