Friday, January 14, 2011

Why I like sixties music...

My neighbor, in whose dining room I've sat for the past three days doing stuff for money, has one of those Sirius radio thingies. Another neighbor has one and I've long regarded it as something that exists only to annoy me because it seems Sirius has an All-Elvis-All-The-Time channel, and if Congress wants to pass laws against things why can't they start there?

But it seems Sirius also has all 50's, 60's and 70's channels, and that's the sort of thing that's been pouring into my ears for the past three days. Even without disco, I've known for a long time that I decided I was not a pop music fan sometime in the 70's. By and large, and with exceptions, 70's music sucks. It just does, it's homogenous and depressing and devoid of character. In the sixties, though, there was variety. Lots of bad four-piece combos, sure, but even they were experimenting with things that often didn't sound like the Beatles and often worked. And they competed directly with Petula Clark and Burt Bacarak (sp!) and Roy Orbison. If you didn't like something on the radio, just wait three minutes and chances are you'd get a chance to listen to something completely different.

Not exactly a life-altering epiphany, but still - It was kind of a revelation.

2 comments:

The Grey Lady said...

I love 60's music I was introduced to it by the sound tracks of movies. Prior to that I was only aware of tom jones, englebert, herb albert and old musicals scores. My parents were obviously cruel human beings.

I have favorites thats for sure, beatles not being one of them, nor the stones. two of the most overrated bands of all time in my estimation. An opinion that almost chased the cattleman away. :O)

Anonymous said...

Ultimate in 60s music is the town that said NO to the Beatles!
Stones played church hall for $80, Beatles are booked next but never play the town of Horsham, England said NO...not in our back yard!
That amazing one-off gig is the basis for a trip of nostalgia with the novel 'TEAR MY HEART' that gives the inside story on this amazing fact, tells of 60s music in UK as it really was, of romance, blackmail, abuse and loadsa music.
TEAR MY HEART complete with the song from amazon.com all all good on line book stores.