Trump's Press Ban and the Responsibility of Journalists

Claiming unfair press treatment, President Trump recently barred journalists from CNN, Politico, and MS NOW from the White House. All three organizations have sued to have their press privileges restored. Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., lead attorney for all three, told the Associated Press the that the ban was “a blatant violation of the First Amendment and due process.” He went on to say, “The president and his administration have continued to make clear that this ban has only one purpose: to punish reporting he doesn’t like . . . That’s retaliation and viewpoint discrimination, pure and simple." 

There's little doubt that the three news outlets are on solid legal ground, and will have access restored. Winning in court will be framed in mainstream media circles as an historic victory for the First Amendment and freedom of the press. But beyond fighting to restore access to a White House that continues to use them as hate objects to fire up the MAGA base, and/or as amplifiers for lies and disinformation, the mainstream press should be using this moment to reconsider what exactly should be the responsibilities of their top journalists in the Trump era. 

Here is an only slightly exaggerated version of a typical interaction between Trump and a journalist from CNN, MS NOW, Politico, and most other mainstream outlets: 

REPORTER: Mr. President, why do you continue to insist there is widespread voter fraud in America when few examples of it can be found?

TRUMP: I won three elections by a landslide, including 2020. 

REPORTER:  Mr. President, there is no evidence you won in 2020, and the other elections were two of the closest in history. 

TRUMP:  You are fake news. You are a disgrace. 

That pattern plays out continuously, on issue after issue, no matter if Trump is speaking at a formal press conference, getting ready to board a helicopter, gaggling on Air Force One, or standing on the White House lawn. If he's not around, his team of toadies repeat back the same delusions and distortions. Exactly how is reporting and broadcasting in this fashion serving the cause of informing the public? 

There's little doubt that CNN, MS NOW, and Politico will have their access restored. But is it really in the best interests of the press and the public for their best journalists to participate?

So should mainstream journalism just ignore Trump? Should they impose a White House ban on themselves until the building is once again populated by someone who at least pretends to be a good faith actor? 

Of course not. The question has never been whether or not to cover the Trump White House, but HOW to cover it. 

Indulge me in a thought experiment.  For those old enough to remember the Nixon years, you know that Bob Woodward's and Carl Bernstein's Watergate reporting was an extraordinary and rare example of two talented young journalists doing everything in their power to find proof of a criminal conspiracy, involving the president and his top aides, to persecute Nixon's political opposition. The Washington Post provided the critical institutional support necessary so that Woodward and Bernstein could do their jobs. 

Now suppose the Post's legendary editor Ben Bradlee and publisher Katharine Graham had refused that institutional support. Even worse, suppose they had said to Woodward and Bernstein, "do what you can to get in front of the president. Ask him to deny involvement in corruption. When he denies, ask him again. If he's not around, ask the press secretary. If the press secretary is not around, ask the chief of staff. We will continue publishing their denials and obfuscations, and at some point the public will turn against them. You will be viewed as heroes." 

Not only would that have been a complete waste of Woodward's and Bernstein's time and talent, but it would have had the even worse consequence of dedicating fewer resources to do the investigatory work necessary to find and vet the evidence establishing that the corruption charge was not some kind of partisan smear resulting from "Nixon Derangement Syndrome." (NOTE: I'm sure if we could relive the past and go back to the Nixon years, Spiro Agnew, H.R. Haldeman, Bob Ehrlichman, John Mitchell, and other Watergate conspirators would have accused the media of NDS after the Washington Post's first report on the matter.). 

No one believes there is an easy answer to the question of how to cover the White House in the Trump years. But if we just narrow the question to the specific issue of how to cover the press briefings, I think journalism scholar Jay Rosen's plea from 2017 still makes a hell of a lot of sense: "Send the interns." According to Rosen, the Trump White House press briefings operate on three levels: (1) they tell any staffer working for Trump that they repeat back the president's alternative facts, even at the cost of sacrificing their own personal dignity; (2) the briefings turn the press into "hate objects" and are a form of "theater of resentment" in which the press star as public enemies; (3) the briefings tell Trump's core constituency that the alleged "liberal bias" of the press will finally be confronted and the reporters will be "roughed up." Meanwhile, people hostile to Trump are told "you don't count," and people not for or against the president are essentially told "don't bother" because all the briefings will produce for you is confusion and frustration. 

Jay Rosen's 2017 message to the mainstream press is even more valid today: "When I say #sendtheinterns I mean it literally: take a bold decision to put your most junior people in the briefing room. Recognize that the real story is elsewhere . . ."
 

Rosen argues that the press should simply refuse to cooperate with this charade. By sending their modern day equivalents of Woodward and Bernstein to the briefing, they lend legitimacy and credibility to it. So what does Rosen mean by "send the interns?": 

"When I say #sendtheinterns I mean it literally: take a bold decision to put your most junior people in the briefing room. Recognize that the real story is elsewhere, and most likely hidden. That’s why the experienced reporters need to be taken out of the White House, and put on other assignments."

In other words, the press should flip the script. Instead of continuing to cover the White House from what Rosen calls the "inside-out," they should cover it from the "outside-in," the places "where the action begins on the rim, in the agencies, around the committees, with the people who are supposed to obey Trump but have doubts." 

By continuing to obsess over inside-out reporting, the press reduces itself to unwitting mouthpieces for the administration's alternative universe. A better role for them can be found in a quote often attributed to George Orwell:  "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed; everything else is public relations."  Contrary to what a journalist educated at an accredited journalism school might think, Trump wants his rantings and ravings reported. When CNN's Kaitlin Collins and her equivalents at MS NOW and Politico become featured characters in the theater of resentment, the only real beneficiary is Trump. 

What the Trump administration absolutely does not want is the outside-in reporting that continues to connect the dots linking the president to everything from Epstein to the tech bros to crypto to foreign gifts and on and on. He'd much rather the headline be, "Trump banishes reporters from White House" as opposed to "Documents prove that Trump made $2.24 billion in 2025 by blending government and personal business." How do we know Trump does not want the latter? Because he has filed over $70 billion worth of lawsuits against media outlets since declaring his candidacy in 2022. 

Way back in 1904 Joseph Pulitzer wrote, "Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together." If the mainstream press wants to help save the Republic--and the press--they can start by sending the interns to cover White House briefings. 

Note To Journalists: You Don't Have To Cover Polls!

The campaign season that started my life long fascination with political communication was the 1977 race for mayor of New York City. Living in Brooklyn and not even old enough to vote at the time (I was 16), the Democratic party primary that year captivated me. It featured the eventual winner Ed Koch (a former liberal congressman from Manhattan) going up against the young Mario Cuomo (who was then New York's Secretary of State and who would later become governor). The wild Democratic Party primary race also included New York City feminist icon and former congresswoman "Battling" Bella Abzug (known for her large brimmed hats), and other candidates with backgrounds in city politics.

Ed Koch (left) and Mario Cuomo were the main participants in one of the most spirited political campaigns in history: the 1977 race for mayor of New York City. 

Because the incumbent mayor Abe Beame had the misfortunate of being in office as the city teetered on the edge of bankruptcy in the mid 1970s, everyone thought the fiscal crisis would be the dominant campaign issue. But lo and behold, the city had a massive blackout in July which led to widespread looting and chaos. Suddenly law and order dominated the campaign rhetoric zone. Koch that year hired political PR guru David Garth--a kind Don Draper Mad Men character--to reinvent him as a tough on crime moderate. They found out that Cuomo had at some point in the past taken a strong stand against the death penalty, and I remember the death penalty coming up in every televised forum; Cuomo was hounded with questions about his death penalty stance for the entire campaign. None of the journalists seemed to know or care that the New York City mayor has absolutely no impact on the death penalty.  

The other thing I remember about that campaign was the Republican candidate, a very decent man named Roy Goodman. The kind of guy who has been banished from today's Republican Party. He happened to show up at a Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs restaurant in Queens that I was employed by at the time. He and his staff were sitting at a table munching on hot dogs and fries. He was impressed when I approached the table and asked if I could have a piece of campaign lit. He said of course, shook my hand, and asked for my vote. When I told him I was not old enough to vote, he smiled and said something like, "well make sure your parents get that lit, okay?"  

You know what I have no memory of in that campaign?  Public opinion polls. Oh I am sure there was polling data out there, but I honestly cannot recall one television or newspaper story (I read the New York Daily News religiously every day back then) that gave polling data more than a sentence or two of coverage. Everything was on the clash between the candidates and how their platforms were playing in various NYC neighborhoods. I especially enjoyed the polemical print columns by two legendary writers: Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill. Each of them were great at highlighting the hypocrisies and hyperboles of the candidates--and they did it in a moralistic and often humorous style that would later impact my own political writing. 

I think it's time for mainstream and independent media to rethink their use of polls in political campaign coverage.  Ever since the Chicago Tribune in 1948 famously published the "Dewey Defeats Truman" headline based on flawed poll data, there's been suspicion of polls. 

Since then the accuracy of polls has increased dramatically, and the reputable polling firms usually do predict the results within the margin of error. Today, fake polls are a problem. but the obsessive reporting on reputable polls has been much worse for political journalism. News editors and reporters will claim that poll stories get more clicks, views, and shares than other campaign coverage, but that sounds like a cop out. Are they that lacking in creativity that they cannot find better ways to get and keep attention? Here's a few reasons why news editors and reporters should stop reporting on polls: 

1.  The Polls Promote Lazy Journalism. I have not calculated just how many, but the number of stories covering poll data--in print, broadcast, and digital sources--for the August primary in Wisconsin was patently absurd. It was the worst kind of "horse race" coverage of the campaign, with the emphasis on "who's winning" and "who's losing" far outpacing any meaningful coverage of issues, candidates' experience and records, interviews with voters, and other content that might help voters make a reasoned choice in the election. 

Shortly after David Crowley's comeback win in the Democratic Party primary, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel was already running a front page, above the fold story on a poll. 

To be clear, horse race coverage of campaigns is not inherently bad. If the horse race is used to grab readers', viewers', and listeners' attention, that's fine. But ethical, rigorous journalism requires that once you've got attention, you then direct it to something that will make people think more critically about what's at stake in the election. 

2. The Polls Allow Journalists To Pretend To Be "Neutral." In literally every occupation in the world, someone has to do the "heavy lifting." Think of what doing the heavy lifting means for an ethical news organization. Does it mean simply reporting that "40 percent like coke," "30 percent like Pepsi," and the rest are undecided?  I mean, that's the most "neutral" way to talk about Coke v. Pepsi, right? Wrong. 

Here's the way this usually plays out in Wisconsin politics: A journalist reports that "48 percent of likely voters support Crowley and 44 percent support Tiffany, but they are tied among registered voters." The journalist then cites spokespersons from each campaign to "explain" these results, usually by exaggerating the support for their candidate and taking cheap shots at the opponent. Exactly what is "neutral" about this kind of reporting? It's actually the opposite of neutral, because it legitimizes the worst qualities of the major parties and the campaign industrial complex. It's a kind reporting that empowers the political consultant class, while dumbing down the rest of us. 

What I loved about Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill back in the day (the great Mike Royko was their equivalent in Chicago) was that they did not see their jobs as reporters as being on the side of the political hacks. Rather, they saw themselves as being on the side of THE PEOPLE. That's what's so sorely lacking in the coverage of polls: it pretends to be informing people, but actually succeeds in making us less informed. 

"You don't have to print or re-report ANY poll, let alone EVERY poll." That's probably the smartest thing former NBC Meet The Press host Chuck Todd has ever said. 

3.  The Polls Deflate Candidates' Supporters or Makes Them Overconfident. The reputable polls in Wisconsin's Democratic Party primary for governor consistently found Fran Hong with wide leads over the other candidates. I understand that my experience is not universal, but for much of the campaign season whenever I spoke to a voter who really liked Kelda Roys, Missy Hughes, or even David Crowley, they would almost always say, "I'm not sure if I should vote for them because the polls show them so far behind." Meanwhile the Hong supporters got overconfident, completely emboldened by pollsters like Chaz Nuttycombe of State Navigate, who in late July was predicting that Hong was on track to win every county except Milwaukee, and that the race was probably over. The race ultimately got framed according to the "who can defeat" Hong narrative, which was completely a product of the excessive reporting on polls. Even though David Crowley had withdrawn from the race--in part because of low polling numbers--he ultimately became Governor Tony Evers' choice as the one who could beat Hong. The rest is history. 

4.  The Polls Drive Campaign Funding Decisions. Because of our  horrible and corrupt system of campaign financing, most candidates (especially in congressional and state wide races) have to rely on "deep pockets" to raise the resources necessary to hire competent staff and reach voters across a range of media platforms. How does the candidate show that he or she is worthy of the deep pockets? Often it is as simple as showing poll support. The polling data creates a kind of bandwagon effect, as people love jumping on board the winning wagon. But think about the absurdity of that for a minute: I'm going to support a candidate financially and/or in other ways not because they have some great policy ideas or personal qualities that I can get behind, but because they are . . . winning. 

5.  The Polls Are Weaponized To Uphold Anti-democratic Agendas. Here I am especially talking about state wide and national campaigns, in which independent or third party candidates are told they will only be invited to debate if they meet an arbitrary polling threshold. Say what you want about the late H. Ross Perot, but his presence at the presidential debates in 1992 and 1996 did more to shake up the two party duopoly than pretty much anything in history. So successfully did Perot reveal the Dem and GOP candidates as parrots for political insiders that the two parties said "never again." Since then, even when a candidate is on the ballot in enough states to be able to win the election (like Ralph Nader every time he ran for president, or the Libertarian candidate in most elections), his or her inability to reach the arbitrary polling threshold is used to keep them out of the debates. And of course, the candidate's poll numbers are unlikely to rise significantly without being able to debate. The same thing happens now in US Senate, congressional, and other partisan races. It's a disgusting example of weaponizing polls to uphold the anti-democratic agenda of those who control the two party system. It's a disgrace, really. 

6. The Polls Are Being Manipulated By Prediction Markets. On August 22, Reid Epstein of the New York Times wrote a fairly terrifying article on modern polling and prediction markets: 

The biggest new phenomenon influencing how campaigns are viewed is the spread of prediction market data.

The day before Michigan’s primary, Kalshi gave Dr. El-Sayed a 97 percent chance of winning. The morning of Wisconsin’s primary, Polymarket gave Mr. Crowley a 3.6 percent chance of victory. 

While betting-market odds are often based on the wisdom of crowds and opaque measurements, they are amplified by powerful companies and reported on by legitimate news organizations that in some cases have financial partnerships with the prediction firms. CNN has such an arrangement with Kalshi and regularly shows the prediction market’s betting odds on television. The Wall Street Journal’s parent company has a partnership with Polymarket to display its odds within Journal content.

News editors and reporters need to understand that poll driven reporting is now being aggressively used for purposes that have nothing to do with strengthening our democracy. That by itself should be reason enough to stop reporting on them. 

In conclusion, I understand that even if media outlets were to stop reporting on polls, campaigns would continue to use them. That's actually the way it should be. If Tom Tiffany or David Crowley or anyone else releases a poll showing their candidate in the lead, I as a voter immediately know that the results are probably being manipulated by bad faith actors in the campaign. But when a news organization releases poll data, that provides the data with a veneer of credibility that may or may not be deserved.

Celebrating the music of 1976, Part 2

In Part 1 of this post back in May, I identified 25 notable albums from 1976. In Part 2 you will get 25 more. Here's what I wrote in part 1: 

The year 1976 was an intriguing one for popular music. Classic rock (i.e. Beatles, Stones, The Who, and all their offshoots) and progressive rock (i.e. ELP, Pink Floyd, Yes) acts were nearing the end of their FM radio reign. By the next year disco, punk, and both British and American "New Wave" would force a number of classic rockers into semi-retirement. And by 1981 Music Television, for better or [mostly] worse, would completely transform the musical landscape.  

All lists of great music are subjective. My 1976 list is guided mostly by three criteria: (1) Did I listen to the record at the time it was released? (2) Is the record widely considered to be important in the history of music? (3) Do I think the record deserves a new audience?  A significant number of the albums listed actually satisfy all three.  

I've created a Spotify Playlist with two songs from each of the albums mentioned in parts 1 and 2. You can access it  here. 

Without any further ado, here are another 25 albums from 1976 worth listening to: 

#25. Vicki Sue Robinson: Never Gonna Let You Go.  The year 1976 featured some classics by soldiers in the disco music revolution that would spread globally upon the release of the movie "Saturday Night Fever " in 1977. Vicki Sue Robinson's "Never Gonna Let  You Go" is most known for the disco classic "Turn the Beat Around," but really everything on it is so much more danceable than most of today's dance music.  

Vicki Sue Robinson: Turn the Beat Around

#24: Al Stewart. Year of the Cat. The breakthrough album for the English singer-songwriter Al Stewart, who had released six albums previously which provided him a loyal following. The title song "Year of the Cat" has one of the prettiest piano intros ever recorded. It's actually one of the most mesmerizing songs ever to achieve "hit" status. 

Al Stewart: Year of the Cat

#23: Starland Vocal Band. Starland Vocal Band. Had to include this one because of the classic tune "Afternoon Delight," famous for its radio friendly sexual innuendo. It's too band SVB became known for just that one song, because really the entire album has some gorgeous vocal harmonies. They do a stunning cover of Paul Simon's "American Tune," for example. 

Starland Vocal Band: Afternoon Delight

#22. Paul McCartney & Wings: Wings at the Speed of Sound. Typical of Paul's 1970s output, the album features catchy and sometimes imaginative tunes that never quite hold up with the best of the Beatles. Big hits from the album included "Let 'Em In" and "Silly Love Songs." My favorite is "Beware My Love," a progressive rock number in which a slow acoustic intro morphs into a hard rocker featuring some of Paul's best vocals. Also some great electric guitar playing from Jimmy McCulloch, who sadly took his own life in 1979.  

Wings: Beware My Love 

#21. Blondie: Blondie. The first album by legendary punk/power pop band Blondie, led by the iconic Deborah Harry. There were no mega radio hits off this album, but it has a rawness about it that was fresh for the time, and also captured the energy of early NYC punk culture. 

Blondie: X Offender

#20. Doobie Brothers: Takin it to the Streets. The Doobies first album featuring singer-songwriter-keyboardist Michael McDonald. For Doobie Brothers fans, the Michael McDonald era can be as polarizing as the Sammy Hagar era for Van Halen. My own view is that McDonald was and is an extraordinary vocalist, and he took the Doobies to a whole new level. 

Doobie Brothers: It Keeps You Runnin' 

#19. Gloria Jones: Vixen.  Gloria Jones had a major hit in the mid-1960s with the song "Tainted Love." She recorded a new version on "Vixen," an album full of spirited soul tunes. Jones was in a relationship with the legendary Marc Bolan, the "glam rock" pioneer with the band T-Rex. Tragically, Jones was behind the wheel of a car that crashed and badly injured her and killed Bolan in 1977. 

Gloria Jones: Tainted Love

#18. George Harrison: Thirty Three and 1/3. Like Paul McCartney, George Harrison's mid 1970s solo output never quite reached the artistic heights of his Beatles' works. And like most of George's 1970's music, this album is part preaching, part pop, and part parody. A song like "Crackerbox Palace" seems to fuse all three. 

George Harrison: Crackerbox Palace

#17. The Alan Parsons Project: Tales of Mystery and Imagination--Edgar Allan Poe. I was in high school in the 1970s, and in at least one English class read a few Edgar Allan Poe stories. So when a rock DJ (I think it was Scott Muni of WNEW-FM in New York) talked about and played this record one day, I took an immediate interest. The entire album really is a classic in the progressive rock genre; something that could only be made at a time when FM radio actually encouraged artistic creativity by giving it a space to be heard. 

The Alan Parson Project: The Raven

#16. Van Der Graaf Generator: Still Life. A legendary progressive rock band formed in 1967, Van Der Graaf Generator were famous for albums featuring singer-songwriter Peter Hammill's unique voice and dark lyrics. "Still Life" is widely considered to be a prog-rock classic. 

Van Der Graaf Generator: My Room (Waiting For Wonderland) 

#15. Flamin' Groovies: Shake Some Action. The title tune is probably the archetype of what might be referred to as "power pop." Very underrated album in the history of rock. 

Flamin' Groovies: Shake Some Action

#14. Abba: Arrival. The Swedish band's breakthrough album in the United States, pretty much taking over AM top-40 radio in 1976 and 1977.  In 2024 the Library of Congress recognized "Arrival" as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." 

Abba: Dancin' Queen

#13. Manfred Mann's Earth Band: The Roaring Silence. As a big fan of oxymorons, I can't argue with "Roaring Silence" as an album title. This is a solid album throughout, but the remarkable cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Blinded By The Light," which still gets played on oldies radio stations, is by itself worth the price of admission. 

Manfred Mann: Blinded By The Light

#12. Rush: 2112. Did you know that Rush have been on tour this year? No one thought it would be possible to replace the late and legendary drummer/lyricist Neil Peart, but Anika Nilles has been getting rave reviews for her mastery of the Rush catalogue. "2112" is a classic in the history of progressive rock, with the guitars, bass, and drums sounding as fresh today as they did 50 years ago. Amazing production quality. 

Rush: Overture-The Temples of Syrinx

#11. Bob Seger: Live Bullet. Michigan's Bob Seger had been around a long time before hitting the big time in 1976 with "Live Bullet" and then later in the year with the studio album "Night Moves." "Live Bullet" captured the excitement of Seger's concerts. My favorite tune on it is one of the lesser known; "Upper Middle Class" is a sarcastic look at the goals we as good Americans are supposed to strive for. The song inspired me greatly at the time and still does. 

Bob Seger: Upper Middle Class

#10. Ramones. Ramones. Maybe the greatest punk rock album ever. The Ramones are best understood, I think, as a reaction against the pretentious excesses (10 minute songs, mysterious lyrics, humorless lead singers, etc.) of the progressive rock that was still dominating FM radio at the time. The Ramones went "back to basics" with a guitar, bass, drums, and Joey Ramone's singing which had high comedic value. This album still sounds fresh all these years later; certainly more energetic than 90 percent of the streamed music today. 

Ramones: Blitzkrieg Bop

#9. Bob Dylan. Desire. One of Dylan's last records in his classic period. One reason "Desire" became so popular was because on the song "Hurricane" Dylan appeared to return to political protest music for the first time since 1965.The song actually played an important part in raising consciousness about the wrongful murder conviction of boxer Rubin "Hurricane' Carter. 

Bob Dylan: Hurricane

#8. Jimmy Buffet: Havana Daydreamin'. Jimmy was still a year away from "Margaritaville," the song that would make him internationally famous and spark generations of "parrot head" fans. But "Havana Daydreamin'" provides clues that something big was coming. His mixture of catchy melodies and humorous lyrics gave us classics like "My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink, and I Don't Love Jesus." 

Jimmy Buffet: My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink, and I Don't Love Jesus

#7. Blackmore's Rainbow. Rising. When guitar god Ritchie Blackmore left Deep Purple in 1975, no one thought his solo career would feature Purple-like metal music--yet for the most part that's what he gave us. "Rainbow Rising" might actually be better than anything Blackmore did with Purple. Blackmore's guitar histrionics together with Ronnie James Dio's piercing vocals make this one of the amazing metal records of all time. 

Rainbow: Stargazer

#6. Billy Joel: Turnstiles. One of Billy Joel's many terrific albums of the decade. "Turnstiles" has a distinctly New York City feel to it, which is why (as a native New Yorker myself) I find myself coming back to it often. 

Billy Joel: New York State of Mind

#5. Steely Dan: The Royal Scam. Just like Billy Joel, pretty much everything Steely Dan did in the 1970s was amazing and iconic. Donald Fagen and Walter Becker became legendary for finding the best musicians for each individual track on their albums. On "The Royal Scam," Larry Carlton's guitar work is especially remarkable. 

Steely Dan: Kid Charlemagne 

#4. Joan Armatrading: Joan Armatrading. It's hard to describe English singer-songwriter-guitarist Joan Armatrading's music in a way that clearly explains the brilliance. Rarely has anyone blended folk, soul, funk, and rock as effortlessly as she. I personally find her vocal presentation somewhat hypnotic. 

Joan Armatrading; Down to Zero

#3. Tom Waits: Small Change. Even though Tom Waits had released three studio albums previously, "Small Change" was my introduction to his work. The most striking thing about him has always been his gravely voice, but the vivid imagery of his lyrics must also be appreciated. 

Tom Waits: Step Right Up

#2. Queen: A Day at the Races. After releasing the mega-hit "A Night At The Opera" in 1975, which included the groundbreaking "Bohemian Rhapsody," fans waited eagerly to see if the band could find a way to top it. "A Day at the Races" does not quite top its predecessor, but is still one of the great progressive rock albums of all time. The operatic quality of "Somebody To Love" is probably the epitome of the Queen sound. 

Queen: Somebody to Love

#1. Eagles: Hotel California. I was never an Eagles fan, but in 1976 had to admit that Hotel California was a spectacular album. An eclectic mix of ballads and rockers, it was the first Eagles record to feature Joe Walsh on lead guitar, and he made an immediate impact. Fun Fact: The melody of the song "Hotel California" features an eerie resemblance to a 1970 Jethro Tull tuned called "We Used To Know." Tull's Ian Anderson has a theory as to how that might have happened. 

Eagles: Hotel California

For more in this series:

• Celebration of the Music of 1972, Part 1
• Celebration of the Music of 1972, Part 2
• Celebration of the Music of 1973, Part 1
• Celebration of the Music of 1973, Part 2
• Celebration of the Music of 1974, Part 1
• Celebration of the Music of 1974, Part 2
• Celebration of the Music of 1975, Part 1
• Celebration of the Music of 1975, Part 2
• Celebration of the Music of 1976, Part 1