who was retro before anyone else was retro?

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I mean someone new actively emulating a bygone sound... not just the fifties PLUS seventies thing of Gary Glitter, but someone who wanted to be really "authentic" about some era of music they weren't old enought to really be part of... at first, I was thinking The Flaming Groovies but maybe even they were trying to update the stuff they liked a bit. maybe some sixties blues & folk dudes? maybe i'm not thinking hard enough

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Saturday, 4 June 2005 03:34 (twenty years ago)

Sha Na Na. Unless the Charleston revival of the 1950s had an affect on the charts.

― j.lu (j.lu), Saturday, 4 June 2005 03:58 (twenty years ago)

Any of the first wave of folk revivalists.

― Hurting (Hurting), Saturday, 4 June 2005 03:59 (twenty years ago)

Leon Redbone?

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Saturday, 4 June 2005 04:03 (twenty years ago)

The Shaggs were meta before meta was cool.

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Saturday, 4 June 2005 04:17 (twenty years ago)

I don't think folk revivalists can qualify because they were too much the po-faced traditionalists. Retro is not exactly traditionalism, it must have a whiff of irony.

― o. nate (onate), Saturday, 4 June 2005 04:20 (twenty years ago)

bob dylan was po-faced?

― to let - flats (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 4 June 2005 04:21 (twenty years ago)

To the extent that he was a folk revivalist... That's why he had to break with them I think.

― o. nate (onate), Saturday, 4 June 2005 04:25 (twenty years ago)

Retro is more like the Cramps, I think. Or the Stray Cramps.

― o. nate (onate), Saturday, 4 June 2005 04:26 (twenty years ago)

er, Stray Cats.

― o. nate (onate), Saturday, 4 June 2005 04:26 (twenty years ago)

Happy Days

― ReNTBAPA: Resolute Not To Be A Prick Anymore (Unfortunate Prankster), Saturday, 4 June 2005 04:29 (twenty years ago)

stray cramps!!

― to let - flats (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 4 June 2005 04:52 (twenty years ago)

when yer gettin a new gottle of vino, it dont matter whats brand new or whates retro, ya might as well do the fuckin haka to the doors 2 some dutch birds and have a laff.

― Popli Kid, Saturday, 4 June 2005 06:04 (twenty years ago)

i like bloc pary cps they sound like early U2 without the bullshit. but then sojme nuggets is always good like breakout of gretely or whatever that fuckin tooon is

― Popli Kid, Saturday, 4 June 2005 06:05 (twenty years ago)

they sound like early U2 without the bullshit

I've yet to actually listen to Bloc Party but I love that description.

― Cunga (Cunga), Saturday, 4 June 2005 07:45 (twenty years ago)

Trad Jazzers in Britain in the 50s reproducing the Dixieland Jazz of the 20s

― Soukesian, Saturday, 4 June 2005 08:05 (twenty years ago)

Richard Wagner

― Siegbran (eofor), Saturday, 4 June 2005 10:16 (twenty years ago)

Weezer

― Anthony Lombardi (CCPO), Saturday, 4 June 2005 13:51 (twenty years ago)

The Nazz

― Zack Richardson (teenagequiet), Saturday, 4 June 2005 15:00 (twenty years ago)

Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds and The Animals

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Saturday, 4 June 2005 16:47 (twenty years ago)

Plus all those 1920s-30s "neoclassical" composers of course. Also, Mozart was retro by doing a fugue in the concluding movement of his "Jupiter" Symphony.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Saturday, 4 June 2005 16:48 (twenty years ago)

I'd say the first real trend for the kind of irony tinged retro pop that continues all over the map to this day was the Twenties revivial of 1966-67. "When I'm 64", "Hello Hello", "Dream a Little Dream of Me", Tiny Tim, etc. The big hit that really set it off was "Winchester Cathedral", but the sound appeared in milder forms earlier in 1966 from several artists: "Daydream", "Sunny Afternoon", "Good Day Sushine".

So the answer is the Lovin' Spoonful.

― Curt (cgould), Saturday, 4 June 2005 17:56 (twenty years ago)

'Bad Moon Rising' is an uncanny and deliberate Sun studio pastiche in when, 1969?

xp- Cunga, you are going to be so disappointed. Just imagine those records, the reality of them will let you down.

― snotty moore, Saturday, 4 June 2005 22:36 (twenty years ago)

Sidebar: Which genre had the shortest turn around for a "retro" revival? New Wave.

― J W, Saturday, 4 June 2005 22:50 (twenty years ago)

This thread reminds me that I got an e-mail the other day plugging a new Robert Gordon album, and I almost told the publicist to send me one.

― pdf (Phil Freeman), Saturday, 4 June 2005 23:03 (twenty years ago)

Sidebar: Which genre had the shortest turn around for a "retro" revival? New Wave.

No way. At least 20 years has passed in between. It's no different than '77 revived in '97 with all of the pop punk bands -- '66 revived in '86 as the paisley underground -- 40's blues revived in the '60s -- or folk revivalists digging up the '30s in the '50s. I think the only explanation for all of the hubub over post-punk or new wave revivalism is that some ageing critics who liked the stuff when it was happening can't face up to the fact that their youth is now in the category of nostalgia.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Sunday, 5 June 2005 00:02 (twenty years ago)

It seems like there was a New Wave revival in the 90s.

― Ian John50n (orion), Sunday, 5 June 2005 00:03 (twenty years ago)

Examples?

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Sunday, 5 June 2005 00:10 (twenty years ago)

for me, it'd be the Move--all those lifts from Duane Eddy and many others. but they were instant-retro with their Monkees imitation, "Wave the Flag and Stop the Train." the Flamin Groovies were imitating John Sebastian...but I'd say "Supersnazz" is pretty early self-conscious retro. come to think, were they really any more self-conscious than the Stones or those good-timey jug band imitators in San Francisco around 1966? I dunno.

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Sunday, 5 June 2005 01:59 (twenty years ago)

Dixieland jazzers was also the first thing that came to my mind. It was pretty popular in the U.S. Pete Fountain has sold a whole lot of records.

― Earl Nash (earlnash), Sunday, 5 June 2005 06:15 (twenty years ago)

Examples?

NWONW obvs. Elastica, These Animal Men, S*M*A*S*H and whoever else dissolved into anonymity within 18 months or when Britpop geared up and supplanted it, whichever came first.

― kit brash (kit brash), Sunday, 5 June 2005 07:56 (twenty years ago)

adam and the ants born,lived and died in the past
eg 1 18th century american indian in 17th century france.
eg 2 vive le rock was a brilliant homage to elvis during 1950's.

― pablo picasso, Sunday, 5 June 2005 08:47 (twenty years ago)

The sixties/twenties thing is interesting. I think that Viv Stanshall and the Bonzo Dog band probably instigated that, though 'Revolt into Style' described an earlier, more Jazz oriented troupe called the Alberts, who seem to have been a similar sort of thing. I reckon this approach fed into Roxy Music in a severely distorted form.

The point about the twenty (or whatever) year gap probably relates to the amount of time taken for the records and the clothes to find their way to thrift shops and be taken up and reassessed by kids. Shorter turnaround now than in the sixties.

― Soukesian, Sunday, 5 June 2005 09:21 (twenty years ago)

Bill Russell recording Bunk Johnson in the '40s in New Orleans was pretty proto-retro.

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:31 (twenty years ago)

Which genre had the shortest turn around for a "retro" revival? New Wave.

Powerpop. Iveys (later known as Badfinger) and Nazz were reviving 1965 in 1968.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:54 (twenty years ago)

It seems like there was a New Wave revival in the 90s.

Just before Britpop, the British music press were writing about a New Wave Of New Wave, with bands such as S*M*A*S*H.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Sunday, 5 June 2005 14:55 (twenty years ago)

Geir! Haha!

― Orbit (Orbit), Sunday, 5 June 2005 16:01 (twenty years ago)

I was going to say Tom Waits but he's def not the first.

― dog latin (dog latin), Monday, 6 June 2005 01:17 (twenty years ago)

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