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Post by The Dude on Jun 3, 2020 16:40:43 GMT
(1) Allan Clarke and Maurice Gibb. When I interviewed Clarkey back in 2013, he mentioned he had done some recording with Maurice Gibb. What?? I pressed with questions as to when/where/why etc but he couldn't remember. Given the Bee Gees fell out with each other in 1969/70 and Maurice found himself a solo artist, perhaps it was around then. Gibb's one and only solo album 'The Loner' from 1970 remains (officially) unissued and though Clarke's name is not known to be attached to this project, who knows? One point though... It was Robin Gibb who left The Bee Gees in 1969... The Bee Gees consisted then of Barry Gibb and Maurice Gibb, until Robin joined them again in toward the end of 1970, when they released 'Lonely Days' as a trio.
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Post by baz on Jun 3, 2020 16:47:53 GMT
(1) Allan Clarke and Maurice Gibb. When I interviewed Clarkey back in 2013, he mentioned he had done some recording with Maurice Gibb. What?? I pressed with questions as to when/where/why etc but he couldn't remember. Given the Bee Gees fell out with each other in 1969/70 and Maurice found himself a solo artist, perhaps it was around then. Gibb's one and only solo album 'The Loner' from 1970 remains (officially) unissued and though Clarke's name is not known to be attached to this project, who knows? One point though... It was Robin Gibb who left The Bee Gees in 1969... The Bee Gees consisted then of Barry Gibb and Maurice Gibb, until Robin joined them again in toward the end of 1970, when they released 'Lonely Days' as a trio. Just checked and no mention of Allan Clarke anywhere in these Bee Gees session listings, so guessing at best that Allan worked with Maurice on some home recordings. www.columbia.edu/~brennan/beegees/70.htmlMaurice did do a lot of recording and was involved in various projects between 1969 and 1972. Plenty of material remains unheard and unreleased to this day. The Gibb's were extremely prolific!
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Post by Deleted on Jun 3, 2020 17:40:32 GMT
Actually, the remaining duo of Barry and Maurice announced their split in December 1969 (Robin left in March 1969), with all 3 of them reuniting in August 1970. Maybe Allan worked with him during this period?
Here's Maurice's solo single from April 1970:
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Post by The Dude on Jun 3, 2020 17:48:12 GMT
Actually, the remaining duo of Barry and Maurice announced their split in December 1969 (Robin left in March 1969), with all 3 of them reuniting in August 1970. Maybe Allan worked with him during this period? Here's Maurice's solo single from April 1970: I admit I didn't know that... to me they always were a duo until Robin returned... You're never too old to learn eh...
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Post by The Dude on Jun 3, 2020 18:10:00 GMT
Danish band The Teenmakers covered several Hollies-penned songs Their first single was Come On Back/You Know He Did (1966) Their second single featured two songs The Hollies themselves covered: A Taste Of Honey/Baby Don't Cry (1966) while their third single had You'll Be Mine on it's A-side (1966) On their 1968 album they covered You Need Love, Step Inside and Lullaby To Tim. The band folded in 1971 but in 1989 a second album was released with a.o. I've Been Wrong Before and Games We Play.
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Post by baz on Jun 3, 2020 18:13:41 GMT
A strange and confused period that brewed up over a long period of time. It's easy to forget that for almost all of 1968, Robin and Maurice were only 18 years old and Barry just 22/23. Each had their own individual vices (Barry liked dope, Maurice booze and Robin was on pills) and their major rise to fame went to their heads and unsurprisingly, they couldn't cope with it. Today, "Odessa" is regarded as a classic album but even now, Barry finds it painful to accept or listen to as by then the brothers were fighting and falling out. Robin quit over the fact Barry's song "First of May" was chosen as an A side instead of his song "Lamplight"... their March 1969 TOTP performance says it all as there's Robin sat there with absolutely nothing to do as the song was devoid of harmonies and he quit a few days after. Robin's mental health was a cause for concern and his solo material of that era is best described as "neurotic"! Barry and Maurice had to continue because the "Cucumber Castle" film project had to be filmed. By the end of 1969, Barry and Maurice went their own ways so as 1970 began, the Bee Gees were no more. Maurice busied himself on the stage in some musical with Barbara Windsor and solo projects as well as assisting his wife Lulu whilst Barry recorded a solo album which remains unfinished/unreleased to this day with just the "I'll Kiss Your Memory" single being the sole release. Manager Robert Stigwood worked overtime behind their backs to get the brothers Gibb to reconcile... Stigwood had his own reasons to be panicking as he'd also lost major cash cows in Cream and Blind Faith. Robin and Maurice did start working together again but Robin's beef remained with Barry. They finally came to a truce in August 1970 but remained on tentative ground for a long time with Robin admitting if Barry and Maurice weren't his brothers, a Bee Gees reunion would never have happened. "Cucumber Castle" remained in limbo until December 1970 as it was hoped to get Robin to film some new sequences so he could be added to the film, but wisely that didn't happen and the film was broadcast over Christmas and like other such films made by bands, baffled most who saw it! They entered a dark era where they struggled to keep going and it wasn't until a change of scenery and producer in 1974 that they began to experience a remarkable comeback.
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Post by sandy on Jun 3, 2020 18:23:22 GMT
Actually, the remaining duo of Barry and Maurice announced their split in December 1969 (Robin left in March 1969), with all 3 of them reuniting in August 1970. Maybe Allan worked with him during this period? Here's Maurice's solo single from April 1970: [video src="https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=Z3l8t5g7JsU"] [/video] [/quote] The youngest Gibb brother was a Hollies fan, apparently, and he did The Air that I Breathe and Curly Billy live.He also covered another Hollies'song, but can't remember where I saw it🤪
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Post by cameron on Jun 3, 2020 19:40:13 GMT
Talking of Maurice's solo efforts - I only a few weeks ago found out that this long "lost gem" called 'Have You Heard The Word' that for decades was accidentally associated with the Beatles on many bootlegs was actually Maurice Gibb doing his impression of John Lennon at an informal jam with an Australian band called the Fut. It was recorded in mid-1969 and inexplicably lifted for release as a single in 1970. It even fooled Yoko Ono, who tried to register copyright on it in 1985 as a lost Lennon song! Apparently Maurice's John Lennon impression was so good, that Lennon sometimes got him to ring Yoko for a wind up and then walk into the room while Maurice was impersonating him to prove it wasn't him. There's more on the story here: www.jpgr.co.uk/fut.html
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Post by Deleted on Jun 3, 2020 20:06:33 GMT
I first had that on a cassette as a "Beatles outtake" in the early '80s. Still enjoy it, despite long knowing the true identities of the people behind it.
Talented chaps, The Bee Gees were never quite the same following their reunion. That said, this concert is truly magical:
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Post by gee on Jun 4, 2020 15:07:05 GMT
As with Allan Clarke reuniting with The Hollies in 1973 so the fact that after a smash solo hit with 'Saved by The Bell' Robin's solo career swiftly went downhill as his follow up single 'August October' and his solo album 'Robin's Reign' failed to set the world on fire....
while Barry & Maurice with 'IOIO' and 'Tomorrow Tomorrow' similarly were not scoring big either and Maurice brief attempt as a soloist also registered little probably made all three brothers realise how much they needed each other thus - as with The Hollies - individual egos and pride had to take a back seat as the need for renewed success came first...
the song 'We Lost The Road' rather echoes how it wasn't quite the same thereafter as although they returned to having hits again they were never cutting edge as over 1967-69 having to largely follow a more middle of the road pop music theme in the early seventies - unsure of their core audience they even titled their 1972 album; 'To Whom it May Concern' ! - and it took their mid seventies disco era to make them really big again but in a very different musical idiom with only the superior love songs from say; 'To Love Somebody' to 'My World' to 'How Deep is Your Love' to 'Too Much Heaven' to 'Alone' etc keeping any kind of sense of consistency as their other material varied so much from psychedelic pop / introspective songs to country to disco etc...
the video for 'Lonely Days Lonely Nights' whilst obviously a staged thing probably had echoes of truth re them knowing they each had to swallow their pride and get back together if they were to continue to enjoy fame and success
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Post by Mevrouw Bee on Jun 4, 2020 15:12:38 GMT
I never went from loving a band to loathing one as fast as I did with the Bee Gees. They basically encapsulated everything I hated about being born in 1961 instead of 10 years earlier. I felt so culturally ripped off as a teenager.
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Post by baz on Jun 4, 2020 17:15:25 GMT
I never went from loving a band to loathing one as fast as I did with the Bee Gees. They basically encapsulated everything I hated about being born in 1961 instead of 10 years earlier. I felt so culturally ripped off as a teenager. As a kid there was no escaping the Bee Gees' disco era. I loathed it with a passion. Then they vanished completely from the charts for the first half of the 80's and stunned me when they returned in 1987 with "You Win Again" - by then, I disliked most new music but had to hand it to them as that was a great song, deserving of it being the number one hit it was. It was not long after that I began to discover what they'd been up to in the late 60's and I enjoyed most of it. As I've gotten older, I've accepted and warmed to the disco hits. There was no denying that the Brothers Gibb were genuinely good songwriters and love or hate 'em, they were utterly unique. Nobody else sounded like 'em. It was sad seeing them pass on one by one leaving us now with just Barry. So, over the decades, I've gained more respect for them and their work.
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Post by Mevrouw Bee on Jun 4, 2020 17:34:12 GMT
I never went from loving a band to loathing one as fast as I did with the Bee Gees. They basically encapsulated everything I hated about being born in 1961 instead of 10 years earlier. I felt so culturally ripped off as a teenager. As a kid there was no escaping the Bee Gees' disco era. I loathed it with a passion. Then they vanished completely from the charts for the first half of the 80's and stunned me when they returned in 1987 with "You Win Again" - by then, I disliked most new music but had to hand it to them as that was a great song, deserving of it being the number one hit it was. It was not long after that I began to discover what they'd been up to in the late 60's and I enjoyed most of it. As I've gotten older, I've accepted and warmed to the disco hits. There was no denying that the Brothers Gibb were genuinely good songwriters and love or hate 'em, they were utterly unique. Nobody else sounded like 'em. It was sad seeing them pass on one by one leaving us now with just Barry. So, over the decades, I've gained more respect for them and their work. I agree with you on their late 80s return. But, nope, even upon listening again, I haven't warmed to their disco stuff at all. And there was so much stuff they wrote for others that I found absolute dreck. "Unique" is word for it, I guess. I'll give them that.
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Post by thejanitor on Jun 4, 2020 23:04:27 GMT
With the Bee Gees, I'm a big fan of their 1967-74 albums and hits and what I've heard of their 80s - 2000s music is pretty decent as well, but I do personally think that certain handful of their disco era songs are a little too overrated. Apparently there's a biopic in the works for this year. I don't know if it's still going ahead or has been finished, but I'm hoping if it does come out that it covers all eras of their great career equally.
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Post by cameron on Jun 5, 2020 0:23:42 GMT
I think it's been seen as "cool" to bash the Bee Gees because of the whole "Discos Sucks" brigade, but my god, you should have tried growing up at the turn of the century when rap music was beginning to take over or Mariah Carey was busy doctoring the music industry to get yet another underserved No.1 that no one was actually buying or listening to... I was so thankful to have the whole ABBA revival around the time of Mamma Mia the Musical to point me in the direction of older music, and would eventually go on to discover the Hollies through that. I'll never understand why people look back at the Disco era with distain because like it or loath it, that music was real and it was honest. It's the kind of music that eats its way into your head and never leaves because it's so memorable and well written. I have so much respect for the Bee Gees as songwriters and producers. They were also three incredibly humble and down to earth people too.
During that quiet period from the late 1970s to the late 1980s, they wrote some of the biggest hits of the era such as 'Grease' for Franki Valli, 'If I Can't Have You' for Yvonne Elliman (though I personally prefer the Bee Gees' own version), 'Chain Reaction' for Diana Ross, 'Heartbreaker' for Dionne Warwick, 'Islands In The Stream' for Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, 'Woman In Love' for Barbara Streisand and even 'Emotion' which was a big hit for Destiny's Child at the turn of the century. How's that for a greatest hits list?!
Then of course they came back fighting with 'You Win Again' which is just a superb song, and a string of great songs and albums in the 1990s, with 'For Whom The Bell Tolls' being one of my favourites and also the Bee Gees' own version of 'Immortality' without Celine Dion doing her weird shrill voice thing all over it. The Bee Gees are one of the greatest bands there has ever been: to morph from the psyche sounds of 'Bee Gees 1st' and 'Idea', to the dark sounds of 'Horizontal' and 'Odessa', to emerge with great pop tunes in the early 1970s, to move onto funk with 'Main Course' and then all out disco for the rest of the decade... to a fresh sound in the 1980s and a contemporary sound in the 1990s that's actually aged well... they're comparable to the mega-enduring greats that morphed and progressed, staying relevant and current in multiple decades like David Bowie, Fleetwood Mac, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder etc... that takes a lot of talent.
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Post by Mevrouw Bee on Jun 5, 2020 1:20:36 GMT
I actually have a great natural talent for doing and thinking the opposite of "cool", cameron, lol.
Thing is, unlike you, I was there. I had to spend my teenaged years in the mid- to late 70s surrounded by disco, living an isolated town with two top 40 radio stations that played the same crap over and over. I found the entire scene incredibly shallow and the music uninspiring. I yearned to experience first hand the culture and music that the kids did 10 years before me.
Instead, I could only listen to what my friends liked in public, then go home and listen to my private collection of 60s /early 70s pop and rock & roll.
My only caveat is that I understand how culturally important disco was and is to the LGBT community; my son has softened my stance about that somewhat. But it's still not "my" music and my memories of sneaking into discos underage and being surrounded by Tony Maneros strutting around in white suits and gold chains dancing to "Macho Man" by the Village People are not exactly fond! (Caveat #2: I still love "I Just Wanna Stop" by Gino Vanelli that being said. That's just a beautiful song.)
Nope, forever a rock chick. *shrug*
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Post by gee on Jun 5, 2020 8:10:22 GMT
Their disco era is really the funky 'Jive Talkin', 'Nights On Broadway' then some of the songs for the film 'Saturday Night Fever' - a specific film set in disco land - and some songs on the 'Children of The World' album BUT not all
I used to think they went 'all disco' but on re-listening years later I realised that wasn't quite the case
'How Deep is Your Love' is a pop love song with Maurice getting a brief lead vocal part much like Tony had on 'Look Through Any Window' and the COTW album while having disco songs like 'You Should Be Dancing'(with Steve Stills on percussion) also had Robin's vocal ballad 'Love Me', and the Barry ballad 'The Way it Was' while 'Can't Keep A Good Man Down' and the title track 'Children of The World' aren't disco either, 'Love So Right' is another ballad, while 'Lovers' sees each using their various lead vocal 'voices'
'Spirits Having Flown' wasn't disco either - the title track even had wistful echoes of 'Kilburn Towers' way back in 1968
'Stop Think Again' was a slow soulful ballad and 'Too Much Heaven' was another love song as was 'Reaching Out'
the single of 'Too Much Heaven' was c/w 'Rest Your Love On Me' a country styled ballad sung by Barry
on some of those disco era songs there is some terrific lead guitarwork by longtime Bee Gees band guitarist Allan Kendall
I think it was the over use of Barry's falsetto vocal that probably irritated some, especially some older fans as it was overused for a couple of albums and Barry could sound too much like Minnie Mouse at times...and his going 'aaarrrrgggghhh' got very repetitive !
Robin being sidelined too much as a counter lead vocalist was a mistake - his unmistakable 'quavering' leads on 'Love Me'and verse vocals on 'Living Together' were SO welcome but too few as Barry's falsetto vocal over dominated - indeed when Barry sang in his lower range as on the verses of 'Spirits Having Flown' it was so much more enjoyable
they later sang 'Too Much Heaven' live in a more traditional Bee Gees vocal range - I felt it was an improvement for me, and maybe had they done it like that on the recording...and Barry sung 'Stop Think Again' in lower range the SHF album might be more listenable (for me) on a regular basis
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Post by Deleted on Jun 5, 2020 8:38:54 GMT
Although I wasn't keen on it at the time, give me disco classics like 'I Feel Love', 'You To Me Are Everything', 'You Sexy Thing' and 'Disco Inferno' over Punk Rock any day! And let's not forget that "rock" acts made some very fine disco records too, including The Rolling Stones ('Miss You', and, to a lesser extent, 'Emotional Rescue'), Paul McCartney ('Goodnight Tonight', 'Coming Up'), Blondie ('Heart Of Glass'), etc. Of course, there were also embarrassments like 'Wiggle That Wotsit' too!
Back to The Bee Gees though: NO other '60s act sounded more contemporary in the late '70s, with only (of all people) Cliff Richard coming close.
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Post by gee on Jun 5, 2020 9:45:03 GMT
yeah briefly going back to The Hollies....
Wiggle That Wotsit - even the title makes you cringe !! - was really a pop song dressed up in a disco style
For a start it's far too slow to dance to - unlike say ABBA's 'Voulez Vous' or 'Summer Night City' or those disco hits Peter mentions
- so it falls at the first most important hurdle !
then those dreadful lyrics - if Allan Clarke loathed it then we must assume either Tony or Terry or both came up with those naff words
they had 'previous' - while a bit better the lyrics to 'Do You Believe in Love' are rather ghastly
- "You can walk down any street there's bound to be someone you can meet, someone who believes in love, someone who only needs a little shove..."
groan....
putting the wrong tempo and naff lyrics aside (!) the overall instrumentation on 'woggle that whatever' is actually quite good - great Hicks guitar, powering Elliott drumming, decent basswork by Bernie, with a Chicago like strident guest brass section and assertive Clarke lead vocal plus those trademark tight Clarke-Hicks-Sylvester harmonies besides the obligatory very trendy keyboards !
maybe the better choice as a single - that is coming after the driving guitars of '48 Hour Parole' - for the disco market would have been either 'Draggin My Heels' with the tempo slightly increased which flowed better with listenable lyrics and did make the adult contemporary chart in Canada in the extended 12 inch single version...
...or perhaps 'Lady of The Night' featuring Jim Jewell's great sax work
if they had to go in a disco direction at that time maybe those would have stood a better chance in both UK / USA than wiggling...?
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Post by johnt on Jun 5, 2020 13:31:17 GMT
I never went from loving a band to loathing one as fast as I did with the Bee Gees. They basically encapsulated everything I hated about being born in 1961 instead of 10 years earlier. I felt so culturally ripped off as a teenager. I was born exactly 10 years earlier and my teenage years coincided with witnessing some up-and-coming bands like The Beatles, Stones, Searchers, Kinks, Manfred Mann, Who, Dave Dee & Co, Spencer Davis Group, Move, Tremeloes and of course The Hollies. And that was just the British groups. The list could go on and on. Sorry you missed out on what was such an exciting time for music.
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Post by Mevrouw Bee on Jun 5, 2020 14:04:40 GMT
I think it was the over use of Barry's falsetto vocal that probably irritated some, especially some older fans as it was overused for a couple of albums and Barry could sound too much like Minnie Mouse at times...and his going 'aaarrrrgggghhh' got very repetitive ! I used to call them the Dolphin Brothers back then.
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Post by Mevrouw Bee on Jun 5, 2020 14:16:14 GMT
yeah briefly going back to The Hollies.... Wiggle That Wotsit - even the title makes you cringe !! - was really a pop song dressed up in a disco style For a start it's far too slow to dance to - unlike say ABBA's 'Voulez Vous' or 'Summer Night City' or those disco hits Peter mentions I think it's a brilliant p!sstake on disco personally. And for laughs, I actually played it while watching a Soul Train clip with the sound off and it fits better than you think!
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Post by stuball on Jun 5, 2020 15:12:10 GMT
I never went from loving a band to loathing one as fast as I did with the Bee Gees. They basically encapsulated everything I hated about being born in 1961 instead of 10 years earlier. I felt so culturally ripped off as a teenager. I was born about 10 years before you, and loved the Bee Gees' '60's and early '70's music. Saw them live in Toronto in '72 and '73, when they began their slow descent towards oblivion, and then again in '75, when they were down to playing university campuses. They were desperately trying to separate themselves from their old hit ballads, actually mocking them as they performed them. Seemingly embarrassed by them. Then they finally put their heart and soul into it, when they announced and played their new single 'Jive Talking'. It sounded awful to me, a complete sellout! They played it twice during their show. A month later it was the biggest thing going! After that, with that long line of vomit-inducing disco smashes, they were either loved or loathed by music fans. There was no middle ground. And by the late '70's, in my experience the pop world had devided into 3 separate worlds: AM pop, FM punk, and the Disco World. I must say I belonged to none of them. Perhaps I was 'growing up'. Or then again, perhaps just 'growing old'. Whatever the case, my days of listening intensely to the music scene were over for good. After that, I concentrated on collecting music from 'my youth': those songs and records from my early years, when I was too young and too poor to buy those discs I really loved (generally that sweet spot from '60-'68). Of course, my love (perhaps addiction would be a better term) for The Hollies never flagged. If it had, I wouldn't be found here, typing away.
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Post by Mevrouw Bee on Jun 5, 2020 15:44:49 GMT
The Bee Gees actually came to Thunder Bay in '75 during the Main Course tour when I was 13. My two best friends went (which I found bizarre because they were staunch Alice Cooper fans, but hey, it was an event!) and spent the next month doing Robin's shtick of manually moving his arm up into place to cup his ear. Then they'd giggle. Yeah we were those weird pre-teens.
You were lucky in that you at least had the option of FM punk. I only knew about that stuff through my Circus and Creem magazines. No idea what it sounded like. It was either disco or hard rock in northern Ontario. So I bought my "Disco Sucks" t-shirt and listened to April Wine and Led Zeppelin (and the Hollies when no one else was around because I was too "cool" to admit I turned into a wee puddle of overly sensitive adolescent mush whenever I heard them).
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Post by cameron on Jun 9, 2020 9:12:00 GMT
It's funny how, over 50 years on, the world is still infatuated with the music of the 1960s. I think it was a case of too much of a good thing at once, it's taken the next 50 years just to properly digest it all and discover all the great artists that were perhaps nudged out of the spotlight at the time. I think for my generation, the music is very tangible. You can pick up a guitar and play along with all of it, which cannot be said of the chart music since the 1990s that uses three, sometimes only two chords. And the vast majority of chart music now has no guitar part anyway!
I find it so interesting how people had such strong opinions of things like the Bee Gees Disco era at the time, or even the Beatles/Rolling Stones when they first came along. Even something like Bob Dylan going electric and having confrontational audiences the world over in 1966 seems utterly unfathomable to me, when you've got people like Niki Minaj or Lady Gaga topping the charts today in another music video where they wear practically nothing and mumble about being sexually perverse while at the same time speaking out against the sexual objectification of women and it all just seems like a huge act to me, with the music very much sitting in second place to the overall image. I think the reason BritPop happened in such a big way in the UK was because that music was real, and free of the imagery and fakery that had been brought out in the 1980s. But even then, most of us who didn't grow up with the Beatles realised that the Beatles were the key influence and most of the music of the 1960s, and it was still somehow just better than what the likes of Oasis, Coldplay and Blur were coming out with in the 1990s.
I'm not saying all new music is bad by any means, there's a lot that I enjoy. But there isn't the sheer quantity of it that there was in the 1960s. I think it quickly got watered down in the 1970s when a lot of people realised that there was money to be made from music, and the real exploitation of image started happening. I guess the 1960s had an overall innocence which is what people like so much about the music. Even though 99% of the artists were being screwed over by their record labels, they were all in the same boat and to a degree, none the wiser as to what was going on. The focus was on making the next new sound, the next big single, make it bigger, better and more memorable than the last one. Micky Most was right with his comment to the Hollies about remaining in their segment of the dartboard, but how great was it that so many artists in the 1960s refused to acknowledge that this ubiquitous dartboard even existed. It allowed the Beatles to evolve from the lightweight of 'From Me To You' or 'Love Me Do' to the artistry of 'Sgt. Pepper' in just five years, or the Who from 'Substitute' to 'Tommy' in a similar time frame. Even the Hollies went from 'Just One Look' to 'He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother' in the same timeframe. It was a time for rapid growth and fast change, which must have been the most thrilling thing to be in the middle of. Not like today where you can wait for up to four years between albums now!
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