CoronaVinyl Day 131 (Animal in Name): 16 Greatest Hits by Steppenwolf

For an explanation of CoronaVinyl, click here.

Today's CoronaVinyl category is "animal in name," and I have some great albums by artists whose names include the name of an animal (even if sometimes it's purposely misspelled), like The Beatles, John Cougar Mellencamp, Def Leppard, Eagles, Gorillaz, Panda Bear, The Sandpipers, Steppenwolf, and even Toto fall into this category.  

I've already featured some of those artists on CoronaVinyl, and after Blind Faith yesterday, I'm still in a late '60s hard rock kind of mood, so I'm going with Canadian rockers Steppenwolf's 16 Greatest Hits compilation, which was released in 1973 and featured the band's hits and other songs from 1968 to 1971.  It was the band's third compilation album in three years, which may explain why it only reached #152 on the Billboard album chart.

Steppenwolf was another one of those late '60s blues rock bands that started the ball rolling towards the hard rock and heavy metal that would follow in the '70s.  In fact, their hit "Born To Be Wild" is often credited as the first use of the phrase "heavy metal" in music.  That song hit #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and has since become an anthem for motorcyclists (thanks in large part to its inclusion on the Easy Rider soundtrack) and roaming free at high speeds.

All in all, 16 Greatest Hits is a pretty damn fine collection of rock and roll.  It features their album and non-album singles released between 1968 and 1974, as well as "The Pusher," which wasn't released as a single in the U.S., but was also featured in Easy Rider.  12 of the songs on the album charted on the Billboard Hot 100, including six Top 40 songs, three of which reached the Top 10 -- "Born to Be Wild" (#2), "Magic Carpet Ride" (#3), and "Rock Me" (#10).  "Born to Be Wild" and "Magic Carpet Ride" also hit #1 on the Canadian pop chart.

The band put out nine studio albums between 1968 and 1976, then went on hiatus for a few years before reforming in the early '80s and putting out four more albums between 1982 and 1990.

Favorite song from Side 1:  "It's Never Too Late"

This is a nice blues rock/psychedelic rock song with some soulful vocals from Kay and some delicious fills from drummer Jerry Edmonton.

Favorite song from Side 2:  "Magic Carpet Ride"
After "Born to Be Wild," this is the band's biggest and most recognizable song.  I've always loved this one.  It's is a psychedelic ball of feedback and organs that reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100.  I can only imagine how many acid trips were enhanced by this song.  My earliest memory of it was when it was used in a Miller Genuine Draft commercial in the '80s, where some guy made an island around a bikini-clad woman on a beach using only his cowboy boot and his guile.  Why he was wearing cowboy boots on a beach on a hot sunny day is a question that has not yet been answered.