{"id":23662,"date":"2020-06-12T10:47:04","date_gmt":"2020-06-12T14:47:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=23662"},"modified":"2020-06-23T08:34:07","modified_gmt":"2020-06-23T12:34:07","slug":"surefire-needle-lifters-in-an-artists-catalog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/surefire-needle-lifters-in-an-artists-catalog\/","title":{"rendered":"Surefire Needle-Lifters in an Artist&#8217;s Catalog"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Have you ever realized that there are artists you like who nevertheless have a surefire type of song on every album that you will likely skip? The most obvious example of this may be <strong>Paul McCartney<\/strong>&#8216;s patented &#8220;songs for me granny&#8221; on any Beatles album starting with <em>Sgt Pepper&#8217;s<\/em>. I&#8217;ve actually come to appreciate &#8220;Your Mother Should Know,&#8221; but I get it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For me, the first surefire needle-lifter that comes to mind are the two long rock ballads on any <strong>Mott the Hoople<\/strong> album. Were they pioneers in rock balladry? I know they often aspired to the sort of rambling songs Dylan used to turn <em>Blonde on Blonde<\/em> into a double album. Sometimes the results were decent, such as on &#8220;At the Crossroads.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"MOTT THE HOOPLE [Beat Club 3\/28\/70] At The Crossroads\" width=\"695\" height=\"391\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/MckzU5B3FPw?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>Too often, however, these efforts resulted in the kind of ponderous rock balladry that original Mott guitarist <strong>Mick Ralphs<\/strong> and his new bandmates in <strong>Bad Company<\/strong> would specialize in. From there, it&#8217;s just a hop, skip, and a jump to Bon Jovi.<\/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=\"Ballad of Mott The Hoople\" width=\"695\" height=\"521\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sJeU37u6kU8?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>With the exception of Mott&#8217;s cover of &#8220;Your Own Backyard,&#8221; which does pick up steam, I&#8217;m skipping the Mott ballads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>How about you and the catalog of an artist you dig?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have you ever realized that there are artists you like who nevertheless have a surefire type of song on every album that you will likely skip? The most obvious example of this may be Paul McCartney&#8216;s patented &#8220;songs for me granny&#8221; on any Beatles album starting with Sgt Pepper&#8217;s. I&#8217;ve actually come to appreciate &#8220;Your <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/surefire-needle-lifters-in-an-artists-catalog\/' 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":[296],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23662"}],"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=23662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23662\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}