{"id":23519,"date":"2020-05-01T13:06:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-01T17:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=23519"},"modified":"2020-05-01T13:06:01","modified_gmt":"2020-05-01T17:06:01","slug":"critical-upgrade-cat-stevens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/critical-upgrade-cat-stevens\/","title":{"rendered":"Critical Upgrade: Cat Stevens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Is <strong>Cat Stevens<\/strong> worthy of a critical upgrade? I&#8217;m not suggesting that he get upgraded to the level of an early-1970s folk-rock legend, like <strong>Neil Young<\/strong> or <strong>Joni Mitchell<\/strong>, but would you rather listen to 5 Cat Stevens songs or 5 by <strong>Jackson Browne<\/strong>? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I can&#8217;t be the only person who would rather hear &#8220;Wild World&#8221; or &#8220;Peace Train&#8221; over possibly any <strong>James Taylor<\/strong> song excluding &#8220;Fire and Rain,&#8221; can I? Did our judgmental views over Cat&#8217;s conversion to Islam take him out of the running for the solid <em>respect<\/em> we allow for Sweet Baby James?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Yusuf \/ Cat Stevens - Wild World (Live, 1971)\" width=\"695\" height=\"521\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/P1b8z1h_rIs?feature=oembed&amp;wmode=opaque\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ll take it one step further, that step that inevitably leads me into a pile of cow manure: How great is the distance between Cat Stevens&#8217; peak period and the three albums <strong>Nick Drake<\/strong> released? What makes <strong>T. Rex<\/strong>&#8216;s bubblegum glam-folk peak that much better than Cat&#8217;s bubblegum-singer-songwriter records? How many smash hits away from a <em>Greatest Hits, vol. 2<\/em> was Stevens, which could have placed him in the realm of <strong>Elton John<\/strong>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ignore the preceding paragraph, but know that I put it out there as a straw dog, a sign of the confidence of have in my initial question. I sense music lovers have backed off from holding <strong>Yusef Islam<\/strong>&#8216;s religious beliefs against him. <em>Is it time we acknowledge that the guy was pretty good, even Rock Town Hall Foyer of Fame worthy?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Where&#8217;s <strong>Townsman hrrundivbakshi<\/strong> when we need him?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is Cat Stevens worthy of a critical upgrade? I&#8217;m not suggesting that he get upgraded to the level of an early-1970s folk-rock legend, like Neil Young or Joni Mitchell, but would you rather listen to 5 Cat Stevens songs or 5 by Jackson Browne? I can&#8217;t be the only person who would rather hear &#8220;Wild <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/critical-upgrade-cat-stevens\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[61,79],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23519"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23519\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}