Turn It Up - Rock Hall Nominees, Part 2

David and Charles spotlight this year's nominees in a special two-part Turn It Up

It’s that time of year again - the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame announced its latest set of nominees for induction last week. So we thought we’d spotlight a track by each of them this week in a special double edition of Turn It Up. We posted part one on Monday, and here’s the second group. We’re offering them in no particular order. Keep in mind that this isn’t meant to represent our picks for who should get inducted - we’ll get to that soon enough! - but instead our picks for a great and/or notable track by each of the contenders.

Cher – “Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves” (from Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves, 1971)

Cher’s first solo #1 is arresting from its jump—a dream-sequence-heralding explosion of whirlpool strings, stabbing glockenspiel, and breathless pace. It had me hooked back in the day even before Cher launches into her southern gothic blend of Merle Haggard’s simultaneously released “Daddy Frank (The Guitar Man)” and Dusty Springfield’s earlier “Son of a Preacher Man.” The bigotry Cher endures here punched me in the gut instantly, long before I knew that “gypsies” was a slur for the Romani or that songwriter Bob Stone’s original title was “Gypsies and White Trash.” I didn’t learn about that second slur’s bowdlerization until critic Rob Tannenbaum schooled me about it in a great 2017 essay. I’ll grant that what the revision loses in hurled-rock passion, it gains in rhythmic swing and internal (near) rhyme. But if I’d heard Cher singing the original line on the radio when I was a boy, I would have snuck off and sobbed. – DC

Peter Frampton – “Do You Feel Like We Do” (from Frampton Comes Alive!, 1976)

As a white-working class and AOR-devoted teen in the second half of the 1970s, I was a part of the target audience for a rock subgenre I’ve since affectionately dubbed Hammerhead Rock. Its strengths: par-tay energy, scream-along hooks, determinedly dumb lyrics and a sneering disdain for anything resembling subtlety—though note that its heavy guitar attack does tend to get lightened considerably by piano. My faves included (still include, I want to stress) Jefferson Starship’s “Jane,” REO’s “Roll with the Changes,” and Toto’s “Hold the Line,” among quite a few others. Peter Frampton’s “Do You Feel Like We Do” is like Hammerhead’s chiller-vibed older brother. Same strengths, but with greater lightening of the guitar-squall load (“Bob Mayo on the keyboards!”) and endless kick-drum and ride-cymbal groove. Plus, goofy WTF talk-box call-and-response. Be sure to skip the earlier studio version from Frampton’s Camel. You want the live one that grins and sways and rocks good-naturedly for 14 Hammer-headed minutes. – DC

Kool & the Gang – “Higher Plane” (from Light of Worlds, 1974)

I knew Kool & the Gang’s pop crossovers when I was a kid. I had their Top Ten “Hollywood Swinging” on 45, for example, but whiffed totally on “Higher Plane,” the group’s #3 R&B follow-up that barely cracked the pop Top 40. Too bad for me: “Higher Plane,” coming on the heels of “Swinging” and even bigger pop hit “Jungle Boogie,” was the Gang’s acknowledgment of their newfound level of success. “Kool” Bell’s burbling bass lick kicks it off, then the Gang joins with their patented pop funk, leaning towards disco, a perfect dance floor workout with sax solo. “Gotta keep lifting you UP!” they chant while eyeing bigger celebrations ahead. – DC

Eric B. & Rakim – “I Know You Got Soul” (from Paid in Full, 1987)

Check the mathematics. Over the course of their four albums, Eric B. & Rakim didn’t release a single bad track and at least half of those tracks are straight-up great. That kind of winning percentage makes the best of their best, like “I Know You Got Soul,” all the more impressive. Not only is it a perfect showcase for Rakim’s expert, layered rhymes, but it also demonstrates how crucial Eric B.’s role was in the deeply influential duo. As brilliant as Rakim’s rhymes are, the record is made by the popping boom-bap, with the sampled punches of Bobby Byrd’s “You got it!” offering a cross-faded hype man and cross-generational call and response. As with all their records, Eric B.’s turntablism makes “I Know You Got Soul” compelling even before Rakim arrives with the knowledge-drops and flights of poetic fancy that make him a regular and justified fixture of Top 5 lists. They don’t call him The God for nothing, but Eric B. stands right next to him in this polytheistic, polyrhythmic pantheon. As they remind us, “the rest is up to you.” We got it. - CH

Jane’s Addiction – “Been Caught Stealing” (from Ritual de lo Habitual, 1990)

“Let’s go!” Jane’s Addiction updated the sound of post-counterculture, post-punk Los Angeles into an agreeably weirdo mix of louche sleaze, druggy spectacle, and hard-ass rock. Their widescreen technicolor vision – with Perry Farrell’s high-loathsome vocals at the center – contained surprising multitudes, but “Been Caught Stealing” is my favorite trip. What a wonderful mess this track is: dogs barking, a chopping rhythm that almost sounds like Bo Diddley playing backwards, Farrell hooting and hollering, a distorted guitar (or maybe harmonica? organ? does it matter?) popping up and then disappearing almost immediately, Dave Navarro playing a reckless solo like he’s daring you to try to make him stop, and then Farrell scatting away at the end with pure rock ‘n’ roll joy. They haven’t nabbed “Bean Caught Stealing” yet, and I hope they never do. - CH

Mariah Carey – “Always Be My Baby” (from Daydream, 1995)

I think my very favorite Mariah Carey records, especially among her astonishing and continuing run of hits, are the ones where she finds a space between her most soaring dance-pop and her torchiest ballads. “Always Be My Baby” is a prime example of this sweet spot, where Carey sways inside the kind of bubbling groove that proved such a deathless source of pleasure in this era of pop, hip-hop, and R&B. (Or country – this song seemed then and seems now like a country hit waiting to happen.) I also love how deeply “Always Be My Baby” demonstrates Carey’s under-discussed work as pop auteur. As Andrew Chan explores in his fantastic recent book, her writing and production are a crucial element to her success in several pop eras and an important counterpoint to the sadly predictable framing of Carey as simply a vehicle for the artistic (and other) desires of her male collaborators. With Carey caressing the melody supported by affirming background responders, “Always Be My Baby” is as sweet as the first kiss and as sad as the last one. Leave it to the Queen of Christmas to strand us underneath the mistletoe. - CH

Oasis – “The Hindu Times” (from Heathen Chemistry, 2002)

Back in 2002, for reasons too boring to describe here, I was in Ireland and hadn’t heard any rock ‘n’ roll for over a week. For me, this was a Footloose level of deprivation. I found my way into a record store in Dublin, where the about-to-be-released Oasis album was on the listening station. I was a fan, even in less starved circumstances. I put the headphones on, “The Hindu Times” started, and I legitimately had one of the purest moments of rock catharsis that I’ve ever experienced. The big drums, the cascading guitars, Liam Gallagher’s snotty declarations, the lyrics that are so cliched that they almost sound new again – it was, in all its corny maximalist glory, a fitting microcosm for the broader Oasis experience. The grandiosity has always been the point with Liam and Noel and company, of course. But at their best, which is more often than you might think, the unabashed self-importance is matched by massive hooks and arrangements that make even the most obvious homages in their playbook feel fresh somehow. I’d never argue for “The Hindu Times” as one of the best Oasis songs, but it’s my favorite. Because there’s no other Oasis song that I heard that day in the Irish record store, with those massive drums and cascading guitars and the rest turned up as loud as they’d go. Sometimes the old tricks are all you need. - CH

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