|
Post by daveythefatboy on Sept 24, 2020 21:34:41 GMT
This is where our differences come through Davey I guess, as I find Strummer & Jones or Pete Shelley to be more interesting songwriters than Randy Newman or Warren Zevon. Eye of the beholder. But the intention was different. Newman and Zevon were writing songs meant to stand up without them. Songs to be sung by other people. Strummer/Jones wrote Clash songs. Pete Shelley wrote Buzzcocks songs. People cover them, but they cover them as kind of an allusion to those bands.
|
|
rayge
Administrator
Invisible
Posts: 8,773
Member is Online
|
Post by rayge on Sept 24, 2020 21:38:57 GMT
I don't know if the songwriting was exactly the point of punk. The majority of lyrics were diatribes and rants. Richard Hell, Tom Verlaine, Patti Smith, Howard Devoto, Pete Shelley, John Lydon, Jim Carroll, whoever wrote the lyrics in the Ramones, Vic Godard, wordsmiths/poets all ...Glenn Tilbrook, too. And Mark Perry. Even Elvis Costello had his moments
|
|
Sneelock
god
hey Daddy-O. I don't wanna go.
Posts: 8,507
|
Post by Sneelock on Sept 24, 2020 22:01:10 GMT
So where do you stand with these 2 (broad) genres?
Labels are good because they help you find what you want. I didn't grow up in London in the late seventies so "punk" means something different to me that it does to somebody who did. for me "punk" is what happened to Sheena when she became a punk rocker.I didn't know Sheena personally but I lived in Hollywood when "My Sharona" came out & any band who did NOT get signed only had themselves to blame. was "My Sharona" punk? of COURSE not-- no more than "I wish I could fly like Superman" was Disco. My point, as you may have guessed, is that I think both "genres" were (in my personal experience) primarily labels. I saw "Saturday Night Fever" around Christmas time in the Year of Our Light Saber 1977. I think it's fair to say that "Disco" as we now mean the word came to mean something different AFTER that movie came out than it did before. Look at the soundtrack album. most of the non-Gibb tracks were already making my teeth rattle WELL before everybody got a white suit and went dancing. Do you like one clearly more than the other, or about the same? well, I think I see them more clearly as being umbrellas for lots of other things that were easier to market in a slot with a label on it.The Latin Hustle" predated Saturday Night Fever but it is most certainly what we think of as "Disco" Over here "punk" (as anyone who saw "The Decline of Western Civilization" knows) wasn't seen as a viable label. This resulted in "My Sharona" and other stuff that was supposedly new & exciting but wouldn't make your Dad punch you. Eventually, the L.A. punks felt left out so they found plenty of local bands that WOULD make their Dads want to punch them. my point is that the rep of MANY glam era bands and artists grew when this "new wave" label became the one the guys with fat wallets were comfortable with. N.Y.Dolls, Iggy, even Bowie & Roxy were given new market vibrancy by having their wagons hitched to the "new wave" gravy train. How many kids & young adults were looking for "market vibrancy"? exactly none. I knew plenty of people having plenty of fun in both camps. Have you changed your mind about them since those days?
not really. while I agree there were racial and other components it was pretty easy to be good and sick of Disco by 80, 81. I mean, once something hits that sort of commercial critical mass it just makes you want to barf. No Product under the sun was untouched by Disco influenced marketing. I do think, both trends as I personally experienced them "hit the reset button" in a good way. Disco did this with re-mixes, 12 inch dance versions of things - there's always been good Soul and R&B dance music. Disco made it more famous for a time but it also gave us "the solid gold dancers" I think "dance versions" and re-mixes is an innovation and I think it'll be with us a while.
I feel MUCH differently about the songwriting etc.. than Davey but unlike Davey I have no talent. I know "punk" is easier to discuss than "new wave" but "punk" never really hit the U.S. zeitgeist anywhere near like "Disco" did. I think this accounted for a loyalty and devotion to people who DID identify as punk. I think there's some good work there - X, for one. later bands like Fugazi - they'd consider themselves punks and I think the fair minded would consider their songs the results of songwriting. I think "new wave" was a market force and while it might not have been a way of life it gave us some cool John Hughes movies and did set the "reset" button in another way. I think many of the "new wave" bands are now regarded as "Classic Rock" because, in many ways, that's what they were all along. What do you see as the best of each genre? Disco: Win: I feel Love Place:Night on Disco Mountain Show: Brick House
Since I make a distinction between "punk" and "new wave" maybe I'll skip it rather than give myself a brain hemorrhage. I will say that I think Buzzcocks and Pretenders, E.C. etc.. had some really good songwriting chops pretty early on.
|
|
|
Post by sloopjohnc on Sept 24, 2020 22:21:09 GMT
Good post and good point about Saturday Night Fever. I think that was true in my social circle too.
|
|
|
Post by sloopjohnc on Sept 24, 2020 22:34:46 GMT
Richard Hell, Tom Verlaine, Patti Smith, Howard Devoto, Pete Shelley, John Lydon, Jim Carroll, whoever wrote the lyrics in the Ramones, Vic Godard, wordsmiths/poets all ...Glenn Tilbrook, too. And Mark Perry. Even Elvis Costello had his moments We get it.
|
|
|
Post by Crunchy Col on Sept 24, 2020 22:41:08 GMT
'Night On Disco Mountain'?!?!
I daren't even LOOK...
|
|
Sneelock
god
hey Daddy-O. I don't wanna go.
Posts: 8,507
|
Post by Sneelock on Sept 24, 2020 22:59:26 GMT
its awesome! its on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack!
|
|
|
Post by Crunchy Col on Sept 24, 2020 23:04:44 GMT
I just listened. I'm a bit shaken but I think I'll recover before bedtime.
|
|
Sneelock
god
hey Daddy-O. I don't wanna go.
Posts: 8,507
|
Post by Sneelock on Sept 24, 2020 23:07:44 GMT
I'll take that over boring old "Fifth of Beethoven" ANY day!
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 25, 2020 0:34:16 GMT
Happy not to have really been old enough to be impacted by Disco, which was dead as donuts by 1980
|
|
|
Post by DarknessFish on Sept 25, 2020 7:59:50 GMT
20 years ago, I'd have said punk without a moments hesitation. But then there's so few punk songs/albums I'm that bothered with these days, and all the really great music that came out in that era was influenced by both to different degrees. Without punk you might not get that sprit of independent creativity, without disco you get too many white men strumming and shouting. So I go for both.
|
|
|
Post by sloopjohnc on Sept 25, 2020 13:47:44 GMT
So, I remember Duran Duran saying in an interview that they wanted to combine the Sex Pistols and disco.
When I read that I thought they didn't do either very well.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 25, 2020 14:17:24 GMT
This is where our differences come through Davey I guess, as I find Strummer & Jones or Pete Shelley to be more interesting songwriters than Randy Newman or Warren Zevon. Eye of the beholder. But the intention was different. Newman and Zevon were writing songs meant to stand up without them. Songs to be sung by other people. Strummer/Jones wrote Clash songs. Pete Shelley wrote Buzzcocks songs. People cover them, but they cover them as kind of an allusion to those bands. Well , to my ears at least. Newman wrote songs for the like of Kermit the frog to cover and Pixar/Disney talking animals.Zevon ? I doubt anyone on here has a single record by him , if anything at all.(waits for the inevitable).
|
|
|
Post by DarknessFish on Sept 25, 2020 14:37:03 GMT
So, I remember Duran Duran saying in an interview that they wanted to combine the Sex Pistols and disco. When I read that I thought they didn't do either very well. They took the dance and funkiness of the Pistols, with the anger and aggression of disco.
|
|
|
Post by daveythefatboy on Sept 25, 2020 14:54:31 GMT
Eye of the beholder. But the intention was different. Newman and Zevon were writing songs meant to stand up without them. Songs to be sung by other people. Strummer/Jones wrote Clash songs. Pete Shelley wrote Buzzcocks songs. People cover them, but they cover them as kind of an allusion to those bands. Well , to my ears at least. Newman wrote songs for the like of Kermit the frog to cover and Pixar/Disney talking animals.Zevon ? I doubt anyone on here has a single record by him , if anything at all.(waits for the inevitable). The distinction I am trying to make here might be harder to track my n hindsight. You likely think of guys like Newman and Zevon in terms of their own records and performing careers. But Randy Newman was a successful songwriter with dozens of major artists (Dusty Springfield, Petulant Clark, The Fleetwoods, Jerry Butler, Irma Thomas, Harpers Bizarre, Alan Price, Jackie DeShannon and others) all covering his songs before his debut album. Zevon didn’t have as much success before his debut, but he did manage songs on albums by The Turtles, Phil Everly, and on The Midnght Cowboy soundtrack. After his debut, his songs were covered by everyone. The point is - these guys were professional songwriters before they were performers. That’s a thing that has largely gone away. Maybe a thing that you do don’t and/or don’t value. But it changed music in general when artists became self-contained.
|
|