Salon recently ran a review of a new book "Rock 'Til You Drop," by John Strausbaugh. http://www.salon.com/books/review/2001/08/22/rock/index.html The book and review seem to argue that the classic rock bands should get out of the way, out of the cultural radar; the central argument seems to be that the bands are unsightly. "Hope I die before I get old" has been, for the most part, a promise unfilled. If you were looking for a sign of the aging of the rock world, you could not have done better than listen to the Toledo classic rock station with us on Monday, as we drove home through Ohio. We caught one adverstisement for a varicose vein clinic, and another for a heart disease clinic. Both were phrased as "You're not really getting old, but you might want to have this stuff looked at."23 responses total.
Here's a more critical review of the book in Slate: http://slate.msn.com/culturebox/entries/01-08-28_114363.asp
From the review: "Keith Richards has long complained that no one would criticize the Stones' longevity if he and Jagger were black bluesmen from Chicago." That pretty much says it all. Nobody'd ever seen old rockers before, and it makes them uncomfortable. If you don't like it, don't look at it. I sure don't look at the Stones, but if anybody else is still interested, go ahead.
This might be a place to mention that I just picked up a cheap compilation called "80's Party". (Not quite a geezer era yet, but getting there.) I actually listened to pop radio for a few years in the early 80s, and in addition to a few songs I remember, I was hoping this album might include some of that elusive category, songs I'd heard and liked without having any idea what they were or who did them. No luck on that last category, and no real winners for me among the songs new to me either. And I find that, on first careful listen (i.e. my first time hearing them on a home stereo instead of the radio in a noisy car), songs like "Karma Chameleon" and "Walk Like an Egyptian" don't really hold up. Of all the songs on this album, the one that has generated the most pop-culture references I've seen is "Centerfold" by the J. Geils Band. This is the first time I've heard that song in full at all, and I'm amazed how lousy a song it actually is. There is one song on this album I really liked at the time, and still really like. Unfortunately I get the impression that anyone with discernment is supposed to hate it with a passion, so I'm really out of step here. That song is "We Built This City" by Starship. I like it because it has an actual tune (a very rare commodity in modern pop hits), the tension builds and ebbs interestingly, and it does unexpected things with its fixed rhythm. By the way, checking for the lyrics of this song online proves the perils of doing so. After looking at several sites, I find that there seem to be two text transcriptions of it floating around, one at least of which is totally inept, but more common than the other one, which may be mostly accurate. I'm pretty sure the second text is accurate in saying that it's Marconi who plays the mamba, not the first text's "Ma Coley". (I'd always thought it was "My Tony".)
I've ALWAYS heard "Marconi plays the mamba". I have a very old and ragged tape recording off the raido of "We Built this City", and still listen to it, though I have it on a couple of 80s compilations now. I loved the 80s, it's when I first started seriously listening to pop music, and I still enjoy lots of the songs even though I know, seriously, that they're not very good.
I started listening to pop radio about 1980, but I stopped about 1985 because the hit songs stopped including anything I liked at all - even passingly at the time. Trying to remember the kind of song that irritated the heck out of me, the one that comes to mind was a tuneless wonder called "Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. I was also dismayed when Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time", which I didn't like, drove her "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun", which I did like, off the market. I still hear "Time After Time" on occasion (in store musak, etc.), but I haven't heard "Girls" in at least 15 years. I understand that things got better in the 90s, but I never went back. Of the famous bands since '85, I haven't the slightest idea what most of them sound like. Going through a tiny collection of singles I bought at the time, I find two semi-tuneless songs I did like. One is "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes, whose musical content essentially consists of one constantly repeated instrumental riff, but unlike most such songs this one actually varies the riff. I think the aim was for this song to sound rivetingly creepy. It succeeds. And the other song is "One Night in Bangkok" (the Robey version). All I remembered about this song was that at the time I'd thought it was very very weird. Now I listen to it again and it comes back to me. What I'd thought was weird about it is that it's an example of a genre of music I had never heard in 1984, when it was new. It's a rap song. Or, at least, I think it is. And if so, it's the only rap song I've ever heard that I like.
That's funny; I liked "Time After Time" much better than "Girls Just...", and still think "Relax" is one of the best productions (not best song, mind you) of the 80's. "One Night in Bangkok" was a weird story to begin with. It's actually from a concept album for the music for a proposed musical "Chess" which took years to actaully be produced. Somehow the album came out, though.
Part of what makes me like an 80s song is if the lyrics make sense (I *hate* some of the songs who go from a she to a you to a she again in addressing (supposedly) the same individual ... agk!), part of it is if I liked the video (I admit it, some songs I adore just because I loved the videos, although I didn't really have MTV ever in the 80s...), and part of it is if I like the way the voices blend (all of Def Leppard gets me because I really really like how the four of them sing together -- ah, harmony....). I would not have classified "one Night in Bangkok" as a rap song, based on the rap songs I've heard. (My son, alas ,went through a a rap music stage, and still likes it -- to me, the main feature of rap is that the words and music take a back seat to the "pushy" nature of the "rap" ie word word word word word WORD word word word WORD etc. It's not so much that you can hear what they're saying as they push the emphasis at you, to me. (I can't figure out why anyone likes it, but then I'm a middle aged white woman who likes folk music, so I doubt I'm the target audience.)) I thougth that "Chess" finally did get produced somewhere? I have the soundtrack album for it somewhere in my tapes.
resp:7 yep, you're probably right. Rap music is pretty iconoclastic at times and very image driven. Very much attitude and very street. Tends to appeal to those who identify with that. I'd say hip-hop has largely replaced the angry young man market that rock had or something like that.
Defining rap by the "pushiness" and other aspects of the attitude is rather like defining science fiction as pulp stories with spaceships and bug-eyed monsters. Sure, it's characteristic of the genre, but it's not the definition. In rap's case, the definition involves rhythmic speaking over a semi-musical beat, and that describes "One Night in Bangkok". It's not sprechstimme, it's not narration, it's not any of the previously existing ways of talking with music: it's rap. It's just not black ghetto rap or imitation thereof. I'm not sure if lyrics that make sense are characteristic of 80s rock. I've been listening to "We Built This City" several times over the last few days, and I haven't any real idea what the heck they're talking about. Besides, didn't Talking Heads flourish during the 80s? Now there were some cryptic lyrics for you. But I suppose encryption is relative. I have not had the honor of hearing any of those "songs who go from a she to a you to a she again in addressing (supposedly) the same individual."
I will see if I can find one to cite for you (I know there's one that REALLY annoys me by Survivor, which I think is on their greatest hits album)... Other than that, well... about rap... I've never understood the rhthmic part because I can never HEAR the words -- I find the meanings of lyrics and the way the words work together very important to my enjoyment of music, and rap has never worked for me because it's all about the "push" to my ears, and not about what's being said (at least in the stuff I've heard, which may or may not be mainstream, although I suspect that it is, 'cause it's what was on the radio in Detroit) -- again, if I could hear the words, I'd have a better time understanding what the appeal is, but I can't. NEver have been able to parse them out from the "push" of the rhythm and the overlying music.
And I quote the whole lyrics of "High on You" by Survivor: There you stood, that'll teach ya To look so good and feel so right Let me tell you 'bout the girl I met last night It's understood I had to reach ya I let the wheel of fortune spin I touched your hand before the crowd started crashin' in Now I'm higher than a kite I know I'm getting hooked on your love Talkin' to myself, runnin' in the heat Beggin' for your touch in the middle of the street And I, I can't stop thinkin' 'bout you, girl I must be livin' in a fantasy world I'm so high on you Smart and coy, a little crazy The kinda face that starts a fight Let me tell you 'bout the girl I had last night Piercin' eyes like a raven You seemed to share my secret sin. We were high before the night started kickin' in Now I'm screamin' in the night I know I'm getting hooked on your love Talkin' to myself, runnin' in the heat Beggin' for your touch in the middle of the street And I, I can't stop thinkin' 'bout you, girl I must be livin' in a fantasy world I've searched the whole world over To find a heart so true Such complete intoxication, I'm high on you There you stood, that'll teach ya To look so good and feel so right Let me tell you' bout the girl I met last night Now I"m higher than a kite I know I'm getting hooked on your love Talkin' to myself, runnin' in the heat Beggin' for your love in the middle of the street And I, I can't stop thinkin' 'bout you, girl I must be living in a fantasy world I've searched the whole world over To find a love so true Such complete intoxication I'm high on you I'm high on you I'm high on you So there you have it. He's talking to someone about the girl, then TO the girl, and then about her again (I think!). I *really really* get annoyed by this particular song's lyrics.
I meant to paste in this NY Times link earlier; it'll go into the pay archive tonight. :/ Maybe somebody stuck it on Usenet or somewhere else where Google might find it. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/16/arts/16ROSE.html?pagewanted=print&positio n=top "Singing to the Grown-Ups, and Selling" by Jody Rosen The essay argues, in effect, that we boomers have become our parents, with our attitudes towards hip-hop recapitulating our parents' attitudes towards rock. The article charges that the aging boomers, who are rallying around an idea of "authenticity," are mostly listening to pretty boring music. Norah Jones is the artist most criticized in the piece. The author doesn't say it in these words, but the argument is essentially that we have recreated our version of the old boring Easy Listening/Adult Contemporary music which our parents listened to in their mature years, while all the artistic action is happening in hip hop.
any chance you could paste the text? I keep forgetting the Times wants you to subscribe so they send it to you by e-mail. I'm not going to do that. Interesting idea.. I'm seeing this even on the edges of the generation, that is, I have some friends that aren't boomers but are barely Gen Xers. They listen to "classic rock" (and I've noticed even that category is getting expanded to some 80's stuff on Clear Channel stations) and think hip-hop is crap. If the trends are at all similar, there may be some years ahead for hip-hop to continue to come into the mainstream. There aren't many white-faced acts that are acknowledged yet; this still seems to be earmarked as a black, ghetto thing (well, it seems more and more that acts are rapping about the clubs more than they are the projects.)
interesting idea. i tend to like the hiphop stuff that folks have played for me with the more radical political leanings (dead prez) most of the rest of it seems to be women hating/ self hating trash.
The music may be going through some growing pains. Did rock face any similar problems?
resp:11 - Twila, I would have guessed those Survivor lyrics depicted the singer telling the girl both about herself and another girl. But I am not hip to these things. resp:12 - I am curmudgeonly enough to claim that the parents were right, on both occasions. Most of the rock that parents widely denounced, back in the days when parents denounced rock, was eminently denouncable. It is recorded that many parents actually liked the Beatles, yes, even in 1964. This might have something to do with the fact that the Beatles were actually good ...
one of the best rock and roll songs I know of was the cream, crossroads. 3 guys, live doing great stuff. makes this old cat dance everytime ;)
If you mean Cream, the band, they're at the bottom of my list. When a Cream song turned up on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" a few years ago, and the only clue to its identity was that it was a late 60s rock song, I guessed it was Cream because it was so totally lacking in any appeal.
While not everything Cream recorded was a success (their song "Toad", for example, is practically synonymous with comically self-indulgent drum solos) I personally find a lot of their music very likable. I'll admit, though, to a distinct preference for the band's own material over their covers of classic blues tracks like "Crossroads" and "Spoonful". Nevertheless, you're going to have a fight on your hands if you try to take away my copy of "Disraeli Gears".
Why should I -want- your copy of a Cream album?
I'd take it, but I already have "Disraeli Gears".
I finally got a copy of the NY Times article from krj =) Again, I think the gist of the article is that a lot of commercial music (since the 1950s anyway) is aimed at specific age groups. I laugh when Grexers complain about Britney and NSync-- I don't doubt that they might be lacking in a little talent, but they are examples of formulas that are not going to go away. The music is generally about the adolescent stuff-- mating and dating, bump and grind, etc., etc. The lovestruck girl, sex kitten, hunk, angry young man (and variants of such) are common stereotypes. Adult Contemporary/Easy Listening or whatever you want to call it seems very driven by nostalgia. What was cutting edge once, became popular and mainstream, is now mellowed and tamed with hindsight. No more scattered hormones. People have settled down, and are less interested in stirring things up. No matter how young boomers think they are, they cannot escape it. There have been a number of notable exceptions-- musicians that cut across the generation gap, but by and large it seems to me that a lot of the tunes seem to be about romantic love. Just a theory.
Burying rock (especially classic rock) is crazy. Should Beethoven be banned just because he wrote before 1990? Should Elgar? If you're going to ban anything, you'd be much better off banning disco and late-90's crap like techno. And, of course, other people would say that you would be better off banning classical music and punk, and keeping techno around. Live and let live, say I. But if this ever changing world in which we live in Makes you give in and cry Say Live and Let Die (Live and Let Die) Live and Let Die (Live and Let Die)
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