04-28-2021, 01:03 PM
I did ignore the Beatles in that list... it is hard to top them for musical polish and a wide array of influences. As I have said before, Eleanor Rigby has some counterpoint that suggests that John, Paul, George, and Ringo might have gotten inspiration from in an organ concert of baroque music.
Rock at its best was intellectually rich. By the late 1970's it became strictly commercial, programmed more for fitting an audience than for leading that audience -- almost like the "easy listening" music of the time (which was often bowdlerized versions of rock music). Music had to be useful, engineered to get a predictable audience for pleasing the advertisers. At some point, such a figure as Joan Armatrading got the rap for "not being commercial"... that is, not selling out her musical expression for cheap appeal that might put it on more radio stations.
Mass audiences are fickle, and those are where the fads are directed. But fads are themselves ephemeral. One question of whether something new is a real and lasting influence or is simply a disposable fad like the others is whether the new item is good. Disco was awful even if it was useful in dance halls. Bubblegum rock was easy to outgrow.
Smart boomers went away from rock once it became formulaic and empty and went elsewhere. Some went country; some went folk; some went jazz; some went R&B; some went classical. Any one of these is a break away from rock as it was going in the late 1970's.
Rock at its best was intellectually rich. By the late 1970's it became strictly commercial, programmed more for fitting an audience than for leading that audience -- almost like the "easy listening" music of the time (which was often bowdlerized versions of rock music). Music had to be useful, engineered to get a predictable audience for pleasing the advertisers. At some point, such a figure as Joan Armatrading got the rap for "not being commercial"... that is, not selling out her musical expression for cheap appeal that might put it on more radio stations.
Mass audiences are fickle, and those are where the fads are directed. But fads are themselves ephemeral. One question of whether something new is a real and lasting influence or is simply a disposable fad like the others is whether the new item is good. Disco was awful even if it was useful in dance halls. Bubblegum rock was easy to outgrow.
Smart boomers went away from rock once it became formulaic and empty and went elsewhere. Some went country; some went folk; some went jazz; some went R&B; some went classical. Any one of these is a break away from rock as it was going in the late 1970's.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.