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Looking at the studio albums, I thought it was four but yea, Elton's first lp was issued the year before."Your Song" became a hit in 1970. The fifth issued in this time frame would be 11/17/70, a live recording. And actually a good portion of the soundtrack lp Friends, released on the Paramount label in early 1971, bears a quick mention. A good portion of the lp are his compositions. That album is not listed in the link, but fm radio played several cuts off that lp when it was released. And am radio played the title track (Friends) as it was released on 45. Elton was incredibly active in his first couple years. According to the Goldmine Collectible Price Guides (price guide for albums published by Krause publications) his first lp was issued in 1970.
And Trimac makes a good point here as well. Lots of rock groups released 2 to 3 lp's a year during the late 60's up to the mid 70's.
A classic example of an artist who got better and better is Jimi Hendrix. When you look at the "Jimmy Jam" stuff and compare it to Electric Lady land or War Heroes you can clearly see a fast evolving artist . Some would say it was too fast and caused his ultimate demise. I think there are around 12 albums from a four or five year period.
IMO What made this possible for Jimi and his contemporaries is raw material. Today's artist don't have it. The climb to super stardom was a slow rise which allowed artist to gather raw material. Paul McCartney said the Beatles were together eight years before anyone ever heard of them. American Idol winners become super stars in such a short time its no wonder why so many have to keep releasing the same music for their entire careers.
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Originally Posted by thriftylefty
A classic example of an artist who got better and better is Jimi Hendrix. When you look at the "Jimmy Jam" stuff and compare it to Electric Lady land or War Heroes you can clearly see a fast evolving artist . Some would say it was too fast and caused his ultimate demise. I think there are around 12 albums from a four or five year period.
IMO What made this possible for Jimi and his contemporaries is raw material. Today's artist don't have it. The climb to super stardom was a slow rise which allowed artist to gather raw material. Paul McCartney said the Beatles were together eight years before anyone ever heard of them. American Idol winners become super stars in such a short time its no wonder why so many have to keep releasing the same music for their entire careers.
But you forget Jimi's career - as a prominent musician who sold a lot of records was a mere 3-4 years! He broke onto the US stage after a stint in England where he first 'made it' at Monterey Pop in June of '67. I think ALL of his albums were great - actually I prefer the Experience to the bluesier Band of Gypsies myself, others disagree, but I prefer psychedelic rock. He, of course, died in September of 1970, so he hardly had time to fade away.
If any of you have Netflix (you can get a free 30 day trial), you can go to the music documentaries. Look for the ones from 'record classics'. They have the original band present day - in the music engineering room (and other places) describing the origins of the album's songs. The stories are amazing...and it's incredibly interesting to listen to various stages of a song while they were laying the various tracks.
Oftentimes, we don't look at rock stars and realize how much real talent and serious work they put into each song. I watched the one about Tom Petty awhile back and it was just incredible. Or someone like Phil Collins...who is just a musical genius. They all have much more talent than we actually see onstage.
Adhere to the Great Debates rules when posting in this forum, a pretty extensive cleanup was needed, adhere to the rules from here on or the thread will be closed.
Firstly musically modern music is pretty limited in its variations, there are only several chord progressions (and some variations on those) that sound "good" that are recognizable as a specific genre, and only several scales that can be used for example Blues/Rock is most often based on the Minor or Major Pentatonic scale. Obviously as an artist or Bands musical library expands there's more possibility of songs that sound the same, this is especially true since much of an artists sound comes from their style, for instance Judas Priest and AC/DC sound completely different, but their music is almost exclusively the same progressions, and it's easy to tell a Downing/Tipton solo from an Angus Young solo. There are many examples of plagiarism cases where songs sound very similar, yet are entirely discrete. Song structure is similarly constrained, there aren't many successful songs without a chorus, which means successful songs often also have verses, and most likely a solo and bridge.
Secondly as someone correctly stated (and I know at least one musician has said this) your first album contains everything that happened to you up to the time the album was recorded, the second album contains everything that happened between the first album and second album's release. It's not entirely accurate, but personal material does get consumed faster than it can be produced, this is especially true given that once someone "makes it" it doesn't matter whether they're Dr. Dre, or Barry Manilow, their lifestyles may well be very similar, which means there's a consistency of life experiences for everyone who's a musician who's made it. There are examples of divorce songs, life on the road songs, my cheating manager/record exec/A&M guy songs, etc. etc. ad nauseum. across all musical genres.
There are exceptions to this, Zappa was mentioned, and he maintained his fringe status, weird chord progressions, weird modalities, and commercial "success". Leonard Cohen is another. With all of that it's not surprising musicians taper off creatively, if you're in a band you might be able to switch personnel to reinvigorate your creativity if your fans will support it (and the contract will allow for it), or split up and form new bands, Zappa did this as well with a rotating door of musicians who worked for/with him, I don't know whether this was intentional or circumstantial, but it seemed to work for him, but as a drawback, I don't often come in and throw a Zappa album on because I just must hear that one track.
Pop radio in 1969 was miles better than now, 10 out of 10 music critics and most people with any taste will agree with you there. And I agree, rock music is kind of reaching that stage where we've just heard it all before. There are still tunes to rock too, but why listen to the imitations when you can listen to the real deal?
Well that is certainly true of FM but if you are looking for a place to put the blame for both stale radio and as a result pop music, look no further than Clear Channel Communications. With their strangle hold on the nations airwaves, and their cookie-cutter programing, I'm shocked that anything worth listening to is ever heard.
As for there still being tunes to rock to, I am constantly and pleasantly surprised to find a few gems in the rough, surprisingly as background music for television soundtracks. I absolutely live for Shazam app so I can figure out who the hell was playing some here before unheard recording.
I think there are two problems contributing to this
1. Influence from record labels, or current music trends. Often record labels will try to control an artist, and it often has disatrous results. Also, current music trends could do the same thing and push artists to do records following current trends that might not neccessarily have mastered or are good for them
2. The artist has sold well, and feels they are at the point where they can go off the deep end. This happened to people like all of the Beatles. Although each Beatle did do some pretty good work on their own projects (Ringo not withstanding), alot of music they made was just so far off the wall that it was embarrassing. John Lennon in particuliar started making spacy "conceptual stuff" with Ono and he probably did it because he was John Lennon. He could pit fart on a snare drum and sell records, and even with out selling records, hed been and would continue to be a legend, and had more money then he could ever spend. Any musical artist in that situation not neccessarily loses "hunger", because I think Lennon probably put top effort in to what he was doing, but having little concern about your livelihood or the condition of your career gives you a certain luxury to pursue avenues you may have not pursued back when you werent in such a situation.
This isnt just the case with musicians. Most artists are the same way. For instance, Kevin Spacey has stated that he only acts in film to afford him the luxury to act on stage. Other actors will appear in small budget or indie films just because they like the project. Others, such as Nicolas Cage, will become far less selective about the pictures they are in, because they know their name alone will sell tickets, and they arent so concerned about the damage a really bad picture would do to their career.
What is perceived as a decline in quality could be an attempt to satisfy the musical taste of an ever widening fan base. I think it was Elton John who said once an artist has a major critically acclaimed album they should not try to top it with the next, in fact he said it is not possible.
Popular music can't be too complex . By its definition it has to satisfy the taste of a large number of people. You are probably familiar with term "cross over music". I am not sure when it officially became a subcategory , but today it is the preferred format for people on the business end of the music industry.
You get more bang for the buck by crossing over. Kenny G. was or still is a phenomenal Fusion saxophonist. I saw him play live as a side man in a Jazz quartet many years ago. The money he made crossing over into instrumental pop is how he lives on a golf course and was able to invest early and heavily in Starbucks. He could still be scuffling around New York dedicated to his art.
I think what he did as a Jazz artist, Shania Twain did as a country artist and Lionel Ritchie did it when he left the commodores and became a cross over giant.
Last edited by thriftylefty; 05-12-2012 at 08:59 AM..
Record companies and producers may not want the artist and/or group to change or evolve - they want to make $$$$$ off those people. If Lady Gaga decided she wanted to do an album of Sinatra standards, I wonder how her label would react.
And depending on what contract those artists' have - the artist may have no say at all.
Maybe the artist want to explore a new direction, too. I remember Huey Lewis talking about (after Sports and Fore! were huge successes) that they could have still done albums just like those and made big money - but they were tired of straight-ahead top-40 songs and wanted to go "back to their roots". Enter the release of "Small World" which didn't do as well as the two previous releases>
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