Spoon, Wilco, Clash, Rush, all of you ... You will be missed.

The Mong
Music Group Commentary
October 2008

B.B. KING – “Singin’ the Blues” = 4 STARS
An old favorite from the stacks of wax at my grandma’s house. She was a Rocker.

COLDPLAY – “Viva la Vida” = 3 STARS
Although Coldplay is Radiohead for pussies, I have to admit, I’ve always liked them. Probably because they are more interested in writing catchy numbers than being pioneers. These songs are mostly passable with a few standouts by comparison but nothing here measures up to the guilty pleasures of their earlier work.

PINK FLOYD – “A Saucerful Of Secrets” = 1 STAR
Progressive Rock dabblings of mediocre musicians with the added self-indulgence of an Acid Rock core that fails to devine the future relevance of a post-Syd Barrett Pink Floyd. Weak.

TV ON THE RADIO – “Dear Science” = 2 STARS
Post-Neo-whatever music only visual artists could create. (Give me Iceland’s Gus Gus instead.) It’s not terrible but it really does sound like TV on the radio: advertising background music meets cop drama score meets tragically hip soundtrack noise.

G’HITS – DRAMARAMA
Another G’Hits history lesson that was like a mediocre vacation: A band I’ve heard of but have never heard that, like Memphis, was interesting enough to visit but now I know for sure that there’s no reason for me to ever go back...not voluntarily.

TOPIC
Pick your favorite 10 years of music, which need not be consecutive but can only be split-up in two parts.

As if anyone couldn’t predict my selections:

1967-1971: The best period of the Beatles, John Lennon, the Who, the Kinks, Neil Young, and Black Sabbath, and this five year stretch gets me some great Stones and some excellent early Elton John, too. In addition to my personal favorites, easily some of the greatest music ever recorded falls into this five-year window. Later EJ, the Clash, Modern Lovers, Big Star, Cars, Police, Rush and good U2 will probably be most missed, else wise.

1991-1995: Gets me all the best releases from Pavement, Nirvana, Beastie Boys, Dinosaur Jr., Matthew Sweet, Liz Phair, Archers of Loaf, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Sebadoh, and Helmet, as well as some great early Green Day, Poster Children, New Radiant Storm King, Shellac, Weezer, Beck, G. Love and Special Sauce, Built to Spill, Blonde Redhead, the Grifters, Papas Fritas, Walt Mink and even Radiohead’s “The Bends.” On top of that, I get only the best three albums by Guided by Voices ever! It kills me to miss Sonic Youth’s “Daydream Nation” and “Goo,” Green Day’s “American Idiot,” as well as the best of Spoon, Wilco, Superdrag, the Gravel Pit, and Nada Surf, too. And woe is me for the bands entirely missed like the Hives, the Thermals, Queens of the Stone Age, Okkervil River, the Pernice Brothers, the White Stripes, the Black Keys, and Trans Am, but sacrifices must be made, apparently.

September... Was it a classic, or a standard meeting?

First meeting for me, and it was a good experience. I especially liked the fact that nobody takes other people's music rating opinions personally. Pitchers of beer aid the process. Now to the music...

Velvet Crush - Special thanks to Jay for turning me on to this a couple of years ago...it is one of my favorite power pop CD's. I'm a big Matthew Sweet fan, and this is very reminiscent of his 100% Fun sound. In fact, this CD IS 100% fun to listen to again and again. 4 1/2 stars.

Alejandro Escovedo - Thanks for the introduction to him. I listened first, liked what I heard initially, went back to read a bit about him and listened again with an ear toward the autobiographical tone of the CD. It became even more enjoyable from that perspective. The slow songs are the most memorable...Sensitive Boys...Slow Down (to me, the most well-crafted song), but my favorite was People (Not As Long As You Think) even if the moelody was copped from David Byrne. And a nod to Tony Visconti's production as the "Ashes to Ashes" sound from Bowie made its way into one of the tracks. All in all, the best CD of the month - 4 stars.

Del Amitri - Another CD I had not heard, though one of my favorite pop tracks is a later Del Amitri track, "I'm Not Where It's At", so I figured I'd enjoy this one. I was wrong. The lyrics were forgettable, the music sounded anachronistic - and I'm not a fan of that mid-late '80's sound - and the vocals, manic with a Scottish twang, just didn't do it for me. Any CD worthy of more than 2 stars should make me at least want to play one track over again the first time I hear it. Didn't happen - 2 stars.

Scarlet Johansson - Yikes! Where to begin...The first track on the CD, an instrmental, sounds like something that Phil Spector threw up. The vocals, when they finally appeared, were awful. There was NOTHING pleasant about her sound. It was the polar opposite of how she looks. I was on a road trip to Philadelphia with my wife when I first listened to this. After three songs, she said, "It sounds like Sinead O' Connor had a lobotomy and they took out all the talent but left this behind". I could not argue otherwise. 1 star.

Tom Morello is the master of cool guitar sounds. I enjoyed the GH collection very much. The Rage stuff seemed better musically than the Audioslave stuff, but it was all good new rock.

...And then there was Standards vs. Classics. In my view, it's all about how to define them. If a standard is something that a wedding band would play, as was suggested in a couple of previous posts, then the Chicken Dance and the Macarena would qualify as standards. I don't think that's the case. In my view, a standard is a song that transends generational bias - that is, people who won't tolerate rock will tolerate it, and people who love rock will tolerate a pop/jazz version of it.
It also has to be a good enough song to warrant covers in different genres. A good example (though not from the years we are using) is "Something". Sinatra recorded it, The Beatles recorded it, and many others did, too. That's a standard, in my book.

Songs that could fit that mold from 1980 forward are...

New York, New York (Kander and Ebb)
Every Breath You Take (Police)
Always and Forever (Heatwave)
Love and Mercy (Brian Wilson)

Classics are a different story. Classics could live in a genre without ever crossing over. Songs like Joey (Concrete Blonde), Enter Sandman (Metallica) Theme from Friends (The Rembrandts) Hey Jealousy and 'Till I Hear It From You (Gin Blossoms) and Banditos (The Refreshments) fit that description for me if we're limited to the 1990's.

Suggested Activity for next meeting.

http://www.flabber.nl/archief/023273.php

September Synopsis, or the hissy-fit of the year.

Can we say "polarized". C'mon- all together now- PO-LAR-IZED. There was literally a love/hate for every disc provided this month not to mention the fisticuffs over what a "standard" is, though in my humble opinion we generally agreed in concept but not in definition. Of course I was more right than all of you since it was my question and I do the synopses and we all know that the pen is mightier than the sword, or is that the penis is mightier than the sword, unless you are crossing swords and we all know that is not cool.... oh sorry I digress.

If nothing else it provided for a snappy little meeting at the soon, according to the D'Arcmeister, defunct Spigot. For those scoring at home, Velvet Crush was the least polarizing, followed close by Mr. Escovar. It drops to slightly above average for Del Amitri and then drops precipitously with Scarlett with the most polarizing disc of the month.

The points we could all agree on were Scarlett's points which all gave 5 stars. Jay wins wuss of the meeting for not taking a true position on the standards issue and instead playing sniper at the rest of us. Greg also had a momentous meeting by taking the lead with most discs below 2. You go Greg! We all get long distance hi-fives for having all home work discs at the meeting.

Schedule

Next meeting- October 28th
Old- Pink Floyd- A Saucer full of Secrets (Greg)/BB Kind- Singin' the Blues (Alan)
New- TV on the Radio-Dear Science (Ken)/Cold Play- Vida La Vida (Greg)
Ghits- Dramarama

Topic; D'Arcy will officially send but it is generally to pick you favorite 10 years of music and it can be broken into 2 parts if you wish.

The Sage Posts

September 2008 Music Club

Scarlett Johansson- Anywhere I Lay My Head

No. (0.5 for her other ample assets)

Del Amitri- Del Amitri

Pristine, clean guitar chops. No question they can play. They can harmonize and construct interesting arrangements. My problem is that there it is too clean. I don’t feel any true emotion. And their lyrics, which tend to be overly wordy trying to cram as much verbiage into a three minute song whether it fits or flows or not, I found myself muttering shut up. Del Amitri is not a bad band, they are not my taste and will not warrant further listeing. (2)

Alejandro Escovedo- Real Animal

Oddly this is my first listen of Escovedo and I found myself wondering why. While he noted as an alt-country artist I hear a lot of Springsteen in his writing style and I could easily hear bands like Cracker, early-Wilco and the Mavericks playing his songs (I have no idea if they ever have). A few I really liked were “Always a Friend”, “Nuns Song” and “Real as an Animal”. It was very satisfying. (3.5)

Velvet Crush- Teenage Symphony

Some artists shouldn’t produce and Matthew Sweet is one of them. This disc sounded too much like a Matthew Sweet disc which generally wouldn’t be necessarily bad, but here it sounded like leftover Matthew Sweet songs. Couldn’t get past it. (2.5)

Tom Morello- Best Of

The most innovative guitarist of the last 20 years. The sounds that this man gets from electric strings is utterly amazing. Love or hate Rage Against the Machine or Audioslave there is no questioning this man’s talent. Unless he goes acoustic and plays folk music, which utterly sucks.

Standards/classic albums

Though these were my topics I had a very tough time fulfilling them.

Standards since 1980

How I determined my list- Songs that transcended generations, became part of everyday lingo or were regularly covered (either by real bands or wedding bands).

• Start Me Up- Stones
• Purple Rain- Prince
• Walk of Life- Dire Straits
• Just Like Heaven- Cure
• You Shook Me- Ac/Dc
• Baby Got Back- Sir Mix-a-Lot
• Love Shack- B52s
• Ebony Ivory- McCartney/Wonder

A live album yet no mistakes

Finally got past all my html issues. Did not want to upset anyone by not posting

Neil Diamond.
The Live album. Once it was a tool used by all bands early in their career. You hoped it was a cool collection of songs by your favorite artist that would allow the masses to see what you did in your favorite band. And it worked for some. Peter Frampton, Kiss, Thin Lizzy and UFO all rode the buzz created by live albums to successful careers. But truth be told live albums were usually just contractual obligation records with either the band or the label looking for a way out of a contract. And you as a listener were left with two things. One, a studio corrected version of live songs that you pretty much already owned and two, a great gatefold cover to clean your weed with. This is the problem with this disc. It is over produced causing the songs to sound muted and awfully similar. Maybe it is that fact that all his hits have been released in better versions since this record that causes the problem. But it might be the fact that every song has that same acoustic backing track, and there are far too many slow songs to create any interest. 1.5

The Duke Spirit
I have this thing where I write down a bands name if I hear something I like. Looking over the notes I saw the Duke Spirit was written down twice but could not remember anything about them. So thus became this month's new. A combination of Jesus and Mary Chain meets Queens of the Stone Age type feel to the band. They write short catchy songs that stay with the listener long after listening. Yes Leila Moss outstanding vocals are the focal point, but the band sticks with her throughout every song. Throw in the occasional horn or keyboard support and you have one of the better cd’s of the year. There are truly no weak tracks throughout the cd but The Ship was Built to Last and The Step and The Walk are just great songs period. Also of mention is the sound that producer Chris Goss helps create. Somehow with the bands he is associated with, he manages to create a dirty sound that comes across crystal clear. 4.0

Hold Steady
I look at this cd as three parts. The I want to be Springsteen part, the Jim Carroll part, and the somewhere in between part. To be honest when I heard the lousy Clarence Clemmons type sax part in Sequestered in Memphis I was ready to give up then and there. But that would be unfair to some other songs on this disc. And the sax was forgiven by the guitar god solo on Lord I’m Discouraged. Some great word play here. Some excellent music too. Just not all the way through. 2.5

Whiskeytown
Hey guess what I own this record. Can’t remember the last time I listened to it though. Was surprised that it was not as bad as I remember. Some very strong songs in the middle of the disc, but as it continues to play out the songs tend to grow weary. I don’t know what it is about Ryan Adams but with all his music it always seems that something is missing that would take his songs a make it great. Here I find that if he had sold his soul to the type of album he wanted to make be either country/pop/or one in between it could have been great. Instead we are left with songs that when they should be emotional they are quiet. When they should just rock we get middle of the road. Again better than I remember but probably won’t be listening anytime soon either. 2.0


Slobberbone
Fun at times, with good lyrics. Obviously can rock with the best of them and probably would be great in a bar.

Lyricists

John Easdale Dramarama
Takes pop culture references, surrounds them with catchy ideas then incorporated them into an interesting view of life. Also could write love songs that were really cool too.


Fish Marillion
Saw him live recently and was reminded at just how good he was in telling a tale through his words. And when he was pissed (either mad or drunk) he told you exactly why.


Nicky Wire Manic Street Preachers
Partnered with James Richey until he pulled a true life eddie and the crusiers, then kept the Manics relevant afterward.
Political, observant, and able to use words that describe situations that most people don’t usually use. Design for Life is brilliant, and he has much more just as good.


Glen Hansard
Yes he will remember writing great lyrics that was the foundation to a movie that won him an Oscar. But for a long time now he has been writing movie type lyrics with his band the Frames.


Ginger WildHearts
Looks at all the stupidity in the world, finds the humor in it and puts it into words. Also is able to write lyrics that are truly how he feels and in many cases how the rest of us feel too.

try try again

Del Amitri
I had an employee who swore this was the greatest band ever. He would always play their releases overhead. Then explain to me what I should be listening to. When he quit I stopped hearing them until this month. My opinion has not changed. Good pop record with some Scottish overtones. Not something I would play but wouldn’t turn it off either.
2.5

AleJandro Escovedo
What started off as a promising cd especially tracks 2, 3 turns into a poor Southside Johnny/ Bruce cd. 2

Scarlet Johansson
This is not a Tom Waits cd. Therefore the only credit she should receive for the songs is for her taste in music. What we have here is an overproduced cd that relies on studio trickery to create a dull electronic flat mess. This is helped along with vocals that are lost in the mix, delivered in a dull monotone whisper, causing the lyrics to not matter at all. (Something I thought impossible with anything written by Mr. Waits) The only time they escape from this mess is the truly boring lullaby set to New Orleans. Scarlet Johansson has done something that neither Rod Stewart nor Patty Smyth could not do. Make Tom Waits uninteresting. 1

Velvet Crush
I own this cd and it was fun to listen to again. It opens with the killer power pop guitar song Hold Me and goes strong for the next few tracks. It’s a shame because these guys will always be compared to Mathew Sweet. Be it because they regularly showed up on his cd’s, his band, tours, or the similarity in the styles. That also causes a bit of problem towards the end of the cd, because the tracks are not as strong and then you can’t help but compare. Still there are too many good songs with just a strong guitar bass drum vocal harmony to be ignored 3.0

Tom Morello
Mr. Morello is from the Steve Vai school of music composition. Its not the riffs that matter it’s the sound you can create with the guitar. When listening to this collection you rarely come away with a lead guitar riff stuck in your head. Now there is no doubt he is a brilliant guitarist, but the best songs on this disc are the ones where he follows the bass riff with his guitar and then keeps his guitar sounds to small fills. Still lots of good music, and its obvious the power both bands brought to their songs. Though nothing from his solo outing so is it truly a retrospective?

Topic
Melt With You
Laid James
You Shook Me All Night Long
Anything Anything Dramarama
The Middle Jimmy Eat World
Should I Stay or Should I Go




Classics
Pearl Jam 10
Green Day American Idiot
Oasis What’s the Story Morning Glory






Not So Classic
Metallica Black Not even their best record just has their best song

Nirvana Never Mind Can’t recall last listened all the way through. Compared to Pearl Jam limitations show up even more
REM Automatic For the People

September Notes

Alejandro Escovedo – Bought this one based on the unanimously fawning reviews, and initially thought I got hosed. However, this has been a slow grower over the past couple of months. Good mix of guitar driven rock, restrained and well-placed strings with a dash of twang. Shades of Bruce and Lou Reed throughout. Not earth shattering, but pretty solid. 3.5 stars

Scarlett Johansson – Never got it. Couple of XM channels playing it to death, and what I heard was ok. I give her rack 4 stars.

Del Amitri – Competent, if not particularly exciting Brit-rock. Sound is firmly entrenched in the 80’s, from which this disc had to have come from. Nothing dreadful here, but it does seem to all sound the same after the first couple of tracks. Don’t know that I could distinguish them from about 10 other bands of the same ilk. 2 ½ stars

Velvet Crush – Another great surprise from the DYN group. Never heard of this band, but I really enjoyed it. The production and harmonies reminded me of Matthew Sweet. “Why Not Your Baby” made me hit the repeat button every time, a perfect slice of Americana crossbred with power pop. Would definitely want to hear more. 4 stars

Tom Morello – I don’t care for loud, in your face, non-melodic music. I appreciate the energy, but most of it gives me a headache. Except for “Be Yourself” and “Doesn’t Remind Me”, I found it a chore to get through this disc even once, but that may be more a reflection of my taste than the quality of the music. Tom Morello might be a freaking genius, but I’m sure not the one to render an objective opinion. I’ll pass on judging it and leave it up to you incredibly open minded, embracing all-genre folks to decide. How’s that for responsible, Mongillo?

Discussion Part 1

Fearless Leader’s question wants songs “virtually everybody knows and any band worth their salt can play”. Since there aren’t too many bar bands that are going to play “Wild Thing”, “Crazy” and “It Had to be You”, it sounds to me like he wants songs you’d hear a band play at any wedding or some such function, and my answer is written as such. These are not songs I necessarily like, but using Ken’s terms, would have to be labeled standards.

The Police - Every Breath You Take
Romantics - That’s What I Like About You
Van Halen – Jump
Billy Idol – Dancing With Myself and his version of Mony Mony
Kool & the Gang - Celebration
Whitney Houston – I Will Always Love You

Part 2

To me, the problem with the nomenclature “classic” is that it has become interchangeable with the word “old”. This is due to the “classic rock” radio format, in which anything made before 1990 in the rock genre is assumed to be good, and most anything made after 1990 doesn’t exist. A “classic” as defined by radio also has to be well known, and I strongly disagree with that. “Louisiana Rain” is the best track off Petty’s “Damn the Torpedoes” album, and is the one cut that never gets radio play.

I would define a classic as a work of enduring excellence that is timeless; something that is still resonant and sounds fresh regardless of when it was recorded.

In terms of the question, Ken wants it answered is “consensus” songs. I assume that means songs an average rock/pop listener would be at least familiar with if they listened only to “classic” rock stations.

5 often played post 1990 songs I would define as classic:

REM – “Losing My Religion”
Radiohead – “Creep”
Neil Young – “Harvest Moon”
Counting Crows – “Mr. Jones”
Beck – “Loser”

Post 1990 Songs treated like classics but are not

“Smells Like Teen Spirit” – Nirvana (sounds dated)
“Alive” – Pearl Jam (sounds dated)
“Tears in Heaven” – Clapton (it sucks)
“Bittersweet Symphony” – the Verve (dated)
The entire Offspring catalog (sounds dated AND it sucks)

September Shit

Scarlett Johansson - What’s with the Hollywood crowd? Always trying to do shit they shouldn’t. I turn on the TV and there’s Cloris Leachman, a decent actress in her day, all made up to look like a 112 year old hooker trying to dance with some 25 year old homo. Then I get this package in the mail from Greg and it’s Scarlett Johansson, a decent actress in her own right – well, she’s hot anyway – trying her hand at singing. Enough already. Which one is worse is a topic for another day, but old Cloris has some serious stumbling around to do if she’s going to top this. I don’t know much of Tom Waits’ music, so we’ll leave lyrics out of this discussion and concentrate solely on the music. Dirge-like was the term that came to mind after about the 4th mind-numbing song passed through the speakers in my car. Someone should have told her this wasn’t working and put a hold on this project before it got this far. No stars.

Velvet Crush - Imagine the guitar based pop (or power pop if you will) category as a tree. There’s a branch that includes a bunch of bands and artists that see a connection between country and rock. Big Star is at the base of that branch ( many branches grow out of Big Star) and some of the more prominent bands and artists that reside on this one branch are the Gin Blossoms, Matthew Sweet and Velvet Crush. This is probably Velvet Crush’s signature release and it contains at least two bona-fide guitar pop classics - Hold Me Up and My Blank Pages. Very reminiscent of Matthew Sweet and they have a connection of course. Matthew Sweet has produced these guys, although this one was produced by Mitch Easter, and Lead Crusher Ric Menck plays drums on Sweet’s new record. Although much more country than most of their previous and later CDs, this one is my second favorite, losing a close battle with a live album that draws from about 75% of this record. Yeah, it’s simplistic and lyrically, it’s pretty down, but its raucous moments have a great homemade feel and the slower stuff feels real to me. 4

Del Amitri – My former brother in-law introduced me to this band in the early to mid ‘90’s and I thought the stuff he put on tape for me was really good. Although I have no idea which albums I had then, they seemed fresh and interesting. Surprisingly, this does not live up to what I remember them being. They write good songs and it is very tight, but it is too polished and that takes away from my overall enjoyment. 2.5

Alejandro Escoveda – I wanted to buy this because he seems to be taking star turns with everybody and every time I heard something come up on Sirius, it sounded good. And it is good. Stylistically, it’s a bit too all over the place to really get my arms around, though, both musically and vocally. I kept thinking of the people he sounds like whether it was Southside Johnny or Jim Carroll or Van Morrison or Randy Newman or the lead singer of the Hold Steady. It was always in the back of my mind when listening to the songs – who does he sound like here? I’m not so sure what he sounds like. Still very professionally done, maybe a bit too professionally done – again – but the strength of the songs gets it to a 3.5

Tom Morello - I’ve always considered just about everything our radio station plays to be passé, almost by definition. And a band as popular with our audience as Rage Against the Machine must again, by definition, be completely overrated. So I’ve never really listened to them in this context. Morello can certainly play and that (more than the songs themselves) was the point of this collection. And actually, listening to these songs in that context made this music far more interesting than I had initially thought it was. He really drives the sound and while some of his techniques (some would call them tricks) become redundant, he knows how to create great guitar moments. Strangely, I found the Audioslave stuff far less compelling than the Rage stuff.

Topic

I’m hard pressed to come up with anything that fits that description recorded after 1980. Really. I’ll let you guys come up with the titles and I can either agree or not.

In terms of “classic” recordings, the phrase classic rock and the term "classic" describe two completely different things. Classic Rock is a radio format and most of what is heard is not classic, as I define a classic in much the same way I define a standard, except that a standard is the next echelon up from a classic song. Classic songs recorded after 1990? Songs that will truly endure 10 years from now? Enter Sandman comes to mind. Can’t think of any others off the top or bottom of my head

Classic Standards

The Mong / Music Group Commentary / September 2008

DEL AMITRI – “DEL AMITRI” = 4 STARS
This is about as accomplished as Pop gets. Its pretty cleverness, both musically and lyrically, although amazing, could benefit from an equal helping of reckless abandon. But meeting this record on its own terms, it is undeniably perfect.

ALEJANDRO ESCOVERDO – “REAL ANIMAL” = 2 STARS
“Real Animal,” apparently Escoverdo’s testament to his brush with death, has plenty of great hooks, but its pedestrian, straight-ahead Rock/Country ditties combined with its literal lyrical sappiness makes it more depressing than inspiring.

SCARLETT JOHANSSON – “ANYWHERE I LAY MY HEAD” = 3.5 STARS
Hell, even Tom Waits likes this CD. Even if I wanted to disagree, I can’t, because this Air-esque movie soundtrack without a movie gets better and better with each listen.

VELVET CRUSH – “TEENAGE SYMPHONIES TO GOD” = 2.5 STARS
Serviceable Power Pop but nothing special. Maybe it’s because they’re from Rhode Island.

G’HITS – TOM MORELLO
Taking it in under the banner of Morello and not the respective bands makes quite an impact. This guy’s a legend for a reason.

TOPIC
Part 1: the definition of 'standard' is a song that transcend generations and genres where virtually everybody knows it and any band worth their salt can play it. (ex; "It Had to Be You", "Wild Thing", "Crazy"...etc). See if you can find 5-10 songs that we can all agree are new standards from 1980 on.

1) “Billie Jean” – Michael Jackson
2) “Like a Virgin” – Madonna
3) “Dancing in the Dark” – Bruce Springsteen
4) “1999” – Prince
5) “I Love Rock & Roll” – Joan Jett & The Blackhearts
6) “Free Fallin’” – Tom Petty
7) “Should I Stay or Should I Go” – The Clash
8) “Every Breath You Take” – The Police
9) “Start Me Up” – Rolling Stones
10) “Lady” – Kenny Rogers

That was a lot like compiling a wedding band’s set list.

Part 2: the definition of 'classic', of late, has been over used to describe bands or songs. In your opinion should the term be used in conjuncture with artists/recordings because of their career longevity or because of the importance of their past work or both?- maybe it ties in with Part 1. Along with your opinion provide us 5 "classic" recordings from 1990 on (if you can based on your opinion) and 5 misuses of the term. Again the attempt is to provide examples we can all agree upon.

Answer: The term “classic” can be applied simply to designate a song’s staying-power and its (excuse the term) multicultural penetration, even “one hit wonders.” An artist’s longevity and/or their past or current work need not be applied to define a song as a “classic.” Using this definition, I’m not sure how to provide five misuses of the term “classic,” since, even though I’m the one defining it, that pretty much sums up how musicians, critics, and DJs define it, too.