You're confusing pop music & crap music. Choose your decade.

[u1970 No 1s[/u

Marmalade

Edison Lighthouse

The Jackson 5

Simon & Garfunkel

Norman Greenbaum

England World Cup Squad "70"

Christie

Mungo Jerry

Free

Elvis Presley

Smokey Robinson and The Miracles

Freda Payne

Deep Purple

Matthews' Southern Comfort

Don Fardon

Dave Edmunds's Rockpile

McGuinness Flint

[u1985 No 1s[/u

Foreigner

Elaine Paige and Barbara Dickson

Dead or Alive

Philip Bailey (duet with Phil Collins)

USA for Africa

Phyllis Nelson

Paul Hardcastle

The Crowd

Sister Sledge

Eurythmics

Madonna

UB40 and Chrissie Hynde

David Bowie and Mick Jagger

Midge Ure

Jennifer Rush

Feargal Sharkey

Wham!

Whitney Houston

Shakin' Stevens

I don't quite know what point you're making, but if this is it, then i wouldn't say any decade has a significantly bigger or smaller proportion of crap to avergae to good to classic music - especially when it comes to the singles charts. Your lists don't seem to be what you claim, those were not the No. 1s of those years. (I have an mp3 collection of every no. 1 single since the 50s when they officially began)

Anyhoo, and on the basis I dunno if you're saying they're good or bad, and on the basis that I just can't resist music threads, being obsessed with it as I am:

Marmalade -
Great band. I hated and still hate Ob-la-di although it's a BEatles song, but Reflections remains one of my all-time favourite tracks. Proper muzos all of 'em, did the tours with some of the greats, fine band.

Edison Lighthouse
Ah but no such group, really. or a 1 hit wonder some may think. In fact, an extremely catchy and infectious perfect pop tune of its day, i still like "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes", it has aged well. But the lead vocal sells the song, and looking it up, I see it was a professional singer called Tony Burrows, and they list a number of hits he had under different names including White Plains, The Pipkins and First Class. In fairness this was the best one.

The Jackson 5
Absolute class. One of the best groups of all time.

Simon & Garfunkel
Absolute class. One of the best - if not the best - singer/songwriter duos of all time.

Norman Greenbaum
Spirit In The Sky - Another one of my all time favourite records, despite the dodgy lyrics. He wrote it as well as singing it.

Christie
Yellow River is another really classy pop song.

Mungo Jerry
in The Summertime? Sheer genius.

Free
Bow down.

Elvis Presley
No commentary needed

Smokey Robinson and The Miracles
Bow down in the presence of one of the all-time great voices

Freda Payne
Band Of Gold remains another of my all time favourites

Deep Purple
Rock geniuses, Gillan and Blackmore, and later the superb voicals of Coverdale, are hard to beat.

Matthews' Southern Comfort
Woodstock is a superb track, which was written by one of my idols Joni Mitchell, and only came about because she was touring and so couldn't play Woodstock (as it turned out, she could have made it) and she bitterly regretted it. Genius piece of music, all the more so if you understand what Woodstock was.

Dave Edmunds's Rockpile
One of my rock guitar heroes, top writer too. (But did Rockpile ever have a no. 1 hit?? I remember the excellent "I Hear You Knocking" but don't think it was a no. 1)

McGuinness Flint
Proper muzos, "When I'm Dead and Gone" is one of my favourite singles, has stood the test of time


[u1985 No 1s[/u

Foreigner
Pretty legendary band, not really my cup of tea but some occasional memorable and listenable singles interspersed with a mammoth career.

Elaine Paige and Barbara Dickson
What you're really saying is Lloyd-Webber. He picked Paige, and she was OK, if not the greatest singer, but he worte her some great songs. Always loved Barbara Dickson's voice, and "I Know Him So Well" is a fine pop song.

Dead or Alive
A working title for a Stock/Aitken/Waterman project but "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" is a classic track and you've got to give Pete Burns credit for being a proper muzo.

Philip Bailey (duet with Phil Collins)
"Easy Lover" - not that great a record for me, and I'm not that big a Collins fan either (but he did found Genesis) but Bailey was a top class vocalist and RnB man, his distinctive voice is what you hear on the best Earth Wind n Fire tracks. Class.

Phyllis Nelson
"Move Closer" is a very good, listenable record. One hit wonder (but she did write it too)

Paul Hardcastle
Proper muzo. You mean "19"? Credit to the guy for getting a Vietnam protest song to the top of the UK charts. More a composer really, but how can you knock (if you are) the guy who wrote the theme to Top Of The Pops?

The Crowd
No comment is required for a one off supergroup formed specifically to raise money for Bradford City Fire victims., except Bravo. Not really relevant to the charts thread.

Sister Sledge
"We Are Family"? Awful

Eurythmics
Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart, both musical geniuses.

Madonna
No commentary required

UB40 and Chrissie Hynde
Or here

David Bowie and Mick Jagger
Or here

Midge Ure
Had a load of singles in the 80s. Do you mean "If I Was"? Not bad, not really my cup of tea, but another proper muzo with proper pop and music credentials if a bit pretentious at times.

Jennifer Rush
"The Power Of Love" - one hit wonder in Uk terms, not a bad voice, but god how that tune now grates on my ears. Still she recorded many singles and albums for decades, so a pro vocalist. Don't know much about any of the rest of it, though.

Feargal Sharkey
Voice a bit of an acquired taste, "A Good Heart" (which I presume you mean) is quite a listenable track if not great

Wham!
Genius. End of.

Whitney Houston
One of the great voices. End of.

Shakin' Stevens
Hate and detest. But tbf a time-served rock n roller. But not my cup of tea.

Now, what was your point again? I haven't got a clue if I've addressed it. It is something of a random choice of tracks to be honest, and you missed a million better ones out.

My point is that pop music, or chart music, in the late 60s/early 70s was quality, some absolute all time classics of all time there mate. From the early 80s it went from bad to worse.
About every one of the 1970 songs is a great pop song, I even like the England WC song as a kid, by great artists, as you state.
From 85 they are mostly godwaful songs, whether musically talented artists or not. There is not one song on there that if it came on the radio I would take notice, with the possible exception of the Eurythmics. I loved the Pretenders but Campbell's whiney voice with UB40 put me off that one. Bowie & Jagger are 2 of my heroes but a tame song for a worthy cause.
Collins didn't found Genesis, he was there from fairly early, but destroyed them after Gabriel left. No wonder his wife left him, miserable git.

Not like you to slip up!

Collins joined in 1970 as drummer - their fourth, IIRC. Genesis was founded by Peter Gabriel and Tony Banks while at Charterhouse posh School, I think joined by Michael Rutherford and Anthony Phillips from the same school and the first of the drummers whose name I never remember. He took over as singer in 1974 (?) when Gabriel left, although he had been doing much of the backing vocals anyway, as you can see if you watch some of the Gabriel-era live stuff on that video-sharing channel.

I'd subscribe to maybe about 70% of your analyses otherwise. Fekking loathed and detested Mungo Gerry at the time, and have never liked Elvis. Deep Purple, Free, S&G & prob. Rockpile, plus "Woodstock" for me from "1970". Eurythmics, Madonna, Chrissie Hynde from "1985" plus quite a few of the rest listenable. Loathe Shakin' Stevens. Jury still out on UB40. Bowie and Jagger of course bestride a couple of generation as musical collossi, and five of the first eight albumns I ever bought (around 1973) were by David Bowie (the other three were Goodbye Yellow brick Road, Dark Side of the Moon and Close to the Edge).

As you were...

Disagree. Changed them. Or rather, they collectively changed. You could certainly tell the Gabriel influence dropping out in the songwriting, but Banks continued the style (and remained the dominant influence) for some time after, I thought?

For me, the first few post-Gabriel albums were still pretty damn good, and represented a second period. I felt the direction really changed after Steve Hackett left, and his guitar style (which was a key part of the Genesis "sound", albeit usually playing second fiddle to Banks' keyboards) was superseded by Rutherfords pretty ordinary boring non-style on their subsequent material (although "And then there were three" was for me the last of the albums with any of the the "original" sound. Bit less keen on the "third period" material since, although "Domino" live takes some beating IMO.

Golden period though = Trespass, Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot, SEBTP IMO so I guess we are not really disagreeing.

Again, as you were...

btw, as an unashamed prog rock/rock fan, the very late 1960/early 1970s was THE golden age for me. Unfortunately, it was about 1972 before I actually started to listen much to music, so i was just a teeny bit late on the scene

The 1980s and 1990s were generally pants IMO.

But that's just absolutely plain and simple nonsense, I'm sorry, but it is.

In general, I simply disagree that music has ever ground to any sort of creative or productive halt, it is probably that as most people age they gradually stop listening, or become less interested, or open to new ideas, or a combination of all three. It's a pity, and it works both ways, as for the reverse reasons kids today for the most part will automatically dismiss "old time" music and thereby miss a huge treasure trove of great music. But there it is.

Anyway, and as I love waffling on about music, the point is impossible to quantify, just because there is so much music in any given year, so I thought I'd just pick a year at purely random, and see what I could turn up to counter your theory.

The first year I selected was 1989. This brought us gems including the following:-

[size=150The Stone Roses - - The Stone Roses[/size
Nirvana - Bleach
The B52s - Cosmic Thing
De La Soul - 3 Feet High & Rising
Neil Young - Freedom
[size=150Pixies - Doolittle [/size(arguably the outstanding album of the 80s)

Singles included the following -
[size=150Neil Young - Rockin In The Free World [/size
Boy Meets Girl - Waiting For A Star To Fall
Madonna - Like A Prayer
Soul II Soul - Back To Life
Bangles - Eternal Flame
Lisa Stansfield - All Around The World
Alannah Myles - Black Velvet
Roxette - Listen To Your Heart, The Look
[size=150Roy Orbison - You Got It[/size
Aerosmith - Love In An Elevator
Black Box - Ride On Time
Coldcut ft. Lisa Stansfield - People Hold On
Do They Know It's Christmas? by Band Aid II
[size=150B52s - Love Shack [/size
Fine Young Cannibals - She Drives Me Crazy
Natalie Cole - Miss You Like Crazy
Cher - If I Could Turn Back Time
Tina Turner - Simply The Best
James - Sit Down
Paula Abdul - Straight Up
Martika - Toy Soldiers
Tears For Fears - Sowing The Seeds Of Love
Donna Summer - This Time I Know It's For Real
Michael Jackson - Smooth Criminal
Van Morrison - Have I Told You Lately
[size=150The Stone Roses - She Bangs The Drums / Fools Gold / Made Of Stone[/size

Quite emotional, doing that list . A fabulous year, indeed. Do you disagree?

Want me to mark your card for any other random year?

I've never been into Genesis, never owned an album, but heard a fair bit of early stuff that friends had that featured Gabriel (who remains street cred). I'm also aware Collins is a great drummer, his work on Robert Plant's early solo albums was great, but after 'Follow You Follow Me' which I liked, everything Collins did solo or with Genesis seemed so miserable. Then he reportedly supported the Tories which was a crime worse than Country & Western.



Agree completely. 72 was about the first year I started to identify quality music, though I didn't realise it at the time, probably because of all the class A drugs I was taking. It took me another 30 years to really start appreciating 60s progressive/psychedelic music. Though not the Beatles, never seen what all the fuss is about.

If you could point out anywhere where I have remotely suggested such a thing I would be interested. There is always great music happening, absolutely tonnes of it. It's just not in the charts in any numbers & hasn't been since the 80s. I have Radio 6 on constantly, which plays a lot of it. My favourite show of the week is Introducing West Yorkshire at 7.00 on a Thursday on Radio Leeds. 3 hours of unsigned bands from West Yorks. Everyone brilliant &/or interesting, none near the charts.
You picked 20+ singles from a year. I would agree that at least 20 of them are crackers. Not bad for a year. You could get 20 from most weeks in the 70s.

Well, the charts have never been representative of the overwhelming volume of music, nor intended to be, just popular ditties of the day, so no news there. But as I think my posts tend to support, the overall ratios of great to good to indifferent to bad doesn't significantly change over time. Of course there are years of outstanding quality, and some poor years, but that doesn't disprove the rule.


But that always was and will be the case. All the more so nowadays, given just how easy and cheap it is to put together some form of music making, which any kid with some free software can pretty easily do alone. By definition, only a tiny fraction of "all the new music" can ever reach the top end of the charts - even if "the charts" is a pale imitation of what they represented in the days when people actually often went out and bought hard copies of singles. (I couldn't afford it but recorded many hundreds of singles from TOTP, Radio Caroline, Luxembourg etc on my dad's big reel to reel tape recorder

)


Where are the lists of any given week in the 70s charts? I don't accept this proposition based on my own collections and recollections. If there is somewhere where the charts are stored, as opposed to number 1s, I'll enjoy having a trawl and will reconsider the allegation. 20 most weeks? Crackers? Nah.

All I've done for now is picked a random year, 1975, being smack in the middle of your golden era, and looked at the number 1s. I figured that, if every WEEK there were at least 20 crackers, then by definition every No. 1 must be a real gem. Here they are, I've grouped them in certain categories:

Great
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel - 'Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me)'
10 CC - 'I'm Not In Love'
David Bowie - 'Space Oddity'
Queen - 'Bohemian Rhapsody'

Good
Status Quo - 'Down Down'
Tammy Wynette - 'Stand By Your Man'
Johnny Nash - 'Tears On My Pillow (I Can't Take It)'
Stylistics - 'Can't Give You Anything (But My Love)'


Average to ropey
Tymes - 'Ms Grace'
Pilot - 'January'
Windsor Davis & Don Estelle - 'Whispering Grass'
Rod Stewart - 'Sailing'
David Essex - 'Hold Me Close'
Art Garfunkel - 'I Only Have Eyes For You'

Crap
Telly Savals - 'If'
Bay City Rollers - 'Bye Bye Baby'
Mud - 'Oh Boy'
Bay City Rollers - 'Give A Little Love'
Typically Tropical - 'Barbados'
Billy Connolly - 'D I V O R C E'


1975 is not evidence of a surfeit of crackers.

I thought "January" was quite a nice song. Personally, I never saw why everyone raves over Bohemian Rhapsody - I was underwhelmed at the time, tbh - but accept two hundred zillion others can't be wrong. And come on, "Barbados" IS pretty catchy? I guess "Bye Bye baby" was the least crap offering from the Bay Sickly Rollers, but if you put lipstick on a dumb tartan-clad jock with trousers halfway up its legs, you still have a dumb tartan-clad jock with trousers halfway up its legs. And "Whispering Grass" was waknerage!

With the above minor caveats, the worrying thing is that I don't see a lot of problem with that analysis.

Meanwhile, sad news that [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-21082519 Wilko Johnson[/url is on his way out. But doing a farewell concert tour. How good would it be if they could find a way for him to put in a guest appearance on the bill at our gaff?

Anybody able to have a quick word with somebody?

A big shout to OK for taking a risk on this first stadium music venture. I hope it works, and think it will.
The catchment area for live entertainment tickets is far wider than Bradford alone..
Starting line up is pretty good and varied. It is what it is..blasts from the past.
I see no reason, if this event has reasonable success, why Odsal could not become a regular venue for similar or more adventurous musical events. Better groups at higher ticket prices.
Whist the range of events that could be put on at Odsal is wide I think that occasional ones by respected Asian musical virtuosos and popular groups would be sell out at any price. There is nowhere in the county like it.
Multicultural activity per OK - ticked. Making money - Solid Gold


I presume that the Bulls have a music licence of sorts (or whatever permission) as they have groups playing pre-match.
I further presume that having advertised the event for the 25th May they have the required permissions though there might be a limitation on the time the music should stop.
If rumors are to believed this is why Bruce Springsteen turned down the gig

Wow!!

All this argument about bands, singers and songs....I always used to think that liking music was pretty subjective, but it seems most believe it's objective (though obviously defined by different, and individual, parameters) and can somehow put on a value scale.

In the context of the Odsal concerts the only thing that matters is that they make some brass and hopefully don't disturb the neighbours too much.

Incidentally, my own value system was that if the band could learn learn it in a few minutes (three chord stuff, 90% of top thirty, Status Quo etc = rubbish) but if it took, say more than a couple of rehearsals to get right, then it was deemed 'better' music, though in the end it was always the audience who decreed what stayed in the show and what didn't. Simples!!

It's totally subjective!

Hell, I even know people who liked The Wombles...

Ha ha, everything has its place Adey. Let's be fair, who needs 'challenging' music when you're supposed to be concentrating on the driving?

It's both; but, like a very high proportion of the things in life, the better music often takes some time, experience, perhaps education, perhaps even study, to appreciate. And then it is still subjective, certainly; you can certainly appreciate a particular piece of music without especially liking it.

But again like a lot of things in life, they're often dismissed by many folk, and it's their loss, because they don't make the effort and so don't know what they're missing.

Kids don't begin music appreciation with nursery tunes for nothing. They need to learn the basics. Bands aimed at pre-teens and young teens often come up with simple, repetitive, formula pop but it's a level or two up from nursery rhymes, and it's often as much about the artist/s as the music. But I think as people mature most people's musical tastes do too, although the process then usually grinds to a halt somewhere in mid-life, and then they settle for whatever they settled for as "the best" and nothing that follows is as good.


Screw any complaining neighbours, if you want peace and quiet, don't live next to giant stadiums. (I doubt the Council quite look at it that way though)



But, Quo got it right, and with their 3 chords made some absolutely great music. "Caroline" remains a gem, doesn't have to be at all complicated to be great, and in pop, a great riff is a great riff, and a great hook is a great hook. Also don't forget that a lot of music doesn't involve artists that actually play an instrument, or write songs, many are vocalists, especially charts music, boy bands etc. Also a lot of bands have simply been backing for the real turn, the lead singer, and they are often superfluous and replaceable.

And some really great all-time classics have been written in minutes! Paul Anka famously wrote "My Way", the world's most covered song, in about 4 hours, although tbf it wasn't entirely from scratch. Wish I had 5% of that!

In general, the top thirty is 'dummed down' to the lowest common denominator to be honest, the 'three chord wonders' I mention, so selling a lot of records doesn't equate to 'great', or difficult music as such. There is certainly a knack, maybe even a science, in producing the sounds and riffs which become popular though and not everyone has it, that is a fact. It certainly isn't usually the 'clever' or hard to learn stuff which makes the no. one spot.

Got to admit I find it hard to accept much of the really simplistic stuff as being 'great' though. Obviously that's just me and other have a different opinion and all opinions are equally valid at the end of the day. We like what we like - so back to my Tommy Emmanuel, Martin Taylor and Django CDs.....

But sometimes the beauty and greatness is in the simplicity; I call your simplistic and raise you McCartney's "Yesterday"

The Wombles trumps that...

I think it's fair to say there is more than one way of listening to music, either from a 'technical' level or from the heart (whatever that is) and both are equal in their own way. It's true I'd get just a very similar buzz from listening to Yesterday as I do from hearing Mozart's Jupiter and there is a (different) greatness in both imo.

It's strange how we feel about music. There used to be a guitar player called Wes Montgomery, he was an American jazz player who did this ability to play a solo on single strings then double strings and then moving onto block chords, he did all this without losing the speed, fluency or musicality of the solo and for a guitar player it was just mesmerising, and to be honest, pretty unbelievable to listen to.

Wes' technique was so good they brought out a gadget which would do the same thing electronically; you played a note and the box added the octave at the same time BUT even though it sounds just the same (well almost) I can't accept the sound produced as being the equal of what Wes did. A computer probably couldn't tell the difference but to me there is something false about it all.

That's humans for you, we're a funny old mix.

I thought the Wombles were absolutely marvelous...though I doubt it will ever replace music..

I don't really know about that; I have great admiration for virtuoso musicians, whether it's a genius guitarist like Hendrix, or a pianist like Barenboim, and what is certainly true for me is that watching these performers 'in the flesh' is an awesome thing, and infinitely better than listening to a recording. But I think you'd need to 'get' the music first to really get the effect; certainly the natural universal human trait is to want stuff that's familiar. People prefer to listen to new stuff, even by their favourite performers, in their own time, and come to terms with it, but they prefer not to hear it at THIS concert, thank you very much, just play the STUFF WE KNOW. A classic example was Dylan coming out and playing an electric set.

It's certainly true that the better you get to know a piece, the more you appreciate it.

But OTOH when trying to assess the "greatness" of an old song, what's hard is to divest it of the personal emotional or sentimental baggage it may well have. For just one example, you happen to know that Dylan is a legend but if you'd never heard of him, how good would you rate him? More to the point, does it make a difference if you lived through those times, protest songs, Woodstock, the Dylans and the Baezs, and understand the context from which certain songs emerged? Can The Times They Are A-Changin" [iever[/i have the same resonance in the ears of someone born in 2000 as it does with "children of the sixties"? (In my opinion, the answer to that is a qualified "yes", it might, but not if they don't take the trouble to learn about the song, and put it, and the artist, in context).

It would be great, because when I tried for tickets yesterday afternoon they had sold out in the morning. I saw the Feelgoods last year & though it was a cracking night it was a bit like watching a tribute band.

It's totally subjective. You can be objective & appreciate someone's talent without actually liking the 20 minute drum solo.

Some songs take years to grow on you & fully appreciate, but most great pop songs hit you immediately. I will never forget hearing Peely playing 'Teenage Kicks' for the first time on the little radio in my bedroom, I'm with him, still the best 2.5 minutes of pure pop ever made. he then played it again straight after it was that good.

From 72-76 Quo were almost incomparable as a pop rock band, one of the best concerts I have seen at that time. Sadly they have deteriorated gradually since then IMO, with some real dirge. A mate, doing his own farewell tour in 1992, got tickets for Sheffield Arena. It was awful, lots of middle aged couples in matching Arran sweaters, with none of the power of the early 70s. Still, as someone said recently, they play as many chords as the Ramones ever did.