What Makes This Song Great: Roundabout by Yes
25th July 2018
The seventies were the high point of rock music. Everything has been downhill since then.
I love this kind of musical analysis. I could never do what these guys do, but I like to know how they did it because that way I appreciate it more.
I realized a long time ago that all of my favorite groups have one word names: Yes, Rush, Chicago, Kansas, Boston, Genesis, Journey, Aerosmith, Queen, Eagles, Heart, Foreigner, Styx, Santana …. I may have missed one or two.
The only exception is Moody Blues, but they were exceptional in every way.
UPDATE: My wife reminds me that I am also fond of Fleetwood Mac (classic), so that’s another exception.
July 26th, 2018 at 10:29
Pink Floyd, ZZ Top, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Rolling Stones, Deep Purple (Upon re-listening, I’ve found them to be more talented than I thought back in the day. You do have to ignore the over-play of SOTW.), Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield, Iron Butterfly (re: The Simpsons “I. Ron Butterfly” on the substituted church music.), Velvet Underground (The story goes that they only sold 100 copies of an album, but all 100 people started bands.), Grateful Dead, Isley Brothers (EVERYBODY ripped off their songs/style), Booker T. and the MGs (Green Onions), Steely Dan, the Four Tops, Blood Sweat & Tears, Allman Brothers and, of course, Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young, Merrill, Lynch, Fenner, Pierce, Smith, Sacco and Vanzetti (OK, my memory isn’t totally clear on who all belonged to the band at one time or another.)
My point (yes, there eventually is one) is that maybe the one-word band name thing wasn’t completely thought out. The reality is that the 60s-early 70s was a really amazing period in music and the number of good artists was staggering. Technology for recording and instrumentation improved dramatically. Black music came out of the closet thanks in great part to Barry Gordy and Motown. European bands echoed American bands and the resulting music expanded on a daily basis. Most importantly, the heads of the recording companies had no clue what was going to sell and so they largely stayed out of the action.
Then came the dreadful late-70s and the studios discovered disco. Now they could use studio musicians (cheap) to reproduce the same 2 songs in slightly different forms (cheap) and have a very replaceable front person (again, cheap) and sell tons of terrible albums to 12 year old girls who wanted to be cool. After that came rap and hip-hop with the same formats. Even country music went down this toilet. The studios control everything and make all the money. (For a short time, grunge kinda revived the rock of the 60s, but it was mostly tamped out by the big studios.) Instead of live bands, clubs can use DJs. Since its the only thing on the air, kids don’t know any better. Nobody is inspired to become the guitarist like Jimi Hendrix, Stephen Stills, Billy Gibbons, Stevie Ray Vaughn, or Carlos Santana. Nobody stands on the corner and harmonizes like The Temptations or the Four Tops.
{sigh}
July 26th, 2018 at 18:34
Okay, I’ll give you Pink Floyd.
July 30th, 2018 at 13:15
The Moody Blues… sigh…