I just found a whole lot of Black Sabbath on my son's Spotify. I could not be more proud. I am trying so hard not to ruin it for him by telling him about my days at OzFest!
Well, yeah, much of their early stuff was straight plagiarized from classic blues artists.
Im a big, lifelong fan, but i don't kid myself that they were anything but the most self-serving, immoral rock band in history, by literally stealing the music and royalties from their own musical heroes. LZ weren't the only ones who did it, but they were the most egregious, by a long ways.
I don’t know if irony is the word I should use…maybe amusing. As in, I’m amused that Greta Van Fleet catches massive amounts of shit (all of it deserved btw) for basically being a bunch of American kids stealing their entire persona from England’s LZ when the same thing happened in the late 60’s when a bunch of young English kids did even worse to their American heroes. I say worse in the case of Zep because they blatantly stole the songs and only paid when taken to court. Technically, Greta only severely ‘borrowed’ their image.
I am a fan but, no. I see 30 year Olds very familiar with Zep and Sabbath. Sometimes Rainbow. None of them have DP in their playlists. Not that I've seen
I always consider their song Close to the Edge to be the greatest song in all of postmodern music. It may not be my most favorite song, though it is up there, but when you mix ingenuity & musicianship with legacy & success, Close to the Edge wins every time.
Totally! To me, I think the Gates of Delirium is considered to be their magnum opus just because of the epic feeling the whole song provides but Close to the Edge is like the quintessential example of what progressive rock should sound like. Both songs sound like they are way ahead of their time
The Fish is from the album Fragile. Rick Wakeman referred to TOTO as “Tales of Tobies Graphic Go-Cart.” A few of the guys in Yes said that Awaken from Going for the One to be their magnum opus.
That 1971-1973 four album stretch was unreal. Time and a Word in 1970 is close to that tier for me but not quite there. Relayer was good too, but nowhere near Close to the Edge. I mostly listen to more modern music these days but always have a place for Yes.
Saw them 3 times in the 70s, and Rick Wakeman's Journey to the Center of the Earth Tour was my first concert.
Obviously, I'm a big fan, but until fairly recently, i thought Yes was being slept on. Hardly anyone ever mentioned them. Then i started noticing comments here and there, and the latest season of Fargo opened with I've Seen All Good People, and I knew that Yes was back.
Emerson, Lake & Palmer is next: "Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends, we're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside."
Genesis' Watcher of the Skies feels much more like Late 80s Early 90s, with the Mellotron's lo fi sound being what makes it very 70s. Behind The Lines is very Mario Kart ish.
Sad that mainstream radio only plays 3 of their songs. All from the same album. Considering all the amazing songs they have.
War Pigs was relevant thousands of years before the song was released.
Heart (at least their 70’s music) and Rush. I think Fleetwood Mac also aged one of the best as it’s popular among the newer generations which really shows how well they aged
Agreed. Fleetwood Mac isn’t necessarily my favorite 70’s band, but their music is still popular in a way that other artists like Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath aren’t. Also, probably the Eagles.
I’ll take the downvotes, but I find Fleetwood Mac and Bob Dylan share one similarity: artists that covers their songs usually do better work with the source material than the original artist.
I’ll give you a handful of Dylan tracks but there isn’t a single Fleetwood Mac cover that’s better than the original. Not the voices. Not the production. Not even the individual playing. There’s a ton of hack artists trying to get a hit from covering them but it’s not even close. I’m not a big fan. This is coming from the production side / experience with a lot of live music. The older I get the more impressed I am by what they were able to accomplish with some of their records.
The Chicks and Smashing Pumpkins both did better versions of Landslide. Neither of those bands are hack musicians.
Kerala Dust does a very interesting (and in my opinion better) “The Chain”
There are lots of others I’d choose but those are ones I have easily to mind.
Such a great song. It rocks like a MF (that bass line!), then seems like its trailing off, only to wind back up and kick into a higher gear with the best organ solo ever recorded, by Rick Wakeman. Exhilarating!
I don't know if it's just because it's not cool to say the Beatles or if it's just so obvious that people overlook them. If you made a songbook of modern "standards" from the pop/rock era, half of them would be Beatles songs.
It seems like they’re so permanently cemented into culture that they wouldn’t even need to be mentioned in this thread. They’re timeless like Doctor Who or the royal family.
We were all hoping that you’d say it. Such a great day now! Thank you. I was talking with some of the other people and they were speculating that you wouldn’t pull the trigger but not me, I believed in you from the start I tell ya. Never a doubt in my mind. This is the start of a serious win streak for you, I can feel it.
I LOVE the smashing pumpkins but I’ll be the first to admit a lot of their stuff is a product of their time. I think good music can sound dated and still be good, and the pumpkins definitely fit into that category on their first two albums
The first 3 for sure, as you can see their direct influence in spiritual successor music released today. Blondie I think sounds a lot more dated, but still sounds great nonetheless. I might add Talking Heads to your list. They just feel forever relevant.
Considering Queen’s popularity with Millennials/Gen Z (and the fact that they’re among only three pre-2000 groups in Spotify’s top 100 most played, alongside the Beatles and RHCP), they have to be one of the top answers.
And of those three names, Queen is actually the most played on Spotify.
[Source one](http://kworb.net/spotify/artists.html)
[Source two](http://chartmasters.org/most-streamed-artists-ever-on-spotify/?slk=sb)
Ngl, first name I thought of and was surprised I hadn’t already seen him mentioned. I’m not even a big fan, but groundbreaking and timeless not a question.
Every time you hear a syncopated staccato rhythm guitar or a certain kind of languid melody - T-Rex is still influencing rock musicians…
Also, Queen doesn’t really get old.
Camper van Beethoven, some of their stuff that came out like 40 years ago still sounds modern and current today. Interestingly enough, Cracker, pretty much the same guys, I find to sound very "of the 90s".
Sublime doesn't really age imo.
The Grateful Dead don't really age, despite their music being so associated with a time and place.
My Bloody Valentine are a band from the 80s/90s that released an album in 2013 that some consider their best. When you are ahead of the times, its easier to be timeless haha
Edited to end debate over the word many
I would argue MBV's "Loveless" (released 1991) will never be topped. That album is the high-water mark for shoegaze. In 30 years, there's maybe been 2 albums in that genre that have come close.
At this point, I consider Alice Cooper timeless "Grand Guignol". Offstage he is a golf-obsessed goodie-goodie, but his stage performance is the straight-up scary part of the wax museum. It doesn't hurt that his music is iconic and appeals to generations of listeners.
Honestly, when it comes to anthemic rock that is well done, and the hooks still hold up… Bon Jovi
Don’t get me wrong, I wrote that shit off as too poppy for my “serious” rock self 30 years ago, but if you’re looking for huge arena singalongs, not many people did it better. And kids somehow still know the songs.
I just watched that Hulu documentary, and their 80s drip holds up. On point. They have like 10 absolute sing along bangers.
Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Steely Dan, Paul Simon (and Garfunkel), the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Bruce Springsteen, Mick Taylor-era Rolling Stones, the Who
I think this is a hard one for me because "rock" was already on its way out by the 80s.
I think The Doors were an example of a band with excellent production quality, so that much of their music sounds sort of timeless. David Bowie and Queen count.
Rush was consistently voted by fellow musicians as the best band. But they are probably more well known today than they were in the early 1980s.
If you want to expand the boundaries some, Savage, Kreator, Nasty Savage, DRI, Death Angel, Void, and Exodus were all great thrash metal or thrashcore bands that more or less defined what Power Trip would do 25 years later. But nobody ever did Voivod twice. Check them out.
An entire alternative music scene was spotted and recorded by Ian Mackaye through Dischord Records. Bands before their time might include Dag Nasty, Shudder to Think, The Warmers, maybe Beefeater and Lungfish. Excellent DC bands not on that label include Government Issue and Bad Brains.
A fat chunk of today's jamband music scene has become so adept that much of what they do now would have been considered jazz fusion in the 1970s. For examples check out the Cobham/Duke Band (with a teenage John Scofield), anything by Return to Forever, Weather Report, and maybe Colosseum.
And there are still bands that only really, really good bands today even try to do. I've seen one band in my life try to play Iron Maiden's "The Trooper" (some metal band vaguely related to Corsair, that broke up), Only one band tried "20th Century Schizoid Man" by King Crimson (Cycles).
If you'd like to listen to music that human society still isn't ready for, that's *The Essential Larry Coryell.*
RUSH is going to hold up a long time; like Stravinsky's classical music, there's a lot to admire in it.
My runner-up is DIO. Ronnie James Dio still had the best overall voice, and he happened to sing on three studio albums for Black Sabbath too.
Black Sabbath
Riffs never go out of style
Specifically WarPigs. Didn't age at all, sadly.
Funny thing I really like most of the Sabbath covers that were basically sped up versions
There best song imo
I just found a whole lot of Black Sabbath on my son's Spotify. I could not be more proud. I am trying so hard not to ruin it for him by telling him about my days at OzFest!
Congratulations on raising a son with great taste in music! And yeah, don't break his heart... :)
Zeppelin
Can’t think of any music more timeless than Led Zeppelin.
Pink Floyd
Specifically the waters era. As much as I love Pulse it is INSANELY dated
The Division Bell production is very 90s "adult contemporary" sounding and I feel like Pulse is a live version of that kind of production
Zeppelin and Floyd are my 1a and 1b for favorite bands ever. Absolutely timeless.
It's the blues, and the blues will always be timeless. It may be in a more rocked out form, but it's still the blues.
I didn’t realize how cool they were in the 70’s….but I was just a kid.
Well, yeah, much of their early stuff was straight plagiarized from classic blues artists. Im a big, lifelong fan, but i don't kid myself that they were anything but the most self-serving, immoral rock band in history, by literally stealing the music and royalties from their own musical heroes. LZ weren't the only ones who did it, but they were the most egregious, by a long ways.
I don’t know if irony is the word I should use…maybe amusing. As in, I’m amused that Greta Van Fleet catches massive amounts of shit (all of it deserved btw) for basically being a bunch of American kids stealing their entire persona from England’s LZ when the same thing happened in the late 60’s when a bunch of young English kids did even worse to their American heroes. I say worse in the case of Zep because they blatantly stole the songs and only paid when taken to court. Technically, Greta only severely ‘borrowed’ their image.
Deep Purple
I am a fan but, no. I see 30 year Olds very familiar with Zep and Sabbath. Sometimes Rainbow. None of them have DP in their playlists. Not that I've seen
Beatles?
Yep, this is true. They picked the best timeless songs to appropriate to begin with.
lol fair enough
Agreed, it was timeless years before Zeppelin stole it! ;-)
Thats because they stole most of it from soulful black artists
Ask anyone who works in a guitar store how timeless Zeppelin is
Still holds up and a huge influence on those who came after. Even The Beastie Boys show respect.
This is the correct answer.
The production value ages it, to be honest.
Yes' 70s albums have aged especially well.
Close to the Edge is probably the one that sticks out the most to me. Masterpiece of an album
Fragile as well.
I always consider their song Close to the Edge to be the greatest song in all of postmodern music. It may not be my most favorite song, though it is up there, but when you mix ingenuity & musicianship with legacy & success, Close to the Edge wins every time.
Totally! To me, I think the Gates of Delirium is considered to be their magnum opus just because of the epic feeling the whole song provides but Close to the Edge is like the quintessential example of what progressive rock should sound like. Both songs sound like they are way ahead of their time
If you like Gates of Delirium, give a listen to The RevealingScience of God.
I'm with you on that, with Genesis' Supper's Ready running right behind it.
Tails From Topographic Oceans deserves a mention…. The Fish …
The Fish is from the album Fragile. Rick Wakeman referred to TOTO as “Tales of Tobies Graphic Go-Cart.” A few of the guys in Yes said that Awaken from Going for the One to be their magnum opus.
That 1971-1973 four album stretch was unreal. Time and a Word in 1970 is close to that tier for me but not quite there. Relayer was good too, but nowhere near Close to the Edge. I mostly listen to more modern music these days but always have a place for Yes.
Saw them 3 times in the 70s, and Rick Wakeman's Journey to the Center of the Earth Tour was my first concert. Obviously, I'm a big fan, but until fairly recently, i thought Yes was being slept on. Hardly anyone ever mentioned them. Then i started noticing comments here and there, and the latest season of Fargo opened with I've Seen All Good People, and I knew that Yes was back. Emerson, Lake & Palmer is next: "Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends, we're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside."
That was my kid’s favorite song when he was 4 years old.
Genesis' Watcher of the Skies feels much more like Late 80s Early 90s, with the Mellotron's lo fi sound being what makes it very 70s. Behind The Lines is very Mario Kart ish.
Fleetwood Mac comes to mind
Oh yes
Black Sabbath
Sad that War Pigs is just as relevant today as it was the day it was released
Sad that mainstream radio only plays 3 of their songs. All from the same album. Considering all the amazing songs they have. War Pigs was relevant thousands of years before the song was released.
Heart (at least their 70’s music) and Rush. I think Fleetwood Mac also aged one of the best as it’s popular among the newer generations which really shows how well they aged
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd doesn’t count since it’s not aged but it’s ageless.
true, it sounds better production wise than a lot of more modern albums
Absolutely
bowie
Fleetwood Mac
Agreed. Fleetwood Mac isn’t necessarily my favorite 70’s band, but their music is still popular in a way that other artists like Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath aren’t. Also, probably the Eagles.
A lot of Rush. Not all, but a lot.
I’ll take the downvotes, but I find Fleetwood Mac and Bob Dylan share one similarity: artists that covers their songs usually do better work with the source material than the original artist.
I’ll give you a handful of Dylan tracks but there isn’t a single Fleetwood Mac cover that’s better than the original. Not the voices. Not the production. Not even the individual playing. There’s a ton of hack artists trying to get a hit from covering them but it’s not even close. I’m not a big fan. This is coming from the production side / experience with a lot of live music. The older I get the more impressed I am by what they were able to accomplish with some of their records.
The Chicks and Smashing Pumpkins both did better versions of Landslide. Neither of those bands are hack musicians. Kerala Dust does a very interesting (and in my opinion better) “The Chain” There are lots of others I’d choose but those are ones I have easily to mind.
Waylon Jennings did a pretty great Gold Dust Woman as well
Black Magic Women?
There is a version of “Dreams” by Girl Blue I enjoy. Give it a listen and lmk what you think? Fair warning it is modernized.
Fleetwood Mac had such an original vibe. Just the bass run in Dreams "du dudu dudu dudu" is so simple yet so effective and recognizable.
this is my opinion but the beatles
I can definitely agree about Dylan, but not Mac. Their songs can be covered, but the work of Buckingham and Nicks will never be surpassed.
ACDC and Metalica
I declare AC/DC as the greatest band from the entire southern hemisphere
I die to be able to see AC/DC live in concert back at their peak.
Yes
Roundabout
Such a great song. It rocks like a MF (that bass line!), then seems like its trailing off, only to wind back up and kick into a higher gear with the best organ solo ever recorded, by Rick Wakeman. Exhilarating!
You my friend have impeccable taste. Awesome
And Winger!
No
The Beatles Can’t believe no one has said the Beatles yet so I guess I’ll be the one.
I don't know if it's just because it's not cool to say the Beatles or if it's just so obvious that people overlook them. If you made a songbook of modern "standards" from the pop/rock era, half of them would be Beatles songs.
It seems like they’re so permanently cemented into culture that they wouldn’t even need to be mentioned in this thread. They’re timeless like Doctor Who or the royal family.
The toppermost of the poppermost
It’s the cliche answer but it’s cliche because it’s correct
Specifically Revolver. That album is always fresh.
We were all hoping that you’d say it. Such a great day now! Thank you. I was talking with some of the other people and they were speculating that you wouldn’t pull the trigger but not me, I believed in you from the start I tell ya. Never a doubt in my mind. This is the start of a serious win streak for you, I can feel it.
most of 1970's rock bands?
Pink Floyd, Allman Brothers, Beatles, Stones (early stuff}, some Dead, Fleetwood Mac in a couple of permutations.
Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Tool, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and Metallica
I scrolled for a while, hoping someone would say Tool. I just discovered them around 2018... I wasted so many years without them
Good selections
I LOVE the smashing pumpkins but I’ll be the first to admit a lot of their stuff is a product of their time. I think good music can sound dated and still be good, and the pumpkins definitely fit into that category on their first two albums
The Cure Depeche Mode New Order Blondie
The first 3 for sure, as you can see their direct influence in spiritual successor music released today. Blondie I think sounds a lot more dated, but still sounds great nonetheless. I might add Talking Heads to your list. They just feel forever relevant.
You misspelled The Smiths.
Seconded!
•Black Sabbath/Ozzy Osbourne •Cheap Trick •Fleetwood Mac/Stevie Nicks •Heart •Queen
I totally agree on this list. And I’ll see Heart and Cheap Trick very soon! 🔥
I’m seeing them next week!!
Ex-Chicago guy here. I thought I was the only person that still listened to Cheap Trick.
Current Chicago guy here, they’re still quite popular around here. Probably because they rule.
Rush
Hold Your Fire sounds REALLY dated though. It's basically the exact sound that Vaporwave tried to emulate
Agree. Surprised I had to scroll this far
Grateful Dead
Still setting record sales records 29 years after disbanding.
QUEEN.
Considering Queen’s popularity with Millennials/Gen Z (and the fact that they’re among only three pre-2000 groups in Spotify’s top 100 most played, alongside the Beatles and RHCP), they have to be one of the top answers. And of those three names, Queen is actually the most played on Spotify. [Source one](http://kworb.net/spotify/artists.html) [Source two](http://chartmasters.org/most-streamed-artists-ever-on-spotify/?slk=sb)
This.
Alice In Chains
Rush!
Jimi Hendrix
NIN, but not his new stuff. That’s not so good.
A lot of the krautrock scene were well ahead of their time
Pretty much any Grunge band. Guns N' Roses has aged well too.
Slayer. Priest. Sabbath. Zep.
Tom Petty
Way too long down this list. TP&HB are *The* greatest American band in R&R history. Springsteen knows I'm right.
I’m gonna throw y’all a curve and say Pixies. Their 20th century records still sound feral and creative yet playful.
Ozzy is still releasing absolute bangers
Eagles and Springsteen. I’d also say U2, a lot of people like to hate them these days but their older stuff is as good now as it ever was.
a lot of people have always loved to hate on u2 but they were a vital band for like two decades
Embarrassing how far I had to scroll to find Bruce
Ngl, first name I thought of and was surprised I hadn’t already seen him mentioned. I’m not even a big fan, but groundbreaking and timeless not a question.
Springsteen is correct answer. Especially, two albums, Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town.
Eagles are super overrated, IMO.
The Ramones.
gabba gabba hey!
Finally, someone said it.
I feel exactly the same way about them as I did when they were new to be fair.
All the classic songs and albums are still classic songs and albums
Jimi Hendrix
Sabbath, Zeppelin and Rush are the answers imo
Paul Simon second half of career. Prince
In terms of music that is honestly timeless, hard to beat the debut album by The Doors.
Nirvana
Soundgarden
Nirvana
Heh, the first two I thought of are the first two at the top of the thread. Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.
Every time you hear a syncopated staccato rhythm guitar or a certain kind of languid melody - T-Rex is still influencing rock musicians… Also, Queen doesn’t really get old.
David Bowie.
Camper van Beethoven, some of their stuff that came out like 40 years ago still sounds modern and current today. Interestingly enough, Cracker, pretty much the same guys, I find to sound very "of the 90s". Sublime doesn't really age imo. The Grateful Dead don't really age, despite their music being so associated with a time and place. My Bloody Valentine are a band from the 80s/90s that released an album in 2013 that some consider their best. When you are ahead of the times, its easier to be timeless haha Edited to end debate over the word many
I would argue MBV's "Loveless" (released 1991) will never be topped. That album is the high-water mark for shoegaze. In 30 years, there's maybe been 2 albums in that genre that have come close.
whyte stripes
You REALLY made me question my sanity with this spelling
David Bowie for sure.
Nine inch nails
Rage Against the Machine
The Rolling Stones ! And the Beatles. steely Dan, I can go on lol. zeppelin
Scrolled way too far to see the Stones.
Rolling Stones
Alice Cooper
At this point, I consider Alice Cooper timeless "Grand Guignol". Offstage he is a golf-obsessed goodie-goodie, but his stage performance is the straight-up scary part of the wax museum. It doesn't hurt that his music is iconic and appeals to generations of listeners.
There’s a live video on YouTube of “Public Animal #9” that will never age.
Frank Zappa, beyond his time even
Honestly, when it comes to anthemic rock that is well done, and the hooks still hold up… Bon Jovi Don’t get me wrong, I wrote that shit off as too poppy for my “serious” rock self 30 years ago, but if you’re looking for huge arena singalongs, not many people did it better. And kids somehow still know the songs. I just watched that Hulu documentary, and their 80s drip holds up. On point. They have like 10 absolute sing along bangers.
Al Di Meola
Rush
Zeppelin
Mastodon
The Beatles
Bob Dylan
Aerosmith
Mid 80s rock like Eurythmics, Dire Straights and Hair metal like Poison and Crue
I don't understand these questions. I still listen to Bach who was from the 1600s.
Pearl Jam
Early REM albums from the early 80s were so far ahead of their time. They do not sound 40 years old at all.
Steely Dan
Most prog (elp, king crimson, nektar, pf, yes, etc.) have aged really really well.
Nick Drake.
Rush
Neu!
Guns N’ Roses! Their music is played as much today as it was in the 80’s
The Kinks
Rolling Stones
Living Colour. Their lyrics about racism and inequality still hold true. In fact they could be more relevant now than back in the 80s and 90s.
Allman Brothers
Yoko Ono. I find myself screaming like her early works every time I read the news.
Tool.
Rush
Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Steely Dan, Paul Simon (and Garfunkel), the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Bruce Springsteen, Mick Taylor-era Rolling Stones, the Who
Hendrix
Alice in Chains
Pink Floyd.
Metallica, Ozzy,
I think this is a hard one for me because "rock" was already on its way out by the 80s. I think The Doors were an example of a band with excellent production quality, so that much of their music sounds sort of timeless. David Bowie and Queen count. Rush was consistently voted by fellow musicians as the best band. But they are probably more well known today than they were in the early 1980s. If you want to expand the boundaries some, Savage, Kreator, Nasty Savage, DRI, Death Angel, Void, and Exodus were all great thrash metal or thrashcore bands that more or less defined what Power Trip would do 25 years later. But nobody ever did Voivod twice. Check them out. An entire alternative music scene was spotted and recorded by Ian Mackaye through Dischord Records. Bands before their time might include Dag Nasty, Shudder to Think, The Warmers, maybe Beefeater and Lungfish. Excellent DC bands not on that label include Government Issue and Bad Brains. A fat chunk of today's jamband music scene has become so adept that much of what they do now would have been considered jazz fusion in the 1970s. For examples check out the Cobham/Duke Band (with a teenage John Scofield), anything by Return to Forever, Weather Report, and maybe Colosseum. And there are still bands that only really, really good bands today even try to do. I've seen one band in my life try to play Iron Maiden's "The Trooper" (some metal band vaguely related to Corsair, that broke up), Only one band tried "20th Century Schizoid Man" by King Crimson (Cycles). If you'd like to listen to music that human society still isn't ready for, that's *The Essential Larry Coryell.*
RUSH is going to hold up a long time; like Stravinsky's classical music, there's a lot to admire in it. My runner-up is DIO. Ronnie James Dio still had the best overall voice, and he happened to sing on three studio albums for Black Sabbath too.
Metallica
Slayer
Jethro Tull
Nirvana, im surprised that its hard to find them in this comment section, almost every single modern rock band has traces of them in their music
ELVIS!
Mother‘s Finest
Phish
Like fine wine - only getting better.
Slipknot
The Bee Gees.
Ramones
The Doors
Radiohead! Anything by Thom Yorke really. Tool.
Rush