General Music Chat

In a Facebook discussion I was having I realized that there are a number of albums I loved in high school (40+ years ago) that I find boring or actively irritating now. A lot of if is guitar wanker music. Some of it is just testosterone loaded excess. But all of it just feels, well, tired now.

This is an interesting thing to me.

Examples:
Montrose - I think Rock Candy might be the best example of a song with a killer opening riff which ultimately just lays there like a rotting corpse. The rest of the album I tune out instantly.

Boston - I begged my mother to get me that album for Christmas. I try to listen to it now and lose interest a few measures into any given song on the album.

Grand Funk Railroad - This is more about particular songs because there is still some of their music I like, but We're An American Band is a song I could go forever never hearing again and I'd be okay with it.

BTO - Just awful. What did I ever see in them?

On the other hand, there's a bunch of disco stuff I dismissed as unworthy at the time that I've realized is actually better music on a lot of levels. Also, I still love Steppenwolf 7, Black Sabbath Vol 4 (and Paranoid, and Masters of Reality and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath), Jethro Tull's Passion Play and pretty much every Led Zeppelin album ever. Also, Heart put out some decent albums, but nothing to compare with their first album.

Changing tastes is to be expected, I suppose, but it feels like it's been oddly selective in my case.

In a Facebook discussion I was having I realized that there are a number of albums I loved in high school (40+ years ago) that I find boring or actively irritating now. A lot of if is guitar wanker music. Some of it is just testosterone loaded excess. But all of it just feels, well, tired now.

This is an interesting thing to me.

Examples:
Montrose - I think Rock Candy might be the best example of a song with a killer opening riff which ultimately just lays there like a rotting corpse. The rest of the album I tune out instantly.

Boston - I begged my mother to get me that album for Christmas. I try to listen to it now and lose interest a few measures into any given song on the album.

Grand Funk Railroad - This is more about particular songs because there is still some of their music I like, but We're An American Band is a song I could go forever never hearing again and I'd be okay with it.

BTO - Just awful. What did I ever see in them?

On the other hand, there's a bunch of disco stuff I dismissed as unworthy at the time that I've realized is actually better music on a lot of levels. Also, I still love Steppenwolf 7, Black Sabbath Vol 4 (and Paranoid, and Masters of Reality and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath), Jethro Tull's Passion Play and pretty much every Led Zeppelin album ever. Also, Heart put out some decent albums, but nothing to compare with their first album.

Changing tastes is to be expected, I suppose, but it feels like it's been oddly selective in my case.

Thank you for posting a musical thread that might be good fodder for some interesting discussion. As it happens, on my way to band practice last night, I was listening to an old live recording of "The Dirty Angels" that i recorded (onto cassette) off the radio back around '75 or so off of WLIR...a great, and sadly long gone, non commercial station from Long Island that really played the deep album cuts. They had great on air DJs that were both very funny and knowledgeable about the music they played.

The show was being broadcast live from My Father's Place in Roslyn, NY. Great place to see concerts back in the day. Anyway the band is introduce by Pam Murly, a WLIR DJ and they proceed to kill it with about 40 min of great power pop and balls to the wall rock and wall.

Anyway...the timing of your post is kinda funny because as i was listening I was thinking about how all these yrs later....that really stills get my ankles hard and stood the test of time.

There are some exceptions.....some things i used to dig back in the day that don't quite hold up for me...but by and large, I guess most of the older stuff that resonated w me does still.

Interesting topic.

Bored by Montrose? Try changing out your meds!

Talbot

I sure never cared for the Montrose album, but I dug the hell out of BTO, but not anymore (even tho Randy Bachman inducting Neil Young into the Canadian "Hall of Fame" was real good. Boston on the other hand I played that album so many times in the day that I never listen to it now, but I could say that about Darkside of the Moon, 2112, Machine Head, and others. There was so much good music back then that I can still find good stuff from that era today. Was on a Zappa kick in the 90s, but currently like that acid rock from the late 60s, I love the sound of those lead guitars.

If you listen(ed) to classic rock FM radio for any part of the last 20 years, then its easy to understand getting sick of Boston and BTO - overplayed overplayed overplayed - and still getting air time.
Same thing for a lot of other music that came out of that time.

Boston on the other hand I played that album so many times in the day that I never listen to it now, but I could say that about Darkside of the Moon, 2112, Machine Head, and others.

Sure. There are a lot of albums that I don't really get around to listening to anymore. I'd bet a few of them would not appeal to me if I tried to listen to them now. But I happened to listen to Machine Head recently and was pleasantly surprised to find how well it's held up for me. Smoke On The Water is actually a decent song. Not amazing, but it hasn't gotten as hackneyed as I would have expected from the thousands of bad covers. Lazy is still my favorite song on the album, though, and always was.

If you listen(ed) to classic rock FM radio for any part of the last 20 years, then its easy to understand getting sick of Boston and BTO

Yep. That's certainly a factor. I still like some of The Scorpions stuff, but I can't stand Rock Me Like A Hurricane. Play another Scorpions song, people, please. Any of them would do.

you know what's so great and hard to get right on Smoke On the Water and the reason the original album version will always own.... it's the way they panned guitar to one channel and organ to the other and Blackmore and Lord knew exactly when they should play the main riff together and when they should add solos and embellishments. never heard that from anyone else.

Actually Blackmore and Lord had some enmity between them - it was always a fight on who would get a lead part in any song (which is why many of their songs have both organ and guitar leads).
Blackmore was never comfortable playing in front of crowds. When I saw them in 72, he spent a lot of stage time facing Ian Paice, the drummer, rather than the audience.

The enmity between Blackmore and Lord is legendary. I wonder, though, if that tension isn't where some of the greatness of the band came from.

More bands that haven't held up for me:

Credence Clearwater Revival - Hackneyed.

Cheap Trick - I saw these guys in concert in the early 80's and loved them then. Their music is actively irritating now.


Bands that have held up and grown stronger for me:

Pink Floyd - No particular song or album stands out as The One True Pink Floyd Song for me and I think that might be part of why I still like them.

Aerosmith - I dunno. I just like 'em.

Tom Petty - He was massively boring in concert the one time I saw him (at least partially because he was obviously massively bored), but I still really enjoy his music. And his Buried Treasure show on SiriusXM was gold. I'm seriously sad about his passing.

And to respond to an earlier comment: Yes, it's true. I remember finding Montrose much more interesting to listen to when I was completely baked. So maybe I just need more drugs to appreciate them?

Deep Purple was solid at every position, Ian Pace and Roger Glover way underrated, to me Blackmores abilities speak for themselves (I think he's even underrated), and Ian Gilliam was a tremendous singer I always thought Lord was the weak link in the group.

I buy and sell a lot of CDs and that CCR Chronicle CD will sell as soon as I put it out and its everywhere. I play with my grandsons band and we do a version of the scorpions song "Wok you up some beef chow mein"

I saw Montrose at Alex Cooly's in Atlanta and it did not require drugs. (Although the beer was surely flowing freely through the audience.) The only shows I ever saw that compared to Montrose doing their first album were Zep and the Who.

I confess, I didn't care much for anything else they did subsequently but my brother and I learned darn near every song on that first album - they were just so much fun to crank up.

Talbot

I buy and sell a lot of CDs and that CCR Chronicle CD will sell as soon as I put it out and its everywhere.

Chronicle 2 is where it's at

Boston-

I remember the first time i heard a BOSTON tune and being impressed w Tom Sholz's gtr tone and how he stacked up one after another harmony part to his outro solo....but then he did that same move over and over and it got real old for me.