Rock exploded in 1971?

[Milestones]

The title refers to a book by David Hepworth:

Never a Dull Moment: 1971, The Year Rock Exploded.

His dubious thesis is that this was simply THE greatest year in rock history.  A very good year, for sure, but the very best?  The man has a list of 100 great rock albums from 1971, and I imagine there would be agreement on Who's Next, Sticky Fingers, and possibly Tapestry (not that we usually think of Carole King as rock). For those into Progressive Rock, you have The Yes Album and Aqualung.  But otherwise, nothing from Bob Dylan and nowhere near the best work from Van Morrison, CCR, and David Bowie. And why are there albums by Barbara Streisand, Dory Previn, and Dolly Parton?

Rock journalism (if such this is, and the author is described as a journalist) just seems mighty personal and subjective anymore.

 

[felser]

I saw that book in a Barnes & Noble some months ago, gave it a lookover, and rejected it.  The book seemed sort of creepy to me.  1971 was a very good year for rock music, but so was 1972 and 1970, and 1964-1969.  The year rock really exploded was 1965.  1971's prime movement was "singer-songwriter", and that really was in swing from 1970 with "Sweet Baby James" and "If You Could Read My Mind".  "Tapestry" is undoubtedly a great album, as are the others mentioned in the previous post, plus the magnficent "Allman Brothers Live at the Fillmore West" and Rod Stewart's great "Every Picture Tells a Story" but similar highlights can be found from any of the other years back then.  1971 was a very good year for AM Top 40 music also, but I doubt that factors into the author's thesis.

Edited June 3, 2019 by felser

[sambrasa]

3 hours ago, Captain Howdy said:

Reminds me of comments you see on Youtube. Under a video of a popular song from the 70s you'll see a bunch of absurdly nostalgic comments claiming that the 70s was the golden age and its music was the best ever. Under a video of a popular song from the 80s you'll see a bunch of absurdly nostalgic comments claiming that the 80s was the golden age and its music was the best ever. Under a video of a popular song from the 90s you'll see a bunch of absurdly nostalgic comments claiming that the 90s was the golden age and its music was the best ever.

But those voting for 80's or 90's are just idiots or trolls.

[Steve Gray]

32 minutes ago, sambrasa said:

But those voting for 80's or 90's are just idiots or trolls.

 

No, they are just 10 or 20 years younger than the ones voting for the 70s

[Brad]

Sticky Fingers isn’t even one of my favorite RS albums — I will play many others before I pick that one — so 1971 wouldn’t be the best year. 

[Milestones]

The author does say that people tend to favor the music that really hits them when they are teens or young adults.  It's the music that speaks to you "when you feel most alive."  in Hepworth's case he was 21 in 1971.  But he says that there is a difference, and that difference is simply that he is "right" about 1971.  Geez. 

In objective terms, I think you'd have to pick something between 1964 and 1969, if one has to choose a year. The work there is more important, more innovative, and more enduring than all but a handful of works from 1971. 

Such a debate, no what type of music, is somewhat problematic.  But I think you have to favor the peak years of The Beatles, The Stones, and Dylan--just as in jazz you'd favor the peak years of Miles, Trane, and Monk.

 

  

 

 

Edited June 3, 2019 by Milestones

[Dan Gould]

17 minutes ago, Milestones said:

The author does say that people tend to favor the music that really hits them when they are teens or young adults.  It's the music that speaks to you "when you feel most alive." 

 

  

 

 

Its certainly true  - and so I nominate 1978, for Bob Seger's Stranger in Town as the Greatest Year in rock history, for "Old Time Rock 'n Roll".

And I nominate whatever year Risky Business came out as the worst year.

Same reason.

[Milestones]

I have to say Sticky Fingers is a mighty fine album, probably my favorite Stones record.

Still, rock peaked in the 1960s.  

 

[Big Beat Steve]

1 hour ago, Milestones said:

Such a debate, no what type of music, is somewhat problematic.  But I think you have to favor the peak years of The Beatles, The Stones, and Dylan--just as in jazz you'd favor the peak years of Miles, Trane, and Monk.

Says who?

This is rather a hindsight-ish approach IMO for those for whom jazz started with hard bop.

In terms of widespread appeal (or "in-crowd" impact just as much) you might just as well be able to justify naming this or that year where Armstrong, Goodman or Diz and Bird (to name just a few) made a major impact on how jazz evolved from THERE.
All subjective, as was to be expected.

At any rate, picking 1971 as towering that sky-high above other years in the evolution of rock is nonsense IMHO.

Edited June 3, 2019 by Big Beat Steve

[Brad]

41 minutes ago, Captain Howdy said:

The only album better than Sticky is Exile. 

I’d disagree. Nothing better than Aftermath or Between the Buttons. Of course, everybody has their favorites. 

[felser]

11 minutes ago, Captain Howdy said:

The DSM 5 cites failure to recognize Exile on Main Street as the greatest rock & roll album ever recorded as proof of insanity. 

Call me crazy, but...

[Big Beat Steve]

22 minutes ago, Captain Howdy said:

The DSM 5 cites failure to recognize Exile on Main Street as the greatest rock & roll album ever recorded as proof of insanity. 

Rock. No roll. That (i.e. R'n'R) was dead by then.

Edited June 3, 2019 by Big Beat Steve

[medjuck]

Richard Williams on 1965:

https://thebluemoment.com/?s=1965

[Big Beat Steve]

51 minutes ago, Captain Howdy said:

I thought about that, but surely the two terms remain synonymous. If you google "rock and roll" you get Led Zeppelin "Rock and Roll" 1971, KISS, Rock and Roll Over, 1976, San Diego's Rock and Roll Marathon, the Rolling Stones's ‘Rock and Roll Circus' 1968, etc. 

I know (and in the end it's probably a moot point). It's just that this generalistic U.S. way of using the term "rock'n'roll" makes the hair stand on end for most any diehard EUROPEAN R'n'R fan. To them (us) it's a grave disfiguration and abomination to extend the use of that stylistic descriptor in that manner (never mind latter-day attempts at appropriating the term by johnny-come-lately acts). R'n'R had died (or rather, had abated - some say it died in 1960 when Eddie Cochran had that fatal accident) by the time the British invasion started hitting the USA. Exception granted for some mid-60s garage r'n'r (garage punk) where the attitude remained there but what came afterwards was just "rock" (hard rock, psychedelic rock, folk rock, krautrock, art rock, even punk rock, whatever ... )

 

Edited June 3, 2019 by Big Beat Steve

[Milestones]

So rock 'n roll is a very specific form and had died about 1960?  Even early Beatles were not rock 'n roll?

I know the term "rock" incorporates a very wide swath, but Streisand and Parton?

 

Big Beat Steven, your comments are appreciated, but I would maintain that the earliest pioneering figures in most fields of music are not the ones held in greatest esteem or listened to the most. To most listeners, Chuck Berry is a bit lower than the Beatles--even if certain elements of The Beatles were impossible but for Berry.

The greatness of Armstrong, Ellington, Lester Young, Hawk, Bird...are beyond dispute.  But how much are they really listened to now?  Do they receive the tribute albums and concerts?  Do they receive oodles of scholarly analysis?  Are their songs being downloaded in big numbers?

The tendency is to have the pioneering figures, then the greatest artists, then some shifting to the avant garde, then a lot of retro.  You see it in virtually every type of music, as well as in other arts. 

 

 

 

Edited June 3, 2019 by Milestones

[AllenLowe]

I prefer the years 1954-1970, and actually wrote a book about it.

[felser]

Just now, AllenLowe said:

I prefer the years 1954-1970, and actually wrote a book about it.

Allen, serious question.  What makes 1970 the cut off?  I can actually make an argument for 1972 being the cutoff, but not 1970.

[JSngry]

Around 1971 was around when "the industry" began to get a grip on and develop a strategy about what would actually work - as in, get done and STAY get done - with the post-Beatles "youth culture", instead of just signing anything and anybody.

So yeah, there's your "explosion". If you wanted a towel, you better have brought your own, they sure as hell weren't gonna give you one.

It's funny, though, 1971 was when I stopped listening to pop/rock radio and records altogether. Just lucky, I guess!

[felser]

2 hours ago, Captain Howdy said:

I thought about that, but surely the two terms remain synonymous. If you google "rock and roll" you get Led Zeppelin "Rock and Roll" 1971, KISS, Rock and Roll Over, 1976, San Diego's Rock and Roll Marathon, the Rolling Stones's ‘Rock and Roll Circus' 1968, etc. 

Alternate argument is that "Rock" signified the additional seriousness of the music introduced by Dylan, et al.  Some groups continued to make Rock 'n' Roll, but something like Sgt. Pepper's is rock, and is clearly not Rock 'n' Roll.  I'll take "Chuck Berry's Golden Decade" over Sgt. Pepper's in a heartbeat, but that's a different conversation.  And if you listen to the lyrics to Led Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll" (which I love), it is clearly about music that group was NOT performing:

It's been a long time since I rock and rolled
It's been a long time since I did the Stroll
Oh let me get it back let me get it back
Let me get it back baby where I come from

4 minutes ago, JSngry said:

1971 was when I stopped listening to pop/rock radio and records altogether. Just lucky, I guess!

Yes and no, but you can certainly claim diminishing returns from that point on.

Then there's this monstrosity, recorded in 1971.  Words that want to be serious (which makes it "rock"), written by 19 year old Dewey Bunnell, but they are so bad in some ways that they seem like a satire of the whole sensitivity movement of the time (which makes them 1960's Mothers of Invention), they are good/bad but not evil (for anyone familiar with that reference) and yet it's got this great tune that overcomes the words and makes the whole thing totally irresistible (which makes it "rock n roll").  And it is on Warner Bros. and goes to #1 in early 1972.  I've long dreamed of doing a poetry reading of it.

On the first part of the journey
I was looking at all the life
There were plants and birds and rocks and things
There was sand and hills and rings
The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz
And the sky with no clouds
The heat was hot and the ground was dry
But the air was full of sound

I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain
La, la

After two days in the desert sun
My skin began to turn red
After three days in the desert fun
I was looking at a river bed
And the story it told of a river that flowed
Made me sad to think it was dead

You see I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain
La, la

After nine days I let the horse run free
'Cause the desert had turned to sea
There were plants and birds and rocks and things
there was sand and hills and rings
The ocean is a desert with it's life underground
And a perfect disguise above
Under the cities lies a heart made of ground
But the humans will give no love

You see I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain
La, la

 

 

[JSngry]

18 minutes ago, felser said:

Yes and no, but you can certainly claim diminishing returns from that point on.

Pretty much a hard yes on that one, considering everything I started listening to instead and where all THAT led to (and still leads).

I mean, it was funny, when I became a senior in high school, it was like, oh wow, I'm going to actually get invited to a party or two where there's not just band-clique kids, may be time to try to do some basic "social skill" update. So I turned the rock/top 40 stations back on and was more or less nauseous. turned out that almost anything that was worth a damn was already on the R&B radio and/or in the records that we played in the band hall before and after school. But it was nice to hear what was and wasn't crossing over.

And funnier still, I had a pop/rock "reawakening" of sorts in 1976, a combination of things, really, but there was enough going on for a few years there that having the radio on in other people's worlds was actually fun. Between ear-candy and early punk, that was fun. But not THAT kind of fun. And, as is the nature of pop, it didn't last.

Frankly, I think these types of books are like "oldies radio" - suckers' games aimed at aging people who need to feel that they used to be somebody other than gullible mass consumers. If they looked at where they are now - and especially where they're heading - there would be, like, a mass suicide of incalculable proportions, and then their market would be all gone.

Gotta keep that market going! 1971 - EXPLODE!!!!!!!!

[sgcim]

Completely through my myopic, solipsistic, personal (you get the idea) lens, the only 'explosion' that happened in 1971 in 'rock' music was the release of Judee Sill's self-titled album. 

[felser]

23 minutes ago, JSngry said:

So I turned the rock/top 40 stations back on and was more or less nauseous. turned out that almost anything that was worth a damn was already on the R&B radio and/or in the records that we played in the band hall before and after school.

 

Absolutely agree with that in terms of AM radio in that period, continuing until the new wave/early MTV era.  The good stuff was predominantly the R&B/Soul/(shudder) Disco.    I'm sure we have very different opinions on some of the FM progressive rock from the period.  I love, for instance, "Mother Russia" or "Ashes are Burning" by Renaissance, but realize it's not for everyone in our neighborhood here.  And I freely acknowledge there was a lot of bad progressive rock then.  Fleetwood Mac 'Rumours' is great, but it was understood even then that it was head, shoulders, chest, and stomach above the competition.

[JSngry]

Grand Funk Railroad was pretty much a hard stop for me. Zepplin already was making me question things, but THOSE guys, I had heard We're Only In It For The Money, like a few months after GFR, and I was like, oh, ok, I see how THIS is gonna go...

What was REALLY funny though, was that there was a local "Muzak" FM station that leaned heavily on standards, and sometimes with a little "jazz"" spin on some of them. I would listen to that station to get a greater familiarity with the songs I was hearing a lot of jazz people play. Looking back, playing Ayler on the record player in my room and hearing Jackie Gleason on the portable FM in the bathroom and then "Funky Worm" or something on the AM soul station all in any given day...who the hell needed, much less WANTED to hear Grand Funk Railroad? Not me!

Also - when the clunky 4/4 piano took over and the tempos slowed down...between that and all the thuddy guitar-pillar fascism, it was almost like they were inviting me to leave. So I did!

[AllenLowe]

1 hour ago, felser said:

Allen, serious question.  What makes 1970 the cut off?  I can actually make an argument for 1972 being the cutoff, but not 1970.

for me it was mainly the feeling that the bands I was looking at, as having illustrated the feeling of the '60s, pretty much did their best work by then. It doesn't mean I think that what came after wasn't worthwhile; it was just, to me, a different era.

[felser]

4 hours ago, AllenLowe said:

for me it was mainly the feeling that the bands I was looking at, as having illustrated the feeling of the '60s, pretty much did their best work by then. It doesn't mean I think that what came after wasn't worthwhile; it was just, to me, a different era.

No greater proof than this drop off the cliff:

1969

1971, 1972