Replies

One by one...your selections:

Frank Zappa: Hate to break it to you, but "cool" belonged to Zappa only when the real Mothers of Invention were still in business. And for that, look no further to Absolutely Free...

Van Halen: Don't even go there. I don't care how great Eddie Van Halen is, he wouldn't be the first truly virtuoso musician to shoot his wad at the crapola tables.

Jethro Tull: Thick as a Brick lives up to its title and then some - it's an unqualified snooze. Jethro Tull hasn't known what "cool" is since Benefit. Brick is cool only when compared to the inexcusably over-the-top-and-down-the-drain A Passion Play.

The Who: Now you're talking in headlines, though if I'm putting the Who on the "cool" list I hold that The Who Sell Out beat the living bejesus out of the other three sets for "cool".

Ted Nugent: I could be tempted, as regards Double Live Gonzo, on condition that I don't ever again have to listen to "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang".

Bruce Springsteen: You should have quit at The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle. There isn't anyone who could get within six city blocks of that kind of cool, and fewer who'd resist the temptation to try.

Traffic: Low Spark? Over John Barleycorn Must Die? Dear Mr. Fantasy, replay your tune...

Cream: Disraeli Gears is a good pick. Wheels of Fire is a better one, even if "As You Said" is about the most misshapen song they ever came up with.

And how come these Rolling Stone arbiters didn't give even a nod or a wink to Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band's The Mirror Man Sessions or Safe as Milk? (You don't need me to tell you they'd run behind Mommy's skirts in a New York nanosecond at the first hint of Trout Mask Replica, do you?)