Rock and roll turns 50, and That's All Right with me

[nitroglycerine]

@Liberal

Rock ‘n’ roll lasted all the way into the early 70s.

The 70s?!?!?! Sez you! I’m sitting here listening to The Supersuckers latest record, and it sure sounds like Rock and Roll to me.

[ultrafilter]

@nitroglycerine

The 70s?!?!?! Sez you! I’m sitting here listening to The Supersuckers latest record, and it sure sounds like Rock and Roll to me.

Yeah, but how many people have heard of them? Straight-up rock’s not dead, but it doesn’t have the same pervasiveness that it did up until, oh, 1976 or so.

@ccwaterback

Well, any time you see a guitarist leap in the air or windmill his strat, that’s Pete Townsend. Any time you hear a whoaaaaa yeah, or uhhh huh, that’s Little Richard. Any time you hear a rock song made for listening and not for dancing, that’s the Beatles. Any time you see a singer stumble around the stage in leather pants while he grunts and groans, that’s Jim Morrison. There really hasn’t been much innovation in the rock scene since The Talking Heads, IMHO. But I’m getting old, I may have missed a new act that shaves their heads, but that would be the Pyramids.

On the one hand, you’ve got a point. There have been very, very few truly innovative acts in any genre of music, including rock. But on the other hand, there have been a lot of cases where somebody came along and brought something slightly different to the table. That’s where the progress came from.

It’s been a long time since anyone at all innovative had commercial success, but they’re out there.

[alison_ashley]

Originally Posted By Live Better Electrically
First of all, we’re celebrating the anniversary of 1954. I love Guided By Voices, the Magnetic Fields, Built to Spill, Finishing School, the Minders, etc, but they weren’t around back then so they aren’t very relevent to the discussion at hand, which is about the birth of rock and roll. “The birth.”

We must see things differently. The thread is called “Rock N Roll Turns 50.” The OP consists of a sentence referencing the birth of the genre, and a number of quotes sourced from the first three decades of its existence.

I assumed this thread would be about more than an Elvis song made in '54. I saw it as a thread devoted to all 50 years of rock n roll. I didn’t think I was hijacking, I thought I was making use of the full scope of the OP.

Fortunately, thanks to my efforts, this rock n roll retrospective now mentions Magnetic Fields, Finishing School, Guided By Voices, the Minders, Xiu Xiu, Modest Mouse, Wilco and Radiohead. A little balance, despite the opposition.

Originally Posted By ccwaterback
Well, any time you see a guitarist leap in the air or windmill his strat, that’s Pete Townsend.

You talk like showmanship was pioneered by rock n roll. Just because Pete Townsend did it first in a particular context (rock music) doesn’t mean it’s particularly special. Cool, but not special.

Any time you hear a whoaaaaa yeah, or uhhh huh, that’s Little Richard. Any time you hear a rock song made for listening and not for dancing, that’s the Beatles. Any time you see a singer stumble around the stage in leather pants while he grunts and groans, that’s Jim Morrison.

And these are great things. But that doesn’t diminish the contribution of those who followed. Primarily, it shows that lots of people saw and liked that stuff. But how is that a surprise? When those you mention were in their prime there were a lot of teenagers watching them. Is it a surprise that those teenagers integrated the iconography you speak of into their culture?

And further, you can say similar things about artists more recent than the ones you mention. Every time you see some snotty kid with bits of metal in his face play his guitar fast, that’s Johnny Rotten. Every time you see some starry eyed stadium rocker trying to change the world, that’s Bono. Every time you see some young male artist discussing his emotional traumas through screaming and distorted guitars, that’s Kurt Cobain. Every time you see rock with an emphasis on songwriting, impenetrable lyrics and college-feel, that’s R.E.M. Every time you see some British guy singing about serious stuff over serious guitar, that’s Thom Yorke. Every time you see some white kid in hip hop gear with baggy pants and metal guitar telling you how terrible his life is, that’s Fred Durst. All that’s changed is that in the '60s when someone did something new, it was assessed in terms of its innovation. Today, when an artist does something new, it’s assessed in terms of how much similarity it bears to the past. If people played spot-the-influence with music in the past as they do today, Revolver would have been dismissed as a boring Dylan rip off. Iggy Pop would have had to have faced people saying “yeah, but its just “Louie Louie” again, isn’t it?”

There really hasn’t been much innovation in the rock scene since The Talking Heads, IMHO. But I’m getting old, I may have missed a new act that shaves their heads, but that would be the Pyramids.

I disagree. Rock is changing all the time. Just because artists today have a past to build on doesn’t mean their innovation should be ignored. Sonic Youth, New Order, Radiohead, The Smiths, My Bloody Valentine and Rage Against The Machine may all have aspects that tie them to the past. But they all did something new and original. And they are by far not the only ones.

And while I do not 100% agree with what he says, I think it’s worth mentioning Nick Hornby’s discussion on the pop song, from his book 31 Songs.

While discussing Ben Folds Five’s Smoke, he says (excuse the long quote)

It’s possible that this sort of craft goes unnoticed because ‘Smoke’ is ‘just’ a song, in the way that ‘Yesterday’ or ‘Something’ weren’t ‘just’ songs. The young men who wrote them were also, unwittingly or not, in the process of changing the world (or - to attempt to cover all the arguments in one clumsy parenthesis - in the process of being given credit for changing the world, unwittingly or not). This inevitably means that an awful lot of attention was focussed on their talent - which, after all, was ostensibly the only world-changing tool at their disposal. If you’re singers, and you’re changing the world, then people are bound to look pretty closely at what you’re singing - because how else are you doing it? As a consequence, some very good, very pretty, very sharply written, brilliantly produced and undeniably memorable songs have been credited with an almost supernatural power. It’s what happens when people are deified. The eighteenth-century British scholar Edmond Malone calculated that Shakespeare ‘borrowed’ two-thirds - 4,144 out of 6,033 lines - from other sources for Henry VI, Parts I, II and III. And, though Henry VI is a minor play, the point is that this stuff was out there, in the world, and Shakespeare inhaled it. What he exhaled was mostly genius, of course, but it was not genius that came out of the blue; it had a context.

The Beatles had a context, too, but they seem to have inhaled that along with everything else: they have hoovered up and become the sixties, and everything that happened in that extraordinary decade somehow belongs to them now. Their songs have therefore become imbued with all sorts of magic that doesn’t properly belong to them, and we can’t see the songs as songs any more.

Ben Folds has not changed the world, and nor has he changed popular music. (Indeed, at the time of writing, he may well be struggling to earn his living from popular music, although I hope not.) He is writing songs at a time when nobody equates music with social change; he has no context to hoover up, and he is working in a medium (loosely, pop/rock) that at the time of writing - and, let’s face it, at the time of reading, unless you’re reading this in 1970 - is widely regarded as washed-up, exhausted, finished. So his songs are just songs. They represent nothing, and nor are they a part of anything else, and they must fight for attention in an industry and a critical climate that is only interested in cultural significance.

This is what has to change, if pop music is to survive. Literature seems to have just about maintained a toehold in our culture because we’re prepared to accept that books can be sui generis: Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, for example, represents nothing but itself. It isn’t at the forefront of a new, young, hip, multicultural, etc., literary revolution, and it belongs very firmly to a familiar narrative tradition. But that doesn’t make it any less of an achievement, or any less interesting; and it certainly hasn’t made it unpopular, either with critics or with readers. If it had been a record, however, we’d probably have ignored it; the general view would have been that we’ve heard all that great writing and ambitious narrative stuff before, thanks very much very much, and we’re waiting for something new to come along.

There is an argument which says that pop music, like the novel, has found its ideal form, and in the case of pop music it’s the three- or four-minute verse/chorus/verse song. And, if this is the case, then we must learn the critical language which allows us to sort out the good from the bad, the banal from the clever, the fresh from the stale; if we simply sit around waiting for the next punk movement to come along, then we will be telling our best songwriters that what they do is worthless, and they will become marginalized. The next Lennon and McCartney are probably already with us; it’s just that they won’t turn out to be bigger than Jesus. They’ll merely be turning out songs as good as ‘Norwegian Wood’ and ‘Hey Jude’, and I can live with that.

[Live_Better_Electrically]

@alison ashley

We must see things differently…

Fortunately, thanks to my efforts, this rock n roll retrospective now mentions [blah blah blah]… A little balance, despite the opposition.

I’ll say we see things differently. I didn’t see any “opposition” to begin with, just an OP that begins “50 years ago…” followed by a discussion of what might be considered the first rock song. Then you came along and said we’re all pathetic, and the thread devolved into a whiny, hostile rant culminating in “Hey, but Bono’s super-duper too!.” Thank you. Elvis has definitely left the building.

[ccwaterback]

@Live Better Electrically!

I’ll say we see things differently. I didn’t see any “opposition” to begin with, just an OP that begins “50 years ago…” followed by a discussion of what might be considered the first rock song. Then you came along and said we’re all pathetic, and the thread devolved into a whiny, hostile rant culminating in “Hey, but Bono’s super-duper too!.” Thank you. Elvis has definitely left the building.

Indeed, I didn’t mean to imply that the songs I included in the OP are the ONLY rock n roll songs in existence. I meant to persuade people to add more to the list. Apologies for any confusion on that matter.

[ccwaterback]

True, and now I know a little lot more about rock n roll since the early 80s. Thanks for the education.

alison ashley

And further, you can say similar things about artists more recent than the ones you mention. Every time you see some snotty kid with bits of metal in his face play his guitar fast, that’s Johnny Rotten. … (snip)

[ccwaterback]

True, and now I know a little lot more …

____________________ ^ pardon the brain damage :rolleyes:

[Marley23]

The two most cliche statements in music:

1. Rock and roll will never die

2. Rock and roll is dead.

Maybe not in that order. I saw the Pit thread first, so I’m glad I came here. I dig a lot of 60s and 70s music, but I’ll agree with alison ashley and say that too much reverence for tradition isn’t good for rock and roll, and I think there’s a little too much of that going around right now. This was rebellious music originally, and getting back in touch with that would be good.

[nitroglycerine]

This seems like a good time to mention this link to Little Steven’s Underground Garage. Steven Van Zandt (yeah, the musician and the Sopranos actor) has a weekly garage show that features everything from Little Richard to Dick Dale to the The Sex Pistols to The Hives… You won’t find no Radioheads, hooobbawhatevers or Limp Bizquicks there, just three chords and a whole bunch of attitude. That’s what rock and roll is about!

Check out the archived shows.

[Marley23]

@nitroglycerine

Steven Van Zandt (yeah, the musician and the Sopranos actor) has a weekly garage show that features everything from Little Richard to Dick Dale to the The Sex Pistols to The Hives… You won’t find no Radioheads, hooobbawhatevers or Limp Bizquicks there, just three chords and a whole bunch of attitude. That’s what rock and roll is about!

No disrespect to Little Steven or Silvio, but this is exactly what I’m talking about. Limp Bizkit IS three chords and a bunch of attitude. What they don’t have is any sort of musical ability. That’s why they suck. Not coincidentally, The Sex Pistols had the exact same thing going on. Lots of attitude and bullshit, and they didn’t even know how to play their instruments. Sid Vicious in particular was not a musician. But he died early due to his own stupidity, so he’s a rock legend. What the fuck?

[alison_ashley]

Marley23, though I can’t offer much defense for Syd Vicious, except that he beats Fred Durst by giving his idiocy some sort of panache. I mean, Syd has a story - what could you say about Durst, even if he did die today?

“Well, we all know Syd and Nancy, but what about Fred and Britney.* she dumped him, and he got all upset about it, and wrote a song about it on an album that nobody bought. Oh, and he wore a backwards baseball cap. And rapped badly. Then he kicked out the only member of his band who had any idea what they were doing.”

They had a thing, didn’t they?

I mean, it’s not the stuff or rock legend is it?

As for the Sex Pistols, while I don’t think they were anything compared to some of the other punk bands around at the time (Ramones, Clash, Jam, Buzzcocks etc.), “Anarchy in the UK” and “Pretty Vacant” are pretty good songs. And Johnny Rotten showed that he did have talent in PiL.
But, word on the two most cliched statements in music.

[John_Carter_of_Mars]

@Live Better Electrically!

<snip> Rock and roll as a genre was born because Elvis and his imitators fit into no existing category.

This is a good point. Last year I saw Hank Williams’s daughter, Jett, at a concert and she tried to make a case for Hank’s “Move It On Over”, circa 1950, being the first R & R song.

Certainly, if “Move It On Over” had been released in the mid-fifties it would have been considered rock. In 1950, however, they simply placed it in the country department.
It took new artists with an entirely new approach to cause a whole category of music to be formed.

[nitroglycerine]

@Marley23

No disrespect to Little Steven or Silvio, but this is exactly what I’m talking about. Limp Bizkit IS three chords and a bunch of attitude. What they don’t have is any sort of musical ability. That’s why they suck. Not coincidentally, The Sex Pistols had the exact same thing going on. Lots of attitude and bullshit, and they didn’t even know how to play their instruments. Sid Vicious in particular was not a musician. But he died early due to his own stupidity, so he’s a rock legend. What the fuck?

Talk about cliche’s…“The Sex Pistols Couldn’t Play”…If you believe that then you obviously never really listened to them. Steve Jones was and is an awesome guitar player…and he did session work and played with a ton of bands all through the 80s, and FYI…Sid didn’t play the bass on the album, so the fact that he wasn’t a musician is a moot point. Who knows what Sid might have become though if he hadn’t let heroin get the better of him. He wasn’t quite the retard his legend makes him out to be.

[Marley23]

@alison ashley

Marley23, though I can’t offer much defense for Syd Vicious, except that he beats Fred Durst by giving his idiocy some sort of panache. I mean, Syd has a story - what could you say about Durst, even if he did die today?

Hallelujah!