Driving home today, I caught a song by Elton John and it was bad. I then started thinking of his catalog of songs, and I couldn’t think of one song that I’d want to listen to. He was good in the 70’s, but his music is just horrid to my ears today.
I was a fan of his when he was big, but good lord, his music doesn’t hold up. He is the musical equivalent of a 70’s porn 'stash.
Who is your Elton John?
I recently reconnected to a friend who I haven’t seen since the 70s. He and I were both guitarists back then. I went on to music school where I learned all of the jazz standards. Stella by Starlight, Autumn Leaves, Green Dolphin Street, stuff like that. When I graduated, I left that stuff far behind me.
So, I asked my friend what sorts of musical things he was working on these days. He sent me a CD that he’d recently recorded.
Egads! His playing is great, but it was like a trip down Bad Memory Lane. I suppose those tunes were awful even back in the early 80s, I just didn’t know it then.
Moving thread from IMHO to Cafe Society.
Patti LaBelle’s “New Attitude.”
The cheesy synths, drum machine… it all screams “80s” without any of the cool.
It doesn’t help that the most evil woman in the world, Dr. Laura, uses it for her show’s theme.
As Elton John got more popular, his music got worse. Listen to 11/17/70 and you’ll be amazed. I’m kind of sorry he left that path.
In any case, I can’t think of many whose music doesn’t still sound good to me.
I don’t know. I still think Elton John sounds perfectly fine. Great, even, at his peak. The music more than holds up, in my opinion.
I, too, am struggling with thinking of an artist who I once thought was great and who now sounds horribly dated. I’m sometimes surprised with how “tame” certain albums have gotten to me over time. For example, I remember Nine Inch Nails’ Pretty Hate Machine being one hell of an aggressive, angst-ridden record. It’s still got plenty of angst, but the sound of the album no longer is as aggressive and sharp to me as it once was. (Though I still love it.) Same with a lot of 70s and 80s heavy metal like Sabbath and Metallica. While it’s still dark, loud, and powerful, it feels quite tame to my ears today, with a lot of pop sensibility I missed initially.
Loggins & Messina, I have their four albums on vinyl. It’s been years since I felt the urge to play them.
They may still hold up. I’m not sure.
Bruce Springsteen
That just looks weird! I remember when that lp first came out in the UK and it’s title is imprinted on my memory as 17/11/70! I never wondered about the US release and whether the date was flipped to reflect American dates!
I’ve bought a lot of music over the years and there’s heaps I hardly ever pull out and play, but that’s not because I dislike it - time is limited, and there’s so much else to put on… Often it’s a real buzz listening to a neglected favourite you’ve not heard for a decade!
Pretty much anything by America. I still like “Sister Golden Hair” but the rest of their greatest hits have becoming increasingly annoying.
Just listened to “take Me to the Pilot” on YouTube from 11/17/70. Thanks for the suggestion!
Easy … U2!
Go back and listen to the first four albums from Boy to Joshua Tree, then listen to the overproduced, uninspired, irrelevant music they’ve spewed out recently! It’s not even the same band IMHO
If I liked it then, I still like it.
If I didn’t like it then, I still don’t.
Nirvana, for me. I loved alternative/grunge in the 90s, and still do, mostly. Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam and STP still all sound great to me, but Nirvana, while never musically complex, just sounds mostly cheap to me now.
It’s a bit of a tricky question to answer, because some music goes full circle and becomes listenable because they are dated and brings something you simply can’t hear anywhere else tday. One of those bands is Art of Noise, whose music is really dated but is full of 1980’s sampling charm.
Typically, I’d say a lot of music that hasn’t aged well probably wasn’t a lot of fun to begin with.
However, a song I’d like to mention is Freeze’s I.O.U. In the single version (not the video version on youtube), there is a solo at 2:42 which is just… Ridiculous! That’s the only word I can use to describe it. It just makes me laugh whenever I hear it, especially followed by the singer’s out of key falsetto.
In high school, I was a Beatles nut. I still like the music they wrote, but I’m not much of a fan of their performances any more. A lot of the time they are just so…shrill. John Lennon’s vocals particularly get on my nerves with George Harrison coming right up behind.
I disagree. I thought his most recent album, Working On A Dream was quite excellent. It is probably his best since 2002’s The Rising. I enjoyed it better than Magic, the one that got all the raves and good reviews.
Going back to the 60s . . . Donovan.
I think you’re saying the opposite of what the OP was asking. You’re saying the old stuff is still good, right?
I may get lambasted for this, but to me the early Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin stuff sounds so incredibly dated. Talent they had in spades, but everything from the writing to the arrangement to the production completely locks them into a very narrow stylistic window which does not not hold up well compared to modern production values.