Why did rock critics in the early ’90s get paid to write stuff like this: Pil – That What Is Not Mighty fine Survivor album. Really awful PIL album. It sounds like Lydon listened to every Boston album in preparation. To think, the man who once sang “no future” apparently wants you to come sail […]
Category: Editorials
The Crown That Fell: How Two Tragedies Created the Miles Davis Era
Did the early back-to-back deaths of Charlie Parker and Clifford Brown open a power vacuum in jazz that allowed Miles, Coltrane, and Monk to emerges as the top three? Would Bird have been the dominant force, joined at the top by Brown, or would they have slid from prominence like Dizzy? This is a great […]
From Mellotron to Minimal: A Keyboard Generation Gap
What would Jon Lord, Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman, Rod Argent, Manfred Mann, Tony Banks, Tony Kaye, John Tout, Kerry Minnear, Vince Crane, Peter Bardens, John Evan, and Richard Wright think of Dave Greenfield, Barry Andrews, Jimmy Destri, Billy Currie, Johnny Fingers, Jools Holland, Greg Hawkes, Allen Ravestine, Steve Nieve, Eddie Rayner, Gary Numan, Dave Formula, […]
Punk vs. Beat: UK’s Twin Revolutions
Thought experiment: correlate each class of ’77 UK punk/new wave act to their class of ’64 British beat antecedent (or correlate the ’64 beat act to their ’77 doppelganger). I offered ten comparisons for consideration (A–J). Explore the parallels and similarities that distinguished each pair from their respective kin. Class of ’64 vs. Class of […]
From Beatlemania to MTV: The British Invasions
Everyone knows the first British Invasion of 1964, spearheaded by The Beatles and codified as a movement by The Dave Clark Five. They opened the US charts to UK acts that ranged from Mersey-lite Northerners (Gerry & The Pacemakers, Herman’s Hermits, The Hollies, The Searchers, Freddie & The Dreamers) to rough/edgy Londoners (The Rolling Stones, […]
From Beat to Suite: How 7 Psychedelic Albums Predicted Prog Rock
What did each of these albums bring to the table in rock’s transformation from Beat through psychedelia and the subsequent emergence of suite-driven symphonic progressive (Genesis, ELP, Yes) and orchestral pop (ELO, Alan Parsons Project, Klaatu). The period from 1966 to 1968 was a pivotal moment in rock history, as the “Beat” era of three-minute […]
Rolling Stone ’77: The Boomer Blindspot
In November 1977, Rolling Stone magazine produced a TV special in celebration of its 10th anniversary. The two-hour special — a mix of silly music skits and shock value segments — was a missed opportunity for the publication and its audience. The program conveyed no understanding of rock’s infinite potential as a global creative force. […]
Glam: The Label That Misled a Decade
The term “glam,” while seemingly evocative, has become a musically incoherent concept that has done more to obfuscate than clarify our understanding of the 1970s. Its oversimplified application in rock history, particularly within a generalist mindset that often reduces the entire decade to a “glam/punk” binary, functions as a reductive drive-by canard. This approach minimizes […]
There’s Only Three Types of Rock: Foundational, Maximal, and Minimal
Debates about defining “progressive rock” (prog) often miss the larger picture. With easy access to vast online music databases and file-sharing, our understanding of music from the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s has broadened. This has revealed that much of the music from the British Isles, Europe, Oceania, the Far East, and the Western Hemisphere during […]
Psych/Prog/Glam/Punk and the Revolutionary Replacement Principle
There have always been raw vs refined contrasts on the music scene. Why did punk’s arrival signal an “only one thing at a time” framework? From Coexistence to Conflict: How Musical Styles Clash and Why Punk Demanded a Choice The history of popular music is replete with contrasting styles, from the raw energy of blues […]
The Timeless Sound: When Prog Meets New Wave in the Minds of Today’s Youth
What’s the likelihood that a 16-year-old freshly delving into old music and styles would confuse/mix post-hippie 1971 fashion and 1981 new romantic fashion and lump the music of ELP, Gary Numan, Atomic Rooster, and Spandau Ballet into one category, thinking the organ on “Tank” sounds just like the synth on “Cars”? Part I. The Great […]