Rambling On
Time for something a little different.
After some thought, I have come up with a possible plan for my Substack postings. I am going to write something three times a week, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
Monday’s posts will be about interesting things that I see happening in the financial markets. Wednesday’s will be a mixed bag of opinions on any number of things. Friday’s will be more lighthearted and hopefully make the reader interact with me with their take.
My older brother Frank once said that there are very few artists that deserve to be considered legendary and places like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame have lost their way accepting mediocrity within their doors. To highlight that point, he believes, as do I, that to be considered one of the greats, you need to have produced three albums that would be considered masterpieces.
While at first glance, most people would say that there are hundreds of artists that have produced at least three great albums in their career. Really? Think about it for a few minutes and try and put together those three masterpieces and you may be surprised, it is not as easy as you think.
The easy part is listing groups or artists like Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys and Led Zeppelin. You can add James Brown, Chuck Berry and Aretha Franklin as well. The hard part is getting to some of the great Rock and Roll artists and realizing that some of their work doesn’t hold up as well.
One thing to think about is to try to separate your feelings for an artist and just look at his/her/their body of work. While we may love a particular artist and like one or two songs from a couple of albums that doesn’t qualify them to be put in that legendary category.
I could add my personal favorite, The Who here but some others may say that they don’t reach that three masterpiece threshold. Nonsense, Tommy, Who’s Next and Quadrophenia qualify easily.
How about The Eagles? Probably America’s greatest rock band. I would argue that Hotel California and One of These Nights would be classics but the vast majority of their albums have two or three great songs and filler. So, they can’t be included in that Legendary Status.
Ah, what about that Jeep driving Hypocrite Bruce Springsteen? Yes, while I may not agree with his politics, Springsteen has produced at least three masterpieces and fans might even say it’s six or seven so he would be considered a legendary artist.
Purists will argue that there are dozens of artists from the fifties and sixties that could easily qualify but I would still argue that to be considered “Legendary” you need to have produced three masterpieces and I will quickly and easily cross them off that list.
Granted, a lot of this is subjective and thats what I want to do, have people think about some artist or group and really look at their work critically. Do the Jackson Five qualify? What about the Foo Fighters or Metallica? This Legends List does not take away from a great performer it is meant to acknowledge the Legendary ones.
I have purposely not mentioned several I believe can qualify but I want to hear from you and your opinion.