Posted on 03/07/2008 11:56:33 AM PST by GQuagmire
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and your third grade teacher have some strikingly wrong similarities They’re both bloated, dowdy and prissy fossils that are way too full of unconditional love. Oh, and they both get positively giddy over James Taylor’s chardonnay-and-brie, adult-contemporary lullabies.
The Hall of Fame induction committee has never wanted to hurt anyone’s feelings or make tough decisions - like actually defining what is and isn’t rock ’n’ roll - so for 22 years it has distributed inductions like Miss Anderson handed out ribbons on diorama day.
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonherald.com ...
There oughta be a Hall of Mediocrity filled with all the popular stuff in all categories, including some entire categories like horror movies, Broadway musicals, romance novels, heavy metal, [c]rap “music”,recent commercial country, and much what’s in the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame. All the rock bands with city, state and continent names would be good candidates to start. The pioneers, the equivalents of the Stalinist Woody Guthrie would have to be talents like Fabian, Frankie Avalon. Steely Dan, Peter Frampton, Dreadful Grape, Jefferson Airplane, and Chicago would each have a separate room dedicated to them. Tom Wolfe’s Three Stooges would appear in the Literature Section.
(Now keep in mind I’m not talking about the Badness Hall of Fame, where Grand Funk Railroad, Iron Butterfly and Bobby Goldsboro would be enshrined among so many other heroes of the indiscriminate masses.)
Not at all. A lot of long form prog rock is busy drowning in it’s own excesses and many of my absolute favorite songs ever a short and tight. The important part of a song is that it work, not it’s length. I like the Beach Boys, a truly talented band that put great music together, can’t stand ABBA too synthetic and saccharine.
ABBA actually aimed at a glassy, synthetic sound. They were a true studio band. A lot of Americans are used to all pop music having ‘r&b roots’ whereas ABBA was purely middle European which is equated as ‘soulless’ by people who don’t know anything about middle European pop music.
Hall of Lame?
No not one night, light music for the whole season and I don’t mean Mozart.
Who be who?
Well they hit what they were aiming for. Kind of shows the vagueries of taste. In many ways Alan Parsons (who BTW kept most of their stuff in the “radio friendly” 3.5 to 5.5 minute range) is more glassy and synthetic than ABBA, but it’s a glassy and synthetic that I like where as ABBAs is a glassy and synthetic that I don’t. Maybe it’s because AP was a glassy and synthetic prog rock that happened to be radio friendly and be popular, while ABBA was glassy and synthetic pop that was well executed but still pop. When push comes to shove I have never been and will never be a pop guy.
Oh, the conductor, I don’t remember it has been over ten years.
I go to Houston and Santa Fe for my music now.
I nomination long overdue. TROWER http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0d1HilfLxA
Definitely. Real topshelf performer.
The problem with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is that the best rock and roll tends not to get famous. I saw bar bands in the ‘80s and early ‘90s that, musically, blow the industry’s current popular offerings out of the water.
For example, if the Hall of Fame doesn’t have these guys, then its opinion is crap:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdzyIja1-Vc
Sort of related... here’s the man who set the standard to which all other rock can only aspire, in a 1986 episode of Crossfire discussing the censorship regime then under consideration by Congress.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ISil7IHzxc
Frank: “I’m a conservative, and you may not like that, but I am.”
The Eagles out? C’mon. Does this guy think that “Hotel California” is the only song they did? What about “Heartache Tonight”, “The Long Run”, “Doolin’ Dalton”, “Seven Bridges Road”, or “Life’s Been Good”?
Very interesting that you pick 1991. That was the last year I was able to get into anything new as well, with the industry shoving Nirvana down our throats everything went downhill from there.
Nirvana was a genunine grass roots phenomenon. The late 80s Top 40 was beyond dreadful with the likes of Paula Abdul dominating. Cobain had more talent in his little finger than all these ‘artists’ today combined.
Great point. How long did it take Bob Seger to make it to the HOF? I’ve been there. It’s pretty weak.
A lot of the disco stuff was great also-You Should Be Dancing,Staying Alive,Night Fever,etc.
And ballads like Love So Right and Fanny,Be Tender With My Love were superb.
They used to play Blue Angel at my junior high dances.
I thought I had been lifted into Heaven.Such absolute beauty was terrifying to my 13 year old soul.
“My age is immaterial and purely a well poisoning question, but I’m 38.”
What I was getting at is. Rock and Roll was invented by my generation (I’m 65). It’s just kind of funny for some “kid” to tell me what R&R is supposed to be.
Think Buddy Holly, Everly Bros., Jerry Lee Lewis, the Coasters, Sonny James,etc.
http://oldfortyfives.com/TakeMeBackToTheFifties.htm
Here is a link that will give you an idea of where I am coming from.
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