This week it's "Don't Bring Me Down" in the crosshairs.
"The snob in me half-way wants to replace 'Don't Bring Me Down' with something fabulous from The Move, but really my power play with The Move is replacing 'Bohemian Rhapsody' with 'Cherry Blossom Clinic Revisited'."
Hot 106 #9: La Grange
The Hot 106 is a list of 106 “classic rock” songs that should be banned from radio airplay forever. In an effort to be fair, and to flaunt their musical quasi-snobbishness, Kent and Jen have tasked themselves with finding replacements for the overplayed tunes.
Kent: “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide”
My writings about music are, by design, long formed and hyperbolic. I try to incorporate my unique relation to all the music I write about, too. That being said, writing about the Hot 106 is an exercise in pithiness, so you’re just gonna have to trust me when I say that I could write 10,000 words about why I picked “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide” over “Blue Jean Blues” or “Just Got Paid” to replace “La Grange”.
The main consideration? The rewarded feeling I feel every time I listen to “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide” and, after the slow boogie has had its turn for three-and-a-quarter minutes, the super rocking tag hits in, like if The Beatles had recorded “The End” red-eyed from homegrown and South Texas grit.
This is the same feeling you get after listening all the way through The Roots’ “You Got Me“: even when you know it’s coming you’re so glad it came. That’s a winner.
Jen: “Catfish Blues” – Jimi Hendrix
I’ll go ahead and cop to not knowing much about ZZ Top other than the fact that what’s-his-face was one of Jimi Hendrix’ favorite guitarists (informing my replacement song choice), and that they are beloved by a certain subset of (now) old, white men. (I also seem to remember them doing a promo in the ’80s for the short-lived-but-awesome Boston local music channel, V66. But I digress.)
You really can’t argue with a novelty song called “No More Madonna”.
Does this lack of key blues rock band knowledge disqualify me from this entry of the Hot 106? Not at all. Part of the reason why I know so little about ZZ Top is because what I know of them are the radio hits that have been bored (in both senses of the word) into my brain. “Legs”, “La Grange”, “Call Me the Breeze”, and “Sharp Dressed Man” today sound like parodies of the genre.
Clearly ZZ Top were, at one time, swashbuckling Texas blues rock warriors. They were novel and thrilling. Then the ’80s and, I’m guessing, too much cocaine led them down the path of bland, financially lucrative songwriting. Since I’m not going to pretend to know anything about their deeper catalog, I’m going to opt to replace “La Grange” with a blues rock track so great it’ll make you wanna slap yo’ mamma. Hopefully it’s also enough to distract from my shameful lack of ZZ Top knowledge.
Bonus! A certain person I know suggested this ZZ Top song. I’m not sure what I think about his selection…
Everybody’s brains went to Day-Glo shit in The Eighties. If you’ve heard Zappa’s redux on the split We’re Only In It For The Money/ Lumpy Gravy , you know what the first thing I would do with a time machine is…