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What was the best/worst of 1970s music

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Hourman
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« on: July 16, 2010, 01:37:52 pm »

Without going into little one word answers, what is it about this decade that gave us the best music and what is it that gave us the worst?

I've got my own ideas, but I'm interested in yours. Also, do you think the 70s were the best era? If not, then which decade? Why? Why not?
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KATH
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« Reply #1 on: July 16, 2010, 07:28:29 pm »

ARGH!!  

I had a very nice, NO LITTLE ONE WORD ANSWER to you...hit POST, said it timed me out, and instead of hittin' POST again, I hit F5.  Siwwy Wabbit. heh.  So, You're gettin' the Readers Digest Condensed Version:  

It was a simpler time, musically;  It didn't give us the best OR the worst...SOME OF BOTH, FOR SURE.  

It blurred the genres, and it made people who would've floundered on so-called AC stations now POP STARS...and since there wasn't an AC genre...it all got lumped in...and a lotta people got big that might've not AT ALL...and the MIDDLE OF THE ROAD STUFF got to be sorta cool...

It was the advent of FM/album cuts/deep cuts, and the very infantile beginnings of the demise of the 45 & LP, and vinyl--AND AM RADIO for anything other than talk/traffic/weather.

What else...?  Ummm,  I don't know...I think I did GOOD recalling THAT.  heh.  If I think of other stuff, I'll come back.
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CelticGal
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« Reply #2 on: July 19, 2010, 08:28:15 am »

This may be over-simplifying things, but in those days, to get a recording contract, you had to have some sort of actual musical talent. You had to be able to sing, play an instrument, write songs, or any combination of the three. Bands came together out of interest in music and out of talent, not because some producer decided to put five good looking guys together or because someone thought some girl had nice boobs.  Even the more gimmicky and/or bubblegummy acts - the Osmonds, the Jackson Five, the Bay City Rollers, David Cassidy (and Duran Duran in the 80s) - had actual musical talent and ability.
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Becky
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« Reply #3 on: August 25, 2010, 12:23:38 pm »

I think it would be far too difficult to name any decade as the beat musically. It would take a panel of 10,000 random people from all age groups years of sifting through every song release and making some sort of good/bad ranking system to even come close to approximating something like a reasonable argument for any one decade. Much in the way I enjoyed the wide open style nature of what kind of song could be a hit in the 80's ( you could have a pop artist, an instrumental, a hair band, heavy metal and even country all one one station in the same hour)

The 70's to me was the time when people began to break out of the typical and start to be a bit more risky or even a bit more risque then previously. this allowed more complex issues and feelings to be expressed then to say the simple I love you song. You got more deep introspective material out of some, while others may have been free just to say things that would never have been permissible without clever word coding. this in a time where the young hippies if you will were branching out into young adulthood and having more to say than "give peace a chance".

I noticed many songs from that era seem to me anyway to be more rooted in the reality of the way things really were in life. Less about the childish or simplistic themes of love and patriotism (the latter being a spill off from the hippie movement and the war.) Musically, things were heating up and lyrically things were becoming more life like. I hope this is making sense.

I guess what I am saying in a nut shell is that, music was growing up. The styles were being challenged and a group like say Chicago to whom some of us have chatted to before, became popular not just because they wrote a good love song, but presented their songs in a way no one was musically doing before.
Disco, well, I have no clear point of view on it, but like anything else, it just was another way to let people do what they wanted in a way that wasn't there before. A style of music that was geared towards dancing. While you could certainly dance to songs before that and dances and songs were created for each other, I don't see Disco working in any previous generation. It was in my opinion another form of music that "grew" out of the times it was in.

I think there are some excellent songs from the 70's some of which are still to this holding their own against the test of time. Sometimes I think how lucky I was to be born in 72. I got to hear a lot of the 70's stuff before even being interested in music, the 80's were great radio-wise and many 70's staples were still played.
50's and 60's music on the oldies stations was fun to listen to, but largely seemed to lack the depth of the 70's and 80's material. While the 80's might have been very memorable for me, I must say lyrically, the 70's were much stronger.
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Perplexio
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« Reply #4 on: August 25, 2010, 01:34:39 pm »

There was a social conciousness in many 70s lyrics that had been carried over from the 60s.  The difference being the socially concious lyrics of the 60s had a bit more optimism and hope whereas by the 70s the social climate had changed to the point where the socially concious lyrics had a rather bitter and often more cynical view.  They were, as you say, more worldly.

Some of my favorite songwriters of the 70s did a great job of stretching out beyond the lovey dovey or lover's lament material-- Harry Chapin wrote about just about everything from outgrowing our dreams, to parenthood, to war; Billy Joel wrote his songs in such a way as different listeners could get completely different meanings out of the material giving them somewhat of a universality of appeal, Roger Hodgson and Rich Davies of Supertramp wrote songs all over the map full of fun and often clever lyrics, Meat Loaf collaborator Jim Steinman wrote some fantastic bombastic over the top anthemic songs full of clever lyrics ("You're looking for a ruby in a mountain of rocks, but there ain't no Coupe de Ville hiding at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box"), and Gerry Rafferty wrote the fantastic Stuck In the Middle and the brilliant Baker Street.

Man now I'm jonesin' for some good 70s rock!
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Hourman
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« Reply #5 on: August 26, 2010, 09:26:06 am »

If the 1950s were the golden age of rock n roll, the 70s were the silver... specifically, from 1970-76.

That's not to disqualify the 60s as a high point in music (the Beatles and Motown, for example obviously disprove that), but rather to point out that the early 70s was a high point in creativity and options...

Back then, there was no "format" for radio stations... instead, if it was good, it went on the air. As a result, a typical 1973 AM radio station would swing from R&B, to country, to rock, to a ballad, to soul, to an oldie, and then something brand new.

Program directors, focus groups, advertisers and so on have now splintered radio (and music listeners) into such segmented audiences, that the commonality of music is hopelessly a thing of the past.

As Perplexio alluded to, it was the era of the singer/songwriter, when Jim Croce could sing about his recovery from a failed relationship to a telephone operator; where Harry Chaplin could express the universal regret of fathers and sons who didn't spend enough time together because of the demands of the world...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etundhQa724&feature=related



It was an era when country, rock and blues once again intertwined in the form of Southern rock, as Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers, the Marshall Tucker Band and so on sung about the South or typical "country" themes, with a much harder edge than what country was doing at the time. That sound would forever change country music later in the decade as people like Waylon Jennings and Hank Williams Jr. created the "outlaw" sound that continues to echo across country music today.

It was an era where some of the best soul music I ever heard became part of my life... Al Wilson's "Show & Tell", the Spinners' "I'll Be Around", Billy Paul's "Me & Mrs. Jones" and so on... Stevie Wonder's album, "Songs In the Key Of Life" with such classics as "I Wish" and "Sir Duke"... Indeed, I used to watch Don Cornellias and Soul Train to see some of my favorite singers of the day



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBGq0GZ9noA&feature=fvst

Also the variety shows of the day used to feature quite a few musicians, too...

It was also the era of excess and arena rock, as bands such as KISS and solo musicians such as Alice Cooper began to create a theatrical show as well as sing and play music. It was only a matter time before the rock operas of The Who ("Tommy") Styx and Queen were the next extension.

This is my favorite decade of music...
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