Is it just a coincidence that 1967 was the final year of a twelve year [including a few ups and downs] stream of great rock and roll hits by truly talented artists and also the year that Rolling Stone Magazine began publication? I don't believe it was. Up untill "serious rock criticism" appeared the general public had had no problem whatsoever determining a good song from a bad one. From 1956 through '67, with a few exceptions, the better the record the bigger the hit. People did not need to have the merits of an artist or a song explained to them via an articale in a magazine. Humans are born with an inate sense of melody and rythm but can be led astray from their own senses by a barage of written word propaganda. Enter "greaseball" Jann Weiner and his backers on high in Rockefeller Center. Suddenly music was not about merely a good song on the radio or a good performing band but rather it became about the artist themselves. What are their political beliefs? What is their philosophy on life? What are they trying to convay to us in their music? Last nights Hall of Fame ceremony was a great example of the results of this corrodinated assault on the art of rock and roll.The greatest girl group of all time, The Ronnettes, after being ignored for twenty years after their eligbility, were regulated to a second class role behind Patti Smith, a pure creation of the print media. A perfomer who without the overwhelming hype of every rock publcation would have never been heard of outside of the open mike nights of the New York club scene. A person on the inside of the music business once told me that the whole punk scene had been created in order to get young people back into the clubs. It certainly worked, for now, thirty years later a good review must still contain the word "punk" somewhere within to render the artist credible. This I find very ironic since the only excuse the original punks could come up with for their very existence is that groups like the Rolling Stones had been around for over ten years and were no longer revelant so, eventhough they couldn't play or sing, it was their turn. This was repeated over and over untill the punks ruled and real rock and roll was dead and buried, awaiting MTV to throw concrete over the coffin in order to be certain it would never rise again. Just what our keepers had been trying to arrange since Elvis, Chuck and Jerry Lee.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2007-03-14 00:13 by keithfan64.

... who said 1967 was the final year of truly great rock & roll hits?

No that was 1979

I didn't mean to say there were no great hits after '67 but '68 marked the decline of music with crappy horn bands like Chicago and Blood Sweat and Tears along with the advent of bubblegum. CCR and others kept it going for a few more years but it was now out of the people's hands and under big media controll. Soon it would be all James Taylor, Carly Simon, CS+N [R.S.FAVES] and other sleep inducing acts untill the time was right for punk to come to the rescue in which case the cure was worse than the desise.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2007-03-13 23:36 by keithfan64.

Hm

I think the whole intellectualization of Rock is a farce when coming from non-musician journalist dweebs, yes. But to say that 1967, 1979 or even 1991 was the 'last year in rock' is equally sucky.

Rolling Stone Magazine is nothing more than baby boomer literary masturbation. Spin magzine is the same - for Gen-X, and has fallen into the same, post-modern, cynical shite-fest.

To all the whiny rock-press folks out there - you suck. Rock rules. I'm 33. It's 2007. And I'm gonna blast the 1968 track Jumpin' Jack Flash on my way home from work. I don't care when it came out. I don't care what generation claims it. It's a f#@%ing awesome song that rocks. The Stones rock. Period. End of story.

AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

keithfan64 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I didn't mean to say there were no great hits
> after '67 but '68 marked the decline of music with
> crappy horn bands like Chicago and Blood Sweat and
> Tears along with the advent of bubblegum. CCR and
> others kept it going for a few more years but it
> was now out of the people's hands and under big
> media controll. Soon it would be all James Taylor,
> Carly Simon, CS+N and other sleep inducing acts.


Don't agree. ANyway, the bubblegum came before 1967.

Have we all been forgotten Paul Anka? Jeeez...

Enough 'landmarking the past'. Come on keithfan64 - we all know our rock history - but opinions and subjective taste IS NOT ROCK HISTORY.

When 'rock writers', or people who pretend to be one, snoot up their own taste like some elitist conessiuer, they do nothing but expose their own inner vacuum of suck-hard-ness.

For example; I love the Stones, but I don't think that should make me any more or less cool or better than if the Monkees were my favourite band.

Yummy Yummy Yummy 1968. Sugar,Sugar 1969. Sure there was allways light rock Tommy Roe even Buddy Holly but not pure bubblegum till 68.

Keithfan64:

I see you feel pretty strongly about this, so dont what I'm saying the wrong way. I take your point on the hype of Punk. A lot of attitute and crap musicans got famous for no real reason. PS, IMHO isnt in that same group. Remember she lived with the stones on tour in the 70's and covered their concerts in rock press. She idolized the Glimmer Twins and her fascination was really centerd on their live performances. I think if you asked her she would say the stones were proto-punk and proto-grunge especially in the live shows during the 70's. Put on ADTL from 72 or 75 and watch the punk/grunge fans put their tails between their legs.
On the Rock Press: rock print media responded to a time when the music itself got serious 1968-mid 70's. Street fighting man spoke of fighting in the streets not "Dancing in the streets". During that time there was some serious and interesting writing on rock. From the late 70's forward it has become irrelevant (as has much of the music). Now its only about the $$$$$.

THere's lotsa fleet-sweet lolipop yada yada from the early 60s too

In fact, some things didn't really get together before 68-69-70-71, same time as the invent of real equipment for bands who wanted to play R&R.

You got Hendrix with his wild wild shows and playing, and Stones doing some of the best tours in the history of R&R, The WHo beating up the audience with guitars, The Faces pop groouuup ! , Bruce Springsteen in the mid 70s...terrific stuff

to me, 1967-1981 was the climax, so certainly '67 wasn't the end...

i get your general point kf64 (back in the day, "with a few exceptions, the better the record the bigger the hit") but disagree on the why. hype and reviews (specifically RS mag) aren't necessarily the culprits. marketing, adverts, major labels and who they decided to push, payola, radio playlists and billboard surely were worse factors, no? also the era you describe was dominated (thru '64) by SINGLES-artists which were usually marketable vocalists being paired with professional brill building songwriters until Dylan, the brit invasion, advances in studio possibilities, and the rise of album rock gave way to a whole new breed of rockers who wrote their own stuff and soon after, STEREO FM stations. it multiplied so fast that the only way to keep up with it all was precisely RSmag, creem, crawdaddy, circus, downbeat, musician mag, etc.

patti smith, like morrissey later, was one of these early writers/fans/poets (though not in the 60's), but is not a creation of the print media. you would have heard Dancin' Barefoot and Because The Night (or you would have heard of her co-writing with Blue Oyster Cult) without the print media's input , but you would have missed out on the NYDolls, television, ramones, richard hell, sex pistols, etc. without them. biased as the writers were, we learned of these bands thru print, not radio or record sales or tv.

It's the opposite of the widespread seen phenomenom the
culture anthopologists use to call Gesunkenes Kulturgut,
Ge h o v e n e s kulturgut I'd say... Older folks picking up
the youth's expressions.
Today even our county's hot-shots listen to the Stones...
In the 80s ya could se punky hairstyles on people like Maggie Thatcher.

The kids may just never have anything for themselves.

Another thing is the Industry.

Thats the fascinating thing with people and bands like Lazy Cowgirls,
Kenny Håkansson & thousands or millions others... A genuine interest
and passions for music... People here use to say, Håkansson would have
been at least as great star as Clapton had he stayed in the US after
their Chess Sessions back in 66-67.

A lot of bands in the 60s were "put together" to be popular and have the perfect cut for the radio/TV listeners. Peter Paul & Mary, Cliff Richards, The Monkees, radio friendly popsongs which didn't offend anyone, and there were no attitude behind it.
There has always been those kind of hitmakers, and the early 60s was no exception. Actually, it must have been harder for bands to make their own way back then, than in the 70s, when the music scene was much larger, and there were lotsa more record-labels, and the common man could afford an electric guitar....besides people were more tolerant later on, new/unknown bands weren't that censored in the 70s, 80s and 90s. It was much worse in the BBC regime of the early 60s

I said in my post that there were ups and downs and most people consider the early 60's a weak period but we had Roy and Del, Spector, The Beach Boys and a lot of one hitters like The Duke of Earl and Stay amoung many others too numerious to mention or try to think of right now. Some great Doo-Wop.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2007-03-14 00:01 by keithfan64.

1967 - 21 = 1946, not 1956

And Motown and Stax and Theeeeee Stones....



ROCKMAN