I will never forget living in the Philippines in 1970. A typhoon was building strength. No power save for police, hospitals and ...radio. In one magical night at 15 years old, I heard for the first time, Alright Now, Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen and Green Eyed Lady!!!!!
I remenber when I first heard Freebird. It was the live version, played at the end of the Radio Caroline Roadshow at the Greyhound Hotel in Croydon some time in the late '70s.
Andy, I really like your choices! I agree with In Rock, Black Sabbath 4 and Highway to Hell. It’s also hard to argue with Zep IV as the greatest of all time. I’d have to also vote for: Aerosmith Rocks and Montrose. Personally, I’d rate these albums above Fire and Water and Ace of Spades if you were keeping this to 10 (but that’s my personal taste). Hell with it: need a top 20. Tres Hombres, Physical Graffiti, Boston, Strangers in the Night and on and on. Wait: no Who?
What a list ! Hat´s off to you, especially for the love of Black Sabbath 4 and Rainbow Rising, absolute classics. For me personally I would have Physical Graffiti and Sheer Heart Attack in there somewhere but hey, all eargasms.
Hey Andy, thought it was interesting that you have two bands with Richie Blackmore on this list. I quite agree with that. From Rainbow Rising you made a specific mention of Tarot Woman, and I love that track - it’s brilliant. I am interested in your opinion, why do you think Rainbow never played that song live?
Dutch2go Good question. What a set opener that song would have been. I think there may be two reasons, 1) They had already written "Ki;; The King" and preferred to promote that, and 2) They maybe could not have replicated the opening keyboard in a live environment.
Was Tony Carey gone by then? That may be the reason. His keyboard playing was their best they ever had. Too bad he got bullied out. Great musician. I love Rainbow. I just discovered them during the pandemic. Those 1st 3 albums are monster albums, but I also have to say I actually enjoy the ones that followed, too. Ritchie Blackmore is a damn musical genius.
I was 13 when Black Sabbath vol 4 came out and saw them live soon after. I was the only kid at school that was into Black Sabbath, the album has a special place in my heart…
Great video Andy loved all the bands and albums, you more or less went through my vinyl collection 😀 The list of classic albums is quite endless!! Great fan of Rush , brilliant musicians but I do have to hold my hand up & say I was never a big fan of Geddy Lees vocals but that's just me yeah timeless classics of the 70's ❤
One of my all time favorite live albums was Rush's 1st live album. "All the World's a Stage" after 2112 came out. Like a lot of 70's era live albums the sound isn't great. But the live version of By-Tor and the Snow Dog is absolutely awesome. They were also (obviously) doing lots of stuff from the early albums and Anthem, Bastille Day and Working Man are great as well.
My top 10 1. Signals - Rush 2. Focus 3 - Focus 3. Point of know return - Kansas 4. Eat me in St Louis - It Bites 5. Rampant - Nazareth 6. Abraxas - Santana 7. Sunburst Finish - Be bop deluxe 8. Don't look back - Boston 9. Bloody buccaneers - Golden Earring 10. Cheap Trick '97
Wonderful job with the impossible list. Thanks for the walk down memory lane. Just checked out an amazing drum cover of Cosmic Strut btw. Kicked @ss. I guess I am about 7 years older than you. My last year as a teenager was 1980. We have much in common in regards to music exposure and appreciation. I must agree with your number one, I wore the groves off Led Zeppelin IV. Your videos make me very aware of how fortunate I was, in regards to music exposure. In my city we had two traditional Jazz radio stations….(didn’t know at the time it was weird for a young boy to be into Jazz)… Two independent Stations…. They would play anything they felt like From Blue Grass to Weather Report, Genesis, Gong. Plus many opportunities to hear music played live. Caught David Allen live, Genesis‘ wind and weathering tour, Won free tickets for Peter Gabriel‘s first tour off WGTB Radio, Double dated to a Renaissance concert where Al De Meola opened, set me off on a Return to Forever buying spree. Billy Cobham played a small club in D.C. that set me off on Mahavishnu Orchestra. The greatest face melting show for me was Frank Zappa in the late 70‘s. The band was as tight as you would expect, but that night Frank‘s improv was off the charts. The best I have ever experienced. Now, in the middle of this, as I was 15 I caught 2 Led Zeppelin shows in one weekend. Absolutely amazing. The last night I sneaked my way down to the forth row of a large basketball arena. Every song was a highlight of the night. At one point Jimmy was in a green laser pyramid thing and pulled out his violin bow. I think it was Dazed and Confused or Whole lotta Love, sorry I can’t remember for sure, but at the end Jimmy broke into a lead that made the arena go absolutely crazy. For me is no doubt Led Zeppelin deserves your number one spot. So to my point: Going to California is not a week track. They came out and played it sitting on 4 stools together. At the end Robert held a high note for 15 seconds or so. The girls went Crazy. Maybe the biggest response of the night. Looking forward to your next video.
Man, I enjoyed the hell out of reading that! Never got to see my holy grail of music, Led Zep, in concert, but after reading your excellent story of Zep live magic.....I FEEL EVEN WORSE THAT I NEVER GOT CLOSE TO WITNESSING THEIR WIZARDRY! Haha! Great post-thanks for that!
Free had so much SOUL.... I have always called them Hard Rock Soul... And the Highway album I believe is fantastic. Paul Kossoff was my "Juke Box Hero" His Vibrato along with Leslie West and Jimi Hendrix made me to create my own strong vibrato that to me... is very important, or was. Angus, Robin... Oh and Andy Frazier... what an incredible kind human being he was, besides such an awesome Bass stylist.
Great video Andy -- 19:24 Exactly -- my favorite Van Halen to listen to is either live bootlegs from their heyday or the old "club days" bootlegs that are plentiful these days -- they supercharge all those old cover tunes (which were actually current hits at the time) like The Rover and Sweet Emotion and Waitin' for the Bus and even In For the Kill by Budgie!!
Unlikely as it sounds, the secret to AC/DC's arrangements in the 1970s is they would work them out on piano first with the help of Harry Vanda and George Young. Malcolm revealed that in an interview back in the day.
Skynyrd is not one of my favorite bands, but 'Street Survivors' from '77 is one of my favorite albums of all time. I get why 'Pronounced' has to be mentioned as one of the classics, but for a musician like yourself, if you have not heard this all the way through, you would be thoroughly impressed with the sheer quality of compositions and playing. For me, its a peak and essential. As always, a great video and lots learned which makes these a lot of fun for me.
Brilliant list, I got into 'heavy rock' - the term of the day, perhaps even more than 'heavy metal' - at exactly the same time and in the same way (through early Kerrang! essentially) and never grew out of it. Great to see Free included in this top ten, my favourite band ever.
Australian session guitarist Simon Hosford and band's live performance of Van Halen 1 at the Melbourne Guitar Show 2019 is gobsmacking. Just read the comments from die-hard VH fans. Simon also does Racer X covers.
Great list.Re Motorhead I had listened to Overkill and thought it was ok but not anything special then a pal gave me Ace of Spades and that was it.I played the hell out of that album.I just couldnt stop listening to it and to this day the moment I hear that thunderous opening bass I'm like "oh yeah." Funnily enough Overkill is now my favourite MH album.The 70's are my fave era in heavy rock.This is when so many of the foundations were laid and,imo,have never been bettered.
I love your content and this was a great list. I have a question though. All your videos seem to be between, say, 22 and 25 minutes, and they feel strangely front-loaded. At the beginning you'll go into some really nice detail talking about records or artists and your experience with them, your views on specific areas of the music and so on, while by the end you seem to be rushing through, almost as if there's a time limit involved. is there a specific reason for this? I personally wouldn't mind if you talked for a bit longer so each album or artist could get sort of equal treatment.
When I( first started thismchannel some of my videos were over an hour, but the average watch time is ten minutes. So I decided to keep my videos 20-25 minutes. My video chats are unplanned and un researched. I just go with what I know. This video without a doubt was mis timed by me, and I spent too much time talking about the early albums which is why i made anothet 25 minute video just to talk about Led Zep IV. But the reason for this is often because I'm aware people stop watching after ten minutes.
Mm, good list but to me, this is more a list of best ‘70’s hard rock than “classic rock”. With the term “classic rock”, I think more of bands like Queen, Dire Straits, Eagles, Fleedwood Mac, Meatloaf, ELO. Of course, there are no fixed definitions here.
If I remember right, "Lynyrd Skynyrd" was originally "Leonard Skinnard" - the name of one of their school teachers, co-opted just to wind him up. They changed the spelling just because it looked better (and maybe to avoid being sued).
Great stuff, Andy. Been a huge admirer of your playing ever since seeing some of the Frost videos a while back. I'm exploring your channel and liking, well, everything so far....any chance that you could do a ranking of Robert Plant's solo catalogue at some point? I think that could be pretty illuminating given your own tenure in his thing. I'm assuming that you probably went quite deep into his career, if only out of interest...
Oh man, you're doing it again. I'm 7 minutes in and it is clear you are ranking bands and then picking one of their albums. So the video needs to be renamed the greatest classic rock bands and my favourite album for each. I'm still watching you bro ( and subscribed).
Not sure if Andy is messing with us Americans. He is not pronouncing Lynyrd Skynyrd correctly. He's saying it as if 'ol Lynyrd was an Oxford professor. He was a high school gym teacher in Florida. Andy's version: LAIN-ahd-skin AHD Correct pronunciation: Len-ERRD-skin-ERRD Lots of hard R's. Andy isn't just doing the R's wrong, he's leaving them out completely.
When I was IQ we used to play a game called Uriah Heep...in this game you win if you can name a band that everyone knows but no one can name a song by....
@@AndyEdwardsDrummer 😂 July Morning? They were pretty huge for a while, especially around the Demons and Wizards/Magician’s Birthday era, though my preference is for their earlier stuff. Loved the vocal harmonies, Hammond organ, Mick Box’s liquid guitar, Gary Thain’s bass. Lee Kerslake’s drum sound. It was an interesting move when John Wetton joined. Bit of a fan boy, I guess.
They’ve managed to attract great musicians through the years. Still making fine music (in my view!), and I’ve always thought Mick one of the most underrated guitarists.
Nice to see Free on here. Almost more of an R&B band because of Andy Fraser's Jamerson style playing. Are Live albums a cheat? I would have The Who "Live at Leeds" on here: Intellegent and primal, sophisticated and dangerous all at the same time.
For me the first 3 ACDC records are easily the best - TNT/High voltage and dirty deeds. Best production by far and they were at their greasiest and most punk.
Nice list! Here's mine: 1. Deep Purple: Made in Japan 2. Black Sabbath: Vol. 4 3. Alice Cooper: Billion Dollar Babies 4. Led Zeppelin: Houses of the Holy 5. CCR: Cosmo's Factory 6. Bad Company: Straight Shooter 7. The Guess Who: Live at the Paramount 8. Steppenwolf: Live 9. Grand Funk Railroad: On Time 10. Spooky Tooth: Spooky 2 Honorable mentions: 11. Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here 12. Uriah Heep: Demons and Wizards
1Band Of Gypsys 2Wish You Were Here 3Abbey Road 4Dark Side Of The Moon 5Led Zeppelin IV 6Led Zeppelin I 7Piper At The Gates Of Dawn 8Live At Leeds 9Magical Mystery Tour 10Exile On Main Street... fax!!!
I checked ot Live at The Fillmore before I did this video...its great but too bluesy, I do have a problem with Blues that I might discuss here one day. LS have so much more, love the singing, the songs and the great guitar playing....
@@AndyEdwardsDrummer I thought you might be swayed by the Allmans tendency to improv. I'd be interested in hearing your take on the blues - I'm a fan myself but alternative views always welcome. Although you've got to admit ' I have a problem with the Blues' does sound a bit like the title of a blues tune!😁
I read NO WAY OUT a few years ago...I keep saying this: From the book, the ABB did not like being labele as "Southern Rock". They preferred an "improvising band from the South". :-)
I liked your choice of Rush album. FBN does rock really hard, and to my mind "By-Tor" is an unprecedented achievement. It invents prog-metal in one fell swoop. There's a section in it that suggests to me that they'd heard "Lost" by VdGG, but who knows where the rest of that song came? Brilliant. Agree with you wholeheartedly that AC/DC are geniuses. Powerage is my go-to for them, although I remember when Highway to Hell came out and how much my friends and I loved it and learned from it.
I really love Let Ther Be Rock...I had Powerage as a kid and never liked it as much as the other Bon albums. Many DC fans think it's their greatest so I must be wrong...for me it's Highway to Hell and Touch to Much mught just be the greatest rock song ever.
Re Rush...Moving Picture is, for most, their magnum opus but your choice is interesting. Saw the band on tour promoting 2112 and, from memory, there was unrest as the music was unfamiliar to some and indeed it sags during the prolonged middle section. Stray were support and personally i preferred their performance.
THE WHO? I had never an album from The Who. But i can remember they were end 60/early 70 on the same level as Led Zep. Another US Band Aerosmith I have also in mind And in a very special way Alice Cooper who I know with the anthem "school s out".
Hi Andy, like your list just staggered no mention of The Who. Really surprised by that. Otherwise a good list - would replace Lynyrd Skynnerd with them.
Good choices--------i'd have thrown in Rising if asked myself, so not choosing that my ten no specific order would be-top of my head. 1.Deep Purple, ----Machine Head 2. Black Sabbath -----Sabotage 3. Van Halen-----Fair Warning 4. Led Zeppelin----Physical Graffiti 5. Montrose--Montrose 6. Blue Oyster Cult---Cultosaurus Erectus. 7.I'll throw in Rainbow---Long Live Rock And Roll. 8. Thin Lizzy---Jailbreak. 9. Diamond Head---White album,Lightning To The Nations 10. Alice Cooper, --Muscle Of Love,or Billion Dollar Babies honourable mention, Scorpions, ----Love Drive.
Diamond Head for me were easily my fav band from the NWOBHM. Silverwing supported them i think 81,their guitarist was my entry level guitar tutor. Your musical background seems very similar to mine,i've watched quite a few of your posts.Good stuff.
@@kevinbutler3665 - Yes,though I love Johnny the Fox- 'Jailbreak' is the better known album. I love Vagabonds...Nightlife, Renegade! :) (As well as the two mentioned - and Fighting!)
Don't know how you can say Vol.4 is heavier than Master of Reality - Into The Void is the heaviest song Sabbath ever did & Lord Of This World is not far behind. I love all the Ozzy albums & would find it difficult to choose a favourite but I can definitely say MOR was the heaviest. Where is 1972's Doremi Fasol Latido by Hawkwind on your list? The best stuff Lemmy ever recorded & the bass solo on Time We Left This World Today still makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, far better than anything he ever did with Motorhead. Glad someone in the comments mentions Montrose's debut album. Equally glad the dreadful Queen are not mentioned in your list.
When you talked about Free being the fourth, I kinda understand, but I allaways seen then more in the Grand Funk Railroad, Humble Pie, groovy hard rock thing... I allways thought that the fourth would be Uriah Heep, they are (in my opinion) closer to Deep Purple, Zeppelin, Sabbath. Great List, and just for the record I think Fire and Water is better than anything Heep did. although Demons and Wizards is close enouth
Wide Open (January, 1971) by Australian band Kahvas Jute led by Bob Daisley is fantastic sophisticated hard rock with great musicianship and songs riddled with hooks. Jimmy Page was a fan. Daisley's bass playing is stellar.
Always loving to hear your opinions and I don't really have a problem with them the problem I always have and any kind of a list is for me personally if I was to come up with my top 10 albums I would immediately start my next top 10 albums and then my next top 10 albums whether it's in classic rock Psych country rock Folk Progressive I just like listening to music and what I may not have liked when I was 17 I find that at 67 I like it I'm a lot more forgiving of the '80s than I ever was when I was living in the '80s very little they had to offer me his way of rock and roll yes metal started to get better and it may have been part of the Saving Grace but really when the '80s hit there was a handful of bands that saved it for me and that would have been John Cougar Mellencamp Dire Straits The Stray Cats were different enough from the hair metal I was not impressed with Motley Crue they reminded me too much of Aerosmith Whitesnake reminded me too much of Zeppelin did not like the over techno sound I like more organic rock and roll even Emerson Lake and Palmer and yes that you synthesizers they weren't techno bands the '90s came along with alternative rock and grunge and started to bring me back into the fold I found them interesting but in the '80s I pretty much went to Outlaw country and became a big fan of it but Rock and roll's already begin to lose me in the 2000s and I may like it if God allows me to live another 10-20 years I may look back on the and say you know I missed out on a lot of good music because I'm a naturally backward person don't do well with change and yet music is perpetually changing so suck it up and get used to it I keep reminding myself keep up the good work brother and I guarantee you everybody listening to you could always throw in their favorite band and that is a big difference between my favorites and what I know to be the best my favorites will always win out
Love your choices don't believe I would have taken any of them off not even sure if I would even adjusted the order I've enjoyed your talk but I would love some honorable mentions especially from the American Rockside I think we started pushing back against the British Invasion earlier then Skynyrd I grew up listening to the James gang Funk 49 from 47 I think Grand Funk Railroad their first album for sure was tremendous especially in helping pushing back some of the Psychedelic wave which I did enjoy some psychedelic but the same Bunch that brought up ZZ Top Chicago with I'm a man 25 or 6 to 4 just having one of the greatest guitarists at the time I don't believe Lynyrd Skynyrd would have ever existed one for the Allman Brothers Allman Brothers almost single-handedly invented the jam before them you didn't really hear 20-30 minutes songs were individual instruments had their 10 minutes solos I think they were extremely instrumental to that free form improv Rock this is not my show so I'm going to hang up now I'm shooting from the hip but I love your pics I think you are spot on keep up the good work
10 Classic Rock Albums : The Stooges - Fun House (1970) Status Quo - Blue for You (1976) Led Zeppelin III (1970) Rainbow - Rising (1976) Rolling Stones - Exile On Main St (1972) AC/DC - Powerage (1978) Slade - Old New Borrowed and Blue (1974) Van Halen (1978) Queen II (1974) Motorhead - Overkill (1979)
Humble pie live at the Fillmore is in my head Purple live in Japan Black Sabbath 1st album Deep purple in Rock Jimi electric ladyland Groundhogs.. Split..
In about 91.4 % I agree with your opion(s) ... but the best from the Southern Rock department are ZZ Top ... IMHO .... In terms of Rush I'd go for 2112
Never understood obsession with American southern rock, Rush and with Led Zeppelin tbh ... but that's just me ... Free and Bad Company are much better bands imo than those
My top 10: Van Halen I Darkness on the Edge of Town Fair Warning Van Halen II Physical Graffiti 1984 Signals Houses of the Holy Boston Dirt (not exactly classic rock, but hey it's 30 years old)
Rainbow Rising actually has a lot of weak filler on Side One - Side Two is killer - On Stage is fantastic, my Rainbow go to. In Rock and Machine Head were great in their day, but Made In Japan will always be fantastic.
Oof. I tried to follow you here man, but I was surprised. I think maybe I’m a little confused by your definition of “Classic Rock”. I would include bands from the 1960s in that definition. Hendrix is certainly classic rock to me. But if I even just think of the best Classic Rock from the 1970s, I would include all kinds of bands that perhaps you don’t define as Classic Rock? I think maybe what you call “classic rock” is what I’d call “heavy rock”. If I had a list of classic rock strictly from the 1970s, my list would have included Van Halen 1 and Led Zep IV for sure. But not the other 8. Definitely would not pick Lynyrd Skynyrd over the Allman Brothers to represent southern rock of the 1970s. I’d include Exile on Main Street, American Beauty, Dark Side Of The Moon. Aja by Steely Dan has to be one of the best albums of the 1970s. But I guess you’d exclude that as jazz-rock? The clash would be punk? The stones would be “rock n roll”? Floyd and Dead would be psychedelic? CSN would be folk? Is that what’s going on? Classic rock = heavy rock that doesn't quite rise to heavy metal? Or is Motorhead better than the Rolling Stones?!?
@@paulkazakoff9231 I like that one too. I don’t really listen to rock or classic rock anymore. I pretty much stick to jazz. But every so often, I will reminisce and go a couple of weeks listening to the stuff I did in high school or college. There may be more important albums, but the ones I want to pull out and listen to - Exiles, sticky fingers, astral weeks, American beauty, dark side, eat a peach, Aja, London calling, synchronicity, the live Donny Hathaway album, innervisions. Maybe I’m dull. But I’m not pulling out Deep Purple or Rainbow.
I so far agree on your personal thou musically objective 10 Greatest ... Ranks. Exception Rush Fly by Night. Did it sell heavyly and was it not where the band was still on the way finding the way? Some of that material was not grown with Neil. and btw ... please give us a list 1-10 in any post for your ranks ;)) ... next time
