Tag: Rolling Stone Magazine

Ozzy Osbourne Picks 10 Beatles’ Songs

OzzyBeatles

“I feel so privileged to have been on this planet when the Beatles were born,” says Ozzy. “They are and will forever be the greatest band in the world. I remember talking to Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols. He said, ‘I didn’t like the Beatles.’ I said, ‘there’s something fucking wrong with you.'”

  1. She Loves You – 1963
    This is the one that sucked me in. I was a 14-year-old kid with this blue transistor radio. I heard “She Loves You,” and it floored me. It was as if you knew all the colors in the world. Then someone shows you a brand new color, and you go, “Fucking hell, man.”
  2. I want to Hold Your Hand – 1963
  3. I am the Walrus – 1967
    Lennon and McCartney were like sweet and sour. Paul would be the guy who said, “It’s getting better all the time.” John would say, “It couldn’t get much worse.” I loved Lennon’s plays on words. I love any song where you can go, “I don’t know what that means,” but you understand it anyway.
  4. A Day in the Life – 1967
  5. Hey Jude – 1968
  6. Help – 1965
    When I hear this, I hear Lennon thinking, “You can’t get bigger than big.” But they did. They got beyond massive. And he just goes, “Help!” because they don’t know what they’ve done. They only know how they did it.
  7. Eleanor Rigby – 1966
    “Eleanor Rigby” is fucking phenomenal. I don’t know why. I just know that every time I heard something from the Beatles, it made me feel better that day.
  8. Something – 1969
    Black Sabbath were doing a residency in a bar in Zurich. It was winter and we were driving in the van to get home for Christmas. We were homesick and had no money, one cigarette between the four of us. This song reminds me of that time, because we kept hearing it as we were going over the Alps.
  9. Strawberry Fields Forever – 1967
    I used to work in a slaughterhouse, and across the road was a meat-pie shop, and this was on the radio there all the time.
  10. The Long and Winding Road – 1970
    “It reminds me of winter in England. It’s cold, you’ve got fingerless gloves on. And it makes me sad, because it’s the end of the greatest movie I’d ever seen. You hear Paul going, ‘I’m out of steam. I can’t do this anymore.'”

Mick Jagger’s 10 Classic Blues Playlist – Now With Notes

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1. “I Got to Go” Little Walter, 1955
It’s a fast, weird tempo – a train rhythm, because it’s an on-the-move song. Little Walter was a big influence – the Charlie parker of harmonica.

2. “First Time I Met the Blues” Buddy Guy, 1960
He was a virtuoso. B.B. King and Otis Rush were influential on a lot of British guitar players, but Buddy had more virtuosity and different licks to nick. He had a vocal style that was harsher than everyone else.

3. “40 Days and 40 Nights” Muddy Waters, 1956
It’s got these religious overtones that give it a poignancy. You could have picked so many tracks by him, but this one gives you a shiver when you put it on.

4. “Stones in My Passway” Robert Johnson, 1937
One of the essences of Robert Johnson is the eeriness, and this one illustrates that – the lyrics, the way he delivers it. The thing about blues lyrics is you never know who wrote them. They’re a patchwork of composition people take a line, embellish it with their own verses. But I never heard anything like this. This seems quite original.

5. “Lonely Avenue” Ray Charles, 1956
It’s a great tempo, a lovely shuffle. I’ve sung this with the Stones,  with other people. Doc Pomus was a good writer, very underrated, although I always rated him highly.

6. “Cold Shot” Stevie Ray Vaughan, 1984
He’s a player who absorbed all of these influences – country, Hendrix licks, but urban too. He has these lazy tempos, like this one. He sits back in the track, in that groove.

7. “Everybody Knows About My Good Thing” Z.Z. Hill, 1982
I never saw him live, but I love this song. There’s a whole genre of blues songs the jealousy thing, not letting anyone in your house. But in this song, everyone is let in. The wife lets everyone in the house.

8. “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground” Blind willie Johnson, 1927
He was an itinerant church singer, only did religious themes. He’s got some odd voices. He’s got this growly gospel voice, then this almost effeminate sound, like a woman’s voice. He switches from one to the other. It’s very haunted.

9. “Forty Four” Howlin’ Wolf, 1954
This is a piano blues with a funny time signature. It’s very powerful. It was almost impossible for anyone else to do that voice. He was so far off on some other plane. He had this strange voice — strange everything.

10. “Going Down” Freddie King, 1971
He came to play shows in England a lot, and I used to see him in Los Angeles all the time. This song is great, and different. It’s not just a 12-bar blues – somebody thought about how it’s going to work, with that bass line, It ups the ante from the usual.

“I tried to cover different styles and eras, although it is weighted toward the Fifties. Pop music in Britain used to be filtered through a big machine. With these records, you got the feeling it was coming to you directly, with an earthiness that spoke of another existence. John Lee Hooker, Memphis Slim, Big Bill Broonzy – they were also on television. It was considered folk art in Britain. It was slightly patronizing, but the essence of it was out there.”

Mick Jagger
The Playlist Issue
Rolling Stone, December 9, 2010

See also, Keith Richards’ 10 Classic Roots and Reggae List

The 50 Greatest Rock Memoirs of All Time – Rolling Stone List

The 50 Greatest Rock Memoirs of All Time
Awesome rock & roll reads, from Keith Richards and Patti Smith to Slash and Nikki Sixx
Rob Sheffield

50. Steven Tyler: ‘Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?’ (2011)
49. Nikki Sixx: ‘The Heroin Diaries’ (2007)
48. Alice Bag: ‘Violence Girl’ (2011)
47. Billy Idol: ‘Dancing With Myself’ (2017)
46. Debbie Harry: ‘Face It’ (2019)
45. Rick James: ‘Glow’ (2014)
44. Elton John: ‘Me’ (2019)
43. Gucci Mane: ‘The Autobiography of Gucci Mane’ (2017)
42. Dean Wareham: ‘Black Postcards’ (2008)
41. Bobbie Brown: ‘Dirty Rocker Boys’ (2013)
40. Peter Hook: ‘Substance: Inside New Order’ (2016)
39. Neil Peart: ‘Ghost Rider’ (2002)
38. Tegan and Sara: ‘High School’ (2019)
37. Donald Fagen: ‘Eminent Hipsters’ (2013)
36. Joe Boyd: ‘White Bicycles’ (2006)
35. John Lydon: ‘Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs’ (1993)
34. Gregg Allman: ‘My Cross to Bear’ (2012)
33. Boy George: ‘Take It Like a Man’ (1995)
32. Marilyn Manson: ‘The Long Hard Road Out of Hell’ (1998)
31. Luke Haines: ‘Bad Vibes: Britpop and My Role in Its Downfall’ (2009)
30. Brian Wilson: ‘I Am Brian Wilson’ (2016)
29. Robbie Robertson: ‘Testimony’ (2016)
28. Lemmy: ‘White Line Fever’ (2002)
27. Neil Young: ‘Special Deluxe’ (2014)
26. Henry Rollins: ‘Get in the Van: On the Road With Black Flag’ (1994)
25. Kim Gordon: ‘Girl in a Band’ (2015)
24. Jay-Z: ‘Decoded’ (2010)
23. Tommy James: ‘Me, the Mob and the Music’ (2010)
22. David Lee Roth: ‘Crazy From the Heat’ (1998)
21. Kristin Hersh: ‘Rat Girl’ (2010)
20. Morrissey: ‘Autobiography’ (2013)
19. Richard Hell: ‘I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp’ (2013)
18. Chuck Berry: ‘The Autobiography’ (1987)
17. David Bowie: ‘Moonage Daydream: The Life and Times of Ziggy Stardust’ (2002)
16. Rod Stewart: ‘Rod’ (2012)
15. Anthony Kiedis: ‘Scar Tissue’ (2004)
14. Ronnie Spector: ‘Be My Baby: How I Survived Mascara, Miniskirts, and Madness’ (1989)
13. John Taylor: ‘In the Pleasure Groove’ (2012)
12. Paul McCartney: ‘Many Years From Now’ (1997)
11. Nile Rodgers: ‘Le Freak’ (2011)
10. Carrie Brownstein: ‘Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl’ (2015)
9. The RZA: ‘The Tao of Wu’ (2009)
8. Slash: ‘Slash’ (2007)
7. Michael Diamond and Adam Horovitz: ‘Beastie Boys Book’ (2018)
6. Viv Albertine: ‘Clothes Clothes Clothes Music Music Music Boys Boys Boys’ (2014)
5. Keith Richards: ‘Life’ (2010)
4. Questlove: ‘Mo Meta Blues’ (2013)
3. Bruce Springsteen: ‘Born to Run’ (2016)
2. Patti Smith: ‘Just Kids’ (2010)
1. Bob Dylan: ‘Chronicles, Volume One’ (2004)

 

RE: Johnny Rotten’s autobiography

John Lydon: ‘Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs’ (1993)
The former Johnny Rotten has all the dirt about how the Sex Pistols pissed off the world. But he’s also got poignant details about his hardscrabble youth in London’s Irish-immigrant squalor, raised by a mother even more badass than he was. He also shares his deep hatred for religion, the Queen, the other Sex Pistols, hippies, rich people, racists, sexists, the English political system, Malcolm McLaren, and, of course, Pink Floyd. “A lot of people feel the Sex Pistols were just negative,” he says. “I agree, and what the fuck is wrong with that? Sometimes the absolute most positive thing you can be in a boring society is completely negative.”

*Not included in this list, my two favorites:

Duff McKagan – It’s So Easy: and other lies
In his New York Times bestseller, Duff McKagan, founding member of Guns N’ Roses and Velvet Revolver, shares the story of his rise to fame and fortune, his struggles with alcoholism and drug addiction, his personal crash and burn, and his life-saving transformation via a unique path to sobriety.

Mark Lanegan – Sing Backwards and Weep
A gritty, gripping memoir by the singer Mark Lanegan (Screaming Trees, Queens of the Stone Age, Soulsavers), chronicling his years as a singer and drug addict in Seattle in the ’80s and ’90s

Beavis and Butthead – The Rolling Stone Interview

The stupid and ugly have one advantage in life: Teachers expect nothing from them, so they can fly under the usual indoctrination that accompanies education. Thus the stupid and ugly — if they aren’t entirely stupid — have a greater chance of being original. They are allowed to speak the truth because no one cares what they say. Because they are stupid, they are free.

You don’t have to go to college to know the definition of “redundant.” What I’m saying is that essentially what you’re saying is “I like stuff that I like.”
Beavis: Yeah. Huh-huh. Me, too.
Butt-Head: Also, I don’t like stuff that sucks, either.

But nobody likes stuff that sucks!
Butt-Head: Then why does so much stuff suck?
Beavis: Yeah. College boy! Huh-huh, huh-huh.

…
What advice do you have for America’s youth?
Beavis: Uh . . . sometimes at the arcade? If you rub your feet on the ground and touch the coin slot, it makes a spark and you get a free game. Huh-huh.
Butt-Head: Huh-huh. Uh … I got one. Like if you go to school and, like, study and stuff? And grow up and get a job at a company and, like, get promoted? You have to go there and do stuff that sucks for the rest of your life.
Beavis: Yeah. You’ll be trapped, just like those worms in that grasshopper’s butt. Huh-huh, huh-huh. And then people will whip you, and you’ll come crawling out and —
Butt-Head: Shut up, Beavis! Huh-huh. But what I was saying is, if you act like us and just do stuff that’s cool? Like sit around and watch TV and burn stuff?
Beavis: And choke your chicken. Huh-huh-huh.
Butt-Head: Yeah. Huh-huh. And choke your chicken. Then, Rolling Stone magazine will come and kiss your butt!

Beavis and Butt-Head: The Voice of a Generation
Charles M Young
AUGUST 19, 1993
Rolling Stone