1971 Apple TV Soundtrack Poll Part 2

Songs all included here:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/42duhlgN3hmOuXVj9CtIJW?si=a733720ffe0b4991

Jesus, that's another easy poll. Feel like voting for "Tried So Hard" by Gong tbh.

I complained on the other thread about how much time was devoted to Exile, but the series spends almost as much time — maybe more — on Sly, which is beyond welcome, particularly since there are zero Sly docs out there.

Also — spoiler alert — Zeppelin is not mentioned once in the series, not even in passing. I kind of admired that, and it makes sense given the series’ political focus. That said, the just-as-apolitical Osmonds get screen time, but the Jackson 5 goes inexplicably unmentioned.

Harlem

Family Affair I think.

For the pop cultural relevance you would think they'd mention "American Pie," but maybe nostalgia doesn't age well

Ooh family affair, so good. So organic

1. "Family Affair," 2. "Loving Cup" (even though--still haven't seen the series, understand it's very good--I have a philosophical objection to including stuff recorded in '71 but not released until '72, at least if the objective is to capture what it was like to be alive and a pop fan in 1971), 3. "Tiny Dancer," 4. "It's Too Late."

Isaac Wayes a lot, by the way, because he wears all those gold chains.

“Gimme little drink”

Voted for Sly in the previous poll, so "All I Want" over Curtis Mayfield.

I presume the "Black Juju" scene in this series will be the one where Alice gets cake thrown in his face onstage.

One of the Alice Cooper guys says the Black Juju routine didn't always work, so I have to think he had that incident in mind

My 10:

Evil - Stevie Wonder
Harlem - Bill Withers
Theme From "Shaft" - Isaac Wayes
Life on Mars? - David Bowie
All I Want - Joni Mitchell
(Don't Worry) If There is a Hell Below, We're All Going - Curtis Mayfield
Amazing Grace - Aretha Franklin
Family Affair - Sly & The Family Stone
Baba O'Riley - The Who
It's Too Late - Carole King

impulsively voted for “johnny too bad”

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

See Mavis Staples, vote for Mavis Staples (in this instance, Respect Yourself got the nod).

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Wow, someone else voted for Gong!

Finished the series last night, can't find another thread...Liked most of it, so I'll of course begin by carping about omissions.

1) Most obvious to me: the series did a good job of covering the more political Black pop of the day--lots on Riot, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Gil Scott-Heron, etc. (missing "Smiling Faces Sometimes," 1971's greatest song in that vein, I'd say)--but completely omitted any mention of Al Green, the Stylistics, the Spinners, the Chi-Lites, and all the neoclassical soul (Vince Aletti's term) that dominated that era. (Technically, the Spinners were between Motown and Atlantic in '71 and didn't chart any songs.) You can't excuse that.

2) The series more or less leaves out heavy metal and art rock. Maybe, as was suggested by someone when I brought this up in another thread, copyright kept out Led Zeppelin IV. There was a few seconds of Black Sabbath in the last episode. There was the electronic end of art-rock (if this even counts; probably not) with Can and Kraftwerk and Neu! But no Yes or Pink Floyd or Jethro Tull or the more commercially successful end of it--"Roundabout" was a Top 10 hit. It seemed like a sizable omission to me.

3) More subjectively, I think they should have found room for the Carpenters in their little this-was-a-safe-haven Osmonds detour. The Carpenters were huge. They were also, I'd say, pretty great. And when Bowie prattles on about how he and some others "killed the '60s," I'd even argue that the Carpenters had a (very different) hand in doing that too.

I'll stop there ("Jungle Fever" and the first stirrings of disco?). A couple of things I really liked:

1) The way they made connections to other things going on in the culture. Not just obvious connections, though; I loved the way they framed Tapestry with Pat Loud leaving her husband in An American Family, or The Stanford Prison Experiment commenting on both Manson and William Calley, followed by Stevie Wonder's "Evil."

2) Identifying the speakers in the bottom left corner but not putting them on-screen. This kept the contemporaneous footage moving along.

The Bill Withers stuff was great. Learned about lots I didn't know (including, I'm embarrassed to admit, the big Oz trial). I've downloaded a Gong song. I don't know if '71 was any more important than '70 or '72 in shaping the decade, but they made a good case for the year's centrality, and I was never bored over eight episodes.

And (duh) Rod Stewart/Every Picture/"Maggie May"/Faces/"Stay With Me"--all '71, none mentioned (unless I missed it). That's as gaping as the neoclassical soul.