[QUOTE] [b]The Real Wizard wrote:[/b]Bingo.
Of course there was a ton of good music in the 80s, but pretty much anyone who was around in the 65-75 period will tell you what a special time it was to create music, for two reasons - the joy of using the available and growing technology to the fullest, and the minimal influence of the business on what you created (with the exception of Motown, which was an assembly line from its inception).
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it's hard to put it any better than this ^.
as much as I'll always love Queen, they'd have been nothing had it not been for the likes of Beatles, Small Faces, Zep, Floyd and the Kinks being the true pioneers.
my dad (rest his soul) often claimed in later life that he never really listened to "that 60s rubbish" - as he called it. But I clearly remember a conversation we had in his last few months about how he gave me his copy of Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane and Itchycoo Park. Even though both records were probably only 5/6 yrs old when he gave them to me - both were a shade of grey from being played to death. I played them on the Stereogram in our front room and 1000% credit my dad with my musical education up until about 1974.
People refer to II and Opera as brilliant, but man, that was with 24 tracks available for recording. It's hard to comprehend how truly great/incredible albums like Sgt Pepper, Rubber Soul, Abbey Road, Ogdens, Zep I (recorded in 36 hrs), Zep II, Axis, Electric Ladyland and others were - in light of the tape capacity available - ranging from 4 to 8 tracks. simply stunning.
Then there's "my albums of the 70s" : Boston, Out of the Blue, Rising, Montrose, Queen II, Races etc - that were perfect tributes to those 60s pioneers - they took the extra tape capacity and worked it and worked it - pushing everything as far as it was possible.
There's a story somewhere about one Boston album where they has to painstakingly "untack" one reel that had stuck to itself while in storage. rock was a genuine art in those days.
and NONE of the above is to say there aren't great rock/pop artists around these days - just less that I appreciate. I love the Killers and Foos - Brandon Flowers is a true frontman with huge talent and creativity, and his lyrical storytelling is a rare thing - an ability to make you feel like you're witnessing the events of the song. Grohl and Hawkins are proper oldschool rockers and again, great performers.
brENsKi