August 2, 20168 yr biggest albanian dance pop hit ever: What makes this more interesting is two up and comers in R&B, Rita Ora in the UK and Bebe Rexha in the US, are of Albanian descent. Prior to that, not an ethnicity heard from much in entertainment.
August 3, 20168 yr I found the anthem of suburban Cincinnati: “To an Ohio resident - wherever he lives - some other part of his state seems unreal.”
August 9, 20168 yr If anyone ever wondered where Trans-Siberian Orchestra came from...this is it: So they randomly recorded a power metal Christmas carol on some lame post-metal, post-concept album era concept album in 1996 that nobody bought...but somehow an obscure track on the B-side took off and the record company convinced them to rebrand the band and just do Christmas carols. Here you can observe the now-ubiquitous department store muzak in the 44th minute of this horrible album:
August 9, 20168 yr This most every night recently and sometimes at work when i dont need to listen. Oddly relaxing, and if i find myself listening to what is going on and get distracted I switch to LAX and the constant meaningless chatter. http://youarelistening.to/losangeles
August 9, 20168 yr If anyone ever wondered where Trans-Siberian Orchestra came from...this is it: So they randomly recorded a power metal Christmas carol on some lame post-metal, post-concept album era concept album in 1996 that nobody bought...but somehow an obscure track on the B-side took off and the record company convinced them to rebrand the band and just do Christmas carols. Here you can observe the now-ubiquitous department store muzak in the 44th minute of this horrible album: Perhaps even more prophetic of their TSO days:
August 9, 20168 yr I was unaware of all of this until last night when I saw some people talking about it on another site. I admit that I had never once contemplated where, exactly, Trans-Siberian came from, or paid any attention to the act whatsoever, other than one manager I had at a restaurant I worked at who put their stuff on sarcastically one day around Christmas. I had always assumed that it was something some producer put together in LA, not something that was stumbled upon completely by accident as part of a bloated, third-rate rock concept album. So I read that band's history and they put out no less than 12 albums, between about 1980 and 2010. They went through so many lineup changes that I'm sure the guys who quit the band in the 80s and early 90s have to be kicking themselves every day that they didn't get in on the Trans-Siberian money, since I'm sure that money has a lot of zero's in it.
August 9, 20168 yr I've been listening to Savatage since the early '90s and have determined that their output is really inconsistent. Some stuff, like say off of Power of the Night and Hall of the Mountain King is very good while the album in between those two, Fight for the Rock just kinda sucks. Anything Gutter Ballet and later is too overblown for my taste. A couple better ones: and What I really like about this period of the band is that there were tons of cool licks used as fills to keep you from getting bored. The reason I'm not into AC/DC much is that there's way too much open space since they're always stopping.
August 16, 20168 yr something unusual in honor of the dog days of summer -- two late saints of pop music: General Johnson and Joey Ramone - Rockaway Beach (w/a bit of Johnson's Chairmen Of The Board's "On The Beach"): also, speaking of crummy quality old videos + in honor of just seeing best coast and the go-go's farewell tour show in ap, nj -- here is a concert that someone put up from an old vcr tape -- the go-go's playing at a los angeles hs in 1981:
August 17, 20168 yr I listened to Casey's Top 40 from 1984 last Sunday and The Go-Go's made an appearance with some song I had not heard before (the way now-forgotten songs charted so high back in the 80s is almost a thread topic unto itself). Casey remarked that they were at the time the top-selling all-girl group in recording history. They might have been usurped by The Bangles, but they most definitely were buried by The Dixie Chicks, who are now back after a 13-year hiatus: http://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/music/2016/08/16/dixie-chicks-long-road-back-exile/88762752/ I don't like their music but it's pretty amazing that they were blacklisted by pop country radio for one mild remark made at a live concert in London. It makes you wonder who really pulls the strings of the country music business. Or why country music fans and performers tolerate the draconian, mysterious business structure that lords over the "industry".
August 18, 20168 yr I listened to Casey's Top 40 from 1984 last Sunday and The Go-Go's made an appearance with some song I had not heard before (the way now-forgotten songs charted so high back in the 80s is almost a thread topic unto itself). Casey remarked that they were at the time the top-selling all-girl group in recording history. They might have been usurped by The Bangles, but they most definitely were buried by The Dixie Chicks, who are now back after a 13-year hiatus: http://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/music/2016/08/16/dixie-chicks-long-road-back-exile/88762752/ I don't like their music but it's pretty amazing that they were blacklisted by pop country radio for one mild remark made at a live concert in London. It makes you wonder who really pulls the strings of the country music business. Or why country music fans and performers tolerate the draconian, mysterious business structure that lords over the "industry". well, dixie chicks are a country band that is another animal. as for the go-go's and the pop charts, it sounds like casey needed to flesh that out a bit more for you -- per wiki: The Go-Go's are an American rock band formed in 1978. They made history as the first -- and only -- all-female band that both wrote their own songs and played their own instruments to top the Billboard album charts. The Go-Go's rose to fame during the early 1980s. Their 1981 debut album, Beauty and the Beat, is considered one of the "cornerstone albums of (US) new wave" (AllMusic), breaking barriers and paving the way for a host of other new American acts. When the album was released, it steadily climbed the Billboard 200 chart, ultimately reaching No. 1, where it remained for six consecutive weeks. The album sold in excess of 3 million copies and reached triple platinum status, making it one of the most successful debut albums ever.
August 18, 20168 yr The funny thing about the Go-Gos is a lot of people thought they were a manufactured band designed to ride the “new wave” trend, but they were all legitimate punk rockers, even (perhaps especially) Belinda Carlisle.
August 19, 20168 yr The funny thing about the Go-Gos is a lot of people thought they were a manufactured band designed to ride the “new wave” trend, but they were all legitimate punk rockers, even (perhaps especially) Belinda Carlisle. The truly great all-girl rock band never happened. I think it could have happened, but the stars never aligned. The Go-Go's and The Bangles are the best we got. A lot of "girl" bands did have one or maybe two guys in them, i.e. The Breeders, Bikini Kill, Hole, etc. That's distinctly separate from otherwise all-male bands fronted by insane women like The Plasmatics and Jefferson Airplane. Perhaps my favorite all-girl band was The Demolition Dollrods, who had one dude who dressed in sort-of drag and pretended to be a woman. Here they are covering Howlin' Wolf...I saw them 2 or 3 times around the time this video was filmed: I bought this CD at one of their shows...it's awesome. I've put in on at parties and people tolerate about half of this song before they leave.
August 19, 20168 yr The funny thing about the Go-Gos is a lot of people thought they were a manufactured band designed to ride the “new wave” trend, but they were all legitimate punk rockers, even (perhaps especially) Belinda Carlisle. The truly great all-girl rock band never happened. I think it could have happened, but the stars never aligned. The Go-Go's and The Bangles are the best we got. A lot of "girl" bands did have one or maybe two guys in them, i.e. The Breeders, Bikini Kill, Hole, etc. That's distinctly separate from otherwise all-male bands fronted by insane women like The Plasmatics and Jefferson Airplane. Perhaps my favorite all-girl band was The Demolition Dollrods, who had one dude who dressed in sort-of drag and pretended to be a woman. Here they are covering Howlin' Wolf...I saw them 2 or 3 times around the time this video was filmed: I bought this CD at one of their shows...it's awesome. I've put in on at parties and people tolerate about half of this song before they leave. There were some decent all-female bands at that level “just below” superstardom. Girlschool, Vixen, Hole, L7, the Donnas, and Elastica come to mind. The Runaways get seriously underrated because they were manufactured and so damn young when they started. My favorite is probably Kenickie, even though they had a male drummer. British band, just out of high school, played for a couple years and said hell with it. Punk-pop at its ultimate, couldn’t evolve any more than a shark could so said hell with it. One member is a BBC TV personality, another in a very retro folksinging group. Part of the issue might be female band members being able to work together while they hate each other. Dokken and the Ramones are examples of guys managing.
August 19, 20168 yr Well, Dokken really only made it 6 years before Don and George were ready to kill each other. They got together once in the mid-'90s for like a year. Now they are back together for like 5 shows, but are going back to their current lineup with Don's lawyer on guitar after the shows. George is weeeeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiird and Don has a short fuse. I've even managed to get Don pissed off once. I think Girlschool could have been bigger. They didn't have the budget for expensive videos though, which you needed in 1984 with a girl group since back then people really wanted the visuals with female acts.
August 19, 20168 yr The funny thing about the Go-Gos is a lot of people thought they were a manufactured band designed to ride the “new wave” trend, but they were all legitimate punk rockers, even (perhaps especially) Belinda Carlisle. The truly great all-girl rock band never happened. actually it did. we have been talking about them. the go-go's were truly great in every way, shape and form anyone would measure. groundbreaking, popular, hits, etc., etc. -- and as erocc mentioned they were at least as punk if not more so than any all-boy bands. so i can't imagine what your idiosyncratic criteria are for this. i guess its only that you don't know them and never saw them live or anything so therefore they can't possibly count.
August 19, 20168 yr Oh I remember them when they first came out. I was very young but my babysitters tended to pretty much just sit there and watch MTV. The bridge in "Our lips are sealed" was their one flash of songwriting genius. Other than the handful of hits, the songwriting quality fell off pretty steeply, and none of them were good players.
September 2, 20168 yr Good grief. I hadn't listened to this song in at least 10 years until tonight. This thing is just so ridiculous it's hard to believe that the damn thing exists. You think you've heard everything dumb they're going to throw into this thing and then halfway through the falsetto makes a tacky cameo.
September 8, 20168 yr Guns N Roses has announced a large number of upcoming shows in South America, Asia, and Australia: 27/10/2016 Lima, Peru, Estádio Monumental 29/10/2016 Santiago, Chile, Estádio Nacional 01/11/2016 Rosario, Argentina, Estádio Rosario 04/11/2016 Buenos Aires, Argentina, Estádio River Plate 08/11/2016 Porto Alegre, Brasil, Estádio Beira Rio 11/11/2016 São Paulo, Brasil, Allianz Parque 12/11/2016 São Paulo, Brasil, Allianz Parque 15/11/2016 Curitiba, Brasil, Pedreira Paulo Leminski 18/11/2016 Rio de Janeiro, Brasil (local a ser definido) 20/11/2016 Brasília, Brasil, Estádio Nacional 23/11/2016 Medellin, Colombia, Estádio Atanasio Girardot 26/11/2016 San Jose, Costa Rica, Estádio Nacional 21/01/2017 Kyocera Dome, Osaka, Japão 28/01/2017 Saitama Super Arena, Tóquio, Japão 29/01/2017 Saitama Super Arena, Tóquio, Japão 07/02/2017 QSAC Estádio, Brasbane, Austrália 10/02/2017 ANZ Stadium, Sydney, Austrália 14/02/2017 Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne, Austrália 18/02/2017 Adelaide Oval, Adelaide, Austrália 21/02/2017 Domain Stadium, Perth, Austrália And speaking of festival-motivated reunions of fragile bands, the crowd looked pretty huge for The Misfits last weekend in Denver for Riot Fest. They're playing Riot Fest #2 in Chicago in two weeks. I was never really a fan of this band, but I think the first four Danzig solo records are pretty good/hilarious. In 2001-02 I worked at a store with about a half dozen punk and hardcore kids who were all about The Misfits but hated Danzig solo, so I kept my opinions to myself. Even now I periodically see somebody who is pretty young with a Misfits tattoo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZYT1j9SQ6U
October 13, 20168 yr I'm finally coming to terms that I had to miss Brian Wilson at the historic Fox Theatre in Detroit last week....this is a period of mourning for me, if you will. The Beach Boys are like a long, twisted, otherworldly novel where the more you put into it, the more you'll get out of it. Some interesting things about this track: -this was Brian's first and most obvious homage to the Beatles, dedicated to John Lennon. -The Beach Boys were competent players, but at this point they were becoming fairly reliant on awesome studio musicians. For this song Brian dragged the band off their tour and back into the studio to record all the instruments on their own...just like the Beatles did. -this is the rare Beach Boys song in that it has no harmony vocals. -the chord changes in this song are phenomenal. Brian had a gift in making complex or unusual arrangements come off to sound easy and natural.
October 13, 20168 yr I’ve been into mid 90s BritPop lately, particularly female fronted bands. The aforementioned Kenickie, Elastica, Sleeper (one of my favorites in any genre), Lush, and especially for some reason Saint Etienne.
October 13, 20168 yr I'm finally coming to terms that I had to miss Brian Wilson at the historic Fox Theatre in Detroit last week....this is a period of mourning for me, if you will. The Beach Boys are like a long, twisted, otherworldly novel where the more you put into it, the more you'll get out of it. Some interesting things about this track: -this was Brian's first and most obvious homage to the Beatles, dedicated to John Lennon. -The Beach Boys were competent players, but at this point they were becoming fairly reliant on awesome studio musicians. For this song Brian dragged the band off their tour and back into the studio to record all the instruments on their own...just like the Beatles did. -this is the rare Beach Boys song in that it has no harmony vocals. -the chord changes in this song are phenomenal. Brian had a gift in making complex or unusual arrangements come off to sound easy and natural. no need to mourn -- he is doing a pet sounds+ victory lap tour all next year -- check out april! 10-12-13 San Francisco, CA - Masonic 10-14 Stateline, NV - Harrah’s Lake Tahoe 10-15 Sacramento, CA - Sacramento Community Center Theater 10-28 London, England - Royal Albert Hall 10-30 Paris, France - Salle Pleyel 10-31 Basel, Switzerland - Even Hall, Basel Fair 11-03 Dubai, United Arab Dubai Tennis Stadium 11-06 Oslo, Norway - Spektrum, NO 11-07 Malmo, Sweden - Malmo Live 12-01 Monterrey, Mexico - Auditorio Pabellón M 12-03 Acapulco, Mexico - Tropico Festival 03-27 Orlando, FL - Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts 03-29 New Orleans, LA - Saenger Theater 03-31 Durant, OK - Choctaw Casino 04-01 Mayetta, KS - Prairie Band Casino 04-02 Park City, KS - Hartman Arena 04-04 Fort Collins, CO - Lincoln Center 04-06 Boise, ID - Morrison Center for the Perf. Arts 04-09 Seattle, WA - Paramount Theatre 04-17 Sioux City, IA - Orpheum Theatre 04-18 Des Moines, IA - Civic Center 04-19 Milwaukee, WI - Riverside Theater 04-21 Columbus, OH - Palace Theatre of Columbus 04-22 Northfield, OH - Hard Rock Live 04-23 Indianapolis, IN - Murat Theatre at Old National Centre 04-25 Hershey, PA - Hershey Theatre 04-26 Albany, NY - Palace Theatre 04-28 Newark, NJ - New Jersey P.A.C. 04-29 Boston, MA - Lynn Auditorium 04-30 Worcester, MA - Hanover Theatre 05-02 Wilkes Barre, PA - FM Kirby Center 05-03 Washington, DC - Lincoln Theatre 05-06 Knoxville, TN - Tennessee Theatre 05-07 Chattanooga, TN - Tivoli Theatre 05-09 Birmingham, AL - BJCC Concert Hall 05-12 Houston, TX - Revention Music Center 05-13 Austin, TX - ACL Live at The Moody Theater 05-16 Tulsa, OK - Brady Theatre 05-18 Albuquerque, NM - Kiva Auditorium 05-19 Tucson, AZ - Centennial Hall 05-20 Laughlin, NV - Harrah’s Laughlin 05-22 Phoenix, AZ - Celebrity Theatre 05-24 San Diego, CA - San Diego Civic Theatre 05-26 Los Angeles, CA - Pantages Theatre 05-28 Santa Barbara, CA - Santa Barbara Bowl
October 14, 20168 yr ^ Every Saint band is good! From Armored to Lucia I loved this video. My brother and Julia (lead singer in one of his bands) did an acoustic set at One World Day at the Cultural Gardens. I cracked on him that they had one less Sleeperbloke and one less beer. If anyone remembers The Generators, I loved them too and Louise Wener always struck me as what would happen if Eva Dilcue fell into an attitude pond.
October 15, 20168 yr I saw Brian Wilson live in 2002 and have to say that I didn't think the show was very good. Then when youtube was invented I saw that the band completely changed in 2003 or 2004 and was much better. I have no idea who he is playing with now. Of course at that time we assumed that we were watching a guy who was near death and who we couldn't imagine would still be ticking let alone touring in...2017. I got into the band when I was in college only because I had a roommate who wasn't into music but for some odd reason had a dubbed VHS copy of a Beach Boys documentary that he sat one night with a tub of ice cream in his lap and watched, cracking up at how high all of the guys were in the 70s. The documentary was from the 80s when Brain Wilson was really fat and living in his mom's basement or something, so basically that roommate but who was actually good at something. Around 1999 or 2000 I bought all of their albums used including the CD's that had two albums on one CD. That made it a little tough to distinguish and respect the individual albums. I remember the Pet Sounds CD first had the album in mono (as it was originally released), then in stereo (remixed for the CD), so just that one album took up an entire CD. But then when the Smile remake came out in 2004 I was absolutely stunned because all those fragments from the bizarre late Beach Boys albums suddenly linked together. It was one of the truly incredible listening experiences of my life. But after the initial spectacle wore off, I found Smile to be more than a bit bloated and confused. It was very interesting through Barn Yard but then got obnoxiously self-indulgent right around when Surf's Up appeared. Mrs. O'Leary's Cow oddly re-centers the whole affair, and then the Good Vibrations outro is sort-of a let-down because everybody already knows that song so it felt like a tack-on. Anyway, in writing that, I remembered this curious song: What a spectacular homage to the era when long-distance calls were expensive, and answering machines didn't yet exist! Luckily I am old enough to remember what it was like getting letters in the mail -- far more exciting than any text message or email.
October 25, 20168 yr I saw Brian Wilson live in 2002 and have to say that I didn't think the show was very good. Then when youtube was invented I saw that the band completely changed in 2003 or 2004 and was much better. I have no idea who he is playing with now. Agree his early tours were almost like a circus curiosity. His current band is top notch, but it's hard to reconcile Brian's current "okay" singing voice with the tremendous, almost otherworldly singing voice of his younger self. That being said, I did see the Beach Boys 50th Anniversary Tour and those guys can still perform some great hamonies live. I much prefer the Beach Boys version of Smile. The vocal blend of the original members is just too incredible. Like you I prefer segments of it more than the "complete" version of it. The background vocals to Barnyard and Heroes and Villians...wow, there's nothing else like it! Here I'd like to give a rare shout out to Hipsters everywhere. For while they suck for so many reasons, I do fully appreciate how they have helped elevate Brian Wilson and his music to the highest circles of neverending coolness. p.s. I'm glad you brought up Busy Doing Nothing. That is probably the strangest track I've ever heard. The very first time I heard it I thought "This is an insane person, but in a good way." p.s.s. Here's one of my favorite videos, a rare (optimistic) glimpse of the band optimistically trying to survive without their leader. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVfCHQbdqfQ
October 26, 20168 yr ^ al jardine and his son are among the current touring band and i believe the son helps handle the high notes for brian.
October 27, 20168 yr The Grand 'Ol Opry is opening a remote location/attraction in...Times Square: http://www.rollingstone.com/country/news/grand-ole-opry-to-open-entertainment-space-in-new-york-city-w447138 Country Music and Nashville self-promotion jumped the shark 20 years ago. It's totally out-of-control and pushed by money of shadowy origins.
October 27, 20168 yr Glad to see so much love for the Beach Boys on here. Brian's easily my favorite artist, and I think part of what made a lot of his music so special is that even if you split the vocal track from the instrumental backing track, they can both pretty much stand on their own and still be a really solid piece of music. He was such an incredible composer and did some amazing stuff with the Wrecking Crew. I too love Smile, but even the snippets from Brian's post-meltdown albums are great. Smiley Smile is a surprisingly solid record for being just a bunch of assorted Smile clips re-recorded in the bottom of an empty swimming pool by all of the (clearly stoned) Beach Boys. And I'm a big fan of Sunflower too. Never really got into Surf's Up though, and after that album they basically fell off a cliff. Let us never mention Kokomo... thanks for that one Mike Love. The fact that basically every song on Pet Sounds can have its backing track removed and still sound like a complete song is pretty incredible. “To an Ohio resident - wherever he lives - some other part of his state seems unreal.”
October 28, 20168 yr ^Kokomo was the Stamos days. That was also when they looked like '80s race car drivers. Mike Love looked exactly like A.J. Foyt.
October 28, 20168 yr I saw "The Beach Boys" (the group that's just Mike and Bruce, not Brian's band) at GABP a few years ago after a Reds game and Stamos made a guest appearance. It got really uncomfortable when Mike tried to make a joke about sleeping with Stamos' mother. “To an Ohio resident - wherever he lives - some other part of his state seems unreal.”
October 28, 20168 yr I saw KC & the Sunshine Band after a Reds game in or around 1999. At least 15,000 people stuck around and a conga line formed around the red seat level -- one of the most incredible things I've seen strangers ever do! It actually started out as two conga lines each headed toward the totally empty center field seats under the scoreboard. It took several minutes but eventually they met and the third base side conga line clumsily reversed direction and the combined 300-500 member conga line completed a circuit of the stadium in a counter-clockwise direction. I was there with about ten people and we were all laughing hysterically for 10+ minutes taking it all in. We still crack up anytime somebody mentions it. Also, tons of people were flinging those 4-cup cup holders, cup lids, and whatever else off the upper deck onto the lower deck . It was a wild scene, with hundreds of objects in the air for 20-30 minutes straight.
October 28, 20168 yr That was during the brief disco revival of the late '90s when everything '70s was cool again. Columbus even had an all-disco station which I believe was all the way up in the attic at 107.9. It wasn't long until it flipped to another format.
October 28, 20168 yr That was during the brief disco revival of the late '90s when everything '70s was cool again. Columbus even had an all-disco station which I believe was all the way up in the attic at 107.9. It wasn't long until it flipped to another format. And now it's the 2010s and people are looking at the 1990s with nostalgia. I always thought that nostalgia was on a 30 year cycle but these days it's more like 20.
October 28, 20168 yr What's odd is that '80s nostalgia hit in the late '90s but '90s took until the early-mid Teens to happen. I think it's becuase the '80s were cut off so violently while the '90s had a smooth comedown.
October 28, 20168 yr What's odd is that '80s nostalgia hit in the late '90s but '90s took until the early-mid Teens to happen. I think it's becuase the '80s were cut off so violently while the '90s had a smooth comedown. I listen to syndicated re-runs of Casey's Top 40 almost every Sunday. They appear to have only repackaged the shows from about 1981-1984, so every Sunday it's that same time range. It's pretty incredible to hear how many Top 10's and even #1's have fallen into total obscurity. They fell off the charts back in 1983~, never to be heard from again. They never popped back up in the 80s revival. It's also amazing to hear how many bands had *dozens* of Top 40 singles who now have been almost completely forgotten, like The Commodores. There were all kinds of other groups out at the same time that were all post-disco, post-funk pop acts that time has forgotten as well, like Champagne. In the sea of all that crap (that when you listen to it, you can tell the producers really wanted Autotune and digital effects to go wild with but were reigned in by 2" tape), it's more than a breath of fresh air to hear the straightforward folky rock acts like John Couger (Mellencamp) and Tom Petty. The guy who really stands out in the pop realm is Huey Lewis...it's so glossed up (unlike the two afore-mentioned guys) but there's always the insinuation of an edginess, but not one that compelled the guy to actually make edgy music. You just get the sense that the guy knows he's a bit cheesy and isn't haunted in the least by his inability to make more serious music.
October 28, 20168 yr ^It's like, there's an odd corollary between Huey Lewis and Bruce Springsteen. Bruce was tolerable when he was in Huey Lewis territory (Glory Days), but then sucked when he decided he had to be Bruce. Meanwhile, Huey Lewis seems to have been never tempted in the least to sit down and try and get serious (unless there's some god-awful later albums I'm not aware of).
October 28, 20168 yr ^^Or on the other side, Kill 'Em All sold few records at the time and Metallica was considered music for burnouts, druggies and virgin males. The meatheads regularly beat the crap out of the Metallica fans or at least harassed them. Now they play Seek & Destroy at every single NFL game and the same meatheads go nuts for it now. There's also a good chance that the hesher '80s Metallica fan has switched over to nu-country.
October 28, 20168 yr I too enjoy hearing the Top 40 replays. I'd argue however that pound for pound it was the 70's pop that was even more forgettable. For example: The Partridge Family? Captain and Tenielle?? Man I loved those shows! But the music was just so hopelessly bland. In contrast, the 80's were really dynamic and diverse in virtually every genre.
October 28, 20168 yr Completely forgettable singer/songwriter churnout dominated the charts in the '70s, not Zeppelin.
October 28, 20168 yr I too enjoy hearing the Top 40 replays. I'd argue however that pound for pound it was the 70's pop that was even more forgettable. For example: The Partridge Family? Captain and Tenielle?? Man I loved those shows! But the music was just so hopelessly bland. In contrast, the 80's were really dynamic and diverse in virtually every genre. Yeah occasionally Casey does a flashback to the 70s on his early 80s shows, and you're always like who? What is this song? But there's something really weird with how they tabulated those Top 40 songs, since it was usually completely dominated by disco, post-disco, or r&b ballads. Were people really buying those records and requesting those songs at paces that far outstripped the rock bands that were selling out arenas and stadiums night after night? None of those pop singers seemed to even launch significant tours. Michael Jackson didn't even play that many live shows as compared to, say, RATT. I'm sure that Huey Louis, John Couger Mellencamp, Bob Segar, etc., were playing 150 shows a year for 5-10 years. None of those disco acts or r&b singers were doing anything like that. Did Whitney Houston or Mariah Carey even tour? Or were these people selling so many goddamn records that they just sat around and collected checks?
October 28, 20168 yr ^ Hmm, my first guess would be that the music companies were maybe more invested in the more manufactured acts. Like, whereas it's plausible that Mellancamp, RATT and Seger were self-contained entities, artist like Whitney Houston and Mariah were far more reliant on "the industry" for their production and songwriting. I suppose the Nashville (yuck!) example you brought up earlier would be a similar situation.
October 28, 20168 yr According to this, it appears that Michael Jackson only performed live 120~ times during the entire 1980s (or an average of 12 per year). No tour whatsoever for Off the Wall or Thriller, unless he also toured with The Jacksons at that time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_concert_tours_by_Michael_Jackson_and_the_Jackson_5 Meanwhile, according to this list, Van Halen played 602 times during that same time period: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Halen_concert_tours
October 28, 20168 yr Same deal as superhero movies... everybody robotically went out and bought those singles the first couple weeks, then never cared about them again.
October 28, 20168 yr According to this, it appears that Michael Jackson only performed live 120~ times during the entire 1980s (or an average of 12 per year). No tour whatsoever for Off the Wall or Thriller, unless he also toured with The Jacksons at that time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_concert_tours_by_Michael_Jackson_and_the_Jackson_5 Meanwhile, according to this list, Van Halen played 602 times during that same time period: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Halen_concert_tours At that time touring was a losing proposition, designed to break even and sell records. Michael Jackson didn't need help in this department. MTV did his promotion for him. The Victory Tour was Michael's way of getting the rest of the family out of his pockets. Not sure it worked for long....
October 29, 20168 yr we saw hinds from madrid again last night at the warsaw in greenpoint bklyn. they are adorable. i also saw thee headcoats, the band that originally did this song in the video, at the alrosa villa in columbus years back when they used to have occasional garage band shows in between the hair metal.
November 8, 20168 yr Two rock documentaries playing simultaneously at The Esquire, except one of these bands didn't really rock: And luckily we are spared the Oasis movie...those guys simply didn't make a real impact in the United States. And yet 20 years later they're still running around acting like they were the biggest band of all-time.
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