Actually, I phrased it that this music was indisputable even to those people, were they able to listen. It was hyperbole. I didn’t say individuals were better than other individuals. That would be beyond my expertise.
My main point is the color and variety and stylistic disruption of the era. You could put all the mid 20th century singers on the same station and never be disturbed. They are great singers, but time went on and I think rightly people came to prefer author/singers even if they were rougher sounding. It certainly got results. What you had before was 100 songwriters writing for 50 singers for 50 years. In the 60/70s it was hundreds of composers making original statements and singing them. It was a liberation from cliche subjects lyrically and “the three minute song” (The Who 1971).
I already posted about how important London was.
If you extend to 1972: Stevie Wonder, Neil Young, Steely Dan, Tom Waits, and my favorite, Marvin Gaye’s Trouble Man.
The whole thread does boil down to whether this music will be heard in 250 years. I think so. Not sure where you got your data on this music being forgotten. Doesn’t seem like that from here.
I loved the Beach Boys and believe Wilson is every bit the genius that John Lennon was. But, I don’t think the Beach Boys or the Beatles are in the same league as Mozart, because Rock and Roll is simply not as complex as classical music. I say complex, not better or worse. It can certainly be said that all of them were at the tops of their game. And it’s perfectly fine to say you love rock and hate classical.
In fact, you can even say they may have been equal in their raw genius, but we have no way of knowing that…because they’re playing two different games—one complex; the other, not nearly so.
If I had to guess, I’d say the average pop or rock musician that makes it big probably started playing their instrument in their early teens, and probably practiced a couple hours a day, at most. Same with composition. I can safely assume that modern pop and rock musicians have lives outside of music.
What we can say about virtually all of the baroque, classical and romantic era greats, is that they started as musical prodigies, they had their gift recognized at an early age (pre 10), and they devoted the rest of their lives to music, practicing and honing their craft for many hours per day. They needed to in order to be the best in a complex game. Not to belittle rock and roll (it’s one of my favorite genres), but comparing it to classical music is like comparing the athleticism of a professional football/baseball/soccer…, to that of a professional tiddlywink player.
Wilson and Lennon may have been born geniuses, but they didn’t have to put as much time in honing their craft to the extent Mozart & company did. They may have (though I doubt it), but they didn’t have to.
This not only applies to composition, but virtuosity, too. As mentioned we have no recordings of Mozart, but we know that he started playing his instrument before the age of 5 and practiced hours and hours a day. And we know his playing mesmerized royalty. I don’t know when Wilson and Lennon started on guitar, but I know Brian had enough time to go surfing and John had time to shag the girls and get in rumbles. Mozart’s dad didn’t let him surf or shag…at least not when he was little. You may like rock and roll guitar better than classical piano, but again, they’re not in the same league.
This was the main reason I discussed ages in my last post. There certainly are modern virtuosos in both rock and classical, but the classical virtuosos of today almost always started playing before age 10 and they play more complicated music.
We have no recordings of Liszt either. We know that he was a genius composer. But, judging by what his contemporaries wrote about him and the accolades he received, we can make a valid assumption that he was the greatest piano virtuoso the world has known. If he wasn’t, it would be a modern day concert virtuoso who has him beat, not Elton John.
Beethoven and Mozart and Brahms and JS Bach (and at least 4 of his 9 boys) et al weren’t too shabby tickling the ivories, either, according to history.
It’s an apples and oranges thing, but time commitment and complexity makes a difference.
I didn’t make my point very clear. The fact so many are from London acts against the notion of ‘greatness’ imo. It makes no sense that so many ‘greats’ were born a couple of years either side of, say, 1946 in one city.
I think it’s absolutely fascinating to try and understand the why and how it happened but, on the scale people came to the fore, either something was in the water supply or disparate factors came together allowing the population to excel.
Look, it’s a part of your life, that’s great. To someone else it’s like ska, or disco, or progressive or Northern Soul - or Motown; it’s just a genre that had a fleeting few years in the sun. That’s it.
And if you don’t live in one of a dozen or so western countries, it’s not even that.
The idea that some of the great rock musicians didn’t start playing at a young age, or didn’t practice for hours a day, is a bit silly. Brian Wilson was (at least according to his parents, which is the same evidence we have for Mozart) musical from a very early age, and born into a musical family. He never surfed, either, that was his brother Dennis.
By all accounts, though, Brian Wilson was (and may still be, although I doubt it’s to the same extent due to his well publicised mental health issues) and obsessive musician, especially on piano and keyboards, and the vocal harmonies he composed are highly rated by music scholars of all types, not just those of rock music.
Another example would be Phil Lesh, bass player for the Grateful Dead. He was a violin player as a child, and switched to trumpet as a teenager, formally studying the instrument, and composition. He may not have been a literal prodigy, but he was far from the stereotypical musical illiterate bass player! He’s claimed that his study of baroque music influenced his bass playing far more than previous rock performers, as he’d hardly listened to them before joining the band - which he did more as a favour to friends than any great desire to play bass, or rock music at all for that matter. Jerry Garcia, the bands celebrated guitarist, studied piano from a young age, and has again been widely described as practising guitar obsessively.
Finally, Rick Wakeman, most famous as the keyboardist from Yes, also studied piano from a young age, and attended the Royal College of Music, and his compositions for Yes often include references to classical music. Although he has admitted that his slight lack of dedication to studies may have prevented him being a concert pianist.
I could list plenty more, as well as folk and jazz musicians who have either studied or (later in their career) performed classical music. It’s certainly not true for most rock musicians, of course, whilst it’s necessary for classical musicians, but some of the best have done.
I’m in fundamental agreement with this. Complexity can be great. It may mean that Mozart was the greatest player ever. But the “scene” then? It was depressing. The artistic excellence you are talking about occurred over hundreds of years by a few people. By that measure the 70s are still great, even though there was a reduction of complexity, vulgarization, dissonance etc.
But music has more to it than complexity. There was music before Mozart. Going back you would find folk music, simpler songs. That’s what Mozart had going in. I think the 70s stands up with the music from that time. Music had to be made by people before there were virtuosos. Rock rediscovered that.
1972: Todd Rundgren, Lou Reed, Dan Hicks, Nick Drake, big star, curtis mayfield, david ackles, Roy Buchanan, gil scott heron, Al Green, Pete Townshend, even Cat Stevens, Mott, Genesis, The Dead…
And for you naysayers. Check out the singles section on Wiki 1972 year in music. I can barely look at the list it’s so good.
I think the greatest Rock music has already been written.
But other great music is being produced, and more is yet to come.
QtM, old fart who just saw CSN in concert this past weekend. I was helplessly hoping to hear the harmony of their heyday, but I fear they didn’t quite manage that.
I agree with what you wrote, but that wasn’t my point.
My point is that great rock and roll musicians may or may not be musical geniuses. Some are, but it’s not necessary in the less complex world of rock. Rock musicians may have started at an early age, but they didn’t necessarily have to. Rock musicians may practice 10 hours per day, but they don’t necessarily have to.
On the other hand you won’t find any of the great classical composers or virtuoso’s who don’t have all or most of these: prodigy; started very young; devotes all their time to their craft.
IOW: in rock it’s added bonus; in classical is a requirement.
I’ll even grant that the most complex rock is more complex than the least complex classical. But, on average, there’s no comparison. Again, I’m not saying more complex is better.
I also love the music of Rick Wakeman and was aware of his classical training. He is a better composer and makes more money, but he’s still not in the same league of virtuosity as a concert pianist at the top of his game, like Evgeny Kissin.
I think you have too narrow a definition of musical genius, then. If a great rock guitarist who can’t read music doesn’t count, I don’t think it’s a useful definition. Also, you are comparing the very best of classical musicians to the average rock musician, which is a little unfair. There are thousands of local orchestras, quartets and so forth that are probably less skilled that the best rock musicians. There’s choirs at thousands of churches, but most of them would struggle performing the best harmonies in rock music, let alone composing them.
One of the biggest changes in recent times - say the last hundred years or so - is the availability of high quality musical instruments at an affordable price, the leisure time to practice them, and the ability to share compositions at a reasonable price. To share folk music in the old days required people to hear and learn the tune, and for classical music to afford extremely expensive scores and an orchestra. It’s no surprise to me that there was a vast increase in the amount of quality music being made when it was both easier to make and easier to compare to others, easier to be challenged and pushed to a higher level.
Yes, J.S. Bach was a genius, but his work was mostly performed at the church he worked for, and much of it was lost for centuries after his death. I believe Beethoven was instrumental in rediscovering some of it, including the Mass in B Minor, in my opinion his greatest work.
I’m one of those outliers who first started listening to pop music in the mid-1960s, but still needs frequent infusions of new music.
In fact, for me, songs in the ‘classic rock’ genre are gradually starting to wear themselves out, working its way forward through time. Aside from a handful of artists, anything before New Wave on a classic rock station will have me changing the station. There just comes a point when even a great song freakin’ wears out its welcome.
But it seems like too many bands these days can’t seem to follow up a good album with another good album. And on top of that, they tend to take a lot more time in between albums, and I think they often kinda lose the thread in there. The expectation in the 1960s that an artist or band would come out with a new album or two every year may have been demanding, but so many of them rose to the challenge, and I often wonder if it didn’t help them all become more creative.
I think that’s the biggest thing - they were forced to become better and more innovative just to keep up with their peers. It’s something that’s happened in many art forms at various times, but that period of rock music had a vast amount created in an exceptionally small time period. Something similar happened with jazz between 1955 and 1965, it’s not unique to rock, but the changes could be measured in months, not decades.
Steophan. I don’t really believe we are in disagreement. I was addressing the question of comparing Brian Wilson to Mozart; two prodigies at the top of their respective genres. You can excel in R&R with talent and drive. But, you can only excel in Mozart’s genre if you’re incredibly gifted and push yourself, and are pushed by others, to the extreme.
I can’t even say for certain that Brian isn’t as much a musical genius as Mozart. I can’t say because Brian didn’t go into the musical genre with the highest standards. Brian’s dad didn’t push him hard into a life of complex classical composition and virtuosity with piano and violin before he was 5. I’m glad that he didn’t. If he did, we wouldn’t have the Beach Boys and the transcendent rock album Pet Sounds (almost as good as Sgt. Pepper in my opinion).
Can you accurately claim that Brian Wilson was a greater musician than Mozart? No way. Not possible. Could he have been his equal? Maybe, but we’ll never know.
I agree that average classical musicians may not measure up to talented rock musicians. I can play a mean Fur Elise, but I don’t claim to be more talented than, say, Jerry Lee Lewis or even Boxcar Willy (I’m better than Justine Bieber, though).
I listen mainly to classical music these days, but I’m not a complete fuddy-duddy. I didn’t put earplugs in my ears when my daughters were into Skrillex, and I do on occasion like to jam out with a little Psy, like the rest of you kids.
My vote for greatest music of the mid 60’s is Good Vibrations (which I already linked to) and this Beatles classic.
I was into Yes, the Moody Blues, Bowie, Renaissance, Queen, the Who, Genesis and Pink Floyd in the 70’s, but still I have to give the nod to this classic for decade’s best song.
IMHO, mankind’s greatest artistic achievement since we evolved from Homo erectus is Beethoven’s 9th Symphony (better even than Warhol’s soup cans). The second best is this masterpiece.
I just think it’s too narrow a view to say that classical music has the highest standards. Technicality is not the only important thing in music (although I still think the best rock/jazz/pop/folk musicians are as accomplished as classical ones), and if you focus only on that you miss out on pretty much all improvised music, as well as the performance aspect of rock.
The truly great rock musician will not just be a great musician, but also a great composer, lyricist, and showman. They’ll be able to perform a large repertoire on demand, from memory, and also create new music on the fly. Maybe not all of them do all of those, but far more so than the extremely specialised classical musician.
You are probably right, from the narrow perspective of superlative musical technique, that classically trained musicians are better. But that’s the wrong metric to judge rock music by, in my opinion. Is a gold medal winning decathlete a worse sportsman than Usain Bolt because they’re slightly slower over 100m?
To me that’s cultural relativism, received wisdom. I am talking about a period of Exceptionalism in the music scene. I listened to everything I could and I’m not done yet at all. Things that surprise us often don’t make sense. Why should they? Well you are from london, maybe you’re too close to it. Are you saying those London boys were all scrubbers or something? What is your explanation for it? The English PR machine?
The reason this is a thread at all is because of the breadth of the movement in music. Here are things that were much more delimited in scope and invention: Ragtime, blues, Twelve tone serial music, ska, rocksteady, reggae, the American songbook, bossa nova, salsa, cubano, etc etc. They are all genres.
Baby boomer music isn’t a genre. It played with, burst, created, combined, destroyed genres. It encompasses a lot of what you listed, and much more than we can give time to here. Someone is always going to say “That Amero-European never hears anything he didn’t make” I have heard a lot of it, and I like and love a lot, esp jazz, but I’m making the case for this. Haven’t heard any citations convincing otherwise. Just listing of genres and geniuses of the past doesn’t make a refutation.
Listen to The Lost and Found, weekdays 12:00 to 2:00 PM Eastern time, WMBR, cambridge MA. They have been doing the deep cut thing for 25 years now and there is no bottom to it IMO. (I am not affiliated) (Shows are archived for two weeks)
Excuse me, sir. You left out Gentle Giant’s “Acquiring the Taste”. One of the masterpieces of the 20th century music.
Seriously, if you’re not familiar with it, check it out, give it a try. It’s both awfully complex and beautiful.
Look back at my comprehensive list on the preceding page. i think it’s on there. If not I apologize.
Don’t get me started dude. There’s Octopus and Free Hand, even the Missing Piece. Of course in 200 years people will listen to 1910 fruitgum and gentle giant and it’ll all sound the same. or Not.
BTW it’s 50 years since the Velvet underground and they are much more omnipresent now than they were then. Just 150 years to go and then we’ll see. When that LP came out it had been 50 years since Rites of Spring. Anybody humming any stravinsky lately? (I love the Firebird but it’s tough to wait for the end)
I’m not dumping on Stravinsky or anyone in the canon. Just making my case hopefully with humor.
Of course bands “form” in major musical cities. It would a bit silly if you had ambitions to be a professional musician and so decided to move to Nantuket.
Not so much the English PR machine as the American market’s unquenchable thirst for something new and exciting.
I was a guy who lived and breathed British bands, but I don’t believe the British Invasion was anything extraordinary with regard to an abundance of creativity and talent. It was more a case of being in the right place at the right time, good marketing and only a handful of real music geniuses and innovators. IOW, it wasn’t a case of having an extraordinary supply of extraordinary musicians; it was a case of having an extraordinary demand for a new craze and having a few musicians with enough talent to fill the demand and creating the wave other bands with less talent could ride.
The craze was a UK revival of American born skiffle music in the 50’s and early 60’s. Skiffle caught on fire in the UK because there were a lot of British youth playing it (skiffle music is easy to learn and the instruments are affordable for working class youth), and it became a fad with Brits for the same reason other things become fads (i.e. who knows why?). Recall the huge fad that Elvis Presley created a few years earlier with his gifted voice and scandalous gyrating hips. Elvis did have talent; a lot of Elvis imitators made it big afterward by riding his coattails, having much less talent.
Many of you may not remember (or are too young to have learned) that the Beatles had stiff competition in the early stages of the British Invasion. The competition wasn’t from bands like the Who or the Rolling Stones, it was from the Dave Clark 5 (DC5). There were plenty of other British Bands topping the charts, too, with even less talent, like the Herman’s Hermits. DC5 put out a string of very catchy tunes, but they were not particularly giants of musical ability.
Dave Clark himself and his keyboardist had raw musical talent but most of the groups talent was in the area of Dave’s excellent business sense. They rode the wave created by the Beatles. DC5’s flame dimmed as soon as the Beatles (real musical giants) were able to change the genre forever with Sgt. Pepper. The demand changed to that of the new sound and most of the skiffle type British Bands who didn’t have enough talent to change their sound faded from the charts. The demand for British Bands continued, but not for skiffle. Most bands that followed the Beatles could play the new sound (but probably couldn’t play skiffle very well).
The British bands that started the British Invasion were popular in Europe, but they didn’t really catch on global fire until the huge American Market took a shine to them and put them into the musical meat grinder. It could have been the Motown sound or even the Phillysound that caught fire, but it wasn’t—it was British skiffle bands followed by the new sound created by the Beatles.
I like the argument and accept it as being part of an explanation. However - and I could offer up numerous example of this …
If you ask people to name the top ten greatest guitarist of all time, for many at least three lived within a very few miles of each other in south west London and all were born within 15 months of each other (Beck, Clapton, Paige). In the whole world? Really?
How does your explanation also explain the exceptional talent pool?
