Before The Flood

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

This is a poll about John Peel's Festive Fifty, 1976. Just tick all the songs you like from the list of 50 (counting down from #50 to #1, as it happens). I've put it up because i) I'm curious about the results, ii) I'm probably writing a pitchfork column about the F50.

[Poll #1137239]

And some more general questions I'd like to think about - they're quite big questions though:

- What does rock do better now? What does it do worse?
- How does the stuff that won respect and adoration on this poll differ from the stuff that critics and fans enjoy now (a VERY broad formulation, I know)?
- Where's the modern equivalent of the audience suggested here - Pazz and Jop? the Pitchfork Readers Poll?
- What were Poco and can we eat them?

Comments

[cis.livejournal.com]

I like how they managed to pick two of the Beatles songs i hate most in the entire world! Wow, 1976, you were wierd.

A lot of these, for me, are basically just Time Life Advert songs - I recognise them as a snippet of chorus, a name scrolling in little yellow capital letters (white means 'on the record' yellow means 'playing now'!) over sepia band footage or a blue-sky shot of a freewheelin' road trip. So I think of the audience as being completely mainstream: this is straight-up eighties-baby 'stuff your dad was supposed to want to play in the car'.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I guess the main clue as to the non mainstreamness is the dogs NOT barking here - no "Bo Rhap"!

But also the mainstream and the non-mainstream were closer anyway?

[cis.livejournal.com]

also the mainstream and the non-mainstream were closer anyway?

yes; also, I think, that sort of process of consensus by which the not-so-much-mainstream-as-acclaimed becomes the version of the mainstream that the future gets shown? (i don't know if this is quite the nostalgia industry - people make a lot of money out of going 'wow in the eighties we liked a lot of rubbish, that was a great thing about it', but at the same time I suspect that people looking back at the eighties might assume that, i dunno, Talking Heads were more popular than they really were.)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

cf: LCD Soundsystem in 20 years time

[cis.livejournal.com]

pretty much, yeah!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

my frustration when I look back at the established canon is nothing compared to how frustrated I am when I can feel exactly the same thing happening around me, now; and it's the same process, too. White educated dudes get to pick the music which white educated dudes are 'meant' to like, ignore or snark at vast swathes of popular culture on the way, and...somehow get to dictate the shape of how future generations listen to music? It's so wrong.

[cis.livejournal.com]

what I like is how the canon industry and the nostalgia industry, which are basically the same cabal of white dudes twice over except one lot believe that humankind can achieve greatness and this greatness takes the form of Sound Of Silver and the other lot believe that humankind will only ever achieve aspartame-of-the-people cheap temp thrills and this aspartame takes the form of 'Soulja Boy', work together to form a double canon that admits to the existence of stuff outside the established canon but only in terms which reinforce the established canon! And they don't even need to plan it, they just do it naturally. humankind is frickin amazing, for reals.

is the only solution to get in there and bash the canon into the shape it should be? I can neverwork out if that's ideologically okay.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I believe that humankind can achieve greatness and this greatness takes the form of Soulja Boy!

I would kind of like to nullify the entire concept of the canon? make yr own personal canons, people.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I just youtubed A Day In The Life - I haven't heard it before which kind of boggles me. It doesn't have a chorus? And then goes all weird? I assume it's meant to be all messy and... kind of rubbish?

[cis.livejournal.com]

also 'found my way upstairs and had a smoke/then somebody spoke and i went into a dream' OMG IT IS SO TOTES ABOUT DRUGZ OMG THE BEATLES SO RADICAL.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. On the other hand, yes!

[(Anonymous)]

NB I still ticked it! I might even go back and tick 'Strawberry Fields', which maybe I don't hate as much as I thought I did on first reading the poll.

[cis.livejournal.com]

that was me obv.

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

I suspect I am not the only person who is only giving the beatles a chance on the "Ticket To Wine" ticker.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

It's (the last track?) on Sergeant Peppers, so it's (always been presented to me as) a big "where are our cheeky lads from Liverpool leading us to?" track.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's cosmic drug pop. I love it mind you.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Hadn't they already done this to death? 'Tomorrow Never Knows' does the whole thing in a much less terrifying and scrappy way. 'A Day In The Life' sounds to me like they're trying to get away with half a song and some arsing about. Drugz are bad for your work ethic, kids!

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Haha isn't Sergeant Pepper's the album which provoked newspaper stories about "Have the Beatles finally lost it?" because they'd been in the studio for all of 9 months? But yeah good point.

[cis.livejournal.com]

TOMORROW NEVER KNOWS IS A BLIGHT ON THE FACE OF MUSIC

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

b-b-but if it had never existed we wouldn't have the Phil Collins cover version! And then where would we be?

[cis.livejournal.com]

I am not sure even the steadying hand of St Phil can save that awful terrible no-good song!

[sbp.livejournal.com]

Well they did just ram two half songs together, one by Paul, one by Lennon.

[sbp.livejournal.com]

I usually heard it standalone, or possibly as part of the blue hits album. It was a long while before I heard St Peppers and it was terribly inconsistent and not half as good as everyone says it was.

[sbp.livejournal.com]

You've never heard it before? What planet are you living on Miss Stevens?

[cis.livejournal.com]

Time Life stuff for me is basically 'pop' - it's just it's VH1 Classic/Capital Gold rather than MTV/Capital. Unfortunately, the stuff that isn't Time Life is the stuff I haven't heard, which maybe doesn't deserve the TL stereotype.