This week on the Hot 106 Hit List "Who Are You" gets the business, CSI be damned.
"Pete Townshend is at the height of his alcoholism, feeling increasingly irrelevant thanks to punk rockers who stole all his moves and were doing them better than him; Roger Daltrey sits high atop the rock frontman list, just wanting to keep things going like a good working class lad would; John Entwistle is being John Entwistle; and Keith Moon is, well, nearly dead."
Hot 106 #10: Hotel California
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 snobbishness, Kent and Jen have tasked themselves with finding replacements for the overplayed tunes.
The granddaddy of all overplayed classic rock songs, “Hotel California”, gets a lifetime ban this week.
Kent: “The Bomber”, The James Gang
First things first: Imma brush my shoulders off because I was hatin’ on The Eagles before The Dude made it cool. I’m sure bands like The Eagles and Bread are great for some. If the most delicious sandwich in the world was eagle meat on bread, I probably wouldn’t eat it out of principle, and I am a food addict.
This dismissing of The Eagles is a wonderful opportunity to introduce the Classic Rock Radio crowd to Eagle alumnus Joe Walsh’s previous and most-rocking band, The James Gang. The album Rides Again rocks throughout, and some CRR listeners probably get “Funk #49” tossed to them every once in a while, but the album’s masterpiece, “The Bomber”, needs to replace “Hotel California”. Only a half-minute longer than “Hotel California”, the three-titled-sections prog-rockiness of “The Bomber” rules so hard, in that brilliant Captain Beyond way, that once you hear Walsh playing music like this you’ll do something you thought not possible: hate The Eagles worse.
Jen: Grand Funk Railroad – “I Come Tumblin”
I can’t think of an Eagles song that I could pretend to care about, and I don’t feel right picking a Joe Walsh or James Gang tune as a replacement since Kent already went down that (awesome) road. What’s a gal to do, then?
How ’bout I pick one of those lumbering rock tunes that could single-handedly revive Classic Rock Radio? I’m going to sweep “Hotel California” right off the desk–like so many office supplies–and get all Grand Funk on y’all.
Homer Simpson would approve of these wild, shirtless lyrics and competent drumwork; Classic Rock Radio listeners will approve of Mark Farner’s hot guitar licks (seriously) and a rhythm that can only be described as rockin’ and rollin’. The goal of my choice is to obliterate “Hotel California” from radio forever, and I think this song would do the job so well that the glassy-eyed masses may not even notice that they haven’t heard “Hotel California” for years.
