Still Too Soon To Know

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Three questions, which I will try and phrase right - all related though.

They're about importance. For once I'm not talking about importance to one's personal listening history, emotional development etc. I'm interested in how we as individuals perceive "music history" and "historical significance" while it's happening.

The question:

1. What moment, or trend or era in music have you felt was most important while it was happening?

2. Have there been any moments you felt at the time were important, which don't seem as important with hindsight.

3. When you first became aware of pop music as something which had a history, what seemed to you the most important things in the previous ten years?

Comments

salad of all my salad days

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

i had a very clear idea of rock-as-history when i second came to it, which was late -- 14 or 15. I grew up quite isolated in the v.rural country (hi robin!) and somehow apart from my mum and dad's love of the beatles and simon and garfunkel and haha andrew lloyd webber neither pop nor rock really impinged, apart from a liminal fascination with glam (bolan/slade) as sexy allure/threat

when i decided i wanted to be interested i had loads of catching up to do so
i. i bought the "nme book of rock" and studied it v.closely
ii. in it i discovered that one TONY PALMER (http://www.tonypalmer.org/) had educated himself in rock by asking his friends what where the best alBUMS and listening to the top ten and then (cheekily if i am korrekt abt this!) becoming a ROCK CRITIC in a sunday paper and WRITING A TV SERIES about it
iii. so then i too conducted 1xmassive LJ POLL of all my school chums and tabulated the results (which i may still have somewhere) and borrowed tapes to listen to the winners and the outliers and MARKED EVERYTHING OUT OF FIVE

Re: salad of all my salad days

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

"listening to the top ten" -- i mean the top ten of the alBUMS his friends suggested, not the charts (and his website suggests it was the SPECTATOR he was rock critic for)

Re: salad of all my salad days

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

NME Book (encyclopedia?) of Rock definitely a key tome - along with the very first Paul Gambaccini "Grebtest Albums of All Time" paperback - in terms of attempts to shape a history of rock I think. For UK audiences anyway; there may have been rival/earlier/better books in the US.

I came across both of these in my local reference library, and spent quite a few hours perusing them aged 15. There was a third book, which I can't remember the title of, that was more like a directory of musicians and laboriously listed every pop record that each one was credited as playing on - with catalogue numbers and everything! Michael Brecker's entry was very long, even circa 1980!

Re: salad of all my salad days

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Gambo's full-colour 1987 update was a key text for me too when I decided (at 14) that I needed SCHOOLIN'.

Re: salad of all my salad days

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

was it put together by the cognoscenti voting? if so i believe i DISDANED it bcz j.peel declined to take part (and stated that he thought such projects were a waste of time) -- but i sneaked peaks at it in the bookshop all the same

i might add that my schoolchums' list was primarily made up of GENESIS and BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST

Re: salad of all my salad days

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

was it put together by the cognoscenti voting?

It was. Notable casualty of the 2nd edition (i.e. did quite well in 1980, nowhere in 1987) = The Appletree Theatre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appletree_Theatre)!

(there were no doubt others too, but that's the one I will always remember)