Reflections on a classic time

[scooterbird]

My sister recently asked me to burn her an album of songs which might be popular around the time of the Vietnam War, and generally iconic of that time and those circumstances. So I futzed around in my collection and found some songs which I thought of as emblematic of the time: psychedelia, soul, soft pop, and straight ahead rock 'n' roll, with

Comments

[bluetara2020]

ok, but you are choosing what you see as a good/best selection for the second list, yes? now I know that some of those songs were not popular when they first came out. and some of the songs that were...were not good. at all.

a lot of what ends up as popular is not good by any stretch of the imagination. now, if I created a list of songs popular today as representative of our time, they would be much better...

[scooterbird]

Hey, I would like to hear that.

[bluetara2020]

Hmm...do you want commentary on them as well?

Also, and I should mention this, there are some anti-war etc songs out there right now.

The problem is that censorship is alive and well...and criticizing someone for things that they are doing now is...less than safe, in some cases. But drawing parallels to other conflicts or mentioning it in a historical context gives you plausible deniability.

[scooterbird]

Well aware of all of this. I don't think assembling a CD of songs is likely to trigger any of it, though.

[papertigers]

I agree with bluetara2020 that you stacked the decks; a list of songs you like vs. a list of merely popular songs is always going to win. I can't tell if the second list is better than the first, though, since I don't know most of the songs on either.

[scooterbird]

Eh. I do admit as much, in a way, but the contrast is still amazing, and far more than that would suggest. Of the old songs I list, the one that really didn't do anything when it was released was "Break On Through". ("Share the Land" also was considered a disappointment when released.)

efbq is also giving me shit about this...I mean, yes, I could make up a list of stuff I like from 2004-2007 and it would be good, and I could go digging and put "Eve of Destruction" and Jay and the Americans on the list and such. That's not the point. There are two points here: first, that if you look at music in 1965 and in 1970, it changed dramatically for the better, and that was due to some amazing artists at work and songs being crafted in a very short time. I'd hold this period over any other since as being that way...the most significant period of its kind in popular music

[papertigers]

Those were the "merely popular" songs. Same deal, right?

now you're asking the wrong daughter; I don't like the Beatles or the Stones. ;) ask the other one when she's back from Serbia. :-P I was unequally unfond of the top 5 from your first list, though; the only thing there I'd even heard was "Bring Me To Life" (which I do like).

[scooterbird]

Pfeh. btw, did you want a copy of the oldies CD to listen to? (A perfectly legal, not ripped at all, nosirreebob, copy, o' course, as this is a public post.)

Kid-1, btw, has taken to putting Beatles on her iPod. No prompting from me. Gloat, gloat, proud, proud.

[thirdbase]

was hanging out with some college kids, one of whom commented "Now no one is going to forget how to spell bananas!"

I looked at him and said "Were you worried that you were going to forget how to spell bananas?"

He didn't have anything to add. I worry about the next generation, probably the same way the previous generation worried about me.

Yeah, even the bad stuff was good. And don't feel bad about Paul Revere and the Raiders.

[thirdbase]

Funny part - I know I have heard 2 songs from the top list - I may have heard others and don't know it.

There maybe be 3-4 songs on the second list that I don't know most of the words to... Way to go Dad for raising me right :)

[scooterbird]

I've heard most of the songs on the first list. And frankly, some of them are in fact good. RHCP is still putting out good music. I liked Tunstall when I first heard her, "Crazy" isn't Gnarls Barkley's best song...I will even admit that Coldplay are quite talented, more so than other "popular" acts, though I'm not necessarily a fan.

kakistocracy turned me on to Sloan recently, and so far I like what I hear. The Tragically Hip have been making great music for years.

It is just easier for me to miss now. I'm trying to catch up on the fact that the Apples in Stereo have been making good music for years. Before that, I discovered that I'd completely missed the Chesterfield Kings...okay, okay, they both have retro sounds, but it's still damned good music, and is not and will not be on the radio, ever.

[chickenhat]

Ummm, the modern list isn't working for me.

You have no Linkin Park on the modern list (put away your distaste, they've gotten craploads of radio play) and the mash-up with Jay-Z would fit right in, and I would have picked "Hold On" instead for Tunstall.

Also, you could probably go 2003-2007 as a proto-study for the Iraq War, as if you were a kid doing this project in 2044.

Not bad, actually you managed a stunning list, for the 60's playlist, especially keeping in "Kicks", but I would have picked a more representative S&G like the 59th St Bridge Song instead. I'd be tempted to say limit the Bob Dylan, but he was SO much a part of that time period. However, you have a 3rd song of his with Watchtower, so... tough call. I'd replace one of them with California Dreamin' (Mamas and the Papas, '63)

[scooterbird]

Any of those are possible, I suppose. The current war really doesn't have any iconic music, which is to say that it isn't as much of the cultural landscape as Vietnam was, sadly. (For the fingerprints on that knife, go dust Cheney, Rove, and the MSM.)

Putting Linkin Park on the current list would only prove my point more. The only thing I think gets on the list as a result of the current (illegal, immoral, unjust) war would be "Fire Water Burn" by the Bloodhound Gang.

[degreeabsolute]

I call shenanigans. "Fire Water Burn" was released on BHG's One Fierce Beer Coaster album, which came out in 1996.

I think the major skewing between the two lists occurs with how the modern list is really based around "pop radio", with its emphasis on Urban/R&B and dance-pop, whereas a lot of the material on the Nam list is FM rock material---not quite the absolute mainstream. If you shortened the length of time of the Nam list (Eight years vs. four?!) and included things like the garage-rock revival (White Stripes, Strokes, Hives) or even more pop-rock hits of the current era ("Take Me Out," "Somebody Told Me"), let alone underground sounds like backpacker hip-hop or quirky stuff like The Magnetic Fields, you'd have lists that you could actually consider looking at as representative of comparable eras.

[scooterbird]

Oops on Bloodhound Gang. Hey, gotta be better than anything by Toby Keith.

I don't think that's quite a fair assessment. The 60s stuff wasn't "FM rock" when it was made, except possibly for the Doors or Donovan. That was indeed counterculture then. The rest was standard fare for the top-40 set. True that the divergence began about then, but it wasn't huge; even the Doors were on the Mike Douglas Show.