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| From | Michael Myers <mmyers1446@yahoo.com> |
| Subject | Re: audacious challenge, pt. 2 |
| Date | Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:23:13 -0700 (PDT) |
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--- On Wed, 7/15/09, mmyers1446@yahoo.com <mmyers1446@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: mmyers1446@yahoo.com <mmyers1446@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: audacious challenge, pt. 2
To: audities@smoe.org, hochsalzburg@yahoo.com
Date: Wednesday, July 15, 2009, 4:18 PM
Hey Greg
Yours is the type of thoughtful analysis that seems to be emerging in this discussion, thanks for the time you took to formulate it....
Let me just clear one tiny thing up... I just brought up the Badfinger reference in order to get this thing going. I loved them, loved their albums to death but I am 100% in line with you that they were not a huge influence on pop culture, not do many bands quote them as pathfinders or huge influencers in the power-pop world... in fact, I know I didn't promote that idea and I hope I didn't infer that... my sole point was that a band such as them were on the radio a lot, and lots of people heard their hits (whether they are timeless etc is a whole other can of worms)... I look at the list of bands you guys sent me so far and to be honest, I've never
heard Fastball or the Semantics or Frisbie etc etc etc on commercial radio in my car... they're all wonderful but no airplay.... please know that's the point that is basically the crux of my argument, not that Badfinger was some historical iconic band that we all must bow down to... sorry if my point wasn't stated clearly as it could....
Continue on!!!!!
:)
--- On Wed, 7/15/09, Gregory Sager <hochsalzburg@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: Gregory Sager <hochsalzburg@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: audacious challenge, pt. 2
To: audities@smoe.org
Date: Wednesday, July 15, 2009, 3:54 PM
Mike, I think that your premise is a bit off. Power pop, and the mid-Sixties British Invasion music that inspired it, has been off the popular music radar for the most part since
... well, since the mid-Sixties. You correctly cite that Badfinger had some
hits (four in the U.S., to be exact) in the late Sixties and early Seventies, but Badfinger was not a "tastemaker act" in the same sense that their contemporaries Led Zeppelin, the Allman Brothers, Yes, Carole King, and Philly soul acts such as the O'Jays and the Spinners (to use five examples off of the top of my head) were. In other words, Badfinger wasn't a phenomenally successful band in the sense that it left the masses who listened to popular music clamoring for more bands of its type, and there were no Badfinger-inspired bands that went out and conquered the charts after "No Matter What", "Day After Day", and "Baby Blue". The same could be said for Badfinger's American counterpart, the
Raspberries. Both bands, in fact, were pigeonholed as "Beatles imitators" and were seen as unabashedly retro at a time when it was widely perceived that pop music was moving onward and upward in exciting *new* directions.
In retrospect I think that that
early-Seventies zeitgeist led to a lot of unsatisfying dead ends, but that's a matter of personal taste. The important point is that the Raspberries and Badfinger, for all of their hits, were considered to be both derivative and atypical, and they left no mass impact in their wake. In fact, one can argue that the most important and influential power-pop band of that era was Big Star, whom nobody heard at the time because Stax/Volt's impending collapse and weak distribution network kept the band off the radio and out of the record stores.
What impact power pop *did* manage to have upon popular taste was well after the period (and band) you cited. To be specific, it crested in terms of popularity in the late Seventies as a part of the New Wave movement, particularly when the Knack's "My Sharona" became a massive hit and bands that reflected essential elements of power pop such as the Cars and Cheap Trick became million-sellers. But, again, that was
a momentary spasm in popular taste (and it was dwarfed by disco in terms of units moved and airtime accrued), and the public soon moved on.
In essence, I'm not sure that your thesis that Badfinger represented something substantial in terms of impact among the masses is a credible one. Lots of people loved their songs, but lots of people also considered them to be a Beatles knockoff and several years out of style at the time, and they left no lasting mark upon the industry in terms of big sales, memorable tours, or influence upon big-selling heirs.
But, to be fair to you (especially since you've engineered such a thought-provoking Audities enterprise, for which you have my thanks!), I'll answer your questions, anyway:
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