Posted on 03/25/2017 10:13:00 AM PDT by Mariner
For music fans, the recent flood of celebrity deaths has been overwhelming: David Bowie, Glenn Frey, Prince, Leonard Cohen, George Michael and Chuck Berry seem like a disproportionate number of superstars to lose in a short time span.
But with many of rock’s founding fathers and mothers reaching their 70s, the end of the age of rock ’n’ roll is just beginning. While every generation bemoans the passing of its great artists, the outsize influence of rock promises to have a profound impact on popular culture and overall music-industry sales.
Of the 25 artists with the highest record sales in the U.S. since 1991, when reliable data first became available, just one—Britney Spears—is under 40, Nielsen data show. Nineteen of the 25 are over 50 years old.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
I disagree. In America, it’s gone to Oklahoma and Texas and calls itself Red Dirt.
Wade Bowen
Turnpike Trubadours
Stoney LaRue
Kevin Fowler
Cody Canada (& Ragsdale, Cross)
Even the “old guard”:
Lucinda Williams
Ray Wylie Hubbard
And SO many more.
Are U2 and Metallica great because they fill stadiums? Heck, when Metallica was really hot they couldn’t get on the radio in Texas —but the headbangers knew who they were and had their records. Yeah, vinyl, they’re that old.
My point being, Nashville and LA are flesh peddling bottom (line) feeders. Somewhere, in your state or hometown, is a rockin’ garage band or ten making music in your favorite style with a new twist, speaking in an idiom both local and universal, that the TN an CA biz will neglect. Support your local/regional acts, CA & TN acts are for burnouts, corporate getaways, Democratic rallies, third weddings and funerals.
I strongly disagree. While digital recording and YouTube allow African tribesmen to enjoy the latest Swiss yodeling, it is just a fact that the music made in the 60’s and 70’s by the giants of classic rock was quantum leaps above the quality produced today in both musicianship and innovation. This is probably in large part because music was a much larger part of the culture at the time.
He did an album in 06 that few know about; here is a song from the album (which was called “A Mighty Flood” — I listen to it a lot), it is apropos of this topic, I think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8nMB3pXfg0
I remember him as a kid in Maysville, OK, a couple years older than me, who would pass by my Aunt Sis’ house, on his way to his piano lessons, whenever I would visit her back in the ‘50s.
I told my Aunt about the “Mighty Flood” album in ‘06 and said, “I sure hope he believes all the stuff on that album”; she replied, “Well, he was brought up to believe it.”
What a great sound he understood.
Rock & Roll as a performance art is primarily a young man’s game. Older people can do it, of course, but the basic themes of rebellion against authority, or the tantalizing intrigue of love, romance and break ups seems linked to a learning process. By the time most of us are say, 40, we have learned a great deal about these parts of adult life.
As a contrast, picture Alice Cooper today singing “18” and without acknowledging the disconnect.
Then there is the aspect of peer identification, meaning, most teens and twentysomethings are more apt to listen to the complaints, preludes, seranades, laments and soliloquies of other teen or twentysomethings. They find this easier to identify with than via older performers.
As I recall, many of my generation used to say ‘Don’t trust anyone over 30!”.
37 years ago. You are correct. I knew it was old, but I looked and posted too quick. The 97 version was another artist. The point is still the same though.
37 years. Dang....
Another factor that most of us experienced is the evolution from masterfully-produced studio recordings that were designed purely to be hit records to the era of the singer-songwriter. Instead of using the best-in-class studio musicians (The Wrecking Crew, Funk Brothers, Muscle Shoals Stompers, etc) - they usually performed their own music, which ranged in quality from outstanding to unlistenable. The goal was still to sell records, but now it was LPs, cassetts, and 8-tracks that cost more than 10 times what a 45 did, and changed buying habits (as well as introducing the concept of piracy). Performers started to fill arenas instead of low-budget group tours. All this encouraged the elevation of “rock gods” and only a few, notably the Rolling Stones, stayed together (not to mention, mostly alive) and adapted to the new model(s) as they came along. They are truly in class of their own in terms of longevity and money-printing ability.
No way. The creativity and originality of Rock 'n Roll, Blues, Country, R&B, and Jazz during the '50's,. '60's, and '70's was light years beyond anything today. Light years.
Your posting shows that you choose to narrow your very knowledge of what music is performed entirely to the tiny little repertoire promoted by the Legacy music industry.
While I feel sad for you and hope you aren’t passing your myopia on to others, there is a wide world of music out there for those who put forth the effort to find it.
Top 40 is over. Bill board 100 is over. Only five charts and five genres of music is over.
Sadly, you have become a middle of the road Jethro Till album (to use an idiom you would know).
Yes, the lack of shared experience that radio hits provided is a huge difference between then and now. Also the way music is listened to today by most people, on ear buds while doing something else like cleaning, jogging or driving. Everyone will sit and watch a two hour movie, hardly anyone will sit and listen to a 40 minute album.
And there is a great music being made. And it is easy to find, but to certain folks if they don’t hear it on the radio and know it is popular with others then it must be a complete music desert out there.
Freegards
I think Radio Head was the last gasp.
I’l put up Miles Davis against any of the stuff you’re pushing. Or Chuck Berry. Or George Jones. Or Aretha. Or anything else you got. I was there for it all and to put it mildly, you and yours suck.
It was officially over when Judas Priest’s lead singer came out of the closet...
bfl
How anybody can look back at those glam rock hair bands and not see that they were sexually ambiguous at best and be surprised now that any of them were homosexual is a mystery, almost as big of a mystery as not seeing it when these bands were in their heyday.
I don’t miss arena rock and Top 40, most of it was pap. “Rock” was just as formulaic and insipid as the autotune pop of today, just louder. However, there has always been great music, then and now. But, again then as now, very little of it makes its way into mass channels of distribution. People who grew up under the old “push” model of the big recording studios and their captive network of radio playlists reinforced by the big concert tour schedules relied upon that as a gauge of what was popular, and what was popular was de facto “good” because they didn’t know any better.
That’s fading away now, and so they’re deprived of their yardstick and are stuck thinking that the music of their own heydays was the best because it’s all that they really know. Rolling around town in a ‘79 Trans Am with the t-tops out, mullet ruffling in the breeze with Foreigner or Boston or Loverboy or some other insipid hair band turned up to 11.
There’s plenty of great, innovative music being made now, you’ve just got to go find it and trust your own judgment, something that never formed in most rock fans forty or more years ago.
Yes....
Saw my favorite band Rush on their R40 Tour in May 2015.
All three are in their mid sixties and sounded as good as ever. Freeking awesome.
Sadly they say physical aliments will probably keep them from touring again.
Neil Peart said if he can’t remain the best drummer he does not want to play in concert, or words to that effect.
Are you saying Judas Priest can’t rock because Rob Halford is a homo?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuDg3u-ZPEM
No, the “recording industry” killed rock.
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