Pretty common but "freebird" is amazing!!!!

it's a pretty common joke to shout freebird as a request at bar bands, wedding dj's and the like

The part of freebird before the solo is good with that great slide guitar, but the solo isn't very interesting, doesn't do all that much for me.

I like them well enough, not a mega fan or anything though I own all of the pre crash albums. I suppose Gary would be my fave member, he tends to get overlooked compared to Alan, Ed and Steve but I prefer Gary's playing to theirs. Favorite era was the time between Ed and Steve, honestly I wish they would have continued with the 2 guitar lineup instead of bringing Steve in.

Diversify your repertoire
 

One of my major gripes when it comes to Lynyrd Skynyrd is the selection of songs that are in the main rotation of classic rock radio. Free Bird is a decent song at 5 minutes, at 10:30 I want the south to secede again. Gimmie Two Steps and What's Your Name are the same damn song and both are grating somewhere around the 10,000th play. And the main riff of Sweet Home Alabama is so effed out Stairway to Heaven thinks it's cliche.

This wouldn't bother me if I didn't have a sort of sentimental adoration for the band and somewhere within in me. They didn't suck and they didn't write whining annoying hillbilly music, they were a fast paced, exciting rock and roll band. They have two excellent albums and a place in history for the foreseeable future. So...knock it off DJ's diversify your repertoire

This is very much a blanket statement.

Their music is simple and repetitive and they get too much radio play? It's not like you let out some huge cat out of the bag.

Everyone knows that I'm the number one supporter of super technical, complex, overblown, pretentious pomp rock. But I also like my share of the simple stuff. There's nothing wrong with being basic, Lynyrd Skynyrd were basic, but they did a damn good job, they had their own voice and they were by no means incompetent.

I still love my Free Bird. Probably because it's a little.... pomp? Yeah that's the word.

what do you mean blanket statement? Of what, the four most popular songs they have all of which I mentioned specific?

I don't follow.

And I never claimed to be rocking the boat with my take, just offering my observations

i still think they hit the nail on the head with their breed of Southern rock. everywhere else i look there seems to be misgivings or variations in songwriting to the point where it sounds feeble and bleak. at least with Skynyrd there's some depth and constancy to the material that they wrote (and i gotta say, a lot of it is rather decent). they managed to blend hard rock and country together without sacrificing songwriting quality, something not many other acts could ever claim.

the only valid criticism you could really make for LS is they suffer from wanton overexposure, which really isn't anything within their control.

What I mean is you seem to criticize the songs for being simple and repetitive, but that's what rock n roll is, and I've never gotten the logic behind "once a great song is played on the radio thousands of times, it's no longer great".

"Simple and repetitive" is just the easy, cookie cutter criticism everyone makes of bands like Skynyrd and AC/DC because they can't find anything truly constructive to say. Having been in the company of many prog fans, I get that kinda stuff a lot. And I'm very tired of hearing it. :mad:

I think if you read my post again, you'll see I'm not criticizing the band for being overly simple or repetitive. I am criticizing DJ's for melting a solid and deep music catalog down to four-seven songs which may or may not be their best anyway.

Whenever people think of Skynyrd they think they are Sweet Home\Free Bird and the like and nothing else. It sells them short as I noted.