Ok, here we go. This is the rating system, mentioned in the previous blog,that I have devised for my record reviews. I have 5 factors that will have a number from 0-10. Of course this is all subjective and completely my opinion, so do with it what you will. Not having actually used this system yet, I may have to make some changes, but let's just see how it works.
The 5 factors are:
Riff Density, Riff Caliber, Post-Blues Factor, Groove Factor, Dig it Factor
Riff Density is just what it says. How full of riffage is the album. Does it only have 2 songs that are rockin or is the entire album chock full of riffy goodness?
Riff Caliber is basically quality of the riffage. The album may only have 2 rockin' songs on it, thus giving it a lower Riff Density, but those 2 songs may be composed of pure unadluterated genius riffs, thus giving it a higher Riff Caliber number. There are plenty of classic must-have albums that are completely worth owning even though they contain only a few killer songs. In fact a lot of the late 60's and early 70's, especially 1970 and '71, albums can be very hit and miss. The style was still being defined at that point. These first 2 factors hopefully address that fact.
Post-blues Factor This one's a bit nebulous. This factor will try to place the music somewhere in the rock and roll spectrum in relation to it's blues influence. In the middle is straight up blues at 5. John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers would get a 5. The higher you get, the more evolved yet still highly blues based(not necessarily structurally based, but definitely conceptually and melodically ,i.e. blues scale/minor pentatonic) . Black Sabbath Paranoid and Master of Reality would both be around a 10 because they are fully realized post blues/proto metal derived directly from the blues. Below 5 we are moving away from the blues. Now why would you want to do that? I dunno. Let's put a good amount of the Beatles catalog below 5. Yeah, I know they played some blues, but for the most part they pushed Rock and Roll in the other direction.
Hopefully my bizarre logic makes some semblance of sense and will be helpful to some of you.
Again, this scale isn't necessarily a reflection of quality. I'm just trying to help describe the difference between Master of Reality, Jeff Beck-Truth and Yellow Submarine.
Groove Factor - This too is a nebulous ephemeral cloudlike formation that probably only makes sense to me. I'm thinking of it basically like this: how much does the record jam or rock or groove. Is the band just slamming? Is there some indescribable intangible something that makes this album work? Can you feel the electricity emanating from the grooves or does it feel cold and stifled? I guess you could say this is partly execution or delivery. This is maybe the least helpful factor, but there are some albums that are great because the delivery is so heavy even though musically it maybe wouldn't rank quite as high.
I suppose I just wanted a way of highlighting the instances when I feel a real chemistry; when it feels like the stars have aligned for certain albums and bands at certain times more than anything else. Led Zeppelin IV is a good example. Not only is the groove that is being laid down by John Bonham and John Paul Jones throughout just sick, but the album as a whole is otherworldy genius. The stars aligned and everything fell into place perfectly for that album.
The first 3 Cactus albums have some serious groove and chemistry goin' on. They have a very live feel to them.
Yeah I know, this is a very subjective category.
and lastly:
Dig It: This is simply how much I like the album.
Here's a few well known albums rated with the system to give you some insight into my thinking:
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Riff Density 10
Riff Caliber 10
Post Blues Factor 10
Groove Factor 9
Dig It 10
Led Zeppelin - II
Riff Density 6
Riff Caliber 9
Post Blues Factor 8
Groove Factor 8
Dig It 9
Led Zeppelin - III
Riff Density 4
Riff Caliber 7
Post Blues Factor 7
Groove Factor 6
Dig It 6
ZZ Top - First Album
Riff Density 9
Riff Caliber 10
Post Blues Factor 9
Groove Factor 10
Dig It 10
Free - Tons of Sobs
Riff Density 6
Riff Caliber 7
Post Blues Factor 6
Groove Factor 7
Dig It 8
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
The Quest for Rock
Let the mad rambling begin...
I have spent the majority of my life searching for music, always with a seemingly never ending and ever evolving wishlist. Looking for this or that obscure record by whoever, sometimes finding the most amazing mindblowing music, and sometimes getting home, excited about a new score, only to drop the needle and be sorely disappointed. But that's what it's all about now isn't it? The search. The hunt. Finding that hidden treasure.
These days, you can find out a little bit of information about most albums out there. That information is sometimes helpful, and sometimes not. When I was a kid buying records, the internet didn't exist. You just had to jump in and take a chance. How many times did I buy an album just because it looked cool or the band had a cool name? How many of those cool looking records sucked? Asia anyone? I guess it's still true that you have to take a chance a lot of times when you buy records(like I said, when I first started listening to music, it was the days of vinyl, so I still refer to albums, whether they are vinyl or cd, as "records." That's what it is. A Record). Music is so subjective, and not everyone is looking to get the same thing out of it. As is probably obvious from the sound of my band, Wo Fat, I have a huge love for the blues, 70's hard rock and the early foundational days of metal, which is where a lot of my musical quest is spent these days. Because of this I am always looking for information about this music. Stonerrock.com has a Classic Album reviews section in it's forum that is a good place to find reviews of lots of albums. One thread in particular that asked for reader's votes for the best obscure heavy 70's albums turned me on to a bunch of records I didn't previously know about.
Another resource I found is a great book by Martin Popoff entitled "The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal, Volume 1: The Seventies." In this book, Martin Popoff has done an amazing job of writing excellent brief reviews of thousands of records from bands you've heard of and a bunch you haven't. As cool as Martin's book is and as cool as the Stonerrock.com forum pages are, not to mention lots of other online sources, they sometimes fall short for me, either because of lack of the specific information that I'm looking for, or the fact that the reviewer is, like I said earlier, listening for other things than I am, or just percieves things differently. There are a number of records that I think are pretty much on the lame side and would have left in the record bin had it not been for some Martin Popoff and Stonerrock.com review. Some examples:
Heavy Metal Kids -Do not buy this record if you see it at the used record store. Put it down, back away from it slowly and pretend you never saw it.It will hurt you inside.
Asterix -Martin said "if more people new this existed, you'd have to add it to the short list of important and first heavy metal records of all time..." I beg to differ, but maybe I'll give it another spin;
Hard Stuff-Bulletproof - yeah, this will piss a bunch of people off. Everybody lists this as one of the top 10 obscure 70's heavies. I don't know man, I think it sucks, but that's a subject for another blog entry. Stay tuned...
Therefore, I have decided to add my voice to the din. I am going to dedicate this blog primarily to giving my take on bands and their albums from the 60's and 70's that laid the foundations of all Heavy Metal and today's Stoner Rock, thus hopefully giving another perspective and opinion to anyone interested in this music.
Martin Popoff, in his book, uses a rating system consisting of 2 numbers for his album reviews. The first number is the Heaviness rating, and the second number is a reflection of how much he likes the record. For example, Martin gives Black Sabbath - Master of Reality a 9/10, ZZ Top - Tres Hombres - 7/10, Led Zeppelin II - 5/7,and AC/DC-Let There Be Rock - 9/10. Inspired by Martin's rating system, I have come up with my own rating system that is a little more detailed and has more factors in an attempt to describe some of the things that I dig in a rock and roll record.
Because I have been rambling for awhile here and also in order to have the rating system explanation more accessible, I will make that it's own blog entry.
I have spent the majority of my life searching for music, always with a seemingly never ending and ever evolving wishlist. Looking for this or that obscure record by whoever, sometimes finding the most amazing mindblowing music, and sometimes getting home, excited about a new score, only to drop the needle and be sorely disappointed. But that's what it's all about now isn't it? The search. The hunt. Finding that hidden treasure.
These days, you can find out a little bit of information about most albums out there. That information is sometimes helpful, and sometimes not. When I was a kid buying records, the internet didn't exist. You just had to jump in and take a chance. How many times did I buy an album just because it looked cool or the band had a cool name? How many of those cool looking records sucked? Asia anyone? I guess it's still true that you have to take a chance a lot of times when you buy records(like I said, when I first started listening to music, it was the days of vinyl, so I still refer to albums, whether they are vinyl or cd, as "records." That's what it is. A Record). Music is so subjective, and not everyone is looking to get the same thing out of it. As is probably obvious from the sound of my band, Wo Fat, I have a huge love for the blues, 70's hard rock and the early foundational days of metal, which is where a lot of my musical quest is spent these days. Because of this I am always looking for information about this music. Stonerrock.com has a Classic Album reviews section in it's forum that is a good place to find reviews of lots of albums. One thread in particular that asked for reader's votes for the best obscure heavy 70's albums turned me on to a bunch of records I didn't previously know about.
Another resource I found is a great book by Martin Popoff entitled "The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal, Volume 1: The Seventies." In this book, Martin Popoff has done an amazing job of writing excellent brief reviews of thousands of records from bands you've heard of and a bunch you haven't. As cool as Martin's book is and as cool as the Stonerrock.com forum pages are, not to mention lots of other online sources, they sometimes fall short for me, either because of lack of the specific information that I'm looking for, or the fact that the reviewer is, like I said earlier, listening for other things than I am, or just percieves things differently. There are a number of records that I think are pretty much on the lame side and would have left in the record bin had it not been for some Martin Popoff and Stonerrock.com review. Some examples:
Heavy Metal Kids -Do not buy this record if you see it at the used record store. Put it down, back away from it slowly and pretend you never saw it.It will hurt you inside.
Asterix -Martin said "if more people new this existed, you'd have to add it to the short list of important and first heavy metal records of all time..." I beg to differ, but maybe I'll give it another spin;
Hard Stuff-Bulletproof - yeah, this will piss a bunch of people off. Everybody lists this as one of the top 10 obscure 70's heavies. I don't know man, I think it sucks, but that's a subject for another blog entry. Stay tuned...
Therefore, I have decided to add my voice to the din. I am going to dedicate this blog primarily to giving my take on bands and their albums from the 60's and 70's that laid the foundations of all Heavy Metal and today's Stoner Rock, thus hopefully giving another perspective and opinion to anyone interested in this music.
Martin Popoff, in his book, uses a rating system consisting of 2 numbers for his album reviews. The first number is the Heaviness rating, and the second number is a reflection of how much he likes the record. For example, Martin gives Black Sabbath - Master of Reality a 9/10, ZZ Top - Tres Hombres - 7/10, Led Zeppelin II - 5/7,and AC/DC-Let There Be Rock - 9/10. Inspired by Martin's rating system, I have come up with my own rating system that is a little more detailed and has more factors in an attempt to describe some of the things that I dig in a rock and roll record.
Because I have been rambling for awhile here and also in order to have the rating system explanation more accessible, I will make that it's own blog entry.
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