The Earworm Podcast - Episode 5 Put Some Rank on It! GOATs?

On episode five of The Earworm Podcast, Bryan and Patrick dive into the strange world of rankings, lists, and “greatest of all time” debates—especially in music. From Billboard charts and Rolling Stone album lists to Michelin stars and classic rock canon, the conversation explores how authority, perception, and cultural bias shape the way we value art. The hosts question whether subjective experiences like music, pizza, or guitars can ever truly be ranked objectively, while unpacking the psychology behind why audiences trust lists in the first place

Episode 5 also examines how social proof, streaming culture, and editorial influence impact modern music discovery and legacy. Along the way, Bryan and Patrick debate what defines genres like rock music, discuss iconic examples ranging from James Cameron films to David Gilmour’s legendary Stratocaster, and break down why lists often say more about the people creating them than the art itself. Equal parts thoughtful and hilarious, the episode ultimately celebrates the joy of finding your own musical tribe instead of letting rankings decide for you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Top ten greatest albums of all time. The miseducation of Lauren Hill, number 10.

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Number nine is Blood on the Track by Bob Dylan.

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Number eight, Purple Rain. Prince.

SPEAKER_02 0:09

Seven, rumors, Fleetwood Mac. Six, nevermind, Nirvana. Number five is Abbey Road from the Beatles. Four, Songs in the Key of Life, Stevie Wonder. Three is Blue from Joni Mitchell. Two, Pet Sounds, Beach Boys. Number one. What's Goin On by Marvin Gay?

SPEAKER_01 0:26

What is going on? Who made this list?

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Top 10 list. I don't know, so I've got to listen to Here Warm. Stuck in my mind. Can't get it out this time.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

Oh, we'll tell you.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Ivansa ahead.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

Welcome to Earworm episode five, where today we're talking about lists, ranks, charts, all of the things that you look at in magazines and go, hmm, how did they do that?

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Yeah, exactly. What's the psychology behind us ranking bands in this manner? Absurdly so.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

Right. And I think there's a lot of good information out there about it. I the first thing that I think about is, you know, the best pizza in the world. There's every city in this country that you go to and you see a pizzeria, best pizza in town, best number one pizza in the region. Now there are lots of different Dave Portnoys out there, everybody doing their thing, doing pizza rankings, but there is always the self-reviewed pizza joint that likes to put their stats out there. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Just like there's a restaurant that's down the road from where we live and it's Asian and it says number one Chinese.

SPEAKER_02 1:42

It's the real name. It's called number one Chinese.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

I mean, the balls is pretty impressive. I've never seen number two. I ate there once, and that was all it took for me to never go back.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

Yeah. It's on the top 500 for Brian, but it's deep. Kind of like First Baptist Church, though. And you know, you have all these all these different uh associated numbers to ranking churches and food and all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

That's right. Yeah, you always see like, you know, Premier Club. You never see like penultimate club or something, you know, it's like, we're number two, we're good. Which is weird because statistically, if you think about Peter Drucker, who wrote uh The Executive in Action, one of the great think minds of managerial uh he was a managerial guru, right, in the 50s and 60s. But he was the one who kind of predicted that we were going to be moving from a goods-based economy to an information-based economy. And he basically said that once we transition into information-based economy, that there's no such thing as wealth. All it's doing is just shifting. We're not generating anything new. And it but it was fascinating because his whole point in executive action was this, and this is not a divergent. Um basically what this meant was that who comes in second often does better in metrics and performance-based, because why? They didn't have to sync as much cost in RD as number one did. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 3:01

Right. So their cost structure changes significantly.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Now, there's a certain amount of that that goes along in the music business. But what we're really dil differentiating or trying to do at least between is uh commerce and the humanities. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Right. Art and music.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Yeah, we were talking about quantitative versus qualitative.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Yeah, money and music. You know, that whole thing. And I gotta say, j I have nothing against Marvin Gaye, by the way. That number one, I mean, hey, I love that album. Yeah. I love it. And I know Bob Olson who engineered that album, and they almost didn't put it out. They the only reason why that single got put out is because Barry Gordy was busy at Motown in LA and he recorded that in Detroit. Wow. Yeah. Because Barry Gordy was like, we're not doing social we we make black music for white people, and let's keep it at that. And he knew exactly how profitable it was, but he was in LA doing Motown LA, and Marvin was up for another uh record, and he came in and did What's Going On.

SPEAKER_02 4:01

Yeah, and I think that song charted quite well. Oh my god, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Can you imagine waking up to that if you're Barry Gordy going, What the you know?

unknown 4:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

And uh I think it's interesting to talk about charts and rankings, and we're I know we're gonna get into a lot of the psychology of it today and some of the we're gonna talk about some of the lists that have been out there. Uh but I think obviously we like to start with a little bit of a story about where it all came from. So uh early 19 teens, Billboard was releasing charts for jazz and Big Ben and musicians to be able to come by. And we had talked in previous episodes that a hundred years ago there was much more of people playing instruments at home, and and there was a lot more of musicianship within the household than there is now. And the commonality there is the the chart, the charts that people would go buy was the was how they understood how music was performing.

SPEAKER_03 4:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:51

And like so you they would have a list of all the charts and how well they sold, and all of a sudden it's the billboard charts charts. So it only took a few years before music was getting put on the jukebox, it was getting wax pressed and being sold at record stores, and then by 1940, they had created this billboard chart of all of the rankings of music sales from all of those different things. So they get an amalgam of all of the different ways that music is paid for and consumed, put it together and create their list there. Yeah. Now there was no editorial part there. This is this is why it's the charts, and this is why people still use it today. 1958, the hot 40. Then you started getting top 40 music based off of the billboard charts. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

And then creations of new charts, right? Where they redefined certain things like the race charts, the race records were now redefined as RB.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

Bluegrass is now rolled into countries. Exactly. And you know, hopefully eventually, as we talked about on episode one, maybe there's an AI chart eventually.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

It's coming, it's coming. It's coming. I feel like it's got to. It's got to because there's gonna be too much malpractice.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

Yeah. Go back to episode one if you haven't listened to it, because it's a really interesting uh discussion.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Yeah, we go way deep.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

And we're gonna do a follow-up to that one too, because even just last night at the show, the event that we went to, it's like we're talking more and more about AI and the economy of effort. Yeah. Where it's like humanity understands effort and sees it, and that's something that can be identified, and you can't see the effort if a computer is just making the music. But that's a whole other conversation that I thought was totally fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

I agree, I totally agree. I think every six months we're gonna have to do a follow-up because it's gonna double in power. And we'll be talking about all kinds of crazy things. But how does one go about trying to say Jimmy Page is the greatest guitar player of all time? Or who is the greatest band of all time? You know? And I'll be like that triumph the dog answer, which is no, no, no, no. The correct answer is not the Beatles, but who gives a shit?

SPEAKER_02 6:50

Yeah, yeah, right. Well, and and truly, like if you don't trust where your sis where your where the information is coming from, anybody can say it's the greatest band in the world. You know? I think Pink Floyd's the greatest band in the world. But there's a lot of people that would disagree with me, you know?

SPEAKER_01 7:07

Yeah, but but but a lot of people would agree with you too. Sure. Yeah. So you didn't pick a reference, you know, it's not like you said, I think the butthole surfers are the greatest band in the world.

SPEAKER_02 7:16

Aaron Powell That's a controversial Right. That's an unpopular opinion, is what I would say.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Right. And by the way, that album, Live PCP Pep, for those of you who uh might be butthole surfer fans, uh probably one of the worst records I've ever heard in my life.

SPEAKER_02 7:29

Aaron Powell It's a live record?

SPEAKER_01 7:30

It's a live record, and it's awful.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

I've heard some pretty awful live recordings from great bands.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

Right. Yeah. So I think that those are fun lists. Worst albums of all time. Worst live performance album of all time.

SPEAKER_02 7:42

That could be a really great deep dive. But the worst albums of all time. I I don't even know where to start. I think of Whomp There It Is in the Macarena. Like that's where my bottom is. You know?

SPEAKER_01 7:51

I think of Michael Jackson's bad, even though it sold 33 million copies. So many copies. I thought it was aptly titled. Bad. Yeah. I was like, right, they nailed it.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

What's the what's uh so bad was the the single. What else was on? I don't even know.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

Uh wasn't the way you make me feel, wasn't that on there?

SPEAKER_02 8:09

Oh, it could be.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

Yeah, it was on bad.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Yeah. The girl in the video, beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 8:13

That was the best part. That was the best part, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Just beautiful, long, luscious hair, curly. Oh, she was so pretty.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

So why why is it that we tend to want to gravitate towards somebody's opinion of a the greatest or a list or a ranking? Like what is it about human nature that sizes us into the puts us into this corner to say, I need somebody to tell me.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

Please explain. I think I think we have the new the way our brains are wired is we have this thing, and that's been there's a branch of psychology that's called the cognitive load theory. And basically what it is is a shorthand way of saying it, it's very diverse. But for an idiot musician like myself, this is the way I interpret it. I'm using it itself, I'm using the very theory against itself. Which is I'm taking this cognitive load theory and going, okay, how can I reduce a very complex thing into something very easy that I can do in rows and in ranks that way, you know? So by doing that, I'm able to assign a value judgment on it and make order out of seemingly chaos.

SPEAKER_02 9:17

Right. So just dumbing it down to the lowest denominator, really. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting that you say row as the designation because the etymology of rank is the French translation of row. That's right. So very cool. So our Simeon brains just can't even comprehend some of these larger concepts, right? So to say these are all of the different parameters that uh that that we use to judge this record, we really just need somebody to take those things for us. Yeah. As just as because of our brains, just it's too much for a lot of people. So they just distill it down to just the very, very basic.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

So then they can rank it and say, these are our 10.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Yeah. And so then we go, well, how what's your metrics? What's your basis? How do you do it? There's usually two, you know, you can just like totally cleave this whole puzzle into two right there by saying it's either going to be off objective metrics, aka album sold, streams per you know, quarter, one. Exactly. Right. Yeah, Todd Stores was doing that. Yeah. So yeah, that or it's it's cultural. It's it's uh it's a je n'a sequoi. It's it's something that's harder to pin down, but it's one that most people will go, yeah, that's a very important album, you should know it. And then they start trying to split hairs, going, well, why is why is Dark Side of the Moon worth more in this poll than the wall is?

SPEAKER_02 10:36

Yeah, do they have like cultural relevance? Yeah. Right? Right. You know, the climate that it's released to, right. Uh how many instruments are played on it? How much money do they spend to make it? Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

How old is the album and how old are the people making the chart making these lists?

SPEAKER_02 10:52

Yeah, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Right? It does make a big difference. Oh shit, my I mean my 18-year-old is gonna have a wacky different interpretation of the five greatest albums.

SPEAKER_02 11:02

The soundtrack to Red Dead Redemption, you know what I mean? Stuff like that. Totally, man.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

Yeah, he's gonna be like Playboy Cardi, man, number one. You know? Okay. You know, so how do we how do we make sense of it and what stood the test over time? So um there's a huge discrepancy. So what we did earlier is we sort of looked at two basic lists. We looked at um uh the built the Rolling Stone list of the 500 albums, the greatest albums of all time. Yep. Right. And we read the top ten at the beginning of the show. Uh and then there's a whole other one which is sort of based off of sales of albums, yeah. Period.

SPEAKER_02 11:40

And you would be interested to see how varying I was very interested to see how varying it was. Yeah. Where you have albums that are that are in the top 100 or in the but they're in the top ten. Let's say they're in the top ten of record sales for the for the decade. They're not even on the best record list. Right. But they sold a lot of records. Yeah. But the records weren't good. Yeah. Like Michael Jackson's Bad was a great example. We talked about that one already. 30 million records, yeah. Not even on the top 100. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

Right. In the Rolling Stone list. That's right. That's right. So let's let's look about that because what we have is we have this issue of social proof. In other words, like an authority bias. So social proof and authority bias would be like Rolling Stone, who's known for making it, or JD Powers and Associates, or what's the one for uh restaurants? Oh, like the Michelin stars. Exactly. You know, those types of goes where they you know, you get a five-star review, and then all of a sudden it do they go that high? Five stars? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 12:34

No, it's well it it's by star. If you get one Michelin star, it's exceptional. Okay. So even getting one Michelin star.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

What if you get like a point of a star?

SPEAKER_02 12:42

There's uh they have Bib Gourmand, which is a an award that's given to people that not quite make the Michelin star, but it's more of in a casual Right. More of a casual setting.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Kind of more of a like polite pat on the back.

SPEAKER_02 12:52

Yeah, you're not getting a sandwich shop is not gonna get a Michelin star typically. What? That would be more of a an award that they would give to say, hey, you should go there.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

Right.

SPEAKER_02 12:59

And Michelin's an interesting one because that evolved out of literal tire sales.

unknown 13:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

It's literally the same company. Yeah. The Michelin man. Yeah. And it was about their map that they would make for people to go around the country and then they would put stars to the restaurants that people should stop at. So that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

What kind of crazy shit is that? Yeah. That's amazing. And what a genius marketing plan. And people people bought in and subscribed to it. But what music were they listening to?

SPEAKER_02 13:24

Yeah, that's that's the question. What were they cranking?

SPEAKER_01 13:27

That's right. What was on your jam list, man? Okay, so when we look at the discrepancy of it, I mean, can we uh evaluate uh in an objective way what is the best of anything? No. Is it possible? I don't think so either. Unless we're just looking at something that is um uh uh inherently metric based, like units sold. Right.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

And that's a different chart. It's a way different chart. That's most records sold.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Yeah. I mean, like movies, I wouldn't necessarily consider uh Titanic in my any list for me. I just I loathe that movie.

SPEAKER_02 14:04

Um What did James Cameron do to you?

SPEAKER_01 14:06

He did nothing to me. I dig James Cameron. But but Titanic, I don't know. I'm so over Titanic. There's a lot going on with that still. Dude, just let it I mean the the very fact that whatever that recently The deep water or the the the probe that we're Yeah, like if there are people are still trying to dig up the ghosts of Titanic. It's at the bottom of the fucking ocean. Just let it stay there. That's right. Like I mean, I don't know. I have no opinion on the matter.

SPEAKER_02 14:35

Obviously. I don't know. You have a rough museum visit or something.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Right? Oh my lord. But anyway, so yeah, but I mean I wouldn't put that on my list. And there are other people that would go, absolutely. And the amount of money spent, remember how grossly over budget it was. Oh, yeah. And and but then it recouped it all against all odds.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

With three major releases over the year. Yeah, yeah. So it's and then it was also a time when people would go to the theaters. It was one of the last big movies that came out that people were actually going to the theater to see. So there was a lot of ticket stubs, you know. Yep. So we got to see we got to see kind of the last gas, but then it was like the biggest DVD, the biggest at VHS uh for years. It was crazy. So long. And people would argue it is the best movie ever made.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Oh my lord. It's not your favorite movie. No, I can't even be in the room with those folks. Because there, I mean, there's so many other great films. Anyway, but yeah. But if we're just looking at box office revenue, uh, I mean, I'm sure James Cameron is gonna occupy a majority of the top ten. He's like the Beatles for movies.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

With Terminator and Avatar and Aliens, and I mean there's just so much. And he's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

Yeah, and I so you know, no disrespect in any way. I just hate the subject matter of Titanic. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

I'm not a big advocate. There's no mystery. You know, like there's no mystery. Like, will they survive? You know.

SPEAKER_03 15:57

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Anyway, yeah, you know. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

Anyway, so uh so this is like making it. It's hard to do it's the best of anything, the greatest of all time, the best of anything, is just an impossible task. I just because nobody's gonna have the congruence that's necessary to be able to think that way. Maybe maybe Pluribus happens and we all have a hive mind and we all land on the same belief that these things mean the exact same thing. Yeah. But from person to person, it's different. You have a favorite band, I have a favorite, they're not the same band. That's right. You know, we have our greatest ten. I guarantee you my top ten albums are not the same as yours. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

But I think you're I think you're right.

SPEAKER_02 16:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

And that and you know what though, that's what I love about it. Because this kind of gets back into that idea of social proof and authority, is that when you have a a body of some sort, whether it's you know, the RIAA or whether it's the USDA or whether it's you know, whatever, the American Dental Association. The FCC. The FCC. You know what I mean? Um We love USC. We love you. Yeah. Um but like if you're into that whole thing and then they come out with a list of approved items or a ranking of like this is the best and this is the the worst, it does influence your belief system, not just your pocketbook and you know what I mean? Because you have to be influenced upstairs first before you're gonna reach into your hip pocket to pull out some plastic or some cash.

SPEAKER_02 17:21

That's exactly right. And we we mentioned Michelin stars. I want to eat at a Michelin's at a Michelin star restaurant. I want to try all of them. Right. You know, because that's the standard, that is the gold standard. And there's a difference between the gold standard, right, and everybody else. Yeah. So the authority bias, you're right, it's that people do look to Rolling Stone, probably not as much as they used to, but look to Rolling Stone to tell them where they should try and spend their money. And when it comes down to like the consumption of it all, right, these lists influence commerce.

SPEAKER_03 17:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:51

So when you have a good authority, and they can put out, give them their opinion, and if your values align with that publication, you might align with the things that they're saying. But there's a lot of times where I look at Rolling Stones list and I'm going, I don't like any of it. Right. Right? Not that I don't love all of those records are great. Yeah. But are there better? Yeah. To me, yes.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

Okay. So let's explain. You made a really funny term when we were discussing this. You were talking about the Freddy Krueger effect.

SPEAKER_02 18:18

Yeah, what's the Freddy Krueger effect? What is that?

SPEAKER_01 18:20

Tell everybody what that is.

SPEAKER_02 18:21

Uh so the Dunning Krueger effect is when you have somebody that doesn't really know much about anything shouts the loudest about what they're the authority on it. Yeah. So though it's almost like the less someone knows, the louder they get, or the more they're opinionated. They're overconfident. Or overconfident, right? And a lot and you called it the troll effect, which I thought was really funny because the way that the curve is shaped is so you have someone that knows a little bit is way more dangerous than somebody that knows nothing.

SPEAKER_03 18:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:50

Because the person that knows nothing has no opinion. Right. But then you try to talk to somebody that actually knows what they're talking about, and they just look at them like they're an idiot.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

Yeah. Well, and the troll effect's very real, y'all, because I remember when we had um a friend of mine, uh Adam Fleur, and I basically sold an amp for one of his friends, and it was a it was a a Dumble. It was an Overdrive special. Nice amp. Right. And so I called Premier Guitar, I was like, hey, we've got this overdrive special. It's a very rare amp, for those of you who don't know. They're upwards of $750,000 now. Yeah. Because but by the time we sold it, Dumble was alive, but you know, now they're even more.

SPEAKER_02 19:28

Um and what a quick history lesson on Dumble, though. I mean Stevie Ray was the first that like That was the most popular player, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:35

He was the well, yes, outside the LA studio scene because you certainly had Carlton and you had um uh Rittenauer and you had a lot of the A-list guys, of which this particular amp that we were selling was out of that pedigree.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

This amp was recorded on the majority of Mike Post's um theme songs. So the A-Team, Simon and Simon, Hill Street Blues. It was also in uh the sessions for um Weird Science, the movie, and a lot of James Cameron's movies. So this AMP was very well documented and recorded in the Trevor Burrus.

SPEAKER_02 20:08

And as and as we talked about recently, documented amps and amps that have owned or gear that have owned, there is such a pad between just it being a good example of it.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Aaron Powell That's right. Right. Right. We'll have to circle back to the gilboard. Well, yeah. So like but like um when we sold it, we sold it to uh, you know, uh a Russian oligarch, literally. Um I mean he wired in we sold it for $100 a thousand dollars and he wired it in cash. And we sold it, literally shipped it to Moscow. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

Was it RuPaul's?

SPEAKER_01 20:39

Uh I don't know how they did the conversion. I don't know, it's a don't ask.

SPEAKER_02 20:43

You know, I don't ask questions. I don't either.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

But I was like, hey, here's your money. You know, and we just did it bros. We didn't do a commission or anything else for those of you who might think, what did you make on it, Brian? We made zero because we love our our friend who I won't mention. But anyway, so we sold the amp, and what Premier Guitar came out and we're like, we played the amp a little bit. What we didn't have is the Dumble effects loop. So the the Dumblator is what it's called. It's a tube buffered effects loop. And if you don't have that, that amp does not sound like you think it does. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 21:13

Are those later examples of his amplifiers? No, it's not.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

They had it, he had it all the way through.

SPEAKER_02 21:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

So um it was one of those things like Robin Ford still has his dumblator. And when you listen to his amp without the dumblator, you're like, it doesn't sound good. And it didn't, it sounded like a bad twin to me. Um so we were playing it, and I couldn't get the tone that I knew a dumbbell could give because we didn't have the magic thing that nobody thinks about. It was just a head. The troll factor came out of these guys fucking suck. They can't play anything. Man, my crate amp sounds better than that amp. I mean, it got brutal. But that's the part of your Freddy Kruger, the you know, the the Dunning Kruger uh what is it again?

SPEAKER_02 21:52

The Dunning Kruger. The Dunning Kruger. You know, and it's funny because those trolls had never played one before. Of course. You've never been able to play one. Nobody gets to I mean, it's Rare. It's very rare. I've been very fortunate enough to be able to play through a few different ones, but uh but you're right. It is it's it's a crazy thing. So that's when you start looking at publications that are putting out these greatest hits, these greatest lists, these this is the greatest of all time. And they have no history or they have no uh uh common opinions with you to be able to like actually draw you in to doing these, and they're shouting loud, they're taking big swings, you know.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

So but then the more so it is like that. I mean the Dunning Kruger effect is really, really cool because when you do start doing anything for the first time and you get reasonably proficient at it and you have a first uh taste of success, you are wildly overconfident until you start to go down for a little bit, and then you realize, oh shit, that was kind of beginner's luck. Now I gotta really do some work before you work your way up to being an expert. And the expert has the earned confidence. Right. Right? They're not trying to prove anything to anybody, right? And and I think that that's the the beauty of it all. So uh that's a big part of these lists. It's like where are we on this curve when this list was made? Not only by uh the culture at the time, but also the people that were putting the list together, where were they on that journey? Because they were all probably at different points on the Dunning Kruger curve.

SPEAKER_02 23:19

Absolutely, you know, and you know, also looking at charting and looking at and and um that concept is music is consumed differently now.

SPEAKER_03 23:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:32

So in the last five years, it's totally changed, and it's totally changed the industry on how you want to produce music and how you want to put it out. You know, so uh there's not a lot of artists putting out full albums at a time anymore. Right. It's one song here, one song there, one song here, and then they'll put the three songs on an EP, but it's already been out. It's not anything new, they just title it something else. Yeah, so you have ways to manipulate the charts because you've had these songs out, but then you can call it an album later, right? It gets on it's so it's it's kind of a an interesting thing to see. Because the top 100 records, the top five hundred records, there's a lot of music coming out now that's never gonna be on those lists.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

Right, exactly. Right. Yeah. Uh I mean, okay, so let's let's think about this. Would you pay sixteen and a half million dollars for David Gilmore's Black Strat?

SPEAKER_02 24:24

No.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

Why not?

SPEAKER_02 24:26

Because sixteen and a half million well, it's fourteen and a half, I think. Oh, was it fourteen and a half? Regardless, it's an uh it's an absurd amount of money for a guitar, it's the most ever paid. Okay. Most ever paid for a guitar. Right. Uh Ursay bought it in 2019 for four, sold it for 14 and a half after he passed recently, which is his estate, yeah. Um and he also sold a lot of guitars, the lot of cool guitars that he had been hoarding uh for a bit. Yeah. Uh but right, I would not pay $14.5 million for a strat unless I had a billion dollars and I wanted David Gilmore's strat because I do love David Gilmore.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

Okay, so this is kind of what I think we're getting to, and that is this that there's a difference between perceived values, objective values, and then the experienced values.

SPEAKER_02 25:11

Aaron Ross Powell Perceived, objective, and experienced values. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

Right. Because perception is this is David Gilmore's strat. Huge worth.

SPEAKER_03 25:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

Right? Huge value. But the objective value is what will it bring in the marketplace? Not knowing what the Gavel price would eventually be. So if it's 14 and a half mil, on that same day, they sold Jerry Garcia's Tiger guitar, the one that he played forever and ever, that you know everyone knows. If you're a Grateful Dead fan, you know what the Tiger guitar is.

SPEAKER_02 25:45

11 and a half.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

Eleven and a half for that. So three million dollar difference. Three million dollar difference. Okay, so now if we compare the two, is on the experience value quotient is uh the tiger guitar playing three million dollars less than what David's strat would have been, what Gilmore's strat would have been?

SPEAKER_02 26:07

You know, I think it an even more extreme version of the question is Prince's Cloud guitar sold on the same auction for six hundred thousand dollars.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

There you go.

SPEAKER_02 26:18

That's to me, that's that's almost as iconic as Tiger did you know it's well I know why that that one sold for so much less, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

Why is that? Because there's no case.

SPEAKER_02 26:29

There's no case with it, you gotta have the original case.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

It doesn't fit in the overhead.

SPEAKER_02 26:35

That's funny. And I mean a case for that one's a weird one to come by anyway.

SPEAKER_01 26:38

Oh my lord, can you imagine? It'd be like hauling around a like a two by like a like a four by eight, you know, plank of and Home Depot of plywood. I mean, it's just like crazy.

SPEAKER_02 26:47

So let's talk about uh objective, objective uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

So the objective part would be something that you're gonna be able to go, okay, uh, what's the measurable value of this, right? That that no one can dispute.

SPEAKER_02 27:00

Aaron Ross Powell Is it gonna but that's not the is it gonna make my rig sound better though?

unknown 27:04

No.

SPEAKER_02 27:05

Where does that fall? Is that perceived value?

SPEAKER_01 27:06

Aaron Powell Yeah, that's perceived value. That's you going, if I if I buy uh Eric Johnson's Stratocaster and his whole signal chain, his vintage Marshall's and you know the whole thing I'm gonna sound like and we Right. And we all know and anybody that's got a guitar and ever had a chance to play their hero's signal signal chain or actually play their hero's guitar, you will not sound like them.

SPEAKER_02 27:30

I promise.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

That is a guarantee. Like that is objective.

SPEAKER_02 27:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

You will not sound like them. So but but the but then the experience of having the same gear that your heroes have, like, oh, I've got my you know, strat that's uh or whatever, I've got the you know the the 59 Les Paul, okay, that's great. But is the 59 Les Paul worth $2 million, you know, or more, depending upon the condition. But like, you know, is it worth $2 million more than uh a $6,000 Murphy lab aged uh you know $59 Les Paul?

SPEAKER_02 28:10

Well I think it has to do with what's the precise job that it's gonna be used for. It's like if there is a use case that is like it has to be that guitar from that year with these strings and this cable and this amp has to be that. Then it's I mean, there's it's number one. There is invaluable.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

I think it so so that's the idea. So the objective part starts to fall away because there's a great guitar player here in Nashville, Jack Pearson. And and a lot of guitar players, including myself, are big fans of Jack. He makes everything sound like God. I mean, it's just he's just he's got great hands and he's just he's a great singer. He's just a very humble human being. He's one of those hometown heroes that never made it big. Even though he's played with the Almond Brothers and Government Mule and you know a lot of other things. Um he's just such a fabulous musician. You know what his number one guitar is that you'll see him play? Tell me it's a squire. It is. No, it's it is yes, it is a purple squire stratocaster.

SPEAKER_02 29:11

Wow, that's a good guess.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

And he makes it sound like Jesus just is sitting on stage, just you know, working miracles. It's amazing. So to me, that's the whole point. It's like, okay, well, if you want to put 14.5 million dollars into buying that, now chances are the guy who bought it is gonna be some private collector that you know that's gonna be might have been the same guy that we sold that amp to. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 29:35

We may never see that guitar again.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

That's what yeah, right. They'll squirrel it away, it'll never get played except on, you know, a rare occasion, and somebody goes, ooh, that's cool, or you bring somebody famous over and go, hey, I got something for you to check out. It's a bragging ride, it's a dick swing. You know, and it's like, come on, man. Like but now we're musicians.

SPEAKER_02 29:55

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

If we were right, if we were motorheads, you know, we'd want to see the cars driven and not locked in a in an auto museum and never in on a you know a trickler so the battery stays charged, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:08

It's like And I'll tell you, I found I've been in this in in the MI industry a long time. I found that the people at the bottom of the Dunning Kruger effect are the ones spending the most money on guitars.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

Uh-huh. Yeah. So you're saying what are you saying?

SPEAKER_02 30:22

What I'm saying is like entry-level players that just have the dream of owning cool guitars are the ones that buy the most expensive guitars. Yeah. You know, there's players that are pros that I'm not seeing go in and buy, you know, flashy custom shop guitars and vintage guitars. Well, sometimes vintage guitars, but it's typically on the theory. It's player grade.

SPEAKER_01 30:39

It's um it's when the it's within a player grade radius of a vintage guitar. I mean, that's how I buy them. Sure. You know, I'm not interested in an heirloom quality vintage guitar. Because I'm gonna play it. Right.

SPEAKER_02 30:50

I want it to be played.

SPEAKER_01 30:51

Yeah. Yeah. Right? Use it. Yeah. So but that's the idea. So now we have perceived value, what you know, and then we have the experience of the value, of where we place the value, right? The experience of how well did the guitar play, or how did the did this record make you feel better. I mean, uh the thing that was so strange uh on this billboard, I'm sorry, on the Rolling Stone chart was that Matt that uh Sergeant Pepper wasn't on the list. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 31:17

Yeah, was it like 24 or something like that? Right.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

Way like not on the top ten. Yeah. Right? And then you but Abbey Road was. Yeah. Right? That was in the top ten.

SPEAKER_02 31:27

Yeah, and then Revolver was like 11 or something like that. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

And then Revolver. I I mean, those are generally speaking, and here's where we get to maybe some sense of false objective perception that uh those three records are generally, most people will say, the best Beatles albums. Right. On a general level.

SPEAKER_02 31:44

My favorite one's one. The red one from the nineties, late nineties, and they remastered everything. Got a lot of good songs on that one.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

There's a lot of good songs on that one.

SPEAKER_02 31:56

I think all of the songs that are good on those three records are on that one. Or all the songs that we love.

SPEAKER_01 32:00

Yep. But that's that's you know so okay. So then w how did we how do we figure out why did why did Abbey Road rank higher than Revolver or Sgt. Pepper? You know?

SPEAKER_02 32:11

Aaron Ross Powell I can't explain it because there is no qualifier to say this is how we scored it, to say and where and why we scored it the way that we did. And back on experience, experience can be a collective thing in a lot of ways, but it's also a very intimate individual thing. So it's even more of a disparity of how you score something like that. Yeah. Because you have shared experiences, but you also have you know very personal experiences that you grade things on. You know?

SPEAKER_01 32:36

Aaron Ross Powell I think I totally couldn't agree more. And that's where what a kind of a disservice, what kind of academic malpractice is it for someone like a Rolling Stone to just go, well, this is it. And then we don't have the methodology of why they did it. Now, to be fair, they did disclose that they did this as a as a uh a survey that they gave out to 300 industry experts, and they were diversified, so it wasn't like you know, uh a particular slant for you know middle-aged white dudes or whatever to go in and make these value judgments, right?

SPEAKER_02 33:13

So I got it but I still think it's too small to say the greatest. It's too small of a sample size, even 300. I mean, f Family Feud is they asked 100 people, you know, and it's not even that great of a cross-section. You get 300 people to give them opinions, and it's still editorial to me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

Yeah. Yeah. I have problems with with all ranking words like ultimate. Yes. You know, it's what does that even mean? Yeah, those types of that language is one of the things that I think generates the whole reason why we're even having this discussion today. Yeah, just finite language. End of story, period.

SPEAKER_02 33:51

Case closed, no more talking.

SPEAKER_01 33:53

Yeah. And it has to be so narrowly defined in order for that to be true. Like this is the greatest selling album of all time. That's easy. Right. Stats. It's just truth. That's it. Right. Right? But you want to go full baseball mode and figure out who the best pitcher is over the entire you know what I mean? It's that. Yeah. Right? I agree. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:12

So you can say who's got the most home runs.

SPEAKER_01 34:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 34:16

You can say who's got the best ERA or the most strikeouts. Yeah. That's an easy thing to do. But to say Babe Roos the best baseball player to ever live, it's it's a fallacy. Right.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

Because things things change, everything's always in motion.

SPEAKER_02 34:29

Yeah.

unknown 34:29

Right.

SPEAKER_02 34:30

It's like he was the best player.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

Many times he's been ranked as. He has been ranked as. I can even hang with that.

SPEAKER_02 34:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

You know? But to say it is in an authoritative way, I don't know, man. So now you're you're sort of like m Noam Chomsky, who's one of the great, you know, very, very left-wing, but but uh but as a linguist, he was made some incredible contributions to the field. And but in his uh early days, he wrote a uh a book called Manufacturing Consent. The Manufacture of Consent. And the whole idea is that um that it w people in a position of authority can essentially manufacture a belief set that others describe to. I mean, we see it right now politically, and that's exactly what he was on about way back when. Sure. Is just saying this is the problem, you know, manufacture of consent. And then he he goes even further to talk about the concision of television. So and and his whole he posited this, and I think totally correctly, if you if you when you know like if you look at something like a Jimmy Fallon or uh any late-night talk show host, and they get someone on that has some serious weight that isn't an entertainer or a musician or some type of personality, but is like a politician or a Nobel-winning scientist or you know, an economist of some sort, anything that's like that, and you try to and they'll ask, they'll volley a very complex question, and then they'll be kind of just starting to get into the framing of the answer, and they'll be like, all right, and next up on our list, we've got, you know, Kid Rock is gonna be playing.

SPEAKER_02 35:59

Where they just tuned out.

SPEAKER_01 36:00

Yeah. Well, the concision of television is if you can't express an idea in 30 seconds or less, you're fucked. You're not gonna be able to do it. And that's the big thing that I think a lot of people have to prepare for, and that's why something like a Donald Trump, you know, has a has a tremendous effect, because he just goes stupid, losa, you know, he does that whole thing. And even though it's complete completely bonkers, um, and I'm not just railing on Donald Trump, don't get me wrong. I'm just saying, just using this as an example. But I mean, that is like, you know, that type of language, it can be effective, but it doesn't address the complexity of the issue.

SPEAKER_02 36:36

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah, he's a very succinct, uh oral threatening person in that way.

SPEAKER_01 36:43

Aaron Powell Yeah, there's there's something about very succinct. Yeah. Makes it quick. You're stupid, you know? Aaron Ross Powell Right. And then and you you realize that what he really reveals is the opposite.

SPEAKER_02 36:53

Yeah. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: It's like looking in a mirror.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

Trevor Burrus, yeah. So I think but but that's the thing. So um when we get into like how we manufacture the consent, that idea of being in a position of authority like Rolling Stone, and you're coming out and you're saying, look, uh Abbey Road is worth more on our list than Revolver or Sgt. Pepper. I don't know why we're talking to these Beatles. We could do this with a lot of other people that were repeat rankings, you know, Prince, uh John Cougar, you know, Nirvana was with Metallica. Metallica. Look, okay, case in point. Favorite Metallica album? Master Puppet. Same. No question for me. That's objective. I'm kidding. But you know what I mean? Like, see, that's where the fallacy comes in, right? Exactly. Right. But I mean, do I love the other records? Yes, except Death Magnetic. But you know, like Too Loud. Too loud. Too loud. But like, uh yeah, we love all the other records, but that one's my favorite one.

SPEAKER_02 37:49

Yeah. But what did they say was the best?

SPEAKER_01 37:52

Uh uh Kill Em All.

SPEAKER_02 37:54

Kill Em All.

SPEAKER_01 37:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:55

Which is a thrash record. It's not even Metallica in their Metallica-iness.

SPEAKER_01 37:59

Yeah, it's almost like Proto-Metallica. Right.

SPEAKER_02 38:02

What a what a what a funny conversation for that. So like rapid fire. Let's go at it. Uh top five top five rock records for you. Rock records?

SPEAKER_01 38:13

I'm just going to give it to you and tell you. Okay. Rock records. Woo. Okay. I don't know if I can list them probably in order in top, but I can say top five. Okay. Okay. No, no particular order. No particular order in this case. Pretty challenging. That's hard. And then the question is what's the psychology by why that's a hard decision? Because now we're having to evaluate all these other factors. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 38:36

But if you just Because we're doing it by our method, uh metric.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

We were at war with ourselves. Yeah, exactly. Okay. So Master Puppets for sure. Top five, okay. Yeah. Except Balls to the Wall. Okay. Love that album. Such a great record. First Black Sabbath record. Okay. Right? After that, rock records. Ooh, man. So many are flashing across my mind right now.

SPEAKER_02 39:08

Oh, you only got one more, I think, right? No, those three. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:12

Gosh, let me think about that. I said.

SPEAKER_02 39:15

Oh no, it's rapid fire, Brian.

SPEAKER_01 39:16

I know. Well, there's the rapid. I didn't get the automatic switch. I didn't get the fully automatic rifle. Okay, well, it's it's punk though, but I would say sex pistols.

SPEAKER_02 39:27

Um never mind the bollocks.

SPEAKER_01 39:29

Never mind the bollocks, man. There's only one. There's only one Sex Pistols record. Everything else is a collection of bullshit. Um and God, man, what would be a five? I don't know. I can't think of a five at the moment. There's so many. I'm just flashing through my head. And I think I'm missing one because it's my last one.

SPEAKER_02 39:49

Yeah. You know. Well, you're missing probably a hundred records that you love.

SPEAKER_01 39:52

Oh my god, yes.

SPEAKER_02 39:53

And that's the whole thing, too. It's like making a top five is hard because for me, it's like I'd have to make a top 300. Because there's albums that I love for different reasons, but the same amount.

SPEAKER_01 40:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:04

You know?

SPEAKER_01 40:05

Yeah. Yeah. Um I maybe five would might be uh Avia Musicom from Eric Johnson.

SPEAKER_02 40:12

Okay. Is that Cliffs of Dover? You'd have to you'd have to educate me.

SPEAKER_01 40:16

Cliffs of Dover is um on that one, yes. Close of Dover.

SPEAKER_02 40:20

One of the most notable guitar songs.

SPEAKER_01 40:22

Yeah, Close of Dover is on that. That's the one he won the Grammy for. Yeah. Yeah. Best Rock Instrumental. Yeah. But he went on that record. Tones is a great record, but yeah. That would be it. See, I didn't but I didn't go, I didn't I couldn't go into the room. No beatles. Oh no, there's a lot of others, but I mean like I couldn't do XDC, I couldn't do because that to me that's not a those aren't rock records. Oh right? I'm thinking of like heavy guitar, you know. So that's why I'm picking I'm picking those guys. You know, there's just like, oh, this is So what qualifies rock band? Yeah. For me, it's loud guitars. Loud guitars. Loud guitars.

SPEAKER_02 40:53

See, Pink Floyd is a rock band?

SPEAKER_01 40:55

No. I don't think of it.

SPEAKER_02 40:56

What is Pink Floyd? A psych band? This is Are we going to get into genre band?

SPEAKER_01 41:00

We are going to bend some genres. I mean classic rock. It's it's it's stadium rock. It's you know what I mean? And I love Pink Floyd.

SPEAKER_02 41:12

Aaron Powell You wouldn't call him progressive rock?

SPEAKER_01 41:13

Oh yeah. You could, especially back then. They were very progressive.

SPEAKER_02 41:16

Trevor Burrus So progressive psych classic rock?

SPEAKER_01 41:18

Ooh, I like it. I like everything you just said.

SPEAKER_02 41:21

Yes, please, I'll have that. The extended genre? I'll have what he's having. So that's an extended genre, I guess we would call it. But yeah. But the original genre is I g I gotta call them a rock band, right? Okay. I mean, yeah. There is rock band as Led Zeppelin is to me.

SPEAKER_01 41:33

Aaron Ross Powell See, there's another one that I could have put on the list. Yeah. You know?

SPEAKER_02 41:36

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 41:37

That's more of like Tolkien rock. Right. Like JRR Tolkien Rock. Right. Or like Beck. You know, if you look at Truth or if you look at Wired or whatever, like that's rock, but is it, you know, but also Wilco.

SPEAKER_02 41:47

You know?

SPEAKER_01 41:48

Right.

unknown 41:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:49

It's like rock is so social distortion.

SPEAKER_01 41:52

You know it's you know social D on there. I mean, yeah, you're great. Or Deathcap for Cutie. Yeah. You know? Those are rock records. Are they rock records? I don't know what rock is.

SPEAKER_02 42:01

That's kind of what I'm getting at. It's like, what is what are we talking about? Because and it's the same as the chart. It's all subjective. It's all what the individual thinks about it.

SPEAKER_01 42:11

Yeah. So what about you? Five. Top six.

SPEAKER_02 42:15

Top five rock records? Yeah. Can't say Steely Dan. That's not a rock. That's not a rock. Steve. Well, Steely Dan is not rock.

SPEAKER_01 42:20

It's not rock.

SPEAKER_02 42:23

Exactly. The wall for Pink Floyd.

SPEAKER_01 42:25

Oh, great.

SPEAKER_02 42:26

I have so many reasons for that being my number one. Not only is Pink Floyd my favorite band, and you know, there's a toss-up. Dark Side of the Moon is such a huge record for me, too. But there's something about the entire production of The Wall where it's not just the record in succession, and it's a giant loop, and it starts at the end, ends at the beginning. And uh there's so many different styles of rock music within it. There's interesting bass, it's just a really different record. And in the same vein, the black parade for my chemical romance is definitely in my top five rock records of all time. Unbelievably huge. It reminds me of their like their version of the wall. Right. So that might be why I uh I am attracted to it so much. Right. Uh Frames by Ocean Size. Okay. British band, Mike Ven Art played with all kinds of different most most recently. Empire State Bastard. And he was in his own band called Ven Art, just absolutely incredible. Um, let's see. Master of Puppets.

unknown 43:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:22

It's kind of hard to deny just because I love it. I'd say and I just what I learned playing guitar, listening to.

SPEAKER_01 43:30

Okay, was that five?

SPEAKER_02 43:31

No, that's four. Okay. I'll I'll go punk with you. Okay. And I'll say Stranger Than Fiction by Bad Religion. Okay. Like these are albums that I can recite back and forth. Yeah. You know, just most important. Right.

SPEAKER_01 43:44

Now see because if we were gonna widen out my my if I widened out my definition of what rock is, and I was gonna say, what are some of my favorite rock albums in that sense, a wider one? I I mean I would think, you know, Asia from Seely Dan, but I would also put on which would be a weird one, which would be Spirit of Eden from Talk Talk.

SPEAKER_02 44:02

What an incredible record. I never heard it until you turned me onto it a few weeks ago. And that's like my most listened to record in the last few weeks.

SPEAKER_01 44:10

I think that album is as important as Sgt. Pepper's was to the culture of the Beatles back in the day.

SPEAKER_02 44:15

That's a big statement. It is.

SPEAKER_01 44:17

And and but I'll I'll fall on that sword. I I that album is so amazing to me. But um, you know, XTCs, Oranges and Lemons, Nun Such, and Skylarking, like those three. So now we get into like, is that rock? Right. I don't know. There's a part of my brain that's like, no, when I think of rock, I'm just thinking of like loud, these go to eleven moments.

SPEAKER_03 44:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:37

And I want to hear a loud ass guitar. And that tone is, you know, the the key. I mean, we could have gone into the Z Z Top catalog for Christ's sake, you know. The Queen catalog. Oh, yes. See what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 44:50

Like, what are we doing? What is this best of? What is this best? Right. Don't give me a best list that's got Lauren Hill at number 10. That's not the list that I want to want to read. That's not the one that speaks to me. Well, the you know what? And maybe that's what it is. You gotta find your list. You gotta find your collective audience. You gotta find your authority bias somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 45:09

That's it. You find your tribe. You find the tribe that that you dig, you know, because some people be like, you know, hey, Slayer, you know, rain and blood. That's my that's my jam. South of heaven, you know. Season in the Abyss is more of my jam, but see what I'm saying? Or or you know, Pantera, Cowboys from Hell, or whatever. You know what I mean? So there's like there's all of these cool things. Or I mean, we didn't even get into Ozzy. We didn't even get into like Diary of the Madman. I mean, anyway. So but the thing is, so what I thought was interesting, and I came across this earlier um in the week, which was BBC's classical music magazine. Now I read this magazine from time to time um because I love classical music and I I'm always interested to see, you know, w either what symphony or what conductors coming out with a new program. And I'm really always interested in when they're gonna be recording living composers. Okay. Right, instead of the dead chumans, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart. Right, yeah. So Schubert, Schumann, you know, and then they get into Strauss. You know, I could go on and on. Um the greatest of all time is you would say Well, it's definitely part of the Viennese schools, like you know what I mean? Yeah, the first, second, and third Viennese schools. Anyway, but I but then they they ranked they had this ranking, which was the top twenty five American bands of all time.

SPEAKER_02 46:27

Aaron Ross Powell Okay. Right? Classical composers ranking American rock bands.

SPEAKER_01 46:32

Okay, now my my buttons were pushed. I was like, oh, this is good. Because that not only am I interested to see what the Brits think of us, you know, our our our cousins from across the pond, but also how American it gives me insight into how American music has infiltrated them. Because you just named a British band as your favorite band. My favorite band is also a British band from Swindon, and that's XTC. Yeah. So it's like we got Pink Fluid and then they're ranking ours. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. I love that. So okay. So let's what did that ranking look like? It was like ACDC. No, no. Well, let's do it. Let's let's name it.

SPEAKER_02 47:09

Oh, do we think who do we think they are?

SPEAKER_01 47:11

No, I want to I want to name the list. Let's name the list.

SPEAKER_02 47:14

So British classical composers rank the American rock bands.

SPEAKER_01 47:20

Or or just the the editorial staff of the of the classical music magazine.

SPEAKER_02 47:25

So classical fanatics, in a way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:27

Ranking American rock bands.

SPEAKER_02 47:29

Okay. Now to me, let me formulate my list. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 47:32

Okay?

SPEAKER_02 47:33

All right, all right. So let's all guess, by the way, for me. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 47:36

We're gonna read I'm gonna read the list, okay? We're gonna start at twenty-five and work our way up. You ready? Twenty-five, the Cars. Then Z Z Top, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Pearl Jam. At twenty-one, KISS. At twenty, Steely Dan. Then we have Blondie, Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Ramones at 17, Fleetwood Mac, which is interesting because it says in parentheses the US-based era considered. How polite. And then we have Leonard Skinnard at fifteen.

SPEAKER_02 48:04

I like how they just wanted to make Fleetwood Mac American. Yeah. Like there's just like a hundred percent. Right. Anyway, right.

SPEAKER_01 48:11

It's a big asterisk. Leonard Skinner at fifteen, Almond Brothers at fourteen, Talking Heads, Birds, The Doors at eleven, CCR at ten, Van Halen at nine, The Grateful Dead at eight, REM at seven, Metallica six, Nirvana five, Aerosmith at four, Bruce Springsteen in the E Street Band. Now Bruce Springsteen Well that was that's a short period in his career, right? He's just been he's just Bruce Springsteen.

SPEAKER_02 48:41

He still tours with Max Weinberg.

SPEAKER_01 48:43

He still has the E Street Band in some iteration, but it's not the band. So I don't know. Anyway, so okay, whatever. That's that's at three. The Eagles. At number two, who do you think number one would be? What's our version of the Beatles?

SPEAKER_02 49:00

Yeah, the Beach Boys. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 49:02

Right? But the big difference is that you didn't have three amazing writers. Because I'm putting Harrison in with that. Lennon and McCartney and Harrison. Right? Brian Wilson shouldered all of it for the Beach Boys. Sure. Right? He did everything. He was he was the he was the writer.

SPEAKER_02 49:20

Yeah. So very California heavy list.

SPEAKER_01 49:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:25

Extraordinarily. Yeah. Especially at the top. Yeah. You know, you got the the Eagles, the Beach Boys, well, I guess that's Northwest. You got Metallica, the dead. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's all California.

SPEAKER_01 49:40

Almost. I mean, the Eagles are from Denton, from North Texas. Right. But then they formed the COVID.

SPEAKER_02 49:44

Formed in California. Correct. Linda Ronstadt, right?

SPEAKER_01 49:49

Yeah. This shan't be mentioned.

SPEAKER_02 49:50

Yeah, it shouldn't be mentioned. Okay. Oh, okay. They're from Texas.

SPEAKER_01 49:53

No, no. I'm not even going there. There's no flag waving on that. But um, but okay, so that's interesting to me because then you kind of go, all right, well, what kind of confirmation bias goes with this? Because now you have this classical music magazine going, there's the 25 greatest American bands. Now, they did say in the article, they're like, we put a lot of time into the top five.

SPEAKER_02 50:15

Into the top five. So they had their top five, but they needed to rearrange them over and over again.

SPEAKER_01 50:18

But there's some questionable things like I can't imagine Kiss being higher up on the list than Tom Petty.

SPEAKER_02 50:26

Agreed.

SPEAKER_01 50:27

Right? And that doesn't make sense as an American, but and I love KISS. KISS was my favorite band when I was a kid. I still have all my KISS albums and Kiss cards and you know the whole thing. Lunch boxes and T-shirts and face pants. Yeah. Franchise KISS. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. So um so what do you look how do you how do you feel about that list?

SPEAKER_02 50:45

I I think it's a good list. I I can't think of any the problem with the list is that it feels dated. It feels like this was written 20 years ago. Because a lot of the bands that are on the list are they were around 20 years plus ago. Yeah. Right. So now you have other bands that could be you know considered to be on the list. So I I would say that it's cool and it's a good framework, but I'd love for them to just add in the the bands that are still that are newer and playing now that could be just as great, selling a lot of records, selling a lot of tours.

SPEAKER_01 51:14

Well, there's a s but it is a classical music magazine. So they're they they place a very high premium on his story.

SPEAKER_02 51:19

So they're classical rock then. Let's call it exactly.

SPEAKER_01 51:21

Well, but I mean, like if you look at the list, you know, uh the the big one for me is Aerosmith at number four. I I mean Van Halen was number nine. Like there's you know so Aerosmith seems unduly high up the list for me. But maybe it trans But maybe they translated more culturally in England in the UK.

SPEAKER_02 51:44

Yeah, because they were our Rolling Stones, really.

SPEAKER_01 51:46

But right? Right. Yeah. So I mean it's sort of like okay, I get that.

SPEAKER_02 51:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:51

Yeah. But it's weird because uh you when you were named your favorite artist or your favorite band, and I named mine, they're both British.

SPEAKER_02 51:59

They are.

SPEAKER_01 52:00

Pink Floyd and XEC. Yeah. Right? I mean, come on. So now, you know, here I just think it's fun.

SPEAKER_02 52:05

Now we need to get American com classical publication to rank all of the English bands and see how that comes out. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 52:13

Let's see where the yardbirds are.

SPEAKER_02 52:15

Pretty much I know where the all of that's going.

SPEAKER_01 52:17

Right.

SPEAKER_02 52:18

The Beatles will be number one, Pink Floyd will be number two, and Led Zeppelin will be number three. Yeah, but then you got to be. The Rolling Stones will be four.

SPEAKER_01 52:23

And then you got Cream and the Yardbirds and Beck, even though Beck wasn't really a band, but you know what I mean? Sure. But he was in those other iterations for sure.

SPEAKER_02 52:32

Beck's from England? You're talking about Jeff Beck. I'm talking about Jeff Beck. Okay. I thought you meant like Beck.

SPEAKER_01 52:37

No, no, no, no. You used I'm sorry. I I I thought the I thought the uh the the scope of the conversation was was totally clear. But yes, to be sure you are correct. I meant Jeff Beck. Yeah, Jeff Beck. Yes, I totally do.

SPEAKER_02 52:52

So when you start getting English, I mean you start talking about the cure, right? Yeah. And another one? Radiohead. Sex pistols. I mean Radiohead could be in the top five.

SPEAKER_01 53:02

Coldplay? Coldplay. I mean, there's another big one, you know, more modern, but you know, cool. Yeah. Tons. Oasis. Oasis. Dude. Blur. You're gonna talk about, yeah, but I mean Oasis, I mean, look at the you know, the the Les Paul, right?

SPEAKER_02 53:17

Can't believe it. Carter's guitars has a shop here in Gallagher. A shop here in Nashville that everybody should note if you don't go to their website. Not a sponsor. Uh but they have uh one of the Noel Gallagher guitars that were released at the Gibson shop in London at the garage, they released 25 of them or something like that. They were selling for $20,000. Carters has one listed for $75,000. Just a testament, like you're saying, yeah, to the immense success that Oasis has.

SPEAKER_01 53:46

Or is that a tariff? Is that a tariff tax?

SPEAKER_02 53:49

Is that a tariff tax, right?

SPEAKER_01 53:52

I mean, yeah. So I think the net is if we were trying to put a pen in this episode and just go, okay, is it possible are lists valuable? I think they're valuable, but in a in a way to open up dialogue, not as a an authoritative stamp of like this is the way it is.

SPEAKER_02 54:10

Well, you said something earlier that that resonated with me is just and we talk about this in different industry and things, but find your tribe. Find the authoritative bias that you want to be a part of. You know, if you think that Rolling Stone has a total alignment with your values and the way that you consume, you should go to Rolling Stone and see what their top albums are because you might not have heard of them before. And you get to learn new music. And for me, charts, all of that stuff, just I love data, but I like finding new music. Yeah, that's one of my favorite things in the world. Is like you've turned me on to so much new music in the last few months, and uh that's one of my favorite things in the world. So I look to all the publications and be like, ah I I never heard of that before. Maybe I do like maybe my my authoritative bias more aligns with a business that I've never heard of that's putting out this greatest list of all time. But to but honestly, when it comes to it, I just don't think you can accurately say who the greatest of all time is.

SPEAKER_01 55:08

Yeah, I I agree with you 100%, you know.

SPEAKER_02 55:12

So we'll put out our own lists and see if our authoritative bias for you are the same. We'll put it in the show notes and see uh see what you guys think.

SPEAKER_01 55:20

And we'll open ourselves up for critical attack.

SPEAKER_02 55:22

Yeah, exactly. All right, let's put a put a bow in it. Uh we'll talk next week. Next week. Gear warm out. See ya.

SPEAKER_00 55:34

Top 10 list, it all miss. I don't know, so I've got to listen to ear one. Stuck in my mind. Can't get it out this time.