| What
we see is the pop song as a three minute burst of youth and
spontaneity being dragged to an intellectual mind numbing album
length of concepts to be explored. So
where did it all go wrong ? Well musicians became rock
stars who suddenly had the desire to be taken seriously... they
didn't want to get old before they died...they started touring to
ever larger amounts of people becoming ever more distant from
their record public, becoming richer and fatter. They wanted to
be recognised as artistes pursuing a valid form of expression.
So as we progress what we have got ? A drug addled generation of
free lovers who have lost the plot in a welter of mysticism and
pretentiousness. Its the birth of stadium rock, hard rock and
giant egos and super bands. We started with 3 minute burst of
youth and spontaneity and we leave with Cream turning Robert Johnson's majestic
blues of Crossroads
into a 17 minute guitar torture, John & Yoko in bed, concept
albums and a desire to be taken seriously. Dark days indeed.
Yet
something odd happened in England. We never lost the notion of
small bands playing raw rhythm and blues/ 12 bar and that was
something that was going to have a large impact in later years
but I'm getting ahead of myself. Next part into the seventies via
1969.... God what a nightmare - ridiculous album sleeves,
ridiculous makeup, ridiculous lyrics and plenty to laugh at...
and that's just the men !
Jim Morrison
puts our first look at Punk Rock in perspective with this
quote from 1969 "The thing they called rock, what
used to be called Rock'n'roll -it got decadent. And then
there was a revival sparked by the English. That went
very far. It was articulate. Then it became self
conscious, which I think is the death of any movement...
It became incestuous. The energy is gone. There is no
longer a belief." |
Clapton...Please
stop playing !!!
George
Harrison - I wanna
hold your hand |
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