R and R Hall nominations

[Butcher of Strats]

This was my favorite explanation.

On Words: What, Exactly, Is Rock ’n’ Roll?

Enjoy the third installment of “On Words,” a new series in which faculty members take a crack at evocative words. Today brings you commentary from Jack Hamilton, assistant professor of American studies and media studies and the pop critic for Slate Magazine.

news.virginia.edu

I honestly hate the way you choose to dismiss things. Postmodern condition notwithstanding, this whole segment is condescending af:

“After the internet though we got mass numbers of misinformed nit wits "publishing" "history".
As consumers, or pop culture, or youth raised on video game consoles and computers, stopped consuming peer reviewed info and chose instead to "learn" "history" from bloggers who made it up as they went along, what happened exactly?

The Misinformation Age!”

There are plenty of reasonable and trained intellectuals who don’t fit under this umbrella you’ve designed for them.

Well of course there are "reasonable and trained intellectuals".
I was not saying all post boomers are nit wits.
I was saying that all who authoritatively blog about stuff they barely understand and have no actual experience with are nit wits.

The problem is (as I see it) that readers seeking info have to sift through 100 nit wits blogs to find every 1 publisher of solid accurate info.

So when I choose to dismiss specific things, it is because I have first hand info that is vastly different from what by comparison I consider pop blog internet myth.

Of course this discussion is a mix and most of this topic is opinion.

But Rock n Roll music is not every song every kid liked after 1967.

 

[Stratafied]

No

Joan Jett would not have existed had Fanny not paved the way.

June Millington is still at it today teaching rock to kids! She is amazing.

a statement for or against, I never got the Joan Jett thing. I say that now without hesitation, because with the price of eggs I doubt my house gets egged

 

[StratUp]

Fanny should have been inducted long before Joan Jett. Just sayin…

But it's not really about merit, quality, or whether it's even rock-n-roll.

That's not a dig against Joan Jett - I'm a very major fan. She deserves to be in there, for sure. But Fanny does too, as well as a number of other pioneers. Instead they're inducting rappers. But we've beaten that horse beyond dead.



^ Fanny rocking. These women could all play hard and sing hard. But I never understood why they had Shirley Partridge on keys. Always seemed weird to me (I jest; I jest).

 

[touch of gray]

But it's not really about merit, quality, or whether it's even rock-n-roll.

That's not a dig against Joan Jett - I'm a very major fan. She deserves to be in there, for sure. But Fanny does too, as well as a number of other pioneers. Instead they're inducting rappers. But we've beaten that horse beyond dead.



^ Fanny rocking. These women could all play hard and sing hard. But I never understood why they had Shirley Partridge on keys. Always seemed weird to me (I jest; I jest).

Sure, it seems like they are leaving some of these forgotten artists behind along with rock and roll . And I do like Joan Jett a lot, but I wonder if bands like Fanny and Suzi Quattro didn’t open the door for other women like Joan. Again, Joan deserves all credit due her, and she rocks harder than anyone.

 

[crankmeister]

It's a blend like anything else. A scale. There's no scientifically measurable point where something crosses from Rock to Pop. It's much like Justice Potter Stewart said about obscenity way back in the 60's: "I know it when I see it". Same with Pop, I know it when I hear it. Just like obscenity, you and others are free to disagree with my assessment.

My point is basically academic and as such there is definitely a point, although “measurable” doesn’t really factor. What many in here are classifying as rock is only a subset of pop.

But historically, from what I’ve been reading, “rock n roll” was a catchy business term used for pop music at a certain point in time. The term was gradually reified, which is something we often do with our childhoods.

Now, does it matter, for the sake of nomenclature, that Sam Phillips literally said that he could make a lot of money if he could put a white face on that black sound? Sadly, for a lot of people it seems to have made a huge difference. Maybe “rock n roll” was a safe space for that growing demographic of suburban youth, putting their parents at ease all up and down the crabgrass frontier. And that is what’s been reified.

But it was always just good pop music.

Metallica, Outkast, Iron Maiden, The Roots, Elvis Costello, Bo Diddley, Mos Def, Muddy Waters, The Zombies, Nirvana, Van Halen, New Order, Kenny G, MC5, REM, it’s all pop music.

The academic point is that popular means that it defies and erodes traditional social and geographic boundaries. It doesn’t care what part of the world or what class or social standing either the creator or consumer is from. It is, for example, the opposite of “folk” (an isolated, traditional culture group) and of “aristocracy” (an isolated, traditional social group). It is art by anyone for anyone.

Whereas mass culture is top-down, not truly art, made to be a commodity and arguably turns people into commodities in the process, aka 80s-90s “boy bands”. Probably The Monkees too. Songs are written by people in suits, or bands are formed and songs written/performed based on market research. Mass culture is soulless.

I think it’s easier to mass produce musical acts that are based on computer-generated music because the business doesn’t require musicians who play their instruments. It only requires a good producer and a pretty face with a good voice. But if a singer writes his/her own songs, then that’s a proper pop act. Conversely, again to use Kiss as an example, the knock on them is basically that they were of mass culture, a market-based act rather than art.

Mind, none of these are my opinions about any particular group.

 

[davidKOS]

Absolutely, here’s mine:
Jethro Tull - I tolerated their pretentious pomposity, but only out of respect for Martin Barre as a guitarist.
Boston - again, respect for Tom Scholz and his electronic innovations but this was corporate rock at its best and worst.
Huey Lewis and the News - one of the better bar bands I’ve heard.
Styx - this is why something like punk rock had to come along when it did.
Three Dog Night - same comment as above.
The Turtles - I liked them better as Flo and Eddie, even more as backup singers.

I certainly enjoy your POV, if I don't necessarily agree with it in all - even most - details.

 

[davidKOS]

So what difference has Nugent made? Or can we simply add Nugent to the 70s recipe and stir? Personally, I don’t know a single song of his beside “Stranglehold”. And it sounds a lot like the music of his time.

Also, if you set Nugent alongside other acts that are contentiously not nominated, like Kiss and Green Day, it looks far less political than some will want to make it out to be.

Ted was in this 60's band:



One of the better lip-synch performances....Ted even fakes the pickup change in the end of solo...and there are period-specific go-go dancers!

 

[Stratafied]

What about Pinky Tuscadero !!!

 

[Butcher of Strats]

This was my favorite explanation.

On Words: What, Exactly, Is Rock ’n’ Roll?

Enjoy the third installment of “On Words,” a new series in which faculty members take a crack at evocative words. Today brings you commentary from Jack Hamilton, assistant professor of American studies and media studies and the pop critic for Slate Magazine.

news.virginia.edu

I honestly hate the way you choose to dismiss things. Postmodern condition notwithstanding, this whole segment is condescending af:

“After the internet though we got mass numbers of misinformed nit wits "publishing" "history".
As consumers, or pop culture, or youth raised on video game consoles and computers, stopped consuming peer reviewed info and chose instead to "learn" "history" from bloggers who made it up as they went along, what happened exactly?

The Misinformation Age!”

There are plenty of reasonable and trained intellectuals who don’t fit under this umbrella you’ve designed for them.

OK so I got a chance to read some of this linked "explanation" AKA opinion piece.

The writer who I looked up and cannot find a birth date but can tell that he was not yet born when the history he explains took place?
OK so his opening line explaining Rock N Roll is:
"One of the only things anyone can say for sure about "rock n roll" is that no one's ever known exactly what it is".

So he himself, who did not live during the era he writes about, claims no one knows what it is, before telling us what no none really knows, except seeminly him?

A justification he leans on is corporate marketing starting in the 1950s. He implies and even claims that RnR was a corporate invention. And he claims that anything kids listened to in the times he vaguely refers to, presumably '50s & '60s, was all RnR, meaning no specific music was RnR and no specific music was Folk or Country or Soul or R&B, because it was all RnR.

Not sure though since the piece is about RnR, how he places Soul music of the '50s & '60s?
To justify RnR not being an actual style, he needs to broadly sweep away any specific styles of music at that time that was similar, like Soul or R&B.

But really the funny thing is he comes off as a young person reiterating what his grandpa told him his parents did before he was born.
The idea that alla them kids listened to that Rock n Roll was a concept told by the parents of those kids at that time.
In 1967, ask youth who listened to music if Dylan was a Rock musician, would they answer "nobody knows for sure"?
Ask the same kids if Pete Seeger or Peter Paul & Mary were Rock musicians, some may have debated where PP&M fell but none would say "nobody knows for sure what Rock is" regarding Pete Seeger singing this land is your land.

But ask those kids parents, and those parents view was probably confusion over what was to parents worried their kids were all on drugs and getting pregnant: The Devils Music.
(Circa 1967, it was common for parents to call the police to come search their childs room for drugs)

So yeah, a 40 year old college prof who writes about sports and music, claiming that "nobody really knows what Rock n Roll is"?

Sorry, I am not buying his revision of a "music style" into a corporate sponsored mystery which negates the existence of a not that hard to grok music style which was not Soul or R&B or Folk, yet some pop radio stations played all those styles in rotation, during the early 1960s. Country songs played back to back with RnR, Folk and R&B at that time. Certain pop country songs, not all country.
If his research finds a DJ used the term Rock N Roll thats fine but does not mean that DJ controlled every Rock N Roll band formed to play Rock n Roll.
And his bringing up an old vaudeville skit with girls in a tippy boat that rocked and rolled, sorry, he's running adrift with that one.

Maybe an idea some are grabbing at is that first came the term Rock n Roll, then Rock n Roll bands appeared to do the corporate sponsors bidding?
No, the music evolved and a new name for it was applied by who knows who.
Then younger people picking up guitars wanted to play like Chuck Berry or The Beatles or Hendrix, in that order etc.
Or earlier maybe they wanted to play like Woody Guthrie who was another popular artist influencing youth culture, in the Folk style that put cheap guitars in Sears catalogs and every five & dime, before the Beatles on Ed Sullivan which many credit as the reason they picked up guitar. And formed Rock or pop bands.

You can find a good argument about whether The Beatles were an actual Rock band, or really more of a pop band.
A few early Beatles songs were attempts to copy RnR but then they came up with a different style.

I find it hilarious to now learn that Rock n Roll was never an actual style of music, Rock is every pop style, and nobody knows what Rock is?

 

[guitarface]

OK so I got a chance to read some of this linked "explanation" AKA opinion piece.

The writer who I looked up and cannot find a birth date but can tell that he was not yet born when the history he explains took place?
OK so his opening line explaining Rock N Roll is:
"One of the only things anyone can say for sure about "rock n roll" is that no one's ever known exactly what it is".

So he himself, who did not live during the era he writes about, claims no one knows what it is, before telling us what no none really knows, except seeminly him?

A justification he leans on is corporate marketing starting in the 1950s. He implies and even claims that RnR was a corporate invention. And he claims that anything kids listened to in the times he vaguely refers to, presumably '50s & '60s, was all RnR, meaning no specific music was RnR and no specific music was Folk or Country or Soul or R&B, because it was all RnR.

Not sure though since the piece is about RnR, how he places Soul music of the '50s & '60s?
To justify RnR not being an actual style, he needs to broadly sweep away any specific styles of music at that time that was similar, like Soul or R&B.

But really the funny thing is he comes off as a young person reiterating what his grandpa told him his parents did before he was born.
The idea that alla them kids listened to that Rock n Roll was a concept told by the parents of those kids at that time.
In 1967, ask youth who listened to music if Dylan was a Rock musician, would they answer "nobody knows for sure"?
Ask the same kids if Pete Seeger or Peter Paul & Mary were Rock musicians, some may have debated where PP&M fell but none would say "nobody knows for sure what Rock is" regarding Pete Seeger singing this land is your land.

But ask those kids parents, and those parents view was probably confusion over what was to parents worried their kids were all on drugs and getting pregnant: The Devils Music.
(Circa 1967, it was common for parents to call the police to come search their childs room for drugs)

So yeah, a 40 year old college prof who writes about sports and music, claiming that "nobody really knows what Rock n Roll is"?

Sorry, I am not buying his revision of a "music style" into a corporate sponsored mystery which negates the existence of a not that hard to grok music style which was not Soul or R&B or Folk, yet some pop radio stations played all those styles in rotation, during the early 1960s. Country songs played back to back with RnR, Folk and R&B at that time. Certain pop country songs, not all country.
If his research finds a DJ used the term Rock N Roll thats fine but does not mean that DJ controlled every Rock N Roll band formed to play Rock n Roll.
And his bringing up an old vaudeville skit with girls in a tippy boat that rocked and rolled, sorry, he's running adrift with that one.

Maybe an idea some are grabbing at is that first came the term Rock n Roll, then Rock n Roll bands appeared to do the corporate sponsors bidding?
No, the music evolved and a new name for it was applied by who knows who.
Then younger people picking up guitars wanted to play like Chuck Berry or The Beatles or Hendrix, in that order etc.
Or earlier maybe they wanted to play like Woody Guthrie who was another popular artist influencing youth culture, in the Folk style that put cheap guitars in Sears catalogs and every five & dime, before the Beatles on Ed Sullivan which many credit as the reason they picked up guitar. And formed Rock or pop bands.

You can find a good argument about whether The Beatles were an actual Rock band, or really more of a pop band.
A few early Beatles songs were attempts to copy RnR but then they came up with a different style.

I find it hilarious to now learn that Rock n Roll was never an actual style of music, Rock is every pop style, and nobody knows what Rock is?

Are you using rock and "rock and roll" interchangeably?

 

[drp146]

OK so I got a chance to read some of this linked "explanation" AKA opinion piece.

The writer who I looked up and cannot find a birth date but can tell that he was not yet born when the history he explains took place?
OK so his opening line explaining Rock N Roll is:
"One of the only things anyone can say for sure about "rock n roll" is that no one's ever known exactly what it is".

So he himself, who did not live during the era he writes about, claims no one knows what it is, before telling us what no none really knows, except seeminly him?

A justification he leans on is corporate marketing starting in the 1950s. He implies and even claims that RnR was a corporate invention. And he claims that anything kids listened to in the times he vaguely refers to, presumably '50s & '60s, was all RnR, meaning no specific music was RnR and no specific music was Folk or Country or Soul or R&B, because it was all RnR.

Not sure though since the piece is about RnR, how he places Soul music of the '50s & '60s?
To justify RnR not being an actual style, he needs to broadly sweep away any specific styles of music at that time that was similar, like Soul or R&B.

But really the funny thing is he comes off as a young person reiterating what his grandpa told him his parents did before he was born.
The idea that alla them kids listened to that Rock n Roll was a concept told by the parents of those kids at that time.
In 1967, ask youth who listened to music if Dylan was a Rock musician, would they answer "nobody knows for sure"?
Ask the same kids if Pete Seeger or Peter Paul & Mary were Rock musicians, some may have debated where PP&M fell but none would say "nobody knows for sure what Rock is" regarding Pete Seeger singing this land is your land.

But ask those kids parents, and those parents view was probably confusion over what was to parents worried their kids were all on drugs and getting pregnant: The Devils Music.
(Circa 1967, it was common for parents to call the police to come search their childs room for drugs)

So yeah, a 40 year old college prof who writes about sports and music, claiming that "nobody really knows what Rock n Roll is"?

Sorry, I am not buying his revision of a "music style" into a corporate sponsored mystery which negates the existence of a not that hard to grok music style which was not Soul or R&B or Folk, yet some pop radio stations played all those styles in rotation, during the early 1960s. Country songs played back to back with RnR, Folk and R&B at that time. Certain pop country songs, not all country.
If his research finds a DJ used the term Rock N Roll thats fine but does not mean that DJ controlled every Rock N Roll band formed to play Rock n Roll.
And his bringing up an old vaudeville skit with girls in a tippy boat that rocked and rolled, sorry, he's running adrift with that one.

Maybe an idea some are grabbing at is that first came the term Rock n Roll, then Rock n Roll bands appeared to do the corporate sponsors bidding?
No, the music evolved and a new name for it was applied by who knows who.
Then younger people picking up guitars wanted to play like Chuck Berry or The Beatles or Hendrix, in that order etc.
Or earlier maybe they wanted to play like Woody Guthrie who was another popular artist influencing youth culture, in the Folk style that put cheap guitars in Sears catalogs and every five & dime, before the Beatles on Ed Sullivan which many credit as the reason they picked up guitar. And formed Rock or pop bands.

You can find a good argument about whether The Beatles were an actual Rock band, or really more of a pop band.
A few early Beatles songs were attempts to copy RnR but then they came up with a different style.

I find it hilarious to now learn that Rock n Roll was never an actual style of music, Rock is every pop style, and nobody knows what Rock is?

Didn't you get the memo? Revisionist history is all the rage these days....

 

[Butcher of Strats]

Are you using rock and "rock and roll" interchangeably?

Ordinarily no, I consider them to be two distinct styles or era styles.
But dayum!
Stuff I read here has me hunkered down trying to keep it as simple as possible while both Rock and Rock n Roll get erased and we are told there was no actual specific music style know as Rock or Rock n Roll music.

 

[drp146]

Ordinarily no, I consider them to be two distinct styles or era styles.
But dayum!
Stuff I read here has me hunkered down trying to keep it as simple as possible while both Rock and Rock n Roll get erased and we are told there was no actual specific music style know as Rock or Rock n Roll music.

It's got a backbeat, you can't lose it.......

 

[dirocyn]

This was my favorite explanation.

On Words: What, Exactly, Is Rock ’n’ Roll?

Enjoy the third installment of “On Words,” a new series in which faculty members take a crack at evocative words. Today brings you commentary from Jack Hamilton, assistant professor of American studies and media studies and the pop critic for Slate Magazine.

news.virginia.edu

I honestly hate the way you choose to dismiss things. Postmodern condition notwithstanding, this whole segment is condescending af:

“After the internet though we got mass numbers of misinformed nit wits "publishing" "history".
As consumers, or pop culture, or youth raised on video game consoles and computers, stopped consuming peer reviewed info and chose instead to "learn" "history" from bloggers who made it up as they went along, what happened exactly?

The Misinformation Age!”

There are plenty of reasonable and trained intellectuals who don’t fit under this umbrella you’ve designed for them.

I see musical genres as real but indistinct, they are categories used mostly for marketing and distribution. Music is sorted by the types of instruments and the production values, and things shift over time.

Bluegrass is defined by acoustic string instruments, most prominently the banjo. If you play AC/DC songs on banjo, fiddle, and acoustic guitar, they become Bluegrass songs. Just check out Hayseed Dixie. But County radio plays Bluegrass, so Bluegrass is a subgenre of County.

Rock is a broad category, it's meant a lot of different music since the mid 1950s. But it nearly always features a drum kit, guitar, bass, and vocals. It usually has a strong, danceable beat. But really, any music marketed as Rock is Rock. So when Englishmen play Willie Dixon tunes and it gets on Rock radio, they're playing Rock music.

Pop is not itself a genre. It's all pop. Any artist you've heard on the radio or seen on TV is pop.

 

[Nadnitram]

I wonder how some of us would feel about the National Museum of American History. They have exhibits on presidents and wars, but they also have exhibits that feature Prince's "Yellow Cloud" guitar, Lin Manuel Miranda's costume from Hamilton, Captain America's shield, and Steve Aoki's turntable.

 

[8654]

You actually called Rap , music. You can’t possibly be serious.

 

[guitarface]

You actually called Rap , music. You can’t possibly be serious.

**** off.

 

[davidKOS]

You actually called Rap , music. You can’t possibly be serious.

**** off.

I have to make a comment on this, as both a rock guitar player and as a classically trained composer.

First, I have rarely liked any rap music (maybe Cypress Hill's song?). Let's just say I am certainly not their target audience.

It still amazes me that the 70's musical styles of bands like Earth, Wind and Fire or P-Funk et al would be replaced within 10 years by rappers and DJs.

BUT

I have had to grudgingly admit rap is "music", and to even come to terms with the idea that folks that "make beats" and such, largely with samples, computer drag-and-drop methods, etc., are also composers.

So even though it's not my thing, the reality is that rap and hip-hop are now just another of many popular music genres.

P.S. I also am not particularly fond of "modern" country music either.

 

[AncientAx]

I will add my two cents and probably valued at less than that .., Bad Company not in . Sold millions of albums , packed stadiums and arenas , Paul Rodgers is one of the greatest vocalists in the history of rock music . That is all .....

 

[Seamus OReally]

The question of what is and isn’t “rock” is just silly. Pretend that they named it the Popular Music Hall of Fame. Better?