Before 1976, the '70s were, musically speaking, all about dressing up in sparkly clothes and snorting coke off the ass of a thousand-dollar hooker and then doing one of the following;
- Playing lots of really long guitar solos and singing about Lord of the Rings and castles and King Arthur and gayness, ("Hard Rock/Heavy Metal/Prog Rock")
- Making slick, accessible songs with lots of wah-wah and keyboards and tightly-wound harmony vocals sung by people who sound like a lot of other people, ("Soft Rock/Yacht Rock")
- Growing a beard, digging out the pedal steel guitar and pretending you're from the Deep South ("Country Rock/Roots Rock")
(for the record, a lot of those songs are outright classics. not Wakeman, though. or Poco. or the Stills-Young Band. ugh. *shudder*
or the Eagles; "I fucking hate the Eagles, man" - The Dude, circa the time of our conflict with Saddam and the Iraquis)
or the Eagles; "I fucking hate the Eagles, man" - The Dude, circa the time of our conflict with Saddam and the Iraquis)
Most artists did all three at one point. Everyone had pretty much quit making psychedelic rock by the end of the 1960s, because coke was cheaper than acid or something and, frankly, when you're really fucking stoned, even 20 minute guitar solos with a violin bow sound good, so you don't really need to worry about sitars and shit. Then punk came, and most of the old guard thought "oh SHIT", although Iggy Pop awoke from his heroin slumber long enough to say "I told you so." If you're a fan of fakkin ol paaank rawwk mate, but you consider the music of the previous generation to be pussy-ass hippy garbage, I should urge you to listen to the following albums.
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were writing dirty, nasty songs with sloppy instrumentation even back in the early '60s. In fact, it was more or less the reason for their success; while the pre-drugs Beatles seemed like a bunch of clean cut, nice fellas, the Stones were marketed as the type of guys you should keep away from your daughter! They got arrested for pissing in public, spoke badly of the establishment, took shitloads of amphetamines, snarled a lot, and played the boring melodies of blues with a reckless regard. Naturally, they later embraced gospel, country, folk, soul and so on, and their songwriting talent blossomed.
Some Girls was released in 1978, and came after a series of albums that were considered below-par. Although the disco groove of Miss You is a great song, it's a somewhat inauspicious opening for an album that rocks harder than the brittle rocks our Conservative "Coalition" Government would like to throw at poor people. The title track is awesomely sexist and racist, essentially a two-chord rumination on the various nationalities of girls Mick Jagger likes to fuck ("black girls just want to get fucked all night, I just don't have that much jam"). Respectable is some raucous shit about the "easiest lay on the White House lawn". Shattered is the quintessential Stones-wondering-New-York-being-the-Stones jam. These are songs with energy, and there are even some bwooootiful ballads in there for the ladies, and FUCKING FAGGOT CUNTS like me who like ballads.
While his erstwhile bandmate Stephen Stills rounded out the '70s sucking dick for coke, Neil Young was always too much of a cynical asshole ever to be a naive hippy or a jacuzzi-bound soft-rock bedwetter (that said, his records from his blandest, yet still great, era of 1970-72 are the ones that he seems to be most commonly associated with) and when he fronts the gloriously bad musicianship of Crazy Horse, he generally goes from triumph to triumph. Although I personally favour his classic 1974 "I'm rich and stoned yet I feel alone in the universe" LP On The Beach, there is an argument to be put forward that Rust Never Sleeps is the greatest ever of these numerous triumphs.
Perhaps on a punk rock blog it would be best to dwell on the second, electric side. Powderfinger is an amazing 10/10 classic of a song. Sedan Delivery and Welfare Mothers are probably the closest the divisive and diverse artist has ever come to straight-up-punk, with a sublimely boneheaded approach to playing and great lyrics. And, of course, Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black). An electric version of the song that opens the album, it's a (OK I'M GETTING REALLY PRETENTIOUS HERE, DON'T LEAVE ME) paen to the power of rock 'n' roll music with a Johnny Rotten namecheck, a guitar sound like a leaden-weighted chainsaw through the head, and a door slamming for additional percussive effect. I'm leaving my summary of side one brief because it's not really relevant to the article, but there's no bullshit about its five, brilliant, wonderful, amazing space-folk jamz. Oh, and he recorded it all live, so no bullshit. Check out this album if you like music!
John Cale played bass, piano and cello in the Velvet Underground which, as anyone who's heard White Light/White Heat knows, means he had a resounding influence on the Punk Rock scene, if by accident. His Animal Justice EP is great. I can't be assed to do a massive blurb for any more of these but fuck this shit is off the chain. Check out Chickenshit, the tale of when he bit off a Chicken's head onstage and his vegetarian band quit in protest. His Sabotage/Live record is also rad as fuck.
All came out in '77. All pretty amazing. Iggy invented punk, though so, he knows where it's at.
Artists who did not fare so well;
- Bob Dylan - made a bland studio album, a bland live album, and then became a Christian, which is pretty funny.
- Eric Clapton - Failed to repeat the enjoyable trick of 461 Ocean Boulevard. Never made a good album again. Is there really any point in this guy making music anymore? All this shit about musical purity of the blues is really faintly masking the one of the biggest hacks in rock.
- Various Beatles - Ringo is just...Ringo. John made an album in '80 then got shot. Paul didn't make a good album til 1997. George was just pretty quiet.
- Grateful Dead - OK, their '77 tour was pretty sick in part, but the Dead really ran out of steam around this time.
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