MUS 262

							                             MUS 262
                               Week 13

                             The 1970’s
   The first half of the 1970’s is characterized by bands still
    experimenting musically and testing the limits of the rock and roll
    style

   The rock and roll elements and psychedelia from the late 60’s are
    becoming increasingly separated and begin to develop in several
    distinct styles

   The blues, especially the Chicago electric blues played a large part
    in our discussions of music in the 60’s. The Rolling Stones were
    especially crucial in bringing this American music style back to
    America and introducing it to white American teenagers. Many
    British bands like Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath
    built on the stylistic foundation established by the Stones, Yardbirds
    and Cream.

   There are two interpretations of what came out of the music in the
    70’s
       1. One sees much classic rock as a corruption much like what
          happened in the late 50’s and early 60’s of rocks decline. This
          view tends to celebrate the underground punk and new
          wave scene during the second half of the 70’s

       2. The second understands and accepts classic rock almost
          entirely in terms of what the FM radio and television plays and
          portrays since around 1990 but music that came to represent
          the 70’s through classic rock radio often leaves important
          music out, mostly because some tracks are too long to fit into
          current radio formats

   One of the most important changes brought about from the 1966-
    1969 period by artists such as the Beach Boys, the Beatles, and Bob
    Dylan was to change the focus of rock music from the single to the
    album and maybe more importantly from dancing music to
    listening music
      FM radio grows into big business, and the album-oriented rock
       (AOR) format dominated, often with two or three stations in each
       city fighting for listeners, and advertising revenue. As the 70’s
       progressed, FM rock radio became more and more tightly
       formatted, allowing the disc jockeys less control over what got
       played and thus reducing their influence on the music and culture.

                         Mainstream Rock
          Prepare the mind to categorize what is to come

During the 1970’s Radio Stations:

      Racism - Program policies.

      Tighter control - "Special Formats"

      Billboard Magazine: Use to be, Pop - Rhythm and Blues – Country
       but as rock and roll splits into more and more distinct fragments we
       have….

      Disco, Punk, Fusion, metal, rock/jazz, etc.


1980’s - 1990's:
    rap - new age - world music , alternative, easy listening, hip hop,
      house Christen rock- etc.

C.H.R. - Contemporary Hit Radio (Top 40) - plays the top hits of the day in
every major style except Country. (Not necessarily true in Texas).

Churban - CHR and urban - dance music - rap - hip-hop.

Alternative - Nirvana, R.E.M., U2.

Rock C.H.R. - Hard-rock and Metal.

Adult C.H.R. - Ballads - Whitney Houston, Micheal Bolton.

A.O.R. - Rock Mainstream - Van Halen, Bruce.

Classic Rock - Baby Boomers:Late 60s and 70s.CSNY, Led Zepplin
A. C. - Adult Contemporary: Current ballads and oldies by Billy Joel, Linda
Ronstadt, Barbara Streisand, etc.

Modern Rock (a k a Alternative) - Green Day, Offspring.

AAA - Album Adult Alternative

A.C. stations have the largest radio audience.

TV has gone from 3 channels to 50 to 500.
    Radio is going in the same direction and fragmenting into
      subdivisions that reach smaller and smaller audiences. However the
      same companies own all the stations.




                      Blues-Based British Rock
   1) Led Zeppelin, Whole Lotta Love, 1969
       Led Zeppelin was among the most successful new British groups
         in the 1970s
       Blues, folk, and psychedelia shift to the next level
       First two albums recorded in 1969
       Blend of traditional electric blues, acoustic folk and a fair
         amount of experimentation
       Willie Dixion’s “You Need Love”, more lawsuits from black
         Americans having their music taken

   2) Deep Purple, Smoke on the Water, 1971
       Combining blues, classical music and psychedelia


   3) Black Sabbath, Iron Man, 1970
       British rock meets Boris Karloff
       Black Sabbath is a horror movie of Boris’
       Band’s name before was “Earth”
       The gothic beginnings of metal
       Besides all the “gothic” features, the music remains based in
         blues riffs and structures
             American blues-rock and southern rock
         The use of the term “southern rock” in the early 1970’s is perhaps
          misleading, it was more the result of writers in the north and on
          the west coast describing bands from the south.
         Images featuring hard-drinking men and women driving pickup
          trucks with Confederate flags and gun racks in the rear window
         Southern rock refers to bands from the southeast that emerged
          in the wake of the Allman Brothers’ success

   4) The Allman Brothers, Ramblin' Man 1973
       Country influences

   5) Lynryd Skynyrd, Sweet Home Alabama, 1974

   6) Santana, Black Magic Women, 1970
       Born in Mexico and emerged from the San Francisco
         psychedelic scene in 1969
       Blend of jazz and blues influence improvisational style set to the
         accompaniment of Latin rhythms and percussion

    American blues-rock not only came from the south
                     and southeast
   7) Aerosmith, Sweet Emotion, 1975
       From Boston “The Bad Boys From Boston”
       Controversial life style similar to The Rolling Stones
       First album “Aerosmith” 1973 did not chart



          Progressive Rock: Big Ideas and High Ambition
Progressive rock takes the idea of the concepts album a number of steps
further.
     The songs typically become longer and the form becomes less
       standardized, taking influence from other styles of composition
     Album covers more lavish and bizarre taking influence from Sgt.
       Pepper. This idea of album art work is becoming lost with digital
       downloads
     Lyrics became much less about romance or sexual prowess, opting
       instead to address big philosophical issues such as religion and
       spirituality, politics, power the forward progression of technology
       and existential anxiety
     British progressive rock took compositional elements from classical
      music, one could define British progressive rock as classical music
      infused rock.

Moody blues The Day Begins and The Afternoon 1967
     Classical infused Rock

  8) The Who Pinball Wizard, 1969
      From “Tommy” a rock opera from The Who
      Tells the story of a deaf, dumb, and blind boy who gains spiritual
        enlightenment through playing pinball. When Tommy is cured of
        his handicaps, he is cast as a guru, possessing the great wisdom
        of the ages. When Tommy tells his followers that to gain spiritual
        insight they will need to renounce smoking pot and drinking,
        their senses, and play pinball the crowd soundly rejects him.
      Employs a variety of material that is brought back at important
        moments of the album, just as occurs in much opera
      Tommy had touched on the roll of spirituality in hippie culture,
        setting the stage for subsequent band to follow
      Band such as Jethro Tull and Yes for example created projects
        where some of the albums were divided into a few tracks (songs)
        and many more were divided only by the obligatory break
        required to turn the record over and are thus essentially single
        tracks of about forty minutes’ in length. This made it a challenge
        for charting success

  9) Yes Roundabout, 1972
      Covach p. 330 listening guide
      Filled with many musical features that show classical-music
      Classical guitar intro played with rubato
      Melodic line drawn from the opening guitar intro returns during
        the transition to the second A and b sections
      The idea of reusing melodic material in new ways is a central
        feature in classical music

  Even more bizarre Tales and progressive rock
  Genesis’ Peter Gabriel began using costumes and began acting out
  parts during performances beginning in 1971
  Pink Floyd extended the idea of the psychedelic light to include a
  variety of elaborate stage effects, such as a crashing airplane and a
  flying pig. Their two-record album “The Wall” featured a stage show
  that was so complex hardly a second of it was left to chance
   10) Pink Floyd, Shine on You Crazy Diamond, 1975
       Band member and writer Sid Barret was forced to leave the
          group in the late 60’s due to mental illness. Singer and writer
          Waters was obsessed with this as well as his own father during
          WWI.
   11)Pink Floyd, Another Brick In The Wall, 1979
       Where all the bizarre tales and elaborate progressive rock
          theater culminated

         Jazz-Rock Fusion and Jazz-Influenced Rock
Jazz is essentially a soloist’s music, it encourages players to develop their
improvisatory skills to the highest degree possible. As solos assumed a
more central role in rock music, it was natural that many players would
look to jazz as a source for new ideas

   12) Miles Davis, Bitches Brew, 1970
       Jazz-rock fusion

   13) Herbie Hancock, Headhunters, 1974
       Jazz-funk-rock fusion

   14) Blood, Sweat, & Tears Spinning wheel, 1969
       Rock-Jazz fusion, horn band



              Glam Rock and more Rock Theater
   Vincent Furnier, stage name Alice Cooper was heavily influenced by
   Jim Morrison and his later stage name “The Lizard King”. Cooper often
   ended his show in some gruesome way such as hanging, execution in
   an electric chair and beheading by a guillotine.

   15) Alice Cooper, I’m Eighteen, 1971
   16)Alice Cooper, School’s Out, 1972

Kiss did not take the Morrisonesque psychodrama/horror movie approach
but began more from a cartoonish approach to rock-theater. The
elaborate face make up kept their countenances secrete for years. They
had bombastic live shows using flames and explosions to create a high-
energy rock spectacle. It was not until they released live versions of their
shows did they begin to chart

   17) Kiss, Rock and Roll All Night, 1975
   18) David Bowie, Fame, 1975
       The creation of Ziggy Stardust, picture on p. 340 of Covach
       He was a character on stage much like late Morrison, Gabriel,
            Cooper and Kiss.
       Unlike Cooper and Kiss and somewhat like Gabriel, Bowie began
            to change characters with each album.
       The all had a common aesthetic goal with roots in psychedelia:
            make music a trip.

Country Rock
Country rock of the early 1970’s could have come from the result of the
reaction of the excesses of psychedelic rock and the growing “harder”
side of rock.
Country as described in the beginning days of this class is considered
down-home more honest and authentic

   19) The Eagles, Take It Easy. 1972