Oasis are certainly less popular, and Liam is rightfully satirised as a boorish goon, but they can still sell out concerts and hit the album and singles charts fairly well.
I’d say Iron Butterfly’s epic In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, while hailed as ground breaking in 1968, seems like pretty pretentious crap today.
The part about the critics is not true, entirely. When he first came out, he got rave reviews from some critics. I can still remember an article from Stereo Review that made him sound like the best ever. Later on, it was as you say – the critics all panned him.
I would say that this is the best example of what the original poster is talking about.
How about minstrel recordings?
They were hugely popular in the first third of the century, but were reviled by critics (who were more interested in highbrow jazz and classical records). Now, they’re reviled by pretty much everyone.
The Beatles. Bob Dylan. Led Zepplin.
Oh wait…I didn’t read the Op…
I started this thread. I let in run for awhile. I’ll now check in with my opinion.
First off, a lot of posters have named singular artists (e.g., John Denver, Oasis, and Peter Frampton) and while it is true many acts by themselves used to be popular and are now ridiculed, this thread is concerned with whole categories of popular music that have fallen out of fashion. Also, the candidates I picked do not necessarily reflect my own musical tastes. I just selected them because they fit the subject matter of this thread.
Easy listening (a.k.a. elevator music, muzak) is a good choice. I would’ve included it but it didn’t occur to me until after I put this thread up.
I don’t know if that completely true (at least in U.S.). I think Fairport Convention is still well-regarded.
Add John Tesh and you’ve got New Age–the unholy, evil, and pretentious offspring of Easy Listening, Art Rock, and Light Jazz.
Anyway…
Of the original four selections, I think, right now, Hair Metal is regarded with the most contempt by critics and the public. Disco has been subject to critical revision over the last few years and became popular again with the general public when nostalgia for the 1970’s came into fashion. Village People are even played at sporting events now. (Whereas in the 1980’s, you could clear a room by putting one of their records on.) Art Rock still gets a lot of airplay on Classic Rock stations and still has a devoted core audience (a fact attested to by Jomo Mojo’s post). And, as stated by myself and WSLer earlier, as long as there are young teenage girls with disposable income, there will be some premanufactured pretty-boy(s) or pop songstress out there catering to them.
It seems that almost any 60’s band/artist who wasn’t Hendrix, The Beatles, The Stones, or Cream automatically gets slammed nowadays for lack of instrumal technique. The production values get slammed because they didn’t put layer upon layer of overdubs on those old records.
Sure, Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida was pretentious, but those organ runs are good if you listen closely. It’s not something a beginner can just sit down and bat out.
I’m sorry, every picture I’ve ever seen of the man CLEARLY shows he has one green and one blue. I have also read a number of interviews where he mentions the two-color thing is just a genetic fluke. The “One-eye-dilated” effect makes this all the weirder, tho.
IMDb, although it is a wonderful site in a lot of ways, is notorious for getting stuff like this wrong.
Chris W
- Two words – Andrew WK.
Hair metal is making a comeback, and with mainly positive reviews.
Andrew WK is not hair metal in the 1980’s sense. But his music (and that of many nu-metal acts) IS an off-shoot of hair metal (like–as WSLer pointed out–dance, house, and trip-hop sprang out of 1970’s disco). What I’m referring to is a re-appraisal and appreciation of the original 80’s hair metal by critics and the public seems the most unlikely right now.
pulykamell, you’re right. You’re right to the extent that King Crimson was the only other “Progressive Rock” band that could be mentioned in the same breath as Yes, although I still don’t rate them above Yes. (I also hold Genesis from the period 1970-1977 in high regard, but not afterward.) Thanks to Bill Bruford, who played with all three of them.
Led Zeppelin? Dude, I revered Zep back in the day, I could play every note of “Stairway to Heaven” on the guitar, but hey… after 30 years I have to admit they and most other 70s music just doesn’t hold up as well. The point I was making about Yes music is that it has not tarnished at all with time. The same goes for King Crimson. Larks’ Tongues in Aspic—whew!
As to the OP, I think this goes to show that “genre” music is a flawed concept. Anything that’s primarily identified by a “genre” is likely to be crap. If you just go by labels the way music industry businessmen and promoters do, you’ll lose the distinction between genre crap like Styx and truly fine, innovative music like Yes which needs no label or genre because it transcends those categories and just is what it is so superbly. FTR, I don’t care about any supposed entity called “Progressive Rock” and I don’t believe in reifying something called “Progressive Rock” out of many disparate bands that vary widely in quality. I just know that three specific bands: Yes, Genesis, and King Crimson totally rocked my world back in the day and they still do today.
Well, people who hate progressive rock are free to do so. The ONLY point I’ll make in its defense, this time out, is that the great majority of the people who liked progressive/art/classical rock in its hey day still love it now. Critics may have hated it, and most still do… and the genre is pretty much moribund now.
But, whereas people who once loved “Frampton Comes Alive” now laugh at Frampton, and people who bought the “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack now deny ever owning it, and almost no one will admit ever liking John Denver (guess it was aliens buying all his records), the people who loved Yes, King Crimson, ELP, et al., generally still do. Very few of them seem embarrassed to admit their devotion.
Well… check that. I admit, I’m a little embarrassed that I ever took Jon Anderson’s lyrics (or Pete Sinfield’s) seriously as a teen, or that I ever imagined they held some deep meaning. Now that I’m an adult, I realize that, like MOST rock musicians, the prog-rockers were generally pretty dim bulbs! I mean, if you took everyone who was ever a member of King Crimson or Yes (that would fill a concert hall all by itself, wouldn’t it?), and calculated their combined IQs, you might crack the 100 mark.
But hey, they SOUNDED great. Still do, in my humble opinion.