Either way it’s SOCIALISM.
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I think there was some fantastic music in the 80’s, but after that I see a steady decline in new high quality music, with some notable exceptions. 80’s music was quite different from 60’s and 70’s music, but there was some great stuff there, from bands like U2, REM, Cure, etc. And, if you were into metal, which I wasn’t, that too. And Rap, of course. And, ok, there was great stuff going into the 90’s, like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Radiohead, Oasis, etc. But as we approached the end of the decade and beyond, things started to go to crap. Again, there were and are exceptions, e.g. Adele, Swift, but generally there just hasn’t been much to take note of since the mid-90’s or so, IMO. I’d LOVE to be proven wrong, though.
2016…
I take your point, India is the third top polluter.
The following countries are the ten largest emitters of carbon dioxide:
- China (9.3 GT)
- United States (4.8 GT)
- India (2.2 GT)
- Russia (1.5 GT)
- Japan (1.1 GT)
- Germany (0.7 GT)
- South Korea (0.6 GT)
- Iran (0.6 GT)
- Canada (0.5 GT)
- Saudi Arabia (0.5 GT)
But their per capita emissions are, of course, quite a bit less. Also the gap between the rich and poor in that country is immense.
And poor people also can have a big impact on the environment, for example, by scavenging resources and overgrazing by sheep, goats and cattle. Perhaps with a more egalitarian distribution of incomes, these effects could be attenuated.
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I was referring to composing and arranging, not performing, in terms of “edge”. 60’s bands stopped putting out interesting new material in the late 70’s, for the most part. I don’t blame them. How long can one be expected to put out great new music, especially with styles and tastes changing so rapidly? Rock is a young person’s music first and foremost, being at its heart about rebellion, emancipation and exploration, not kids, mortgages and career promotions.
As for McCartney and his Stones dig, what he actually said was that they were basically a blues cover band, which was true, initially at least, just as the Beatles were a 50’s rock, country and R&B cover band, initially. I think it was totally tongue in cheek and the surviving Stones members got it instantly and laughed about it. They’d long been friends, of course.
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Bands still exist in niche categories. Heavy Metal is still doing well, as far as I can tell while trying my best never to listen to it. Bluegrass bands feature amazing musicianship. Chris Thile got his start in Bluegrass, and his Punch Brothers band is pushing boundaries. There are still Blues bands, although that seems to be a fading category.
The music I play on an amateur basis – Irish and Scottish trad – still has some performing bands, although few are making any money. Only a few major acts like Lúnasa and Altan are consistently touring. I’ve got tickets to a Lúnasa concert next March, really looking forward to it.
Anyway, dig deep enough into a niche area of music away from the current commercial Rap/Pop scene, and you’re likely to find a band playing that style of music that you’ve never heard of.
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I find in general, that’s usually the case with the problems in the world. Or, to quote a band that doesn’t make the '60s to the ‘80s’ list because they formed in 1970…
Eat the rich
There’s only one thing that they are good for
Eat the rich
Take one bite now - come back for more
Eat the rich
I gotta get this off my chest
Eat the rich
Take one bite now - spit out the rest
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I found this many years ago, and Al Gore has cleaned up his act since with many energy improvements to his mansion and etc. But still, it was kind of funny:
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There’s policy and there’s politics, and then there’s Pelosi, who can do both.
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Pink Floyd had a minor hit with “See Emily Play” in 1967.
And the album “Court of the Crimson King,” which was very well received in progressive rock circles, came out in 1969
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Yup. Climate change is a hoax because Al Gore is fat and lives in a big house and Greta Thunberg sails in a fancy yacht.
ETA. Or so many on the right would argue in an appeal to hypocrisy. We can’t demand that Greta and Al be absolutely squeaky clean, but we can ask them to be more circumspect.
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Hallux limitus will put a stop to that foolishness
Well, I was specifically referring to rock bands, or to rock itself, as a genre. Both are basically dead, as mainstream innovators at least. I don’t know about niche but I’m too lazy to explore there. And guitars. Does anyone still play them, as lead instruments? I mean blues-based guitar rock, which basically IS rock, although a heavy steady beat from the drums and bass are also essential. That was true from Chuck Berry to U2. Not so much anymore.
Did I say that? I was just pointing out some irony and hypocrisy.
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Floyd had a few other notable songs in the 60’s, like Careful With That Axe, Eugene, and Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun. But they really broke through in 1971 with Meddle, and of course 1973’s Dark Side of the Moon. And 1969 is just barely 60’s, and Crimson was never truly big like the Stones or Who, and they were more Jazzy and experimental that typical 60’s bands. Although the same can be said of Floyd of course.
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Amazing that he, like McCartney and (Grr) Clapton, is still performing.
Once I mastered stick I’ve rarely regretting not switching to auto. Only time I find auto better is stop and go traffic, which can be annoying with the endless shifting and hard on the clutch and transmission. But I’ve learned how to replace and rebuild them so I’m good there. And uphill starts are a piece of cake. Even on the hilliest of streets.
Now if I can only finish that timing belt job that’s taken me over a week to complete…
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No. I’m sorry. I was also snarking. It’s just that I’ve heard the kinds of appeals to hypocrisy that I’ve lampooned from various sources on the the right and I should have explicitly said so.
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I think you also have to consider the impact of how radio itself changed.
The 1970s were a time when stations started tightening playlists and going with formatting by genre.
In the 1960s a pop station played a wide range of music, from Beatles to Motown to instrumental jazz to movie themes to Switched on Bach and everything in between.
It was that eclectic mix that afforded various artists broad exposure. Same with the Ed Sullivan Show, which showcased everything from British Invasion acts to the Supremes, Elvis to Steve and Edie, the Doors and the Mamas and the Papas.
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On the topic of great rock bands…
Although neither the Kinks nor the union revealed a specific reason for the ban, at the time it was widely attributed to their rowdy on-stage behaviour. It has been reported that an incident when the band were taping Dick Clark’s TV show Where the Action Is in 1965 led to the ban. Ray Davies recalls in his autobiography, “Some guy who said he worked for the TV company walked up and accused us of being late. Then he started making anti-British comments. Things like ‘Just because the Beatles did it, every mop-topped, spotty-faced limey juvenile thinks he can come over here and make a career for himself.’”; subsequently a punch was thrown and the AFM banned them.
The Kinks could not perform concerts in the United States for four years, at the height of the British invasion.
They're putting us in identical little boxes
No character just uniformity
They're trying to build a computerised community
But they'll never make a zombie out of me
Cos I’m a Muswell Hillbilly boy
But my heart lies in Old West Virginia
Though my hills, they’re not green
I’ve seen them in my dreams
Take me back to those Black Hills
That I ain’t never seen
(1971)
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