Unusual Albums with Mass Appeal

Spinning off from the 'token albums' thread and a glance at Wikipedia's lists of best-selling albums (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_albums), I am sometimes intrigued by the mass popularity of certain albums, e.g. Sgt Pepper, Led Zeppelin IV, and Dark Side of the Moon that I think are actually much more adventurous and challenging than most albums that sell on that scale. What is it about these albums that connects with a mass audience on the same scale as Shania Twain or Michael Jackson or the Eagles so much more than, say, contemporary bands such as Jethro Tull? People get really excited when I play "Stairway to Heaven" in class but are horrified by Genesis's "The Musical Box", which is not so different, really. (Admittedly, Gabriel's inverted mohawk in the video clip might have played a role there.) Still, this isn't very well thought-out but I do find it interesting to consider what qualities might have made the difference here. Zep was not marketed that much more heavily than other rock bands and "Stairway" was an album track.

Similarly, although they're not quite popular on the same scale, it's interesting to consider why things like Kind of Blue or Gorecki's 3rd symphony resonate with many more people than most instrumental modal jazz or contemporary art music pieces. The former really is an exceptional groundbreaking album and had a great deal of press behind it; the second may be an even greater wild card.

The fact that ZEP didn't release singles in the UK and I'm pretty sure Money wasn't a single its strange they got so big. Cant imagine UK radio playing it (we never had rock radio here) did the emergence of rock radio in the USA help it?

I always thought Tubular Bells was a real odd choice to be a massive hit instead of some cult album that only gets discussed on ILX

As for Sgt Peppers *That* album cover was a huge iconic thing that excited people who weren't even into music.

yeah tubular bells is a good one too. but a certain film explains that i think?

also the fact that ELP's Tarkus hit #1 in Britain is really strange, especially since it's the one ELP studio album with no single.

in the UK a large fanbase is all you need to top a chart. No airplay based charts(So Maiden got a #1 despite zero airplay) ELP were definitely huge at the time.

I guess, in the case of the Beatles, they had already built a massive fanbase with more straightforward pop music before they started doing experimental things, which gives some explanation. Yet Sgt Pepper has become a much BIGGER seller than their earlier pop records.

But it's still a pop record, I think, for the most part.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/52/Korn_follow_the_leader.jpg

Follow the Leader has sold 3,951,884 copies in the US according to Nielsen SoundScan as of January 4, 2013 and over 14 million copies worldwide, making it Korn's most successful album.

back the there was a huge amount of boomer youth looking to rebel and experiment plus by the 70s the younger siblings too young to go to woodstock wanted to take things a bit further?

all i know is by 76 ppl complained music went safe and bland (like now) so why did mainstream music go from arty or experimental pop to bland in a few short years?

Radio must be the reason? but who implemented the change and why?

Tales from Topographic Oceans was also a #1 record so maybe it isn't so strange

But it's still a pop record, I think, for the most part.

Sure. I just don't think its Shania Twain-level popularity can be explained by its accessibility, even compared to other Beatles albums.

I'd have shit myself with glee if any of my profs had played The Musical Box in class. Probably best they didn't.

beatles/beach boys all experimented and were huge so its no surprise rockers with arty pretensions would want to and why shouldnt the BB/Beatles audience grow up with it too?

What id like to know is : was it all guys buying dsotm? If not, why was it different for floyd then to all boys fans bands like ELP?

all i know is by 76 ppl complained music went safe and bland (like now) so why did mainstream music go from arty or experimental pop to bland in a few short years?

I don't know if I agree with this characterization, but at some point the prog rock *moment* was over - not in terms of popularity and sales but in terms of the development of an aesthetic Zeitgeist.

ELP is an example: they were huge at the time and still have a following now but their albums haven't endured as a mass phenomenon in the way that Pink Floyd's or Led Zeppelin's have. (In ELP's case, it might be because they were shit.)

xposts

Roxy Music did this too and were huge in the UK. But by 75 why had mainstream music gone so bland? (or was the punk narrative just plain wrong?)

tim the 76 thing is the punk narrative

I wonder how much ELP's (and Yes) reputation nosedived in the UK because of Jim Davidson :)

I do think that massively popular, chart-topping music was less experimental from 75-85 than from 65-75. Perhaps you could make a case for some disco productions.

Even though their mainstream breakout, Cosmic Thing, isn't *that* unusual, the fact that a tacky little dance band from Georgia has sold 4x platinum of that album, and over 20 million records total, still amazes me. Really feel like I was in on the ground floor of that.

Personally I think Michael Jackson's Thriller has some pretty odd stuff on it, for being one the highest selling albums of all times. Or maybe just couldn't get enough of random Chipmunk style backing vocals, African chanting and Vincent Price monologues.

There was a whole back to roots movement also wasn't there? but again that was still very early 70s and it co-existed well enough?

The UK punk narrative was different, though, right? It was, at least in part, more that rock had become too self-consciously arty and technical, which is almost the opposite, in a way.

xposts

dan thats a great d/n! (i saw the craigslist thing it references)

we need to put out the batsignal to mark s

I almost want to put quotes around "experimental" there, though. Because I think "Don't You Want Me" and "Rapper's Delight," which were big singles when I was in middle school, were experimental records to as great an extent as much prog rock.

xpost re. Sund4r's post

That run of really popular Gary Numan albums (Replicas/Pleasure Principle/Telekon) was definitely very strange (even the singles were!). I think the UK still had interesting chart toppers even later on. Hard to believe that U.F. Orb shot straight to #1 in those days.

But neither of those bands have albums that are big like Dark Side of the Moon is big.

xpost to timellison

Eurythmics Sweet Dreams was pretty far out for mainstream when it hit. Self-produced by the band and confrontational/dada video imagery. Lots of amazing deep cuts and left-fieldisms. But it worked and it's still great.

Maybe your point was just that innovative music could still become very popular in the 75-85 period, which is fair enough. I'll give you "Rapper's Delight" and early hip-hop generally, for certain. Less sure about "Don't You Want Me". xpost

Enigma's The Cross of Changes is another real odd duck sitting at the top

But neither of those bands have albums that are big like Dark Side of the Moon is big.

maybe like 10 artists/bands in total do

Yeah.

I think I was confusing two points there tbh.

here's another one: Aqua has sold 33 million albums worldwide. A lot of that was being in the right place at the right time, but despite all the cookie-cutter imitators that followed, Aqua was a genuinely bizarre band that dare I say was a bit ahead of their time?

Sign O The Times is a very strange album.

I've always wondered how the hell THIS happened:

In 1971, Jesus Christ Superstar was named Billboard’s biggest-selling album of the year – against competition from such masterpieces as ‘Sticky Fingers’ by the Rolling Stones, ‘Led Zeppelin IV’, ‘Santana III’ and John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ – and made number one on the Billboard album chart twice in that year in February and in May.

A friggin' double album soundtrack to *nothing* (yet), by no identifiable group, telling a biblical story and it goes massive! All I can think of is that it was some kinda zeitgeist moment for both rock operas and Jesus-freakism.

radiohead to thread

probably my morning jacket?

I dunno, the popularity of most things sorta eludes me these days. Definitely surprised by how huge The Knife has become, for instance (I like The Knife).

all sorts of real odd and ambitious stuff make it big in the early 70's. though I had no idea that Jesus Christ Superstar was just an album first!

I didn't either tbh.

I do think that massively popular, chart-topping music was less experimental from 75-85 than from 65-75. Perhaps you could make a case for some disco productions.

i would make a case for fleetwood mac. and donna summer. and hall & oates. and madonna. and prince. and bruce springsteen. and pink floyd's the wall. and many many others.

I could see Donna Summer and Prince, sure. Maybe The Wall but I think Pink Floyd was doing safer things than they were doing previously. I don't really see it with the other examples but maybe I haven't heard enough Hall and Oates. (If they have much that sounds like "Family Man", you might be right.)

There's a Riot Goin' On is one of the weirdest records of the 70s. It hit #1 on the U.S. charts almost instantly, spawned a #1 hit single, went platinum, and had two followup hits. Why? Massive anticipation after a near-unprecedented 2 1/2 year gap between albums, and "Family Affair" is a catchy sumbitch.

here's another one: Aqua has sold 33 million albums worldwide.

You know labels, publicists, etc. make shit like that up all the time, right?

(xxpost) the rhythm section throughout fleetwood mac's rumours (since we're discussing massively popular chart toppers) is kinda bonkers if you pay attention to it. the harmonies, creamy as they sound, are pretty damn inventive and complicated. to say nothing of lindsey buckingham's gtr solos.

and yes, hall & oates have more in the "family man" vein.

I was a kid in Denmark when Aqua hit, and they didn't really seem like anything special. Every week there was a new eurodance-group singning about a toy or a videogame or a cartoon (names of bands include Toy-Box and Cartoons). I do remember hearing Roses are Red for the first time in a children show and thinking it was really catchy, that must be over 15 years ago.

Somebody That I Used to Know is a pretty weird best-seller of 2012, actually.

this was a hit in the UK late 90s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BasdRvhByg

I was mainly interested in the question of what it is that might make some challenging albums like these so popular with a mass audience. What makes "Stairway to Heaven" so much more palatable to the mass audience than "The Musical Box" or even "Aqualung", for that matter? Sure, "Aqualung" is popular, it gets classic rock airplay, but it doesn't come anywhere close in 2013. I actually do prefer it myself, although I like all three.

Bohemian Rhapsody is far more popular in the UK than any of those

I cant see whats unusual about fleetwood mac or hall & oates. Not denying the production techniques were state of the art or anything but I very much doubt thats what sund4r was looking for

but -- and this is a serious question -- what exactly is unusual about dark side of the moon or led zep iv?

I don't deny that Fleetwood Mac were doing creative things on Rumours. I like the album myself. I just really don't agree that it is as challenging as much of the work Sgt Pepper or Led Zeppelin IV when it comes to things like song form, metres, sound/orchestration, genre eclecticism, etc, although I guess I don't have any of the albums with me now to make specific song-by-song-comparisons.

xpost

I would wager that dsotm sounded bloody weird when it came out!

What makes "Stairway to Heaven" so much more palatable to the mass audience than "The Musical Box"

i think "stairway" is way more immediately catchy. (and i think led zep were also probably way more charismatic rock stars than genesis were, and that probably helps in a lot of intangible ways.)

hearing a lot of these albums now they dont sound as innovative as they were at the time. Much like how old metal sounds tame and punk sounds so pop compared to hardcore and death metal and so on. Even the 80s thrashers (who 70s rockers thought were too extreme) think death/black is too extreme (Hey johnny fever!)

when sund4r and i first chatted about this on fb earlier i thought marketing was a reason but he said zep didnt really get much plus in the uk they never made singles. Did zep have top 10 hits in the usa?

When did radio change from playing album tracks from these kind of albums to just the same old singles from albums? was that before punk in 76?

Zep IV: the most famous song, the prom-dance classic, is an 8-minute prog suite with inscrutable lyrics where the tempo constantly increases; that opens with acoustic guitar and wooden bass recorders playing a passage built on a quasi-Baroque ground bass that ultimately builds to fully electric heavy rock, passing through an instrumental 'fanfare' section mostly played on overdubbed electric guitars in changing metres. That's pretty unusual for something that could become that popular. On the same side of the record, you have a stop-start hard rock song with a pretty complex rhythmic relationship between the guitar and drums (beyond anything I can think of on Rumours, an admittedly straightforward bluesy rocker, and a Tolkien-inspired English folk track with Sandy Denny on guest vocals, which imo is a weirder mix of things than you find on Rumours.

xposts

(xo)

led zep had one top 10 hit in the us ("whole lotta love") and a few additional minor hits, but nothing to write home (or casey kasem) about. but they here huge rock stars, and marketing and personality and various other factors certainly played a part.

u.s. radio has been playing led zep and pink floyd album tracks from the day those albums came out and has never ever stopped.

(xp, that is!)

I would guess it's a cumulative effect where, say, floyd are perhaps not vastly more popular than tull at the time but manage, perhaps by just a small degree, to hit the top spot in public attention (at time of release).

Then once you've been famous once, you start out with an advantage at the next generation whereas tull (per this example) doesn't have that advantage; so on and so on over several generations = you attain the popularity of the other acts mentioned in op.

Sergeant Pepper is also an incredibly rich album - it's easy to forget that there's so much going on in it which surely raises its chances of popularity across different types of listener.

Kind of Blue has So What on it, right? And that has a melody it's fun to whistle. It's still abstract, yeah, but the emotional places it discovers in its explorations are perhaps 'what oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed' rather than the kind of weird beaches of sound some in-principle-similar artists wash up on.

I'm listening to So What now and I can instantly hear the concepts 'tired', 'lazy', 'weary', 'longing', 'night-time', 'cigarettes', 'cities'.

There may be a link here to Satie's Gymnopedies finding their way into people's heads and compilation 'relax in the bath with this music' CDs - they're absolutely strange but you heard it before you heard it.

http://alltherecordsihear.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/cover_jeff-wayne.jpg

http://www.317x.com/albums/h/dickhyman2/enlargement.jpg

What and not the original Orson Welles broadcast?
xp

yeah, you see that damn jeff wayne thing everywhere

^ my sense of "mass appeal" is largely based on what i can find for under a buck at most every thrift store/junk shop/record graveyard

Jeff Wayne is a perfect choice. My dad loves that album. He probably loves most of the albums in this thread

the jeff wayne album really has sold bucketloads.

"O Superman"

^ unusual songs with mass appeal. also:

"Close (to the Edit)"

i don't get what's supposed to be challenging or unpalatable about 'stairway', despite sndr's description.

i mean, i learned it from hearing it on classic rock radio, and although i might have had 'difficulty' (can hardly remember), i doubt it. the thing practically plays itself. doo doo doo doo there's lady ya da da weooooooo nrreeearrrnnnn AND, SHE'S BUY-ING, THE STAIR, WAY… etc.

it's not like the djs give you warnings first, 'ok bear with us out there, we're gonna try something here'

not challenging or unpalatable. unusual. it was hardly a typical pop tune in its moment. wouldn't be even now.

the unusual can be very accessible

prince's "kiss" is another pop hit that strikes me as quite unusual, same for soft cell's "tainted love/where did our love go" medley. both hugely catchy right off the bat tho.

speaking of

http://thumbsnap.com/i/zcEKGG2x.jpg

http://s.pixogs.com/image/R-7858-1327651541.jpeg

In 1990 a St Petersburg, Florida station kicked off its all-Led Zeppelin format by playing "Stairway to Heaven" for 24 hours straight.[33]

in a survey done late 90s/early 00s in the UK that soft cell was #1 in "most embarrassing purchases ever". It also was supposedly one of the albums always found in charity shops.
I was a bit surprised the general public disliked it so much.

pfft, the general public

pfft

http://cdn.supadupa.me/shop/3093/images/146733/hauntedhouse_large.jpg?1325205795

http://s.pixogs.com/image/R-1749544-1256574384.jpeg

novelty k-hole, jinglecats, the horror, the horror

What is it about these albums that connects with a mass audience on the same scale as Shania Twain or Michael Jackson or the Eagles so much more than, say, contemporary bands such as Jethro Tull?

better songs

people like weird shit way more than record critics would have us believe

the "stairway" vs. "music box" contest that kicks off this thread is frankly mind-boggling. how could anyone not hear the massive, massive difference in tone, mood, narrative & emotion between the two?

for one thing, "stairway" is romantic as hell. that's maybe alpha and omega here, but it's also sentimental, nostalgic, atmospheric, erotic, feather-soft and still intensely physical in its heaviness. to hear it and accept the invitation is to be swept into a filigreed and opiated vision of some lost faerie queen splendor. corny, maybe, but powerful nonetheless. during the quiet sections, plant's voice is seductive, warm, a rough hand extended. when shit goes off, he's electric, rampant, aflame with soulful conviction. he never seems anything other than the master of the moment he occupies. through all this, the music tells a clear & comprehensible story. we know where we are at every point in the journey, each moment seeming inevitable in relation to the rest.

"music box" is as far from that as i can imagine. it's mannered, even prissy, pretty but rarely so rich as to seem beautiful (the flute begs to differ, but still). it never gives in to rutting physicality, always seems delivered from behind a garish harlequin mask. it's nerd music, basically, operating from helpless alienation where "stairway" struts in knowing that the gift will be freely given. i mean, come on, that "why don't you TOUCH ME?" section at the end? it's hard not to glance away in embarrassment. meanwhile, the structure makes no real sense, simply tumbling from one garishly bizarre event to another. on a more basic level, the melodies just aren't as immediately appealing. it lacks hooks.

o
t
m

otm+

eminem's mass appeal is pretty shocking to me. those early albums were dark as hell. even the "funny" jokes are full of viciousness and resentment.

i thought that *was* his appeal to the masses

Combat Rock

xp it was, but i am just surprised it was appealing.

it's the musical box mr. contenderizer and I'll have you know that a certain 15-year-old underrated a played that very tune on his home hi-fi in unprintable situations

led zeppelin would have got him laughed out of the room before he got to first base

grown up underrated a reps for zeppelin of course but that "why don't you touch me? now! now! now! now!" section is quite raw and physical enough I think, that it's not macho and cocky shouldn't be reckoned against it I don't think.

yeah, i didn't mean "glance away in embarrassment" as too harsh a slam. it hits the effect it seems to be shooting for, communicates a particularly naked and painful state, one that naturally induces some empathetic embarrassment. now i don't like it much, but i wouldn't call it's a failure. just a very different animal than "stairway".

and you got me on "music" vs "musical". can't claim to be a genesis fan, but i'm at least marking that clearly.

Stairway was on an album that hit #2 in the US and had a top 20 hit (black dog). It wasn't a hit itself but was more of a deep cut that grew slowly. The genesis album didn't even have any singles and didn't chart in the US. I don't really see what the big mystery is.

i don't listen to it anymore, and am annoyed to hear it, but stairway to heaven was maybe the most immediately enjoyable song 12 year old treeship had ever heard.

it's epic. i don't think it's success is hard to understand at all.

The one that perplexes me is Bat Out Of Hell. I don't really believe that it has sold as well as they say. I think the only people I've ever known who owned that album are musical theater nerds who came of age in the 70s.

classic radio be damned, 'stairway' is fantastic, and still sounds just as thrilling to me as it did when i was 15.

my parents are not interested in music at all, really... big billy joel/bruce springsteen people in the 80s, before that my mom was into music but she drifted away from it... and both of them love Bat Out of Hell

xp just listened to stairway again for the first time in a while. it was indeed awesome. take back what i said about being "annoyed" by it... that was true, but it's not the song's fault really

Were they teenagers when it came out?
Xp

Thanks, contenderizer and aero. That helps; it's the sort of thing I was looking for. I do experience the two songs differently but they have many things in common, clearly: they're both longer songs with non-standard structures that start with soft acoustic sections that make art music allusions (fingerpicked acoustic guitar + flute vs fingerpicked acoustic guitar + recorders) and build to loud electric rock sections, passing through some showy instrumental passages on the way. If "Stairway" is more romantic or erotic, it is not apparent from anything in the lyrics, nor from any obvious standard musical signifiers of romance or eros. "The Musical Box", on the other hand, is explicitly all about sexual desire, albeit hopeless, desperate, frustrated illicit desire.

j: as contenderizer notes, that's sort of the point. I heard "Stairway" for the first time when I was 10 and it clicked right away. Even my Mum likes it... but why, when it's so clearly non-standard, even compared to something like "Go Your Own Way"?

a tonne of xposts

(I own Bat out of Hell. Admittedly, I haven't played it in about 10 years.)

xp yeah my parents were young teenagers when bat out of hell came out.

Also it's pretty easy to see why stairway would have been A+ school dance material.
xps

Also it's pretty easy to see why stairway would have been A+ school dance material.

Really?? If someone described it to you (like I did upthread), you'd think "this sounds like the perfect song for a school dance"?

Do you really think they expected people to dance to it when they wrote it, tempo and metric changes and all?

i love the album art for bat out of hell. and there is good stuff on the album. i think the opposition to it is more ideological than musical -- it represents the opposite of punk rock ethos, even more than most prog. in high school i knew someone who said that that album represented "everything that was evil, and is still evil about our music entertainment culture." this is a high school student circa 2006... that album continues to have a stigma

"Throw in more stuff about the May Queen. That'll really get 'em swaying, the way 'Earth Angel' used to."
xpost

making out during the guitar solo

the tempo and metric changes are part of what makes it the most memorable dance of your life

Yeah it's a slow song that dudes will dance to because its zep. And then when it rocks out you can get all ironic about it so it doesn't leave out the people who don't want to slow dance.
xps

I understand the ways in which people have come to appreciate it and in which it has been used. I agree that it works. My point is that it is far from being a typical song that is used for that purpose and that there is little to even suggest that its creators intended it that way.

and that other songs that do roughly similar things would never be used that way

although maybe you guys are recognizing that too and are just explaining why it works. I'm really tired and slightly drunk at this point tbh.

I guess my confusion about BooH comes from an obviously BS Wikipedia line that claims it still sells 200k a year. I can understand a lot of people buying it when it came out and I can understand a small but steady audience of RHPS fans and drama geeks discovering it each year but I don't get how it's supposedly sold so many copies.

RHPS?

rocky horror picture show

Ah.

I mean, I do more or less trust the RIAA that it sold 14M in the US and don't find that incredibly hard to believe. I don't know if there are any truly reliable sources for worldwide sales figures?

yeah, i don't know about these things. it seems that the album cannot possibly be gaining that many new fans each year who actually pay for copies. unless of course, they are all people seein rhps for the first time and becoming OBSESSED with it, which i could see

(Using the RIAA database, Boston's first album sold 17M in the US, for comparison. Slippery When Wet sold 12M.)
xpost

Well, that's a case where I don't really see the mystery. Meat Loaf has a great voice in a traditional sense; the album hits a lot of bases (hard rock but not too hard, ballads, Broadway); the lyrics are clearly understandable, funny, and sentimental; "Paradise" is a radio staple.

I just don't think it's necessarily popular with the sorts of people who post to ILM.

fwiw, i quite like both "bat out of hell" and "stairway to heaven" though i've never owned a meatloaf or led zeppelin album. nor have i much acquaintance with the musical theater. just a taste for the ridiculous, i suppose.

Again, maybe we're on the same page, though, because I don't necessarily see a reason to buy the claim that it sells 200k every year. In fact, that seems pretty hard to believe.

xpost I'm pretty surprised that you've never owned a Zep album, contenderizer.

i think my brother might have given me a used copy of III? can't remember ever playing it, so if he did, i couldn't have kept it long.

i dunno, i went to high school in heavy metal parking lot, killed my taste for shit like led zep, sabbath and hendrix. then i went to hippie college, which didn't incline me any more fondly. spent the next decade being a highfalutin (secret indie) punk snob. wasn't until my mid-30s that i unclenched enough to go back and reassess.

Isn't BÖC like your all-time favourite band?

I like a couple of the songs on bat outta hell, it just seems to me that it's a lot weirder and less conventionally poppy than zep or dsotm. I mean dsotm is basically a smooth, easy listening album. I love over the top melodrama but that sort of thing usually isn't so popular. And the songs aren't that great compared to Total Eclipse of the Heart or Making love out of nothing at all.

Come to think of it I don't recall ever seeing a particularly large number of used copies of BOOH compared to some of the other records mentioned.

Re: Music Box vs. Stairway to Heaven, it always struck me that Music Box was a rocknroll synthesis of british folk and classical music, whereas Stairway to heaven was a rocknroll synthesis of british folk and the blues. Not hard to see why the charts in the 70s favored blues influence over classical. (fwiw I've never really liked StH and hold a dear place in my heart for the Music Box)

Isn't BÖC like your all-time favourite band?

― EveningStar (Sund4r), Thursday, July 25, 2013 11:02 PM (Yesterday)

yeah, but i knew them from the radio & mtv. "burning for you" seemed modern & cool, and "don't fear the reaper" hit me hard before i really even knew what pop music was. also, by that point, they'd been largely forgotten by headband massive.

The other day, Mrs. McBB put on BooH and it occurred to me that it wasn't all that far from what Billy Joel was doing at the time.

it always struck me that Music Box was a rocknroll synthesis of british folk and classical music, whereas Stairway to heaven was a rocknroll synthesis of british folk and the blues. Not hard to see why the charts in the 70s favored blues influence over classical.

I don't see the blues influence at all in that particular song.

I mean, other than e.g. "he bends strings in the guitar solo; blues guys used to bend guitar strings".

But otherwise, even the guitar solo is Aeolian and not particularly bluesy.

idk. bending strings seems significant. robert plant's whiny singing voice is bluesy, especially when from "if there's a bustle in your hedgerow" onwards, he's doing an american accent

There are string bends in the Genesis song too!

lol i've never heard that song. i tried to find it on spotify but gave up.

http://olivier-grall.yusynth.net/moog%20records/s.o.bach-lp.jpg

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61sLqjtBXaL.jpg

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/02/ciu/bb/72/491c36c622a0f8157b06c110.L._SY355_.jpg

I sometimes think that the taste of the masses is quite broad but just not that deep. I've always been a music collector and if it turns out I like a particular artist or album I'm immediately interested in checking out what else is out there in that particular style. But most people I know only need one Cure CD for when they are feeling gloomy, and one Underworld CD for their dance parties. Why chasing down those Jungle/Drum & Base 12-inches when you can just buy Fat of the Land? In that regard, Dark Side of the Moon is all the psychedelic freakout most people need (replaced by Kid A for a younger generation?)

In regard to the question which unusual album gets the honor of mass appeal, I can only assume that's a matter of marketing. Genesis never had the exposure Led Zeppelin had (in their Gabriel days). Amon Duul never had the marketing of Pink Floyd, etc.

people are willing to push themselves to like stuff that might immediately put them off it seems culturally relevant, or a thing that would open up conversations, or etc. just look at how many people still read ulysses.

Or cheer the synth breakdown in "Won't Get Fooled Again."

i think music studios and even more so movie studios underestimate the public, and push predictable, recycled, "proven" products because they think this is all the public wants or understands

In regard to the question which unusual album gets the honor of mass appeal, I can only assume that's a matter of marketing. Genesis never had the exposure Led Zeppelin had (in their Gabriel days). Amon Duul never had the marketing of Pink Floyd, etc.

― Sebastian (Royal Mermaid Mover), Friday, July 26, 2013 7:09 AM (1 hour ago)

this is too cynical by far. verges on "the sheeple only like it cuz big money shoves it down down their throats, maaaaan", a terribly low form of criticism.

artists succeed or fail by varying degrees depending on a great many factors, of which marketing is only one. some arrive more fully-formed than others, and some are more pop-inclined (or gifted, as you will). critical reception and word of mouth count for a lot. some artists arrive at precisely the right time, helping to create to create the pop moment in which they exist, while others follow in step, jump a little too far ahead, or disappear into alternate realities. and chance is always a factor.

Scrolling through this thread is like flicking through the bins in the charity shop!

I have seen that SKY album so many times, yet I have absolutely no idea what it, or they, sound like. Feeling curious now, is it worth checking out in any way?

In regard to the question which unusual album gets the honor of mass appeal, I can only assume that's a matter of marketing. Genesis never had the exposure Led Zeppelin had (in their Gabriel days).

Right. That's the only reason that Zep was more popular. Not the fact that they're a vastly better band who wrote a whole bunch of really catchy songs and had one of the most famous guitar heroes of the day in the band.

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/d2/a3/27edc060ada068dbf8b29110.L.jpg

unusual facial hair with mass appeal

The Sky albums are pretty horrible - the sort of music you find on 'relaxing' classical compilations but done by a group of session musicians in kind of a rock band format. They were massive sellers at the time though.

That Lloyd Webber album is pretty ridic too, but it also sort of rocks too. You know the old music to the South Bank Show? That's where that's from.

too much too

tubular bells was my first though as mentioned upthread

meatloaf bat out of hell is sort of "normal" but then it's also very bizarre

I own all the Switched-On albums. I have a vinyl copy of Switched-On Bach I with Walter Carlos named on it. Kinda rare, I thought.

Some good points by contenderizer and Sebastian. Listening to "Musical Box", it does seem like the form in "Stairway" is more clear and intuitive to follow, despite being equally non-standard. And, yeah, the melodies are a little more intuitive. It's certainly a better production. I actually think Gabriel's "touch me!" vocal is pretty visceral though!

There used to be a pretty good market for these kind of records. I got an 8-track of this one from my aunt's house. I also got a couple Johnny Cash LPs of this kind of thing.

http://eil.com/images/main/John+Wayne+-+America,+Why+I+Love+Her+-+LP+RECORD-457248.jpg

i always think of the downward spiral. i like to poke fun at trent as much as the next guy, but that's a pretty fucked-up double album. and it sold millions here in the states. way more here than anywhere else. very u.s.-centric album if wikipedia is to be believed. hit number 2 on the albums chart here. i loved it when i first heard it. the only thing i ever loved by the guy. a genuinely NOISY top-selling album. one of the noisiest that i can think of. slipknot's first record sold a couple of million. also an album with genuine noise moments.

Guess I reject the premise (and I wouldn't be surprised if I'm not be the first person on this thread to say this -- haven't read the whole thing) that Zep IV, Sgt Peppers or Dark Side Of The Moon (or Downward Spiral for that matter) were in any way more "unusual" or "challenging" or than, say, Thriller. Their "progressiveness" or "alternativeness" was partly what they were marketed for. That's a big part of why people bought them; it was a selling point -- snob appeal, maybe. Doesn't make them better or worse; just don't see how it makes their commercial success surprising.

Didn't realize it went to #2 on the regular Billboard chart! Apparently, "Closer" was a #5 single in Canada! This is an excellent example.

xpost

Though for what it's worth, Christgau once called Primus "quite possibly the strangest top-10 band ever." Not sure I agree with that (never much understood what people liked about them), but maybe they belong here anyway.

Haven't you said yourself that Zep was the most avant-garde mainstream rock band of all time, xhuxk? Maybe I'm misremembering.

'Snob appeal' is a good point: it's precisely how Duke Ellington was marketed in the 30s, to tremendous success, so maybe there is a whole tradition of this.

Excellent article about the Ellington marketing strategy: Cohen, Harvey G. “The Marketing of Duke Ellington: Setting the Strategy for an African- American Maestro”. The Journal of African American History, Vol. 89, No. 4 (Autumn 2004), pp 291-315.

Ha ha -- I probably did say that once, Sund4r! Sounds familiar. And I don't necessarily disagree with it now, either; just don't see how the avant-gardeness cut into their popularity. In retrospect, I'd say lots of '70s hard rock was pretty adventurous. But then again I think Michael Jackson and Shania Twain were pretty adventurous in their own way, too!

And I'd say disco, as a whole (and lots of its big selling records) was at least as "weird" and "innovative" as progressive rock (or later, industrial rock), too. The main difference is that disco didn't wear its weirdness on its sleeve like those other genres. Seems like this thread is mainly inspired by albums that wear weirdness on their sleeve, but that's not the only kind of weirdness out there.

most people don't listen to weird music. is the gist that i get from this thread. i think the nine inch nails album is possibly innovative in the way it successfully delivered sounds associated with underground industrial scenes and uh basically made a zillion-selling ministry album. but it IS an ambitious noisy angry double album that - aside from the two songs played on MTV all the time - isn't really that single-friendly. and people bought the album by the bunches. not just the cd singles. its the noise element more than anything else that makes it seem unique to me. most popular metal albums are pretty streamlined as far as sound goes. the downward spiral seemed like a self-conscious art statement and i have no problem with that. i like art.

otm

boils down to: there are very few million-selling rock/pop albums that i can think of that are harsh to the ear in a noise music way. i haven't listened to it in years, but i remember points on the NIN album that reached noise music noise levels. same with slipknot. slipknot are demanding on the ear! and that is a good joke set-up, so feel free...

and you can say that there was lots of weird disco that sold tons - there was! - but it was weird in a sorta accepted way. it wasn't weird in a jarring way unless you were old. the beatles and the prog people and the hippies and the funk people and the jazz people kinda conditioned people to not get freaked out by ambitious arty music. bitches brew was a top-selling album when it came out. there was all kinds of normal weird music? noise music is still not normal weird.

See, to me, Nine Inch Nails were basically a watered down version of industrial sounds that had been around for ages -- They were all about commercial compromise. But you probably listened to them way more than I did, so I could be wrong.

Also don't get who NIN were actually "jarring" -- Since, as far as I can tell, people bought them for that exact schtick. Their "weirdness" (and the Beatles', Pink Floyd's, etc.) was no less "accepted" than disco's, as far as I can tell. If anything, it was maybe more accepted -- it was their whole reason for being. (But I am getting confused now. And need to wrap some presents.)

i dunno, i think there were probably plenty of kids who liked "head like a hole" and who thought NIN were cool and who heard some stuff on TDS that they had never heard before. nirvana were watered down. lots of pop-punk was watered down. i don't think that album is a case of being watered down. it had plenty of poppy moments. but it is more art/prog weirdness than lots of other pop industrial stuff. and lots of that tuff was popular at the time. if the land of rape and honey by ministry had sold 4 million copies i'd be saying the same thing about that album.

its everything that NIN has put out AFTER the downward spiral that has seemed watered down/what people expect/give the people what they want to me.

isn't The Fragile even harder and "industrial" than TDS?

Ha ha -- I thought Ministry were watered-down Big Black, too.

(And for the record, I don't really think 'weirdness' was the Beatles' "whole reason for being" -- They had a lot of reasons, which changed as time went on! But "art" was clearly a big part of what they were selling with Sgt. Pepper's. Seems like people loved it at least as much for what it stood for as what it actually sounded like.)

I got into industrial via NIN, and remember thinking even "March of the pigs" was way easier to grasp than "Jesus built my hotrod" or even "Juke Joint Jezebel". Something about the mix decisions, I think. The fact that it's "noisy" is less of an defining feature than the fact that it was mixed for radio imo.

yeah, i dunno. in utero was, i think, an extremely noisy and abrasive for a mainstream rock album. i can't think of a straight-up rock-genre equivalent. i mean of a beatles/U2/michael jackson level world-dominating pop artist putting out something that deliberately challenging. of course, it was a noise-friendly moment in general. rage against the machine, extreme metal, pigfork, etc. even in that context, though, the downward spiral leaves a mark. it's not breaking ground relative to early skinny puppy or whatever, but it's not backing off from that either. and it sold bucketloads, to apparently normal people.

i mean, albums like in utero and the downward spiral are "unusual" not in that they outstrip the harshness their less celebrated peers, but that they made something roughly similar marketable. there's certainly nothing similar in today's mainstream pop landscape.

How about Skrillex? (Or somebody along those lines? I haven't listened to him much, but I'd think if there's an equivalent to what those bands were credited with doing in the early '90s, it's probably coming out of some genre other than rock -- hip-hop, r&b, or dubstep or other electronic genre I don't listen to enough.)

"Ha ha -- I thought Ministry were watered-down Big Black, too."

the land of rape and honey is pretty unrelenting. again, haven't listened in years, but its certainly not a concession to commercial prospects.

rap is a good example too. just don't know what the harshest most hardcore zillion-selling rap albums have come out in recent years. certainly sonically it can be pretty extreme when played loud enough.

Skrillex/brostep is kind of a good example

Did Exmilitary have mass appeal?

No, but Yeezus did. (At least for a week or so -- it fell off pretty soon after, right?)

Yet Sgt Pepper has become a much BIGGER seller than their earlier pop records.

because it's been canonized as the best album by the beatles/of all time?

Does Björk count as mass appeal? Post did crazy well given such offbeat singles.

"Challenging" was probably a poor choice of words, especially since you could argue that Adorno hated pop music because it challenged his ideas about good music. In social terms, the Village People probably challenged a mainstream audience more than any progressive band. I think I was mainly thinking about things that are "unusual" in formal/compositional terms. I don't think it's too controversial to say that the majority of songs that the mass audience is listening to at any given time (going by e.g. charts) do conform to certain conventions regarding matters like song form, beat, melodic contour, timbre/orchestration/arrangement (although there is certainly more variety there; this largely defines genre actually). Lyrical themes can be considered too. And I do think that something like "Stairway" or "A Day in the Life" deviates from these conventions more than something like "Go Your Own Way". (I think there are two songs on Zep IV that even have a chorus.) I haven't listened to Thriller as a whole album in a long time but I don't really think that Shania Twain or the Eagles were particularly unusual in these terms. But maybe there are other truly unusual qualities about them that make them interesting to consider? I'm not totally opposed to discussing that. Something like the 12" mix of "Love to Love You Baby" would certainly qualify, maybe even the extended mix of "Good Times". I could see how "I Feel Love" could work as an example. My disco knowledge isn't that deep so I'd be happy to hear about more examples. A lot of early hip-hop would fit, sure.

Fgti makes an interesting point about the mixing of Downward Spiral. Compositionally, I think it's far more ambitious and non-standard than what KMFDM was doing at the time but maybe the mix and production made it more palatable and that makes a big difference?

xposts

The idea that the public actually has a higher threshold for weird things than the industry recognizes is pretty interesting to me.

In social terms, the Village People probably challenged a mainstream audience more than any progressive band.

I wasn't around so I'm certainly not any sort of authority on this but based on my exposure to '70s pop culture I feel like gay camp was pretty mainstream at the time. Lots of portrayals of gays as cute/harmless/hilarious/clownish & the Village People fit right into that.

I might agree with In Utero, except that it was such a commercial drop-off after Nevermind. It definitely sold in huge numbers for something that noisy and dissonant though.

xpost

The weirdest album I can think of to hit #1 is Voodoo, that is a weird album

I have a vinyl copy of Switched-On Bach I with Walter Carlos named on it. Kinda rare, I thought.

I don't think so. Wasn't it the biggest selling classical album of all time when it was released?

i'm pretty sure that's true

Ha ha -- I thought Ministry were watered-down Big Black, too.

― xhuxk, Saturday, July 27, 2013 8:48 AM (1 hour ago)

the land of rape and honey is pretty unrelenting. again, haven't listened in years, but its certainly not a concession to commercial prospects.

― scott seward, Saturday, July 27, 2013 9:25 AM (27 minutes ago)

scott otm, though i thought with xhuxk at the time. jourgenson beefed up albinis's template, making it both more danceable and more metallic. the result, unsurprisingly, moved more units than big black's scrawny, minimalist noise-punk. i wouldn't, however, call ministry a "watered down" version of anything. albums like the land of rape and honey and the mind is a terrible thing to taste at least match big black's punishment capacity. it's not the forbidding noise level, but rather the anticommercial ethos, angry-nerd stance, and thin sound that kept big black "underground". that's where they wanted to be.

And I do think that something like "Stairway" or "A Day in the Life" deviates from these conventions more

here's a suggestion that the deviations you suggest actually contributed to those songs' success via rock radio (from wikipedia stairway page):

On the 20th Anniversary of the song's release, Esquire magazine featured an article on the song's success and lasting influence. Karen Karbo wrote:[34]

It's doubtful that anyone knew it would become the most popular rock song of all time. After all, it's eight minutes long and was never released as a single. Even "Hey Jude" was shorter, was a 45, and enjoyed the benefits of comprehensible words and a sing-along chorus. But "Hey Jude" isn't the most requested song of all time on FM rock stations. Nobody ever had a "Hey Jude" theme prom or played the song at weddings and funerals like "Stairway." "Stairway" couldn't succeed today. Back in 1971, FM deejays prided themselves on digging deep into albums to come up with oddball, cultish favorites. With its near-oppressive length, erratic changes, and woo-woo lyrics, the quasi-medieval anthem was a perfect choice. It continues to be a favorite among music listeners who are younger than the song itself, listeners who, in some cases, were no doubt conceived while the tune blasted from car speakers.

suggestion/suggest arrgh

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e7/Chant_%28album%29.jpg

"It continues to be a favorite among music listeners who are younger than the song itself"

how odd and uncanny!

On the 20th Anniversary of the song's release

in utero was, i think, an extremely noisy and abrasive for a mainstream rock album. i can't think of a straight-up rock-genre equivalent.

I would argue that Exile On Main St. was an extremely noisy and abrasive mainstream rock album at the time of its release. Its predecessor, Sticky Fingers, was super glossy and clean, 10 songs almost any of which could have been singles and probably hits. Exile was a messy, raw-sounding, muddy, sprawling 18-song double album with two, maybe four max, songs the radio would be likely to go anywhere near (I think "Casino Boogie" could have been a single, personally, but I don't know how many other people would agree with that). It was a really alienating album in a lot of ways.

Another candidate: There's A Riot Goin' On...

maybe? wasn't around for the release of either, and they both sounded pretty ear-pleasing to me on first listen (in the late 80s). not super shiny pop-accessible, but not deliberately brain-scrapingly harsh, either. course the standards for such do change over time....

going back a few years, "sister ray" throws heavy punches, and white light/white heat is pretty challenging overall. then again, the VU were far from the pop limelight when they cut it.

with all that out of the way, and leaving "noisiness" aside, in utero : nevermind as riot : stand! does make sense

Twin Peaks is the television version of this, surely.

Come on, when have the Velvets ever had mass appeal on the scale that we're talking about?

I'm sceptical that their appeal is broader than Jethro Tull's, actually.

I've never played a velvets song for someone and had them dislike it. I gave a friend loaded and he played it nonstop.

Getting back to In Utero for a minute, Nirvana made it kind of fashionable to follow up a slick breakthrough/debut with a harsher sounding lp. See: Bush-Razorblade Suitcase (which of course they had to hire Albini to "engineer"), Sloan-Twice Removed, and Weezer-Pinkerton.

I've never played a velvets song for someone and had them dislike it.

Man, I can't fucking stand the Velvet Underground, and I must have tried to listen to their music at least a dozen times between, say, 1987 (when I bought the debut) and maybe 2004 (when someone gave me MP3s of the boxed set). I would literally rather listen to James Taylor accompanied by Kenny G.

I've never played a velvets song for someone and had them dislike it. I gave a friend loaded and he played it nonstop.

You understand that this is not exactly proof of a mass audience, right?

i have over 10 million friends

yeah, i was more saying that i think they have mass appeal. which i guess wasn't the point of contention.

誤訳侮辱, you would rather listen to a hypothetical collaboration between James Taylor and Kenny G than this? :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8jGKp4kbeM

it's cool if you feel that way. i more than like the velvet underground so it's hard for me to believe, like when i hear people say they don't like coffee

Ha! I don't like coffee either - it gives me stomach cramps.

wtf lots of people don't like coffee

e.g. the last two people on this thread

Come on, when have the Velvets ever had mass appeal on the scale that we're talking about?

― EveningStar (Sund4r), Saturday, July 27, 2013 7:37 PM (Yesterday)

see 2nd sentence in the post you're responding to

[/snark]

OK, sorry, you were just referring to them as an example of a band that was pretty noisy for its time? Fair enough. Actually, that reminds me that Hendrix is the obvious example for that time. Electric Ladyland and maybe Are You Experienced? would be good examples.

i hate coffee (and cheese and alcohol)

Everyone is thinking about this the wrong way. It isn't "weird shit" vs. "conventional shit," or "harsh shit" vs. "pleasant shit," it's familiar shit vs. unfamiliar shit. Basic psychology. Once people have got it into their minds that a song is classic or popular or canonical, they cease hearing it as weird (outside the rock critic bubble, that it is.)

xp i know many people don't like coffee, and they say that it is an "acquired taste" for most people, but i have a hard time grasping this on an emotional level. the first time i had coffee, like the first time i heard "heroin", was like an epiphany.

also katherine otm

that's kind of why, in all the arts, what counts as "avant garde" is always changing. adorno talks about how schoenberg's twelve tone technique -- while enormously radical and innovative -- pretty much immediately became another trick in the modernist composer's toolkit, and cannot be spoken of as an "experimental" technique anymore.

I've always thought Genesis and Phil Collins solo have both made relatively unusual albums with mass appeal. There's a lot of stuff they sort of pioneered - gated drums up front, guest EWF horns, drum machines - that because they were so popular they made commonplace. Esp. the first Collins solo record, which is a pretty subdued, minimalist pop breakthrough.

i miss the days when a trad pop singer could create a 7 minute heavy biblical prog anthem and have it be normal. my 46th favorite song of the 70's. i collect different pressings of this song too, so if anyone ever sees the the spanish picture sleeve pictured in this video or any european variations keep me in mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e8hqbQtsdE

he stretches it out to 10 minutes or more in concert now. and no offense to barbra but paul's version rules. he wrote it for barbra.

Ignoring the fact it becomes quite hard to hindsight hear strangeness or difficulty in stuff's that's also super-familiar (most of Jackson's LPs have quite peculiar stuff on them, for example), I suspect a little of what's going on here is boring old reversion-to-the-mean (rather than say changes in taste or in practice). In the early days of rock, there just wasn't so much of it around — by which I mean the number of distinct LPs to choose from was a lot smaller, syncronically and diachronically — so the likelihood of things that hit also being "unconventional" was higher (especially since "conventions" weren't yet bedded in). Small populations are more likely to deliver outlier effects: as the parent population of material enlarged, the likelihood of hits being drawn from a territory perceived as the "centre" is simply going to be more. (However you determine "centre", which is probably not straightforward, or anyway not anything people are going quickly to agree on, paradoxical as this sounds.)

Second: there's obviously pretty considerable legacy effect. Not only has eg Sgt Pepper had a good deal longer to increase its lead, the fact of its lead continues to add to its success. DSotM became the "kind of record you knew to buy as a present", simply because there it was at the top of the chance: millions already liked it so presumably the recipient of yr xmas/bday gift will too!

Third: of course I think there ARE changes in practice, too — industry practice, in that taste is more effectively catered to, in respect of niche markets and such (so that "funny time-sig music" is shepherded straight out at the people who've shown an interest in owning more than one LP-full — or haha 2 LPs-full). And musicianly practice: but here I'd simply raise the question Adorno's pupil Carl Dahlhaus does — to explain the tendency towards a particular practice in music, you should ask what problem is it solving and what utopia is it imagining? My rough theory of prog (which is mine) is that its utopias — and the problems it believed itself to be confronting c.1968-75, social-political as much as technical — really did have a countercultural heft for a while, where the super-technical stuff and the virtuosity were felt to be part of the grand shared project of bringing everything (all peoples, all cultures, all age-groups) together. And this dream lasted until some people started noisily pointing out that actually, the super-technical stuff and the virtuosity made them feel very left out. At which point it reluctantly switched into operating as a sustained niche, among many others.

OK, sorry, you were just referring to them as an example of a band that was pretty noisy for its time? Fair enough. Actually, that reminds me that Hendrix is the obvious example for that time. Electric Ladyland and maybe Are You Experienced? would be good examples.

― EveningStar (Sund4r), Sunday, July 28, 2013 7:23 AM (42 minutes ago)

otm! "star-spangled banner" at woodstock maybe being the best 60s-era example, a shock to the system.

Also not sure whether anybody's mentioned it, but all of these weird deviations from the norm Sund4r alludes to above -- unstraightforward song structures, convoluted changes or rhythms, foreign instruments, loud noises, extreme tempos in one direction or other -- in practice tend to get taken for granted as internal genre conventions really quick. In Utero and Downward Spiral were already pretty conventional within their chosen genres, even if more or less unprecedented in terms of popularity; they were not particularly innovative records, I don't think. And it still seems this thread is tending to honor so-called "arty" genres (prog, pysch, industrial) over less arty ones, even though both kinds of genres have their own rulebooks. Of course, some of the albums mentioned here (Sgt. Pepper's and Dark Side and Zoso among them) at least helped write those rulebooks (though then again, so did, say, K.C. the Sunshine Band or whoever), so I can see how the music on those records might have sounded legitimately strange once upon a time. But as katherine and probably others point out above, that doesn't mean they retain their strangeness forever, once their music is absorbed.

Kind of surprised nobody's mentioned Radiohead (unless I missed it). I have basically no use for them, but seems to me they fit here too (unless they've sold way less music than I think they have, which is possible.)

Also, in re: The Village People -- As far as I remember from the time, I'm not even sure most of their mid-American fans got the joke back then. Just like with Freddie Mercury, I kind of think a lot of fans were more oblivious than people now might assume. I could be wrong, but seems to me both were using a certain kind of inside code, all that macho leather or whatever, that didn't yet translate in the heartland.

yeah, village people were kinda like action figures to me. don't know if the gay thing even dawned on me at the time. i would have been 10 around their peak. i thought they were kinda goofy but i liked the costumes.

wait, no, i would have been 11 or 12. their peak was around 1979?

where the super-technical stuff and the virtuosity were felt to be part of the grand shared project of bringing everything (all peoples, all cultures, all age-groups) together.

this is an interesting idea, but how would you support it? popular progressive rock often seems (to me) to celebrate heroism, to strive toward great uplifting moments. in its precision, athleticism and fondness for grand statements, it's always suggested a sort of hygiene fetish: strong of body, sound of mind, noble of spirit. maybe the most intensely utopian of all rock subgenres. but it's never occurred to me that the prog utopia might be uniquely defined by its inclusiveness. i suppose the aquarian dream was about the advancement/elevation of the whole human race...

the sex pistols were probably the weirdest thing i remember hearing in the 70's. weird to the point that i didn't even really grasp what i was hearing. it just sounded like noise. and that had to do with the volume or distortion more than anything else. they were louder than anything i had heard.

speaking for myself as a 70's rock fan, the beatles really did set me up to think that most rock i heard was normal even when it was weird or different. i knew all their weirdest stuff by the time i was 5 or 6 and everything i heard on the radio after that - including disco and funk and soul - seemed like an unbroken link from them on into infinity. they prepared me for the idea that music could take you on a trip. come to think of it, my dad playing prog stan kenton concept albums probably set me up even before that, but the beatles created almost my entire frame of reference for pop and rock for a decade. them and sly stone.

prog and funk and jazz in the 70's were sci-fi and utopian and looked to the future which is why i'll always kinda begrudge punk for making everything come crashing back to earth. punk only led to ronald reagan and deregulation.

Excellent post, mark! Sometimes I question why I spend so much time on this board and then something like that reminds me.

the sex pistols were probably the weirdest thing i remember hearing in the 70's. weird to the point that i didn't even really grasp what i was hearing. it just sounded like noise. and that had to do with the volume or distortion more than anything else. they were louder than anything i had heard.

On record? That's surprising. Musically, they don't sound that different from harder glam rock to me. (The voice is definitely different.)

Everyone is thinking about this the wrong way. It isn't "weird shit" vs. "conventional shit," or "harsh shit" vs. "pleasant shit," it's familiar shit vs. unfamiliar shit. Basic psychology. Once people have got it into their minds that a song is classic or popular or canonical, they cease hearing it as weird (outside the rock critic bubble, that it is.)

― katherine, Sunday, July 28, 2013 7:54 AM (2 hours ago)

i don't think it's a matter of the right or wrong way of thinking about things. tbh, i assume that everyone posting here understands that novelty is fleeting, that yesterday's great breakthrough becomes tomorrow's common practice. nevertheless, it may be interesting to consider the ways in which albums might seem "unusual", whether in our own perception or in what we can tell about the perceptions of others.

nirvana's in utero is certainly not the only example of a confrontational, brutally abrasive album released by a widely popular act known for more conventionally ear-pleasing fare, but given that pop context, i still think it's somewhat "unusual" in its deliberate inaccessibility. same goes for scott walker's late career turn to forbidding sound art.

first time i heard the sex pistols, they reminded me of jerry lee lewis

had a small frame of reference

did you think that in 1977 or 1978? i heard them on 8-track probably in 1978 or 1979. motorhead sounded like noise to me too in 1979. and i was already a big black sabbath and judas priest fan. the sex pistols definitely didn't sound like glam rock to me in the 70's.

x-post

i was in jr. high, so like 81? i mean, they were obviously feral, but i knew & liked the ramones, so it was fairly easy to adjust.

yeah i hadn't heard anything like it. two years later and they were old fuddy duddies to me.

I got the Sex Pistols mixed up with Kiss's Love Gun! Due to their name. Not sure to what extent I actually heard them back then. Do know, that when I finally tried, I initially found the Clash way easier to get into -- So I guess the Pistols struck me as unmusical at first.

By the way, people always make fun of it on this board for some stupid reason, but the first Big & Rich album (which has sold 3 million copies) sounded completely strange within the context of its genre when it came out. Though I guess it was kind of writing the rulebook for a new genre (hick-hop), too.

sex pistols album went gold the year it was released. so, pretty mass as far as appeal goes. number one in the u.k. 106 in the u.s.

It went gold in 1977, in the U.S.? Really?? Did it even get radio play? If that's true, I had no idea.

no, gold in the u.k.

it went gold in the u.s. in the 80's.

Oh okay - That makes way more sense.

then it went platinum here in 1992.

when i was young, i wanted everything to sound like "crocodile rock" and "saturday night's alright for fighting", goodbye yellow brick road being an early touchstone (along with the stones' greatest hits, "rebel rebel" & "suffragette city", jerry lee lewis, chuck berry and little richard).

so catchy 70's punk along the lines of the ramones, pistols and clash made sense to me. johnny's vocals did take some getting used to, i have to admit.

still think the numbers for the downward spiral are interesting. it was SO MUCH MORE popular in the states than anywhere else. americans must have been really bummed out in 1994. i was pretty bummed out.

Canada CRIA 3× Platinum[75] 300,000+ —
United Kingdom BPI Silver[76] 60,000+ —
United States RIAA 4× Platinum[42] 4,000,000+ —

Also the rules or conventions of rock music in the 60s and 70s were not anywhere near as codified as they are now. Modern stuff that seeks to consciously recapture that vibe never adequately captures all the weird stuff that would creep in, the recontexualisation of pre-rock musics.

prog and funk and jazz in the 70's were sci-fi and utopian and looked to the future which is why i'll always kinda begrudge punk for making everything come crashing back to earth. punk only led to ronald reagan and deregulation.

Suppose you could argue that the cultural/economic/political climate that led to Reagan (and Thatcher) made that utopianism seem anachronistic. Especially in the UK where post-war utopianism was about to be systematically dismantled.

all of these weird deviations from the norm Sund4r alludes to above -- unstraightforward song structures, convoluted changes or rhythms, foreign instruments, loud noises, extreme tempos in one direction or other -- in practice tend to get taken for granted as internal genre conventions really quick.

I think we may have talked about this point before. If e.g. it became a genre convention to write rock songs in rondo form in 7/8, I'd completely agree. I don't really buy that "non-standard song structures" or "convoluted rhythms" are genre conventions in themselves in the same way that "contrasting verse-chorus form with a middle 8 in four-bar phrases" or "4/4 with a snare hit on 2 and 4" are genre conventions, or, if they are, they allow considerably more room for formal variation within the genre. (I don't have a problem with highly standardized/formalized genres at all btw: music of the Classic era is great partly because of the level of standardization.) It's definitely the case that many novel instruments or production tricks have become subsumed as essential elements of popular music genres though.

i liked elton and the stones and chuck berry and david bowie in the 70's because they reminded me of the beatles. same with queen and 10cc and elo and everyone else. beatles beatles beatles.

x-post

If e.g. it became a genre convention to write rock songs in rondo form in 7/8,

And even then, if this was a genre with a niche audience and then one particular album from the genre became a chart-topping all-time bestseller, I'd still consider it unusual for an album with mass appeal.

has there ever been a musical movement as quickly anthologized, mythologized, canonized, annotated, and written about as exaustively as punk? wait, yes, the liverpool/brit invasion, i guess. and i guess elvis's two year rock invasion. was reading a Bomp magazine from 1977 the other day and the entire issue is punk including a very long history of punk. in 1977! so quick. not to mention the reviews of a zillion punk zines in the same issue. i always used to think of it (when i was a kid) as some shady thing that only two people were into or knew about. almost instantaneous iconic status.

summer of love

not a musical movement, though music was part of it. guess i mean the explosion of hippie culture between '67 and '69.

Did something important happen with the UK music press at that time? I think I read something like that at some point? I always did think it got written about a lot, considering how long it lasted and how much impact it actually had on the charts.

2xpost

NME & MM slagged off punk at the start didn't they? And it led to a lot of writers being replaced by younger ones like Burchill, Parsons etc

anarchy in the uk got a slagging in the nme.

re contenderizer's query: closest i've come to "demonstrating" my idea is maybe here? — relevant bit is quite a long way down — where i take the notion case by case and argue that prog is in effect kind of aggressively anxiety-beset subset of fusion. the primary precursor is sgt pepper, which as an art object is exactly the vaudeville of an album [key word] that appeals to everyone from kids to grans to ravi shankar to etc (and "all you need is love" also) (which is based on stockhausen's hymnen as any fule kno).

If you need book on the inclusiveness as stated ideology, jon anderson's lyrics are yr go-to i think :)

(the inclusiveness is an overall project, prog was just a high-visibility experiment towards its solution: which in retrospect has pretty obvious flaws, and yes, in plenty of ways pulls away from it more than it ever realised it )

I'm also interested in the answer to contenderizer's question to you about prog virtuosity and inclusiveness, mark. Your other points make a lot of sense and are well-articulated, I think. I'm a little intrigued by the idea that e.g. Sgt Pepper becomes popular because of its popularity and canonization: it makes sense to a point; does anyone think that if most casual listeners (who buy Pepper because of the charts and lists etc) heard With the Beatles or Help!, that they would actually prefer it?

xpost! Well, there's something to read.

mm was v wary of punk, nme were on the whole enthusiasts and more — there was specific beef between n.kent, who'd been guardedly pro mclaren, and sid vicious, who swiped him with a bike chain and somewhat soured his disposition, but the very recently late mick farren eg had written pieces demanding something like punk arrive

(when it did, it swept almost everyone away that called for it, but that's a different thing) (farren's vanishment was directly parsons/burchill related — if the mythology is accurate — in the sense that he was her first boyf and tony p her second, and the handover was not violence-free...)

pepper got a LOT of crossover promo in the grown-up papers in the UK: william mann's famous times leader review and so on — which is why my dad bought it for my mum! and arguably why i turned out as i did

(i still have their copy of the LP with the snipped-out review inside aw)

i blame punk for jazz going away too. jazz was everywhere in the 70's. pop, soul, disco, prog, rock, latin music, funk, etc.

all of a sudden nobody wanted to practice their tuba anymore! and then you got canned phil collins horns for a decade. so sad. i would definitely go back in time and kill johnny rotten if i could still hear big band charts on the radio. i think "sir duke" was the first 12 inch single i ever heard.

yet you love OI!

I don't really buy that "non-standard song structures" or "convoluted rhythms" are genre conventions in themselves in the same way that "contrasting verse-chorus form with a middle 8 in four-bar phrases" or "4/4 with a snare hit on 2 and 4" are genre conventions, or, if they are, they allow considerably more room for formal variation within the genre.

But the latter two allow tons of room for variation, Sund4r! Which is why they won't go away.

I mean, I might be twisting your argument some, but this reminds of how so many people thought "all disco sounded the same," when really the disco beat (as if there was only one -- but let's pretend there was, just for the sake of argument) actually allowed you to do whatever you wanted on top. It didn't quell variation; it provided a frame or foundation for it.

i love oi! for the hot disco beats.

people really don't get enough credit for liking weird stuff. long 100+ year history of smash hit "novelty" records will attest to that. heck, some of the best-selling records of the 1910's were comic monologues about irish dudes going to the hardware store. and on and on to spike jones and they're coming to take me away and disco ducks. allan sherman WAS the beatles. nothing normal about that guy.

If you need book on the inclusiveness as stated ideology, jon anderson's lyrics are yr go-to i think :)

(the inclusiveness is an overall project, prog was just a high-visibility experiment towards its solution: which in retrospect has pretty obvious flaws, and yes, in plenty of ways pulls away from it more than it ever realised it )

― mark s, Sunday, July 28, 2013 11:17 AM (28 minutes ago)

agree with all that, and it does answer my question. i see global unity and human enlightenment as the era's explicit and explicitly utopian overall goal, reflected throughout the cultural landscape. no more so in prog than folk, for instance. prog's tools are what make it a special case.

strange to consider prog as an invitation to global unity. it's not about hugging your neighbor and singing church songs together. instead, we stare in awestruck wonder at the puffy-sleeved pinnacle of human achievement. it's weirdly egocentric in that it presents itself as the inspirational ideal. otherwise, it's basically the olympics, which does add some traction to its claim.

http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_400/MI0000/678/MI0000678327.jpg

Any album with Fred Schneider on it has to be considered unusual.

in utero was, i think, an extremely noisy and abrasive for a mainstream rock album. i can't think of a straight-up rock-genre equivalent. i mean of a beatles/U2/michael jackson level world-dominating pop artist putting out something that deliberately challenging.

what about the white album? "helter skelter" and "revolution 9," for starters, were probably way more abrasive in their time than in utero was in its time. and the white album has plenty of other songs that upend expectations for a beatles album, or a rock album in general, in various other ways.

and since you mention u2, i'd argue that achtung baby is another great example of an album by a top-of-the-world artist that very directly challenged sonic expectations,

I don't really buy that "non-standard song structures" or "convoluted rhythms" are genre conventions in themselves in the same way that "contrasting verse-chorus form with a middle 8 in four-bar phrases" or "4/4 with a snare hit on 2 and 4" are genre conventions, or, if they are, they allow considerably more room for formal variation within the genre.

But not necessarily aesthetic variation, which would account for why prog rock is, in fact, a genre.

But the latter two allow tons of room for variation, Sund4r! Which is why they won't go away.

Not only that they allow room tons of room for variation (which they do), but that they and other conventions are not things that are strictly adhered to at all. I've been writing a blog on pop-rock songwriting for almost four years and that's pretty much my big theme.

in utero was, i think, an extremely noisy and abrasive for a mainstream rock album. i can't think of a straight-up rock-genre equivalent. i mean of a beatles/U2/michael jackson level world-dominating pop artist putting out something that deliberately challenging.

what about the white album? "helter skelter" and "revolution 9," for starters, were probably way more abrasive in their time than in utero was in its time. and the white album has plenty of other songs that upend expectations for a beatles album, or a rock album in general, in various other ways.

An argument too could be made for Keith Richards' combo of open tunings & lofi tape recording on the "Jumpin' Jack Flash" single and on Beggar's Banquet--not sure on exact release/recording dates, but probably the only time The Beatles & Stones were in creative/artistic harmony.

I don't really buy that "non-standard song structures" or "convoluted rhythms" are genre conventions in themselves in the same way that "contrasting verse-chorus form with a middle 8 in four-bar phrases" or "4/4 with a snare hit on 2 and 4" are genre conventions, or, if they are, they allow considerably more room for formal variation within the genre.

So I guess the thing is, in a way, I might have actually been doing what I argued against here when I started this thread (while killing time at a temp placement). I was assuming a set of pop music conventions and then conflating numerous different kinds of unconventionality - formal, rhythmic, timbral, harmonic, lyrical - into a category of "unusual". Then I made general statements that Sgt Pepper was more "unusual" than Rumours or Come On Over. Someone did argue that Rumours had some unusual qualities in terms of harmony and rhythm. Perhaps I should have investigated these further.

I guess that from here, I'd either have to get more specific and look for specific sorts of unconventionality or innovation or else throw the question wide open and look at any sort of "unusual" element in hugely popular albums. The latter seems like it's probably the more interesting thing to do with this now! Ultimately, I guess any album would need to have some unique quality to rise to all-time top-seller status. Perhaps it would be interesting to consider what all of them are!