This is the thread where millenials can ask old-timers music-related questions about the past.

For example:

In ye olde record stores back in the days of vinyl/cassettes, how long did singles stay available? Would they be taken off the shelves after so long.

I think this thread will be preposterous, but occasionally musical queries come into my head which require an answer from a contemporary of the times. Like, "what did you first think of rap when it began entering the mainstream?" "what was it like in the late 1970s if you didn't like disco?" "where were you when Lennon died and what was your reaction?"

I'm guessing/hoping some members are old enough to give me answers about these kind of things.

my questions:

When Hot 97 started, were you there?
When Rap City got started, were you there?
When KDAY got started, were you there?
When Jive Records got started, were you there?
When Yo! MTV Raps started, were you there?
When The Source magazins started, were you there?
When Cedric and Seda started, were you there?
When Biggie was doin his album, were you there?
When Tookie Williams was buried, were you there?
'73, Cedar Park, were you there?
One-twenty-three park, were you there?
You ain't tellin me the history cause were you there?

[Hook]
were you there?! (And where were you?) (Where were you?)
(And where were you?) (Where were you?)
(And where were you?) (Where were you?)
(Where were you?)

[KRS-One]
When Moe Dee challenged LL, were you there?
When that bus blew up in London, were you there?
When Death Row challenged Bad Boy at the Source Awards
In New York at the Garden, yup, were you there?
When Kwame Toure, formerly known as Stokely Carmichael
Was passin on, were you there?
When Nelson Mandela was freed from prison
And spoke out at Yankee Stadium in New York, were you there?
For all the births of my children, were you there?
When the Rodney King uprisings happened were you there?
These objective rap historians tryin to document
Hip-hop from outside forget it, were you there?

[Hook]

[KRS-One]
LOOK! The Jive Records label, were you there?
The Columbia Records label, were you there?
The Elektra Records label, were you there?
The Warner Brothers Records label, were you there?
The Koch Records label, were you there?
The Capitol Records label, were you there?
I know about they contracts cause were you there?
I wrote and rewrote most of 'em when were you there?
I ain't readin a book or recitin a hook
I am hip-hop itself cause yup were you there?
Y'all need to get it together with hip-hop's history
And get it right, cause yup were you there?

depended on the single, really. some stuff would always be available, other stuff would be around in the top 40 racks and never be seen again once it dropped off the charts

I think one independent store where I lived only had the top 40 rack for singles. I kind of remember larger 45 bins at Licorice Pizza where they stocked like Eric Records reissue 45s and stuff. I don't remember what the 45 bin was like at the Wherehouse.

there was also a thing where sometimes an older single by a still popular artist would be reissued: so in, say '84, you could get a double-A side of "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough"/"Rock With You."

what did you first think of rap when it began entering the mainstream?

to me, rap entering the mainstream meant "the message," "white lines," things like that. i was a suburban kid raised on classic rock and infatuated with punk rock, and i absolutely loved it. and i wished it wasn't so hard to actually find the records, which, if you lived in the suburbs, it was.

where were you when Lennon died and what was your reaction?

i was watching "monday night football." patriots vs. dolphins. i was, and still am, a patriots fan. they lost that night. i heard that he was shot, as millions of others did, from howard cosell. i was crushed and confused. i don't think the idea of him dying occurred to me right away. he had been shot, and that was terrible enough. i'm not sure if i could process the news any more than that, or if i even wanted to. i don't remember if i heard that he had actually died from cosell or from the radio. that made me unbelievably sad. it was the first celebrity death that mattered to me. i stayed up late listening to the beatles on the radio (wbcn in boston), and not saying much. my memory is that they played nothing but beatles for several days. the next day i went to the boston common with my friend barry. there were vigils everywhere, little circles of people standing around piles of lennon photos and news clippings and burning candles. we picked one and stood there for i have no idea how long. it was extremely cold. there was a guy taking photos. we just kept standing there, staring into the fire in our midst, staring at our ground, staring ahead, staring back down at the ground. at some point we left, and that's all i remember, except for lennon and the beatles continuing to be all over the radio, seemingly every station, for days. the next week, barry and i were in the middle of a photo in the cover story in newsweek's lennon issue. my head is down and i look like i might be crying, but i think that's just my hair in my eyes.

where's the thread where i can ask millennials what it was like when Sic Alps broke up?

This can also be that thread.

sadly, I do not know the band of which you speak. sorry.

sic alps broke up?

we got through it

still they can never take away from us the things we experienced at sic alps shows

the delicate harmonies; the perfectly-choreographed dancing . . .

IIRC, the night after Lennon's death NBC had a one-hour prime-time bio/obit special, and my parents surprised me by being willing to let me watch it instead of putting it on whatever else might be on. The memory is kind of hazy, I hope I'm remembering it right. I do have a clear memory of the show including the "Imagine" video and me thinking that the lyrics would be just the sort of godless hippie shit that would set my father off on a rant, but he stayed quiet.

I saw sic alps and was p underwhelmed

Same w Times New Viking live

Was in my room playing a board game and my mom came in and told me when they announced it on TV. Age 12.

do old people think of their lives as having two halves, pre and post-Rock 'n' Roll High School?

"what was it like in the late 1970s if you didn't like disco?"

Well there was tons of classic rock on the radio (hey, even the Stones were releasing good new stuff) and plenty of punk and new wave breaking through. As long as you avoided top 40 radio, you were safe.

Checking out the US top 100 in late 70s, there was lots of non-disco in '77 but by '79 disco had taken over the charts.

where's the thread where i can ask millennials what it was like when Sic Alps broke up?

― lisa 龜 (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, January 23, 2014 7:16 PM (2 hours ago)

I know a decent amount of backstory on this, but i'm not a millenial so

I wrote a very long and very poor quality poem about John Lennon when he died, maybe on the exact day but I don't remember.

I got the guy who shot Lennon confused with the guy who shot Reagan. I think I put "The Catcher in the Rye" on my books to read list

I remember my grandmother saying something like: why are people making such a big deal of this, he wasn't even a good person; then comparing him unfavorably to Bob Hope.

And yes, there was a lot around besides disco. Some time around 1979 or maybe 1980, I went from listening to commercial disco (or disco dominated) stations to suddenly just listening to college radio and being pretty puritan about it (but that opened me up to several genres or sub-genres I was completely unfamiliar with before then, and hundreds of artists).

I was consciously a bit bored with classic rock at some point around 78, or at least bored with hearing the same songs. New wave and punk seemed very new and exciting. I remember hearing the adds for Elvis Costello's Armed Forces and thinking how new it sounded. I already was interested in him because my brother knew someone who had a cover band that included "I'm Not Angry" alongside some Ramones. That would have been 1977, I guess.

I remember late 70s top 40 being like Fleetwood Mac, Heart, Styx, Cheap Trick -- like hardly any disco

I worked in radio in the late 70s. Our station was dayparted; Cheap Trick and Styx were only for later hours, but on my daytime shift in 1978 it was all Saturday Night Fever all the time. And Grease.

1. Shadow Dancing, Andy Gibb
2. Night Fever, The Bee Gees
3. You Light Up My Life, Debby Boone
4. Stayin' Alive, The Bee Gees
5. Kiss You All Over, Exile
6. How Deep Is Your Love, The Bee Gees
7. Baby Come Back, Player
8. (Love Is) Thicker Than Water, Andy Gibb
9. Boogie Oogie Oogie, A Taste Of Honey
10. Three Times a Lady, The Commodores
11. Grease, Frankie Valli
12. I Go Crazy, Paul Davis
13. You're the One That I Want, John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John
14. Emotion, Samantha Sang
15. Lay Down Sally, Eric Clapton
16. Miss You, The Rolling Stones
17. Just the Way You Are, Billy Joel
18. With a Little Luck, Wings
19. If I Can't Have You, Yvonne Elliman
20. Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah), Chic

I was 14 when Lennon was shot, I was crushed. I remember being super bummed out and my mom talking to me about how his legacy would live on etc. A year later I wore a black armband to school. I don't remember a whole lot about the coverage, but that xmas my mom bought me a whole bunch of Beatles albums and Lennon's Shaved Fish.

would love to babble about 1979-1980 radio but maybe later

What was your first response when the news broke on social media that the British had surrendered at Yorktown?

It was weird, I was like, I started eighth grade as a British subject and now I'm gonna finish it as... what?

lol

there was also a thing where sometimes an older single by a still popular artist would be reissued: so in, say '84, you could get a double-A side of "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough"/"Rock With You."

This. Even in 1978 you could go into any record store and get the 45 of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" or old Beatles stuff, but they would be these reissues, not the originals ones (and not on picture sleeves).

I remember in the late 80s buying Led Zeppelin cassingles.

"what did you first think of rap when it began entering the mainstream?"

I liked it, but not as much as I liked soul/funk (boogie). I still feel like that about it. I've always had a preference for hearing someone singing rather than rapping.

"where were you when Lennon died and what was your reaction?"

I was at a shop in Bayswater, London, where I'd just started working, and it was announced on the radio. I don't really remember my reaction. I've never been a fan of the Beatles but his death was obviously a huge news story, so I was interested in hearing about it on that level.

In ye olde record stores back in the days of vinyl/cassettes, how long did singles stay available?

In the early-mid 80s I bought nearly all of my music at K-Mart. Living in more-or-less rural NE Ohio, it was the only retailer that sold music within 20 miles of my house. In their records/tapes section, they had a bin that contained all the 45s for that week's Billboard Top 40. Each week, they'd switch them out. If a song dropped out of the Top 40, you couldn't find it at K-Mart anymore.

"where were you when Lennon died and what was your reaction?"

I knew who the Beatles were when it happened (I had just turned 11 years old a week before), but didn't really know much about them as individuals or personalities so it didn't have a terrific impact on me personally. But when I first heard the news, my sister and I were in the car with my dad -- at a gas station, no less -- and he was pretty broken up about it. I knew about them at all thanks to his record collection, which included most of the Capitol albums plus Plastic Ono Band and Imagine.

"what did you first think of rap when it began entering the mainstream?"

My best friend at the time, Jeff Strauser, and I used to sit around waiting for the radio to play "Rapper's Delight," then we both bought the 45 and played it over and over and over. We loved it. Same thing with "Rapture." Couldn't get enough of it.

First heard rap, like many others, on "Rappers' Delight." That was a top 40 hit, so that's when rap entered the mainstream as far as I'm concerned. Thought it was different and amusing, but didn't see it as a whole new style about to take off. Some of the RD lyrics struck me as embarrassing, such as the one about "super sperm" which was weird to hear on the radio.

what did you first think of rap when it began entering the mainstream?

where were you when Lennon died and what was your reaction?

I used to sit around waiting for the radio to play "Rapper's Delight,"

I remember REALLY liking that one (and later "The Message") but some of the others not so much. I wasn't that keen on the faster "electro" beat (e.g. "Planet Rock", although that sounds amazing to me now).

I have no idea when rap came to Mississippi radio stations, and I wish I did. I heard "Rapture" a lot on the top-40 stations I listened to, but that was its own thing. By 1980 I was spending all my money on LPs and not listening to much radio. I also wish I'd spun the dial more when I lived in the OC 1970-75 -- all I listened to was "Boss Radio" KHJ, which was pretty cool, but I'm sure I missed out on a lot of mind expansion over on the FM side.

"The Message" was the one that made the biggest initial impact in my high school, I think I was in 10th grade art class when I heard it. Next biggest things I remember were all the Roxanne records and Chaka Khan.

I don't know how I missed Howard Cosell breaking the news about Lennon. I was a Miami Dolphins fan and surely would have been watching that game. Actually found out about it the next morning when my dad told me. It was very sad of course, and together with Ronald Reagan being elected the month before it felt like the forces of conservatism were winning.

"where were you when Lennon died and what was your reaction?"

Haven't a clue, I'm surprised people remember tbh! I remember the front cover of the NME but that's about it, for some reason I thought he died around the same time as Bob Marley in a sort of RFK/Warhol or Princess Di/Mother Teresa news double whammy but Marley died months later. The Beatles never meant anything to me because my parents were too old to be into them and my older sister (who was my overwhelming musical influence) was strictly Bowie/Roxy then Punk Rock and never bought a record that wasn't contemporary, like ever. However my Granny did have all the Beatles' singles! What I'm trying to say is that Ian Curtis dying was a much bigger deal in my house, when you get right down to it.

Seems like it was a pretty big deal in the US though!

I liked Rapture a lot, but didn't realize at the time that it was anything other than a pop song with a fun spoken bit. It did not clue me in at all to anything new going on, I don't think anyone I knew realized that it was inspired by anything in particular.

I think the first rap song to really hit my school hard was White Lines.

We tried to get our history teacher to allow a moment of silence for Lennon, but she didn't really think of him as anyone important (older teacher) and wouldn't let us. 5th or 6th grade.

The Beatles never meant anything to me because my parents were too old to be into them...

Same for me. I remember the kids in the infants' school playground going around singing "She Loves You, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!" and I had no idea what it was or why they were singing it.

Seems like it was a pretty big deal in the US though!

Yes, as I said, my immediate reaction was somewhat indifferent, but when I saw all the candlelit vigils in the U.S. on the TV, it began to sink in that it was a much more momentous event than I had thought.

Well I suppose he did get shot in NYC, btw I was there when George Harrison died and I was a bit, "Right, OK, good guitarist, wrote some good songs, a Beatle but..."

We tried to get our history teacher to allow a moment of silence for Lennon, but she didn't really think of him as anyone important (older teacher) and wouldn't let us. 5th or 6th grade.

this is so sad

It is?

Well I suppose he did get shot in NYC

True, but watching the TV coverage I could see it was a huge thing for these people that had grown up with the Beatles from an early age, and that it was kind of an end of an era for them.

Funnily enough, I remember being on holiday in the Lake District with my family and I somehow heard (perhaps from a radio in a pub) that Elvis had died. I think that made more of an impression on me than Lennon's death. Not because I liked Elvis (I didn't), but it seemed weird that it could happen. It seemed much more like a puncture in my idea of pop music being something bigger than ordinary life.

I was going to say, Elvis dying seemed more important at the time

But I think we all know by now that the US is batshit for Beatles

What did people who listened to/participated in punk in the '80s think about '90s punk revival?

because Lennon was shot within the same 6-mo. timeframe as Reagan and Pope JP II (and Sadat?), it seemed to me as a kid that famous people apparently just got shot all the time

What did people who listened to/participated in punk in the '70s think about '80s punk revival? (xp)

The Beatles never meant anything to me because my parents were too old to be into them...

the beatles were "your parents" music to me, but i grew up at a time when people still got excited -- strangely so -- about a possible beatles reunion (first with john, then with julian). the beatles never meant anything to me, but i was still affected when lennon was murdered. it was one of the big cultural-event moments of my life, eventually overshadowed -- like all the others -- by one singular, horrible event.

What did people who listened to/participated in punk in the '80s think about '90s punk revival?

underwhelmed by it, except for nirvana.

because Lennon was shot within the same 6-mo. timeframe as Reagan and Pope JP II (and Sadat?), it seemed to me as a kid that famous people apparently just got shot all the time

yeah, that's true. but it was still a much less cynical time. and i know how old that makes me sound, but it's true.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9feI2R12wY

Funnily enough, I remember being on holiday in the Lake District with my family and I somehow heard (perhaps from a radio in a pub) that Elvis had died. I think that made more of an impression on me than Lennon's death.

almost exactly the same, was on holiday in a caravan in far north of Scotland and remember watching news footage of Elvis death, it seemed like a big thing although I didn't really know who he was. Weirdly can't remember Lennon death at all, maybe something to do with the Beatles not really being a big thing in Glasgow as far as I can remember - no one I knew growing up had their records at least.

if millenials are in their twenties, they were born in the 90s. do they look at clinton as the president? that's the way i grew up looking at ronald reagan. that image of the president -- and the country he presided over -- never left me.

that's how I feel about Reagan-Bush: it was 12 years, followed by another eight of the same.

my band is the Beatles, my president is Nixon. 50/50

that's how I feel about Reagan-Bush: it was 12 years.

yeah. beyond the fact that i've always been left-of-center, alfred's observation is part of why i hope obama is followed by a democratic successor who's at least somewhat "left-wing." it would make a 12 year run, comparable to reagan-bush.

my president is Nixon.

― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius)

always knew it.

re: Elvis's death, not only do I know exactly where I was, I have several pictures of myself from that day. My family was stationed in Europe, my grandmother and aunt were visiting us, and we were on a vacation in Paris. The French didn't seem particularly bothered -- although the hotel lobby music was all Elvis -- but my mother, a lifelong fan, was crushed. In any case, I have a picture of my father and me on top of the Eiffel Tower taken the day Elvis died.

by which i mean he was the first man i thought of contemptuously as The President xp

if millenials are in their twenties, they were born in the 90s. do they look at clinton as the president? that's the way i grew up looking at ronald reagan. that image of the president -- and the country he presided over -- never left me.

I was born in 1990 and while I wouldn't say Clinton was *the* President, Bush did feel a bit like an "imposter" when he was inaugurated. The America that Clinton presided over, or at least in my young, naive childhood mind, one of economic ascendency, unrivalled power, saxophones and "world peace" (lol), left a strong impression though.

Lennon's demise seemed bigger to me than Elvis's, because Lennon at least had a hot new album out whereas my conception of Elvis was of this semi-forgotten 1950s greaser character, whom I vaguely conflated with Fonzie from "Happy Days."

Lennon at least had a hot new album out whereas my conception of Elvis was of this semi-forgotten 1950s greaser character, whom I vaguely conflated with Fonzie from "Happy Days."

otm. rock radio at the time played the beatles a lot and didn't play elvis at all. kinda like now, actually.

but also, the manner of death. i don't care how cynical you are and how much you hate the beatles. when a celebrity gets assassinated on the street in new york city, that's a big freaking deal.

millennials don't get my old timer wisdom unless they ask me irl

i don't care how cynical you are and how much you hate the beatles. when a celebrity gets assassinated on the street in new york city, that's a big freaking deal.

wish this was reagan's quote, at the time.

xp

Born in 83 and Clinton definitely feels like the "original President" to me. Then Bush came along and 9/11, Iraq, Katrina and economic meltdown happened. With that backdrop it's not surprising so many of us ended up as Democrats...

the contrast between the quiet, quaint 90s and the perpetual-upheaval of the 2000s (and 2010s) is striking. we lurch from crisis-to-crisis now.

I am technically a millennial but have already had storytime for some younger folks to describe cassette tapes - e.g. their strengths of being cheaper and not skipping while you were moving around, weaknesses in sound quality, tape warp, melting in hot temperature etc.

xxpost: Daniel OTM.

Thanks for all the anecdotes and experiences, they're really interesting to read. They say the internet has everything on it that people need to know, but you can only glean so much from biographies and chart positions; it's good to have individual recollections too.

I have another question. When did vinyl records leave the mainstream, so to speak? I know a majority of the albums purchased by the mid to late 80s was on cassette, but there seems to have been a rapid transition from stocking vinyl to CDs around '88-89, I think? How quickly did record stores make the change?

What did people who listened to/participated in punk in the '70s think about '80s punk revival? (xp)

― Eats like Elvis, shits like De Niro (Tom D.), Friday, January 24, 2014 12:41 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Touche...

When did vinyl records leave the mainstream, so to speak? I know a majority of the albums purchased by the mid to late 80s was on cassette, but there seems to have been a rapid transition from stocking vinyl to CDs around '88-89, I think? How quickly did record stores make the change?

It happened quickly: i'd say 1989 was the killing year, when I can remember the mall record stores having crates full of deleted, discounted vinyl sitting by the door, as if hoping someone would shoplift it. (still have a Sign 'O The Times from then--got it for like $2.

The real transition was from tape to CD. THAT happened quick.

Didn't feel like it to me? Still a huge selection of tapes at Sam Goody in 1998 when I worked there.

last tape I bought was in '95 (the Amps, I think). tapes being $5 cheaper than discs was a big factor in my student days

I bought new tapes exclusively til '92, after which I alternated with CDs for most of the decade, especially when box chains like Best Buy were selling new tapes for as much as half what I'd pay for a CD. By 1994 though no one I knew was buying tapes regularly.

My Best Buy cleared its tape collection in '98 or '99.

btw I was there when George Harrison died and I was a bit, "Right, OK, good guitarist, wrote some good songs, a Beatle but..."

― Eats like Elvis, shits like De Niro (Tom D.), Friday, January 24, 2014 12:25 PM (26 minutes ago)

and with his family right there you monster

Olivia clocked Tom with a lamp iirc

early 91 when i moved to this town the our price was mostly cd and slightly less tapes with a section of vinyl that was gone by 93. However most people i knew still didnt own a cd player and bought tapes. The slightly older studenty indie/dance/metal crews did seem to be the only ones buying vinyl tho. by 93 i think people had boomboxes at least.

when did rap enter the mainstream, 1990? the first rap song I remember was "La Di Da Di", played & sung incessantly I guess when it had just dropped. was in middle grade on the west florida coast. my school was bussed but that meant we had two pretty separate populations at school, and lunch & phys ed were the mixing times. so at phys ed everyone played basketball together and that's where the songs came out, plus dropped phrases, styling. one of the best educations I ever had. also remember watching two busses coming back from a field trip maybe the following year, one bus full of guys shouting "we want some pussy" à la 2 Live Crew and another bus following full of girls shouting "we want some penis" to the same cadence.

not sure about the mainstreaming, was in GA by then in the burbs, and even through 92 it was just like me & two other kids who would rep for rap: me from la raza, one from indo(nesia) & the other a member of The Tribe; like we didn't fit in & rap was def not what most kids were into. by 92 cypress hill had sunk in & that was when rap seemed truly mainstream to me. like hammer was something people would just joke about but cypress hill was "real". I don't really get the dynamic but that's how it seemed

The first song with any rapping I remember getting traction 'round the schoolyard was "Jam On It."

pretty sure rap entered the mainstream in '86

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B_UYYPb-Gk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBShN8qT4lk

(many xposts)

what did you first think of rap when it began entering the mainstream?
I've been trying to recall what the records were that bothered the UK charts post-"Rapper's Delight" and "Rapture" (i.e. early 80s) that tried to exploit the rap 'fad' as it then was. I'm drawing a blank. "Ant Rap" was (and still is) A++ but that was late '81. There must have been some other hit rapsploitation records before that. Anyway, to answer to your question, I was definitely pro. And "Adventures On The Wheels of Steel" blew my mind when I first heard it on John Peel.

where were you when Lennon died and what was your reaction?
In bed, fast asleep. Woke up to the news on BBC Radio - they were making a big thing of it and I probably took my cue from that. It was a school day, as others have noted. One of my classmates (we were 15 y.o.) had recently come out as a big Beatles/Lennon fan so he was on the end of a fair bit of taunting that day. You know what teenagers are like.

"Wham Rap"?

Yes, but that was '82. I'm sure there were earlier records.

I don't mean Kurtis Blow or "Wordy Rappinghood" either.

not sure about the mainstreaming, was in GA by then in the burbs, and even through 92 it was just like me & two other kids who would rep for rap: me from la raza, one from indo(nesia) & the other a member of The Tribe; like we didn't fit in & rap was def not what most kids were into.

Interesting to read this. From the info I've gathered about the US singles charts, it seems as though r&b/new jack swing/rap had largely displaced rock by 1990. Also curious to hear Cypress Hill as being the authenticity stamp of the genre for a lot of kids in your area too...dunno why.

Jeff: right, I get you. "Rapture" was 1980, wasn't it? I'd be surprised if there were too many chart-bothering rap songs at this time.

yeah 1986 but what happened between those two & like Hammer? were there a lot of other hits? I don't remember any (looking to be refuted here)

beasties were mainstream in an oppositional way, like "this is the shit your parents will hate". though I guess a lot of big rap songs have kept that. I dunno, I'm thinking of like Hammer, Kris Kross, stuff you'd see played at weddings: rap joined that group by the 90s.

yeah, rap broke into the mainstream in the 80s. people talk now as if rap developed in the 90s, but that's revisionist history, imo.

I felt about the rapid encroachment of CDs the same way I do about Blu-Ray becoming increasingly unavoidable: I have a huge collection already and I'm not switching formats without a fight. I think I clung to my "cassettes only!" stubbornness until '96 or so.

i miss 8-tracks.

yeah 1986 but what happened between those two & like Hammer?

Salt N Pepa, LL, and a few others were regular MTV rotation staples without perhaps being Top 40 heavies. Also, I'd include from this era things like Technotronic and SNAP! under the hip hop umbrella because the mainstream really didn't know how to deal with it yet.

Tone Loc, Young MC, JJ Fadd...

Rap was just an occasional radio thing for me until jr. high, when the first Hammer album and Nasty As They Wanna Be got handed around like mad. Oh, and Sir Mix-A-Lot's Swass, for some reason.

I had three lps when I was a kid- run dmc raising hell, bon jovi slippery when wet, and the top gun soundtrack- they all came out in 1986. but that was also the year I must have started buying cassettes, cause i had look what the cat dragged, also from 1986, on tape. didn't buy cds til 1991, prince diamonds and pearls and nirvana nevermind were the first cds i had.

The first rap songs I remember hearing in junior high (now known as middle school) were "White Lines (Don't Do It)" and "Jam On It." The former struck me as one of the greatest songs ever (still does); the latter I barely remember now, except for the chorus.

When did vinyl records leave the mainstream, so to speak? I know a majority of the albums purchased by the mid to late 80s was on cassette, but there seems to have been a rapid transition from stocking vinyl to CDs around '88-89, I think? How quickly did record stores make the change?

I feel like vinyl died around 1989. I definitely remember buying Metallica's ...And Justice for All on double LP, new, in 1988. But I had started buying CDs that same year, I think. 1989 at the latest. I always hated vinyl, though. I had a shitty turntable that would speed up and slow down, records got scratchy and crackly, plus I had a Walkman for the school bus and hallway, so cassettes were my favorite format for a long time. I would buy CDs, then record them to blank tapes and put them in my Walkman for the ride to and from school. As far as stores, I remember the store my friend's family owned putting their vinyl in bins on the floor by about 1989-90 (the year I graduated high school).

Tone Loc is 89/90, though

yeah, I guess by "mainstream" I mean top 40 heavies. I heard these songs all the time but it wasn't like when "Jump" hit #2

The first CDs I bought were Sinead O'Connor's The Lion and the Cobra and Frank Zappa's Jazz From Hell, because I remember specifically wanting something that would sound demonstrably better on this miraculous new high-tech format.

On that subject, when did CDs really become financially viable for most listeners to buy? Their debut was in 1982 or so, right? Seems there were a few years where they were out of reach for most people. My dad got his first CD player as part of a sound-system which included a turntable and cassette deck in 1984, but what were the economics of those compact discs in the beginning?

What year did casettes really gain traction in popularity?

I think my introduction to cds came via a Dennis Miller joke on SNL when he said Charles Manson had relistened to "Helter Skelter" on cd and realize they weren't trying to send him messages after all. That was probably 1987?

Cassettes probably most popular from about 1983-1994 or so.

CDs: probably '88. They were always more expensive (because they were "indestructible"), so getting a new CD always felt like a big splurge.

cassettes: ca. '82-'83. whenever the Walkman/boombox two-fer became a standard kit in middle-class kids' homes.

My parents stopped buying vinyl in '85.

CDs became affordable when I got a job!

I probably wasn't really aware of what CDs were till like 1990 or 1991. Of course I was only 5 at the time. Up until then it was mostly casettes and records. I remember for Christmas of 89 getting a series of California Raisins records in which one of them was mistakingly packaged with a copy of Sisters of Mercy's Floodland inside instead.

CDs became affordable when I got a job!

truth. I've so much old vinyl that i bought in the early '90s 'cos I had maybe $20 in spending cash a week then, and choice was often: 1 CD or buy 3 or 4 used records plus a couple beers.

"what did you first think of rap when it began entering the mainstream?"

"what was it like in the late 1970s if you didn't like disco?"

"where were you when Lennon died and what was your reaction?"

On that subject, when did CDs really become financially viable for most listeners to buy? Their debut was in 1982 or so, right? Seems there were a few years where they were out of reach for most people.

New? How many retailers still stocked LPs in the 90s?

The Tower Records I grew up with had almost no records, or at least I don't remember any records ever being there. By '94 it was probably 3/4 CDs and 1/4 cassettes. By '97 it was almost all CDs.

By '94 = in '94

i dunno, maybe seattle was slow

first cd i bought was the rich man's 8 track tape by big black, in 1987. cost nearly 20 bucks, more than twice the price of songs abt fucking on wax. i had no way to play it, but was a fan plus stupid. a few years later i bought screaming trees' uncle anaesthesia cuz you couldn't get it on vinyl. taped it at a neighbor's. didn't own a cd player until the late 90s sometime, discman.

most people don't know this but cds have holes in the music. only the one parts play.

neil young told me

lot of the first CDs I bought were (then new) reissue series: Bowie, Costello, Beatles, Richrd Thompson, etc.

throughout the 90s cds here were generally £13.99 but could to up to £18.99 for stuff that doesnt sell well. Japanese imports were £30+

If you went into glasgow you could get chart cds a quid cheaper at £12.99 but Tower sold loads of cds for £18.99 lol.

by say 96 or so supermarkets started selling chart cds under £10 but the record shops stayed the same. But it was more convenient to blame napster than that for the shops doing badly.

think my 1st cd was rattle & hum and i was the 1st person in my year to get a cd player so i had to copy it to tape for loads of people eager to hear how much better it was.

Most of my Elvis C Ryko reissues are on tape -- and still sound splendid.

Bought my first CD player (a horrible Fisher model) and CDs (Songs from Liquid Days, wtf) in late 85 or early 86. They were too expensive to dive into whole hog -- about $16/disc, and I was a newlywed without much money to splash out on music. But by 1990 or so I was just about done buying vinyl.

yeah, I guess by "mainstream" I mean top 40 heavies. I heard these songs all the time but it wasn't like when "Jump" hit #2

Don't know if I get your definition of mainstream then. "Parents Just Don't Understand" was made more of an impact in the mainstream than "Jump" did. In '88, everyone in my school knew who NWA were, even if they weren't yet top 40 heavies.

Particularly lol-worthy was the tactic employed by some record companies of labelling some CDs with 1 hour+ of music on them as "long play" and charging extra for them.

cd's really were a rip-off. getting older people to rebuy their music at stupid prices. I remember a lot of peoples parents doing that.

rap was obviously mainstream from the get-go, albeit in a novelty way for at least a decade, and apart from the occasional hits and one-hit wonders it was kind of an underground/cult sort of thing through the late 80s. The turning point in my memory was Dre/Snoop ('91) and then Biggie/Puffy immediately after - that was when all of a sudden rap was taken for granted, there was huge major label feeding frenzies, bajillions being made off huge chart hits, every dumb white dude at a party was "into rap" etc.

that being said I've listened to rap my whole life so it was always just kind of there afaic

Thinking about my intro to CDs now, it would've definitely been '97, because I remember it vividly: I was living with my grandparents when I bought my first CD, I got home kinda late that night, after they'd gone to bed, and I was so excited about celebrating my entrance into the digital age that I popped it into the stereo without checking the volume (which was up pretty high). The album? Jon Spencer's Now I Got Worry. If you have a copy, crank up the volume and try to imagine that fun scene.

but by the 90s you had to buy cds as shops in provincial towns didnt sell vinyl with the odd exception. They really wanted to kill vinyl and tape but tapes still sold to those who had no cd players. Once discmans were affordable tapes were gone.
When i went into Glasgow occasionally id buy vinyl from Missing Records as I could get 2 lps for the price of a cd. Now its the opposite!

This. Even in 1978 you could go into any record store and get the 45 of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" or old Beatles stuff, but they would be these reissues, not the originals ones (and not on picture sleeves).

In the early '90s my Tower Records still had a really wide selection of 45s and I remember buying lots of oldies on 45 there. I don't know why they stocked them, maybe for old guys who collected jukeboxes or something?

was tower as expensive in the usa as it was in the uk?
you only bought from tower if other shops didnt stock it (which was quite often as at those prices noone bought them)

I have loads of memories of wandering into record shops with my dad circa 1988-1989 and seeing racks upon racks of vinyl albums. Fast forward about five years later and the focus was definitely on CD's.

I was fascinated by "Rapper's Delight" when it was a hit, especially after a deejay pointed out that the backing was identical to "Good Times", and discovering an extended version on the single's B-side made it seem even more bizarre & unique, but the Ted Nugent fans in my 7th grade class (same ones who called me a fag when I wore a B-52s button) didn't want to know, thought it was even worse than disco.

where were you when Lennon died and what was your reaction?

I was doing my homewaork listening to the local rock station in semi-darkeness doing my 6th grade homework when the DJ interrupted very audibly disconsolate. My dad and his lover/roommate (and her kids) were away for soemthing, I can't remember what. My cat was out killing stuff in the yard and I was alone in a pool of a light from a single over-hanging light-bulb in a stainless-stell floor lamp muttering about math in an otherwsie dark house in winter, quite alone. I was shocked and wept.

As someone born in '83, I've often wondered just how unique stuff like Kraftwerk and late '70s/early '80s synthpop must have sounded at the time.

I remember 'Cooky Puss' as my first revelation of rap.

I have to admit that synthpop came pretty easily to me after my pre-adolescent love of Jarre's 'Oxygène'.

LPs were cheaper than CDs through most of the 90s iirc

― CANONICAL artists, etc., etc. (contenderizer), Friday, January 24, 2014 3:25 PM (40 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

New? How many retailers still stocked LPs in the 90s?

― president of the people's republic of antarctica (Arctic Mindbath), Friday, January 24, 2014 3:27 PM (38 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

certainly from most american indie rock labels. i remember matador, drag city etc selling lps for $8 and cds for $12 or thereabouts through mailorder.

was tower as expensive in the usa as it was in the uk?
you only bought from tower if other shops didnt stock it (which was quite often as at those prices noone bought them)

― ۩, Friday, January 24, 2014 3:57 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

In the mid 90s the Tower in LA usually sold new/popular CDs for 11.99-13.99, 14.99-16.99 for everything else. By the late 90s those prices had crept up a a dollar or two. If anything they were a little more price competitive than other stores.

Yeah, it also kind of depends on whether you were going to Tower or Virgin or going to a smaller music store. I don't remember vinyl ever entirely disappearing.

Their classical music prices always left me speechless, though.

Did music geeks in the 70s think that stuff like Steely Dan and Fleetwood Mac was just horrible Top 40 crap for the uncultured masses? If so, when did the critical re-evaluation take place? What was the turning point, and why/how did this happen?

Fleetwood Mac were never critically maligned!

cd's were basically twice the price in the UK than in the USA. Quite disgusting really.

the Buckingham-Nicks version, I mean. Look where they finished in the '77 P&J poll.

Yeah, 'cause there's a consenus about that, Poliopolice

I feel like people are underestimating the status of rap prior to 1986 itt. Grandmaster Flash's The Message was on the LP charts for six months in 1982-1983. Run-DMC's first album stayed on the charts over a year, going gold. Their next album, King of Rock went platinum, the same year they performed at Live Aid. The Beastie Boys toured with Madonna at the height of her early fame in 1985. There were several rap movies by the end of 1985. The Chicago Bears recorded a rap single in 1985 and it was a hit. If NFL players are rapping, how is rap not mainstream?

There'll always be a group of people for whom the Peter Green era of Fleetwood Mac was the only era of the band and who view the Buckingham-Nicks version as not being "the real deal". I feel sorry for those folks, though.

josefa otm

As someone born in '83, I've often wondered just how unique stuff like Kraftwerk and late '70s/early '80s synthpop must have sounded at the time.

― Toni Braxton-Hicks (Turrican)

it sounded cool

it was mainstream, but it wasn't dominating the mainstream until Snoop & Biggie

xp

I was fascinated by "Rapper's Delight"

Me too and I was later in touch with Sugarhill Records to get all their releases to our college radio station

The late Seventies/early Eighties saw the explosion of rap and New Wave in a way that pulled us out of the horrible mid-Seventies was how I lived it. Not that I didn't like music in the Seventies, I just felt that it wasn't going anywhere - and then it did.

As someone born in '83, I've often wondered just how unique stuff like Kraftwerk and late '70s/early '80s synthpop must have sounded at the time

"Trans-Europe Express" sounded completely out there to me, like music beamed to Earth from aliens. Gary Numan's "Cars" also sounded pretty radical (also the word my peers would've used for it in '79).

another rap-entering-the-mainstream moment for me, besides "the message" and "white lines," which i mentioned a million posts above, and before either of them, was seeing the clash play "this is radio clash" on the tom snyder show. neither the clash nor tom snyder were anywhere near the actal mainstream (you couldn't really claim that for the clash until "rock the casbah"), but they were my mainstream, and that was an "aha" moment for me.

actal=actual

re: Kraftwerk I heard something especially freaky from Radioactivity in the summer of 1983 on a friends's boombox and it totally blew my mind, aliens from space. I think that was also the first time I heard the Dead Kennedys.

I bought one or two CDs in the 86-89 period and started seriously buying them in 1990, but I was mostly a holdout.

Pete Shelley's 'Telephone Operator'

Are 'Friends' Electric?

I got my first cd player in late summer '92. My parents bought me a portable to go off to college with. The first 3 cds I purchased that day? Curve's Doppelganger, Cowboy Junkies' The Trinity Session and Shakespeare's Sister's Hormonally Yours.

The cassette to CD swith-over happened to coincide with a change in continents and lovers for me.

I like this thread. I always wanted to be the old guy on the front porch that kids would ask "hey gramps, what was it like in the old days, you miserable old sack of drool?"

i bought a CD player boombox...probably 90? the first CD i bought was Fear of a Black Planet by Public Enemy, so that must've been pretty new at the time, or on the front racks of Musicland at the mall where I bought my CD player

"hey gramps, what was it like in the old days, you miserable old sack of drool?"

"No, you run along now. My pool days are well behind me."

xp about Fear Of A Black Planet

yeah I had to buy that on cassette because the stores didn't stock the vinyl and I didn't have a CD player yet... there was about a year when it was like that.

Who here remembers eight-tracks as a thing?

i was young enough where i never really bought vinyl, was in that cassette generation

Fear of a Black Planet was definitely CD for me but so, oddly, was Straight Outta Compton, well after the fact.

i listened to my parents CCR and Stones records. i think i got Joan Jett on vinyl when i was little.

8-tracks:

we had an 8-track player in one of the communes I lived on when I was 8 or 9, I remember playing tapes on it but I can't remember what they were. never knew anyone with a car player.

I bought a bunch of records when they started getting cleared out of the stores to make room for cds around 89-91(ish), but I'd been strictly a cassette person before then (and remained so even after I'd gotten a cd player).

Can anybody link that study about the music industry changing their format every 20-30 years to make money? Sheet music to 78's to 45's to 33's to hi-fi to stereo to cassette to CD to digital?

was tower as expensive in the usa as it was in the uk?
you only bought from tower if other shops didnt stock it (which was quite often as at those prices noone bought them)

I grew up in the bay area where tower was basically the local independent store, compared to the mall chain type stores like the wherehouse, sam goody, etc. So yeah, prices were normal or cheaper.

my parents had an 8-track component and a few cartridges that i listened to (we didn't have much music of any kind). this was the late 70s (in the uk). i remember being aware then that it was old fashioned compared to cassettes.

My dad had an eight track in his Pinto station wagon. All I remember listening to were Fleetwood Mac, French Kiss and America.

CD to digital?

lol this didn't work out too well for them

also not industry-driven

wait a min 8-tracks came to the uk??

yeah they wanted to do CD to SACD or Audio DVD or whatever 24-bit or something

It was popular in the United States[1] from the mid-1960s through to the early 1980s, but aside from a brief early period of moderate popularity in the UK[2][3] was relatively unknown in many European countries.

Europe dodged a bullet.

My first stereo (Christmas '78) was a tuner/turntable/8-track player integrated unit with separate speakers. I always liked LPs better, though; I don't think I ever owned more than a dozen 8-tracks.

I vaguely recall 8-tracks: my folks had a player in one of their cars and had a handful of tapes from some Columbia House deal (one was "abbey rd," another "silk degrees"). Would drive me nuts whenever a track got faded halfway through: early sign of music nerddom.

also not industry-driven

It may have been technology driven but the industry certainly enjoyed making money off it, generation after generation.

8-tracks were notoriously inferior to vinyl but you could put one in the car...

my dad also had an audiophile friend who bought stuff on reel-to-reel, very hep for '78 or whenever it was.

no I mean that the change from CDs to digital was not industry driven. the industry lost a shitload of money being behind the times there.

xp

Man I dunno anyone here who had 8-tracks. I have a funkadelic one nation under a groove 8-track that someone sent me free from the old southern lord website.

I do remember laserdiscs for movies here but again never knew anyone who had one. But i at least remember seeing the players on tv and in shops.
Anyone here have one?

A family down the street had a laserdisc player. It's how I saw the "Thriller" video for the first time.

Ah, yes, Shakey. True.

I totally remember 8-tracks as a thing, though I never owned one. My best friend did, both home and car. Mostly standard Led Zep type rock, but I do remember he had Wake Of Poseidon by King Crimson, and I wanna say he somehow had an 8-track of Metal Machine Music, but I might be misremembering that one.

8-tracks were notoriously inferior to vinyl but you could put one in the car...

― What do I think? Compensez-vous! (Michael White), Friday, January 24, 2014 4:19 PM

http://houseofcat.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/CarRecordPlayer.jpg

I grew up in the bay area where tower was basically the local independent store, compared to the mall chain type stores like the wherehouse, sam goody, etc. So yeah, prices were normal or cheaper.

― wk, Friday, January 24, 2014 2:08 PM (2 minutes ago)

Tower was great for "imports" - like Factory, 4AD type stuff that I was into at the time (late 80s/early 90s). Prices were pretty comparable to the Wherehouse (chain store). I got plenty of used vinyl at independent stores in Santa Cruz (nearest college town). I remember around 1990/1991 one of my bff's whose affluent and distant parents who would buy him tons of presents to make up for their otherwise narcissistic antipathy got him a CD player and almost all of his favorite albums on CD, and he gave me his old cassettes. I didn't get a CD player or CDs until early 92.

I started college in 92 and worked at the college radio station which would regularly give away promos to staff. It took me a couple years to realize why my fellow dj's wanted cds of everything the station played, because I was only into some of it (we were a commercial alt-rock station). At the time you could make good money selling the promo cds to local record stores.

It exists!

http://orphicgallery.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/8-track-museum-metal-machine-music-468x289.jpg

when did cassettes become a thing? Did being able to record tape to tape come a good while after they started selling albums in that format?

wait, I recall I did have an 8-track player after all, when I got this thing for Xmas. It broke pretty quickly: http://youtu.be/vnAhaZ5vlg8

I'm amazed at this alternate-reality where Tower Records was cheap!

it wasn't cheap, it was just average

Blanks existed a while before commercial cassettes even became a market heavyweight iirc. People were home taping LPs for a while.

I remember walking past a car in a parking lot about 10 years ago - a mid '70s American land yacht - that had an 8-track player with Miles Davis's Bitches Brew in it. Part of me really wanted to just hang out until the owner came back, but I had somewhere to be.

Yep, I bought imports and 12" at Tower too.

when did cassettes become a thing? Did being able to record tape to tape come a good while after they started selling albums in that format?

― ۩, Friday, January 24, 2014 2:27 PM

I can tell you that I was recording the radio onto cassettes via boombox in late 1978 or early 1979...

trying to remember if the family 1978 ford pinto had a tape deck or anything other than a radio.

I can post links to panicked articles in Billboard and Rolling Stone published in 1981-1982 about the scourge of "home taping"

home taping was much more of a "crisis" in the UK though, wasn't it?

i remember my parents had cassette of the hits of 1974 (it had abba on it)

I also recall someone gave them a tape copy of a Bread album but afaik they never liked/played it. It just sat on the shelves for 20+ years but dunno when they got it but it was definitely before 1978

i recall the home taping is killing music stuff

Yeah, what sleeve said. I think ppl started moving from 8-tracks to cassetes over tha late Seventies but all I remember us listening to were tapes we made at home from vinyl or, in my case, from the radio (kinda like the free digital you get now with the pruchase of vinyl); it was portable yet inferior. As much as the wee-uns aren't paying for music now, I was stealing stuff from the radio right and left in the very early Eighties and recording it to cassette and making mix-tapes.

I'm amazed at this alternate-reality where Tower Records was cheap!

I basically only bought stuff with this sticker on it. http://madsaki.up.n.seesaa.net/madsaki/image/the-nice-price-bg.jpg%3Fd%3Da0

haha I think I have at least one Stooges CD with that sticker on it!

but all I remember us listening to were tapes we made at home from vinyl or, in my case, from the radio

god yes. 4-7 on a sunday radio 1 chart rundown. Fingers at the ready to record the songs you liked. It was the ONLY time they played songs in full without talking over it.

As much as the wee-uns aren't paying for music now, I was stealing stuff from the radio right and left in the very early Eighties and recording it to cassette and making mix-tapes.

yup - had tons of cassettes of stuff taped off the radio, other friends' records/tapes. I could only afford so many records w my allowance

this was the Nice Price stickers we got here
(not my pic)
http://i.imgur.com/dOIoZfP.jpg

sarahell surely knows this better than me but Tower wasn't cheap, it was just the best 'mainstream' place with reasonable prices. There were other places to get music, Rasputin, Rainbow, the Record Finder on Noe, the Record Factory...

I never went to Tower because it was cheap - I went to Tower because their jazz section was fucking awesome.

In the pre-Internet days and a few years after, Tower was the best place to find the unexpected gem from an artist's catalog: the Eno-Hassell album Power Spot, EWF's Raise!, and so on.

haha I think I have at least one Stooges CD with that sticker on it!

yeah, there were tons of classic albums available for 8.99 or 9.99 back then.

in san jose, tower was basically all we had apart from some places that sold used vinyl.

I went to Tower because their jazz section was fucking awesome.

^^^ and their classical and their 'world' section wasn't bad. They had pretty catholic taste

tower was also great because they would stock a ton of interesting stuff and then a lot of it wouldn't sell and would end up cheap in the clearance section or at the outlet.

tower had great jazz and classical floors and the soul floor had a great funk section. bought tons from there and the old 90s fopp in the west end before it went nationwide.

xxp - yeah, there was a Streetlight in San Jose, and there were some records/cds at Paramount Imports which was Morgan Hill/South San Jose

tower used to have 3 for £15 sales on mid-price stuff which is probably the only time people bought there unless it was something no other shop had

i remember thinking tower was slightly more expensive than the local competition. i mostly shopped at rainy day and positively 4th street in olywa in the late 80s, yesterday & today in rockville md and schoolkids in chapel hill nc after that, then various places in seattle through the 90s. would occasionally drop by a tower (great for classical & jazz), but never made a habit of it.

Outside of Berkeley and San Francisco, which were considered "far," there was Logos in Santa Cruz

actually it was 3 for £20

I vaguely remember a semi-cool record store in Salinas

I still have a fair amount of vinyl that I got from Logos

xp

fopp opening more or less killed them off. you could get mid-price cds for £5 that were usually £9.99 and the 3 for £20 wasnt a bargain anymore. Plus im sure everyone owned those dylan/rhcp cds by that point

xp shakey, same here!!! were you a ucsc grad?

yup yup

I bought a lot of jazz stuff there for some reason, I think all the electric-era Miles Davis I have is from that store

my copy of Jack Johnson fer starters

In the early '70s the real swingers bought their music on reel-to-reel tapes

I remember when Liszt would shake his hair back and launch into the keys and no-body else got laid for a month

the first tower i ever saw was the great one on broadway in greenwich village. every section at tower was better than every section anywhere else. tower's big innovation was that they actually stocked everything. most record stores had limited shelf space, and even if you were looking for a really popular artist, like elton john or the bee gees or whatever, they'd only have four or five albums by each of them at any given time. tower actually stocked everything. it was amazing. it was fucking wonderland.

that was when tower was all vinyl. it never quite figured out how to stock cd's in the same completist way that it stocked vinyl, and eventually of course tower started sucking in the same way most other record stores sucked. and that, of course, is when other music opened its first store across the street to literally sell other music than you could get at tower.

I do remember laserdiscs for movies here but again never knew anyone who had one. But i at least remember seeing the players on tv and in shops.

Ha they stocked laserdiscs in Virgin in Dublin and nobody I knew could really say what they even were.

i wonder if they were any good?

all i know was they were RIDICULOUSLY expensive for the player AND laserdiscs

it never quite figured out how to stock cd's in the same completist way that it stocked vinyl

that's another good question for grandpa by the way: how long did it take record stores to adapt their shelves when the business switched from 12-inch albums in thin cardboard packaging to 6-inch cd's in much thicker cardboard packaging (the dreaded longbox)?

answer: it took for fucking ever.

we never got the longbox here. Never really understood what it was meant to be tbh

it was meant to be a thing that would fit in shelves that were designed to hold 12-inch-high products. it was a horrible, horrible idea.

Very well I remember the longbox days (my lifelong Bryan Ferry romance began after reading the description on the back of the CD of how Roxy sounded). From what I remember the racks were quietly replaced in 1994 or so.

can someone post a pic of one please?

There was a lot of hand wringing early on about the death of cover art when CDs came out.

http://stevenread.com/files/nevermind-longbox-1.jpg

They we're 12" tall and could be filed in the same places vinyl had been.

cheers, we did not get those here at all. Not even on import.

We did however get US imports in tower where there was a clear plastic packaging (about the size of your longbox) with the cd inlay taken out and placed at the top with the jewel case sans inlay placed below it. My Husker Du - Metal Circus cd I bought in 92 was like that. But they were gone within a year or so.

there's actually a thing on Ebay where people sell empty longboxes.

$14 for an empty "Darklands": http://www.ebay.com/itm/Jesus-and-Mary-Chain-Darklands-RARE-VINTAGE-CD-empty-LONGBOX-/390755068170?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5afad1290a

i thought it was supposed to make them harder to steal.
i loved putting longboxes on my wall

xp

LOL

lol longboxes

I used to complain bitterly about the waste from that extra packaging on CDs. Had actually forgotten that.

We did however get US imports in tower where there was a clear plastic packaging (about the size of your longbox) with the cd inlay taken out and placed at the top with the jewel case sans inlay placed below it

ha! that was the next step after longboxes. in response to complaints that they were destroying the environment with completely unnecessary cardboard packaging, the geniuses behind the record biz replaced them with completely unnceessary plastic packaging that was exactly the same size. as a bonus, they were impossible to open.

i thought it was supposed to make them harder to steal.

yup, retailers said that. but, really, they just didn't want to pay to update their shelving.

We did however get US imports in tower where there was a clear plastic packaging (about the size of your longbox) with the cd inlay taken out and placed at the top with the jewel case sans inlay placed below it. My Husker Du - Metal Circus cd I bought in 92 was like that. But they were gone within a year or so

Good Lord, I forgot about those. You had to use scissors to open them.

And then after the longbox was phased out you still had record stores that used their own stupid plastic frame contraptions to take up the same space the longbox did. Those lasted well into the late 1990s in some stores.

yes, impossible to open.

I worked in a record store circa 1992 for a few months - a crappy mall store in my crappy little town. The kind of place where Van Morrison would be shelved next to Van Halen. All our CDs, and cassettes too, were in the plastic reuseable longboxes. We had a special key to open them upon purchase, then we would put them in the back room for when the next shipment of "product" came in.

All our vinyl (not much of it left, by that point) was on clearance.

And then after the longbox was phased out you still had record stores that used their own stupid plastic frame contraptions to take up the same space the longbox did. Those lasted well into the late 1990s in some stores.

A lot of stores still use them. Like Amoeba. I guess it's cool that they have the flexibility to switch the shelves between CDs and vinyl, because fuck cds.

I think theft prevention is the reason they're used now. When Amoeba opened the Hollywood store the vinyl stock was already a specialty, and didn't take up much of the shelf space.

uh, what? there's tons of vinyl at amoeba and has been since the day they opened.

keeping in mind i was born in 1976:

"what did you first think of rap when it began entering the mainstream?"

thought it was absolutely great, but most of what i was hearing was suitable for kids -- "rapper's delight," "double dutch bus," "rapture" (with the man from mars, etc), "jam on it." i liked "white lines" and "the message" even though they were clearly for older people -- but i think i understood as a kid that drugs were bad and the south bronx was a total mess.

"what was it like in the late 1970s if you didn't like disco?"

can't answer that; i loved disco! the saturday night fever soundtrack is one of the first things i remember hearing.

"where were you when Lennon died and what was your reaction?"

i remember being at home, with the news on. i was too young to have any sort of real reaction. i just remember the tv being tuned to the news a lot at that time.

Lots of vinyl, yes, but more CDs. The point I was making is that the CD areas of the store were set up to sell CDs right from the start, not adapted from LP bins. And I don't think they ever thought that they would be selling LPs again in these areas (in fact, the LP areas have grown, I assume to their surprise). So the plastic cases are for theft prevention, not to keep LP-ready bins available.

"The kind of place where Van Morrison would be shelved next to Van Halen."

LOL

"where were you when Lennon died and what was your reaction?"

I was in 4th grade and our teacher gathered us all around to sit on carpet squares and she told us about it and asked how we felt about it, and none of us really thought it was a big deal, and I keenly remember her visible disappointment and my sense of shame at having let her down.

I was already into the Beatles in 4th grade but I knew they'd broken up a long time ago, so in my mind, the thought process was, the Beatles are gone anyway, what does it matter what happens to a guy who used to be in the band?

The point I was making is that the CD areas of the store were set up to sell CDs right from the start,

The shelves are all the same though aren't they? So there aren't really "CD areas." In fact they sell CDs and vinyl right next to each other in some aisles.

Most of my Elvis C Ryko reissues are on tape -- and still sound splendid.

― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, January 24, 2014 12:43 PM (7 hours ago)

I think I remember Rykodisc cassettes as sounding really good.

I was a freshman in high school when John Lennon was killed. Quite into punk rock, or really post-punk, but it was tough getting records in middle America and the American indie distribution and label scene was quite embryonic, and it took real commitment to be into that music in that place at that time. I remember a guy in school called John crying about the news, and I was just flabbergasted - I mean, who cared about some ex-Beatle? I was also pretty aware that John Lennon was a smug prick asshole, and that's on a good day. Of course, years later I was just as upset at the deaths of Curtis Mayfield, Joe Strummer, Ari Up, Poly Styrene, Nina Simone, Epic Soundtracks, Nikki Sudden, Harry Nilsson . . .

This is probably more than anyone wants to read about the logistics of Amoeba, but . . .

"The shelves are all the same though aren't they? So there aren't really "CD areas." In fact they sell CDs and vinyl right next to each other in some aisles."

The shelves with CDs are divided at the width of one cd, not two rows per division as would be done with LP shelves stocking CDs. So they are CD shelves. Of course they could sell them without the plastic case in the same shelves, which proves my only point that those cases are for theft prevention, not to facilitate selling them in LP bins.

-- Singles -- Depended on the store. Your average mainstream store, up to a year or so? For the big hits, anyway. Stuff that didn't hit the top 10 I don't think hung around very long. And there was usually an oldies section, with Elvis or Beatles or whatever else in it. The first single I ever bought while it was actually in the top 40? "Ah Leah," Donnie Iris.

-- Rap -- Like a lot of other kids in the sticks, I first heard of rap through "Rapture." So then I thought of it as this totally novelty thing until "The Message" and all the hype around that. I was I guess in 8th grade. My sister and I discovered the local r&b station, which had rap in the rotation. We followed the Roxanne Wars. On a school band trip to DC in 9th grade, one guy had a boombox and played "Jam On It" all the way there and back. The first rap album I actually bought was King of Rock. (Also bought the "Walk This Way" single.) At my first job, washing dishes in an Italian restaurant, one of the other kids had a Doug E. Fresh cassette that we listened to a lot. I was still very much a rock kid through all this, but I also liked all this stuff. So in completely predictable trajectory, my first few years of college were all about Public Enemy and De La Soul. Tone Loc hit number one. (The Beasties happened in there, too, but I kind of wrote them off. It was hard for a 17-year-old PE fan to take them seriously. I later reconsidered.) Frat parties played Kool Moe Dee and Rob Base. My whole adolescence was really soundtracked by the emergence of rap, but I didn't really appreciate that until later. At the time it was just another thing in the air.

-- Disco -- I really didn't have a lot of exposure. I was still listening to my dad's '60s albums, didn't really tune into the radio until about 1979. But my dad did like "Stayin' Alive," we would play that on the jukebox down at the pizza place/beer joint at the foot of the hill. Mostly I had this sense that disco was ridiculous, because that's how everyone talked about it. My grade-school friends were either into the Beatles like me, or they were big Kiss fans. Everybody's parents were listening to Rumors or Paul Simon or whatever. I do remember my whole family liked "I Will Survive."

-- Lennon -- I was a huge Beatles fan (see above). The way I remember it, I heard it from a kid at school that day, and told my dad after school. It seems kind of incredible that he wouldn't hear about it til the next afternoon, but we didn't get a daily paper and All Things Considered hadn't been on yet, so I don't know where he would have heard. It was shocking in an abstract way, somebody who seemed sort of magical/imaginary to me was dead. In retrospect it began a weird season of shootings -- Lennon, Reagan, Sadat -- that I was old enough to be affected by but not sure what to think about. It was like the world was suddenly full of people being shot, including Beatles.

And for the thread, I bought my first CD player (deck, not portable) in 1985. My first CD was X See How We Are, which was the first X album I was kind of meh about. Soon after I bought Talking Heads Naked on CD, and, yep, it was the first TH album I was meh about. They were more expensive than LPs, (and I was a used guy, and used CDs were virtually non-existant with respect to stuff I liked at a good price) so most of what I bought was still vinyl. I took the plunge because my brother worked at the Wherehouse at the time and I was gonna get them "wholesale" from him. He was soon after let go so there went that idea. I mostly stuck with vinyl, probably until CDs because comparitively priced with LPs.

Did you wait two years to buy a cd? Because that X album didn't come out until 87.

x-post
As for disco, it was pretty easy to ignore in the 70s. Rock radio (KMET, KLOS in LA, and our local hip FM station, KBBY in Ventura) didn't play it. My sisters liked it, I didn't, but I wasn't one of the "disco sucks" crew either. In the mid 70s I was into prog, and by the end of the decade (college years) punk.

Record store tales: My formative record store was Morninglory Music in Isla Vista. It was all vinyl when I started college (and I don't recall any CDs in the last days). It doubled in size at one point, expanding into the store next door. I used to spend probably over an hour on most visits, flipping through the used bins. I went back in 1993 for the first time since 1979 and it had shrunk back to its former size if not smaller, was mostly CDs, and didn't have the same feel. I was unexpectedly saddened by this. The other store I liked in IV, the Turning Point, was gone altogether.

I don't remember where I was when I heard about Lennon (I do remember this for JFK).

"Did you wait two years to buy a cd? Because that X album didn't come out until 87."

Hmmm. I don't remember a lot from ~30 yrs ago but that being my first CD sticks with me. It's possible my first CD player was 87 rather than 85.

OK, found the CD, it is indeed 1987, so that's the year I got my first CD player. And Naked's wiki says 1988, so there you go.

My family got our first CD player in 1989. It was part of my dad's stereo system in the family room. The first CDs I got were Bobby McFerrin "Simple Pleasures" and Living Colour "Vivid". I continued to buy primarily tapes for almost a decade though, until they were phased out. They were cheaper, easier to listen to on a walkman (the folks did buy me an early discman and it skipped like crazy), plus I couldn't listen to profanity-laced punk and metal downstairs when my parents were home.

I didn't get a CD player til about 96. I was really resistant to the idea of having to change my huge tape collection (prob about 15 whole cassettes not including ones taped off radio/mixtapes/magazine freebies) but more importantly having to get a CD Walkman too (I never did).
A few years later I was thinking that this whole MP3 thing sounded like a convenient idea. My brother went the other way and went for the format of the future: MINIDISCS

my mum went to Canada and there was this big thing in the UK about how CDs in America were super-cheap compared to rip-off Britain, so I begged her to bring me back some. I think she brought back Jagged Little Pill :/

(I am not an old-timer but wanted to mention minidiscs)

I bought my first CD player in 1987. My first CD was "Hearsay" by Alexander O'Neal.

I bought a MiniDisc player in 1998, but not to play music on it -- I wanted something to record found sounds, and at that time DAT had faded but solid state digital recorders hadn't yet become an affordable alternative.

When did you guys start and stop burning CD-Rs? I gotta say I still haven't stopped.

I started burning CDr's in 1998 and stopped last year as I've noticed most of my 98/99 CDr's are failing. In fact I just purged about 70 and have been crusading to replace others with legitimate copies where possible.

Started whenever multitasking came to the Mac, stopped about 4-5 years ago.

still burning CD-Rs for the car CD player and for backup

Started burning them sometime in the late '90s when our graphics dept at work got a new computer with Toast on it. In the last few years, have only made them for my kids -- they like having something tangible to carry around with their favorite songs on them, it feels more like it belongs to them than if I just have the songs on my phone.

When did you guys start and stop burning CD-Rs? I gotta say I still haven't stopped.

The first cd-r I ever burned was a copy of Arab Strap's Philophobia, which came out in 1998. The last one I burned was putting a few albums together for use in the car a couple weeks ago. In other words, I'm still far from abandoning them, but it's not a format I use as regularly as I once did.

I use them most for taking care of best songs of the year. It's nice having a physical copy instead of keeping'em on my hard drive.

Singles -- most stores tried to have the top 100. at abc records in the mid-island mall you had to go up to the counter and request them by number. larger stores like sam goody had the top 100 and a big oldies section.

-- Rap -- i'd just started college in the big city, was reading xgau and vince aletti in the voice, heard the 12-inches by grandmaster flash, etc etc. saw grandmaster flash & the furious five at a club called my father's place on l.i.! when rap "hit the mainstream" with run dmc etc i didn't necessarily think it was an improvement.

-- Disco -- i badmouthed disco in my review of the who by numbers in my high school newspaper. my physics teacher told me he liked the review but i was dead wrong about disco. that and a high school friend's lobbying for bowie's disco phase, against heated opposition from his peers, sort of turned me around. i always rooted for the underdog.

-- Lennon -- had just joined the working world. my dad told me lennon had been shot (he was too old for the beatles, but he knew i'd care). i remember feeling numb. (i was five/six in 1964 & basically grew up with the beatles.) somehow i think i didn't find out he'd actually died until the next morning. dragged myself to work. my colleague and buddy and occasional rock scribe came in dressed all in black which i thought was cool and a little pretentious. my girlfriend (now my wife) & i went to that memorial in central park, which was sad and cold.

first cd -- maybe rem out of time? i remember getting a lot of beatles cds as presents. my first player was a contest winning by my mom, who was always entering contests. it was a nice denon unit. my cd phase didn't last long -- probably owing to my actually listening to those beatles cds.

burning cdrs -- never acclimated to portable music and mp3s. not my thing.

Singles--I have tons of 45s from the 80s, including King's Love and Pride.

Rap--The Message, at summer camp when I was 9. I remember all the older counselors hating it "what is this shit" etc. Eventually it was everyone''s favorite song.

Lennon--I was 8 years old, but already a huge Beatles fan. I remember my Mom waking me up for school the day after and telling me about it. Even though I was young, I was very upset. There was wall-to-wall press coverage for the next month, at least. The only celebrity death I can remember getting more attention here in the USA was Princess Diana.

First CD--Darkness On The Edge Of Town. But I remember going to my cousin's house who had a CD player, and he put on The Unforgettable Fire, and I could hear guitar parts I had never noticed before.

Burning CDs--2000, at an old ad agency job. I had to convert each file first, it took about an hour per cd.

I still send out an annual Christmas mix CD to a bunch of people - 2013 was the year when people started emailing me that they have no way of playing CDs.

Oh wow, we're at that point now eh?

yeah, lennon and diana's deaths were two of the big cultural-moments i remember. far fewer back then than there have been over the past 15 years. those two deaths, the challenger-disaster, assassination attempt on reagan, the fall of the berlin wall, maybe exxon valdez and the student massacre at tiananmen square.

xp

when PiL released second edition did any of you think 'i thought he hated pink floyd?'

I still send out an annual Christmas mix CD to a bunch of people - 2013 was the year when people started emailing me that they have no way of playing CDs.

― a man with legs made of sausages - that's not real! (seandalai), Saturday, January 25, 2014 6:01 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh wow, we're at that point now eh?

― Johnny Fever,

If you go into Currys now you're hardpushed to find a stereo hifi that plays cds. So yeah that time has come. Its like the mid-90s when they stopped stocking stereos with turntables.

2013 was the year when people started emailing me that they have no way of playing CDs.

some of my college friends & I exchange "best of" CDs every year. We still did this in 2013 but some thought it would be better if we just shared a dropbox and put in zip files next time 'round. So the end is nigh for that tradition.

Lots (the majority? idk) of new laptops don't come with CD drives.

Best Buy still keeps several turntable in stock. What goes around etc.

I still send out an annual Christmas mix CD to a bunch of people - 2013 was the year when people started emailing me that they have no way of playing CDs.

;_;

I have thought of giving CDRs of things I like to some of the younger people in my life and it has occurred to me I might run into exactly this issue. I still burn CDRs regularly, but my car has a CD player.

It's gonna be weird if CD's and CD players fall to the same level that Vinyl/Record players are at.
The CD people will turn into exactly the people they hated (vinyl enthusiasts)

You can probably send cheap usb sticks with mixtapes on them.

Or not so cheap ones:
http://www.suck.uk.com/mob/products/mixtapeusbdrive/

The used cd market bottomed out years ago, as there's really nothing unique about them as objets d'art. Once people could acquire the same music with less bulk, they did. I'm a mild cassette fetishist, even though I'll readily acknowledge they're horrible, and I definitely get the appeal of stockpiling vinyl, but cds...ugh.

I like CDs a lot actually (though not as much as vinyl or even cassettes), as they're preferably to pure digital, a weird invisible format with no real value at all.

but most steps in this progression toward less-bulky, easily-transportable music has led to poorer sound-quality (vinyl → discs → mp3s).

i appreciate how cheap and easy it is to buy music digitally, but something essential has been lost in the process (and not just sound-quality).

what gets me is now boomkat (and possibly others) sells cds with free mp3 downloads thrown in.

I sold about 300 CDs a few years ago on Amazon Marketplace just before the market took a dump -- I have a few hundred more that ideally I'd like to offload in a single sale, big loss or not. Maybe I'll type up the titles for the ILX Marketplace board and see if anyone's interested. Last time I took a bunch to Amoeba (2001), they offered me $3 cash/$4 credit for most single discs. Is it still anywhere near that?

If a batch of free mp3s comes with an LP or CD purchase, does that count as two copies sold when it comes time to crunch sales figures? Could be a great way to game the system imo, since adding mp3s to a purchase is LEAST AMOUNT OF EFFORT IMAGINABLE.

i like that boomkat feature, since we still listen to cds. what i don't like is how they say every new release is an essential piece of art that you must own right now.

I think for newer discs you're gonna get that, maybe a bit more. more common older CDs you'll get a couple bucks. Maybe a dollar.

the good thing about CDs as opposed to mp3s is that at least someday you can conceivably make a bit of money back on them. Vinyl is an actual potential investment though.

boomkat is like dusty groove in that way, basically everything is a groundbreaking classic.

I try not to think about how comparatively little I made off of selling my vinyl collection back in 2003/4 vs. what I'd rake in now. I could've bought a fucking car.

if I had a time machine I'd buy up all the post-vitalogy pearl jam vinyl I could get my hands on, I tell you what

getting a bit off topic, boomkat does curate their stock quite strictly, they don't just order 5 of everything. stands to reason that they are enthusiastic about what they stock.

but how they get away without listing track titles or even the number of tracks on releases i don't know. and i hate the way that all their pictures are 3/4 views.

when i was a ten year old growing up in suburban new jersey (like i think there was one black kid in the whole town) run dmc and the beastie boys were really huge in the fifth grade. everybody wanted to have a cassette of "raising hell" or "licensed to ill". then guns 'n roses came along and we all got over it, but that's life when you're ten.

getting a bit off topic, boomkat does curate their stock quite strictly, they don't just order 5 of everything. stands to reason that they are enthusiastic about what they stock.

glad you posted this. for a while now, i was just tuning-out their enthusiastic reviews.

Yeah, boomkat is definitely a specialty dealer in that they know their own tastes so explicitly that buyers will often trust them on recommendation alone.

their tastes seem to lean toward dark, noisy, rhythmic, dubstep-y, noir-ish, nighttime sounds. which is what i like.

(in many ways, it's the sound of the past that i remember so fondly, e.g., the cure; bauhaus; sisters of mercy; echo & the bunnymen; cocteau twins; jesus & mary chain)

Oh wow, we're at that point now eh?

― Johnny Fever, Saturday, January 25, 2014 6:02 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I have had no CD player in the house for the past four years. Even the drive on my MacBook is broken (kids, pennies, etc). But I have a 2002 Jeep which of course has a CD player, so every month or so I rotate a dozen CDs in and out. In the house, it's all MP3 players and Internet radio.

This has been a really great and revelatory for thread for me and I'm glad I posted it - wasn't expecting to get this many varied and insightful responses!

OK, old-timers, here's another question for you: What music did your parents listen to? Was it radically different? I'd especially be interested in those whose parents came of age before the arrival of the Beatles. What was their reaction to the British invasion, did they like the new music? But all answers are welcome.

my mom loves 40s music, 50s doo-wop, and 70s disco.

she was living in the haight ashbury area during the summer of love (which was, i think, the year i was born (1968)), but she was almost totally unaware of the cultural events swirling around at the time, and i think she only had a hazy, uninterested memory of the beatles.

elvis, on the other hand . . .

My parents are the right age to been at Woodstock, but they know NOTHING about rock music from that era. My dad typically listens to choral/religious music and Broadway musicals and my mom like elevator music (breezy instrumentals of standards, etc.) and crooners (she LOVES Dean Martin). I made a joke a few years ago when they were mulling over colors for their bedroom, saying "Paint it black!" and they had NO IDEA what I talking about.

What music did your parents listen to? Was it radically different? I'd especially be interested in those whose parents came of age before the arrival of the Beatles. What was their reaction to the British invasion, did they like the new music? But all answers are welcome.

My parents listened pretty much only to classical music, so I never heard pop music until I was about 12, when I got my first radio. As I mentioned yesterday, I have a distinct memory of being at infants' school and the other children were going around the playground singing "She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah!" incessantly, but I didn't know what it was or why they were singing it. I also didn't know why they were going on about "Batman" all the time, because we didn't have a TV.

My parents were born in the 20s, so no rock for them. My mom liked Robert Goulet, Englebert Humperdink, Tony Bennet, etc. My dad listened to classical on the radio but didn't buy anything. He also liked German "Oompah" music.

In 1963 my brother wanted to watch the Beatles on Ed Sullivan (we usually watched the Red Skelton show at that time) and they let him. I was 6 and not into any music but it was quite a moment for me. "Changed my life" would be an overstatement but it kind of did.

thanks folks! For my own parents' experience, my mum's first concert was when her Sunday school class went to see a concert by a little known band called the Rolling Stones. That was in 1962. She went on to get into Cohen in 1967 and the folk artists of the early 70s until she got into ABBA and Rod Stewart by the end of the decade.

my dad was more into soul in the late 60s, insists that he first listened to the Velvet Underground in 1970 and then went on to become a huge Dire Straits/Springsteen fan in the late 70s, before burning out sometime around 1986.

I was also motivated to ask this by a co-worker who was very much into the traditional pop of the 1940s and 50s (she is about 75); she went to see concerts by (and meet) Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Sinatra and others. She also liked Elvis, but was alienated by the arrival of the Beatles, although she enjoyed covers of their songs by others.

Was just wondering if anyone's parents had a similar trajectory.

I remember my grandmother having some Elvis and Beatles 45s, but I think she only bought them at garage sales because she thought they might become valuable (they wouldn't, because they were scratched to hell). As far as I know, she had zero interest in any music past Boots Randolph.

my dad was pretty much the ideal age to be a Beatles fan: 11 when they were on Sullivan; 17 when they broke up. So he loved them (and disliked other British bands, who he saw as pretenders: the Who and the Kinks included). His other big thing was singer-songwriter stuff from the early '70s, esp. James Taylor & he kept that up a bit: liked Shawn Colvin and Iris Dement in the '90s.

that sounds a bit like my mum, who was in on Beatlemania from the beginning as a teenage girl right through to the breakup. After I was born though, she stopped listening to music altogether and would not allow it to be played outside of a pair of headphones.

my dad liked early beatles singles but isnt a rock fan really tho je has a stones comp. He likes dylans greatest hits a lot. Mum hates that stuff. . His fave as a teenager was buddy holly tho.
My mums a few years older and her fave was/is shirley bassey. she didnt care much for the beatles as her younger sister was beatles daft (still is). Their mum liked them though. My gran also loved abba (she still listened to abba up until she died 6 years ago today)

my parents like "singers" like celine,subo, katherine jenkins.

my parents were in their 20's when elvis presley hit, but he was completely of another world to them. that was teen music and they were not teens. no elvis, no chuck berry, no nothing like that for them. my mom was, and remains, a sinatra fan. a sinatra fan in the same way that justin bieber fans are justin bieber fans. my dad once took her to see a sinatra show and said she screamed through the entire thing. they also listened to swing bands and pop vocalists of that era.

my mom listened to country, too. hank williams early in life, kenny rogers later in life. and streisand. she loves streisand. my dad has always loved broadway show tunes, some classical and opera, and irish music.

i would play them pop and rock stuff every once in a while and they were polite enough to listen but it all remains quite foreign to them. at least most of it does. they like simon and garfunkel, which my oldest sister successfully pushed on them.

they took my sisters to a beatles show -- i wasn't born yet -- and said they didn't hear a single note. just a lot of screaming.

My dad pretty much only liked Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash and the Statler Brothers.

my mum said she hated seeing elvis on tv. She didnt like him even if she liked a few songs. but in the 90s she did buy a cd comp but i dunno how often she played it, if ever.

my aunt btw dogged school twice to get tix to see the beatles.

my dad likes a lot of the old C&W big hitters. dolly/kenny etc. (as ive stated elsewhere anyone my dads age or older in scotland seemed to love c&w. Parents/grandparents. Not surprising as they all grew up on cowboy films)

Irish C&W/Folk is v popular here too with oldies.

My Dad is a jazz fan who grew up in NYC and went to jazz clubs starting around 1948. My Mom was president of the Hoboken, New Jersey Frank Sinatra fan club. They told me they saw Little Stevie Wonder in the '60s. Dad is a big fan of Eddie Palmieri now and listens to all kinds of stuff although he's not a big rock or pop fan. They were never big rock fans but they came around a bit. They said they were too busy parenting in the 60s to spend much time with rock. They tell me who they've seen on David Letterman and who they think is talented.

my folks' most impressive concerts were Sly and the Family Stone and CCR. They got mugged after a Grand Funk Railroad show, with "Grand Funk!" becoming a regular punchline meaning "a crappy situation" for decades afterward.

asking my dad about his concert history, I was surprised to learn that despite loving music all his life, his first gig was Springsteen in 1984. He's seen him about 15 times now.

Since then, I've taken him to see Dylan, and he's enjoyed himself seeing a few local blues acts.

My mum's last concert experience was Rod Stewart in 1984 or something, but she saw the Beach Boys during their flowing robes and beards/popularity nadir in 1969. She doesn't remember if Brian Wilson was there or if Mike Love was ranting about meditation though.

What music did your parents listen to? Was it radically different? I'd especially be interested in those whose parents came of age before the arrival of the Beatles. What was their reaction to the British invasion, did they like the new music? But all answers are welcome.

My mom is 64 so was right in the age group to love the Beatles etc. She gave me a ton of 45s she and her sisters owned as teenagers - lots of Beatles and Stones stuff, lots of Motown hits, etc. My dad was about five years older than her and didn't like the Beatles or the Stones - he was a 50s rock 'n' roll guy. Loved doo-wop, loved Chuck Berry and Elvis and Bo Diddley, but was also into 60s soul music, a little. We used to listen to the oldies station whenever driving around in the car - his favorite song of all time was the Moonglows' "The Ten Commandments Of Love."

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

my folks were not big into music. my dad liked classical, opera, trad. folk songs. mom also liked folk, and claims to have seen sinatra when she was a teen. i don't really know how i got into pop music. it helped having friends with older brothers. i remember watching the beatles on sullivan, don't know if it was their first appearance, at my aunt & uncle's house. it was a little black and white tv in their kitchen. my parents got me the beatles' second album, which i'm pretty sure was my first pop lp, and which i still have. it looks like i must have enjoyed the living heck out of it.

i wonder how our kids will view our music tastes. i think, secretly, my 13 year-old daughter likes a lot of the music she hears me listening to, but on principle, she has to roll her eyes and complain about it. she genuinely yells in protest, however, when she hears, say, vatican shadow, zomby, actress, or burial.

sorry; technically, until early next month, she's our 12 year-old daughter.

(I'm on the old end of generation X, for context.) My mom loved Louie Armstrong, Count Bassie, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Glenn Miller, and other jazz from that era (but those are the ones I remember her talking about the most enthusiastically). When she was younger, she used to dance jitterbug in Philadelphia, but I don't know who, if anyone, among jazz and swing giants she might have seen live. She never really talked about that. She also liked a fair amount of classical music and Medieval music. There was also always a lot of religious music of various sorts around, since I grew up in a pretty religious household. She hated a lot of the popular music of the 50s (her younger sister's era), especially doo-wop, but she liked mainstream 60s/70s soul and R&B. In general, she liked African American music. I don't think she would have liked most rap, but she died in 1988, so there wasn't much opportunity for me to find out. She liked the Beatles well enough and some other rock, but pretty much all from the poppier/softer end of the spectrum. In the late 70s/early 80s she sometimes listened to a weekly show on the radio (WRTI, Temple U.) and she seemed to feel very at home with that. But I am pretty sure she just found it by tuning in to WRTI, which was pretty exclusively a jazz station at the time. I did not like salsa back then, though I enjoyed my mom's enthusiasm for it (and maybe found it a bit eccentric of her). She considered records an indulgent luxury and didn't own many. (My brothe and sister and I probably brought her a lot of the ones she did own toward the end of her life.) She had a big and enthusiastic appreciation for music, without remotely being music nerdish.

I don't think music meant as much to my father overall, but he was very tolerant of just about anything, and I certainly tested that with the things I was listening to in high school and college. One of the only things I know he bought on his own was a Barbra Streisand CD (and that was fairly late in his life).

My parents went to see Bill Haley and His Comets once. My mom liked them, but my dad said they were too loud.

The TV was frequently tuned to stuff like Soul Train and Dancin' On Air (presumably my mom's doing?).

My dad's first concert ever (not including some classical music I guess) was Joan Jett like ten years ago.

My mom and I liked some of the same bands when I was in high school - The Cars, New Order, Talking Heads. And one day one of the local classic rock stations played something like an entire day of Rolling Stones music, and we both made tapes off the radio. She liked Iggy Pop's voice, too. The only band I can remember not being allowed to play in the house was AC/DC, because she couldn't stand Brian Johnson.

My mom gave up dancing (aside from maybe just at wedding receptions?) when she married my father, since he was a Methodist minister and there were a lot of people in the church who didn't approve of social dancing, and it was one of the things Methodists traditionally didn't do. My father himself wasn't against it. But one reason my mother might not have talked about it in much detail might be that she didn't want to be reminded of what she had given up.

Personally, I do think partner dancing with various people can be pretty tricky for married people or for anyone in a serious relationship.

The only time I remember my mother really vehemently objecting to music I played was when I was seriously blasting Steve Reich's "Come Out to Show Them."

my dad was pretty tolerant of my stuff, but did stick his head in once when I was blasting the Sex Pistols. "'Eat your heart out on a plastic tray?' What is this crap?" Also Public Enemy drove him nuts.

Haha, yeah, exactly (except more with my mom).

x-post

But she was disturbed by the cynicism of some of the lyrics in punk/post-punk she used to overhear. I tried to keep most of that stuff out of her ear-shot.

• I was seven when Lennon was killed. I remember sitting with my mom on the living room couch, watching the "Woman" video of him and Yoko in Central Park. She wasn't crying, but I knew something was up.

That was the same year – maybe it was '79 – that we took one of our last family-of-four trips to Dallas and Dealey Plaza. Around the same time I comprehended my dad saying something about someone getting shot and killed there, he lifted me up over some mud on the sidewalk and for the longest time, I thought the man was buried there.

So I was aware of public figures being killed in public, but I didn't know anything about the Beatles. When I first started getting into them, I was all Wait, this is the guy from the Bangladesh records!

• Reagan was the "Mr. President" I grew up with. Vague recollection of President Carter, but it was the glum, sullen Carter that I remember, not the toothy peanut farmer.

http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/Jimmy-Carter-debate.jpg

• My suburban step-brother introduced me to rap – and breakdancing. "Roxanne, Roxanne", "Rock Box", "Freakazoid", some song that went "Our lyrics are recited/and we are delighted/to give you permission to/BITE IT." I have never been able to find out what that song was.

• They sold vinyl at Wal-Mart. 45s were like the radio setlist, a bunch of new stuff with some perennials thrown in there. One time, in 1987, some old guy asked me at the record store what single he should get for his little girl. I suggested Tiffany. He shopped for a little longer and told me on the way out that he was getting her "Jack & Diane".

excellent recollections, pp. I like the detail about you thinking that "the man" was buried there, it's one of those creepy little beliefs that all children hold in one shape or form.

remember carter's "malaise speech"?

I want to talk to you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy. . . . I do not refer to the outward strength of America, a nation that is at peace tonight everywhere in the world, with unmatched economic power and military might. The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation. . . .

In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning....

70s has some parallels to the 00s -- 10s (in terms of upheaval and general craziness).

weird, when I always have this image of the 70s as being a fairly "secure" decade, perhaps the last one before the insanity of Reagan, Thatcher and the Right began to ascend. This belief remains even though I know a lot about the oil crises, recessions, fear of nuclear war, strikes over here in the UK, etc.

Living now feels like an abject nightmare.

there's a good book by Andy Beckett on Seventies Britain which argues this point: that despite various popular histories depicting the 70s as this period of never-ending crises, strikes, shortages and general chaos, it was also a period of near-full employment, decent wages and general societal cohesion.

"They sold vinyl at Wal-Mart. 45s were like the radio setlist, a bunch of new stuff with some perennials thrown in there."

Others have said that stuff like "Satisfaction" kept being sold long after it disappeared from the charts. Was there some system where some past hits would be perennially available? Were most number one hits or general big sellers available for a long time after their initial chart run?

Sorry if that's not very clear...

Col: yeah, that's the UK I picture. The post-war welfare state prior to its slow dismantlement over the past 30 years.

weird, when I always have this image of the 70s as being a fairly "secure" decade, perhaps the last one before the insanity of Reagan, Thatcher and the Right began to ascend. This belief remains even though I know a lot about the oil crises, recessions, fear of nuclear war, strikes over here in the UK, etc.

Living now feels like an abject nightmare.

― president of the people's republic of antarctica (Arctic Mindbath), Saturday, January 25, 2014

70s was a mixed-bag in that respect. watergate. the manson trial. ford pardoning nixon. the lingering vietnam war. energy crisis had people furious and lines of cars stretching for miles out of gas stations. the hostage crisis depressed and terrified the country; made everyone feel powerless and the country seem weak. the deep, late 70s recession. massive nat'l crisis of confidence that led to reagan's election.

I don't remember past hit singles ever being widely available. Things that had dropped out of the charts tended to get deleted pretty quickly. Record shops would not keep large stocks of back catalogue 45s.

anagram, that makes sense. I guess Beatles/Stones singles and the like were reissued relatively frequently anyway?

woolies,boots and menzies here only stocked top 40 singles when i was a kid. no idea about proper record shops. was never in them til i was older. we always bought singles and albums and then cds from there.

I was not yet an adolescent in the 70s, so that might explain it, but I didn't have much sense of overarching gloom, certainly not the way I did during Reagan's presidency. I do remember some Carter speech that led me to very earnestly consider a future career role related to doing something about The Energy Crisis. So, yes, I guess I was aware of crises, but that one particularly stands out. Plus at least the Vietnam War was over. I think on an unconscious level that might have left me feeling that progress was being made. My family was pretty had been pretty staunchly opposed to the war, at least from the time period where my earliest memories kick in. There was definitely scary stuff happening, but some of it was sort of thrilling too, like that photo of Patty Hearst holding a gun in front of the SLA symbol. It was frightening, but I think on some level I thought it looked pretty cool. Not that I thought: that's what I'll be doing when I grow up.

you've got to know, though, that the conventional-wisdom -- at least at the time -- was that america seemed to shrink in stature in the 70s (watergate to carter) and we regained our confidence and strength in the 80s (reagan).

i couldn't stand reagan, but i was definitely in the minority. me and the other 241 people who supported mondale in 84 (and that includes mondale's family).

Curious about how those old enough to live through Reagan's presidency compare it to Bush II's.

There was definitely scary stuff happening, but some of it was sort of thrilling too, like that photo of Patty Hearst holding a gun in front of the SLA symbol. It was frightening, but I think on some level I thought it looked pretty cool. Not that I thought: that's what I'll be doing when I grow up.

yes. there was also a high "cool factor" in the 70s, in some news events, film, music, and other cultural measures.

we have the same received narrative over here in the UK, from a time of weakness (Callaghan) to a time of renewal and power (Thatcher).

I'm sceptical, to say the least.

xxpost

Sure. But my immediate family loved Carter and were very solidly liberal Democratic, so I'm not sure any of that really filtered in to my awareness until later.

I remember a local car dealer commercial from around the beginning of Reagan's presidency that started: "The pride is back in America. . ." Etc.

oh xposts forgot to say

yeah. you got that same jingoism in the culture of the 80s. the movies (top gun) and the pop music (hair-metal and arena rock) had this weird triumphant vibe.

Grenada invasion made up for Vietnam (that's the message of Clint Eastwood's Heartbreak Ridge, seriously)

Was that pre or post-Chernenko's death and the rise of Gorbachev in the USSR? The Soviet Union was obviously seen as a dire threat to democracy, but was there any real awareness of its faltering economy or was it just Ronnie Raygun ready to blast the Ruskies at any time and who cares?

xpost

Grenada invasion made up for Beirut! And that's fact.

Going back a bit here, sorry to interrupt the politics/national spirit discussion which is interesting but I got nothin' on...

"Our lyrics are recited/and we are delighted/to give you permission to/BITE IT."
UTFO - Bite It? http://youtu.be/mQr_fLqsoNw

My parents were teenagers in the 60s, so later than you're interested in, but when my dad was growing up my gran apparently listened to a lot of Russ Conway and Max Bygraves - possibly only on the radio, though, rather than buying the records - and found rock'n'roll and its offspring a bit vulgar. Possibly relatedly, when I was tangentially involved with putting on indie band shows she would always refer to it as my "jazz club" rather than rock or pop or anything.

My other grandmother was also into that Light Programme / variety show kind of thing but I'm told did own 7"s of "Telstar" and "Apache", somewhat incongruously cool to my young mind.

What's funny to me is that it seems like circa 1960 when my parents were 11-13 the charts and "popular entertainment" were full of these records beloved by their middle-aged parents rather than teenagers. My parents themselves seem to have become interested in popular music only in the mid/late-60s and lost interest again abruptly in their early 20s at the start of the seventies. But this is not an era I know a great deal about.

popular image, at the time, was that reagan's strength and resolve overcame the USSR. i don't recall much being discussed, in depth, about the crumbling soviet economy, though i'm sure it was known in policy circles. since then, there's been a growing popular acceptance that the USSR was falling from within, quite apart from anything the US was doing at the time.

common person had no idea Russia was tottering until maybe '88? otherwise the USSR was this monolithic thing that wanted to destroy our freedoms (there was a big wave of anti-Russian stuff mid-decade: "White Nights," "Rocky IV"). I worked with a right-wing guy in 1988-89 who was convinced Gorbachev was "setting us up"

anyone remember drills to prepare us, as schoolkids, for a nuclear attack? lol at the idea that hiding under your desk would somehow shield you from the blast or the radiation clouds.

Was that pre or post-Chernenko's death and the rise of Gorbachev in the USSR? The Soviet Union was obviously seen as a dire threat to democracy, but was there any real awareness of its faltering economy or was it just Ronnie Raygun ready to blast the Ruskies at any time and who cares?

xpost

Thatcher told Reagan that Gorby was a man he "could do business with" and they famously hit it off in Geneva and even Reyjavik, the latter considered a failure but soon after considered a triumph because it revealed that unlike every Cold War prez Reagan really did believe in a nuclear-free world -- as in no nuclear weapons of any kind, offensive or defensive, long-range or whatever -- and, better, Gorbachev offered this world to him w/out Reagan offering it first. It's funny to think so now, but every major conservative (Krauthammer, Gingrich, Will) turned on Reagan and thought he was a loon for negotiating.

yeah. you got that same jingoism in the culture of the 80s. the movies (top gun) and the pop music (hair-metal and arena rock) had this weird triumphant vibe.

urgh rocky iv

My parents didn't have music in their lives at all by the time I was past toddlerhood, but they must have had earlier, because they had a big console tv/hi-fi and some records. I didn't like most of them -- stuff like Mitch Miller and the Longines Symponette. But there was a copy of Brahms' Piano Concerto #2 in B-flat major that I thought was really beautiful. My mom once mentioned that she was a big fan of Eddy Arnold and Englebert Humperdinck -- I need to ask her why they quit listening to music while I still have her around to ask.

Reagan's great triumph was pulling a 180 and negotiating with the Soviet Union in his second term and watching as his underlings spun it as "Gorby blinked because SDI and our weapons buildup scared them into coming to the table."

spacecadet: that's fine, any memories are welcome! that's really weird about the "jazz club" stuff, reminds me of when I was in North Korea and my guides would call the Massive Attack and Burial I listened to "jazz".

As for the kids liking the stuff their parents liked, it reminds me a bit of Kenny Ball's popularity among UK youth just prior to the Beatles ('61 or so). Being a trad-jazz player, it's bizarre to think that that's what a lot of kids were listening to (he even appeared in some teen music movie!)

xposts

urgh rocky iv

yeah, which is a little weird, because rocky i was a small-scale, understated, gritty project. then stallone fell off the rails.

alfred's right. there's a lesson there, about how some react to obama negotiating with certain enemy nations now.

the ending to that film still makes me cringe.
My mate at school went to see it at the pictures and to this day he still says its the best experience hes ever had at the cinema as he said people were shouting COME ON ROCKY as if they were at a real fight. I dont think he ever understood the jingoistic nature of it

when I was in North Korea

whoa! now that sounds like a thread of its own...

I worked with a right-wing guy in 1988-89 who was convinced Gorbachev was "setting us up"

A common attitude in the late eighties.

spacecadet: aha, not much to it really! basically, I went to North Korea for a short holiday when I was 18, just over four years ago. Made lots of friends, met an opera-singing colonel who guided us around the border with South Korea, roamed around Pyongyang, took in the sights. Sang "Hey Jude" at karaoke...

disco demolition night in chicago, 1979.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1CP1751wJA

shows the social upheaval of the 70s, and how much the 80s were about to suck (at least in much of pop-culture).

^ thats such a weird thing to have happened

One of the guys in the punk/new wave cover band I used to watch rehearse in the late 70s had a "Disco Sucks" t-shirt. I remember Disco Suck shirts and people singing "Diso Sucks" to the tune of "Disco Duck." I don't remember hearing about that big event in Chicago though.

anagram, that makes sense. I guess Beatles/Stones singles and the like were reissued relatively frequently anyway?

Beatles were in the U.S. There are Apple and orange and purple label Capitol versions of the singles and I think a blue label oldies line. I sometimes buy them when I see them because you often see them in better shape than the original orange/yellow swirl Capitol records and they're often the mono mixes.

As I mentioned above, there were also oldies reissue 45 labels like Eric and I definitely remember them being stocked probably around late 70s/early '80s at a chain store we had in California called Licorice Pizza.

As for the kids liking the stuff their parents liked

Well, my mum says she didn't mind it but my dad hated all that stuff my Gran liked! But I suppose in 60s Britain (please stop me, anyone older than me, as obv I wasn't there) there was one record player and maybe not even one TV and your parents chose what was on. My dad and probably many other teenage boys got an escape by building a crystal radio set from an electronics kit to listen to Radio Luxembourg and Radio Caroline but my mum hardly heard any pop music until she went to university, or so she says.

She had a brother a couple of years older who was probably the type to build a radio and may have been allowed to put records on as he was very much the favourite child, but I'm not sure he was ever interested.

All this talk about Rocky IV ignores the real heart of that movie, Paulie's romance with his robot servant. The movie Her owes a lot to Rocky IV.

The biggest thing to ever happen to rock and roll music in my lifetime was Nirvana. It's impossible to overstate how much of a game changer they were. It was a lot more than just killing big hair bands. It really brought alternative/punk culture to the mainstream, where it has pretty much stayed. The late great Scott Miller of Game Theory/The Loud Family said it best.

To paraphrase, he said that before Nevermind, every single bar band in America (maybe UK, too) had at least 3 or 4 Foreigner songs in their repertoire. After Cobain, that stuff instantly became oldies.

ok no

Those bar bands are playing Foreigner and Nirvana songs.

And hair metal didn't go away either.

Carl Nieves 1 month ago
Disco is hated. it is a commie homo sex commie forced gorvernment issue.Americans hate this 70' shit.

Jason Small 1 month ago
Disco will come back- I hope these idiots have mellowed. Everyone loves daft punk. Most disco songs have real instruments unlike phony techno music. Disco is a form of rock n roll. It has rhythm and melody. There are no good hip hop songs because I think- wheres the melody and rhythm???

Jim S.
4 weeks ago

This bizarre event could not possibly have been organized or instituted by a mere puppet disc jockey, but rather required substantial Zionist planning and execution especially since it catalyzed the elimination of disco stations from the radio to make way for "dance-pop", "techno" and "house" music to the garbage clogging the radio waves today. That all takes MONEY. If there's any doubt to whether there was a conspiracy involved, kindly review what passes for mainstream music these days and consider the fact why there hasn't been a similar movement.

be thankful for ilx guys. Imagine having to post on message boards with people like THAT?

Those bar bands are playing Foreigner and Nirvana songs.

And hair metal didn't go away either.

― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, January 25, 2014

that's true, but nirvana had a big impact. they're a top-choice for most groundbreaking event in rock over the past 30 years if you consider immediate mainstream, widespread cultural impact. i'd say the development of goth/80s underground and the rise of r.e.m. in the us and the smiths in the uk were other groundbreaking rock events.

wait, my people killed disco?

we get blamed for a lot of stuff.

x-post

Yes. But the thing is, it took REM 5 albums to build up to the top ten, whereas Nirvana just came out of nowhere.

I don't see how anybody could seriously argue that hair metal continued to be a commercial force after grunge. That's just wrong, man.

I'm not arguing against Nirvana's greatness -- I'm questioning the narrative pushed by Rolling Stone. The pop charts didn't change at all, and that's a fact.

and "To Be With You" hit #1 in '92, holdover or not.

the hair metal bands sales dropped but they didnt seem to disappear til 93/94

we get blamed for a lot of stuff.

I think Mr. S has his facts mixed up. We (I'm Jewish too) were too busy controlling Hollywood and the international banking system. Disco wasn't on the list.

i bought raw and kerrang then and plenty of the bands still got coverage. An American mag - Metal Edge - for some reason was stocked by every Menzies/Smiths in the UK and that never ever stopped putting 80s hair metal type bands on the cover. Thats why jackyl and green jelly and ugly kid joe had hits (well, the latter was a certain film)

oh and punk never killed prog either. It just went AOR and into the mainstream and even in the 80s neo-prog bands existed.

I'm questioning the narrative pushed by Rolling Stone. The pop charts didn't change at all, and that's a fact.

Yes, but culture and fashion did. Normal people didn't have piercings and tattoos. A few years after Nevermind, everybody was body modified in some way. Kinda gross, actually.

Advertising changed too. No more Eric Clapton beer commercials. You had guys comparing cars to punk rock.

when was the commercial with nick drake music that Americans speak of?

Jews wield a hell of a lot of power in crucial areas, well beyond their numbers in the population overall. That much is certainly not a myth. And Hollywood and banking certainly look to be a couple of those areas.

Some of the things you are laughing about are careless, overblown expressions of actual realities, in my opinion.

Early 00s in Canada I think xp

Jews wield a hell of a lot of power in crucial areas, well beyond their numbers in the population overall. That much is certainly not a myth. And Hollywood and banking certainly look to be a couple of those areas.

um, wait, what?

but if you want to blame us jews for all those "fast and furious" movies and for that time your atm machine wasn't working, go right ahead, no offense taken.

be thankful for ilx guys. Imagine having to post on message boards with people like THAT?

― ۩, Saturday, January 25, 2014 8:07 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

i do

UTFO - Bite It? http://youtu.be/mQr_fLqsoNw

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b4ukn1t6jfpiqn6/Screenshot%202014-01-25%2020.31.24.png

And just like fucking that, I'm back up on this rock porch, hot summer night, with a bunch of other white kids trying to beat-box.

Thank you, apsc.

http://i.snag.gy/B5WH1.jpg

and whaddya talking about, rocky iv was awesome:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZUWQdSTQ7Q

The Volkswagen "Pink Moon" commercial was '99.

my folks were both born right around 1940...

my dad didn't listen to music, like, at all. later on, when I was an adult, he started exploring a little bit and owned records by both Sun Ra and Kraftwerk at one point (through no influence of mine). I don;t think music plays too much of a role in his life right now - he's way more into books. his mom was an Edith Piaf fan, I still have a tape of hers.

my mom was from the pre-Beatles folk music generation, she had records by Joan Baez, Flatt & Scruggs, classical stuff - her dad was a big classical guy. she was down with the Beatles but not the Stones, and was once accidentally caught in a Beatles-related teen riot in England circa 1964. she was also into some of the liberation-oriented feminist music of the 70's, and I particularly remember listening to her copy of Meg Christiansen's The Hive (which is fuckin' intense). I stole her copy of Randy Newman's Sail Away, then got her a new one. she also likes a lot of the music that I got into over the years like Eno, Laurie Anderson, etc. she is a big Pink Martini fan, and remains open minded and inquisitive.

and whaddya talking about, rocky iv was awesome:

just wanna say i showed the "living in america" clip last month to my son born 2005 (too young for his post-millennial generation even to have a name) and the shit is still gold

I'm not arguing against Nirvana's greatness -- I'm questioning the narrative pushed by Rolling Stone. The pop charts didn't change at all, and that's a fact

the hair metal bands sales dropped but they didnt seem to disappear til 93/94

Last Top 40 hits by:

Cinderella, Dec 1990
Extreme, Aug 1991
Great White, Sept 1989
Kix, Oct 1989
Motley Crue, Nov 1991
Poison, Feb 1991
Skid Row, Nov 1989
Slaughter, Aug 1990
Warrant, Nov 1990
Whitesnake, June 1990
Winger, Feb 1991

Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," Nov 1991

I would say hair metal was dying fast in 1990-1991 and Nirvana finished it off.

I'm not sure about that either. It seems like those were different fan demographics.

hair-metal did not die, will never die.

http://hairmetal101.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Hair-Metal-101-Logo_500x164.png

Yeah, my impression (only when looking at the charts in retrospect) is that hair metal had been declining for years, and Nirvana helped to accelerate it. The pop charts didn't change much -- after Nirvana's short time at the top of the album charts, Garth Brooks, Whitney Houston, and the Mariah Carey/Boyz II Men R&B axis went right back to dominating for the rest of the decade, more or less.

If the revolution happened anywhere, it was on the modern rock/alternative stations who love to push the "Nirvana saved us from hair metal" story, you had a good mix of styles on the modern rock charts through 1993 or so and then suddenly all that was left was this : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_one_modern_rock_hits_of_1995

i grew up listening to pop music, courtesy of my parents, who would put on the top 40 station and have the weekly top 40 countdowns on, even though I don't think they liked all that much of the music by the time I started forming musical memories. They did buy the occasional record. I remember them buying Hall & Oates "Your Kiss is on My List" on 45, the Footloose soundtrack, and albums by Quincy Jones and the Doobie Brothers. We had cassettes for road trips. I remember Air Supply's greatest Hits and Simon & Garfunkel's concert in Central Park. At one point, I was probably in my early teens then, I encouraged them to get The White Album on cassette as they had a bunch of older Beatles records. I think they only really liked the more poppy stuff and lost interest when the Beatles got "weirder." They did like the White Album tracks that were more like 50s/early 60s pop or the stuff that sounded like old music hall numbers.

My mom listened to music more than my dad. She'd listen to either Barry Manilow's Greatest Hits or Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde when cleaning house. My dad mainly watched TV. He'd always brighten when the ad for CCR's Greatest Hits came on, and he'd sing along to some of the songs in his mostly-repressed southern accent. He never bought a CCR record. He knew all the songs on the soundtrack for Coppola's American Graffiti. That made me realize that he was the same person who wrote love letters to my mom from college quoting lyrics from "their song" which was "Chances Are" by Johnny Mathis. I had always felt like some strange alchemical process was inflicted on my parents between their teenage years and when they became "my parents," some process that radically changed their relationship to music.

My parents were actually ushers at the Monterey Pop Festival in 67. They grew up there, and my grandfather was on the organizing committee, so it wasn't a "big deal" at the time. They generally liked all the bands that played, except Ravi Shankar, who my mom thought was a bit dull and wondered if maybe you were supposed to "take illegal drugs" in order to like his music.

Now, on the verge of 40, I feel like there are a lot of people like my parents, who are thoroughly normal wholesome old people whose younger lives significantly intersected with the counter-culture, but it had nominal impact on how they would spend the majority of their adult lives.

what was the name of the character Betty White played on Golden Girls? Whatever it is, I kinda feel like my mom is that character.

I'm not sure about that either. It seems like those were different fan demographics.

but that doesn't really have anything to do with it. grunge and hair metal may have had different core demos (and maybe they didn't), but their core demos are not what turned artists from either camp into top 40 pop stars. top 40 fans (duh) and top 40 radio were responsible for that. and that demo was, in fact, buying poison records one year, nirvana records the next year and mariah carey records the year after that. its tastes probably don't shift as suddenly and as neatly as some trend watchers would like us to believe. but they do change. the core demos meanwhile keep on buying what they always bought, making sure, for example, that hair metal will in fact never die.

all I know is that in January 1992 I left for two months to help teach English in Japan, and when I left, my dumb small town highschool were all about Metallica and hair metal, and when I got back, some of those dudes who were all bro'd out in Kill Em All t-shirts back in January were wearing Nirvana t-shirts and nail polish.

re: reagan vs. bush ii: anti-reagan music was way better than anti-bush music. i mean come on "if reagan played disco" vs. "in a world gone mad", seriously. that was the worst thing about it- most people loved reagan, but the people who didn't were genuinely mad about it in a way that seemed way more fired up and productive. whereas i can't imagine "fuck bush" ever being said in anything other than a dull, perfunctory monotone. like after eight years of clinton nobody gave a shit about anything anymore.

nah, it wasn't clinton. it was a combination of (a) a much more cynical audience and (b) the long-shadow of 09.11.

and that demo was, in fact, buying poison records one year, nirvana records the next year and mariah carey records the year after that

these are literally one of my first tapes (poison), one of my first cds (mariah), and somewhere in there, once i was cool enough, nirvana

course eventually i hid the poison and mariah in a closet somewhere

what's funny is that, today, i think a lot of people would put mariah and poison over nirvana in ranking "cool" music acts.

when PiL released second edition did any of you think 'i thought he hated pink floyd?'

I don't see the connection tbh, but everyone already knew Lydon was into Can (it was impossible to read an article on /review of PiL without Can being mentioned), Hawkwind, Peter Hammill, Beefheart, whatever. I think Keith Levene's fondness for Yes was even common knowledge!

xp
only on ilm

ps fuck poison forever

My parents were not really into rock music, they were both born in 1933. They were only 22 or 23 when Elvis happened but I'm pretty sure they considered themselves too adult for rock 'n' roll, which was just a sort of crude novelty music for teenagers as far as they were concerned. My mother liked Nat King Cole, Billy Eckstine, Sarah Vaughan, stuff like that, proper singers who sang proper songs (she was fond of Scott Walker later on for the same reasons). I'm not sure what my dad was into but he bought my mother "Songs for Swinging Lovers" when they were courting, I do know he had a brief flirtation with the blues thanks to seeing Big Bill Broonzy in concert (he toured in the UK as early as 1952 apparently!)

Pretty sure we didn't have a record player at all when I was growing up, the first time was probably when my sister started getting into music and buying records, we did eventually get a sideboard sort of thing with a record player and radio in it - but it was really more a piece of furniture tbh. In contrast my granny had loads of singles - all of the Beatles and Stones, for instance - because her house was the go-to place for parties and family get-togethers in the 60s. But, as my granny was not exactly the partying type, I suspect it was actually my great granny who was responsible for providing the music - and she was born in the reign of Queen Victoria! Eventually most of these singles ended up in the sideboard-cum-record player in our house, scratched, scuffed, stained by Pale Ale and burnt by cigarettes as they were. I distinctly remember being amused by the Apple label on the Beatles singles, though I don't remember playing them very often, I suspect I might have played "Old Brown Shoe" once and thought, "This rubbish, I thought the Beatles were supposed to be good?" However I do remember playing (what was left of) the grooves off of "Fire Brigade" by the Move...

Nirvana Epiphany

Yes, but culture and fashion did. Normal people didn't have piercings and tattoos. A few years after Nevermind, everybody was body modified in some way. Kinda gross, actually.

Remember that sea change? One day we were all listening to Motley Crue and Guns'n'Roses and Metallica and Jane's Addiction then suddenly a hard rock band appeared who finally popularized tattoos and piercings.

thanks folks! For my own parents' experience, my mum's first concert was when her Sunday school class went to see a concert by a little known band called the Rolling Stones. That was in 1962. She went on to get into Cohen in 1967 and the folk artists of the early 70s until she got into ABBA and Rod Stewart by the end of the decade.

my dad was more into soul in the late 60s, insists that he first listened to the Velvet Underground in 1970 and then went on to become a huge Dire Straits/Springsteen fan in the late 70s, before burning out sometime around 1986.

― president of the people's republic of antarctica (Arctic Mindbath), Saturday, January 25, 2014 3:27 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Late to the thread, skimmed most of it...anyway...

My mom dug the Mamas and the Papas. I found this out in horror when she told me about how when she interviewed Berry Gordy in 1966 or so (she was a reporter for the Detroit Free Press) he wanted to give her some records; she refused partly out of journalistic objectivity, and partly because she preferred the Mamas and Papas. She did get to meet Lamont Dozier, Eddie Holland, "Little" Stevie Wonder (as he was then known), and Marvin Gaye, though.

My dad was a fanatic for the music of Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis etc. etc. from the get-go. He saw Ellington a few times in the 50s, but his greatest concert experience was seeing Charles Mingus at the Five Spot in early 1964. He used to play alto saxophone, and is on one of the "secret" bonus tracks of the Peter, Paul, and Mary box, a basement recording he made with Noel Stookey -- "Paul" -- in the early 50s.

Both my parents saw the MC5, but only because my mom was covering a rally they were playing. All they remember is that they were loud.

They weren't into the Beatles until Sgt. Pepper, and then it was, "Holy crap, this is those 'yeah yeah yeah' guys?!" They had that, Revolver, the White Album, Hey Jude (US-only comp), and The Beatles' Second Album (another US-only deal). They had Bringing It All Back Home too, but that was the extent of their rock records; everything else was either classical or Parker, Mingus, Miles, etc.

i asked my mum a few years ago (the 2009 reissues) if she'd seen the beatles and she couldn't remember, like they were no big deal (tbf, there were a lot of those package tours with umpteen bands on the bill around the time)

My in-laws saw The Beatles in 1963, supporting Roy Orbison on a package tour. They weren't much fussed one way or the other, as they were there for Orbison.

[leans back in rocking chair, gums wistfully]

Lennon:
I was 19, already depressed about Reagan's election a month earlier, and Lennon's murder intensified a mood of anger and frustration. Everyone I knew was upset for days afterward. The idea of a Beatles reunion had been a running joke for years, but a world in which it was no longer possible felt uglier and meaner.

Media:
As a kid, I listened to other people's vinyl and the radio and only began buying albums myself around 1977, when I was in high school. I never bought singles. By 1981, I was mainly taping vinyl and sometimes radio shows to listen to on my cheap boombox. I had lots of tapes but didn't buy pre-recorded cassettes until the late 80s. By that point I no longer had a turntable and my brother had taken over my small collection of vinyl. The last album I remember buying on cassette was "Out of Time," shortly before I got my first CD player.

Parents:
Mom just turned 80, Dad will be 80 in a few months. After her teenage years she seems not to have had much interest in music. The Glenn Miller version of "Stardust" was her jam. She goes to some classical concerts now, but those seem to be mainly social events for her.

As a small child I remember Belafonte and Kingston Trio LPs around the house. About 1966 my father started buying new music in increasing quantities. I remember liking "Yesterday and Today" (the re-release with the trunk cover) because I knew the Beatles from their Saturday morning cartoon show. Soon thereafter Dad's hair got longer, he grew a beard, and the LPs started to pile up: more Beatles, Stones, Dylan, the Doors, the Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Hendrix, the Band, etc. I still hear about the time he saw Chuck Berry open for the Stones in Auburn, Alabama in 1969. This intense record-buying phase lasted until about 1970 (I remember Led Zeppelin II and the Sabbath debut around the house) and then tapered off. These days he listens to a lot of Sirius/XM. He's still big on Dylan and the Dead but also likes old-time country and blues.

Thanks Brad, I enjoyed reading that. Was it weird for people born in the 1930s (and maybe 1920s?) to get into 60s rock? Not that uncommon?

Is it also wrong, old-timers, to wish I'd been a boomer/generation x'er (even though I hate the youtube commentators who wish they had been the same)?

My parents were pretty dismissive of rock music, but then again, the mother of one of my friends from high school liked to brag about seeing the Rolling Stones in Birmingham (AL) in 1965 when she was in her mid 30s. Every generation runs the gamut.

Also, a real question, what was with all the apparent Beatles reunion hype that took over America in the mid-70s? And supposedly even after 1980, there were rumours of a reunion with Julian in place of John.

denial

The Julian thing was just going to be for Live Aid. And everyone is glad it didn't happen.

Remember that VH1 movie a few years ago that was all about a meeting of John and Paul one weekend in 1970-something—all fabricated conjecture of course—where they kicked around the idea of just showing up at SNL and playing a song together unannounced and unplanned? I don't know if that was based on something Paul had ever mentioned in an interview, but that would've been a cool thing if it had ever happened.

Paul has said that he and John were watching SNL when Lorne Michaels made his $3000 offer and said, "hey, we should just get in a cab and go down there...nah, fuck it, I'm too tired."

Isn't that when John and Paul were watching SNL and one of the cast members offered the Beatles $3000 to reunite and they thought they should go down to the studio and claim their share, but in the end were too tired/stoned? I think that did happen according to Paul.

tarfumes beat me to it.

Oh right, I forgot about that detail.

Perhaps Michaels's best-known appearance occurred in the first season when he offered the Beatles $3,000—a deliberately paltry sum—to reunite on the show.[7] He later upped his offer to $3,200, but the money was never claimed. According to an interview in Playboy magazine, John Lennon and Paul McCartney happened to be in New York City that night and saw the show. They very nearly went, but changed their minds as it was getting too late to get to the show on time, and they were both tired. This near-reunion was the basis for the TV movie Two of Us.

Old-timers want you to know it's spelled "millennial."

When Harrison was a musical guest a few weeks (months?) later, he tried to claim the whole $3000, resulting in a funny bit with Michaels explaining, no, it has to be all four of you guys.

It did happen! John discussed it in the Playboy interviews right before he was killed:

PLAYBOY: Aside from the millions you've been offered for a reunion concert, how did you feel about producer Lorne Michaels' generous offer of $3200 for appearing together on "Saturday Night Live" a few years ago?

LENNON: Oh, yeah. Paul and I were together watching that show. He was visiting us at our place in the Dakota. We were watching it and almost went down to the studio, just as a gag. We nearly got into a cab, but we were actually too tired.

PLAYBOY: How did you and Paul happen to be watching TV together?

LENNON: That was a period when Paul just kept turning up at our door with a guitar. I would let him in, but finally I said to him, "Please call before you come over. It's not 1956 and turning up at the door isn't the same anymore. You know, just give me a ring." He was upset by that, but I didn't mean it badly. I just meant that I was taking care of a baby all day and some guy turns up at the door. . . . But, anyway, back on that night, he and Linda walked in and he and I were just sitting there, watching the show, and we went, "Ha-ha, wouldn't it be funny if we went down?" but we didn't.

PLAYBOY: Was that the last time you saw Paul?

LENNON: Yes, but I didn't mean it like that.

PLAYBOY: We're asking because there's always a lot of speculation about whether the Fab Four are dreaded enemies or the best of friends.

LENNON: We're neither. I haven't seen any of the Beatles for I don't know how much time. Somebody asked me what I thought of Paul's last album and I made some remark like, I thought he was depressed and sad. But then I realized I hadn't listened to the whole damn thing. I heard one track -- the hit "Coming Up," which I thought was a good piece of work. Then I heard something else that sounded like he was depressed. But I don't follow their work. I don't follow Wings, you know. I don't give a shit what Wings is doing, or what George's new album is doing, or what Ringo is doing. I'm not interested, no more than I am in what Elton John or Bob Dylan is doing. It's not callousness, it's just that I'm too busy living my own life to be following what other people are doing, whether they're the Beatles or guys I went to college with or people I had intense relationships with before I met the Beatles.

many xps

well, in fairness, i did write this at 1:30 am during a bout of the flu. sorry though, you're quite right.

xxps

what was with all the apparent Beatles reunion hype that took over America in the mid-70s

i think by '75, people'd come to realize that there would never be anything as "big" as the Beatles again, that the culture had changed too much. There would never be another rock band who was so omnipresent, esp. as the alleged "new Beatles" like Badfinger hadn't panned out. So there was a sad but understandable desire to try to push the yolk back into the egg, somehow---if the Beatles reformed they'd somehow would be the Biggest Band Ever again. Lennon's killing ended this, but the delusion persisted for a while longer with the Julian rumors.

Klaatu are the Beatles

In the pre-Amazon/eBay days, what was the best way to obtain a rare, out-of-print release if none of the stores in your area had it in stock? Were record stores willing to get rare, used stuff for you via special order, and how long would that typically take? I guess you could also try auctions, record collector magazine classifieds, and record fairs, but were there any other methods?

auctions, record collector magazine classifieds, and record fairs

this pretty much sums it up! we would also write directly to bands if there was an address available - I remember writing to The Ex and Current 93 in the 80's.

I don't remember record stores being willing to try and find oop stuff for people.

there were also plenty of places that had mail order catalogs. craig moerer and stuff like that.

yeah, RRRecords would have special catalogs for used stuff sometimes, good call

basically it was all about going to stores - Reckless, Vintage Vinyl, Yesterday & Today, etc.

Writing to bands directly was definetely a way to go. Or if the band is in your city you could make friends with the least intimidating member of their entourage and maybe eventually get passed some demos or something. Or just showing up on their doorstep asking if they have any copies of their first single left lying around. Did all these things (*shakes head in disbelief at younger self*).

If you didn't buy stuff when you saw it then sometimes it would be gone after a day or two and then difficult or impossible to find. It was important to visit the record stores practically every day and especially on release days if you were a fan of indie label stuff. 14 Iced Bears discs flew out the shops back then lemme tell you.

And there was a lot of selling and swapping stuff amongst friends too. And taping of course.

I just got a CD in the mail from Japan today, pre-ordered straight from the label, and it made me think about how I used to get mail-order catalogs from Japan Overseas and how that was the only way to get stuff by Fushitsusha, various Boredoms side projects, and tons of other Japanese noise (plus those John Zorn albums that only came out over there)...

wow, definitely remember waiting weeks, sometimes months for a CD or tape. I wrote once to a record distributor about the Beach Boys' Sunflower (then out of print). No response. No nothing. But I had sent a check for the CD listed on their catalog, and just *hoped* it would show up one day. It never did, and until Napster came around, I never heard it!

It was pretty typical back then, just hoping for the best. Sometimes, like maybe 5% of the time, you'd show up to a record store, and a record you'd been looking for forever would be there. I used to make regular rounds to my local used shops looking for old Boredoms, Beach Boys, Can, Zorn, etc. It didn't have to be obscure, because in the 80s and 90s, when I first started looking for music on my own, not everything was in print, and especially where I grew up in Dallas, not everything in print was easily available.

And I think I just developed the gout talking about this.

Taping was a crucial way to get access. I recall taping the noise radio show on KALX when I was an undergrad- that's how I heard "Hanatarash 2", at the time a very hard to find record. If somebody had an older brother who did a radio show at college you would get airtapes of their shows and hear hard to find music that way- or maybe one person in the scene would have rare records and they'd make a tape which they copied for a friend and you'd copy that. So in Louisville, KY in the 80s one dude had a bunch of the Misfits singles on Plan 9 and he'd made a high-quality dub of that and that got passed around to everyone.

I thought it would be so rad to finally own my own copy of "Hanatarash 2" and when I finally found someone online who would sell it to me and it arrived I was expecting an epiphany but in a weird way the "you want it and you have money? no problem, here it is" world that Ebay has wrought has a deflationary effect upon the mystique of questing for impossible/obscure holy grails. I mean don't get me wrong I am stoked to own it but the web makes it all sooooo easy (if you have the money), it kinda flattens things. (said the grumpy 40 something)

yeah worth repeating that even stuff that doesn't seem obscure (like the beach boys) was sometimes tricky to come by... at least for me -- in the early 90s it really just depended on what my local record store was stocking/what was in print.

of course, the flip side of that is that I was buying Ain Soph and Organum records for like 4 bucks cuz nobody knew who they were and you couldn't just look up the median price on Discogs

yeah i've known people who were serious collectors back then who get misty eyed over the availability/affordability of stuff that now is ebayed out of control. guess it was just knowing where to look/having good taste.

i mean, my local record store might've had tons of rare krautrock for all I know, it's just that 14-year-old me had never heard of any of that stuff.

and word to the wise: what also helped was *working* at a record store. Off the record, and I officially deny any and all charges...but teen me may have "borrowed" a few CDs from my big chain record store employer, taped the best songs, and then "returned".

Also if you happened to be near a good college radio station and could volunteer there, then taping stuff from the archives opened up a new world.

I remember it would take years to find certain records (if you found them at all), and just finding out that someone had a copy you could tape was almost as thrilling as finding the record itself.

I didn't mention taping because it seemed like the question was about physical copies, but yes everybody traded tapes and it was a huge part of how people got to hear rare music. one older guy I knew turned me on to so much stuff, we kept in touch after I moved to the West Coast and traded for years. the first thing I did when I got a CD burner was to rip all of my old cassettes of rare records/tapes.

Also if you happened to be near a good college radio station and could volunteer there, then taping stuff from the archives opened up a new world.

In my experience, the bins and bins of promo copies of stuff that would never enter any show's rotation held more gold nuggets than the sorted/shelved library.

Knowing someone who worked at a record store was hugely helpful too. I still remember the day I walked into my local record store and the guy I knew who worked there reached under the counter and handed me a cassette of the Minutemen's Double Nickels On The Dime and said "I ordered this for you. Just buy it." I did, and wound up listening to it literally every day for the rest of my junior year of high school.

OTM about knowing someone at a record store, I had a similar experience where my local record store was doing an order with SST who were letting Saccharine Trust's "Surviving You Always" go out of print and were selling the last copies, they snagged one for me and told me I'd be into it, which was a huge understatement.

Also I was lucky to be starting getting into music in Mpls at the time where there were multiple great record stores and the one I went on the regular was down the street from Twin/Town who had their catalog, plus all the labels they distro'd, so there a lot records easily available at the time.

promo boxes at a few of my local record stores were pretty mindblowing. it would usually be like a dollar for some CD that was months away from coming out.

Also if you happened to be near a good college radio station and could volunteer there, then taping stuff from the archives opened up a new world.

― o. nate, Wednesday, February 12, 2014 2:14 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I used to listen to this one college DJ's show all the time, and marveled at the amazingly rare stuff he was playing, mostly on the FMP label -- it was his personal collection, not the station's. Got to know him a few years later; he sold off his whole collection when he moved out of the country, and I managed to buy a few of his FMPs for cheap, many of which were never reissued on CD.

..and all of this increased the desirability of being a music critic. Overnight, I had people sending me free CDs. I'll never forget the email from Forced Exposure, which essentially went, "alright, here's the deal: you tell me what you want, and we'll send it to you." Mind blown, looking glass through'd.

Mail order was a big thing. I remember the back pages of NME being full of ads for outfits like Small Wonder and Adrian's of Wickford, listing in minute type what they had in stock. I scoured those listings carefully and ordered several things from Adrian's. Always wondered where Wickford was and if there was any way I could get there.

This was for new and obscure stock, though. For second-hand stuff it was record fairs and second-hand shops for me. I lived in Brighton for much of the 1980s which was blessed with several excellent second-hand record shops (a couple of which are still there), energized by a large student population. There was also a massive record fair there in the Brighton Centre every month or so. I got into Peter Hammill and Al Stewart at that time when most of their back catalogue was deleted. Took me a while to complete my collection of both, but I did it in the end.

I'll never forget the email from Forced Exposure, which essentially went, "alright, here's the deal: you tell me what you want, and we'll send it to you." Mind blown, looking glass through'd.

I was a critic for years before getting the nod from FE. It was like Lynyrd Skynyrd's song "Was I Right Or Wrong" started playing in my head:

Then one sunny day, the man, he looked my way
And everything I dreamed of, it was real

a blessing was the LP-to-CD conversion wave of the late 80s-early '90s. 2nd-hand shops, at least in Boston, were full of Boomers' LP collections dumped in one go, so finding stuff like Sunflower & OOP Stooges records in the stacks became a bit more common

Also, anytime you went to another city (for me Madison, Chicago, Iowa City, etc) you had to make time to hit every reocrd store with a used bin. I never traveled anywhere without a mental list of records I was always searching for.

When I was 18 and looking at colleges with my parents it was essentially an excuse to go record shopping in strange towns.

If I were in a town I had never been to before and didn't know anything about the first thing I did was go to a phone booth and open the Yellow Pages looking for records stores and thrift stores.

^^^ I still do this.

me too, some of my greatest/most unexpected finds, still to this day, have been when i've been travelling for work or a wedding or something. shout out to Waterloo and End of an Ear in Austin, Love Garden in Lawrence, Sonic Boom in Seattle, etc.

arr, bought quite a few things from Adrians back in the day..

I was thinking the other night that I want to make up a list of all my beloved long-lost record stores, this thread is making me want to do this even more. But I think it might be massively depressing to see them all in one list like that.

Last time I looked, Adrians was still going.

Never actually been there, but

I wasn't as hardcore as some here, but I definitely remember having a kind of running mental list of stuff I was looking for that I would check for every time I went to a record shop, wherever it was. I made trips to Other Music and Tower and various other city spots whenever I was in NYC and had the time.

i honestly think the first hip hop i remember were the Roxanne records. like maybe i had heard black teenagers jamming kurtis blow (or similar) at stop lights in my small north mississippi town before then, but as far as paying attn to lyrics or kids in my class being excited about it (as opposed to MJ or Van Halen or Weird Al or Duran Duran), Roxanne and the response records seemed like a big deal. that and Whodini "freaks come out at night".

"^^^ I still do this.

― burbbhrbhbbhbburbbbryan ferry (Dan Peterson), Wednesday, February 12, 2014 2:03 PM (53 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink"

Yeah, me too, but not nearly as fantatically as I once did and it doesn't have quite the same thrill. I mean I won't go so far as to say that going other records stores was the only reason I ever went out of town...but it was the only reason I ever went out of town.

Browsing record stores was very important to me though. There was something fun about having a limited universe available to you, taking a chance on something just because it had cool packaging and you had vaguely heard of it, or the record store clerk was playing it, or maybe you gave it a single spin in the store if it was a cool shop that let you do that.

And also yeah I used to ask friends to let me tape shit all the time. Having friends with esoteric music tastes was important in this way.

I spent 5 years scouring any used music shop within my reach for two deleted Too Much Joy Cd's that I owned on cassette but had really begun to degrade. Didn't matter what I was on there for, I'd always check the miscellaneous T section and any cutout bin. Finally found them both on different shops on consecutive weekends. I was in heaven.

I would always look for Funkadelic and Spacemen 3 stuff. The former because so much was out of print in the late 80s (prior to Dre-driven CD reissues), it was literally impossible to find a copy of the Warner Bros stuff like One Nation Under a Groove. And Spacemen 3 because it was kind of random what stuff would show up on import.

One of the big shocks for me of the internet era was just how vast the catalogs of some jazz artists were. Since jazz on CD was a reissue thing, most stores would only have in stock perennial reissues (i.e. the top albums of bigger artists) and then a rotating selection of whatever was on reissue at the time. Plus there was plenty of stuff that just didn't see reissue at all, or not for many years.

And unless you had some kind of print discography, you just didn't know. I often just bought jazz CD's based on "oh, I like this drummer and this tenor player and it was recorded by Rudy Van Gelder" type decisions.

I would always look for Funkadelic

Yes! For years, I searched for their stuff, especially the early Westbound albums. I was able to locate some of the later stuff, but it took a trip to Nashville in the early 90s before I found cassettes for Maggot Brain, America Eats Its Young, s/t, Cosmic Slop, etc. I still have those, like badges of the search.

(xp) i assumed that's how everybody bought jazz records. i often bought pop/rock records in used record stores based on helpful informational stickers tacked on by the store, such as "early becker and fagen" (terence boylan's alias boona, which i didn't like but am glad i own), or "features b. joel's band" (d.l. byron "down in the boondocks" 12-inch, which i liked a little bit and am glad i own), or, more successfully, by listening to joe hanna at play it again records in bethlehem, pa., when he simply said "buy this." you defied joe hanna at your own peril.

yeah the discographies thing is key, and not just for jazz. For a long time I didn't even know Funkadelic had an album called "Tales of Kidd Funkadelic". Unless stuff was included in some giant review compendium or otherwise publicized, it might as well not have existed.

I think this is the part where old-timers talk about old record guides like the red & blue RS guides, or the Christgau guides or even that SPIN alternative guide. haha or remember when AllMusic Guide was just a book???

http://i1093.photobucket.com/albums/i433/vinylsighting/4822478850.jpg

YES

see also: International Discography Of The New Wave

yeah I think I had some kind of an allmusic jazz guide at one point and I certainly remember borrowing trouser press from friends

Penguin Jazz Guide too, I still have that!

i should get all of these old record guides again, they are like $.50 on amazon these days...

My bibles
http://i.imgur.com/mHZGpY0.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Yg0R1nG.jpg

I have all those guides in storage somewhere, and as research, they're actually still amazingly valuable. Reading a kind of critical consensus on bands from the time is pretty priceless. Faves I can recall offhand are the string of 1-star albums RS game the Queen discography (to be replaced by multiple 5-star reviews in later editions as I recall), and how much they seemed to LOVE the Firesign Theater.

haha I remember that

still hate Dave Marsh for his X reviews in the blue book, my hate will never die you fucker

xp tyler: when I was in college I worked at the campus music library, and there was a copy of the Trouser Press Record Guide revised edition at the reference desk, and I went through it page by page and made a list of records that sounded interesting. I think I only got through the K's. But then I moved to San Francisco and misplaced the list, so when I found myself in the used record mecca that was my new home, I was going off my visual memory of what was on the list.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/513altfW7lL._SY300_.jpg

Still have this. Amazingly useful for listing musicians-and-albums-they-played-on

xp lol yeah, i actually lugged the Trouser guide to record stores on occasion, just to have as a reference.

n.b. for at least a year, I methodically checked all the record stores for James Chance records and came up empty.

Also if you happened to be near a good college radio station and could volunteer there, then taping stuff from the archives opened up a new world.

― o. nate, Wednesday, February 12, 2014 11:14 AM (3 hours ago)

I still have some of my tapes!

Actually, if the station is shitty (as in bad reception, no one cares) but had a large library, that was easier because there was less competition and you could do more shifts, which allowed more time to tape stuff from the library.

http://wp.me/a2CFGm-152

This was my first guide, and then Trouser Press. The Harmony 3rd edition encyclopedia was full of errors and incomplete discographies. Out of curiosity, I got cheap copies of a few later editions last year, and they were not much better.

http://fastnbulbous.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/harmony-illustrated-encyclopedia-rock-3rd.jpg

how much they seemed to LOVE the Firesign Theater.

― Dominique, Wednesday, 12 February 2014 22:56 (8 minutes ago) Permalink

ha, how much Greil Marcus loved the Firesign Theater you mean. ('Not Insane' deserved more than one star.) There were a lot of weird records reviewed in the blue-cover RS guide, it's how I first heard of Faust.

the blue-cover RS guide, the New Music Distribution Service & Recommended Records distribution catalogs (filled with reviews) and to a degree, John Schneider's 'New Sounds' were my nascent mid-to-late-80's guides

did NMDS become Wayside. or am I mis-remembering?

cuz I saved their catalogs as well

My high school actually had a "radio station" run by a hip english teacher (who even threw some of his own collection into the stacks). It was a great source.

I didn't actually by the SPIN guide until Xmas '98 but my college bookstore had a copy that no one bought for a couple years; I'd make a pilgrimage at least once a week.

Jem Import Record Guide, anyone? Those were huge for me.

http://www.8-bitcentral.com/images/blog/2013/Jem-Records-Import.jpg

well obv I have tons of records w/those stickers but I did not know they did a print guide!

A little off topic but this thread is making me nostalgic.

It's fun to think back to the various means I used to hear music without paying for it before the internet popularized that pastime.

Blockbuster Music would let you listen to anything in the store -- even new shrinkwrapped CDs. Prior to that I used to listen to stuff at the listening stations at Tower, but the chance to literally listen to anything they had and not have to buy it was so great as a income-free teenager. Then I'd leave and go to a real record store and buy the two or three I liked.

Also: one of the best things about working at Amoeba was they let you borrow used items and bring them back. I discovered so many CDs (and movies) that way.

And, of course ... taping stuff off the radio. I remember one time I thought my car had been stolen and the first thing I thought was not "MY CAR!" but "MY RADIO MIXES, NOOOOOOOO"

Essential:

http://ring.cdandlp.com/perpetuum-mobile/photo_grande/114324180.jpg

I only knew one person w/a copy of that and I literally wrote down every single thing in it that looked interesting

Blockbuster Music would let you listen to anything in the store -- even new shrinkwrapped CDs. Prior to that I used to listen to stuff at the listening stations at Tower, but the chance to literally listen to anything they had and not have to buy it was so great as a income-free teenager. Then I'd leave and go to a real record store and buy the two or three I liked.

I remember how miffed those employees got when the Celine Dion CD that the customer was going to buy anyway was torn open and insisted on being listened to. I also remember those clear plastic bags in which the employees kept the CDs after the original case was cracked open.

There was a little CD store in my college town that let you do that. Low volume but high quality selection -- knowledgable owner who you could trust for recs, etc. Of course at some point in my college time internet music shopping did become more of a thing -- I'm sort of a transitional and not a true "old-timer"

this reminds me of the little record in my college town that gave prospective employees a test on which artists were on which label - like you had a list of 30 (fairly diverse) artists and a corresponding list of labels and you had to match them up. Because everything in the store was sorted by record label. it was bizarre, nobody knew that shit!

the thing that blows my mind about the internet is you have all these 14 year olds listening to can records. 14! i was 21 before i ever heard a can record, and even then it was flow motion. i assumed can sucked for the next two or three years before i met somebody who had a copy of "tago mago".

Also if you happened to be near a good college radio station and could volunteer there, then taping stuff from the archives opened up a new world.

― o. nate, Wednesday, February 12, 2014

I still have some of my tapes!

― sarahell, Wednesday, February 12, 2014

i wish i could dj at a college radio station now! which is ridiculous, i know, since i'm in my mid-40s, never dj'd before, and am probably horribly behind-the-times now. as mid-life crises go, tho, this is a fairly low-risk desire.

the thing that blows my mind about the internet is you have all these 14 year olds listening to can records. 14! i was 21 before i ever heard a can record, and even then it was flow motion. i assumed can sucked for the next two or three years before i met somebody who had a copy of "tago mago".

― rushomancy, Wednesday, February 12, 2014 7:33 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

totally. I actually remember the exact moment I first saw a can album, believe it or not, and it was in the home of some serious record nerds. Like barely anyone else I knew knew who they were. There wasn't this sense of everyone hip knowing about everything or being able to find out about it really easily -- there would be certain bands people might be talking about at a given moment but there wasn't as much of an "obscure canon" so to speak.

everything in the store was sorted by record label

this is heading way off topic, but i had the great fortune of growing up a mile away from the new england mobile book fair, a warehouse of books -- literally, it was a warehouse -- organized by publisher. i have never seen any bookstore anywhere that even a tenth of the stock that they did. it was impossible to navigate and an absolute joy to navigate. i'm completely intrigued by the idea of a record store organized the same way.

yeah def. I can remember encountering certain stuff for the first time v clearly, things I had heard about but never even seen, much less actually listened to.

xp

Because everything in the store was sorted by record label. it was bizarre, nobody knew that shit!

― How dare you tarnish the reputation of Turturro's yodel (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, February 12, 2014

this is one area where 2014 beats anything from the 70s or 80s. following a label is nice: some develop a real personality, and feature artists with distinct aesthetics. and it's a whole lot easier to "sort by label" using webpage engines than it was seeking out a label's output in "the old days."

plenty of ways "the old days" were better, mind you. this just wasn't one of them.

sadly, however, in 2014 none of the major online music services (itunes, spotify, rhapsody, beats, etc.) offer any kind of search or sort by label option, which seems a huge missed opportunity.

emusic allows you to. but yeah, you're right about the others.

Rdio does.

didn't know that, but very glad to hear.

"this reminds me of the little record in my college town that gave prospective employees a test on which artists were on which label - like you had a list of 30 (fairly diverse) artists and a corresponding list of labels and you had to match them up. Because everything in the store was sorted by record label. it was bizarre, nobody knew that shit!"

see this is exactly the kind of gatekeeping shit I don't miss, even if I didn't think it was designed to keep people like me out.

to be fair, tho, that was a test for employees, not a means of screening out customers who weren't uber-music nerds.

(i can see where the store that makes its employees go thru such a test might be snobby, tho; but doesn't have to be that way).

Theoretically Spotify lets you search by label, but I've never gotten good results. Searching for Tzadik gets four albums, which may be correct for all I know. Searching for Impulse produces no Coltrane, because the copyright notices on all his Impulse albums say (C) The Verve Music Group, a Division of UMG Recordings.

this is one area where 2014 beats anything from the 70s or 80s. following a label is nice: some develop a real personality, and feature artists with distinct aesthetics. and it's a whole lot easier to "sort by label" using webpage engines than it was seeking out a label's output in "the old days."

Maybe I don't qualify to speak for 'the old days' proper, but did you not get labels putting their back catalogue on a little insert inside yr records? That's what I remember happening.

you could, yeah. wasn't nearly as easy as it is today to follow a label's output.

but here's the thing. part of why you'd follow a label was that it created, or was part of, a broader scene. and that sense of a broader scene -- e.g., goth culture or underground college rock -- isn't around today.

If you like talking to label people on twitter you would've really enjoyed talking to them on the phone!

haha!

I remember getting clued in to the label thing in the mid 80's, when it became another one of those things you'd look for when deciding what to buy - especially if it was something with barely any cover info

I'm not a millennial and I really feel like I should know the answer to this but:

Well there was tons of classic rock on the radio

Were they already calling it classic rock at this time, before Jon Bonham died?

(My Gr 5 music teacher started the year with a unit on rap in 1988. It only really hit me after the fact how forward-thinking that was.)

Like, I'd been under the assumption that it was still just 'rock' or 'heavy metal' or 'AOR' at this point and people started talking about 'classic rock' at some point in the 80s.

I didn't think e.g. Moving Pictures was considered a 'classic rock' album when it was released.

you're right. "classic rock" was a more recent branding tactic for commercial rock radio.

The term has existed for decades, but what it's gotten slapped onto changes.

Ha, I thought it was closer to three decades, though. (Wikipedia seems to support this.)

hmmmm . . .

http://www.jacobsmedia.com/crxx/images/Top10_CR_artists.jpg

So this is where I have to give a shout out to the much older dudes I used to work with at a comic shop when I was 15 years old and their endless patience as I asked question after question about bands, labels, records, how they found out about X or Y, whether I should bother with that record or just find the big single, what did they sound like, were they better than this band, should you just see them live. It was like hanging out with a blog every work shift and it was great. Of course once the interweb happened you didn't need to do that as much and you could just read and eventually listen to all this stuff you had questions about.

on behalf of all octagenerians: you're welcome.

(OK, Covach dates the first classic rock station back to 1985. Grove says 80s. Back to millennials being millennial.)

I remember well when 105.9 in DC went to classic rock and took the letters WCXR. According to this

http://www.jacobsmedia.com/crxx/war.htm

it was January 28, 1986. Definitely a brand new format I'd never heard of before. I dropped DC101 like a hot rock and listened to this exclusively until I discovered WHFS in about 1988.

More WCXR nostalgia:

http://paul-altobelli.com/classic-rock-playlist/

I don't remember when I first heard the term "classic rock" but I remember listening to (and taping songs from) the weekly "oldies" show that was syndicated to my local AM station (grew up in a town where there was literally no FM available...as I recall). Originally it was called "golden oldies" and its criteria for inclusion ended in 1966, I think. Once they played the Beatles' "Birthday" and I was goggle-eyed at this obscure rarity pulled from the deep stacks. Granted, I was 12 or 13 so my perspective was a bit ... non-existent. A few years on, they dropped the "golden" bit, presumably because it conjured images of silver-haired folks.

The Big CD Conversion of the late 80s was an absolute gold mine. I had folks practically giving me their record collections: all this prog and punk and new wave and postpunk stuff ("pre-alternative", I guess). During my darkest, brokest years I sold it all for peanuts (thanks, gents, it allowed me to eat, but at the cost of a lifetime of later regret!). But those collections formed a huge chunk of my musical education; I'd never have heard those early Wire or Fall records, or all that Fripp/Eno stuff, or Pylon or Scars, without them. It was like a little Internet at my disposal in 1991. I've never ever had enough money to spend on enough records, and prior to th'internet, you often just had to make stabs in the dark based on an exciting single or a mention in the back pages of Rolling Stone or whatever. And I usually lost those gambles.

I kind of miss having to listen to a record you'd bought on little solid basis over and over, trying to make yourself like it, to justify the $10 you'd spent.

The Who have fallen a long ways. Amazing to see them not make any of the lists on that Mt. Rushmore classic rock graphic. Back in my day, The Who were huge. You kids don't know classic rock from uh, non-classic rock!

I kind of miss having to listen to a record you'd bought on little solid basis over and over, trying to make yourself like it, to justify the $10 you'd spent.

ding ding ding.

I was a teenager in the 70s, and remember one local store renting LPs (may have been as low as $1/day), but I never took advantage of it. No one in high school liked what I liked, but in college a fellow dorm resident did and I taped a lot from him.

I was into prog mostly in high school, and was lucky enough to be able to get the Santa Barbara station on my radio, which had a prog show (Space Pirate Radio) Sunday nights. Led me to a lot of British, German, and Italian bands I never would have heard of otherwise.

In college I discovered punk/new wave and taped from the college station. I'd start a tape at the beginning of the "new wave" show and whenever I decided I didn't like a song I'd have to stop, rewind, and re-cue to the end of the last song I liked. I still have some of those cassettes, I think.

Also college was when I started buying used, which was a godsend to a poor college kid with about $30-40 disposable income per month.

I started out by closing the door in my room once. A week to listen to the top 10. These were some if my most exciting memories of music- shutting out my family and moving in a more exciting space. I used birthdays and Xmas to give my family orders for cassette tapes. If I was into a group it might be the whole lit. I remember getting 4 or 5 Duran Duran tapes one year.My entry point into rap was Ice - t, NWA, Public Enemy with maybe a touch of 2 Live Crew on the side. Then came De la soul , Tribe etc...Thinking back part of this is the thrill off the shock, the attitude, excitement etc..same kinds of. Pleasures given by punk. Which was a love that came later. At the same time as all the rap was going on f nun and then Manchester stuff happened plus maybe all that Pixies and Violent Femmes stuff leading me to believe I knew everything there is to know about music.Then came the job in a record store, ordering records from Jamaica, UK and America revert week...discovering soul, funk, jazz, Fela Kuti, Stooges, Detroit, Esquivel....and everything else in between. Now I feel so lost I don't know anything I sit on this stupid wee phone and try to hit the right buttens with my rusted out flabby fingers.

I wasn't an active networker, had few friends who liked the music I found interesting, and didn't work for college radio or in a record shop. So, to the recent question, it was practically impossible for me to find music that wasn't easily available in local stores. I didn't read book-form record guides but was a voracious consumer of print reviews, especially in the larger fanzines and college/alternative music mags. Spin, Option, Forced Exposure, Your Flesh, MRR & Flipside, UK pop weeklies, the local press: these were my collective Bible. I don't know why, in retrospect, I didn't seek out, say, The Rolling Stone Guide. I relied heavily on books like The Psychotronic Encyclopedia for film reviews, but where music was concerned, I guess I wanted my tips fresh. I was interested almost exclusively in the new releases of the moment, though I did eventually develop a sense of "the underground canon" from the touchstones of musicians & writers I respected: Byron Coley, Greil Marcus, Lester Bangs (Psychotic Reactions & Carburator Dung was a huge early influence).

A really good record store was the best possible resource - ideally, a place with deep & interesting stock, cool employees eager to talk about their favorite music, and a generous listening policy. There were decent shops in the Olympia/Seattle area, but I remember being completely blown away when, sometime in the late 80s, I first stumbled across Yesterday & Today in Rockville, MD. That place was incredible, a little pocket internet. It probably had a bigger influence on my musical tastes than any single magazine, writer or artist I can think of. For the first time, I could easily hear bands like Chrome, The Saints, Can & MC5, not just read about them. Still miss the hell out of that place.

The Who have fallen a long ways. Amazing to see them not make any of the lists on that Mt. Rushmore classic rock graphic. Back in my day, The Who were huge. You kids don't know classic rock from uh, non-classic rock!

― kornrulez6969, Wednesday, February 12, 2014 11:12 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've noticed a marked decline in Who airplay on "classic rock" stations just over the last 5-6 years. No idea why that is, other than that maybe the kids today aren't as patient with Terry Riley-esque intros and interludes as they used to be.

is that right? feel like I hear "won't get fooled again" as much as ever.

I remember well when 105.9 in DC went to classic rock and took the letters WCXR. According to this

http://www.jacobsmedia.com/crxx/war.htm

it was January 28, 1986. Definitely a brand new format I'd never heard of before. I dropped DC101 like a hot rock and listened to this exclusively until I discovered WHFS in about 1988.

More WCXR nostalgia:

http://paul-altobelli.com/classic-rock-playlist/

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Wednesday, February 12, 2014 9:08 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ha, the first "classic rock" station in Chicago, that branded itself as such, was also 105.9 (WCKG), and also started in 1986.

I always hated that term, though, for it's arbitrary exclusion of, well, classic rock (Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Little Richard, etc. etc.)

I mean, it might just be stations in the northeast, but I honestly can't remember the last time I heard WGFA on the radio.

(xp)

Classic rock = 1967 and after (you won't hear a Rolling Stones song from an album earlier than Let It Bleed, and even the Beatles get relegated to specialty shows - two hours on Sunday night, or whatever)
Oldies = 1955-1966

I first encountered classic rock radio when I moved to CT in fall of '86: there was a station that would play weekend "A to Z" retrospectives of the Beatles, Zep, Springsteen, etc, plus would devote a 10PM slot during the week to playing an entire "classic" LP, like Abraxas or something. It was actually novel for a time, as I moved from a place that just had pop radio, country and the aforementioned "oldies" station whose playlists cut off around the time Dylan went electric.

Classic rock radio was the ultimate love/hate for me, because I really didn't like 70% of what I heard, but the other stuff -- Queen, deep cut Beatles, Zeppelin, Rush, the Police -- was some of my favorite music at the time. And yeah, it was kind of a revelation, because all I had been exposed to before that was pop radio and music videos (and odd detours into hardcore punk via my jr high friends). I still look for classic rock when I go back home to Dallas...and I still don't like (at least) 70% of it.

Also, when I got into it, circa '88 or '89, they did play some things pre-67, but I'd say nothing pre-64 or 65 (Satisfaction, Ticket to Ride, You Really Got Me, for example). Basically, they started when "rock" was born, as distinct from rock and roll.

It occurs to me that the pre-internet era for music was kind of better suited to me as a teenager/college student, and the current era is better suited to me as a working adult husband/dad with much less free time. I can take in more different kinds of obscure music now at my desk in the office with little effort than I could spending 10-15 hours a week pursuing it when I was younger.

definitely. the entire context is different. when i was a teenager/college student, there was time to feel part of a "scene," or whatever you'd call it (so seeking out records, and cherishing them, was a high priority). now i have other priorities, and just catch new music where and when i can (so easy convenience to music is the high priority).

records cost money then. now "everything" is "free"

well, i still pay for music. but you're point is well-taken, and it's a problem with the way things stand now. music being so cheap devalues it.

(shakes fist at the sky; curses kids today)

"Adrian's" were definitely top three aspirational NME small ads for young me in the 90s in Australia

'I kind of miss having to listen to a record you'd bought on little solid basis over and over, trying to make yourself like it, to justify the $10 you'd spent.'

ding ding ding.

― fact checking cuz, Thursday, 13 February 2014 15:30 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

p much assume kids these days never ever learn all the lyrics to every song on even their favourite bands albums

> The Who have fallen a long ways.

yeah, ever since they cancelled CSI:NY and CSI:Miami

here in LA, which s the ony place i've ever listened to classic rock radio for any length of time, what with having to have a car and all, i'd say the classic rock mt. rushmore looks something like van halen - boston - pink floyd - the cars.

the who get quite a bit of play (who's next and later only), and the beatles don't exist at all except for two hours on sunday mornings, and even then you're as likely to hear wings as you are to hear beatles.

that just shows you the long shadow of "classic rock." in the 80s, they marketed "classic rock," too, but you wouldn've never thought to include, in the term, relatively new bands like van halen and the cars.

oldies and classic rock are only so much about aesthetics and more about demographics -- the time periods they cover change as their listeners age into and out of their desired demographics

There's a station where I live that markets itself as "San Diego's Greatest Hits." They play '70s and '80s chart pop, but I'm not sure they use the term "oldies." I wonder if that term is still more synonomous with '50s/'60s.

oldies and classic rock are only so much about aesthetics and more about demographics -- the time periods they cover change as their listeners age into and out of their desired demographics

― sarahell, Friday, February 14, 2014

otm. look out, millennials, mumford will soon be "classic rock."

mumford will soon be "classic rock."

you mean they aren't already?

no. they're hip. just like bruno mars, onerepublic, and maroon 5.

I think classic rock stations will keep playing the bulk of what they play now, even a decade from now, with some newer additions. They have been playing late 60s and 70s rock since the eighties, without much of a sliding time window.

I have noticed KROQ is now kind of a classic "new music" station. They still play the new releases but they also play quite a lot from the 80s, 90s, and 00s.

it's less that the older music passes from "classic" into "oldies" status, and more that the window of time for what qualifies as "classic rock" keeps expanding.

one thing I've noticed is that the "we play 90s music now" classic rock stations will play Stone Temple Pilots but not, like, Dire Straits "Heavy Fuel"

Was there as much a paucity of books about rock bands before the late '80s as I remember? Seems unimaginable that you could walk into a bookstore in 1980 and not find a single book about Led Zeppelin, but that seems to be the case.

In the 70s Rolling Stone Press would occasionally put out books focusing on a single artist, but they were usually compilations of old RS interviews/stories (so, needless to say, they didn't do one on Zep).

it's less that the older music passes from "classic" into "oldies" status, and more that the window of time for what qualifies as "classic rock" keeps expanding.

― Daniel, Esq 2, Saturday, 15 February 2014 02:34 (13 hours ago)

I think this is it. Among people my age, the beginning point still seems to be c. 1966 and go from there. Lots of millennials are fans of Led Zeppelin, but it's a lot rarer to find fans of, say, Buddy Holly or Little Richard.

plus Youtube keeps the old hits alive for a younger generation too. I think classic rock radio will simply add the hits of today, rather than take away the old from the past.

Lots of millennials are fans of Led Zeppelin, but it's a lot rarer to find fans of, say, Buddy Holly or Little Richard

this has been true for more than 40 years. by the early '70s (maybe even earlier), all those '50s guys were strictly "oldies" for radio purposes. ground zero for baby boomer culture was the beatles and motown.

In what year did 'oldies' become 'oldies'

When sha na na played woodstock

when two distinctly un-American guys like Ferry and Bowie release cover albums in 1873, they're enshrining something or other

In what year did 'oldies' become 'oldies'

There were also those "Rock 'n' Roll Revival" shows, like the one in 1971 where Rick Nelson was booed, which is what inspired him to write "Garden Party."

The oldest songs on those shows couldn't have been more than 17 years old.

When sha na na played woodstock

this is a really good answer!

Its association with early rock and roll might have a fair amount to do with the popularity of the Oldies But Goodies albums. The first one of those came out as early as 1959. There was also a top ten record called "Those Oldies But Goodies" by a group called Little Caesar and the Romans. That was 1961.

1963

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClZJxk6gDk8

(Anthony & The Sophomores - Play Those Oldies, Mr. Dee Jay)

I get that concept of oldies, in this radio sense, started around pre-63 or pre-66 or something inbetween, but what would the first oldies stations have been? eg could you really have an oldies station in 1964 playing only music up to 1963?