I Like The Songs Your Station Plays, But Why Is The Who & Other Bands Here??

Another good question!

I've received an email or two regarding the songs featured on the radio station, 360 Degrees of Alternative. People are saying, "OK, I get the concept... the full gamut of alternative... from garage rock to modern day stuff. But The Who? C'mon, that's classic rock".

In my humble opinion, "classic rock" is just some term made up by some marketing person God knows how long ago to attract radio listeners. It's just like the term "oldies"... which when I was growing up meant songs strictly from the 50's. Now, "oldies" has songs that goes all the way up to the late 70's...

However, you have to look at music history. Back in the mid 70's, when punk rock exploded, especially in England, many bands did not have much original material. The concept was that "anyone can play... just go out and do it". So, many punk and alternative bands performed covers that were originally done by groups that influenced them in some way. The Sex Pistols, for example, routinely performed covers originally done The Who, The Litter, Iggy Pop and even Alice Cooper. Bands took cues from not only the music, but also the attitude & stage antics of these performers. In my opinion, Pete Townsend & Iggy Pop were far more dangerous than say Jim Morrison... not to pick on Jim.

What I mean by that is, is people thought Jim Morrison was "dangerous" because he waved his penis around on stage in Miami one time. But when you look at The Who & Iggy on stage, you thought, "Wow, these guys might actually take the whole audience or the whole damn place with them!"

Alright... fair enough, you say. But why is Queen in there... with a song from a 1976 album no less! Again, let's look at history.

In England especially, there was quite a "gap" between punk / alternative bands and "big time rock bands"... like Queen for example. The lead singer of Eddie & the Hot Rods became disgusted once after reading an article in which Queen's lead singer, Freddie Mercury, stated at a recent Queen concert, "May all of you have champagne for breakfast".
This in turn, resulted in Eddie making some strong statements in a publication dedicated to punk / alternative / underground music called "Sniffing Glue". Of course, these statements got back to Freddie & Queen as a whole.

Queen, as a last minute "add" to their upcoming release "News of the World", composed "Sheer Heart Attack" which is played on this station. Queen's record label, Elektra, didn't even want to put the song on the album. It was meant to be a slam on punk bands in general, but ended up being a cult hit. The song is literally a mix of interesting lyrics, but more importantly, simplistic music that borders on white noise... which is what Queen thought punk rock was.

It's interesting to note, that as "Shear Heart Attack" progresses, the music (whether intentional or mixed & produced that way) gets louder with each verse and especially towards the end. Freddie is almost drowned out by the music. Also, dig the rhythm guitar just before the solo (if you could call it that)... one chord... same notes. Gotta love it!!

That's it for now. Keep listening... more tracks will be added over the weekend... and I mean a LOT more tracks!

Peace out,
Dave