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Rock n Roll lost something after 1959

#42
ElectroVibe said:
When I was younger I definitely loved the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Kinks, The Who, Led Zeppelin, etc. All the so-called classic rock.

But lately I've been rediscovering Elvis Presley and I love how he absorbed gospel and R&B, and combined it with his own rockabilly style.

I think there was a lot of good POP music in the 60s and after, but as far as Rock, it's just been missing something.

What do you think?
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I can't think of any rock music that I even remotely like from before 1959. I do like old blues and old jazz, and a lot of rock music from 1964 and later.

Is the stuff from the 50s even considered "rock" music? Or is it be bop or rockabilly?
 
#46
Ric5 said:
I can't think of any rock music that I even remotely like from before 1959. I do like old blues and old jazz, and a lot of rock music from 1964 and later.

Is the stuff from the 50s even considered "rock" music? Or is it be bop or rockabilly?
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Bebop is jazz. And some early rock is rockabilly and some isn’t. Wouldn’t call Chuck or Little Richard rockabilly.
 
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#47
ElectroVibe said:
The Beatles were a little tamer than the early rock and roll.

But I think after that point, R&B and country had more depth. More integration of styles. And I think that has pretty much continued.
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Not in Hamburg they weren't. Not saying that rockabilly shows - and R'n'B shows - wouldn't get rowdy, but the drunk German audiences would egg the Beatles on, hour after hour, during their 5-to-7-hour shows, 6 nights a week, to do more and more outrageous stuff.

The Ramones were fans of the early Beatles and based their leather jacket/jeans look on them before Brian Epstein got hold of them and made them wear matching suits. Their name is even a nod to an alias that McCartney sometimes used back then, Paul Ramon.
 
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#49
ElectroVibe said:
I can understand Jonathan Richman too, even though I used to love the first Modern Lovers album from 1972.
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Here's Jonathan explaining what influenced him to make his transition from fronting a hard rock band doing his original songs ("we were playing loud, sounding like triphammers," he says, which is a term that I immediately recognized, being from a New England factory town, like him) to playing much quieter stuff:

 
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#50
ElectroVibe said:
The Beatles were a little tamer than the early rock and roll.

But I think after that point, R&B and country had more depth. More integration of styles. And I think that has pretty much continued.
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Yeah, not really. The Beatles loved all types of music and were heavily influenced by American R and B, Girl groups, Motown, Chuck Berry, etc. They rocked pretty hard. I'd put them against ANY other contemporary band. They were already going all day an night in Hamburg in 1960. Check out some of the older live videos and the old bootleg stuff. They ROCKED, man. Check out some of their live TV performances pre-1964. Amazing stuff. And checkout some of NME awards videos from the '60s. They blow everyone else off the stage.
 
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#51
Cave Puppy said:
When our band plays "Rock and Roll" it's always Chuck Berry type of the awesome 1-4-5 stuff. I know what to expect when "Rock and Roll" is called. I play with old school Irish guys. Chuck Berry type is Rock and Roll to them and that's it. And I'm ok with that.
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When I make plans with other old rock guys to get together to play for fun, I tell them, "If you want to do anything that I don't already know, it better be material I can learn in one listen. Preferably less than one listen."

Here's what I send around as an example of the level of complexity I expect:

 
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#52
Guitalia said:
When I make plans with other old rock guys to get together to play for fun, I tell them, "If you want to do anything that I don't already know, it better be material I can learn in one listen. Preferably less than one listen."

Here's what I send around as an example of the level of complexity I expect:

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The Troggs ripped themselves off pretty well there.
 
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#54
JimmyM said:
Bebop is jazz. And some early rock is rockabilly and some isn’t. Wouldn’t call Chuck or Little Richard rockabilly.
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Ya I really don't much about 50s rock n roll other than I never cared much for it ... I liked when the Beatles came along, and even then their first few years were simplistic love songs. Then in the late 60s and 70s there was a lot of music that I liked, as per older music I learned to like Blues and classical music, and in the 50s we had Dave Brubeck ... very cool. But a lot of pop music from many eras does not interest me very much.
 
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#55
every era has great music and not so great music... and every era also has music that is considered "great" by aspects of the public that I listen to and shrug or scratch my head but, of course, i also realize that there is a lot of music not aimed at me or my demographic.........ear of the beholder and all that

for me, a lot of 50s rock is great, but i can only take so many upbeat I-IV-Vs (with a II7 occasionally) and I-vi-IV-V or I-vi-ii-V ballads before I lose interest
 
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#56
Ric5 said:
I can't think of any rock music that I even remotely like from before 1959. I do like old blues and old jazz, and a lot of rock music from 1964 and later.

Is the stuff from the 50s even considered "rock" music? Or is it be bop or rockabilly?
Click to expand...
Stuff from the 50's was considered rock and roll. Maybe that's a point of confusion. And, to reference the earlier statement from Keef, that evolved over time to rock music (of which he's less fond generally), or "marching music" as he humorously dubbed it. A difference in rhythmic emphasis. Seems like a core point in this discussion.
 
#58
Caveat: I've played rock and pop-rock (mostly original) my entire time as a bass player.

I feel that much genre crossing has created not so much sub-genres, but homogenised music. Some of it is great, and some of it is just awful. I'll switch from channel to channel as I drive, and I can't believe how often I'll just go, "nope" (or similar veined word choices) mid-song. This goes for stuff from all eras. So I listen to Pandora a lot. Their algorithm will find artists I've never heard of with sensational music, and I don't have to listen to any songs I've told the algorithm I don't like.
Broadcast/satellite radio seems intent on rotating the same 100 songs.
Santana's 'Smooth' anyone? Again?

There's a lot of 'Americana' music that just doesn't sit well with me. Too many influences going on that I can't associate with, despite having lived in the USA for thirty plus years.
Occasionally an artist/band will come along with 'something' different about them, and really make me like them. Often they are within genres I wouldn't normally lean toward. It doesn't happen often.

Will we be talking about artists from the 2020s sixty years from now (not me, I'll be pushing up daisies) in the same manner we talk about the 50s artists? Someone will come along and blow the roof off.
Who anticipated Prince? Amy Winehouse? What's coming next?

Another problem I see is when a band does well, and makes a couple of critically acclaimed albums there will be the 'musical differences' split, and the singer will suddenly have the entire focus of the record company. This leads more often than not to a diluted version of the sound that made them. The cycle continues until all the personality is removed from the music, and it becomes mainstream rubbish. The alternative is the same album over and over. 'The Beatles' and 'Abbey Road' are so different. I wonder what Buddy Holly's later albums would have been like had he lived.
 
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#59
Guitalia said:
Here's Jonathan explaining what influenced him to make his transition from fronting a hard rock band doing his original songs ("we were playing loud, sounding like triphammers," he says, which is a term that I immediately recognized, being from a New England factory town, like him) to playing much quieter stuff:

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Ha! I respect Jonathan deciding to try something different. But the band didn't get along very well after that because he drove his bandmates nuts with the way he handled the transition, telling them to play their electric guitars without plugging them in, for example.:D

Poor Jerry Harrison went from working with Jonathan to David Byrne--great songwriters but deeply weird dudes.
 
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