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| | What made 60's music so great?Page 4 of 5 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) | The 60's had some great music, but it's severely overplayed; so unless you're talking about Zappa or the Velvet Underground, I don't want to hear it --I've heard too ****ing much of it for the last 40 ****ing years! - AKWriter
I agree 100%. I don't like hearing overplayed music from any decade. I get bored with "the hits" played on oldies stations quick. If I never hear "Wild Thing," "Wooly Bully," or "Hang on Sloopy" again, it would be fine with me. The music I consider essential from the 60's never got much airplay in the first place. The only songs by The Kinks certain people are familiar with are the ones that got played on the radio. (Like "Lola" and "You Really Got Me.") That's pretty sad considering the catalogue of fantastic music they have. The same can be said for most of the other British Invasion bands. (Cream, The Yardbirds, The Animals, The Who, The Beatles, The Small Faces, Jethro Tull, The Rolling Stones, etc. etc.) These are such prolific groups, just buying "The Greatest Hits" or listening to what still gets played on the radio doesn't do them justice.
P.S: Why can't certain people quit bickering here? Can't we concentrate on "What made 60's music so great?" I respectfully urge those of you who don't think it was to move on to topics that reflect their point of view or keep your comments to the minimum. I confess, when I spot a lengthy posting that begins with comments like, "I can't stand 60's music because..." I don't even read it. Who are you trying to convince here anyway?
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| Where Have All The Idealists Gone?...Long Time Passing
Posted: 9/6/2009 11:22:58 PM | A personal, on topic , story. No apologies to the attention-deficit-disorder crowd.
When I was seven (1963), I stayed home from school one day with a cold or flu, and flicked on my 4-transistor to Bobby Vinton singing "Blue Velvet". This was the first "rock" song I'd ever heard. Now, I'm sure most people remember that squaresville tune. Sentimental and sweet as maple syrup poured over apple pie. Inoffensive. Somnolent, yet sticking to the brain. The song was first performed, without fanfare, in 1950. But it remained for Vinton to croon it, 13 years later, in the supposedly "idealistic" 60s, for it to reach number #1 on the charts. And it stayed there for about two months. That's the first irony, as it pertains to this thread.
Towards the end of the 60s, I again stayed home from school, turned on the radio, and heard Bee Houston's hair-raising (when I had hair) vocals and guitar. 7 or 8 years into the "revolutionary" decade, and I was ignorant of the blues, the music from which much of the 60s owed its aural existence. I then got hold of some of Vanguard's excellent blues releases -- Wells, Guy, Jimmy Rogers, Shines, Collins, Hutto, Skip James, Sonny Boy Williamson (I & II), and on and on -- and felt both excited at my "discovery", and p!ssed that the radio clowns preferred to force feed its captive audience the (by then) TV friendly clothing-coordinated inoffensive (remember, this is the "life changing" 60s) strains of the latest one-hit wonder. (One hit wonders were a staple of the 60s, the creation of the evil hands-on cynicisms of music agents and managers.)
Those blues records I was by then happily devouring led to one major artery of the evolution of rock: original blues recordings, some of which I could compare with the reworkings of what I was (then) currently listening to. And it was then that I was truly humbled, because I realized what a chloroformed, ersatz parasitical manifestation a lot of those "revolutionary" 60s songs became, by contrast. Even critically acclaimed blues-influenced guitarists of the 60s, to a man, said that their covers were pale imitations, though loving tributes, to the National Steel players of the 20s and 30s: Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Blake, Blind Willie McTell, and later -- Hubert Sumlin, Freddie King, et al.
Much of the music of the 60s was crap, as it is in any era. But without the evolving blues and country and gospel strains of the 20s and 30s, even the good music of the 60s would have been impossible. This, in itself, isn't to denigrate the 60s, just to put things in perspective. Every decade borrows and steals from the past. But the 60s bought and stole from rock's roots like Imelda Marcos at a first-to-the-door going-out-of-business shoe sale.
60s rock, as late has exhaustively relayed on this thread, was notable for engineering breakthroughs, but also for the still (unbelievably) overlooked twinning of mass media with pop music/culture pimping.
And, on that second point, snapington also hammers nails in all four corners of the coffin-box of the illusion of idealism. The "change the world" lip-service from the faddish counterculture belies the fact -- makes it a grand irony --that music, in the 60s, like never before, was driven by consumer-acquiring manipulation.
I also find it a further irony that none of the "60s music was a mass cultural awakening" crowd have yet to invoke the name of Phil Ochs. Perhaps that's because he, unlike Bobby Vinton, didn't get any airplay. Where have all the idealists gone? Nowhere. They've been here all along, in every decade, invisible and unheard. The real agents for change usually can't affix their message to cartloads of album sales. | |
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| Where Have All The Idealists Gone?...Long Time Passing
Posted: 9/7/2009 8:15:21 AM |
I also find it a further irony that none of the "60s music was a mass cultural awakening" crowd have yet to invoke the name of Phil Ochs.
Another irony I find is that if it is being assumed by some posters that no subsequent eras are as good as the 60's were, wouldn't that have made the awakening that occurred in the 60's more of a regression than a progression? | |
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| Alex I'll take twelve dollar words for 500
Posted: 9/7/2009 1:17:35 PM | | I think we should give props to England... another part of the formula, in what makes the 60's the greatest era since the big bang, is the eccentric English and their interpretation of borrowed influences. To me those bands were just cooler, there was such a difference in style and the accents, I think that facinated the American demographic for sure.... | |
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| Alex I'll take Unsung heros of the 60's
Posted: 9/7/2009 7:13:47 PM | | Thanks Rory for the props. Phil Ochs is my favorite unsung hero of the 60's. A man who influenced me more than I realized at the time. I wouldn't be the songwriter I am today without his unvarnished truth telling style. I prefer songs that get to the point without needing an english degree to decipher and I'm sure that he would point to Woody Guthrie and say the same thing I did. As I wrote in my second post "music flows from one musician to another" you can't just chop it up in easy to digest bits. | |
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burpie
| | Joined: 8/15/2009
Msg: 81 | |
| Alex I'll take Unsung heros of the 60's
Posted: 9/8/2009 8:49:33 AM | Yup...Phil Ochs, Leonard Cohen....too much emphasis cannot be placed on them and Dylan. In the sixties the music really MATTERED. It said SOMETHING. for the first time it wasn't all about moon, june, spoon and teenage angst over love. It voiced our dreams, hopes for a better world, it made a HUGE difference in the battles being fought, it kept the guys in Nam from going insane, it was the score for the civil rights movement that made the struggle mainstream, it mobilized a whole generation to do what JFK started in 1960 at his inaugeration speech, " ask what you can do for your country." we came to believe our voices were needed, our country had to change, the status quo was no longer going to be tolerated, and music was our vehicle, what ultimately brought the nation together to effect change. Never before had music had such a galvanizing effect on the consciousness of Americans. It was like we were waking up from a bad bad dream after McCarthyism and the two hundred years of white bread racist ignorance..... and the music guided us to really stand up and fight for justice and freedom and peace
also, that english influence was in large part an outgrowth from huge adoration in those brits who adored the music of chuck berry and other pioneers of black rock and roll music | |
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| What made 60's music so great?
Posted: 9/11/2009 12:35:48 PM | Never mention B. Dylan and Phil Ochs in the same sentence they'll start fighting.
Phil wasn't a fan of Dylan and thought he was not direct enough.
I know Canadians make up a good portion of this site but why Leonard Cohen? He wasn't very political, I found him rather boring still do.
I thought I exposed that the counter culture lip service to real change in society as such. Please stop perpetuating a common mistake that these kids cared about anything except avoiding the draft and getting laid. | |
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| What made 60's music so great?
Posted: 9/17/2009 8:59:14 AM | Phil Ochs certainly was an interesting fellow. I'm familiar with his music and legacy, but I've never been a big fan. Although he dubbed himself "The Journalist of Rock," I don’t recall him being much of a rocker. Most of his musical output fell into the Folk, Country and Honk Tonk categories if I remember right. (It's clear that he was a Hank Williams fan.)
My criticism for Phil is the same as the one I have for Bob and Leonard. Give me a song that clocks in at around 10 minutes and I’ll give you a musician that talks too much. Nevertheless, I think Ochs managed to get to the point quicker than the other two. Phil’s lyrics felt like you were hearing a more articulate and visionary version of the daily news, where Dylan and Cohen indulged more in imagery. To be honest, because they all used simple melodies, I’ve been known to dive for the fast forward button in the middle of some of their songs just to keep things moving. This is not to underplay the significance and elegance of their lyrics however. Phil, Bob and Leonard were three great writers. I'm just not convinced music is the best vehicle for that kind of wordiness.
My favorite songs by Phil were "A Small Circle of Friends," and "I Ain't Marching Anymore." They still ring true today. | |
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| What made 60's music so great?
Posted: 9/17/2009 9:11:25 AM |
Never mention B. Dylan and Phil Ochs in the same sentence they'll start fighting.
Phil wasn't a fan of Dylan and thought he was not direct enough.
Strange how it was prior to Ochs death. Yet now you can see that Dylan did admire Ochs.
What I found interesting about Ochs was that he hit many political controversies where as Dylan seemed more focused on the war. | |
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| What made 60's music so great?
Posted: 9/17/2009 2:29:46 PM | My home town is where Bob Dylan went electric and left the hard-core protest racket.
I think that was a good thing kind of stirred things up and showed that he knew the folk boom was over and rock was the future. | |
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| What made 60's music so great?
Posted: 9/27/2009 11:20:26 AM | The 60s had some great unheard bands.... each country during the 60s had it's wealth of fantastic 60s groups.
Australia had some of the best 60s groups
The Atlantics
The Black Diamonds
The Creatures
Masters Apprentices
The Easybeats as the girl above mentioned
the latter two weren't even the best
everyone should check out a New Zealands greatest ever band The Blue Stars with their killer anthem Social End Product.
folks this is a punk song 10 years before punk... check it out... this is what makes the 60s great.... there was so many great tunes like this that for me summed up what the 60s was about
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfvAVlFoRmg | |
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| What made 60's music so great?
Posted: 9/30/2009 6:32:29 PM | I thought I'd print the lyrics to the two Phil Ochs songs that I mentioned earlier because like I said, I believe they still ring true today. The inspiration for the song "Outside A Small Circle Of Friends" is a true event that happened in NYC. A woman was dragged into the bushes in a very public part of the city and stabbed to death. Several people heard her screams but did nothing. They said they didn't want to get involved.
I Ain’t Marchin’ Anymore -
Oh I marched to the battle of New Orleans
At the end of the early British war
The young land started growing
The young blood started flowing
But I ain't marchin' anymore
For I've killed my share of indians
In a thousand different fights
I was there at the Little Big Horn
I heard many men lying
I saw many more dying
But I ain't marchin' anymore
It's always the old to lead us to the war
It's always the young to fall
Now look at all we've won with the sabre and the gun
Tell me is it worth it all
For I stole California from the Mexican land
Fought in the bloody Civil War
Yes I even killed my brother
And so many others
And I ain't marchin' anymore
For I marched to the battles of the German trench
In a war that was bound to end all wars
Oh I must have killed a million men
And now they want me back again
But I ain't marchin' anymore
For I flew the final mission in the Japanese sky
Set off the mighty mushroom roar
When I saw the cities burning
I knew that I was learning
That I ain't marchin' anymore
Now the labor leader's screamin' when they close the missile plants,
United fruit screams at the Cuban shore,
Call it "peace" or call it "treason,"
Call it "love" or call it "reason,"
But I ain't marchin' any more.
*****************************
Outside A Small Circle Of Friends-
Look outside the window, there's a woman being grabbed
They've dragged her to the bushes and now she's being stabbed
Maybe we should call the cops and try to stop the pain
But Monopoly is so much fun, I’d hate to blow the game
And I’m sure it wouldn't interest anybody
Outside of a small circle of friends.
Riding down the highway, yes, my back is getting stiff
Thirteen cars are piled up; they're hanging on a cliff.
Maybe we should pull them back with our towing chain
But we gotta move and we might get sued and it looks like it's gonna rain
And I’m sure it wouldn't interest anybody
Outside of a small circle of friends.
Sweating in the ghetto with the colored and the poor
The rats have joined the babies who are sleeping on the floor
Now wouldn't it be a riot if they really blew their tops?
But they've got too much already and besides we got the cops
And I’m sure it wouldn't interest anybody
Outside of a small circle of friends.
Oh there's a dirty paper using sex to make a sale
The Supreme Court was so upset, they sent him off to jail.
Maybe we should help the fiend and take away his fine.
But we're busy reading Playboy and the Sunday New York Times
And I’m sure it wouldn't interest anybody
Outside of a small circle of friends
Smoking marihuana is more fun than drinking beer,
But a friend of ours was captured and they gave him thirty years
Maybe we should raise our voices, ask somebody why
But demonstrations are a drag, besides we're much too high
And I’m sure it wouldn't interest anybody
Outside of a small circle of friends
-Phil Ochs | |
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| What made 60's music so great?
Posted: 11/17/2009 8:06:33 PM | don't forget that the political climate had a good deal of influence on music. Vietnam protesters were only a symptom of the age of rebellion. At that time rebellion was viewed by the vast subculture as positive - take Woodstock. Anti-War sentiment threads ran throughout the music. It just makes sense that musicians got "rebellious" with their playing styles as well. All kinda fusion goin' on | |
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| What made 60's music so great?
Posted: 11/24/2009 7:08:35 PM | The best point you've made OP is that it was an era, and the music reflected that era. Ss, you are absolutely correct, therefore that attempts to recreate events from the 60s won't work. (Woodstock was '69). The political, ecomonic and cultural climate were very different then, and the music reflected that climate in a way I have not seen since - with the exception of some of the rappers maybe.
Music then was doing a couple of things. It was meshing sounds from Blues, Jazz, and Hillbilly blues using distortion techniques probably copying off Link Wray there, and incorporating his style with Blues artists like Son House, Robert Johnson to come up with a Chuck Berry sound. And it was making a rebellious departure from 50s moral culture. Then in the latter half of the decade we saw bands like the beatles & the stones move with this groove, while bands like Velvet Underground were more probably influenced by American Folk and musicians like Bob Dylan. The music gained a lot of it's heritage from the Vietnam War protest movement, which spawned the free love movement, and a general mood to rebel against the status quo - corporate America and military industrial complex. A lot of music was less direct in its political statement, but the statements were there. Add the drug culture to distortion & feedback and voila' - Hendrix. The rest is history. But it was the changes, the departures - in daring to be loud and raucous, - the fusion, and the community of rock n roll that make the era & the music of the era so memorable. Let's not forget that the music in the early 60s was not much different than the 50s. The fusion revolution was really late 60s and early 70s. | |
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| What made 60's music so great?
Posted: 11/24/2009 8:03:32 PM | I wouldn't know. I'm not a huge fan of the 60's. Liked, not loved, Motown, never understood the appeal of the Beatles (well the early Beatles, I am a fan of The White Album and Sgt. Pepper). Never liked folk music and while I love Hendrix and CCR, I associate them a little more with 70's music.
I guess you had to be there to appreciate it?
Yes, i am a big fan of the 1970's music (even disco!). I love progressive rock bands like Yes and Alan Parsons Project and mega bands like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. Also a big fan of hard rock like Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath, and my favorite Jazz artist (Keith Jarrett) was big then. But my favorite genre was the re-emergence of English music, in Punk and eventually in New Wave, making the late 70's and the early 80's my favorite music period of all time.
Sorry off topic, but a huge music fan. | |
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| What made 60's music so great?
Posted: 11/27/2009 9:31:38 AM | | The point is, I think, Sammy, that the music you like probably would not be here without the 60s. Every band you named has a 60s predecessor - even if it was not the bands' primary influence, while Zep & Hendrix were 2 of the biggest names in the late 60s. But ya, there was both good and not so good - just like anything else | |
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| What made 60's music so great?
Posted: 11/27/2009 9:52:02 AM | | When people really broke from listening to the crap their parents did...rock n roll was born in the fifties, but started to run in the sixties...No longer did kids have to listen to Patty Page and Perry myass Como... | |
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| What made 60's music so great?
Posted: 11/29/2009 3:42:29 AM | | 50's great music, 60's great music, 70's great music, 80-87 decline, 90's WTF some good music | |
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| What made 60's music so great?
Posted: 11/29/2009 7:20:10 AM | I haven't read through all this thread, so apologies if someone else has already made this point: we tend to rate highly the music of our teens. It's when we first discover who we are apart from our parents, first get overwhelmed with sexual feelings, first start experimenting. And if those of us who love that music have children, then, according to how well they get on with us, they too will love it or reject it. It's contingent, in other words, of what stage we're at in life.
It's also true that it represented a wonderful break with the repressed traditions left over from the fifties. | |
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| What made 60's music so great?
Posted: 11/30/2009 4:00:24 PM | Excellent question/post!
What made it so great is that all of that music is that the fans back then witnessed the evolution unfold, an evolution which stopped with American Idol and today's MTV & VH-1.
They got to see gospel morph into jazz, folk, blues, psychedelic, rock and metal. They got to see/hear music in its infancy. They got to buy LPs with cool album covers.
Today, we don't see/hear very much of anything except computer manufactured rubbish, samples, rehashes/bad covers and distorted vocals. Eck...true musicians & fans always yearn for the simpler times, when lyrics meant something. There will be no more Jim Morrisons, Stevie Ray Vaughns or Janis Joplins. Having said that, though, there's plenty of great groups out there today that DO present themselves different and actually have the lyrical/musical genius to back it up! | |
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| What made 60's music so great?
Posted: 9/13/2010 12:05:16 AM | Well, for someone that saw a part of it as a young child (born in 1957) . I think I can speak of my viewpoint.
First, a great demographic boom produced a lot of young people to be consumers. That meant they had money to spend on clothes, music, and rock shows. Even a kid with a part time job could afford those things, way back then.
Going to see a show didn't mean spending half your weekly salary on one ticket. Those LP's were cheap too, easily affordable.
Second, the Beatles, and I can count myself as one of those people who saw them play live on Ed Sullivan.  No one that wasn't around when they arrived on the scene will ever be able to understand exactly what they represented to those young boomers. Almost every guy wanted to be a Beatle, and every girl wanted to fall in love/**** one.
A lot of those fellows grabbed guitars, and became musicians, like the Byrds did.
The drugs. No escaping that part.
Almost every single classic rock tune was written by drug users. Those drugs (especially grass ) where of far lower potency than what's around today, another reason (imho) for today's music. The Beatles called it "having a giggle". Today they'd be still on the couch looking at their TV's.
See I think drugs have done some good things for us. If you don't think drugs have done good things for us then do me a favor. Go home tonight and take all of your records,tapes and all your CD's and burn them. Because, you know all those musicians who made all that great music that's enhanced your lives throughout the years? Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreal f++++ high on drugs, man.
The Beatles were so ++++in' high they let Ringo sing a few songs."
- Bill Hicks
Funny, but oh so true.
Those drugs released an inner creativity that quite a few of those musicians displayed. There were also quite a few good studio people, who also gave them a good foundation to work upon. It required some inate talent, but if that was there it was a way to start to see other creative possibilities - like Indian music and all the other influences that were to soon blend in with "conventional" music.
I remember when Time magazine had a cover and article about rock music as art - right after Sgt. Pepper was released. That shows you the paradigm shift that had occurred.
You also had the rise of the singer/songwriter, and the death of Tin Pan Alley. That gave a deeply personal view of life through people that were the same age as their audiences - or close to it.
You had the 33 LP media format that also played an important part of how people actually related to music. People (unlike today) did not have a "one track mind" , and you generally played LP's in their entirety. That made us see music quite differently than a kid today does.
Also, very importantly, there was no "rock video" market - and you can exclude those "film ones" that were present then as being media that wasn't very popular overall. Frank Zappa wrote a great article about rock videos in Guitar Player Magazine, right when they started.
He predicted that music (as we knew it then) would die, as people who looked good would be choosen over talented less good looking people. He said that had The Mothers Of Invention shown up in this rock video dominated market - they'd have never got signed to a label.
So, in essence, it was the "perfect storm" of factors all working together to amplify classic rock like those stacks of Marshalls did. | |
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| What made 60's music so great?
Posted: 9/14/2010 3:04:12 PM | I was predicting the death of great music when mtv came out too, (along with the stones signing for cash advances on their next 10 albums sight unseen and unheard). You could be brain dead about the essence of music but still be into the rock videos. Those that had a vision for the future of video did excel and the best ever witnessed was michael jackson. Much like those who had a vision for rap when it first started instead of being in denial that it was a movement to contend with.
I think the drugs benefited the listener more so than the creator. After all what did one dead head say to the other when the drugs ran out?
"THIS MUSIC SUCKS!!!" | |
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| What made 60's music so great?
Posted: 9/14/2010 11:51:02 PM |
Balboa: This is why I said unless you're willing to at least try to walk in the sandals of the hippies during the 60's, that music will sound self-indulgent, sloppy and uninteresting. (And a lot of it was.) Look at the attempts to resurrect the atmosphere of the original Woodstock with Woodstocks II and III. It's impossible. That era is gone with the wind. I've gone back and re-listened to some of the psychodelic records I liked in my youth and most of them sound ridiculous. (Except for Love, Spirit, Cream, ELP, Traffic, The Doors and The Beatles) The best music from the sixties for me were the British Invation bands playing their versions of American Blues.
I came of age in the Sixties. Pot, acid, and Viet Nam were responsible for most of the incredible burst of creativity in youth culture, and music was the unifying force.
Especially LSD. BTW, it's "Turn On, Tune IN, Drop Out".
My favorite 60s bands:
It's a Beautiful Day
Jefferson Airplane
Grateful Dead
Beatles
Moody Blues
Quicksilver Messenger Service
Big Brother & the Holding Company w/ Janis Joplin
Jimi Hendrix Experience
Credence Clearwater Revival
Steppenwolf
Doors
Rolling Stones
Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young
Santana
Cream
Yardbirds (find Jeff Beck at Ronnie Scott's on You Tube. Incredible)
New Riders of the Purple Sage
Hot Tuna
Pink Floyd
Standells
and many more, who are more obscure (mostly from the mid-Sixties; see Rhino Records Nuggets compilations) | |
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