Posted on 05/17/2012 10:21:14 AM PDT by ConservativeStatement
Seems like so long ago now but that summer I pretty much came of age (I was 17) and I could write an entire book on what happened to me that long, hot summer.
Then came the fall and I got into New Wave (Police, Cars, Talking Heads, etc.) and enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps on October 29th - just about a week before the hostages were taken in Iran.
Favorite song from that summer was "Drivers Seat" by Sniff 'n' The Tears.
You’re my hero.
I would say, though, that “pop” simply means “popular” - which means it could be anything. In truth, “pop” means nothing musically.
Otherwise, there sure are alot of snobs puffing up some music as superior, often just because it’s “different” or rebellious.
You could paraphrase for this Lincoln’s wise remark that people often call progress what is nothing more than change. People often call superior what is nothing more than different.
Never met any of them personally like you did. But their music definitely spoke to me and was a soundtrack of my alienated, turbulent youth!
Too bad about Benjamin Orr. He died too soon.
“I would say, though, that ‘pop’ simply means ‘popular’ - which means it could be anything. In truth, ‘pop’ means nothing musically”
Very true. For instance, one of the reasons they dubbed Michael Jackson the “king of pop,” aside from the fact that he was popular, is that he so mixed various styles—soul, r&b, funk, disco, rock—that it was impossible to tease them out and pin him down. I would argue, however, that at different times there are dominant styles. Therefore when you said “pop” in 1977 it more than anything else meant disco, and to say it today largely means hip-hop.
That’s not to say pop and hip-hop, or pop and disco, or pop and rocknroll, or pop and jazz, or pop and whatever will ever be synonymous.
Public support must be fickle. Or malleable by the media that denies equal access to smaller labels and acts until such time that they have a successful multi-album marketing deal inked.
Elvis wasn’t the first rocker and I doubt many outside of Michael Bolton took inspiration to become singers from his decade of movie musical soundtracks.
The Beatles weren’t the first of their sort either and by the time they turned their backs on rock and roll at the end of the band’s recording career many saw Sgt. Pepper as a day rock and roll died to be replaced by “concept albums” and overproduced drama.
Elvis was the king of pop.
Listen to the originals/predecessors of many of Elvis’ better known recordings and you’ll realize all of the genres he incorporated (Al Jolson’s recording of Are You Lonesome Tonight may be eye opening).
The Beatles held one foot in pop as well and certainly their catalog became one of the last groups to create such a song list that was successfully covered and reinterpreted by so many other bands.
By that definition President Obama is pop. At least according to the dominant media culture.
People I talk with don’t find him to be “popular” at all.
Your mileage may vary.
“Elvis wasn’t the first rocker...The Beatles weren’t the first of their sort either”
I never said they were. Just that they influenced people, which is pretty undeniable. You don’t have to be the first anything to influence people. Though if you are derivative of something else, things that derive from you may be said to derive also from that from which you derived. For instance, when you rip off Elvis you may also be ripping off All Jolson, the Ink Spots, or Big Mamma Thornton without knowing it.
This is so because though there are more and less innovative people, no one creates ex nihilo. Everyone rips off everyone else. Even with someone who’s generally recognized as being the first of a new style, for instance Sam Cooke and soul, all you have is the mixing of two styles that hadn’t yet been put together. And that’s ignoring his strong, prexisting competitor for the title: Ray Charles. All soul is, after all, is r&b mixed with gospel in a manner that’s often indistinguishable from other rock and roll and/or “pop.”
“All Jolson”
“All” = Al
“Elvis was the king of pop.
Listen to the originals/predecessors of many of Elvis’ better known recordings and you’ll realize all of the genres he incorporated”
You can say that, and it’s probably true that he mized as many genres as Michael Jackson at least. But I also think you can better pinpoint his subgenres, and that two of them at least were strong enopugh to constitute a true style, or two true styles, rather than the amalgqm that is Thriller, for instance. These two are rock and roll—blues played faster and harder so as to be maximally danceable—and rockabilly—an even balance between rock and roll and country and western.
Granted, you can dig up veins of pure predecessors within the predominant mixtures. You can find within Elvis the blues proper, as well as rock, country, rockabilly, doo-wop, the generic popular style that some people theorize to run through all of popular music, as well as a more jazzy pop, bossa nova, pure gospel, soul, folk, and so on.
Even so, there is a style, or two styles, Elvis is best known for, and these are fairly well defined, or at least moreso than are the styles of other “pop royalty,” namely MJ and Madonna.
The Cars’ first album was just too good....they could never top that album no matter what they did.
Elvis topped the country, R&B, and “pop” charts all at once.
Where’s Michael Jackson’s country crossover hit?
Clarence Gatemouth Brown played more genres than Michael (country, swing, blues, R&B, jazz, zydeco, cajun).
I agree. That debut was one of the most perfect albums of all time, although (for me), Candy-O came pretty close.
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