This course, part 2 of a 2-course sequence, examines the history of rock, primarily as it unfolded in the United States, from the early 1970s to the early 1990s. This course covers the music of Led Zeppelin, the Allman Brothers, Carole King, Bob Marley, the Sex Pistols, Donna Summer, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince, Metallica, Run-DMC, and Nirvana, and many more artists, with an emphasis both on cultural context and on the music itself. We will also explore how developments in the music business and in technology helped shape the ways in which styles developed. Emerging out of the experimental and ambitious years of late-60s psychedelia, rock splintered into a variety of styles in the 1970s as the music business continued to expand. By the end of the decade, punk and disco had challenged the excesses of the hippie aesthetic, as rock became more commercially streamlined and radio friendly. The emergence and rise of MTV transformed pop music and propelled the careers of Michael jackson and Madonna, while heavy metal and hip hop dominated the late 1980s. Nirvana leads alt-rock's return to simplicity in the early 1990s.
Leaner Prog, Louder Singer-Songwriters
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来自 University of Rochester 的课程
摇滚史，第二部分
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从本节课中
Mainstream Rock, Punk, and New Wave (1975-79)
Rock style from the early 70s are streamlined and labeled corporate rock, as the music business expands even further. The mega-album. Punk reacts with a return to simplicity. New wave develops the punk attitude. [Read Chapter 10 and work through listening guides and dedicated video.]
与讲师见面
John CovachProfessor of Music and Director
Institute for Popular Music
Let's consider for a minute, the music of what happened to the progressive rockers
and the singer songwriters in the second half of the 1970's.
And their music and how it changed and developed and new groups that came in,
new artists that came in, in those perspective styles.
it's interesting that in the groups from the first half of the 70's, the pop
rockers from the first half of the 70's. there were some important changes that
happened about mid-decade King Crimson for example disbanded in 1974 so we
really don't have anything to say about them in the second half of the decade.
And Genesis. Peter Gabriel who had fronted the group
from the beginning now left the band after The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.
And after a long search for a singer they finally decided they would use the guy
who'd been the drummer in the group, Phil Collins.
Well, maybe he'll be able to handle it. Boy, did he ever.
I mean, Phil Collins became, when we talk about the 80s, we'll talk about Genesis
and Phil Collins in the '80s. What a big star he become.
By 1976 with Phil Collins now fronting the band, they came out with A Trick Of
The Tale and Genesis was basically continuing on almost without feeling a
bump of having lost Peter Gabriel. Peter Gabriel fans won't agree with that
but that's pretty much the way it happened at least with regard to sales
and concert life and sort of the commercial health of the group.
Emerson, Lake & Palmer were sort of at the very end of their tenure by 1977
releasing two big albums works, volume one and then the single album works
volume two together a kind of a three album set.
They'd taken some time off to do to solo projects and to work on their own playing
and various kinds of things, I take it this was their sort of last big shot.
Jethro Tull continued relatively unabated Songs from the Wood 1977, many ways their
Proggiest album, or at least the one that has the most complicated arrangements in
it. so Ian Anderson, continuing to forge
ahead. And Yes is back with an album called
Going for the One, 1977, which had, you know, a lot of people, even Rolling
Stone, hailed as the real kind of return for the band after some time off.
they hadn't released any big studio albums since Relayer, which was 73 or 74.
They brought out some solo albums, they toured a lot, they brought out some
greatest hits, or compilations of earlier stuff.
Rick Wakeman, who had left the group, after Tails of Topographic Oceans was
back again. And so the group did a whole, had this
whole album going for the one, big tours, Yes we are still going strong, 1977-1978.
but what also starts to happen during this time, is other groups start to come
in, who take the prog rock thing and maybe make it leaner.
Make it, blend it in with blues rock a little bit more.
In a way maybe more prog heavy than what we said about Foreigner and Boston in the
previous lecture. Now the basis of it seems to be prog
music, or prog rock but kind of making it a little bit friendlier, more
radio-friendly by bringing in. More kind of blues and, pop song
elements. The two groups that, two of the groups
that really make a big difference in this regards are American groups, Kansas and
Styx. Kansas' Left Overture, I think is their
fourth album from 1977. And number five record, check me on that,
Left Overture, but the big one sort of breakthrough album, number five, As I
Say, and the single, Carry on Wayward Son, number eleven.
Really brings them to everybody's attention on FM rock during this period.
And then the follow up album, even better, even bigger, Point of No Return
from 1978. Number four on the charts here with the
song Dust in the Wind, the song that so many people who have bought acoustic
guitars have learned to play in the years since.
and number six hit for them in 1978, sticks Coming out of Chicago led by
Dennis DeYoung. as a big album, not their first album,
again, like, like Kansas they had done a few albums before this, but in 1977 they
really hit big with The Grand Illusion. Maybe it's the addition of Tommy Shaw
into the group, although I'm not sure this was his first one with the band.
Certainly his presence is very much felt on The Grand Illusion, a number six
record for them. The song Come Sail Away a number eight
record. And both of these albums, both of these
bands Kansas and Styx, a lot of the kind of keyboard base kind of stuff.
Synthesisers very much upfront, but great hook oriented vocals and the guitars tend
to be a little bit more blue's rock then what you would find in most progressive
rock. So you get a lot more sort of the heavy
guitars spacy, classicy sounding. Classical-ish, see if that's a word.
Classical-ish sounding keyboards. and then, and then, a kind of a, sort of
a pop oriented approach to the vocal hooks in the song forms, that all sort of
boil down to forms 4 or 5 minutes long that will fit onto this now, increasing
constrained but much bigger world of FM rock radio in the second half of the 70s.
But, and I know there are some people who have been waiting for me to say this for
all the weeks leading up to this. Probably the biggest group for pushing
progressive rock at the end of the 70s that comes on to the scene.
Of the groups that aren't already established.
Is the band from Canada. Yes, I'm talking about Rush, from
Toronto. Geddy Lee, Neil Peart, and Alex Lifeson.
Had had previous radio success with tracks like Fly by Night from 1975.
But the big concept album 2112 from 1976 was the whole side of a record, you know,
that was just, 2112 is often cited as a real important point of arrival for that
band. they continue on into the outta the 70s
with The Spirit of Radio, and the track from 1980 that was on the radio all the
time, Tom Sawyer, on the radio all the time, 1981.
The, the the down side of all this for for Rush was that just at the time when
they were coming along with albums that had big, long, elaborate kind of songs,
radio was constraining and even groups like Yes couldn't get their long songs.
onto the radio but they always had these hits that, that sort of permeated FM rock
radio. And of course Rush went on in the 80s and
the 90s and even most recently to be inducted into the rock and roll hall of
fame to be the one of the most enduring bands, out of the late 1970s so.
Let's hear it, for Rush. Other British bands that arise in the
second half of the 70s, The Alan Parsons Project.
The Alan Parsons had been a recording engineer for The Beatles and for Pink
Floyd, did the engineering on Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.
He pulls together a group of studio musicians.
For a series of sort of concept albums from the second half of the 70s I robot
from 1977 is an important one, from that period.
The Electric Light Orchestra run by Jeff Lynne really kind of takes the Beatles
songs with strings idea. Strawberry Fields Forever, I Am the
Walrus, Glass Onion, tracks like that, and kind of turns it into their own kind
of style. And of course, Jeff Lynne is somebody
very much respected by the Beatles. When the Beatles got back together in
1995, the three remaining Beatles got back together in 1995, Jeff Lynne did all
the productions on the new tracks that they , the new tracks that they produced.
when George Harrison. From The Traveling Wilburys Jeff Lynne
was a member of that. So very much part of the kind of the
Beatles tradition. The representative album I would say is
Eldorado from 1975. It was a Number 16 record with Can't Get
It Out of My Head being the big radio single on, on that.
But, but really, anything after between 75 and 79, pretty good representation of
what Electric Light Orchestra was up to. Another group that fits into this, this,
this idea of, of, of groups that kind of continue earlier styles is Queen.
fronted by Freddie Mercury. And con, featuring guitarist Brian May
who's famous for the many harmonized guitars that created the sort of guitar
chorist and very sort of classically oriented observing principals of
traditional voice leading in this kind of structure, a, to make theses fantastic a
guitar solos. The big break through album for them,
again, not their first one, was a night at the opera.
From 1976 which was the number four album for them and included the song Bohemian
Rhapsody which has gone on to be one of those songs like Stairway to Heaven or
something like that. That, that, you know, it becomes kind of
emblematic of 70s rock radio. So Queen of course going to have enormous
amount of success. Into the, out of the 70s and then into
the 80s as well. bringing together a real eclectic
approach to different kinds of styles, something that you see Paul McCartney
doing a lot in the, in the, the second half of the Beatles career, the late
1960s. putting together as I say the Brian May
sort of harmonized guitars. and some elements of kind of classical
playing as we see in Bohemian Rhapsody and other kinds of of Queen music.
Let's talk now about the singer-songwriters, who by now the second
half of the 70s were mostly fronting bands.
When we talk about singer-songwriters probably the best place to start is with
Bob Dylan. And in the second half of the 70s Dylan
was very active touring in front of a band, the big, one of the big albums from
that period, Blood on the Tracks, his number one album from 1975.
featuring the song Tangled up in Blue. Dylan, a very much a feature of rock
radio and the rock world in the second half of the 70s.
Turning to a kind of conservative religious, Christian religious kind of
perspective toward the end of the 70s. I mention not that because I want to,
really, I want to steer clear of anything that has to do with politics and religion
in these courses. But just to say that Dylan is the kind of
artist who will often remake himself. and you never really know whether the
Dylan that you're seeing is the real guy or whether it's a kind of a, a persona
that he's constructed to be able to deliver the songs.
I actually think that's, that's kind of the secret is that the whoever Bob Dylan
is, the private Bob Dylan, we're never going to see that.
We're only going to see the fact that he chooses to show.
So the face changes a little bit during the 70s, for, for Bob Dylan.
That's why I bring that up. Elton John continues with his success,
Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy from 1975.
A big album for him with the single, the radio single, Someone Saved My Life, at
number four single. two songs that recorded at about the same
time Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and Philadelphia Freedom, were never released
on an album but were singles. Sometimes if you buy that, if you buy the
CD package for the re-released Captain Fantastic album, you get those I think
bundled in as part, as bonus tracks for that.
So Elton John has in fact great success [UNKNOWN] Paul Simon, continues with his
success. He brings out an album at 77 called, His
Greatest Hits, etc, where he has the song, Slip Slidin Away, included in that.
New music included with his greatest hits collection, a number five hit.
For me the most interesting Paul Simon, from the end of the decade, is the album,
One Trick Pony. It was number twelve on the charts,
released in 1980, the single was Late in the Evening, number six single.
But I think those number sound pretty good, but I think it was kind of a
disappointing effort in the eyes of many people commercially for Paul Simon at the
time. It was the soundtrack to a movie he
realised, called One Trick Pony, and the movie I wouldn't say that it flopped but
it was not it was not the success that he'd hoped it.
It was not it was not a hard day's night okay, but its a very interesting story.
I think its a very well made he gets some very well made movie.
He gets some fantastic musicians, Richard T, Richard, Eric Gale, Tony Levin, Steve
Gad are all in the band and in the movie he's sort of touring around with he.
And the tunes that he does, are the most musically sophisticated, or at least in a
sort of complex harmonic way, rhythmic way.
The most musically sophisticated ones that he's done up to that point.
They are a really fantastic point of arrival.
And really sort of put us together with groups like Steely Dan, and some of the
others who are using jazz elements in a sophisticated kind of, and the players
he's got, I mean you don't get much better then the guys he has on that
record and will appear with him in the movie.
So that's interesting one from Paul Simon.
The, the other singer-songwriters we'll talk about, all kind of, I'm going to
place them all kind of with regard to their regional origins.
So we'll have Billy Joel, Jackson Browne, Bob Seeger, and Bruce Springsteen.
Billy Joel of Long Island, New York, right.
In 1973 he has an album and a song by the name of Piano Man which make it onto the
radio a lot. Kind of his version of Harry Chapin and a
lot of kinds of ways very much influenced by Harry Chapin's style.
But The Stranger from 1977 is the big the big album for him that kind of breaks
through. It's number two on the charts.
And Just the Way You Are, the song which was hard to imagine since it's been
played by so many wedding bands in the past in the time since.
But at the time. It was a fantastically sort of
atmospheric ballad Just the Way You Are. Before it turned into, like I say, to a
wedding band classic. So Billy Joel goes on to have fantastic
success into the 80s. And we'll return to him again when we
talk about that. Jackson Browne coming out of L.A.
had written Take It Easy with a with the Eagles, had a hit with Doctor My My Eyes
in 1972. His album Running On Empty from 1978 is
number three and really sort of launches Jackson Browne in many ways.
plays a, plays a role in launching him in the second half of the this, of the
decades as a kind of a performer in his own right.
And not just a songwriter. So you've got Billy Joel bringing the
Long Island sensibility to bear. Jackson Browne bringing the Los Angeles
or Southern California sensibility to bear.
Bob Seger coming from Detroit, Michigan. Right?
His roots in Detroit going all the way back to the late 60s where he had a
series of regional hits. did okay, in the first half of the 1970s,
but with the album Night Moves from 1977 he became a big star.
That album number number eight, the title song Night Moves.
plus the song Main Street were both big sort of radio singles for him.
A whole sequence of albums after that, that consistently go to the top of the
charts and make him one of the most important singer, songwriters of the
second half of the decade. So we've got Long Island, Los Angeles,
Detroit we come now to New Jersey and we say New Jersey we're almost all also
saying Bruce Springsteen right? Bruce Springsteen has his first big
success in 1975 with Born to Run. the title track itself being a kind of
combination of Bob Dylan Meets Phil Spector meets the Rolling Stones.
whatever's going on in that, it's a, it's a, it's a great sounding album, but it's
not the biggest success that Bruce Springsteen will have.
Really want to talk about Bruce Springsteen, we talk about the fantastic
success he had during the 80s, but not so bad.
Like I say, most bands would would would kill to have an album that's as success,
as successful as Born to Run, but Bruce Springsteen was get, was just getting
started. Well, as we think about this music from
the from the first half, second half of the 70s here, before we move on to punk
and new wave I'll leave it to you to decide whether you think this music
constitutes a kind of synthesis of earlier things.
Maybe for the develop, but also synthesis of earlier stylistic things.
Or whether it constitutes a kind of homogenization.
Is this an interesting period in which rock music is refined and made
increasingly sort of lean and compact, and lean and mean?
Or does it become so homogenized because everybody shooting for the big album that
it loses a lot of its original kind of visceral effect.
Too many of the sharp corners are sanded down.
It's a little bit too radio-friendly. It's kind of been neutered in a certain
kind of sense. And no longer has the kind of edge,
commitment, and authenticity that it had during the first half of the decade.
I'll let you decide whether or not you think it's corporate rock or classic rock
from the late 1970s. But for now, let's move on to Punk.
First, we'll turn to the United States.
