Yeah, except for FM rock radio playing War Pigs, Paranoid, Iron Man and Fairies Wear Boots all the time well in to the mid-70′s. [insert a dozen eye-rolling emoticons here]

You have heard of FM radio, right? If you’re listening to Frankie Valli 50 times on a trip, either a) your car didn’t get FM or b) you’re lame.

This focus on radio is laughable anyway, me and my music-obsessed buddies during that time hardly paid attention to the radio, Top 40 or FM. We would get the British music papers: Melody Maker, NME and Sounds and the US equivalents: Creem, Trouser Press and Circus and find out about bands that way. There were 2 or 3 really hip record stores we’d go to, the clerks knew us and our tastes and they’d turn us on to stuff. We were always a year ahead of everyone else in discovering bands, it was very competitive to see who could discover stuff first.

And do you really want to use the lame metric of what was hot on Top 40 to gauge the health of musical era? The era that you apparently seem to think was some Golden Age, the late 70′s, when you kicked The Man in the nuts merely by going to CBfuckingGB’s –fuck, is there anything lamer than punk nostalgia?– was also the era of disco. I can Google Billboard chart info just as well as you can can to make the utterly insipid point that Top 40 has blown, does blow and always will blow.

And there was no XM, no iPods.

Oh yeah, those things have been a boon to improving the quality of rock music! Oh, wait, they haven’t, all they’ve done is boil it down to a hit single/Top 40 mentality that has killed off creativity over the length of an album, it’s all about the 2 or 3 songs that can get played on the radio/put on a WB show/used in a car commerical. Led Zeppelin didn’t release singles in the UK for a good reason.

And the song I was actually thinking of was Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)

Shorter Tom: like the wingnuts Sadly, No! relentlessly mock, I think facts suck.

Go ahead and hate your neighbor, go ahead and cheat a friend. Do it in the name of heaven, you can justify it in the end. There won’t be any trumpets blowin’ come the judgment day. And on the bloody morning after one tin soldier rides away.

who brought up “Muskrat Love”?

True story: up until a couple of years ago, i used to live a half a block away from the most godawful soft-rock/easy listening AM station in Phoenix and somehow i was getting signal bleed from the radio station’s antenna into my land-line and my speaker wires, so roughly every 36 hours for just over 9 weeks, if i was home at the time i would hear that abortion of a song leaking softy into my house. I cannot tell you how much Southern Comfort it took to drown it out.

I worked with a woman who was named after that song. This was at a Starbucks in the lilly-white suburbs, years ago when the dumb rich girls first started to pour in looking for frappuccino on the way to high school in the morning. Oh, thats a cute name! They would say, twirling their bleached hair. Is it after the singer?

No, said Brandy. It’s because I’m not quite as sexy as a vast body of salt water. That was also before the cameras, when we could still get away with making margaritas in the blender. She just kept mixing them earlier and earlier, Brandy did.

“The album broke into the top ten in the US in March 1971, and would go on to sell four million copies in the US alone, with virtually no radio airplay.”

Get it now? “…virtually no airplay”. That because the radio was too busy playing the Carpenters. And there was no XM, no iPods. You could tape an album and it sounded OK but taping a tape was a waste as it was unlistenable. It cost me more than a week’s salary in 1975 to put a cassette player and decent speakers in my car.

1970 – Carpenters, (They Long To Be) Close To You
B.J. Thomas, Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head

1971 – Three Dog Night, Joy To The World
Osmonds, One Bad Apple

1972 – Gilbert O’Sullivan, Alone Again (Naturally)
Sammy Davis, Jr., Candy Man

1973 – Tony Orlando/Dawn, Tie A Yellow Ribbon ‘Round The Ole Oak Tree
Paul McCartney/Wings, My Love

1974 – Terry Jacks, Seasons In The Sun
Barbra Streisand, The Way We Were

1975 – Captain & Tennille, Love Will Keep Us Together
Glen Campbell, Rhinestone Cowboy

1976 – Wings, Silly Love Songs
Elton John/Kiki Dee, Don’t Go Breaking My Heart

And this was when a hit song was played about 10 times each hour on the radio. I drove to Syracuse University in 1975 and heard Frankie Valli sing “My Eyes Adored You” about 50 times. If I had a gun they would still be talking about the slaughter at SU.

And the song I was actually thinking of was “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)”, not “Take a Letter, Maria” but all the crap from those years melds into a single huge bowel movement.

#

Matt McMahon said,

March 25, 2008 at 22:16

Actually I enjoy movies from the 1940s and 50s for that very reason. Profanity and sexual lewdness are what has caused the downfall of American cinema in recent decades. The Wizard of Oz from 1939 is a good clean classic American film before Hollywood started to go sour.

Wow. I was unaware that American cinema had fallen down. Except that alternative forms of entertainment, such as television and now the Internet, have moved into its marketspace. Oddly enough, though, films continue to get made.

As for your implication that “cleaner” movies are better: cinema has moved from reflecting the Establishment’s view of how things ought to be, to reflecting the society’s views of how things actually are. So the world is an unclean place and people don’t say nice things to each other. Do you honestly think squeaky-clean entertainment would actually sell these days? Maybe you can picture adults watching the Veggietales. I can’t.

Gladly! David Gates wrote some great songs (If, Aubrey, Everything I Own) and had a fantastic voice. Still a favorite album to put on after an opera or some Scandinavian death metal as a palette cleanser.

“Take a Letter, Maria” was a #1 song!

The Intertubes are your friend: that was from 1969, which unless you have a stash of Owsley chilling in a refrigerator somewhere that you dip in to, is not “the 70′s”. Good bass line, terrific brass arrangement and a terrific vocal by R.B. Greaves. Tex-Mex R&B anyone?

Fuck that “the 70′s sucked until punk came along” historical revisionism bullshit. The Stones put out their two best albums, Sticky Fingers and Exile On Main Street in the 70′s, The Who totally kicked ass live and had *their* two best albums, Who’s Next and Quadrophenia, Zeppelin was amazing, Sabbath ruled, Philly International was cranking out amazing orchestral R&B, Motown, especially Stevie Wonder, was still viable, the prog bands were still doing interesting stuff –I’d put King Crimson and ELP in 1974 against anyone, anytime– glam was producing stuff like Bowie and Mott the Hoople and Roxy Music etc etc.

Sure, by 1976, it was all Boston and 35 minute versions of Dazed and Confused and sure, punk was the kick in the ass rock music needed, but especially compared to the dire condition rock music finds itself in now, the early 70′s were fucking golden.

Shannon

now I’m all verklempt.

I’m okay with that. Mopey songs tend to be funny and the non-stop repetition plus key-change at the end is like having someone keep saying “TO GET TO THE OTHER SIDE! TO GET TO THE OTHER SIDE!” You have to admire the courage to be that grating.

Top that for suckitude.

As someone who grew up listening to loud music played real loud, in stereo, allow me to assure you that like Creed sucks the same inflamed hairy goat testicle that Bread sucked. The difference is all in the technique.

You know. Paper Lace?

Now that was some fine rocknroll….

mikey

‘,’,',’,',’,',’,',’,',’,',’,',’,',’,',’,',’,',’,',’,',’,',’,',’,',’,',’,', and ‘.