Music Appreciation

I'll take "Give Us a Wink" or "Off the Record" in place of DB but regard that disc as top 10.

PGAC, do you prefer the U.S. or U.K. pressing of DB (very different, as I'm sure you already know)?

Their own self-penned material was always heavy - all you had to do was flip over the single.

At the end of the day, they had 13 top ten hits worldwide, including Blockbuster hitting #1 in England and MULTIPLE #1s in Germany and the Scandinavian countries.

I think the AMERICAN music industry has discounted them, because thanks to bad decision after bad decision about marketing them in America at the hands of Chinnichap, David Walker and Ed Leffler (the latter of whom learned from his mistakes and did the opposite in promoting a little local band called Van Halen), they only ended up with three big U.S. hits (Blitz, Fox and Little Willy, with Action and Oxygen at least making a ripple).

I mean, they've been cited as an influence by Kiss, Guns 'n' Roses, Def Leppard, Motley Crue, Poison, Joan Jett, Twisted Sister...many of those bands have covered their songs, as have other heavyweights like Krokus, Saxon. Hell, Nikki Sixx has written about how he tried to convince Brian Connolly to join his early band, London, before Crue. (The Beastie Boys, who aren't even rock, SAMPLED Steve Priest's distinctive vocals without his consent in "Hey Ladies" - they're in RRHOF but Sweet isn't. It's a total joke.)

Their music has been featured in countless movies (from classics like Wayne's World and Dazed and Confused all the way up through and including recent blockbusters like Suicide Squad, Guardians of the Galaxy and The Black Phone), TV shows (most recently, Firefly Lane, Poker Face, Umbrella Academy and Daisy Jones and the Six) and commercials (Dustbuster, a Mitsubishi ad for the Super Bowl, OTTOMH).

I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but both they and the Monkees got a short shrift with the "they don't play on their own records." It was common to force fledgling bands to put out singles recorded by session musicians back when they both got started, but anyone who listens to either bands' later stuff (after both threw a mutiny and demanded their artistic freedom) would be hard-pressed to deny the sheer talent in terms of both songwriting and expertise on their instruments. How it is that Andy Scott is still not considered up there with Page, May, Clapton etc., Mick Tucker alongside Ian Paice or Mick Fleetwood, and Steve Priest's rock-solid thunder right there with JPJ, Glenn Hughes or Entwistle is beyond me, honestly (Entwistle actually told Steve that he preferred the latter's bass solo on the cover of "My Generation" to his own...)