Why does history treat some bands better than others?

Summer of 1990, my friends and I listened to that Steve Miller Band greatest hits album constantly. His songs were on the radio still. The Eagles still got played too. Fleetwood Mac was seen as your parents' music.

 

And, yet, in 2014 artists ranging from Haim to Little Big Town to Best Coast are influenced by Fleetwood Mac: who is influenced by the Steve Miller Band?

 

The critics and their small groups of adherents can get together and self congratulate themselves on their ability to discern the 'importance' and deeper meaning of their favorite acts - which may not be getting national or international air play, but then again, that might diminish their cred amongst the intelligentsia. My pop is better than you're pop.

How rock & roll.

 

I wouldn't know. I don't listen to anything new.

 

Who cares? Trends come & go. Some artists are simply known for what they create and don't translate well to being emulated in a particular place at a particular time.

 

It's not just a matter of novelty. Ramones, the Sex Pistols, and the Beatles all created music and images/personae of a higher level of potency at all levels. I don't think it's right to reduce the output of the Steve Miller band to "lowest common denominator party rock." I think they/he created pop rock at a pretty high level of craft and sophistication, and I really enjoy those records, as do a lot of people. But so far history has treated that music differently because of the way it resonates (or doesn't) with intangable aspects of our individual and collective experience. "Fly Like and Eagle" is a great track, and resonates with a certain sense of what freedom or a yearning for it might mean or feel like against the backdrop of time passing and the hope that the future might see a decisive change for the better. It's a distinctive and even seductive song recording and song. But does it have the disruptive myth-making power of "Beat on the Brat" or "God Save the Queen?" No. Does to still have the power to evoke the terrors/bewilderments and comforts of childhood memories the way "Strawberry Fields"/"Penny Lane" can? Or can it do so as part of a hugely resonant coming of age story that mirrors, intensifies, and makes sense of the experience of a generation of young men and women who reimagined their own culture and its values in the decades following the second World War? Again, no.

The song's own mode of expression is indeed indepted to what the Beatles wrought before it, and it was sharply challenged by the music of Ramones and the Sex Pistols after it. These were before and after myth-making artistic creations, and unlike even the best and most widely known SMB songs, they've become self-perpetuating touchstones in the culture--much written about and presented in a certain context with a certain set of meanings. Whether that will continue and for how long is anybody's guess--and who knows how SMB might resonate with some future cultural moment--but for now it's pretty clear how and why these examples have the relative statuses they do.

L.

 

I know you love to play dumb and pretend like you hate egghead critics, despite often having egghead tastes yourself, but the fact remains that the Ramones have expanded their appeal beyond the Village Voice crowd that championed them during their actual career to actual mass appeal like getting their songs played in sports arenas, which would have been unthinkable in 1977. Getting back to the original premise of the thread, history is treating the Ramones better than it is treating the Steve Miller Band. Why is this so? I'd go back to my belief that the cream eventually rises to the top, and the Ramones have also benefited from subsequent popular and credible musicians from U2 to Green Day to Eddie Vedder citing them as an influence, talking them up, and covering their songs. I don't see a similar process at work with the Steve Miller Band.

 

I don't think that's at all true. We'll need to wait to see what happens to the meaning of Madonna and Garth Brooks over the next century, but the mythic, cononical status of Fitzgerald and Simone (especially Simone) are more or less crystalized right now and show every sign of continuing to resonate for some time.

L.

 

You clearly don't care, but, as has been discussed in this thread, I would say that a big part of what keeps a band relevant and known after its initial moment in the sun has passed is the degree to which subsequent artists are influenced by them. In the 80s, I was a teenager, and the Velvet Underground were in the "where are they now?" file (or, probably more accurately, the "did they ever exist at all?" file) as far as the masses were concerned, I discovered them through R.E.M. covering their songs. I remember when the Beach Boys were widely dismissed as purveyors of disposable songs about cars and surfing: the influence of Pet Sounds and Smile on subsequent generations of "credible" musicians, who made records influenced by that era of the Beach Boys work, went a long way towards changing that perception.

 

Raunch is just playing devil's advocate/making straw man arguments now. Apparently it's okay to champion populist tastes when you're championing the Steve Miller Band, but not okay to do so when you're championing Madonna. Funny how distinctions of taste (and canon and genre) creep into even the argument of the guy who styles himself the champion of anti-intellectualism.

 

Not sure what you mean by egghead, perhaps I should look it up on wikipedia (!) My opinion of critics is simply that their opinions are like a**holes - everyone has one. It follows that when someone doesn't particularly like what they hear, they're not likely to indulge or explore it on anything more than a superficial, (culturally) biased level. I've watched over the decades as attacks on mainstream this or that itself becomes the mainstream. Or at least.... an alternative 'mainstream.' Ramones... meet Steve Miller. Enjoy the adulation from your respective millions of fans.

As far as cream rising to the top, I agree that in some respects it can and often does. And if thats the case, cream lovers have to slurp from the Monkees as opposed to Captain Beefheart, John Fahey, and other largely forgotten no talent losers.

 

You make a fair point about the Ramones' challenge to the mainstream becoming the new mainstream, although my understanding of their history is that they wanted to be mainstream from the beginning, and were confused/hurt when they didn't have radio play and become popular during their career. Regardless of whether it's a good or bad thing that they have achieved more mainstream appeal after all of them are now dead, they are winning the long game in a way that Uriah Heep is not, which was the original topic of discussion here. As in countless other similar discussions, I sense a lingering resentment from the 70s rock fanbase that the punk/New Wave era challenged and supplanted early 70s rock tastes then, and continues to do so now.

 

Actually, I more than give Madonna her due. She's a superstar, deserving of it, and iconic as well. She's a guilty pleasure at times, just not my cup of tea. While I don't put her in the same category as the generic pop divas annually putting out the same sounding sugary, predictable pop, theres nothing wrong with liking mega-superstars. The Beatles, Zep, and F.Mac and other groups I like certainly are. I can hardly distinguish them from the Garth Brooks of the western world. I like Uriah Heep, Black Oak, GFR, Styx, and other critic whipping posts as much. And every bit as much as I like the never famous, tiny indie label loner artists I've discovered over my lifetime. Critics are occasionally fun to read but I rarely afford afford them any weight when it comes to what I like.

 

Uriah Heep is far more popular in Europe and the former eastern block/USSR than they ever were here - but no matter, its here that counts.

As far as the 70's rock fan base, of which I am probably canonized, my relationship to punk/new wave grew then distanced itself again. I think simply because I like music thats more traditional and rooted with rural influences. Not because of any inherent superiority or inferiority of punk/new wave/post 1970's music...there is no such thing. (I dig a number of punk, electronic, dub, and even hip hop acts). In an earlier post I mentioned the spread of the modern urban industrial suburban environment of which ever increasing percentages of our population now grow up in. Modern pop music is going to win popularity contests hand down over a dozen modern versions of The Band or CCR.

 

I personally have always felt bad about Big Star...

 

It depends on hype too. Velvet Underground praised to the heights while others just as good/better...still unknown.

 

Such as?

Not sure it's hype given the numbers of artists who've claimed them as an influence.

 

But it isn't just hype in the case of the Velvet Underground--it's the fact that they've had scores of successors emulating them, keeping their sound alive, from the 70s glam and punk bands on to the alternative/indie scene in the 80s and 90s. That's why they're still relevant today, not just critical hype. As far as I know, Uriah Heep has no such adherents.

 

The community of people on this forum seems to hail overwhelmingly from America and the U.K. If Uriah Heep are popular in the Eastern Bloc, more power to them.

 

Who are these forgotten peers of the Velvet Underground?

 

Steve Miller was huge with the young stoner crowd around that time. Same with Bob Marley. Marley still is, of course. Miller fell out of favor and didn't translate the same to the next generation for some reason.

 

The point of this thread is to discuss what gives the work of this or that musician what we call "longevity," etc., while the work of others is forgotten or only remembered as "minor," etc., and I've been trying to explain that this is no mystery, although the processes are complex and very hard to predict very precisely. And they differ in different parts of the world, or in different regions and subcultures of any given country.

The music of Ramones and the Sex Pistols will "live," as we say, as long as it's available to people and people still care about its disruptive power (both the disruptions it caused in its time and the disruptions it still might be capable of causing for those future listeners--culturally, psychologically, socially at local or wider levels). The moment it either gets lost or loses its power to disrupt (and/or the moment people stop caring about the disruptions of late '70s pop culture and the social, political, and economic forces at play back then), the music will be forgotten or become a footnote to cultural history. Who knows when and if that will happen? or, as I said, what will happen to SMB some time in the future. And right now, Ramones and all of that only means something to a part of the population of the modern West and its outposts (and it doesn't even matter in the same way to all of those people).

The Monkees, Captain Beefheart, John Fahey have all found their meanings and relevances right now. Mass appeal is not the only measure of ongoing canonical importance. The Monkees mean something to people--in part it's nostalgia (or it is for many of the people who've shown up for their revival tours)--but it's more than that, too, especially for the people who've bought all those boxed sets and deluxe reissues etc. The band has it's own important myth attached to it, a great story about how commercial interests accidentally brought 4 talented, imaginative, and charismatic young men together who were capable by way of their own peculiar chemistry of much more than the commercial interests had (or thought they had) any use for. So a struggle ensued, followed by the dissolution of the project and an unexpected afterlife for it--all mixed in with some nice interpersonal drama and an argument for the artitic validity of a certain kind of '60s pop music. All of that matters to the people to whom the Monkees mean something, and nowadays if a young person gets introduced to the Monkees (as happened to my 12 year old son just last year) the introduction comes with all of that surrounding it. I don't doubt for a minute that there are places in Europe where the importance of Uriah Heep rivals that of Led Zeppelin and where new listeners get introduced to that sort of rock music with a different sense of what it all means and who matters.

But are those myths in most places where rock or western pop music matters at all as potent as the myth surrounding the Beatles? I don't think so--and again I can offer the anecdote of my son's experience (the Beatles has been a much bigger, much more consequential encounter for him this past year than the Monkees, and that's because there so much more to say--so much more has been said--and it's a more potent story for him--and the music itself, or much of it, as it's own peculiar power that only a few Monkees singles can come close to). I don't think that's a unique experience at this particular moment in many parts of the world--although there are of course plenty of places--even in the U.S.--where it's not happening or likely to happen at all.

I can say similar things about Beefheart and Fahey. Everything that can get a hearing has a shot at finding its audience and its level, and that will depend on what it resonates with and what it feels like it means (and whether or not it has already accumulated meanings) . Very few things find a level or audience as high or as large as the Beatles' (big myth, big aesthetic pay off, big self-perpetuating machine of contextual information, interpretation, influence, etc., and continued access). But even reputations like that may not last forever.....

L.

 

It came as news to me that they were still going - thought they'd packed it in years ago. I admit that I'm not their target audience but none of their albums since the 80s registered on my consciousness at all.

 

Hype is exposure and exposure leads to a bigger influence. It's not a band's quality that causes them to be a big influence. One only has to look at bands that were influenced by others to see that it isn't necessarily the most endearing traits that leave an impression and cause them to be an influence. It has nothing to do with how good they are. We can pretend there's objective greatness and the "cream rises to the top" but that couldn't be further from the truth. Those frequenty on the top are most well known of their genres. Popularity is all. No objective greatness there. I respect no music critic and don't think their opinions about music are any more valid than mine. It's quite elitist to create a Rock hierarchy stating the level a band belongs on. We can pretend they are the objectively the best of the best (sir) but it's only true in our heads.


Yes, IMO, I think it is a sick joke that the Velvet Underground are even given the time of day and don't know why any self-respecting artist or band would be influenced by that. No way am I wrong nor should I concede and bow down to their "greatness". This may bother some who feel even if I don't like them I should respect them. No I don't. No musician objectively deserves my respect. If I feel they don't deserve it then I don't respect them.

 

Well, there are certainly contemporary bands such as Fleet Foxes for whom the Band are arguably a reference point. However, I'd take issue with the characterization of the Band as somehow outside the modern urban industrial suburban environment: I'd argue that their faux-nineteenth-century schtick, both in the music and artwork of an album like the Brown Album, served as a comfort zone for listeners in 1970 who wanted to escape the increasing industrialization and suburbanization of America even then. But their work was recorded electrically and disseminated through mass communication mediums and on mass-manufactured pieces of plastic, they were part of modern urban culture even if their music represented some sort of attempt to retreat from it. They had the money to hide out in Woodstock in the first place because they had toured with Dylan during his electric transformation that caused the folk purists to yell "sell-out," I don't think they ever represented some sort of pure folk tradition.