Rod Stewart may be a disappointing sell-out POS, but he gets a pass from me for "Maggie May"...

[Amerigo Vespucci]

..."you had to be there." I was. And this song is a 12 on a 10 scale.

Reunited with Ron Wood for Maggie Mae & Gasoline Alley: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sn5j0mbhrhc

:toast:

[bluesbassman]

1. Every Picture Tells a Story gets my vote for his pass.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhemoVkL9LQ

[Capn Sunshine]

4. On the Same Album, "I'm Losing You" gets my pass

Stellar time period for Rod and the Faces. Kenny Jones, very underrated drummer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrOPJXrUWII

I give Rod a pass for the Jeff Beck Group anyway.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

5. Eight albums:

1). The Rod Stewart Album
2). Gasoline Alley
3). Every Picture Tells A Story
4). Never A Dull Moment
5). Smiler
6). First Step
7). Long Player
8). A Nod Is As Good As A Wink (To A Blind Horse)

...the Stewart / Wood / Lane / MacLagen / Jones stuff...

...100% Rock & Roll Hall of Fame stuff.

Outside of that, the single biggest "hit and miss" catalog I can think of.

:toast:

[Richardo]

9. That's the only song of his I really like

:thumbsup:

[argyl]

11. He's been a buffoon for years but EPTaS redeems him. So does "Mandolin Wind."

[cbdo2007]

24. As a big Dylan fan, "Tomorrow is a Long Time" is one of the few times

I like someone's cover of a Dylan song better than Dylan's version. It is excellent! as is the whole album.

[Fire Walk With Me]

2. Is he the one referred to as "Rockhead" in "Sid and Nancy"?

I've always wondered.

[SKKY]

3. Rod Stewart was my very first concert.

1978. Blondes have more fun tour. I was 8 years old, and I remember it like it was yesterday.

[Iggo]

6. Stay With Me is pretty good, too. (n/t)

[Flaxbee]

14. Hot Legs

:)

That's a good one, too....

[Amerigo Vespucci]

16. A post-Faces song where he tried a little too hard to sound like Faces

The whole "Chuck Berry via Ronnie Wood" thing. It sounds good, but it bugs me, because I guess I'm a purist.

:toast:

[Flaxbee]

17. see, ignorance is bliss!

I had no idea, so it doesn't bug me.

Though I do understand, I'm a purist about certain things, too.

[GCP]

7. I prefer 'Mandolin Wind'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtSVfK53LcE

[WinkyDink]

8. Totally, 100%, to the very song, agree!

[S n o w b a l l]

10. Gasoline Alley was my first album of his

and I think my last. 1970 or '71.

[Orrex]

12. He could cure cancer and solve world hunger tomorrow

And he would still deserve to spend eternity in hell for what he did to Downtown Train.

[JTG of the PRB]

13. No way, man! He had 118 yards rushing and two TDs against A&M today!

Wait... Is there another Rod Stewart out there or something?

[kwassa]

15. I got to see his band rehearse on a sound stage in Hollywood in about '81 or so

I was working on the sound stage next door. Sound stages are supposed be soundproof, and were before massive amplification.

Long story short: it was a rehearsal for a national tour, complete with stage set, very high tech lights and reflective things. The band was rehearsing without Rod, and they were fabulous, and I was not a fan of later Rod Stewart's stuff. I first heard him with The Jeff Beck Group.

Rod came in, and was hilarious, he could do stand-up well. I didn't see him sing, though.

and I like "Cut Across Shorty".

[johnnie]

18. I'll never get the hatred for Rod

Why do people hate him? He is a singer and a very good songwriter. Is it because he has done those "Standards" albums?

[abq e streeter]

19. I'm with ya--I don't get it either..I haven't liked everything, but

hell, I'm as big a Springsteen fan as there is on DU I'd bet, and there are songs of his that bore me here and there too...( and yeah the standards albums from what little I've heard are annoying). Stewart has done a hell of a lot of nice, well written and well sung material over his career.

[Sebastian Doyle]

20. Paul may have written this one, but the Faces improved it.

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

[Turbineguy]

21. Forever

Young.

[peekaloo]

22. 'The Killing of Georgie Part l & ll'

[Mendocino]

23. The goal of rock music isn't to become

a great artist, but to make lots of money and screw movie stars. If it were necessary to become a great artist in order to get the money and the movie stars, Rod was willing.

From the Rod Stewart chapter in The Rolling Stone History of Rock&Roll.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

27. Of all the sell-outs in rock, Stewart selling out hurt the most

I know there are many people who don't like "classic British rock"...the Who, the Stones...even WITH all of the "original" members in the band...but the Wood-Stewart-Lane-MacLagen-Jones Faces was every bit as good as the BEST from that genre.

I hear what you're saying...so did Fee Waybill of The Tubes when he came up with the "Quay Lewd" character, widely recognized as being primarily based on Stewart.

The difference between Stewart in the Faces and Stewart after the Faces was this:

IN the Faces, we felt like we were part of the joke. Five rowdy, drunken, rock 'n' rolling Brits who were there to make music and have a good time.

AFTER the Faces, the joke was on us, as Stewart focused on the models and movie stars as much as...if not more than...the music.

:toast:

[Mendocino]

28. I sure miss Ronnie Lane.

I'd imagine that you're familar with Rough Mix.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

30. Oh yeah, ABSOLUTELY..."April Fool"...and "Debris" is one of my favorite Faces songs

On "Rough Mix," Lane brought out the best in Townshend. I've always felt that in terms of genuine, pure spirit it outshines the majority of Townshend's solo output.

I remember hearing Ronnie's song "April Fool" and the line "I take my dreams to bed now, where they belong" and thought "Note to self: NEVER DO THAT."

:toast:

[lillypaddle]

25. Yeah, it's weird about Rod

I don't own a single record (um, CD) of his, but I actually liked most of his songs.

[WCGreen]

26. Mandaline Winds and Cut Across Shorty....

Two of my other favorites from Rod...

[Mudoria]

29. Maggie May and Reason to Believe make up for all of the silliness Rod has done over the years..

[Amerigo Vespucci]

31. The "Every Picture Tells A Story" album was a real time-capsule moment for me

It just nailed a moment in time, a mood. It was confident, well-played, and not the kind of thing that most musicians...including Stewart...could sustain over the course of a decades-long career.

[Art_from_Ark]

32. For me, that song brings back lots of bad memories

Bad memories...
I never want to hear that song again.

[NNadir]

33. I think I may hate that song more than "Ode to Billy Joe," which I used to play in clubs

in an open G minor tuning.

Whenever I played it, I'd preface it by saying to the audience, "Whenever I play this tune, people come up to me and say, 'you know, I always hated that song...'"

This is going to sound conceited, but I actually loved playing that song in that tuning and I was always fiddling around with it and adding stuff. I probably played it 5000 times and never got tired of it. And I was always thrilled when people said, "You know, I always hated that song..."

I used to sing it as pure irony, using a hard assed tough guy masculine voice without changing the gender of the song and screwing with the grammar.

"Oh yes, an' momma say she seed a girl look a lot like yew! up on Chocktaw Ridge..." and was always sure to sing about brother Billy to make sure that everyone understood that he was even a worse asshole than Billy Joe McAllster, although Billy Joe was clearly an asshole, sort of like Poppa and Mamma.

But I don't think that there is a tuning in the world, or any voice or phrasing that could possibly ever in any way conceivably in any fashion save "Maggie May" from being a contender for the title of "Worst famous song ever."

My life would have been better had I never heard it.

Except for a few minutes with Jeff Beck maybe, Rod Stewart has mostly existed for me as proof that there is no God. Even God couldn't have enough of a sense of humor to make that complete ass famous and rich.