"Get off my lawn!" music thread
- Thread starter clonedude
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I think we forget what songs were popular back in the day. To me a couple of the greatest times in music were the late '60s and the mid '80s, but the music that made those eras great weren't necessarily the pop hits.
For example, in 1985 there were seminal albums from artists like The Smiths, Tom Waits, the Replacements, REM, INXS, Husker Du, Run DMC, LL Cool J, Kate Bush, the Cure, New Order, and the Jesus and Mary Chain. None of those bands had a song on the Billboard's Top 100 singles for 1985.
Look at 1967. There were albums from the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, the Velvet Underground, Pink Floyd, the Kinks, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Who. Guess how many songs from those bands made the Top 20 Billboard hits of the year? Only one, Light My Fire by the Doors.
I'd say the Top 40 hits of then are at around the same level as the hits of today. I have three sons in their early 20s who share a lot of unique and innovative music being produced today. Some I like. Some I don't. But there are innovative new sounds out there if you look for it.
For example, in 1985 there were seminal albums from artists like The Smiths, Tom Waits, the Replacements, REM, INXS, Husker Du, Run DMC, LL Cool J, Kate Bush, the Cure, New Order, and the Jesus and Mary Chain. None of those bands had a song on the Billboard's Top 100 singles for 1985.
Look at 1967. There were albums from the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, the Velvet Underground, Pink Floyd, the Kinks, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Who. Guess how many songs from those bands made the Top 20 Billboard hits of the year? Only one, Light My Fire by the Doors.
I'd say the Top 40 hits of then are at around the same level as the hits of today. I have three sons in their early 20s who share a lot of unique and innovative music being produced today. Some I like. Some I don't. But there are innovative new sounds out there if you look for it.
The Beatles had 20 # 01 hits in their short span (1964-1970), so they straddled both the Pop World and the Iconic Classic Rock World. Point is well taken though. My favorite musical artist is Joe Jackson, but he only had a handful of hits - while knocking out incredible album after album with an eclectic assortment of sounds.
yes, of course us cool guys never admitted to listening or liking pop music, but secretly we did. I guess that is another thread on CF.
True, but that's a new release, according to YouTube Music.
Also, never heard of them in the 70's era cited by the OP.
They were pretty hardcore punk back then on the SST label with Black Flag etc.
I've posted this chart before, but the "sonic diversity" of pop music has definitely decreased such an utter explosion of new sounds in the late 1960s through the early 1970s and a long decline after...
https://www.savingcountrymusic.com/the-science-behind-why-pop-music-sucks/
"Sonic diversity" means many things, but their algorithm tried to measure the aggregate diversity in chord changes, key changes, song structure and organization, vocal tones and styles, and instrumentation (the last two known as the "timbre" of the sounds) in the pop music of the various eras and decades.
This chart more or less tracks with how I view the history of popular music. There was a rising action in the 1950s through the mid-1960s, everything "comes together" starting roughly when albums like Rubber Soul and Highway 61 Revisited and My Generation and Turn! Turn! Turn! come out, and then there's a "peak" from the late 1960s through roughly the late 1970s, and then there's a long tail of decline after that.
No, this isn't saying a band from Year 19XY where the X isn't a 6 or a 7 sucks. There was good stuff in every era. There are a ton of 90s bands I love, for instance, even if I know they can be somewhat derivative of what came before them (e.g., Jamiroquai and 70s funk and disco, Oasis with Beatles-like 60s pop, etc.). It just says at certain times there were more risks being taken and more "depth" on the musical bench.
I've found -- ON AVERAGE -- that picking up on a new to you but forgotten in general group from the 60s or 70s or digging deeper into the catalog of a well-known group (e.g., the bluesy albums by Fleetwood Mac long before Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined, etc.) tends to be more fruitful than doing the same thing with later eras. Some of you might have seen my other posts in the Taylor Swift thread. I still need to and am looking forward to listening to her new album, though I know her catalog through Midnights very well. A chart like the one above is why I don't come out and call her a bad songwriter. She's not. She's just trapped by her era and the expectations of pop audiences... which is a formula the industry has down to a science.
In 1965, nobody had the formula, and the process of developing it was bizarre but beautiful and thrilling. Listening to every step of it along its way has been one of my great pleasures in life.
https://www.savingcountrymusic.com/the-science-behind-why-pop-music-sucks/
"Sonic diversity" means many things, but their algorithm tried to measure the aggregate diversity in chord changes, key changes, song structure and organization, vocal tones and styles, and instrumentation (the last two known as the "timbre" of the sounds) in the pop music of the various eras and decades.
This chart more or less tracks with how I view the history of popular music. There was a rising action in the 1950s through the mid-1960s, everything "comes together" starting roughly when albums like Rubber Soul and Highway 61 Revisited and My Generation and Turn! Turn! Turn! come out, and then there's a "peak" from the late 1960s through roughly the late 1970s, and then there's a long tail of decline after that.
No, this isn't saying a band from Year 19XY where the X isn't a 6 or a 7 sucks. There was good stuff in every era. There are a ton of 90s bands I love, for instance, even if I know they can be somewhat derivative of what came before them (e.g., Jamiroquai and 70s funk and disco, Oasis with Beatles-like 60s pop, etc.). It just says at certain times there were more risks being taken and more "depth" on the musical bench.
I've found -- ON AVERAGE -- that picking up on a new to you but forgotten in general group from the 60s or 70s or digging deeper into the catalog of a well-known group (e.g., the bluesy albums by Fleetwood Mac long before Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined, etc.) tends to be more fruitful than doing the same thing with later eras. Some of you might have seen my other posts in the Taylor Swift thread. I still need to and am looking forward to listening to her new album, though I know her catalog through Midnights very well. A chart like the one above is why I don't come out and call her a bad songwriter. She's not. She's just trapped by her era and the expectations of pop audiences... which is a formula the industry has down to a science.
In 1965, nobody had the formula, and the process of developing it was bizarre but beautiful and thrilling. Listening to every step of it along its way has been one of my great pleasures in life.
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