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Rocky Road From Classic Rock to Progessive to hip hop to today's hot new tunes! |
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Rocky Road From Classic Rock to Progessive to hip hop to today's hot new tunes! |
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In Reply to: A total sham (and shame) posted by roxymott on October 2, 2006 at 12:56:25:
Not even then.I tend to think most people buy what they like, whether in 1972 or 2001 or 2012. There's just no accounting for "most people's" taste (or lack thereof).
I truly doubt millions of readers pored over RS reviews before they bought their albums. (Think about it - it takes a massive insecurity to buy music according to a magazine's best-of list.)
There's no question Rolling Stone was the go-to source for breaking news in the 60's through about 1971, but they only got more out of touch with the real music scene as time went on. Back in the late 60s there was more general concensus (if not universal consensus) about what albums were worthy. Then things started to change...and RS was mainly the bible only in their editors' own heads (and self promotion). Everybody was buying RS for the interviews, the war reporting and Hunter Thompson. Who read the album reviews?
Led Zep, Boston, Grand Funk and numerous others became superstars without kudos from RS. Keep in mind a lot of folks RS hyped were already on the way up. I don't think RS made any band/artist "happen" that wasn't already bubbling under and about to break anyway. Plenty of critical darlings they touted in reviews never sold enough records to impact the charts. RS typically put their imprimatur on something that was already headed for success. Most everything else sank into obscurity as everything else always does.
So why wasn't Strawb's "Lay Down" a humongous American hit single?
Alas, this fact remains: people can't get into what they can't hear.
Far more harmful to the success of bands like Strawbs and Roxy Music was the lack of radio support. You need exposure to break new music. There were pockets of great '70's radio - like WMMS in Cleveland and some college stations (which were usually low wattage) - but quality programming (especially of adventurous new music, especially of adventurous new BRIT music) in most parts of the country was was dead or dying, killed off by station managers in thrall to marketing departments. The suits decided we wanted to hear only the most popular songs (as determined by cretins) and we wanted to hear those songs over and over and over and...
Playlists shrank dramatically in the 1970s and the freeewheeling DJs of the 60's (along with their passion and personal POVs) all but disappeared. The conformity of programmers & tight playlists was not conducive to new sounds. Of course there would be some bands/artists to break through the radio barrier with varying degrees of longeveity - Bowie, Steely Dan, Blondie, Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, Clash, Patti Smith etc - but as the playlists got shorter the radio audience got more and more fragmented.
Too many fine music makers would have a break-out hit or two only to sink back into obscurity (Dwight Twilley, Nick Lowe, Mott The Hoople. BTW...don't forget Roxy had a sizable hit with Love Is The Drug and a couple others. Mott was big for at least 20 minutes after the All The Young Dudes).
There was a general dumbing down of rock radio and listeners became less and less adventurous. This was a huge obstacle for the bands you mentioned, even when they were lucky enough to gain the odd time slot now and then.
There was plenty of fascinating music produced in the 70s, but unless people went to extra effort, a lot of the great stuff was awfully hard to find. And so it has remained even unto this day.
OTOH, as much as I love 'em, there's no way Gentle Giant or Eno were ever gonna appeal to the masses. (Nor were they trying to.) Even more accessible fare like the pub-rock thing never took off in USA other than in new wave bastions like NYC, Chicago and Cleveland. The boogie-'n-booze crowd just didn't geddit. They'd rather have listened to GFR or Bachman-Turner Overdrive. Procul Harem, a band I like a lot, had too many uneven releases to retain the public's affection. Amon Dul? Not even a rave review and center spread in RS was going to make these guys platinum sellers in the USA.
Me? I was listening to Sensational Alex Harvey Band and Stackridge - and yes, the NY Dolls, Television, Ian Dury and - absolutely - the Strawbs, as well as just about every glam/new wave/pre-wave/proto-punk band under the radar there was. But then I was a music reviewer, media ad buyer and dedicated follower of so called popular music. I lived in a place that had some fairly adventurous radio stations, including one dedicated to space music and European bands. I read Trouser Press. I got to see Genesis', Bowie's, Roxy Music's, Split Enz's, PFM's and Talking Heads' first national US tours (Eno did his laundry in Chicago whilst talking about tape loops). But I was paying extra close attention. And I was in the right place.
If we wanted to start a list of great bands/artists that deserved wider recognition we'd be posting pages and pages. It is ever the way of the world...at least the world of popular music, that some very interesting music music makers will be marginalized. But RS had/has little to do with it.
AND - you never answered my question about best sound quality on Strawbs reissues down the page - how 'bout it?
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Follow Ups
- I honestly don't think RS had that kind of power. - Harmonia 22:59:10 10/04/06 (3)
- Re: I honestly don't think RS had that kind of power. - roxymott 20:44:13 10/07/06 (1)
- Thanks. - Harmonia 22:38:13 10/07/06 (0)
- Chucky Suicide, aka Charles M Young did some good... - hcman 23:24:52 10/04/06 (0)
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