Slipped Discs – the Worst Rock ’n’ Roll Records of
All Time
Jimmy Guterman & Owen O’Donnell
A Fan’s Guide to the Music You Love to Hate
“In the beginning rock ‘n’ roll was simple & direct. Songs conveyed their
point seriously and in under 3 minutes. In the sixties it began to take
itself seriously; angry young men with faces as long as their guitar solos
pontificated on life, the universe and everything. The rock icon was born.
This book topples the statues, revealing that all the gold from Dylan,
Presley, Costello et al. does not necessarily glitter. With incisive
criticisms of the fifty worst albums and fifty worst singles, and special
sections including the worst Dylan cover versions, the worst Elvis tributes
and the worst rock ‘n’ rollers of all time. Slipped Discs… The Worst Rock
‘n’ Roll Records of All Time is the most witty, caustic and honest rock
guide ever written”.
1991, Virgin Publishing. All text is quoted from the book.
The Fifty Worst Rock-And-Roll Singles of All Time
1. Berry, Chuck – My Ding a Ling
…strings together double-entendre penis jokes that can be enjoyed only by
the very young or the very drunk.
2. Think – Once You Understand
The first sound comes from a middle-aged father character. “I’ll be
expecting you to get a haircut by Friday”. “Forget it Dad,” comes the
self-righteous teenage retort. “It won’t change anything”.
3. Charlene – I’ve Never Been to Me
…this Muzak-ready ballad is extremely cynical in its pandering to an
unglamorous audience
4. Charlene & Stevie Wonder – Used to Be
You know you’re in trouble when a song starts with the disembowelled logic
of “ Superman was killed in Dallas/There’s no love left in the
palace/Someone took the Beatles’ lead guitar”.
5. Peter, Paul & Mary – I Dig Rock and Roll Music
This record is about a trio who can sense that they’re on the way out
refusing to acknowledge that the rules of the pop game have changed.
6. Zager & Evans – In the Year 2525 (Exordium & Terminus)
…as silly and vapid as outtakes from Abbott & Costello Go to Mars
7. Ronstadt, Linda – Back in the USA
The most believable explanation we can come up with is that part of Linda
Ronstadt’s brain, the part that has to do with discriminating between good
and bad musical ideas, atrophied when she was a child.
8. Cher – You Better Sit Down Kids
…the song vacillates between a metronomic piano base and an upbeat,
horn-driven go-go section.
9. McLean, Don – American Pie
Once you start listening to the words, you’re left wondering: “What is this
guy talking about?”
10. Harris, Richard – MacArthur Park
If the best comparison he can make to her leaving is a cake melting in the
rain, then is it any wonder she didn’t stick around?
11. Gibb, Andy & Victoria Principal – All I Have to Do is Dream
Love make us do stupid things. …When you’re a celebrity, the possibilities
for acting stupid in these ways increase exponentially.
12. Chapin, Harry – Taxi
The most important requirement of Chapin’s genre… was to present the song in
a highly strained and overworked manner that seemingly goes on forever.
13. Chapin, Harry – Cat’s in the Cradle
…we can’t help but feel that one of these songs was probably a favourite of
every character in every John Hughes
upper-middle-class-suburban-teendom-is-existential-terror film.
14. Gold, Andrew – Lonely Boy
It’s boring mid-seventies Asylum music that thinks its rocking out because
the drums are mixed a little louder.
15. Reddy, Helen – I Am Woman
… the song fails both as rabble-rouser and performance. And the bad guys win
again.
16. Knack – Good Girls Don’t
They appeared out of nowhere, pretended to be the Beatles, treated their
audience like shit, begged for forgiveness, didn’t get it, and disappeared.
17. Knack – Baby Talks Dirty
… a retread of the already derivative beat and chord changes of “My
Sharona”. By then, though, the joke had worn thin… The only people talking
dirty to the Knack now, were their former fans.
18. Stills, Stephen – Love the One You’re With
… exemplifies the smug stupidity that defines West Coast rock in general and
the Crosby, Stills & Nash axis of it in particular. Here, in a nutshell, is
the clearest reason to despise all that tripe.
19. Herman’s Hermits – I’m Henry VIII, I Am
It trivialised Beatles rock into the sort of cavalier music-hall nonsense it
was supposed to displace. Isn’t the singer worried about what happened to
Henry’s I, II, III, IV, V, VI & VII? Of course not, he’s a music-hall twit
who doesn’t have a brain. La la la.
20. Rolling Stones – Emotional Rescue
They didn’t care; why should we?
21. Carmen, Eric – All by Myself
… may have been a hit record, but it was certainly not rock ‘n’ roll.
22. Lewis, Huey & the News – Hip to be Square
… a pox on rock & roll in the late eighties. Lyrically… this was a perfect
anthem of rationalisation for uneasy sell-outs. I’m so square, la la la,
where’s the cash?
23. Manfred Mann’s Earthband – Blinded by the Light
… ranks at the top of nearly every Bruce fan’s list of worst cover versions…
24. McFerrin, Bobby – Don’t Worry Be Happy
It is embarrassing to watch a once-defiantly-non-mainstream performer try to
accommodate himself to the demands of the mass audience; it is especially
pathetic when that performer does so by appealing to the lowest common
denominator.
25. Ian, Janis – At Seventeen
… represents the feel my pain school of songwriting.
26. O’Sullivan – Gilbert – Alone Again (Naturally)
Over a subclassical arrangement, that suggest the Who’s Tommy while he was
deaf, dumb & blind, O’Sullivan considers suicide.
27. Hollies – Stop in the Name of Love
The antiseptic production makes you wonder if any two instruments or voices
were in the same studio (forget at the same time). Most embarrassing is Tony
Hick’s inappropriate screeching guitar solo, which sounds like it was left
over from another song and accidentally dropped into the mix by one of the
plethora of producers.
28. Stevens, Cat – Moon Shadow
Why is… [the moon shadow] following Cat? Is it trying to cut off his arm?
And if so, could the moon shadow make sure it’s the one Cat uses to write
down his lyrics?
29. Art of Noise featuring Tom Jones – Kiss
Jones has received many accolades from many performers who should know
better (from Elvis Presley to Van Morrison), but his unctuous baritone is
completely inappropriate for the falsetto lust of Kiss, one of Prince’s
greatest singles.
30. Tyler, Bonnie – Faster Than the Speed of Night
Some one-hit-wonders will do anything for another shot.
31. Clapton, Eric – Wonderful Tonight
… what about last night, Eric? Did she look like dirt? We’re certainly not
going to ask about tomorrow morning.
32. Melanie – Ruby Tuesday
Throughout the overwrought performance, Melanie inserts extra syllables and
vocal flourishes in a desperate attempt to stamp her own imprint on the
song.
33. Melanie – Brand New Key
“I’ve got a brand-new pair of roller skates/You’ve got a brand-new key”.
34. Richie, Lionel – Dancing on the Ceiling
… the first single from Richie’s 1986 album of that title, stands as his
most abysmal up-tempo performance (his ballads, like ‘Truly’ and ‘Hello’ are
too frightening to consider in this context).
35. Stewart, Rod – Do Ya Think I’m Sexy
Stewart’s most cynical move to curry fleeting musical favour… as annoying as
a loudmouth barroom drunk on the stool next to you.
36. Smith, Hurricane – Oh Babe, What Would You Say?
The was Smith’s voice breaks as he tries to reach the high notes in the
song’s title line is perversely sublime. We can only dream – with something
resembling the thrill of jumping off a cliff – what could have been if Smith
had teamed up with the Shaggs.
37. Coolidge, Rita – Higher & Higher
Rather than try to capture some of the energetic happiness of the original,
Coolidge opted for a blessed-out soporific.
38. Stewart, Amii – Knock on Wood
As a disco song ‘Knock on Wood’ wasn’t particularly awful, but as a
senseless recasting of a pivotal rhythm & blues classic, was unlistenable. …
she exemplifies the damage disco did to some essential music.
39. Simon & Garfunkel – the Dangling Conversation
The whole point of ‘the Dangling Conversation’ is for Simon to sound smart
and poetic, so he drops names and hopes he accumulates some of the power of
those whose names he uses for rhymes.
40. Jacksons – State of Shock
… so slight it hardly exists.
41. Jagger, Mick & David Bowie – Dancing in the Street
… we question why these major rock figures bothered to turn the microphones
on if they didn’t have anything to say. …why is Bowie yelling ‘South
America!”?
42. Benatar, Pat – Sex as a Weapon
Don’t believe the hype; nobody else did. If you’re making a sincerity move,
you had better be believable.
43. Wham! – Freedom
Freedom is the transition between Michael’s unaffected trash and the
affected kind.
44. George Michael – Freedom ‘90
The former Elton John wanna-be with no dance-floor credibility is now a
frankly self-involved auteur with multilayered stubble.
45. Adams, Bryan – Summer of ‘69
For the record, Adams was ten years old in 1969; it took him a while to
admit that the song wasn’t autobiographical. You’ve heard it all before,
done better.
46. Frey, Glenn – the Heat is On
Last we heard of him was he was doing commercials for soft drinks and health
clubs and waiting for a phone call from [Don] Henley. Even he didn’t take
himself seriously anymore.
47. Seger, Bob – the Horizontal Bop
It’s a huffy song about sex, one without any danger: high-school boys could
sing it as an act of woman-fearing male bonding, while high-school girls
could sing it as a goofy song about ‘doing it’ without any dirty words. It’s
as provocative as shaving cream. years before the age of safe sex, it’s a
safe song about sex.
48. Everly Brothers – Ebony Eyes
… represents how far the boys could fall.
49. Will to Power – Baby I Love Your Way/Freebird Medley
The version was incompetent, and under normal circumstances we would have
quickly forgotten the novelty cover. But then the real horror set in. After
the first verse, Will to Power segued into Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Freebird.
50. John Cougar – Jack and Diane
‘Jack and Diane’ is an extremely little ditty about two teenagers having
sex, but leave it to Cougar to try to build that into a grand pronouncement
on, you guessed it, America.
The Fifty Worst Rock-And-Roll Albums of All Time
1. Presley, Elvis – Having Fun with Elvis on Stage
This 1974 monstrosity was subtitled “A Talking Album Only”, but it was
packaged like a standard live album. There was only one minor problem: this
live album had no songs on it, just the rote between-song patter,
repetitious nonjokes, and flat-out stupid scarf disbursements that were
epidemic at the King’s arena shows in the seventies.
2. Reed, Lou – Metal Machine Music
Capturing a sequence of squawks, screeches, and squeals, Reed uses no
instruments, just electronic effects. The same drone vacillates for as long
as it takes you to take the disc off the turntable.
3. Dylan, Bob – Self Portrait
… exactly what you don’t deserve to confront on a Dylan record: lush string
arrangements, a lazy angelic choir, dumb lyrics repeated until you want to
drag ‘all the tired horses’ out of the sun and into the glue factory.
4. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – American Dream
Young has since noted that the only reason he agreed to take part in this
record was that he promised Crosby a CSNY reunion if the selfish,
appetite-driven freebaser cleaned up, but that doesn’t excuse the quality of
his own compositions… Young’s contributions to American Dream were its
biggest embarrassments…
5. Boone, Pat – Pat Boone (1957)
His self-titled debut album (well, maybe he didn’t title it himself)
contains covers of contemporary R&B hits bleached a paler shade of white.
6. Milli Vanilli – the Remix Album
“Musically, we are more talented than any Bob Dylan. Musically, we are more
talented than Paul McCartney”. Half the record is remixes ,with the expected
random echo, scratches, and synthesizer slashes that are supposed to
indicate remixing. The other half is made up of early tracks left off Girl,
You Know It’s True (American Debut Album). Imagine, if you can, the
existence of songs not good enough to make it onto a Milli Vanilli record.
7. Chicago – at Carnegie Hall
The music on this three-hour blast of bombast lives down to expectations.
The packaging, which apes a high-class opera packaged, is wishful thinking.
8. Doors – Alive, She Cried
… another in the seemingly endless parade of Doors product that Elektra
continues to release to capitalise on Morrison’s refusal to die as a
commercial prospect. The album consists of nonstudio recordings made from
1968 to 1970 and focuses on the cheap theatrics and ho-hum sex fantasies
that people are actually talking about when they describe Morrison as
‘dynamic’.
9. Grateful Dead – Europe ‘72
Europe ’72 captures the Grateful Dead precisely at the moment they turned
into a parody of themselves. The back cover… depicted a cartoon cretin
pushing an ice-cream against his rainbow-coloured hair. It was a perfect
descriptive image for this set: messy, unnecessary, and, well,
dopey-looking.
10. Yes – Tales from Topographic Oceans
Tales from Topographic Oceans is a seventh-hand distillation of world
thought, according to five of the most diffuse personalities (hence, when
brought together, the most muddled thinkers) ever to try to coexist in a
rock group. Keyboardist Rick Wakeman and drummer Alan White were the only
genuine rockers of the bunch although, Wakeman’s idea of inventiveness was
often to try to coax fart noises out of his Hammond B-3 organ and White
often seemed so bewildered by the band’s elaborate nonarrangements that he
neglected to keep a beat.
11. Jethro Tull – Aqualung
Look at the back cover of Aqualung and you’ll see a nine-verse pseudosacred
text, penned in Gothic script by Anderson, starting with, “In the beginning
Man created God; and in the image of Man created he him”. Aside from the
syntactic and theological nightmares implicit in these words, it’s baffling
why Anderson thought the text would be a good way to lure record buyers.
12. Byrds – Byrds (1973)
Many listeners of Byrds did not get past the first track, ‘Full Circle’,
which limps out of the gate like a one-legged chestnut mare. The sound is
listless, midtempo country rock, suggesting Poco in a stupor. The only thing
the Byrds lost on this record was their credibility; the only thing they
found was the end of their record deal.
13. Queen – Queen II
What does the ‘White Queen’ stand for? Why do the band members want to go to
‘The Seven Seas of Rhye’? Why do all four and members part their hair in the
middle? None of these questions are answered.
14. Queen – Live Killers
… the quartet ruins its few passable rock riffs (like ‘Now I’m Here’) with
harmonic nonsense. It then collapses into an a cappella sing-along full of
hoarse, off-key singing and Mercury joking, “Aah, the things you have to do
for money”.
15. Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe – (same title)
The question asked at the time was whether the Chris Squire-led band that
held the legal right to the name Yes could possibly put out a worse record
than this Yes (Not Yes).
16. Shaggs – Philosophy of the World
Groups like the Shaggs are the perfect justification for a book like this;
the group is fundamentally awful, yet you can’t help loving them.
17. Shaggs – Shaggs’ Own Thing
… the Shaggs turned their talents to cover versions, most notably Tom T.
Hall’s nursery-school ditty ‘I Love’. An atonal Dorothy recites Hall’s list
of lovable items (among them puppies, onions, and bourbon) with tremendous
concentration, as if she’s having trouble reading the lyrics and holding
chords at the same time. It’s a kitsch masterpiece.
18. Travolta, John – Travolta Fever
Why are we wasting our time with the music on Travolta’s Fever? That’s not
what was important to the performer, the producer, or the audience. What
matters is that this record comes with a large poster of the idol, suitable
for framing. We wonder how many young girls bought the package, threw away
the records, and pulled out their thumbtacks.
19. Moody Blues – Days of Future Passed
Never before had any band displayed such a pompous approach to the seemingly
straightforward act of putting together a record.
20. Various Artists – 70’s Hits: Great Records of the Decade – Original
Recordings Vol 1
… stands as a primer of the worst hits from that ten-year period.
21. Dylan, Bob – Live at Budokan
Bob Dylan went to Japan and made the most preposterous live album by a major
performer in the history of rock & roll.
22. Waters, Rogers – Radio K.A.O.S.
Every few years a special kind of album emerges. An album fuelled by
colossal ineptitude and a perversely fascinating inability to communicate
even the simplest idea without wrapping it in pretension. Radio K.A.O.S. …
was such an album.
23. Parks, Van Dyke – Song Cycle
Song Cycle’s twelve overorchestrated tracks are rampant with bad rhymes sung
in a fey voice designed to make you say, “Oh gosh, what a genius”. Instead,
you lost interest after the first two minutes. Just because you’ve been told
something is a masterpiece doesn’t mean it is.
24. Who – Who’s Last
Who’s Last documents the final show from what must now be considered their
last farewell tour (!). We just happen to know it was the last show; the
information wasn’t in the factually vacuous packaging. Perhaps the band
members knew the record was a stinker and didn’t want any of their names on
it.
25. Rolling Stones – Still Life (American Concert 1981)
Still Life is a perfectly descriptive title for a live album that is as
energetic as a plastic-fruit centrepiece.
26. Bon Jovi – Slippery When Wet
Who many clichés can you squeeze into a single pop song? Probably not as
many as Jon Bon Jovi can. The callous clinker “Remember when we lost the
keys/And you lost more than that in my back seat” is Meat Head Jovi’s idea
of evocative storytelling.
27. Journey – Greatest Hits
Those who insist that nothing in the Eighties rivalled the awfulness of the
Seventies haven’t had the distasteful experience of listening to the oeuvre
of the San Francisco band Journey. They made Vanilla Fudge sound sensible.
28. Beach Boys – Still Cruisin’
For those waiting for the Beach Boys to hit rock bottom, the suspense ended
with the release of this record.
29. Starship – Knee Deep in the Hoopla
The synthesizers heard throughout this album, provided by producer Peter
Wolf (not Faye Dunaway’s ex), do what synthesizers are supposed to do in the
hands of minor talents: they mask the fat that there’s no song in the
immediate vicinity.
30. Willis, Bruce – the Return of Bruno
A host of backup singers and arrangements busier than Willis’s accountants
barely managed to prop up these songs. One could say they died easily.
31. Blood, Sweat and Tears – Blood, Sweat & Tears (1969)
They watered down [Al] Kooper’s original concept until rock was all but
eroded and aimed its fuzzy concept of jazz and blues to a mass audience who
never listened to or cared for either.
32. Donovan – Greatest Hits
Sounding more like a be-in accidentally recorded than a bona fide song,
‘Mellow Yellow’ is also notable in that it marks the first appearance by
Paul McCartney on one of the worst records ever recorded. (There would be
many, many more)
33. Astley, Rick – Whenever You Need Somebody
… his vacant smile was augmented by the desire to say absolutely nothing of
importance either inside or outside a studio.
34. Emerson, Lake & Palmer – Tarkus
There’s a picture of ol’ Tarkus on the cover. He appears to be a giant
armadillo with the body of a tank. Tarkus represents something (technology?
nature? a rat that once bit Greg [Lake] in the ankle?), but this symbolism
is too obscure.
35. Starland Vocal Band – 4 X 4
… a quartet of laid-back studio hack singers who somehow managed to score a
hit in 1976 with a sophomoric double entendre about making love during the
day, the wretched ‘Afternoon Delight’. Not recognising their status as lucky
one-hit wonders, the band turned this unfortunate lapse of judgement by
record buyers into a summer television variety series and the chance to
record ever more insipid songs showcasing their vapid talents.
36. Grey, Joel – Black Sheep Boy
Grey’s covers of Joni Mitchell and Donovan tunes have even less substance
than the originals. The record’s earnestness is what makes it truly rank.
37. REO Speedwagon – Life as We Know It
… the bland-rock group REO Speedwagon grasped at maturity and fell down so
hard all you could hear was us laughing.
38. America – History: America’s Greatest Hits
You still don’t believe they’re dumb? Well, what if we told you the band
thought it was clever to start the title of seven consecutive albums with
the latter H? We thought that would quieten you down.
39. Starr, Ringo – Stop and Smell the Roses
At the end of the first side of his worst album, formerly interesting
ex-Beatles Ringo Starr says, “I’m going crazy with this record business. I
want to stop it. You want me to stop it”.
40. Starr, Ringo – Old Wave
… a collection that rocked somewhat harder than Smell but still had the
misfortune of being built around an over-the-hill entertainer who had lost
his interest in drumming and no longer worked to charm audiences with his
off-key, rangeless singing.
41. Franklin, Aretha – La Diva
Blame disco. For every worthwhile new singer it uncovered, like Donna
Summer, it ruined the careers of one hundred soul and blues singers.
42. Phantom, Rocker & Slick – Phantom, Rocker & Slick
Mediocre talent on its own is just dull: a partnership of mediocre talents
can generate something truly awful.
43. Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – Original Soundtrack to the Motion
Picture
It was doomed from the start. Beatles fans are excused for hoping that when
the Sex Pistols toured around the time this album was made, they came armed
with guns, not guitars.
44. Costello, Elvis & the Attractions – Goodbye Cruel World
… even diehard fans like us came away from Goodbye Cruel World wondering if
it was really a suicide note for his career.
45. Bowie, David – Never Let Me Down
“Day-in, Day-out, Stay-in, Fade-out/Day-in, ooh ooh/Day-in, ooh ooh ooh
ooh”.
46. Moore, Scotty – Guitar That Changed the World
You’re unlikely to find a stronger bunch of rock songs, but you’ll never
hear them played with any less vigour unless the Mike Curb Congregation
reunites.
47. Sheridan, Tony & the Elvis Presley TCB Band – (same title)
… proves that any Elvis project without Elvis is likely to fall short.
48. Lowe, Nick – Pinker and Prouder than Previous
Why does nearly every rock and roller we trust let us down sooner or later?
49. Parker, Graham & the Rumour – The Parkerilla
For Parker’s part, either he is practicing being Foreigner’s opening band or
he’s poorly parodying such a unit. The live stuff on The Parkerilla is bad,
but the fourth side is a studio disaster.
50. U2 – Unforgettable Fire
They think they are the most important band in the world, and sometimes they
are. On The Unforgettable Fire, they don’t even come close.
The Worst Rock-And-Roller of All Time
Runner-up: Paul McCartney
McCartney’s solo career documents the increasing deterioration of a talent
once thought to be indomitable. McCartney’s twenty-odd records slide down a
slickly produced mountain of dumb fun. He still hasn’t hit rock bottom, but
with each year he gets closer. If there’s one thing that characterises
McCartney’s wanderings in the solo wilderness, it’s his refusal to address
issues of musical or lyrical substance unless he has no choice. In his
search for trivial fun, Paul McCartney has trivialised himself.
Runner-up: Duran Duran
Although the band became icons in America a more and more homes were hooked
up with cable, the members of Duran Duran confused their teenybopper success
with the fruits of musical achievement. They were – you knew this was coming
– artists. Some addlebrained music critics looking for hype to please their
editors compared the Double-D’s to the Beatles (both the Los Angeles Times
and Rolling Stone ran ‘Fab Five’ cover stories), so the group tried to live
up to the headlines. One single pulled from the vaults, ‘Is There Something
I Should Know,” was patently Beatlemania-derivative, and lines like “You’re
about as easy as a nuclear war” indicated that their lyrical acumen had
reached the level at which their ambition finally rivalled their
incompetence. They even came up with obscure song titles, like ‘Union of the
Snake’, that meant less than zero upon investigation (that Bowie influence
again). Anyway, most of them married models, no doubt for the conversation.
Winner: Billy Joel
No single performer has done more to encourage musicians without a shred of
rock credibility to think that pretending to rock out is the same thing as
rocking out than Billy Joel.
Selections from Special Sections: -
Special Bob Dylan Section
I Threw it all Away: the Ten Worst Dylanesque Songwriting Ripoffs
1. McGuire, Barry – Eve of Destruction
2. Spokesmen – Dawn of Correction
3. Simon & Garfunkel – A Simple Desultory Phillipic (or How I Was Robert
McNamara’s into Submission)
4. Cash, Johnny – Understand Your Man
5. Simon & Garfunkel – Sound of Silence
6. Springsteen, Bruce – Mary Queen of Arkansas
7. Lewis, Jerry Lee – Lincoln Limousine
8. Robertson, Robbie – American Roulette
9. Joel, Billy – We Didn’t Start the Fire
10. McLean, Don – American Pie
Webermania: Twenty Ideas That Dylan Should Have Thrown in the Garbage
1. Self-Portrait
2. Christianity
3. Judaism
4. Joan Baez
5. the Grateful Dead
6. Tarantula
7. ‘Tight Connection to my Heart’ Video
8. Renaldo and Clara
9. tarot Cards
10. talking to reporters (1968 to present)
11. live albums (1975 to present)
12. Jacques Levy
13. Pete Hamill’s liner notes to Blood on the Tracks
14. Steve Douglas
15. Scarlet Rivera
16. Dave Stewart
17. acting
18. Ramblin’ Jack Elliott
19. Alen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti
20. female backup singers
Outstaying Your Welcome
Sometimes a change of key personnel can reinvigorate a group (we’re thinking
of the Drifters, the Dominoes, and most of all the Soul Stirrers). Most of
the time, however, a key individual is a band’s identity and the remaining
members have no business trudging on without him. Here are some of the most
glaring examples of personnel changes that flopped.
o Van Halen (with Sammy Hagar)
o Lynyrd Skynyrd (tribute tours)
o Starship (without Paul Kanter & Grace Slick)
o Emerson, Lake & Palmer (with Cozy Powell)
o Doors (without Jim)
o J Geils Band (without Peter Wolf)
o Fleetwood Mac (without Lindsey Buckingham)
o the Who (without Keith Moon)
o Clash (without Mick Jones)
o Grateful Dead (without Ron ‘Pigpen’ McKernan)
o Mott the Hoople (without Mick Ralphs, Ian Hunter & Mick Ronson)
o Sam and Dave (without Dave Prater)
o Velvet Underground (without Lou Reed)
o the Band (without Robbie Robertson & then without Richard Manuel)
How Out of Touch was Elvis in the Sixties?
Major Social Event/Number-One Pop Song/Current Elvis Single
March on Washington 8/63 – Stevie Wonder ‘Fingertips’ – Bossa Nova Baby
Beatles play Sullivan 2/64 – Beatles ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ – Kissin’
Cousins
War on Poverty bill 8/64 – Supremes ‘Where Did Our Love Go?’ – Ask Me
Us troops reach 180,000 12/64 – Byrds ‘Turn, Turn, Turn’ – Puppet on a
String
Summer of Love 6/67 – Aretha Franklin ‘Respect’ – Long Legged Girl w. the
Short Dress on
King assassination 4/68 – Otis Redding ‘Dock of the Bay’ – Stay Away
Woodstock 8/69 – Rolling Stones ‘Honky Tonk Women’ – Clean Up Your Own Back
Yard
US enters Cambodia 4/70 – Jackson Five ‘ABC’ – the Wonder of You