That's All Right, Baby Boy

May 3, 2004 9:12 PM

50 moments that shaped popular musical history in the last 50 years --from Elvis walking into Sun Studios 50 years ago to last fall's entirely non-white Billboard Top Ten for the first time ever. Anything missing?
posted by amberglow (38 comments total)

My God! What will the white people do now?
posted by xmutex at 9:16 PM on May 3, 2004

it does read weirdly--this is the author's wording: Last October, for the first time since the dawn of rock'n'roll 50 years ago, none of the artists in the official Billboard American Top 10 was white.
posted by amberglow at 9:41 PM on May 3, 2004

No Rock Around The Clock?

No February 3, 1959?

These are seminal moments in the dawning hours of rock and roll history. Any list that doesn't include them is immediately suspect.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 9:46 PM on May 3, 2004

Hello? No mention of Led Zeppelin?
posted by turbodog at 10:01 PM on May 3, 2004

That's not good news, really. Hip-hop is limited music - I wouldn't say "gimmick," but much more musically narrow of a genre than most. It's like having an all-bluegrass top 10. It's a sign that the median music buyer is caring less and even less about music as its own experience, and more about something simple enough you can still appreciate it fully while doing other stuff, like dancing or talking. Nothing, I think, about people's ability to appreciate music has changed that such basal music is becoming the most popular - just their interest in doing so. Hunching over a lyrics sheet in headphones is becoming less and less hip.
posted by abcde at 10:51 PM on May 3, 2004

a cool article despite some glaring ommissions: no mention of the clash? the pixies? buddy holly? link wray?
posted by mcsweetie at 10:58 PM on May 3, 2004

What about [insert icon from my teen years here] motherfucker??
posted by scarabic at 11:09 PM on May 3, 2004

No mention of Pink Floyd either. I find this list incomplete and feel the need to nitpick.
Glad The Smiths made the list though...
posted by fatbobsmith at 11:57 PM on May 3, 2004

No mention of Pink Floyd either.

Yea... I mean didn't The Wall spend about a decade on the Billboard charts?
posted by Witty at 12:16 AM on May 4, 2004

Hunching over a lyrics sheet in headphones is becoming less and less hip.

You mean that's *ever* been hip?
posted by Pericles at 1:30 AM on May 4, 2004

abcde, if you think hip-hop is limited and musically narrow, the only conclusion you can reach is that your exposure to the genre has been limited and musically narrow.
posted by Dantien at 1:56 AM on May 4, 2004

here are a few major events in the history of rocknroll that had little to no effect, but should have.

rocket 88 - of course, from 1951, older than this premise, but far more rock and roll than anything elvis did at sun. either this, or sh-boom, [conveniently from 1954] or possibly something by count basie should be your true starting point for rock and roll

dick dale invents surf guitar, in imitation of jungle noises. but in the long run, this is the swan song of instrumental hit records until the house/techno era: rock is about lyric content. the most successful surf band, of course, was a vocal group with little real guitar, and precious little jungle noise.

alan freed busted for payola, dick clarke gets off scot free [along with many others]. we are still dealing with payola today of course.

barry and morricone incorporate electric guitars meaningfully in their soundtrack themes, creating exciting hybrids. unfortunately, no other composers of comparable skill take up this novel direction and import it into the concert hall.

miles davis' experiments with searing guitar players, teo's tape cut ups, crazy percussion over hard rock rhythms, all sorts of free composition styles and his own distorted organ playing signals the way out of free jazz. unfortunately, though there are some funky records made in miles' wake, with tasteful electric piano, fusion becomes another dead end... influential in germany, mainly.

fela, similarly, plows an amazing furrow that ends up influencing maybe a handful of other very funky nigerian groups.

the eight track fizzles. more than any other 20th century fetish, this becomes emblematic of ludicrously failed technology. the one for "houses of the holy" stops dead in the middle of the rain song in order to switch sides.

the japanese rock scene of the 70s redefines heavy metal in uncompromising clarity of vision of purity of sound, and to this day is virtually unknown. instead, the legacy of cream/hendrix/etc. is gradually debased into foghat, into quiet riot, into yngwie, etc. etc.

the fall perform live with the michael clarke dance company in a ballet collaboration. mark's wife sits on a giant burger and plays nagging atonal shards of guitar. a bit more avant garde and i daresay relevant than tharpe's prettified bopping to prince hits or anything else in the world of dance.

lastly, i can scarcely believe how un-influential q-bert has been, the hendrix of the 90s. sure there are quite a few who still dig that kind of music, but it seems to be totally marginalized...
posted by mitchel at 2:03 AM on May 4, 2004

oh, and abcde: we're glad you don't listen to the radio, actually. and you are very wrong - hip hop kids all grew up sitting on a school bus with a grimace memorizing to the walkman the truth and word. oh and fyi, alicia keys and beyonce ain't hip hop
posted by mitchel at 2:16 AM on May 4, 2004

Mostly predictable but solid choices on this list (and for me, personally, a pleasing Anglo twist - how many folks on the other side of the Atlantic would have opted for Madchester?)

It's also fair to say that R&B and hip-hop basically rules the commercial roost at the moment. Rock is at its weakest ebb in living memory (it has to be when the likes of The Darkness can make it as big as they have), and dance/electronica has also peaked, at least for the time being.
posted by plenty at 8:03 AM on May 4, 2004

so what's the difference between hip-hop and R&B. I grew up in the 80's, so older stuff I can probably tell apart. But being rock myself, I'm not sure about the newer stuff, and where the line is drawn. I'm so clueless about today's popular music as I can't stand about 99% of it.
posted by evening at 8:07 AM on May 4, 2004

The rise and instantaneous fall of Naked And Shameless. Followed a decade or two later by the Second Coming.

Or not. I don't give a shit.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:11 AM on May 4, 2004

I understand the piece is a little Brit-(and this writer's personal tastes)-centric, which is fine (Madchester certainly belongs somehwhere on that list), but those Rock and Roll icons Ronald Reagan & George Bush each getting more entries than the Clash, Elvis Costello, the MC5, Bill Haley and Buddy Holly combined renders this list irrelevant.

(Hm. Say something nice.) You rarely see the Stooges on lists like this, so that was nice.
posted by chicobangs at 8:18 AM on May 4, 2004

I'd say R&B follows in the footsteps of Marvin Gaye and Isaac Hayes and Motown's smooth, sexy songs, usually sung, for the most part. Think Babyface from a while ago, or Beyonce or JLo, or even Janet. Sometimes tho, they use the term R&B to cover everyone that's not rapping (and not white).

The list was limited to 50, so it's hard to narrow it down. The only thing i would have liked to see on that list that wasn't was "I Feel Love" by Donna Summer/Morricone--as influential as Kraftwerk, surely.
posted by amberglow at 8:20 AM on May 4, 2004

One more. Can we take the Stones getting busted for drugs off this list and put the Hilly Krystal telling the fucking Ramones "No one's gonna like you guys, but I'll book you anyway" on?

Please?
posted by chicobangs at 8:21 AM on May 4, 2004

Agree with mr_crash_davis on that those are two pretty glaring omissions there. I'm also kind of concerned about the way terms are tossed about in the intro: pop was invented fifty years ago? Last time I checked, "pop" meant "popular music" which is older than rock and roll, or rock, or whatever. So that in itself is suspect, too.
posted by dagnyscott at 8:35 AM on May 4, 2004

I mean didn't The Wall spend about a decade on the Billboard charts?

I believe you're thinking about Dark Side of the Moon, which was on Billboard's top-100 charts for more than 15 years (the longest contigious stint lasting 591 consecutive weeks). I believe it still holds the record. It's also the 11th best-selling album in history.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 9:24 AM on May 4, 2004

I disagree that pop = popular music. To me, pop doesn't include country & relatives, real rock, rap, even though they may be popular at any given time. The boy bands and Spears and the like are all pop, but not because they're popular (in my opinion anyway). (and where else do they fall?) just like you can have pop-rock that's rock but on the edge of being pop (like some of Bon Jovi's stuff). Led Zep is rock, and popular, but hardly pop.
posted by evening at 9:24 AM on May 4, 2004

amberglow, I think it was Giorgio Moroder who produced the definitive version of "I Feel Love".
posted by davehat at 9:30 AM on May 4, 2004

Aside from those ol' glaring omissions (um, ever hear "Into Battle With the Art of Noise?" Yes, you did, on every rap song since 1983 that used an Orchestra Hit), the list is suspect for at least one glaring inaccuracy:

Music for Airports is Eno's first experiment with the notion of ambience - modern mood music.

Well, no. While Discreet Music, from 3 years earlier, was his first album-length experiment, there are plenty of "ambient" tracks on Another Green World, from a month before that.
posted by soyjoy at 9:34 AM on May 4, 2004

1978
Brian Eno releases Ambient 1: Music for Airports

The moment when texture rather than song becomes an essential element in modern pop. Music for Airports is Eno's first experiment with the notion of ambience - modern mood music. His influence, like the music he produced, was slow and pervasive, but is detectable in everyone from U2 to Massive Attack.

Nice to see Eno in there (I think it would be hard to justify excluding him considering his widespread influence) but the entry is completely wrong. Discreet Music was Eno's first (purely) ambient release, which was in 1975, and he also 'experimented' with ambient music on Another Green World, released the same year.
posted by Blue Stone at 9:38 AM on May 4, 2004

Ach! soyjoy, you sneeked in there while my connection was struggling with MeFi's slowness and BitTorrent. Curses! /shakes fist.
posted by Blue Stone at 9:51 AM on May 4, 2004

I think we all died a little when Philip Lithman took his second heart attack in 1986.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 9:53 AM on May 4, 2004

haven't either of you guys ever heard no pussyfooting [eno's first ambient lp, made with fripp]?

not to mention the first 2 kraftwerk lps, and the whole riley/glass/reich scene... before that, lots of composers were using electronics or normal means to make music that just hangs there.

eno did not invent ambient you know, satie did
posted by mitchel at 9:59 AM on May 4, 2004

oops--you're right davehat. Either way, it should have been on the list.
posted by amberglow at 11:27 AM on May 4, 2004

Last October, for the first time since the dawn of rock'n'roll 50 years ago, none of the artists in the official Billboard American Top 10 was white.

Yes, it's a beautiful thing that black people can make music that sucks as badly as anything whitefolk can come up with.
posted by jonmc at 11:35 AM on May 4, 2004

last fall's entirely non-white Billboard Top Ten

abcde wrote: "That's not good news, really. Hip-hop is limited music - I wouldn't say "gimmick," but much more musically narrow of a genre than most."

evening wrote:"so what's the difference between hip-hop and R&B."

those darkies all sound the same, don't they?
posted by donth at 11:57 AM on May 4, 2004

donth, don't be a shithead - it's a valid question since often hiphop and R&B artists do some of both (think Lauren Hill or Jill Scott), or in other words, they both have similar if not the same roots: the blues.
posted by ashbury at 1:04 PM on May 4, 2004

The didn't mention Zepplin. I don't even like the band, but that's just criminal.

Also, Cannibal Corpse gained a lot more governmental wrath than Eminem did. (I know Cannibal Corpse do not fit into most people's definition of popular, but Black Sabbath were nobodies when they first appeared, and they helped form heavy metal. They could have at least mentioned bands like Cannibal Corpse, The Possessed, and Death that paved the way for a massive underground music culture.)

Still, it's just a list of 50... There are definitely going to be omissions. And I found the inclusions to be rather insightful, especially considering a lot of the selections were in genres / time periods that I am extremely ignorant to.
posted by Dark Messiah at 2:02 PM on May 4, 2004

barry and morricone incorporate electric guitars meaningfully in their soundtrack themes, creating exciting hybrids. unfortunately, no other composers of comparable skill take up this novel direction and import it into the concert hall.

Try Apocalyptica's Reflections. That's as close as I can find, unless you want death metal with symphonic sections, like The Project Hate MCMXCIX, or black metal a-la Dimmu Borgir.
posted by Dark Messiah at 2:10 PM on May 4, 2004

haven't either of you guys ever heard no pussyfooting [eno's first ambient lp, made with fripp]?

Well, yes, I've heard the album, which I found in a cutout bin on a double cassette with "Evening Star" and played into the ground during my sophomore year of college. Good times. But...

not to mention the first 2 kraftwerk lps, and the whole riley/glass/reich scene... before that, lots of composers were using electronics or normal means to make music that just hangs there.

mitchel, you must be aware of the distinction between ambient and minimalism and ambient and electronica, even though there are many overlaps between them. The key element of ambient, as Eno explained about the genesis of Discreet Music, was to create something that was not to be listened to, but merely to be heard, perhaps at the periphery of consciousness. I would submit that this was not the point of the minimalists, or of Kraftwerk, or of Frippin' Eno at that point. (Either way, of course, the List is still wrong about Airports.)

And yes, of course, "eno did not invent ambient you know, satie did," (and Eno's often given props to Satie on this) but no one's talking about "inventing" something in this list, but doing something in pop music that profoundly influences its content. Since a lot of Satie's "experiments" along this line were more in the way of sarcastic jokes than anything else, I'd sooner give the "inventing" credit to John Cage, who took off on Satie's ideas, but with the added bonus of sincerity, and, dare I say it, rigor.
posted by soyjoy at 9:16 AM on May 5, 2004

not sure i agree with your dismissal of satie, who provided the model for cage in the larger sense of "thinker who composes" in the way he approached comments and notation and titling his pieces and so forth; and the way he tried to strictly regulate his life; and i think he was partly sincere, as sincere as you could be in the turn of the century avant-garde. anyway i accept your view here.

but your larger point i think is unnecessarily grounded in a technicality that makes little sense to me.

whatever eno's stated intention in making the discreet music lp - am i right in recalling that's the one where he went into the studio, flipped the machines on, then left for an hour, so the record could be made without him? - the point for the music world is, what does it sound like... and to me, it sounds like a quieter version of no pussyfooting. this is rather like saying, there was no punk before the sex pistols because their intent was to irritate, they were the first loud band that wanted to do that...

no one's talking about "inventing" something in this list, but doing something in pop music that profoundly influences its content

right - also, no-one's talking about saying something in pop music: which is what eno did to make discreet music seem like a break, rather than a continuation.

i say all this in the hope that you will counter with an explanation of why you consider discreet music very different from my three counterexamples. i suppose above all i object to this sort of statement: you must be aware of the distinction[s] between ambient and minimalism and ambient and electronica, even though there are many overlaps between them.

leaving aside the question of overreliance on unhelpful or spurious categorization [i recall an old discussion we had on opposite sides of this fence, regarding sexuality], i think you give eno a bit too much credit here in the specific sense of applying his after the fact justification for making an album - which was probably an artful attempt to simply help people enjoy it - applying that statement to the thousands of ambient and new age records that followed it. they surely want people to listen to their records, enjoy the beauty, and not just fulfill some secondhand zen function. these records were equally influenced by the minimalists and the german electronic experimenters and martin denny and satie's more popular works [rather than his furniture music]. above all of course they were influenced by the inventors of their synths. contrast this with satie and cage who both had deep affinities for playing with new technologies but bent them to their own theoretical ends.

so the question i was trying to raise with you is, what was more important in the history of sound? why does discreet music have pride of place over these other things? if you would say, "cos it was hugely influential" perhaps you have a case, perhaps not, but you seem to be saying, "cos eno said so". you might also say, "it was influential, it became an emblem of a movement, and it's also the just about the best of its kind" that would be even better but still more tenuous, yes?
posted by mitchel at 11:32 AM on May 5, 2004

"those darkies all sound the same, don't they?"

They sure do. And on the whole, the white people you'll find on the Billboard charts do too.

And Hip Hop and R&B have heavy overlap nowdays, like it or not.
posted by abcde at 11:40 PM on May 8, 2004

abcde, if you think hip-hop is limited and musically narrow, the only conclusion you can reach is that your exposure to the genre has been limited and musically narrow.

Narrow isn't that much of an insult. To bring bluegrass up again, it covers a relatively range of sounds, but that doesn't mean countless lifetimes can productively be employed creating it. The products will be always more superficially similar to one another, but there's still room enough for endless creativity. Taken jovially, all I meant was hip-hop was a rather "specific" sound, on average, at least as it's seen on the charts.
posted by abcde at 11:43 PM on May 8, 2004