When Erol and I take a road trip toward Pittsburgh on business, we invariably get into a, “Name-that-Tune” contest. He has a remarkable recall for music and can identify the artist and song in no time (except the rap music, of course). This made me realize that I had never stopped to identify my top 10 bands. Based on a review of my CD collection, I identified that following as my top 10 list:
1. Alan Parsons Project
2. Electric Light Orchestra
3. Bruce Springsteen
4. Chicago
5. Cars
6. Grassroots
7. Earth, Wind & Fire
8. Three Dog Night
9. Eagles
10. Foreigner
The common threads that you’ll see (or more logically, hear) are:
a. These are all bands that hit their heyday during the 1970’s and 80’s
b. These would generally be considered to be progressive rock
c. They are all lead my a male vocal lead
d. They generally have more interesting orchestration such as synthesizers, saxophones, and violins
I never really liked the heavy metal groups such as AC/DC, Aerosmith, etc… I’ll always have the memories of the time I worked at Hara Arena as a 16 year-old kid selling programs at a Deep Purple concert, and watching all of the stoners run into the glass doors.