Jeremy: are you familiar with any old school Jackson 5? i heard they're rendition of "santa claus is comnig to town" on the radio, and i am arguing that it has the earliest hint of hip hop that ive ever heard. michael is talking fast and rhyming along with his brothers, and during that part of the song they are playing a simple bump, bump, ting drum beat.
Adam:You may have a point as far as the mainstream pop radio music is concerned. I am sure you could find other examples that would be way out there, and I am sure there are underground type examples but honestly I cannot think of a pop music example that predates that.
Jeremy:yeah good point, because i have no idea what was on the underground in the 70s...much less the 60s. the jackson 5 really were pop, huh? i didnt tell you that i work with a guy in his early 50s and he played drums for some bands back in the 60s. nobody big, but he was educating me on the british invasion and introduced me to bands like the hollies, the kinks, the animals, etc. pretty interesting stuff.
Adam: yeah the kinks were punk/ metal before those forms of music existed and I really don't get the animals.... have you seen the British invasion cd at bestbuy?
Jeremy: nah.....but jim(the guy i work with) brought in a book called the "the fab british RR invasion of 64". he also has a tape of all this old stuff with performances on ed sullivan and random "music videos" and stuff .its crazy. i thought our generation was weird, man just the clothes they had was wacked. then i got to thinking and i was kinda mad that us americans cant really take credit for much of the rock influence, so i was trying to think of american bands and the only ones i could come up with were :the ramones, bob dylan, the beach boys, and a few others. needless to say, i was disappointed that america couldnt take more credit for inventing R&R....but then again we had elvis and chuck berry.
Adam: Well we definitely have Elvis, and Aerosmith and the Doors and Hendrix and Joplin Plus every jazz and blues legend was American and then there was james brown, chuck berry, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams and the list goes on don't forget we have a lock on the soul r&b funk and hip hop categories so anyone whose influence stems from there is indebted to American artists
Jeremy: hmm...good call. i love rock though, and i can take pride in our R&B/hip hop/jazz credit, but i just wish we had more rock. good call on hendrix and aerosmith, etc....oo what about queen? i suppose you could say we own the market on country and folk legends as well?
Adam: This is why I discredit the Beatles! I mean honestly Rock is just a mash of Americas Music
Jeremy: yeah...can we credit the beatles with influencing pop music and pop culture, but not rock music? the thing is...ask rockers today, and they usually will credit the beatles with influencing their music wont they?
Adam: I never understood that, but then again I never got the beach boys either and everyone thinks they are amazing! I really do think the Beatles have more to do with pop music than rock. I don't know do you hear the influence of the Beatles in SUM 41 because they (like many bands) claim that the Beatles are a huge influence? You know what I know a guy who is all about classic rock in a "how it was done" not just what happend/how it sounded kind of way I could ask him what the deal is. Did the Beatles invent a way of playing music. Because everything I consider Rock now sounds more like Zepplin and the Ramones and Nirvana and at the very least the Rolling Stones and nothing like the beatles... to me the Beatles sound like an upbeat barber shop quartet! and so do the beachboys! Its not like they invented four part harmony! and as far as their instrument playing it was all really white! there were many musicians at the time who were playing stuff twenty times more complicated and difficult! Well lets try an experiment! Project 86 = Rage = Nirvana/NWA =Guns N Roses/ Grandmaster Flash = Sexpistols/ramones/clash/miles "mother fu**ing" Davis/Queen/Led Zepplin = Hendrix/Rolling Stones/Kinks/Smiths = Muddy Waters/BB king/beach boys/beatles = ELVIS!
Jeremy: i like the beach boys because they are fun and yes, they do the the 4 part harmony very well, which i also like. i guess they were really good lookin and playing music people had never really heard at that point. rock, plus a fun melody to sing along with. modern day blink 182. dont the stones claim themselves to be blues? thats what i heard atleast. i like your little equation for rock. ive never thought about the influence that nirvana had on rage...or really any other band for that matter.....one thing i do appreciate about the beatles, is their ability to write a variety of music. i.e. not all their songs a cut beat with a GCDC chord progression with a bridge featuring Em. I like how they have fast and slow songs; rock and folk songs. sound variety was always something big with my dad, and i suppose he has passed the importance to me. right now im streaming eric clapton and b.b. king. its pretty wicked.
Adam: Yeah I think thats a personality flaw on my part... One: While my interests in music vary pretty widely my tastes are pretty narrow. Two: When I start groovin’ on a band, I get into a stage where thats all I want to listen to... i.e. I'll listen to Blindside for a week and rap for a day and I'll buy three folk albums in a row. Still I think the flaw in rock music is its simplicity, I think if you can make complicated music that sounds rich and easy at the same time, that is when you would create great music!
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Hey guys - just wanted to remind you that Queen is a British band! Here's a short list of some cool bands from the 70's that we like to listen to:
ReplyDeleteThe Eagles, Blue Oyster Cult, The Doors, Kanasas, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Boston, America, Bad Company, Bread, CCR, Dobbie Brothers, Heart, Santana, Steppenwolf, The Steve Miller Band, the Allman Brothers (How can you forget the band that sang, “Sweet Melissa??”), Styx, Van Morrison, ….and the list goes on and on…….