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Which Rock Star Will Historians Remember?

#281
Long before then.....Rock 'n Roll, having served its purpose of subverting/degrading civil society, will have been totally outlawed and thrown down The Memory Hole, lest it pose a similar threat to our future Masters. Any possibility of counter-revolution must be avoided at all costs. It's the rules.

Hmm, I'm in the mood for some London Years....think I'll put on Paint It Black. Yes!
 
#284
Aberdumbie said:
Elvis, Buddy Holly, John, Paul, George & Ringo. The rest are a footnote
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That's mighty white of you ^_^ . The guys listed were all great, and deserving of mention ... but where's Chuck Berry or Little Richard, for starters? Jimi was no mere footnote, either. The article cited at the start of this thread builds a fairly good case for Chuck Berry in particular, which I hadn't even read when I made Chuck my own first choice ...

But I'll say again that I actually disagree with the original premise that it comes down to just one person that will represent rock and roll to future generations - just as we remember a number of different people for classical music, so we will do for rock and roll. There are many flowers in the garden.
 
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#285
TyBo said:
That's mighty white of you ^_^ . The guys listed were all great, and deserving of mention ... but where's Chuck Berry or Little Richard, for starters? Jimi was no mere footnote, either. The article cited at the start of this thread builds a fairly good case for Chuck Berry in particular, which I hadn't even read when I made Chuck my own first choice ...

But I'll say again that I actually disagree with the original premise that it comes down to just one person that will represent rock and roll to future generations - just as we remember a number of different people for classical music, so we will do for rock and roll. There are many flowers in the garden.
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I get it. And if I were the person writing the history we would have chapters devoted to Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Slade and other stadium rock greats or the 70's. I think James Brown had as much to do with opening the door for rock n roll as anyone....... But The way I read the post was as if I were reading a history book 300 years from now. Not my personal favorites. And I would bet that 300 years from now rock n roll will be an interesting self indulgent brief musical period historically speaking. I love it and lived it.. But in an historical perspective there were few true innovators before the art was replaced by corporate influence. I sure didn't mean to lessen the importance of any great acts. I just think historians give us what they want us to have. It will all be there for anyone willing to dig.... But even now. How many folks under thirty do you think would recognize who Little Richard or Chuck Berry are?
 
#286
Yeah, I think the question raised is about what the perspective of history will be 300 years from now ... how will rock and roll be remembered? As I say, I personally think it will be several figures remembered in history ... the author makes his case for just one, drawing the comparison to marching music being remembered through Sousa. I think that's choosing a narrow example, but within that framework he makes the case for Elvis, as the ultimate performer, Dylan as the ultimate writer, but finally chooses Chuck Berry as both performer and writer. And player, I would add - Berry originated THE quintessential rock and roll guitar lick, after all, as well as some of the quintessential stage moves (duck walk, guitar as phallic symbol, etc.). He also gave us the quintessential rock and roll character in Johnny B. Goode ("His mama told him some day you will be a man ... ... Go! Go! Go Johnny, go!"). Chuck faded creatively (but didn't go away) after his early years, but he was a central figure in the explosion that reverberated through the years. The "Brown Eyed Handsome man" was on the ground floor of the entire genre as a writer, performer, and player. He wrote the book on Rock Guitar 101, Rock Songwriting 101, and Rock Performance 101. His influence can't be overstated. Who's never played "Johnny B. Goode"?

As I said before, Chuck Berry lit the fuse for all the rock guitar acts that followed ... and here he is striking the match!

 
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#287
Wyld Stylyns!

Bill S. Preston Esq.
Ted Theodore Logan.

They even made it 500years.

And Ted even broke the matrix.

What can this strange device be? When I touch it, it gives forth a sound. Its got wires that vibrate, and give music, what can this thing be that I've found.

When you factor length of career combined with amount of new output (excluding Jethro Tull, who's Jethro Tull), it has to be Rush. As well as the number of followers with IQ over 120.

However, as future science from 2505 goes, everyone who listens to rush will be locked in laboratories working on cures for erectile dysfunction and hair loss.

Let's not forget the Beastie boys' heads in jars.

Go away, batin!
 
#288
Just to give you guys a sense of how difficult this kind of thing is to predict (i.e. whom will historians remember 300 years later?), let me tell you about Guibert of Nogent. Guibert was born to a minor noble family in northern France in the late 11th century, entered the clergy and became a monk, with his career stretching through the early decades of the 12th century. Along the way he was educated in the emerging intellectual culture of "scholasticism" and tried his hand at arguing through some of the hot issues of the day, like how to tell the difference between true and false relics of saints and what happens to the bread and wine in the mass (this was before the term "transubstantiation" was in use). He was kinda smart but not a genius, and kinda in the major discussions but not really central to them. He was, in other words, a bit of a mediocrity and a bit eccentric, not really having much of any influence on anybody.

However, he tried his hand at a style of writing that was very unusual in his time - autobiography. Inspired by the Confessions of St. Augustine, a great classic composed 700 years earlier, he tried to write the story of his life. It's a weird little work - one thinks Freud would have loved to have Guibert on his couch - with none of the brilliance of insight that Augustine's work had had. A copy sat around collecting dust in a monastery library for centuries and nobody read it, and the world kept turning.

Then, about the mid-20th century, some historian poking around dusty monastery archives came across this weird little autobiography and started reading it, wound up publishing a study on it and translating it into English. This happened right at a critical moment in medieval studies, when scholars were taking more interest in trying to understand ordinary people rather than focusing on kings and popes and geniuses. And here we had this amazing window into the mind of an "ordinary" medieval person, just a mediocre monk writing about his life and how he saw the world. The translation, Self and Society in Medieval France, became standard reading on the syllabi of medieval history survey classes for decades afterwards, and thousands and thousands of college students wrote papers and sat through discussion sections trying to understand Guibert of Nogent.

So I guess the point would be that the Beatles and Rolling Stones and Chuck Berry and all are probably the rock and roll equivalents of Richard the Lion-Hearted and Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine, the huge obvious leading lights of the era. The Guiberts of rock and roll are Nena or Bad Company or something like that. But a modern college student taking a survey course in the last fifty years has probably had more exposure to Guibert of Nogent than to Richard the Lion-Hearted, because, for the kinds of questions this last generation of historians have been interested in, Guibert is a better example than Richard of what you're looking for. There's no way for us to be sure what the historians of 300 years from now will be interested in; will they be concerned about who the biggest and most influential artists were? Will they think of the generation gap, or race, or level of artistry, as the key issue to be looked at? Will they want to focus on the genius or on the ordinary?
 
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#289
two fingers said:
It would seem that way. However, it was actually my attempt at lamenting the fact that with all of the amazing and wonderful things this country has done and the (literally) hundreds of millions of lives we have saved, it is historians and educators who seem hell bent on continuing to pick at the scabs of our few mistakes. Never mind that virtually every single civilization on Earth has both been enslaved and held slaves in captivity at some point.

Sure, it was bad, wrong, stupid, etc. But history will reflect, unfortunately, that slavery is about the only thing we did in our first few hundred years as a nation. We might get a little credit for flight and cars. But that's about it. The rest of what they will be taught (and what they are currently taught according to several college kids from my neighborhood) is that we are, and have been, the worst thing to happen to the planet in its entire history. I find quite the opposite. And that is not just patriotism. Anyone looking at a list of strides made in technology, medicine, peace, prosperity and civilization would have to put the U.S. at the top of the list of places of origin.

I went back and forth as to whether or not to even post this as I assume it could kick open the wrong doors and derail the thread. Edit if need be. Thanks.
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Two Fingers... I am writing you in for president in November
 
#291
Aberdumbie said:
Two Fingers... I am writing you in for president in November
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What, not The Donald? ^_^ Good heavens, I don't think slavery is the all consuming concern which is being depicted - but it has been recognized, during the last several decades, just how terrible and intertwined with our formation it was. That's a good thing - the truth will set you free, as the saying goes. In order to see where we're going, it's useful to see where we've come from. Anyway, this really is a side issue to the topic at hand
 
#293
hrodbert696 said:
Just to give you guys a sense of how difficult this kind of thing is to predict (i.e. whom will historians remember 300 years later?), let me tell you about Guibert of Nogent. ?
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Didn't read the article or any of the responses, just the last page….but this is what my response was going to be.

Historians remember and study completely different things for completely different reasons.

The public will probably remember The Beatles, the historians will remember George Martin.
The public will remember punk as The Sex Pistols, historians will remember Malcolm McLaren or Jonathon Ritchman
The public will remember Jimi Hendrix, the historians will look at Jeff Beck.
The public will remember {Dj-type artist} (sorry I'm not hip to anything new), historians will remember the guy who invented the synth or the first person to digitize sound.


Etc…
 
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#297
I.Refuse.To.Be.Sucked.Into.An.Argument.By.A.Lament.About.Politics.And.American.Exceptionalism...
(Extraordinarily strong urine in cornflakes this morn, no?)
image.jpeg
(Those 2 fingers have been hanging on my front door for 16 years...)

How 'bout: In 300 years, the U.S.A. will be remembered for 5 things...The Constitution, Saving the entire freakin' WORLD by throwing its most precious resource headlong into WWII, Baseball, Jazz & Rock n Roll.

I've joked with my wife about ethnomusicologists stumbling upon our record collection 300 years from now and thinking that, because they found 6 Tex Ritter records in the same place, Tex Ritter must have been essential listening during the 20th century...and in some places he was!
I'd love to think that our stacks will contribute something to the conversation, even the study, of popular music during the second half of the 20th century...that would be cool.
IF they can figure out a way to get the music out of the grooves and onto whatever they use to listen to music 300 years from now, they will be exposed to a wide range of stuff...and if the actual Number of records by an individual artist or band makes any impression on them at all, they will think that The Beatles and Todd Rundgren and Steve Earle and Billy Joel and Pete Seeger and Harry Conick, Jr. and The Good Ol' Grateful Dead were all pretty important 'round here...:thumbsup:

I do believe that Thomas Jefferson will be regarded as the architect of post-colonial America...that FDR will be considered our best, and most important, President...that Baseball will be thriving (though with the DH in both leagues...:rollno:...I hope that won't happen until a century after I am dead!:dead:) Mark Twain & John Steinbeck will live forever...Louis Amstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, John Coletrane and Bill Evans (with Scott LaFaro) and Django Reinhardt will be the Jazz artists who are held in the highest regard...It'll be The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Funk Brothers who are remembered most fondly when folks talk about Rock n Roll...:bassist: :thumbsup:



Absolutely Loved, Loved, Loved hrodbert's latest post! HOF material! :woot:
 
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#300
At this point, I really feel that the Beatles are just .... the thing. Like if aliens from outter space were to land and they ask us to show them music from earth. You'd do worse than to whip some Beatles on them.

I really don't think Justin Beiber would be mentioned.

I'm not diminishing all the influences the Beatles had. Not at all.

It's like Seinfeld; people are STILL quoting that show. Been off the air for 17 years!!!!!

Beatles and Seinfeld. Now THAT's staying power.
 
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