Greatest Song Evah 3/28/25

Bad

Around a month or so into my freshman year of college U2 released The Unforgettable Fire. To say that my classmates & I were eagerly anticipating that album is a massive understatement. On the day of its release you heard it coming out of every dorm room. I don’t know if any of us actually purchased the record, it simply magically appeared in all of our collections - in retrospect that’s the same thing that happened years later when a new U2 album suddenly showed up in everyone’s iTunes library.

Pride (In the Name Of Love) was the record’s big hit, but to my ears Bad was the true standout track. This album was their initial collaboration with producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, and this song is a perfect example of that signature sound. It’s a moody, echo filled piece with a hypnotic guitar line courtesy of The Edge. It slowly and subtly builds and builds, with Bono’s vocals and Larry Mullen Jr.’s drumming gradually increasing in intensity.

The lyrics deal with addiction, more specifically heroin addiction. Bono has changed the story surrounding the song multiple times over the years. At times he has said that it’s a general tale, at other times he has said that it is about a specific person that he knows, at other times he has said that he combined two different subjects. Regardless, it is a powerful piece of music.

Their performance of Bad was one of the highlights of the Live Aid concert. There has long been the musical equivalent of the Ginger/Mary Ann debate over this concert. Which artist was the centerpiece of Live Aid: Queen or U2? Bad made for a good argument in U2’s favor. During the instrumental break Bono famously climbed down from the stage when he saw a young female fan in danger of the crowd crushing her and did a brief slow dance with her. U2’s set had that sense of intimacy whereas Queen’s showed Freddie Mercury’s ability to completely command a stadium size crowd.

As for U2, they were just getting started. Their popularity exploded with The Unforgettable Fire. That was nothing compared to what would take place a few years later.

Side Categories

I constantly harp on the fact that the Hall Of Fame is not honoring hip-hop artists at the rate that it should. That is also the case with the side categories, although to be fair there is a general time lag across all sub genres. Side category candidates as a rule of thumb have to wait long past their initial year of eligibility before they are acknowledged, it’s not just hip-hop. By this point, however, we are far enough into the hip-hop era that it’s time to start honoring the behind the scenes figures beyond the already inducted DJ Kool Herc and Sylvia Robinson.

The big problem is that some of the most obvious choices are too toxic to touch. I would suggest that no individual is more responsible for hip-hop’s cultural impact than Russell Simmons. But I have seen the documentary. The sexual assault allegations against him are numerous and believable. There is too much smoke there for there not to be any fire. Giving him the Ertegun Award - which he would otherwise deserve - wouldn’t necessarily mean that the Hall sanctions his behavior, but it would also signal that it’s not a deal breaker.

And then there is Sean Combs. There was a time when I was bracing myself for his inevitable induction, and I would rationalize it by saying that he would be honored for the business side of his career, not the artistic one. Let’s face it, creatively he is a hack. The best producers cleverly use sampling to recontextualize pre-existing music and add something to it. Diddy simply lays beats over familiar hooks, which plays into the stereotype of people who don’t care to understand the music and believe hip-hop artists are simply stealing music from other artists. When done poorly, sure. Like Diddy does. Now that his deplorable actions are catching up to him, there is zero chance that the Hall will honor him.

Slightly off topic, but this is as good a time as any to discuss the elephant in the room, the elephant named Kanye. He is eligible in 2 years, and realistically he is a no doubt first year eligible artist. As recently as a year ago I figured the Hall would bite the bullet and hope that he wouldn’t embarrass himself too much at the ceremony. But that notion is long gone. There is no way that a reasonable institution can honor him, no matter how qualified he is. He is too far gone, his statements and actions are unforgivable, and I cannot imagine any member of the nominating committee placing their neck on the line and attempting to state his case.

There is another candidate who might be tricky, Rick Rubin. As his career developed, he expanded well beyond being just a hip-hop figure. He has produced albums in multiple genres, including work for many Hall Of Famers. He has an image of a zen guy, constantly meditating whilst perpetually sitting barefoot in the lotus position. That’s accurate, but he is also a QAnon type oddball. And the Black Crowes nomination reminded me of a terrible anecdote that Chris Robinson told in an episode of Behind the Music. He said that Rubin was trying to convince the band to change their name. Why not honor their home county, and switch to an alliterative name as well, and while they’re at it a “funny” misspelling. They should call themselves the Kobb Kounty Krowes. Get it, KKK? Nope. Rick Rubin deserves to be in the Hall, but he can wait.

So who is worthy of going in right now? A good place to start is with any of the producers or production teams that have helped the music progress. I mentioned how unimaginative Diddy’s sampling work is. Well, how about teams that have turned sampling into an art form? Such as the Dust Brothers. Their work on Paul’s Boutique was a landmark. The Bomb Squad are great candidates as well; the only issue with them is that they are largely connected to only one artist, Public Enemy.

There are 2 candidates whom I would place at the front of the line, and they had a Beatles/Stones type of friendly rivalry in their heyday. The first would be Timbaland; it would have been appropriate timing if he had gotten in the same year that Missy Elliott was inducted as an artist. The other is The Neptunes. It might also be worth exploring some of those regional record label/producing team/artist collective combos. If so, the one to go with at least initially should be the Cash Money crew.

It would be a good idea as well to look at some of the people who championed the music in hip-hop’s early days while the mainstream was mostly ignoring the genre. Such as the radio DJ’s who hosted rap heavy shows at late night hours and proved that the audience was there. Think DJ Red Alert, or Funkmaster Flex.

I know those two men well because they were New York based. I’m sure every large city had similar figures who cultivated loyal audiences. What made hip-hop the major force that it became was the introduction of the music to a suburban white audience and that would not have happened without MTV. Fab Five Freddy was the original host of Yo! MTV Raps in addition to being a cultural figure who was seemingly everywhere in the genre’s infancy. The debut of the daily weekday edition of Yo!, conveniently scheduled in the time slot when kids were getting back home from school was arguably the single biggest factor in hip-hop’s explosion. The hosts for the daily edition were Ed Lover and Doctor Dre (not to be confused with Dr. Dre) and they would be great additions to the Hall.

SNL Preview

The next set of 3 new episodes begins this week with Mikey Madison hosting. She falls in the hosting category of a rising young star who is Having A Moment. Winning an Oscar qualifies as having a moment. I can’t honestly say that while watching Better Things I had her pegged as a future Oscar winner, but by the same token her season to season improvement as an actress as she grew up was exponential. As is often the case, live sketch comedy is an entirely different skill set so we will have to see how she does. Besides, even though SNL is a late night show, it might be tricky to do an Anora based sketch without making the censors break out into a sweat.

50 Years Ago - Siren

Roxy Music only had one hit single in the United States, and that was Love Is the Drug from the album Siren. In addition to being their most successful release it is also regarded as their creative apex. The evolution of their sound is more apparent; they grew increasingly song oriented as opposed to relying on some of the more lavish arrangements that they used when Brian Eno was a member of the band.

Roxy Music is often classified as one of the premier art rock bands in history, which isn’t precisely the same thing as prog rock. Both forms experiment with unusual time signatures, but in general prog has a closer affinity to classical music than art rock does. Art rock, or at least the form that Roxy Music played, was much more soulful.

That’s a key element. Bryan Ferry is in many ways a modern update of the classic lounge lizard, and that is precisely the obvious image one sees in his stage presence. It’s not difficult to picture him singing with a cigarette in one hand and a highball glass in the other had he been born a decade earlier. He doesn’t get enough credit for the soulfulness in his vocal timbre. That makes tracks such as End Of the Line or Both Ends Burning that much better.

Roxy Music was also well known for their album covers, usually featuring beautiful models. In this case the cover subject was Ferry’s soon to be girlfriend Jerry Hall. That added to the whole artsy vibe that followed them; supermodels and an ethereal sound made the band seem somewhat exotic. They continued to thrive for nearly a decade.

Closing Laughs

That will be all for today. Have a great weekend everyone, and we will talk again on Monday.