04-29-2021, 11:14 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-29-2021, 11:17 AM by Eric the Green.)
(04-28-2021, 01:03 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: 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.
Yes, thanks for mentioning The Beatles. The thing about them is not only did they create new and original music, but they inspired a great many more to do so, and for a while some of that was new and original as well.
The 1966 Byrds' song I mentioned actually features a Bach organist, which can be heard especially toward the end. Revolver by the Beatles from the same Summer featured Eleanor Rigby (also the single flipside of Yellow Submarine), as well as two pieces that are at the height of the genre, Tomorrow Never Knows (the most influential and original rock piece ever) and Here, There and Everywhere.
As bubblegum took over AM in the early 70s, and then Disco in the late 70s, I switched first to FM rock, but then that genre too narrowed into the more formulaic, commercial "classic rock" format in the late 1970s. The Who survived the change (although Pete's solos did not), but many of the other best bands like the Byrds that were the most creative, and who reflected the consciousness revolution and had more controversial and socially-relevant lyrics, did not, and then from the mid-80s on rock also became more and more blatant and depended more on hard noise and vocal screaming. The "elsewhere" for me included classical and also the genre that is often forgotten but is always worth mentioning: new age ambient. As in this great example from the UK that has classical and pop-instrumental influence: