I just discovered their early work and it's truly great.

Another bold statement: Australia and New Zealand together have produced far more great pop music over the past 40 years than all of continental Europe... with about 4% of the population.

They're from a similar era, moved in similar circles and made similar music back in the day. Today Clapton is held up as a god of rock while the Stewart is seen as an uncool lounge act. Stewart's fall is well documented and well earned but people these days seem to have forgotten that he made album after album of top drawer, gutsy guitar pop back in the day.

I hear a lot of their sound in 90s guitar bands like Dinosaur Jr and Soundgarden. Also, late Husker Du into early Green Day pop-punk takes a lot from those clean, fast strummed riffs. Classic / arena rock in general (Heart, Boston and BOC in particular) is the dirty secret of lots of that 90's alternative sound.

I don't think that's a particularly bold statement, but I'd be curious what people considered to be Clapton's prime. Bluesbreakers? Cream? Derek and the Dominoes?

In college a guy mentioned to me that he liked some of the grunge bands because they sounded like '70s classic rock.

I could never take seriously bands like Alice in Chains or Soundgarden because they all sounded like Foghat or Mountain to me.

Not odd at all. As Hiro said, they're both songwriters who put out albums with their names on them and with bands during the same era, with rather similar songs and styles. Rod was just a better songwriter. And that's what it comes down to.

Only without the sense of fun those '70s bands had.

We didn't listen to Clapton to hear Maggie May - we listened to Clapton for the blues and for guitar solos. And Rod's highest points (pre-disco) were probably Clapton's lowest points.

to those finally figuring out "grunge" was a return to the music punk rebelled against. It's all come full circle. (But I still don't get the Boston thing - I think Velvet Underground is more appropriate for strumming techniques.)

Here's a bold statement:

Gasoline Alley & Every Picture Tells A Story > anything Clapton did, ever, including Derek & the Dominoes!

Big Star > anything Rod Stewart did, ever. This is fun.

But anyway, Blind Faith and Cream laugh hysterically at your premise. Blues Breakers just shakes its head in silence.

Hmm. This is an interesting argument (Stewart vs. Clapton.) I'm going to arbitrarily list what I would consider the five best albums each was associated with - other may and will disagree - and then go from there.

Clapton

1. Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (Derek and the Dominoes)
2. Disraeli Gears (Cream)
3. Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton (John Mayall)
4. Blind Faith (Blind Faith)
5. Slowhand (Eric Clapton)

Stewart

1. Every Picture Tells a Story (Rod Stewart)
2. Truth (The Jeff Beck Group)
3. A Nod Is As Good As a Wink... to a Blind Horse (Faces)
4. Gasoline Alley (Rod Stewart)
5. Beck-Ola (The Jeff Beck Group)

Based on the above, I'd give the edge to Stewart.

One of the most underappreciated songwriters EVER...is Neil Finn.

This is not to derogate Dylan, for I am a big fan, but Bruce Cockburn is at least his songwriting equal.

I like a few of their songs but would have to concur with your assessment. Dave Grohl got very, very lucky he was in the right place and time with his music. He was in one of the last Rock groups that achieved fame before the music market exploded into a million fragments. So we are stuck with the Foo Fighters as a safe, mainstream choice.

fixed



A sensible man with good taste.

This is what the first Boston album is credited with. Is it still in top ten selling of all time?
Before 1976 there was a definitive line between rock and pop with occasional crossover. Rock was strictly album oriented played on FM, while pop ruled the top 40.
By 1975 rock was kind of dying out. Along comes monster Boston album with it's over production power rock/pop sound. Others rock bands "borrowed" this sound and suddenly bands that had been around for years, playing small venues, were in the top 40 playing arenas: REO Speedwagon, Styx, Kansas, Blue Oyster Cult, ZZ Top, etc. Along with newcomers like Foreigner, Journey, etc. Look how Jefferson Starship's sound changed, it wasn't just the personel, or Foghat..
Other bands, mostly the blues rock oriented ones either disappeared or remained the same but never got big and famous: Humble Pie, Ten Years After, Savoy Brown.
Take it or leave it. The Boston album has been credited with "saving" rock. Rightly or wrongly.

I went home that night and spun Every Picture Tells a Story and couldn't make it through Side 1. (Side 2 is better, I know.) I think I felt nauseous as Rod started singing Amazing Grace. That's the thing about Rod - he barely writes his own material. I like Rod Stewart and his work with Jeff Beck, but again, he's not writing those songs.

I'd take that list of Clapton albums ANY day over Rod. But as I said earlier, it's not a comparable pair, so...

(After lifting the needle from Amazing Grace, I had to cleanse my palette with a little Kinks David Watts.

I absolutely agree with this entire assessment and exactly matches my recollection of the time. However, the poster said they influenced "indie / grunge / alternative bands" and that was the part I was having trouble with.

Rod Stewart - Great voice.
Eric Clapton - Elite musician and song writer.

The two shouldn't even be compared.

As for Boston, I thier S/T debut should be in the discussion as the best first ablums of all time. But personally I would rank the first Cars album higher.

I don't know. Just on an aesthetic level, Clapton's music is just boring. Sure, he's a great guitarist, but not particularly interesting. The Faces alone have far more heart, soul and fire in just one song than Clapton has in one album. It's like two writers; one is incredibly eloquent and a master words-smith, but he uses his skill to write about something benign, like a sunset. That's Clapton. Then there's another writer, not nearly as skilled, but he gets in and exposes core emotions and feeling, using more egalitarian words that more people can relate to. That's Stewart's early work. Again, I don't mean lyrics, just the music in general, though Stewart is a far better lyricist than Clapton as well.

Funny, I just read Christgau's review of EPTAS, which he gave an A+. Then I looked for a list of every album he's given that grade. Layla was on it.

I'm not using an appeal to authority argument - there's plenty of times I've disagreed with Christgau - but I thought this was kinda amusing.

I guess what I'm getting at, that my "bold statement", as it were, is that Clapton is, and always has been, boring as fuck. And though I do like the Layla album (best thing he's done), that has more to do with Duane Allman and the other guys in the band than Clapton.

If you can sit through an insufferable version of Amazing Grace, I suppose.

I'll take an insufferable I Shot The Sheriff.

Eric Clapton is credited as the first songwriter on every song on the record that isn't a cover. Duane Allman is not credited at all for songwriting.

I will say that everything Clapton did after 1978 has been brutal. But same for Rod.

I've remarked this before, but Big Star is the most overrated of power pop bands.

Who?