Thinking of Lennon and his light monotone voice...he took the idea in a completely different direction with Julia...the fingerpicking with weird "jazz" chords...in way, it's sort of like Joao Gilberto. But still seems unprecedented to me.
Yes! Sometimes I think Lennon doesn't get enough musical credit as compared to McCartney. Lennon was really quite a musical (as well as lyrical) genius.
Even Lennon realized this. He said in some interview that some thought McCartney wrote more memorable or lovely melodies but he said he knew he was capable of writing some just as good.
Anything on Loveless by My Bloody Valentine. Most of what they did on the Creation label was pretty sui generis.
Mike Pinder worked for Mellotron - he might even have turned a few nuts and bolts on Mr Lennon's machine.
Triggered the "WTF?!?...this is new" reflex for me when first released: THE BYRDS - "Eight Miles High" THE VELVET UNDERGROUND - "Venus In Furs" THE PRETTY THINGS - "Defecting Grey" THE BEATLES - "Rain" SLY & THE FAMILY STONE - "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin") PIXIES - "Gigantic"
"Tomorrow Never Knows" -> "Eight Miles High" (The Byrds) "Blitzkrieg Bop" -> "Wild Thing" (The Troggs) "Marquee Moon" -> "Down by the River" & "Cowgirl in the Sand" (Neil Young & Crazy Horse)
Someone said this about 67 above, but I think it's really 64 up to 67 when all sorts of rock bands made records where it is hard for me to be sure how they knew/felt a pop recording could SOUND like that. So many people started imitating each other, some brilliantly, that pinpointing the true shockeroos that preceded others hard to do.
how about 10cc...one night in paris and the way ahead of its time recording sessions of...i'am not in love
The Police had a novel sound - 3 older virtuosi pretending to be spotty punk rockers - and of all of theirs Every Breath You Take is probably the most influential. It sounds fairly cliche now but back in the day Andy Summers was the main guy for that chorused guitar sound and broken chords, which everybody and his dog then started using.
Yep, according to Mike he’s the one that turned the Beatles on to the Mellotron, but he and Justin have both mentioned that they were big Beatles followers. If it was good enough for the Beatles, it was good enough for them.. sort of thing. Although the Mellotron was a key featured sound for me in SFF, it was the totality of the entire arrangement that stunned me.
Yep. It’s hard to explain 50+ years after the fact, how much of an impact “Strawberry Fields Forever” had. Basically only AM radio was the way to hear new singles then . So we went from “Yellow Submarine”/ “Eleanor Rigby” in August 66 to “SFF”/ “Penny Lane” in February 67. Even though “Tomorrow Never Knows” might have given us an indication things were changing, the Beatles re-emerge in Feb 67 with a completely different look, a completely different sounding single and a surrealistic video to match it. Strange times indeed. It was sort of the musical version of a caterpillar morphing into a butterfly or something.
Off the top of my head: They might have been played to death since, but "Baba O'Riley" and "Won't Get Fooled Again" by The Who. In terms of a marriage between lyrics and music, "Maybellene" by Chuck Berry. "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" by CSN. As already mentioned, "Heroin" and "Tomorrow Never Knows".
When I saw The Kinks perform "You Really Got Me" on TV in 1965, my first thought was "Wow...British dudes with Beatle haircuts can actually rock out really loud'n'raw just like Link Wray and The Wraymen"...so, no.
Yes . When I used to go to the Kinetic Playground in 1969 they’d play Silver Apples among other things on their sound system while bands were getting switched over and I remember to this day how unique Silver Apples sounded.
From what I remember at the time: Kate Bush - Wuthering Heights Tubeway Army - Are Friends Electric Donna Summer - I Feel Love (already mentioned) Not just sounds from out of nowhere but the first two were artists coming from out of nowhere as well. I was a young just-about teenager at the time, of course they may have had musical precedents that I wasn't aware of then. Listening retrospectively, The Monks seem pretty ahead for their time.