The most buttrockin' song on Buddy Blue's list of the top 50 Butt Rock Anthems (search term: buttrock)

don't think you can out-buttrock Tush

Was just gonna say!

Feelin' good, feelin' right, it's Saturday night
The hotel detective, he was outta sight!

Slow Ride is so buttrock it can fart its way into the cosmos

I keep scanning through the list and feeling like I have a handle on how 'butt rock' is being used in this context but then it keeps slipping away. Like okay: 'Black Betty', 'Mississippi Queen', 'Frankenstein'. I get it! But then 'Hold Your Head Up'? 'Enter Sandman'? I don't get it!

I heard 'Hocus Pocus' the other day for the first time in a while and, man, that is a hot fucken jam. A jam with some weird-ass yodeling and scatting tacked on here and there, but a jam nonetheless.

Black Betty is proper. Enter Sandman isn't butt rock

Sorry for butt rockin

voted Slow Ride

Torn between "Tush," "Black Betty," "We're An American Band" and "American Woman."

"Black Betty" sounds like a song that was written solely for automotive repair waiting rooms

it's credited to Leadbelly but likely dates to the pre Civil War times

Georgia Satellites kinda only feels butt rock adjacent.

Wow! Didn't know that.

Xpost

I didn't know that either!

I don't even care that the band was basically manufactured after 'Black Betty' dropped, that Ram Jam album can get it.

highway star and born in the usa are probably the best songs, but they aren't buttrock imo (space truckin' and glory days are much buttier songs by the respective artists).

radar love also feels weirdly out of place, not easy enough to sing along (tho it rocks hard).

black betty and tush are the buttiest, but i think i'm gonna have to go with black betty cause i still get amped when that song drops lol

You are spot-on with your butt rock replacements for Deep Purple and Bruce. I would suggest that 'Twilight Zone' is a much butt-ier choice than 'Radar Love'.

dope butt-rockin video too

Butt rockin lead

(Ram Jam)

"Tush" just barely over 'American Woman"

No “Ain’t Seen Nothin Yet”????????????? come on!! the only song truly within wiggling distance of it in this list is Takin Care Of Business imo

pretty dope list tbrr

If someone says buttrock I'm thinking "Slow Ride" right off the bat

Still, I'm going for "Highway Butt" by Butt Purple

this is harder than just about any poll I've seen

kick out the jams isn't buttrock tho

Shouldn't Free "All Right Now" be here

Moreso than 'Welcome to the Jungle' and 'Can't Get Enough' for sure.

I like other songs more but in the category of buttrock it's one of:
Bad to the Bone
Mississisisipspsppiii Queen
Slow Ride

"is this Freedom Rock?? Well turn it up!!"

Yea GNR is cockrock but not butt

Xxbutt

godbless the internet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eGWW8KOQio

xpost butt rock has to be popular MC5 is not popular

Lol at One Tin Soldier being on that comp

BRB; comparing the songs in the poll to the track listing of this compilation:

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81f+vIcEpIL.jpg

Suspect compilation creator saw "Soldier" im the title and says IT FITS

Xpost

also MIA: “Jesus Is Just Alright” (Doobie Bros version obv)

Shouldn't Free "All Right Now" be here

― ill fuckin put a paste on those (Neanderthal), Friday, February 7, 2020 1:08 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yes

"Spirit in the Sky" kinda Jews for Jesus buttrock

BOC - "Godzilla"?

American Woman feels like the buttiest.

As someone with a lot of love for corn a lot of this shit is way too corny for my enjoyment.

Conspicuously absent butt:

Billy Squier - 'Stroke'
Heart - 'Barracuda'
Hombres - 'Let It Out (Let It All Hang Out)'
Black Sabbath, period

Maybe Cafferty - 'On the Dark Side'? Surely Mellencamp had something appropriately butt-y. .38 Special?

Basically if I can picture a 50-something biker with a bandana that thinks Jeff Foxworthy is funny vibin to it, it's the buttrock I don't like

Xpost

I mean yes, of course, there is good butt rock and lame butt rock but(t) in the interests of science we should set our prejudices aside in determining which songs fit. All I am saying is give butt a chance.

why won't you just butt out of this

My friend and I tried to whittle down a definition, and what we concluded was it had to have a certain lack of ambition (ymmv). That is, it can't be funny on purpose ("Godzilla"), it can't have a clear unified artistic vision (AC/DC, Van Halen, ZZ Top), it just has to be butt-stupid blues-riff based rock. So, like, BTO's "Tacking Care of Business" is a yes, but in our opinion "Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" is a no, since it's got some cool chords in it. "Black Betty" is a no, because that thing is complicated as hell, and we didn't included stuff like Kiss, because Kiss is lame. Boogie always helps hit the buttock sweet spot, but our top picks were stuff like "Smoke On the Water" and for sure "Mississippi Queen" and "We're An American Band." Bad Company's "Feel like Makin' Love" deserves some, er, love, too. We considered stuff like Sabbath and specifically "Iron Man" as kind of honorary ur-butt rock.

Nazareth "Hair of the Dog" also missing

That song might be the best butt rock song of all time. It's like the butt rock "Day Tripper."

Them Changes

Josh I hate to break it to you but butt-rock is a feeling

also a smell

I dunno, when I see that list above I think, no, butt rock is (er) more than a feeling. Like, Dude Looks Like a Lady, it sucks, but Aerosmith is like 90% butt rock and that is not it. And Enter Sandman is not butt rock. And Welcome to the Jungle sure ain't butt rock.

Now, if we were trying to distinguish butt rock from freedom rock, that's tougher ...

That's French rock, don't be a bigot

"Hair of the Dog" indeed an egregious omission. Related: cowbell seems to add a little buttness generally speaking

Josh let’s just agree to, well not exactly disagree, but that I’m completely right about “Ain’t Seen Nothin Yet” and you’re completely wrong

Very sad, the Bob Seger track should have been Her Strut.

also MIA, Heart - Barracuda

Old Time Rock n Roll is just dadrock

It's between Black Betty and Slow Ride. Slow Ride has the advantage of two tempos: double buttin'. But I think I gotta go Ram Jam.

Foghat’s cover of “I Just Want to Make Love to You” is even more buttrock than “Slow Ride”.

Oh shit, "Her Strut" is such butt rock. I saw Seger at MSG a few months ago, and not only had I not heard that song since it was on the radio, I think I thought it was ZZ Top!

Does anybody know where I can download the "Hey man is that Freedom Rock?" "Yeah man!" "Well TURN IT UP, MAN!!" commercial?

I swear you kids these days have no idea how good you have it. Back in MY DAY you couldn’t just go to YouTube and type “freedom rock commercial”, oh no.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/oWFsmtwqP7s/maxresdefault.jpg

In leaving out Nazareth, this list is clearly willing to mess with a son of a bitch. Which is a pretty buttrockin' thing to do, but not as buttrockin' as the song itself.

I like other songs more but in the category of buttrock it's one of:
Bad to the Bone
Mississisisipspsppiii Queen
Slow Ride

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Friday, February 7, 2020 10:10 AM (fifty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

oh i totally would have voted for mississippi queen if it were an option. voted for grand funk from the poll options

it is!

There's a whole generation of butt rock that this list ignores: buckcherry, matchbox 20, better than ezra, 311, sublime, creed, kid rock

kind of regretting not voting for "Rocky Mountain Way" now

"Her Strut" even has a butt double entendre in it

it is!

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Friday, February 7, 2020 11:02 AM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol, haven't had my coffee yet

xp, I personally believe buttrock ended in 1979, and anything later is something else. Maybe that Pat Travers song is grandfathered if it was recorded before '80.

Wasn't buttrock supposed to be like, Pearl Jam and stuff? Theory of a NickleCreed?

cosign on 1979 being the Last Year Of Buttrock

Foghat’s cover of “I Just Want to Make Love to You” is even more buttrock than “Slow Ride”.

it's not even totally a decade boundary thing with 79, so much as by that point, new wave couldn't be ignored, and it blunted the swagger.

Wasn't buttrock supposed to be like, Pearl Jam and stuff? Theory of a NickleCreed?

― ascai, Friday, February 7, 2020 2:43 PM bookmarkflaglink

not at all. the term came from greasy dudebros who listened to "nothing but rock".

stricly a 70s genre imho

https://occ-0-92-1723.1.nflxso.net/dnm/api/v6/9pS1daC2n6UGc3dUogvWIPMR_OU/AAAABU5w9I0fy5GDK9W5LPQKHkV2Bpm66qRACDk0mmsdw2n32FIYEZTy8z-nmdMZVxuZNOEs9he_KU0bbY6UuC8nZcG6LtpGP9BJNRlT2vxFeN0Zw3jj.jpg?r=744

https://theselvedgeyard.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/1970s-custom-van-couple.jpg?w=700&h=604

https://bradybunchreviewed.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/agents.jpg?w=567

great thread, i needed to hear 'slow ride' and 'tush' this morning haha

https://www.grayflannelsuit.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/styx-van-am-ad_billboard-feb-1979.jpg

yes I know, NOT BUTTROCK, but still

What's Greta van Fleet's signature butt-rock song?

this is definitely the most buttrockin' movie ever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PVmoGKKNQs

(does not feature nearly enough actual buttrock, but does feature a Charles Bukowski cameo!)

gotta be some buttrock bleed (sorry) over into the 80s right? def a time and place thing so GnR or Metallica or later Aerosmith feels wrong.

Billy Squire tho...

3. black betty
2. mississippi queen
1. slow ride

I love Billy Squire, but there's a Mutt Langiness to his sound that's un-butt. Mutt stole the Butt.

"Hot Blooded" will always be the Platonic form of butt-rock, IMO. At least, its the one that immediately makes me feel the most embarrassed for everyone involved.

when anything resembling buttrock is played in her hearing, my wife makes a face and says "This sounds like Foghat!"

ergo Slow Ride ftw

Voted for my favourite, which was "Highway Star". Rigorous attempts to define "butt rock" certainly helpful, though.

I always thought butt rock was hard rock with the edges kinda blunted, like Foreigner definitely being my idea and prob Grand Funk Railroad, but I like dancing to a lot of these. My personal favorite here is "Mississippi Queen".

what is it about Brits that they were able to do effortlessly master something that feels so American

I still don't get why anybody would call Black Betty butt rock. It's crazy showoff syncopated and tricky. Should you be able to dance to butt rock?

and not like in the way the stones or dusty Springfield did American R&b. foreigner and Foghat et al feel so “American” that i think ppl are often shocked when they realize thats not the case

"Hair of the Dog," though, that should be called "Hair of the Butt." It's got cowbell *and* talkbox. And it's awesome.

hell yeah. Massive oversight

lol didn't know Foghat wasn't American. in my defense I've prob thought about them a grand total of 22 seconds in my life.

their three big hits rule


ok well apparently Lou Gramm guess American, but the rest of the band was UK. didn’t know that.

I disagree with one of the points upthread - there was a lot of butt rock made in the 90s under the grunge flag

Very little butt rock in the 80s though

Buttrock has as much to do with British Blues as American music. Also I think most of these bands were pretty skilled and limber, even if the point was lumbering riffs, having played a variety of genres growing up. Especially compared to their descendants in hair metal and cock rock, who just grew up playing this stuff.

damn, i didn't know foghat were english

Xp, naw that’s post-butt and post-butt revival.

xp I never knew that either

nu-butt

Re: '90s butt rock, would argue that 'Sex Type Thing' is butt, for better or worse.

butt type thing

my personal buttrock heuristic tells me that, while many of these are excellent songs and some are buttrock-adjacent, the listed tracks with the highest buttrock scores are American Woman, Funk #49, I Don't Need No Doctor, Mississippi Queen, Slow Ride, Takin' Care of Business, Tush, and We're an American Band

points were subtracted for excessively fast tempos, metallic guitar tones, funkiness, organ or piano too high in the mix, hard-to-play solos, insufficiently simple arrangements, or being released later than 1975

The Machine Head LP is a great-sounding record imho. Crisp, drums so clear and live.

Good butt plug

I call BS on “Funk #49” as butt rock!

(Though admittedly I am not a scholar of the butt genre)

yeah, on further consideration, "Funk #49" is little too smart and funky, fake buttrock

Don't genre shame, fake or not it's beautiful the way it is

it's magnificent, my judgment was clouded by its grandeur, but is it a butt rock anthem? let us not be fooled again

I would say the same to the nomination of “All Right Now” – it’s too limber and subtle to qualify.

(Tho the Leland Stanfurd Junior College marching band playing it is pure butt)

i disagree that buttrock can be neither funky or limber

i'll give you smart and subtle tho

I think by definition, butt, it has to be dumb and stupid, which means not clever or funky or anything.

Do the Scorpions buttrock?

I own this CD (which doesn’t seem to be listed on Discogs — I may have to rectify that)... it seems to be an attempt to cash in with the “butt-rock market,” even though a full disc’s worth of such tunes were not available for licensing (so they had to pad it out with other stuff).

Scorpions ... like, their hits are too metal or hair metal. Hurricane is kitsch butt, like, I dunno, Boston.

"black betty" gets props for literally copying and pasting the start of the song twice (original version by "starstruck" on "truckstar records" has more rockin', less butt), but this is like... all primeval. i believe that butt rock wasn't truly perfected until the '00s.

i'm just off to listen to that compilation of every thin lizzy guitar solo strung together now, thanks

still not sure what this term means but many of these songs are intolerable

many of these songs are intolerable

That's one of the criteria

Also, interminable.

most buttrockin' rhythm section - Tush
most buttrockin' lead vocal - Highway Star
most buttrockin' lead guitar - American Woman

Scorpions are such an amazing band, masters of their craft

I really like the guitars on "Sails of Charon".

Another great recording.

Bad to the Bone is pure butt cheese and always will be. Humanity could exist for a billion more years and that song will never be cool. So that’s my vote.

Missing “Oh Well” here. Kinda want to go with “Hot Blooded.” And then “Welcome to the Jungle” is on the shoulders of what came before it, creating post-butt rock.

"Just Between You and Me" by Lou Gramm is Post-Butt Rock

i respect your categorization but mostly this is insanity

"Godzilla" is perfect butt rock (it even has a bass solo!) but because it's done with a wink it's only sort of ... half-assed.

voted Slow Ride, woulda voted All Right Now but I agree that it's more than butt. its solo is very unbutt even.

I have listened to roughly a million hours of classic rock radio and adjacent and have come to the conclusion that until this thread I have never heard Nazareth's Hair of the Dog. I thought this was going to be one of those classic rock songs like "Black Betty" that I've heard a million times but didn't associate the artist/title . . . but I don't think so.

Wow, to hear that song with fresh ears ...

As I told my wife just a couple of weeks ago, when you hear "Hair of the Dog" on the radio first thing in the morning, you know it's going to be a good day.

As a matter of fact, I literally just asked my wife what makes a song butt rock, and she summed it up best: "if they just farted it out, it's butt rock."

we have a couple of good threads on this if I could figure out how to link to a thread in Zing

Bad to the Bone is pure butt cheese and always will be. Humanity could exist for a billion more years and that song will never be cool. So that’s my vote.

I'm convinced.

Another great thing about "Hair of the Dog" is the pun in the title:

Hair of the dog = heir of the dog = son of a bitch, as in, "Now you're messin' with a..."

absolutely "bad to the bone"

a lot of these songs are great!

"pure butt cheese" sounds like a fungal condition

xxpost puns you had missed!

I love "Hair of the Dog" btw. Exodus actually briefly played it as a joke on the cruise and it was cool as hell.

it's just fun to sing "Son of a Bitch" in beavisvoice

I can't decide whether to vote for the butt-rockiest song I like the most ('American Woman') or for my favourite song on this list ('Highway Star', preferably the Made in Japan version).

Bad to the Bone is amazing. and extremely cool tbrr w you guys

Bad to the Bone is rock badassery for CPAs with coke-bottle glasses that just ain't vibin to REO anymore

"Bad to the Bone" was extremely cool to me when I was 4 years old

Tbf 4 year-olds know a thing or two about butts.

i always associated music like that with Baywatch

speaking of which, that theme song is almost buttrock, but it has too much 'other' crap in it

i couldn't finish "hair of the dog", there's only room for one butt rock song with way too much cowbell and it ain't "hair of the dog"

aw

don't fear the reaper is too proggy to be butt rock

Hair of the Dog owns

yeah Reaper is poppy, maybe one could argue it was buttpop, but i don't concur

Wondering if "Flirtin' with Disaster" by Molly Hatchet fits here. Or is it somehow too Southern? Or too fast?

Is CCR proto butt?

And how does swamp rock fit in? Totally separate genre? Is there swamp butt??

From the list (which obv contains a lot of bogus butt) it would seem it's OK to be from Texas, but the Deep South only gets "Freebird" - fine, that's a monster - and the Black Crowes, which is clearly post-butt if butt at all

Is there such a thing as neo-butt? And how is it that a cursory search for 'butt rock' primarily yields results about post-grunge acts from the late 90s whereas almost everyone itt is pushing for a completely different chronology?

if there is a little Ohio Players feel to the buttrock, does that make it buttfunk?

dunno

does Jacksonville count as Deep South? because another dead-cert first-ballot entry to the butt-rock canon comes from there:

FLIRTIN WITH DISASTER by molly hatchet

Jacksonville is deep somethin'. if you go to downtown Jax on a Monday night and shout "hello!", it'll bounce back like you're in a canyon

Molly Hatchet kinda seems built for this genre

All of north Florida is Deep South ime. Strong historical ties to the CSA.

"Freebird" is too well played and too intricately arranged to pass the butt rock test imo

I'm not sure about "Bad to the Bone" ... blues are a basic ingredient of butt rock, specifically cheesy ill-played loud blues, but once a certain level of blues content is exceeded, we're moving out of the butt rock sector of the Venn diagram

I feel the same way about the Black Crowes track -- the lingering traces of Otis' genius are soulful enough to disqualify it

Agree with that fwiw

to me buttrock basically equals bar band blues rock

ah no

There needs to be a kind of stiff-hipped auteur boogie element to it imo

well, supposedly the term butt rock is a 90s term that came from radio stations that proclaimed they played 'nothing but rock' so it referred to the type of fare that appeared the most on hard rock stations, and not necessarily referring to 'new' music

I think a good butt rock song should trigger a little rump shakin.’ I’m voting VH

I like the "nothing but rock" etymology, never heard that before

but "stiff-hipped" is more descriptive of butt rock as I comprehend it ... it must rawk but it can't be too groovy or swinging

So is Dazed and Confused the movie with the most butt rock soundtrack? does have some ballads and butt rock adjacent tunes but D&C has a number of iconic butt rock songs/scenes.

Blown away by the pun from Nazareth, never got it on my own. I am the son and heir of a bitch that is criminally vulgar.

"Cum On Feel The Noize" by Quiet Riot

Er, excuse me?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKYYPh8rvQU

Also, has no-one here ever heard of Status Quo?

There needs to be a kind of stiff-hipped auteur boogie element to it imo

― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Saturday, 8 February 2020 17:15 (fifty minutes ago)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw_sJifUYgM

And that's probably the first time the word 'auteur' gets within shouting distance of Quo.

you might want to have chosen a different song

the Quiet Riot Cum On butt rocks in a way that Slades...doesn't? idk....

Cum On butt

well that was unfortunate

i still haven't recovered tbh

xp But(t) there's people in the Slade clip fist punching the air!

Re: Quo, Slade imo buttrock has everything to do with the playlists of US album-oriented rock stations of the '70s and '80s and their "Classic Rock" successors, and the fact is Status Quo were and are not known in that world outside of "Pictures of Matchstick Men," and Slade were never a big presence there either. The Quiet Riot cover was massive in the US however. It may seem random which UK records have been anointed butt-wise but there is this history to it.

Hair of the Dog pun

holy
shit

Wait, what is the pun? That a son of a bitch is literally a dog?

A son of a bitch would be the heir of a dog. Heir/hair.

Oh!

Is the "h" in "hair" silent in Scotland?

Good one either way but even better if so.

I kinda want a thread dedicated to the best raspy, raw hard rock vocalists. Ones who can sound like they ate barbed wire

Dude from Nazareth was actually even better live.

Jesus?

Lol

And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, "NOW YOU'RE MESSIN WITH A SON OF A BITCH!"

https://youtu.be/HlF3Ezwt5Hg?t=905

Slade Alive is my go to buttrock LP xxp

can any good thing come from nazareth?

the guess who's "so long, bannatyne" is an underrated mid-tempo plod classic

late-period procol harum has some good stuff in that vein too, hell even as early as "whiskey train" they got that shit going on

I've heard "Hair of the Dog" a million times and "Love Hurts" ten million times, but I just played Hair of the Dog for the first time and that is a top-shelf hard rock album ... I feel dumb to have slept on these guys for so long

I didn't hear any butt rock on this album, for the same reasons early Aerosmith is not butt rock

Are you forgetting a-smith’s “sick as a dog”

So butt rock requires dogs?

That's how they say 'Hello'!

ALSO: How have we gotten this far without mentioning Butt Rock High Priest Sammy Hagar?

"It's got what it takes"

and the Black Crowes, which is clearly post-butt if butt at all

Shake Your Moneymaker (Butt)

"Sick as a Dog" is so damn good

imo it's not butt rock, for the same reasons no tracks on Sticky Fingers are butt rock

mama kin feels like it's got some butt in it

'bitch' has some oompa loompa in it

"Mama Kin" is closer to butt rock, but I don't think saxophones are allowed

see also "Bitch"

wouldn't say its the platonic buttrock ideal but "dirty white boy" should prob get an honorable mention for the title alone

Does The Cult fit in here?

damn. Electric does seem like it would. and that's what? like 87?

Electric is, like, meta butt rock.

Electric Butt

"Fire Woman" definitely qualifies

Fire Woman is pretty butt, but there's too much going on, imo. Post-butt for sure.

I feel like some Brian Johnson era AC/DC fits but not Bon Scott

Black Velvet
is a little butt rock
Black Velvet
kinda slow but so what

what would be considered "taint rock"

Nickelback, because, 'tain't rock.

I think early Melissa Etheridge or Hootie is like butt rock lite or something. Neither has the balls to be butt rock, but you know they wanna be butt.

Man, you want '80s butt rock? Lots Bryan Adams qualifies. Like, "Somebody?" That's pretty butt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqhELBUdYqM

Then again, maybe Adams represents that subtle transition from butt rock to, er, Mutt rock.

why are there several prime examples of hair metal in this buttrock poll? I know I am not the first one to point this out, but, GnR, Quiet Riot, and Twisted Sister ... hair and butt are related, but not the same. Also, Georgia Satellites and Metallica -- way too late.

when I think buttrock I think:

American Band
TCB
You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet
Bad to the Bone

and...

Slow Ride

i view buttrock as generating primarily feelings of fellowship, among the dudes and dude-adjacent ... it is the soundtrack to bros before hos for white men

sarahell otm

one rule of thumb I've applied is, could anyone possibly consider this song to be sexy? if the answer is yes, that song is not buttrock

music for slugging Miller Lites

I think I've heard the term "butt rock" twice irl and the people were referring to 80s hard rock/hair metal afaict (and one of those was from an ilxor). Outside ilx, I gather that online people use it to refer to post-grunge like Nickelback. It seems fairly simple to grasp what the compilers of this comp are going for. This thread's efforts to invent a subgenre based on purely affective properties seem fascinatingly quixotic.

quixotic rock is my favorite genre

I first heard the term "buttrock" in the 90s. it was in a response to a USEnet post where I was talking about Metallica, and this queefdick replied by saying Metallica sucked because he "hated cheesy buttrock".

i assume he was referring to the Black album (Load wasn't out yet), but idk

I'm fine with the exercise tbh. it's just an enjoyable thread goof. buttrock has never been clearly defined, and it's just a bit of fun, let's be cool

It's gotta be the right kind of super dumb, as in "butt stupid," which is different from regular stupid.

I think we can all agree that “Born in the USA” doesn’t belong anywhere near this list.

yeah, that is not butt of any shape or size

the album cover's got butt!

I don't think I've ever heard anyone talk about butt rock irl, just on ILM

it's a dumb genre and I think our collective efforts toward a poetics of butt rock have been suitably dumb

the mountain range that is Classic Rock has a lot of different peaks and valleys

the album cover's got butt!

― juntos pedemos (Euler), Sunday, February 9, 2020 11:10 AM bookmarkflaglink

a sexy one at that

Free- Alright Now

^discussed above (Ctl+F “all right now”)

Foghat Setlist
at Daryl's House Club, Pawling, NY, USA

Drivin' Wheel
Road Fever
Stone Blue
Chateau Laffite ’59
It Hurts Me Too
(Tampa Red cover)
Take Me to the River
(Al Green cover)
Eight Days on the Road
(Howard Tate cover)
Chevrolet
(Lonnie Young, Ed Young & Lonnie Young, Jr. cover)
Fool for the City
Home in My Hand
I Just Want to Make Love to You
(Willie Dixon cover)

Encore:
Maybellene
(Chuck Berry cover)
Play That Funky Music
(Wild Cherry cover)
Slow Ride

the album cover's got butt!

If that’s admissible evidence, then “Working for the Weekend” should also be listed!

dead butt if the story behind the cover is true

Working for the Weekend is more butt than Born in the USA imo

I would be satisfied if we could axiomatize the butt, or even just the butt order. i.e.

Axiom 1. if Slow Ride <_{butt} a, then a is butt

Axiom 2. For all a and b, either a <_{butt} b or b <_{butt} a

Born in the USA is butt -- it may be Pippa's Arse compared to the more proletarian asses of songs by Foghat, BTO, and Grand Funk Railroad -- but it is still of the posterior category

our collective efforts toward a poetics of butt rock have been suitably dumb

new board description

xp By what measure? If “butt” simply means “anthemic,” then butt means nothing at all!

Butt means something to me

idk where you are getting butt = anthemic from. There is plenty of anthemic music that is not butt -- the Internationale, for example. I guess you _could_ do a buttrock version of The Internationale, though it kinda is at odds with a certain butt ethos focused on the individual butt-owner (generally male) as opposed to a song focused on collectivist action focused on overthrowing an oppressive state. There does tend to be a proletarian aspect to buttrock, however.

i view buttrock as generating primarily feelings of fellowship, among the dudes and dude-adjacent ... it is the soundtrack to bros before hos for white men

I agree with this; I think there's an unquestioning bro-ishness to buttrock that's essential to the genre.

I agree that "Born in the USA" doesn't belong on the list; I think part of the essence of buttrock is that it doesn't require you to think, and, in fact, actively discourages you from thinking. If listening to it doesn't on some level make you dumber, I don't think it counts.

Hmm, I would propose that a buttrock song is at least polyvalent, in that it allows for a stupid listener response, even if the desired interpretation is more nuanced and/or intellectual. If this is not true, then our theoretical structure could result in the exclusion of numerous core buttrock tracks because someone can respond to it with "makes you think!" --> not buttrock.

what do you mean this doesn't require you to think

I'm in the mood
The rhythm is right
Move to the music
We can roll all night, yeah

Slow ride, easy, slow ride, sleazy

Euler otm

is Buddy Miles the only (lead) black artist on the list? we need to interrogate the intersectionality of the butt

There is plenty of anthemic music that is not butt -- the Internationale, for example.

We’re taking about rock songs here, sheesh!

applying the looser criteria of polyvalence to buttrock: you can include Born in the USA because there are plenty of people who hear it and think, "I was born in the USA! Yay! USA!" ... and hear "Slow Ride" and think "Slow Ride! Cars cruising! Yay! Slow Ride!" idk

xp morrisp -- there have been rock versions of the Internationale!!!

xp Euler -- I feel like the essence of butt is white and cis-male -- the inclusion of a black artist like Buddy Miles, and cis-women artists like Pat Benetar and Heart -- idk, maybe they aren't really butt? Does the dynamic change when the voice of butt is not a white male?

lol Tush really should be the winner here. Has my vote

Think we'll get to the bottom of this soon

yeah I agree sarahell, butt lacks intersectionality

It's true that a definition that relies on an individual and subjective experience of stupidity is flawed. But I would also argue that many songs that are not buttrock allow for a stupid listener response; the question, I think, is whether the song actively works to limit the listener response to a shared bro-ish stupidity.

feel like butt vs funk is a dialectic worth problematizing

butt can be white dudes trying to do funk but failing

But I would also argue that many songs that are not buttrock allow for a stupid listener response; the question, I think, is whether the song actively works to limit the listener response to a shared bro-ish stupidity.

And I would say that Born in the USA does that -- perhaps unintentionally, but it is anthemic and the catchy chorus is "Born in the USA" -- compare this to CCR's "Fortunate Son" -- where the catchy chorus is "I'm Not Your Fortunate Son" -- there is an active negation and tension there, in the dominant language, that is not present in "Born in the USA" -- it would be like, a picture of a butt, with relatively small-sized text framing the butt pic that talks about how horribly police handle sexual assault cases. Some people are gonna see the whole thing, and see it as a commentary on objectification and sexual assault -- other people will just see a big picture of a butt, and think, "Mmmmm butt!"

"Born in the USA" doesn't rest comfortably in the Buttrock canon, but it is still part of it. It's the "In Bloom" issue.

It's so keyboardy tho. Are synths butty enough?

Also would that open the doors to the Cougar himself

uh, the Coug is def butt-adjacent

A buttbeat away

B.U.T.T. IN THE U.S.A

I first heard the term "buttrock" in the 90s.

and this queefdick

― ill fuckin put a paste on those (Neanderthal)

apparently so much as mentioning the '90s gave you a serious flashback

Is "Hungry Heart" buttrock? To me it sounds much buttier than "Born in the USA," but maybe my definition is off.

"Hungry Heart" seems more like a throwback to a 1950s sound

i view buttrock as generating primarily feelings of fellowship, among the dudes and dude-adjacent ... it is the soundtrack to bros before hos for white men

Using this rubric, would vote for “Hot Blooded.”

Jukebox Hero is pure butt.

But, like, Boston - too much care and craft, imo, butty though it may often be.

i view buttrock as generating primarily feelings of fellowship, among the dudes and dude-adjacent ... it is the soundtrack to bros before hos for white men

Forgive my buttless ignorance, but how does this differ from cock rock?

I think of butt-rock simply as graceless, lowest-common-denominator hard-rock, lacking subtlety, technical sophistication, etc.

Artists like Springsteen, Mellencamp are just “too good” to even be in the ballpark.

The Boss does sound more than a bit constipated on BITU so that’s adds a few points on the butt-scale.

I've been underrating "Roadhouse Blues" as butt rock urtext, focusing instead on Hendrix and Sticky Fingers. But the throbbing and moaning of "Roadhouse Blues", its gracelessness, its thud: this is butt.

Forgive my buttless ignorance, but how does this differ from cock rock?

cock rock at least gives the hos equal standing to bros, and in some instances be closer to hos before bros

like cock rock is more Rolling Stones and Rod Stewart and the audience is the aforementioned dudes alongside the women in crop tops and jean shorts

I thought butts were gender neutral?

^exactly!

Most of the cock rock i know is misogynist as hell

I knew a guy he had a butt
15 miles on the Eerie Canut

butts also do not see color, yet the vast majority of buttrock is white

There is no way Born in the USA is butt rock.

I think the element that some butt-adjacent songs are missing is the troglodyte quality of real butt rock. Trve Cult Butt Rock like Grand Funk Railroad's first album has a willful stupidity to it, but(t) too much willfulness or knowingness kills butt rock dead. Also, butt rock does permit metaphor or wordplay, it's just that these aspirations to artiness must be deployed with a certain locker room crassness, such as winking double entendres for how the singer's penis fits in a vagina.

Most of the cock rock i know is misogynist as hell

yes! because women do not have cocks. whereas, everyone has a butt

Cock Rock is more about blatantly trying to get laid, while Butt Rock is more about partying and just having fun in general.

I guess what I am saying is a butt rock requires a little meat head.

born in the USA is beloved by many meat heads!

Xxxpost Which is why BulletBoys "I'll Tear That Asshole Like a Movie Ticket" doesn't count

Let's go further back in time. Is the back door in 'Back Door Man' in fact a butt?

are you talking about the original or the Doors version?

born in the USA is beloved by many meat heads!

I guess we can go all artist v. audience on this. I just don't see an ironic song about the plight of Vietnam vets is a butt rock anthem. If you played this with all the Foghat/Foreigner/Grand Funk/BTO it would stick out like a sore thumb. It's an interesting argument though, cause I agree there are heads so meat they will see butt in any rock.

I am pretty sure that in both the "back door" is an actual door, and the anatomical referents are penis and vagina, allowing for rear entry of vagina as a possibility, but not butt

It's about entering and sneaking out of the backdoor when fuckin' a married woman in their own home

The LITERAL BACK DOOR

xxp I also don’t think it’s defined by audience... and anyway, “meatheads” are just one subset of the huge audience that love(d) “Born in the U.S.A.”

Springsteen refused Chrysler Corporation CEO Lee Iacocca's request to use "Born in the U.S.A." in commercials for Chrysler cars, turning down an offer that would have been worth several million dollars.

like -- being used in car commercials in the 1980s (even requested use) is definitely a sign that a song has butt appreciation.

maybe this is a good metaphor:

https://www.ebaumsworld.com/pictures/20-things-that-totally-look-like-butts/84033783/

It's about entering and sneaking out of the backdoor when fuckin' a married woman in their own home

That's just, like, one layer, man.

I was thinking of The Doors' version btw, as it comes with extra butt.

the message of bitusa is too grim for buttrock

I would argue that the artist's refusal to allow the song's use in a car commercial is a sign it is not butt rock. I guess ultimately I subscribe to the auteur theory of butt rock.

as with most cultural products, I tend to emphasize reception theory -- thus the appropriation of Born in the U.S.A. by the butt genre, is a totally valid argument in the butt vs. not-butt issue.

otoh, along with unperson, tracer, mookieproof, crut, and Neanderthal, I do view ums as having expertise in this butt-defining exercise.

oh and granny dainger

this discussion has definitely been very eye-opening

is the eye brown?

According to the reception theory, “Bohemian Rhapsody” would be butt rock!

https://nypdecider.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/waynes-world-car-queen.jpg

this discussion has definitely been very eye-opening

― ill fuckin put a paste on those (Neanderthal), Sunday, February 9, 2020 4:49 PM (eighteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

is the eye brown?

― sarahell, Sunday, February 9, 2020 4:50 PM (seventeen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lock thread.

but then we'll never know the winner

okay, here's a diagram: bohemian rhapsody would be in the circle to the right

XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX
XXXXX X XXXXX XXXXXX XXXXX
XXX XXXXX XXXX XXX
XXX XXXXXXX XXX
XXX XXXX XXX XX
XX music that has XXX XXX music liked by X
XX sonic elements XX XXX people seen as XX
XXX of buttrock X XXX audience for XX
XX that aren't XX buttrock XX buttrock X
XX buttrock XX XX X
X because XX XXX X
XX audience and/or XXX X X
XX artists are not XX X X
X BUTT XXX XXX XX
XX XX XXXX XXX
XX XXX XXXX XX
XXX XXXXX XX
XX XXXXXXXX XX
XX X XXX XXX XXX
XXXX XXXXXXX XXXX X X
XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXX XXXXX
XXXX XXXX X X XX XX
XXXX X XXX X XXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXX

damn ... when I put it in the add a post box it was lovely venn diagram

https://i.ibb.co/vCNX5FL/original.png

anyway -- bohemian rhapsody is "music that buttrock audiences like" but is not buttrock

Springsteen does a live “Dancing in the Dark” that’s all guitars and no keebs, and that’s as close to butt rock as The Boss gets.

There’s a whole other world of Hot New Country songs that are really Hot New Butt Rock.

makes sense, there's usually a southern vibe

Like you have Butt Rock, then you have Butt Rock: The Next Generation -- which is that nickelback stuff, and then you have like, Butt Rock: Deep Space 9 which is country like "Boot Scootin' Boogie" and "Friends in Low Places" -- the latter of which might be a bit verbose to be butt, but there is a pervasive butt spirit to the song

Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy?

Styx, "Renegade"?

“Renegade” is kind of Broadway Butt Rock.

Is there indie butt rock? Or would that be a category error?

most butt is AOR butt

the indie negates the butt; there is definitely indie rock with butt inspirations, but it would require like, whatever the musical equivalent of those silicone implants are, in order to be buttrock.

the label heads are right up in there

lol xhuxk covered this in the last butt rock thread

Cock Rock is more about blatantly trying to get laid, while Butt Rock is more about partying and just having fun in general.

― a bevy of supermodels, musicians and Lena Dunham (C. Grisso/McCain), Sunday, February 9, 2020 2:08 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

^co-sign

also with cock rock, the emphasis is often on not having to try very hard to get laid.

"music that buttrock audiences like" but is not buttrock

^important distinction

Like bohemian rhapsody is something they'd listen to when sober and tapping into their arty side. True butt rock is what they switch to when they're on their buddy's pontoon boat and on their 20th natty light

“Bohemian Rhapsody” is a suite with one Butt Rock movement (iii.).

On the indie side, The Hold Steady, like Springsteen and Mellencamp, nods to Butt Rock, just as their audiences do.

what about "Never Been Any Reason" by Head East

i'm actually testing this by going on the youtube pages of all these songs and just writing "butt rock" and seeing which one has the fans that get the most angry. those, my friend, are the butt rock songs.

Ask the angry fans if they subscribe to reception or auteur butt-rock theory.

they subscribe to pizzagate theory

Damn it, have to change my vote to Funk 49.

This listicle has this thread’s number.

buttrock is lumpen proletariat

cock rock is unbridled decadence

well said

I would argue that the artist's refusal to allow the song's use in a car commercial is a sign it is not butt rock. I guess ultimately I subscribe to the auteur theory of butt rock.

Also worth noting that J.Lo used the song in her Super Bowl performance (with the artist's permission) to call attention to the US's neglect of Puerto Rico. I can't see "Hot Blooded" being put to the same use.

"Cum On Feel The Noize" by Quiet Riot

I just read this as "Cum Feels Good On My Nose"

oh you did not

J.Lo used the song in her Super Bowl performance (with the artist's permission) to call attention to the US's neglect of Puerto Rico. I can't see "Hot Blooded" being put to the same use.

well, considering the lyrics to "Hot Blooded" seem totally irrelevant in that regard, I agree, I can't see it being put to the same use

I mean:

Well, I'm hot blooded, check it and see
I got a fever of a hundred and three
Come on baby, do you do more than dance?
I'm hot blooded, I'm hot blooded
You don't have to read my mind, to know what I have in mind
Honey you oughta know
Now you move so fine, let me lay it on the line
I wanna know what you're doin' after the show
Now it's up to you, we can make a secret rendezvous
Just me and you, I'll show you lovin' like you never knew
That's why, I'm hot blooded, check it and see
I feel a fever burning inside me
Come on baby, do you do more than dance?
I'm hot blooded, I'm hot blooded (I'm hot)
Now it's up to you, can we make a secret rendezvous? oh
Before we do, you have to get away from you…

significant elision at the end there lol

i mean, you can see it as opposite to illustrating the US relationship to Puerto Rico, as Hot Blooded is about wanting to be fucked, and the US has already seriously fucked Puerto Rico.

i thought it was about a guy hallucinating in his last hours before dying of influenza

https://img.discogs.com/BWonEZCyNHGyayatFkgBqnBk1Dk=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-5522773-1420255025-1528.jpeg.jpg

Not much Butt Rock on this tho.

Oops

https://img.discogs.com/IHgB94rMaLYpePExzmpWcn239rY=/fit-in/600x597/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-2102790-1512914355-7595.jpeg.jpg

i almost copied and pasted some of this buttrock theory into a facebook post about California labor law and taxes. I just wanted everyone to know this.

Meter data

I'm kinda sad this didn't happen

Also, has no-one here ever heard of Status Quo?

― Being cheap is expensive (snoball), Saturday, February 8, 2020 1:05 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah, was just thinking 'Rain' is quintessential buttrock.

reverse meter data

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UNMgENyMUo

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

ahh memories

so what constitutes butt rock, anyway?

(J/K)

Ok, this is wild. Just looked, and the Nazareth album featuring "Hair of the Dog" (it's called "Hair of the Dog") features some really surprising cover songs: in addition to "Love Hurts" (Everly Brothers), there's "Guilty" by Randy Newman and a song called "Beggars Day" written by Nils Lofgren, drawn from the sole Neil Young-free Crazy Horse record! Weird. (The bonus tracks on the expanded edition include covers of Joni Mitchell, Little Feat, Frank Zappa and Tomorrow, the band featuring Steve Howe before he joined Yes.)

Whereby premiering in February of the decade and announcing Yes, the Seventies are here and here is cowbell; and
Whereby forming as a musical combo on Long Island and probably only knowing Vicksburg from high school history class (as is true of myself); and
Whereby aforementioned cowbell being played by a guy named Corky; and
Whereby being and American combo, yet associated with Cream, the John the Baptists of buttrock; and
Whereby begging our pardons, as if we do not know what is meant, when there is no doubt; and
Whereby seeming like a much longer song, long overstaying its welcome, yet running only two-and-a-half minutes; I
Therefor, have settled on Mississippi Queen

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I need to come back to this thread and read your takes on buttrock. I voted black betty because it’s one of those one-size-fits-all-butts kind of song.

Good results! Top 5 are all top butt-rockers in my book. Noting though that 4 of the 5 are blues-rock to some degree, and only one is flat out butt-rawk imo. I missed voting, but it woulda been Grand Funk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2lgnitdPdc

“Black Betty” is too fast for the genre, rest of the top 5 is pretty much accurate. “Tush” clearly the winner in a perfect world.

ZZ Top is butt-rock defined, even if they’re too good for the label

"We're An American Band" owns, not sure i consider it butt rock personally tho I see others here consider it a centerpiece of the canon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMsIrKjSM6Y

I don't understand how "We Will Rock You" and "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" are butt rock

What if it were called "Hit Me with Your Butt Shot?" Either way, the guitar solo in that one is waaaaaay too slick for butt rock.

I would say neither are, but I’m just being a butt.

ironically it's easier for a female singer to channel the sexual aggressiveness of cock rock than it is for her to channel the tedious male homosociality of butt rock. I respect Joan Jett and Pat Benatar's efforts to run with the butt boys, but I don't think either of them has produced a whole-ass butt rock staple that you can grunt along to at the bar with your shithead bros without feeling the need to unleash a string of "no homos" afterwards. sad case of a genre failing to live up to the inclusiveness of its name (everyone has a butt!) and growing even more male-dominated in its '00s post-grunge incarnation

Suzi Quatro, "Can the Can"? Has the double (double) entendre.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYoogY-UGio

butt? ✔️
rock? ✔️
buttrock? maybe if you ignore the breathy/sexy/clean vocals in the bridge. you can almost imagine her bathing every once in a while, which is a definite no-no for the genre

it's not stankrock

now this is where a venn diagram would really come in handy

ironically it's easier for a female singer to channel the sexual aggressiveness of cock rock than it is for her to channel the tedious male homosociality of butt rock. I respect Joan Jett and Pat Benatar's efforts to run with the butt boys, but I don't think either of them has produced a whole-ass butt rock staple that you can grunt along to at the bar with your shithead bros without feeling the need to unleash a string of "no homos" afterwards. sad case of a genre failing to live up to the inclusiveness of its name (everyone has a butt!) and growing even more male-dominated in its '00s post-grunge incarnation

otm and well put

yeah, that was such a good post

list is much better without "Black Betty" imo

I agree with this:

I still don't get why anybody would call Black Betty butt rock. It's crazy showoff syncopated and tricky. Should you be able to dance to butt rock?

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, February 7, 2020 2:33 PM (one week ago)

applying the looser criteria of polyvalence to buttrock: you can include Born in the USA because there are plenty of people who hear it and think, "I was born in the USA! Yay! USA!" ... and hear "Slow Ride" and think "Slow Ride! Cars cruising! Yay! Slow Ride!" idk

There's definitely something to this- unintended butt-ness. Locomotive Breath is butt, because "Got him by the balls, YEAH!" even if it is Tull's only throughly buttrock moment.

voted for black betty, but woulda voted for hair of the dog if it were an option.

Sorry to go way upthread, butt:

foreigner and Foghat et al feel so “American” that i think ppl are often shocked when they realize thats not the case

Butt iirc the thing about Foreigner was by having both American and Britishes members, the name would be true everywhere they went.

Foreigner bridged '70s butt rock to '80s Mutt rock.

I can buy "Hot Blooded" and "Jukebox Hero" as butt rock.

Much of the rest of Foreigner's output has a thorny/spiky/icy quality that I don't think associate with butt. "Cold as Ice," "Head Games," "Urgent" - synthy nervous songs rather than joyously dumb power-chord guitar songs. They are underlain by paranoia and attempted sophistication.

Put concisely: they are not keg-party singalongs. Note: Not all keg-party singalongs are butt rock, but all butt-rock songs are keg-party singalongs. It's sort of in the DNA of the genre.

My definition of butt rock definitely has to do with the intended audience and said intended audience's reaction, but it's very rooted in a specific time and a specific way of life. So for me, a true butt rock track must have engendered a certain kind of response from that specific audience at that specific place and time.

When a butt rock song comes on the stereo at a party in a wood-paneled basement, a butt rocker will either lift his beer in the air and say FUCKEN A or FUCK YEAH. Alternatively, he can keep his beer hand close to his chest and raise the other hand in a devil-horn gesture.

The arch-butt-rocker has a used El Camino or Firebird purchased with earnings from Trak Auto. He owns and wears a Confederate-flag headband. He lives in his parents' basement but it has a separate entrance so chicks can come in and out without being introduced to his parents. There may or may not be a black-light poster of a panther.

In this view butt rock is a musical genre that reflects a lifestyle, indeed a state of mind.

> Does The Cult fit in here?

Rick Rubin kept the flame going didn't he? Buttrock's tangential legacy was bringing the wallop to early Def Jam, so much of which had a "FUCK YEAH" quality to it. He then spent the 90s attempting to elevate a lot of Foghat/Nazareth type bands of varying levels of self-awareness.

license to ill is buttrock for gen x

buttrap.

(Not to be confused with, like, 2 Live Crew)

“No Sleep till Brooklyn” (that riff at that tempo) is perfect post-Rubin butt for the mid to late 80s

the correct answer is Bertha Butt Boogie by Jimmy Castor Bunch

https://youtu.be/4LQJYgs1sxc

all my life I thought Foreigner were German, a bit like The Scorpions

What is "License to Ill" if not the spiritual meeting place of Jimmy Castor Bunch and butt rock?

all my life ...

And while I know the line starts "In my life ...," I nonetheless immediately started humming "I Want to Know What Love Is."

lol at Black Betty winning this -- clearly an example of the votes for songs based on ilxors' tastes in music as opposed to "voting for the most butt song" (the Nick Cave verson of Black Betty slays btw, first version I heard). Still, congrats to a significant portion of voters keeping it real by voting for actual butt jams like Slow Ride, American Band, and Butt to the Bone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaQv3Cl06ow

Slow Ride voter here

Slow Ride voter here

― sorry for butt rockin (Neanderthal), Saturday, February 22, 2020 1:09 PM (one hour ago)

my man!

lol didn’t know nick cave covered but black Betty”. but like omg of course he did

here's how this poll's top finishers placed in ILM's never-to-be-forgotten Classic Rock Tracks Poll:

"Black Betty" by Ram Jam 100
"Slow Ride" by Foghat 5
"Bad To The Bone" by George Thorogood Did not place
"We're An American Band" by Grand Funk Railroad 218
"Tush" by ZZ Top 276
"American Woman" by the Guess Who 268
"Mississippi Queen" by Mountain 51
"Hot Blooded" by Foreigner Did not place
"Highway Star" by Deep Purple 369

does Bon Jovi's "It's My Life" count, or is it too pop, or too nerdy?

idk but I want to call it out as the nadir of rock music

https://i.imgur.com/JNogpz6.jpg

good thread. the first time i read it i was thinking about butt rock way more than i really wanted to, lol.

here are my butt rock thoughts. the subject matter of dumb good times is key, but it has to be genuinely dumb about it. "tush" is about dumb good times but it's practically nietzschean compared to say "slow ride". also buttrock has to be rhythmically clumsy and flat-footed. zz top is not that. foghat on the other hand, definitely. basically i don't believe butt rock can be good, categorically speaking, and i am not down with pure butt.

the verses of 'its my life' have butt elements, but the chorus is too dramatic for it to be truly buttrockin imo

And here are my butt-thoughts: most 70s rock was blues derived to some degree, but if a band's blues influences are too readily apparent (ZZ Top, Thorogood, Foghat, although the latter crosses the line occasionally) then to me they are blues-rock. Real buttrock is probably based on the same three chords, but emphasizes the rock rather than the blues. Hence why I would have voted for Grand Funk in this poll.

My textbook definition of buttrock is basically generic, anonymous, shirtless hard rock with lyrics about women, whiskey, and partying. Here are The Boyzz from Illinois, whom I once saw warm up for REO Speedwagon, Rush, and Blue Oyster Cult.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_MwihQSO50

"It's My Life" is butt rock because Max Martin. That is, it's not really any more butt rock than Backstreet Boys (JBJ's vox aside). Or, you know, this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuMre7PGsZA

I still contend that "Black Betty" is way too syncopated and tricky to be butt rock. Especially compared to the next few on the list.

xp damn, the boyzz rule!

why were they not the Boyzz from Illinoiz?

lol they kinda got booed off the stage. The show started late and the crowd was impatient. Rush had just released 2112 had a huge laser show; although I'm not a fan it was obvious they'd never be third band on the bill again. REO were so boring I fell asleep and woke up in the middle of BOC.

Well, "fell asleep," it was 1976 after all...

Where does this fall on the butt spectrum?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uG8auUjhZEI

Copyright 1885 Hacienda Records. Antique cockrock that shouldn't have been brought to the refinishers for the hairmetal varnish. Oh my that attempt at a DLR split is painful looking. A+ for enthusiasm though!

Black Oak did some buttrock, although they were such a weird band. And this... buttrockers would think Jim Dandy had gone new wave. I've never heard/seen this before, it's hilarious. A tossup between this and the video for "Music Time" by Styx posted elsewhere this week for most astoundingly misbegotten new wave cash-in.

i'm the king of butt
there is none higher
All would-be butt rockers should call me Sire
To burn my butt, you must use fire
I won't stop buttin' til I retire

If you want butt, you got it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW22JDVEejk

Loverboy is Buttrock in spirit butt Post-butt by necessity, what with the keyboards and Steinberger bass and collared shirts. Cars-like adaptations so more dire New Wave like B-52s may be fended off - "Lovin' Every Minute of It" video most explicitly. True Buttrock could only happen in the 70s, when there were no challenges to the throne of rock power.

All those live videos of the Boyzz are great! Buttrockin' but also very Radio Birdman.

Interesting that this thread that ended several days before the official start of the pandemic in the US has come back to life now that the country is opening up. What, I wonder, is the relation between normalcy and the existence of buttrock debate?

Trvmp rally music is not all Buttrock in form, but is certainly Buttrock if reception theory holds

https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2020/06/20/trump-rally-playlist-tulsa/

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7673XgxqA16yhdVEFvpYyh?si=acde744669f64a2b

I can't believe I missed this thread! I feel like if I have a wheelhouse aside from dadrock and classic rock, it's def buttrock lol

I think you can stretch the cutoff to maybe 1982 but i agree that generally 1979 is the cutoff

It has to be songs with a bluesy/boogie kind of bass. But not necessary blues-boogie songs?
Should suggest fucking but it doesn't have to be ABOUT fucking.
Which kind of leads to my main thought, that there needs to be an air of sleaze. Either lyrically, or musically, or both.
Out in the world, I feel like buttrock is to me the songs that make those messy drunk couples that were the cheerleader & the football star in highschool but now they're the hairdresser & the contractor go into full makeout mode at nostalgia concerts & Rocklahoma, etc.

worthy additions
I'm On Fire - Dwight Tilley Band
Hot Legs - Rod Stewart
Your Mama Won't Like Me - Suzy Quatro
Hittin & Runnin / Rockin into the Night / Wild Eyed Southern Boys - 38 Special
Head Games / Feels Like the First Time - Foreigner

the main reason to stretch the cutoff is that early .38 Special definitely belongs in this genre

also maybe Loverboy, though they're kinda too synthy.
And I really want to try to get Night Ranger in there but I don't think they make it. Don't Tell Me You Love Me is close, but perhaps too pleading?

No Molly Hatchet, no credibility. I kinda think "Flirting with Disaster" should be in such company.

Maybe they play MC5 in Michigan somewhere on the FM radio, but I doubt it was played ANYWHERE outside of maybe college radio shows. That record was also out of print for well over a decade before it came back into print in CD, it was pretty obscure.

I get it fits riff wise and perhaps sonically, but there was no one jamming that in their Bitchin' Camaro in '77.

"Rock You Like A Hurricane" by the Scorps should probably be here too.

It and "Too Young to Fall In Love" by the Crue fit better here than "Enter Sandman".

Basically, if you had a video where you are in a cage with women in shredded clothes writhing on the bars - you probably are playing something pretty damn butt rock.

I'm glad this thread has been revived because I think buttrock overlaps a lot with the "music to listen to while shooting pool" genre from the ZZ Top thread.

Earlnash, you will find uncontested support upthread for your opinion that "Flirtin' with Disaster" by Molly Hatchet should have been included in this list. The original list has certain flaws that have been hashed over throughout the thread in the interests of creating a more perfect conception of buttrock. I would personally caution against the idea that stripper rock a la Motley Crue and the Scorpions is proper buttrock. I realize both are coming from sleaze, but hair metal is more of a post-quaalude era sleaze, for lack of a better description.

Also I must admit that when I did a quick review of this thread I wondered, "where was Vegemite in this conversation?" so it's good to have her input. Definitely agree that .38 Special belongs here; imo they put an emphatic period on the whole era, although Loverboy and Billy Squier should be discussed in this light as well.

Billy Squier should NOT be discussed bc I hate him but ok :)

I agree that Molly Hatchet could easily slot in here
And maybe the cutoff should be 1983 so we can get those ZZ Top Eliminator classics in there

I think UFO definitely has some stuff that fits here. Maybe not Doctor Doctor (it's a bit too fast?) but stuff like Too Hot to Handle or Only You Can Rock Me.

and unfortunately pretty much every song from the late 70's that raves about boning 17 year old girls. Yes, Babys, I'm looking at you.

oh and whoever said upthread that Kiss doesn't belong here is forgetting Love Gun.

UFO are a weird one because although their whole catalog reeks of buttrock, I question how popular or prominent they really were. Their albums sold pretty well, it looks like, but I don't honestly remember them from (US) AOR radio back in the day, which is the admittedly biased lens through which I came to know this "genre"... (maybe "Doctor Doctor" was played a little? It has a certain familiarity).

How could anyone hate Billy Squier?

JUST WATCH ME

xpost josefa, yr right but man i would hate to exclude UFO based on airplay.
i think if it sounds like it should be blasting from a camaro tape deck, it stays. :D

xpost to earl - I think the Scorps are too fastpaced for buttrock
also their sleaze is weirdly, um asexual? wrong word but idk how else to say it. i thought maybe something from Lovedrive but i couldnt find anything that gives the specific buttrock vibe

Ozzy's "Crazy Train"
Sammy's "There's Only One Way to Rock"
Montrose's "Rock Candy"
Blackfoot's "Train Train"
Uriah's "Easy Livin'"
April Wine's "I Like to Rock"

Reviewing my teenage FM radio ravaged brain cells, these are the others I came up to list. I spent waaay too much time listening to Q95 when I was a kid.

I grew up outside a neighborhood called 'Shedtown' with LOTS of dudes that looked exactly like Todd from Beavis & Butthead driving old beat up Nova's or Vega's with way too big a stereos or van's they airbrushed Miss Playboy 1979 on the side.

ozzy - ehh no for me, it’s too fast & flashy for buttrock

sammy YES
montrose oh hell yess
blackfoot fuck yes
uriah yep
april wine CMON CANADA

Uriah Heep's "Easy Livin'" for damn sure, that is a neglected classic

lol ~airbrushed miss playboy 1979~ is startling imagery that i had never considered before
wizard vans sure
nudie vans? whoa

She was more in lingerie but there was some definite nipplige visible. Dudes would bust on him as she kinda looked cross-eyed in the painting. Other than the eyes, it was some pretty impressive redneck airbrush auto-painting.

We used to have a dude in our hood that was older that was nicknamed by kids as I shit you not "Mr. Disco" that used to rip through the subdivision in a powder blue Nova. He had the big white dude curly fro and a handlebar mustache and probably was in his late 20s still living with his parents - this would have been probably 80/81 era. Moms would bitch at him (and his older mom) as he would tear through the streets with kids playing in the street.

We had one street that used to flood pretty bad after huge rains and kids would literally play in the flood water like was a swimming pond until it drained away. (I shudder at the thought at what was in that water now bacteria and chemically now.) Anyway the kids playing in this redneck street pool lured him to run through the waters to get a big wave going (as he done it before) but this time it was a bit deeper than normal and he got stalled. Dude had to evacuate and flooded his beloved Nova and there in the middle of this utter defeat for Mr. Disco was like probably 40-50 kids from 6 to 14 laughing their ass off and pointing at him including a couple of the Moms that saw it happen.

^I recognize that type of culture. That could have happened in my old neighborhood.

Dying at the cross-eyed airbrush queen.

When we moved there in '78 - our next door neighbor was a divorced sales guy for Pepsi that had like 4 teenage sons (no mom). The dad looked kinda like Herb Tarlek with the checkered leisure pans etc. Their house was complete madness, with tons of Pepsi on the shelf, HBO on the TV and dad not much around - which meant all sorts of crazy stuff going on.

The older brother looked pretty much like Wooderson, the two middle sons were twins Denny and Danny that had big curly fros and glasses and me and my buddies hung out with the youngest kid who was a couple years older than me (I was like 8-9 at the time). The twin brothers were geeky and were always like using those old metal tennis ball cans and building cannons with lighter fluid and using M80s to blow shit up. They literally got me high a few times as a kid like age 8-9. I remember well listening to the first Cars record on LP and like the world melting down.

Couple years later the dad started dating this redheaded English lady and they eventually got married and moved out. How the heck he met a English woman in Muncie in the that era, I still wonder how it happened.

Keep mind behind this neighborhood was a creek and then a cornfield - the road on the other side of the cornfield was CORNBREAD ROAD - the very road that Spielberg used for Richard Dreyfuss' first 'Close Encounter' in the movie. From what I understood, Spielberg was going to film in Muncie but the crooked ass politicians tried to shake him down for cash - so they passed.

In hindsight, it was a weird place in a weird time.

So that is my buttrock credentials in a nutshell.

using those old metal tennis ball cans and building cannons with lighter fluid

We called those "Polish cannons" (suburban South Florida circa 1980). We probably could've come up with a less disrespectful name, but that was the times. There seems to be a certain fundamental common ground connecting suburban culture across the US.

I think we all have to acknowledge that earlnash might be a buttrock authority.

I grew up in Southern Illinois and I might be slightly younger but I can totally relate to your posts.

There is something very midwest about buttrock, I feel.

so pleased at how much the butt thread expanded today

earlnash def has the bonafides
*stamps buttrock card*

ozzy still aint buttrock tho :)

Agreed. But why? One thought is it's not quite bro-y enough.

no sleaze

sleaze quotient must be 75% or higher

ozzy is too heavy to be buttrock, but "crazy train" is certainly a buttrock anthem

ok yr going to have to explain your logic because i do not see it at all

I don't think "Crazy Train" fits but something like "Flying High Again" is pretty butt. Camaro Rock.

ok but just picturing it playing in a camaro is not the only criteria

camaro must be driven by the 30 year old dude dating a high schooler or what are we even doing here

I feel like buttrock and “gas grass or ass nobody rides for free” bumper stickers are strongly correlated more so than any particular vehicle

otm

I feel like buttrock and “gas grass or ass nobody rides for free” bumper stickers are strongly correlated more so than any particular vehicle

point of comparison:

THIS is buttrock:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TantJmKEQw

ok yr going to have to explain your logic because i do not see it at all

― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, July 30, 2021 1:57 PM (thirty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

idk i can picture wayne and garth banging their head to it. maybe they were more sophisticated than the average butt rockers. also, it's got a big dumb riff and a big dumb chorus ("metal wounds not heeeeealing"), and it inspired a big dumb rap song by trick daddy and lil jon.

The bass is so 80s sounding on that Babys track, but everything else is butt beyond belief!

buttrock can’t be just dumb or it’d be literally all of 70’s hard rock lol

also wayne & garth headbanged to queen & bohemian rhapsody is for sure not buttrock. wayne & garth are heshers, not buttrockers

sleaze is the key, music and or lyrics

music that makes creepy camaro dudes wiggle their butt

This revive and Dusty Hill's death has me contemplating the line between smart-dumb and stupid-dumb in rock once again. I have a hard time calling ZZ Top butt, but I can't pinpoint how their wit shines through in "Tush", so literally and figuratively buttrock head to bottom, and yet and yet and yet I can't quite call it that.

you cant think of it as a judgement. maybe it was intended that way but it’s easier if you just treat it like a fun theoretical subgenre

“oh this song is good/i like this band/ therefore it’s not buttrock” will get you nowhere

it’s the vibe that takes it there. buttrock ~is~ creepy & dumb & sleazy but it’s not just bad music that belongs here

plus it’s a vibe that has been at the heart of rock n roll since elvis waggled his pelvis

One sign of wit or at least winking in "Tush" is that you have this Texas boogie band using the Yiddish term for butt. That's pretty funny.

grand funk
bto
bad company
edgar winter band - “frankenstein”
some joe walsh?

yeah maybe joe!

alright guys the butt is getting a lil too greasy in here let's make sure we keep an eye on that

If there's one thing butt rock is generally not it's slick.

u_u

VG, what are your thoughts on Born in the USA as buttrock?

Head East were only mentioned briefly once in this thread, but I think they've got the goods. Earnest, sturdy, plodding meat and potatoes rock with no pretensions to metal. No pretensions to anything, except the joys of Gettin' Lucky with a Fly By Night Lady.

Aw, turn on your radio, and put your ear to the sweet sweet music
And take your baby and hold her in your arms and let the music go...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTP4o1PdjMU

I guess I always thought it was a strictly 70s thing… maybe stretching back to 68 or so

When we moved there in '78 - our next door neighbor was a divorced sales guy for Pepsi that had like 4 teenage sons (no mom). The dad looked kinda like Herb Tarlek with the checkered leisure pans etc. Their house was complete madness, with tons of Pepsi on the shelf, HBO on the TV and dad not much around - which meant all sorts of crazy stuff going on.

The older brother looked pretty much like Wooderson, the two middle sons were twins Denny and Danny that had big curly fros and glasses and me and my buddies hung out with the youngest kid who was a couple years older than me (I was like 8-9 at the time). The twin brothers were geeky and were always like using those old metal tennis ball cans and building cannons with lighter fluid and using M80s to blow shit up. They literally got me high a few times as a kid like age 8-9. I remember well listening to the first Cars record on LP and like the world melting down.

Couple years later the dad started dating this redheaded English lady and they eventually got married and moved out. How the heck he met a English woman in Muncie in the that era, I still wonder how it happened.

This sounds a lot like the dirtbag brothers who lived across the street from me with their widowed dad. Their mom was alive when I moved to the neighborhood, but then she got cancer and after she died, he used to lock himself in their backyard shed and drink all day, so the two brothers basically took over the house. I was forbidden to hang out with them, but of course that's where I spent my afternoons when my mom was at work. They listened to some lunkheaded shit — Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, KISS — but they were also into Zappa, the Residents, ELP and Captain Beefheart, all of which I learned about over there.

xposts

Born In The Usa is 100% NOT buttrock

sleaze quotient = zero, for a start, along w a million other reasons

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-ScDz4Vj98

^^^^^ gets it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a58295TocB8

Born In The Usa is 100% NOT buttrock

Thanks, VG!

Is Mott the Hoople - "Sucker" too glam for buttrock, cause it makes me feel like I need a shower after listening to it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXVowBOGU-k

I mean, having Bowie on sax by definition probably means it's not.

Good one. Mommas Little Jewel too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Jjr7KxTeB4

So buttrock it needs to be cancelled:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBSUALhpce8

Mott’s a bit too glam, piano-y, too “bright”? Not nasty-sounding enough.

Definitely Grand Funk though, they are automatically a shoo-in for buttrock

also pkbr raises a good criteria

“if it would get you cancelled ….it MIGHT be buttrock”

butt beyond belief!

<"Black Betty" riff plays>

"Hey man, is that Butt Beyond Belief?"

"Yeah man!"

"Well, turn it up man!!!"

lmao

Time-Life infomercial co-hosted by Sammy Hagar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU19noOmkaM

i wanna vote in this Suzi Quatro jam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6XUG9GIqPo

https://triblive.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/2762802_web1_ptr-SHagar-062420.jpg

"Hi, I'm Sammy Hagar. Remember the days when you could ball a girl in the back of your metalflake flame Econoline in the parking lot of a Molly Hatchet concert?"