From a Locker Room reader and a member of the Triangle media:
I’d nominate two from The Eagles’ Hotel California: “New Kid in Town” and “Try And Love Again.” They’re melodic, and have the same high standard of guitar work as the rest of the LP.
This is probably cheating, but on Bruce’s Born to Run, “Thunder Road,” “Backstreets,” “She’s the One” and “Jungleland” are all superior to the title track. (“Born to Run” is notoriously mediocre in concert, though to be fair “Thunder Road,” one of the best songs in the English language, seldom scales the heights in that setting either.) And hell, someone actually wrote a book about “Meeting Across the River,” which is one of only two non-classics on the record.
I agree with whoever it was who said “Goin’ to California” is better than “Stairway to Heaven.”
More Rolling Stones: “No Expectations” instead of “Sympathy for the Devil” on Beggar’s Banquet (see the Johnny Cash version). “Dead Flowers,” “Sister Morphine” and “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” instead of “Brown Sugar” and (especially) “Wild Horses” off Sticky Fingers.
My response: The title track is the best song on Hotel California, but almost every other song is great. The lone exception is “The Last Resort,” the lyrics of which constitute finely distilled swill.
“Thunder Road” is perhaps the best tune Bruce ever recorded.
In fairness to that old warhorse “Stairway to Heaven,” it was great the first 700 times I heard it. And if I go a couple of years without hearing it, I enjoy the track again with fresh ears.
The reader is absolutely correct that “Brown Sugar” offers a poor representation of the excellence that is Sticky Fingers, the second-best Stones album.
