Golden Earring disbands, George Kooymans has ALS

I fell in love with them after getting a compilation of theirs on the strength of Radar Love, and I just was transfixed by the proggy stuff like She Flies on Strange Wings and Vanilla Queen. The other stuff on the compilation was great too like The Devil Made Me Do It and Kill Me (Ce Soir). Eventually I got some of their records on vinyl like Cut, Something Heavy Going Down, and the American version of Moontan. I was frustrated at how expensive it was to get any of their albums besides Moontan and Cut on CD since they were all imports. So any of the ones I couldn't buy I torrented, but so many of the files were corrupted or wouldn't play anyway. So I listened to the albums I had and the compilation and hoped that I could find their records at used record stores over time.

And then about three years ago I saw that a boxed set was available on the US with EVERY studio album and every non-album single and B-side, and I just jumped and bought it. And I listened to all 25 albums plus their (now final) EP, as well as all of their singles. Their first two albums were good, but after that they were never less than great for a solid 20 years worth of albums! It wasn't until the late 80s when they ran out of steam for a few albums, but then they seemed to just find their stride yet again and knocked it out of the park until the very end. 

A few months later I saw they had the same type of boxed set for their live albums which included all of the CD releases available plus an album of B-sides from the singles released from their acoustic live albums. My only quibble is that the live version of Radar Love is missing from Something Heavy Going Down for reasons I cannot possibly understand. However, I ripped it from the vinyl version so it'd be complete on iTunes anyway, haha.

There were and are my second favorite band ever, ahead of Rush, The Kinks, Frank Zappa, Fleetwood Mac, and every other band you've seen me heap praise upon, and second only to Blue Öyster Cult. 

George Kooymans is a genius when it comes to writing. The diversity in his writing, the compositional creativity, the rhythmic flourishes, and his voice while unpolished, still has a sort of soulful sincerity to it. He was a skill lead guitar player, but his biggest skill in my eyes was at writing great and memorable hooks, and composing unique rhythmic flourishes.


I have a lot more to say about what their music means to me personally, but I've produced far too much of a wall of text already. I'll leave it at this: I'm a sponge for music and I like listening to new things when I can. I am on the lookout for new artists and I try to be open to new genres where I can. But certain bands I just keep coming back to, regularly. Golden Earring is one such band, and if I'm around come 2065, when they have their 100th anniversary of their first album, you can bet your ass I'll still be spinning their music.

If you are only familiar with a small portion of their output and you love what you've heard, I recommend you to get acquainted with the rest if you can.