Groundbreakers

Hey, Rolling Stone!  What’s with these lists delivered as advertisements?

You need to work at Rolling Stone’s 40 Most Groundbreaking Albums of All Time to get to the detail, but it’s more or less worth it.  Probably.

Well, Kanye West should pleased to be included on a list featuring Woody Guthrie and Frank Sinatra.

And Perrey and Kingsley – whoever they were - should be mighty proud to be on a list that includes Bob Dylan, Ray Charles and Dave Brubeck.

Are we surprised to see pioneers like Nirvana, The Ramones, The Allman Brothers, Paul Butterfield or James Brown on such a list?  Of course not.  Or masters such as Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye or Carole King?  Nope.

Nor, though I’ll never understand it, can we be surprised to see The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, The Velvet Underground’s Nico, The Mothers of Invention, or Sabbath.

This couldn’t have been an easy list to assemble.  It covers every major music genre over seven decades.  And I know I’m just a rabid fan, which in no way qualifies me as an expert, but I do wonder why there are so many entries on the list that I have never heard of.  I mean, I have been paying attention and all.  And while it’s nice to see The Beatles with two entries, how can such a list omit Elvis, Buddy Holly or Chuck Berry?  I’m just sayin’.

Fu-fu-fu-foolin’

I still remember going out and buying my first VCR so I could record The Who’s farewell concert, which was simulcast from Maple Leaf Gardens in December, 1982.

Turns out they didn’t mean it – and still don’t since they’re already advertising their 50^th anniversary tour scheduled for 2015.  Well, half The Who anyway.

The Who were not alone in giving us a long goodbye, as Rolling Stone’s 10 Farewell Tours That Didn’t Stick makes clear.  Judas Priest, Kiss, Cher … heck, even Sinatra couldn’t resist the temptation to give ‘er one more go.  Well, if we’re going to buy the tickets, why not?

It’s probably a good thing that we did get fooled again.  Between farewell tours,  re-union tours and why-should-I-stop(?) tours, a fair amount of joy has been spread through the land in the last couple of decades.

Anyway, it gives us a good excuse to wear those “Still Pissed At Yoko” tee shirts.

It Won’t Be Long

The thing that jumps out of the Rolling Stone Top 25 Teen Idol Breakout Moments is that not many of them lasted beyond the moment.

Fabian, The Monkees, The Cassidy’s, Bay City Rollers, New Kids On The Block … all gone.  Long gone.  Gone and forgotten.

The list has some noteworthy exceptions, of course: Elvis, The Beatles, The Jackson 5 (well, Michael anyway), and Frank Sinatra.

Frank Sinatra?  Well sure.  The whole idol, screaming girl thing started with him.  But RS does describe the list as “of the rock era,” and the hysteria over Frank started in 1942 – hardly part of the rock era.  OK, let’s not quibble.  Strangers In The Night was #1 midway through The Beatles run of hits – and played on the same radio stations.

But most of the names on the list are in the “oh-ya-I-forgot-all-about-him/her/them” category.  Not surprising, because most of the acts were manufactured.  They were not the real deal.  They were not artists who happened to make it big.  They were a product, created to capitalize on the teen idol impulse, exploiting the popular musical style of the day.

Popularity was intense but fleeting, there being no substance to the material.

The list is actually an interesting reflection of our culture, though, isn’t it?  A few timeless greats whose impact cannot be truly measured, and a bunch of fluff quickly consumed and more quickly forgotten.

The wolves are always hungry.

Who's The Old Man?

Q:  Is this a running joke from A Hard Day's Night or a sick joke from the 2012 Grammy Awards?

Sadly, both.

Apparently the dominant Twitter chatter while Paul McCartney was on was, "who's that old guy?' and "who is Paul McCartney?"

So, it has come to this.  In a culture of 8 billion units, with individual playlists and nothing shared, people don't know one of the most influential musicians of all time.  And that, friends, is no culture, since culture is defined as customs and civilization of a particular time or people.  Not 8 billion persons.

Ironic that in a world dominated by social media and sharing, we have lost our shared culture.  I mean, I knew who Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Rudy Vally and John Phillip Sousa were.  Sousa died when my grandfather was a child, but I still knew about him.  Paul is still alive and revered by your parents and grandparents Twitter people!

The Twitter chatter didn’t seem to happen during the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee concert or the Olympics.  Maybe by then these people had informed themselves.  Or maybe that stuff was only watched by the inmates of old folks homes. 

But it did happen during the Grammies.  A sad reflection of our times, especially for one who has given - and continues to give - so much joy.

And he's very clean.

Variety (Part 2 ... or 3)

Here's some more arithmetic for you:

I have just over 4,000 songs on my iPod, which is apparently 11.3 days - 271 hours - of music.  With commercials and babbling, that's over 450 hours of music for a radio station.  Almost 19 days before a song repeated.

19 days on my iPod, 4 hours on the radio.  450 hours, 4 hours.

So why would any of us listen to the radio?  Sure, when we hear a new song and like it we want to hear it over again.  But every four hours?  To the exclusion of all the other great music we love?  Are we that forgetful?  Are we that dumbed down?

Maybe the bigger question is:  since they know we all have the technology, why do radio stations stick with the ridiculously short playlists?

I have my favourite artists and preferred playlists, so it takes me months - but I listen to every song on my iPod.  Every one of them.  You see, the 4,000 songs represent only a subset of my CD collection.  They are my favourites.

I have an older iPod, with a puny 20 GB.  The current 160 GB model is capable of storing 40,000 songs.  That's six months before a song repeats.

Even if radio stations wanted to play it safe and only play "hits", there have been about 10,000 of those since rock's inception.  They could still favour current and recent "hits" but have months worth of addditional material keep things interesting.  And that's just rock.  Imagine another 2-3 months worth of tunes crossing over from country, jazz, blues and folk?

Wouldn't that be cool?

Yes, by the way, there is Frank Sinatra on my iPod.

What We Need - Part 2

Do you know what we really need?

More variety.

I was browsing through the old charts from my hometown Top 40 station the other day, and it's just amazing the variety we used to get in the 60's.

Check out 1967.  Yes, we had The Beatles, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, Procol Harum and Buffalo Springfield.  But they played along side Frank Sinatra, Tom Jones, The Supremes and Dione Warwick.

Or 1966.  Again The Beatles and The Stones.  Again Frank Sinatra and The Supremes, with Donovan, Simon and Garfunkel, and Percy Sledge.  Mitch Rider on the same chart as The Righteous Brothers.

Or how about 1965?  The Stones share the spotlight with Roger Miller, Bob Dylan shares it with The Beatles, who share it with Elvis, The Byrds, James Brown and Charlie Rich.

And look at 1964:  The Beatles on the same list as Louis Armstrong.  Chuck Berry and Elvis on the same list as Dean Martin.  My generation listening to our music, our parents' music and our grandparents' music.

Did I really enjoy listening to Dean Martin when I wanted to hear The Beatles and The Stones?  Not really, but I tolerated it, and I respected this other music.

And why shouldn't I respect Frank Sinatra?  He respected The Beatles.  Why wouldn't I appreciate Johnny Cash or The Supremes?  The Beatles did.

These days, all radio stations are top 40, but each station caters to a small sub-culture, and the variety is gone - not just in genres but between bands and artists.  If we even listen to radio, that is.  Because we can each retreat into our iPod playlists and musical genres catering to sub-cultures of one.

Where's the adventure in that?