Why do pop musicians lose inspiration with the years?

JASIII · Post by **JASIII** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 12:36 pm

ubertar wrote:
SoftSupply wrote:everyone switched from psychedelic drugs to coke

Might have something to do with. But since I was born in '73 I always use that as the year things went to shit and blame it on my birth. Bitter irony, I come into the world, music goes to shit.

heylow · Post by **heylow** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 12:40 pm

SoftSupply wrote:I've had a theory about 1974 for a long time.

What happened in 1974? Was that when everyone switched from psychedelic drugs to coke?

I dunno, man.

I just made the switch myself and I haven't had any problems. A little more paranoid maybe, but I keep in hookers by the dozen and I carry a large knife so maybe that's the secret. I dunno.

I mean, I could gut an elephant with this this thing.....but I don't want to. Lucky for the cops staked out next door I'm too busy makin' sweet love.

I'm about to sit down and write the greatest record ever....uuuuuhhhhh....tomorrow.

heylow

;ivlunsdystf · Post by **;ivlunsdystf** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 1:31 pm

I've always thought of 1979 as the best year ever, with things in steady decline until fall of 1982 and then largely meaningless after that.

junkyardtodd · Post by **junkyardtodd** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 6:53 am

JASIII wrote:
ubertar wrote:
SoftSupply wrote:everyone switched from psychedelic drugs to coke
Might have something to do with. But since I was born in '73 I always use that as the year things went to shit and blame it on my birth. Bitter irony, I come into the world, music goes to shit.

Okay, there has been a billion great records since 1974. It's just that they're no longer really popular.

I want to blame the record/radio industry, but they would defend themselves by saying "Hey, we're just giving the people what they want", which does make a little sense.

Btw: I make a point of BUYING every indie record that I really like (at my local mom 'n pop record store) but if there is something I like on a major label, I will absolutely NOT buy it, but copy it from a friend instead. In the last three years I have copied exactly ZERO new major label records.

hauser gabone · Post by **hauser gabone** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 4:06 pm

curtiswyant wrote:
hauser gabone wrote:i dont really remember frank sinatra writing any good songs, i remember him being a douche, but not writing songs.
i bet you wouldn't have the balls to say that to his face. He'd kick your ass into next week

i think i could take a corpse

biasvoltage · Post by **biasvoltage** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 1:07 am

I'm in no way saying that no great records have been made since 1974.

What I mean is that there are a lot of artists who were putting out great stuff in the 60s that all of a sudden started putting out dreck. Compare Traffic's "shootout at the fantasy factory" with Steve Winwood's "Arc of a Diver". Hell, even Paul Anka's stuff before 1974 looks pretty sterling when compared to "Having my Baby".

It's a goofy theory, which has the side effect of generating maximum ire when presented to musically aware people.
[/quote]

;ivlunsdystf · Post by **;ivlunsdystf** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 7:24 am

When did the top 40 migrate from AM to the FM band? Mid 70s I think. The heyday of experimental FM programming was early 70s? Somebody who lived through it please explain. I always think of WNEW in NYC as being the ultimate early 1970s FM beacon.

Lately there is some hope for radio as there are now KEXP/KCRW type stations in most major markets (breathy vocals notwithstanding)

Anyway, the subtopic of this thread, which is "why did things go flat in the mid 1970s?" seems to lead us back to two theories: Cocaine, and the decline of FM as a home for progressive programming.

JGriffin · Post by **JGriffin** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 9:30 am

Tatertot wrote:When did the top 40 migrate from AM to the FM band?

Late '70s-early '80s, as the broadcasters realized the new band was here to stay and sounded better...and car manufacturers started installing AM/FM radios in cars.

douglas baldwin · Post by **douglas baldwin** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 9:38 am

Somebody who lived through it please explain.

Money.
More people owned FM radios, more 60s teens became young adults, concerts got WAY bigger. Tours became more organized. Artists with borderline edge-music status made conscious decisions to either become more mainstream and sell more records (can you say Pink Floyd?) or remain outside the money-making machine (Grateful Dead, Zappa). Or die. (Morrison, Joplin, Jimi, Duane, three guys from Canned Heat, Spinal Tap's drummer...) Seriously, I was very much there then. To hear the efforts of Cream and Hendrix get dumbed down into Black Sabbath and Grand Funk Railroad, the songwriting of Jackson Browne and Joni Mitchell transformed into have-a-nice-day soft rock pablum, the jazz-rock fusion thing become Chicago...it was painful. Personally, I stuck with Zappa, the Dead, and got into reggae, world music, and Steve Reich.
There's always good music around, you just gotta be sure "the man" don't don't get a holda it. Hide your Sigur Ros!
dB

;ivlunsdystf · Post by **;ivlunsdystf** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 10:24 am

Thanks for the summary of the AM -> FM transition in the 70s. Back to the original question in this thread:

"The man who remains creative will make art for the rest of his life out of the remnants of infantile and adolescent conflicts. For other men, the end of adolescence means a shutting down of expressiveness and a fading of the fires. That is the way it has been for hundreds of years". -Robert Bly

If you are comfortable with Robert Bly and willing to ignore his entrenched sexism, and you take the above statements to be true, they apply well to the case of pop music. Pop music typically dwells upon infantile and adolescent conflicts, after all. I guess the goal is to have as many infantile and adolescent conflicts as possible during the early years, in order to fuel a lifetime of creative activity. If we agree with this, perhaps we can also agree that Ashlee Simpson is well on the way to a life of creativity (just watch her hem and haw her way through an episode of her MTV show)

(DUCKS)

JGriffin · Post by **JGriffin** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 11:00 am

I think the challenge is to create art that is not rooted in infantile and adolescent conflicts...and then try to find a rock audience that will get it, considering most rock fans continue to experience the form through an infantile and adolescent lens well into late adulthood.

Ethan Holdtrue · Post by **Ethan Holdtrue** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 10:59 am

it's cause they all die at 27...

brakeshop · Post by **brakeshop** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 1:48 pm

I always look at pop stars as "vessels" for other people who are usually more talented but, because of their advanced age(usually over thirty) , or the fact that they don't look like popstars, would never be popular.

;ivlunsdystf · Post by **;ivlunsdystf** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 2:31 pm

Regarding pop stars just being vessels for other creative people: Would you include Bob Rock in that theory? You present a very good theory. If it applies to a great number of pop stars, then the original premise of this thread is definitely false (in those instances anyway)

I was totally floored by the Phil Ramone interview in the Tape Op mag last month. Now there is a creative genius who works through others if I've ever seen one.

ubertar · Post by **ubertar** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 4:04 pm

It seems to me there was a burst of creativity around the world, particularly in the US and England, that started at the end of WWII and peaked in the late '60s. Enough people were open to big changes that there was a lot of experimentation. Then we had the fallout from the experiments that didn't work out so well for one reason or another... a weeding process: assimilating what worked, discarding what didn't or what people still aren't ready for. It's a long process. I don't think that kind of rapid change in attitudes will happen again in our lifetimes, or our children's either. The music and art that go with that are a symptom, or catalyst, or both.

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Why do pop musicians lose inspiration with the years?

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