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Notes on video lecture:
1975-1980: The Rise of the Mega-Αlbum
Notes taken by Edward Tanguay on September 26, 2015 (go to class or lectures)
Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:
long, profits, dumbing, Pepper, Green, mega, seventies, maximum, winning, concept, ears, expansion, album, commercial, England, hear, talk, surprise, formatted, 1976, 31, Humble, say, play, tours, anything, thinking, wildest, Buckingham, surgical, Walsh, opportunities
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second half of the                   
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FM radio changed over the course of the 1970s
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started as free form, you can play                  you want, disc jockey was in complete control
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as it became popular, more stations switched to the           -oriented rock format
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more possibility of                being made
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so only had songs that people wanted to         
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radio was not just radio, it was                      radio, the owners of the stations were in it to:
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self advertising, make money
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the more          you could get on the station, the more you could charge for advertising
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there was a force on the station to construct a          list that kept people listening as much as possible
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as the 70s unfold, the disc jockeys have less and less        about what is played on the air
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they don't lose all say but in general
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leads to a bigger FM radio business
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in the beginning of the 70s you might have had          tracks that went on for 8 or 9 minutes
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by the end of the 70s the                song is about 4 to 5 minutes
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AM became pop radio at the end of the 60s
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rock radio moves into the FM band at the end of the 60s and into the 70s
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but by the time it gets to the mid-decade it looked quite like AM radio from the 60s
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in the sense that it is highly                   
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almost a top 40 kind of format
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a lot of the musicians from the first half of the decade didn't like that that much
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concert circuit venues
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the first tours in the 60s was not a big concert business
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in the late 70s you have people who are in the business of doing nothing but
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promoting these           
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providing sound systems for these tours
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providing lighting for these tours
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being on the road with a band becomes a business that you can do full time and make a lot of money
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provides a lot of                            for bands
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the rise of the         -album
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1975-1980
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comes as a bit of a                  in the music business
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some bands in the second half of the 70s had record sales far beyond the                fantasies and dreams of record company owners and investors
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explodes in a fantastic kind of way
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triggered a kind of                down of rock in order to go for the biggest sales possible
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Peter Frampton - Frampton Comes Alive (        )
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one of the first big mega albums
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previous bands
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             Pie
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1971 Rockin' the Fillmore: double live album
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1972-1974 three solo albums
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a live album
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"Show Me the Way"
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"Baby, I love Your Way"
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"Do You Feel Like We Do"
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became famous for something called the          box
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had inch-wide                  tubing
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you could shape it as if the guitar was talking
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make him into a star
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Eagles - Hotel California (1976)
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Joe           
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very big album
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"New Kid in Town"
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"Hotel California"
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"Life in the Fast Lane"
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a bit of a                album about what can happen to you if you get stuck in the California life style
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you can check out anytime you want but you can never leave
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influenced by the Sgt.              album cover
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1979: The Long Run, another big album
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put the Eagles into the category of mega stars with gigantic sales
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Fleetwood Mac -
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originally starts out as a Blues band in               
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Mick Fleetwood and John McVie
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Peter            on lead guitar
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black magic woman, later a hit for Santana
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Bob Welch in early 1970s
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then leaves
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then two Americans
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Lindsey                     
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Stevie Nicks
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1975 Fleetwood Mac
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"Over my Head"
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"Rhiannon"
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1977 Rumours
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very big album
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not only #1, but spent      weeks at #1
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"Dreams"
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"Go Your Own Way"
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"Don't Stop"
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all staples of classic rock radio now
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tremendous                    of profit in the business
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record businesses had their mouths watering
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because there was so much money in it
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the criticism would be that this shapes a lot of their                 
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it's a multi-million dollar lottery and they don't want to invest their money in bands that don't have a chance of               

Ideas and Concepts:

Via tonight's History of Rock and Roll class, perhaps the last of rock and roll's hippy ethic before rock and roll began its slow death to commercialism and mega concerts in the late 70s: "sexy Stevie Nicks and her unique and beautiful voice singing her heart out with Fleetwood mac, Rhiannon, 1976. "Rhiannon is the story of a lady that is from another world, called the Bright world, and she leaves her kingdom to become the wife of a king, a mortal king, but goddesses really can't marry mortal kings, if they do they lose their powers, their magic powers. And they don't lose the knowledge of them they just, they know everything that's going to happen they just can't do anything about it. Which is a much more difficult way to live than not having magic powers is to not be able to use them and know exactly what's coming and to not be able to tell anybody. So she comes down and does her whole trip, and it's just a whole story, it's a wonderful story. And she has these birds that sing and that is the legend of the song of the birds of Rhiannon. And they sing this song that is uh, said takes away pain and suffering and if you hear the song you just sort of blank out and go away and then when you wake up everthing's all right. And it is a wonderful, wonderful story which I use a lot, because there's a lot of, there seems to be a lot of need for the story of Rhiannon around lately, because if people are sad or have lost anybody or something the story really makes a lot of sense. - Stevie Nicks"
On the purpose of writing music, 1976 Stevie Nick interview, what a beautiful honest voice, via tonight's History of Rock and Roll class: "To me music is writing songs which is to be able to write something that maybe at a time in somebody else's life they need a little help or a little inspiration, and they would sit down and listen to something that I wrote and it would make them feel just a little better and they would be able to go, yeah, somebody else has been there, too. All of my songs are written about real people, either me or a friend."
The decade the music died, via this morning's History of Rock and Roll class: "The rise of the mega-album from 1975 to 1980 came as a bit of a surprise in the music business. Suddenly a few bands in the second half of the 70s, some of the first being Peter Frampton, The Eagles, and Fleetwood mac, started having record sales far beyond the wildest fantasies and dreams of record company owners and investors. The sales that could be generated by album sales began to explode in a fantastic way for investors. Capitalizing on this suddenness of stardom popularity, record managers began to fill not just night clubs but dozens of stadiums across the country on tours, selling tickets, t-shirts, posters and paraphernalia producing exponential increases in profits that could be made if you happened to find and own the right band in this increasingly winner-take-all market. Rock and roll became a multi-million dollar lottery and record companies didn't want to invest their money in bands that don't have a chance of winning in it, which triggered a gradual dumbing down of rock and roll in order to go for the biggest sales possible."
1970s: Hippie Aesthetic, Corporate Rock, Disco, and Punk
British Blues-Based Bands and the Roots of Heavy Metal
American Blues Rock and Southern Rock
The Era of Progressive Rock
Jazz Rock in the 70s
Theatrical Rock: KISS, Bowie, and Alice Cooper
American Singer-Songwriters of the 70s
British and Canadian Singer-Songwriters
Country Rock's Influence on 1970s Music
Black Pop in the 1970s
Sly Stone and His Influence on Black Pop, Funk, and Psychedelic Soul
Motown in the 1970s
Philadelphia Sound and Soul Train
Blaxploitation Soundtracks
The Uniqueness of James Brown
Bob Marley and the Rise of Reggae
The Backlash Against Disco
1975-1980: The Rise of the Mega-Αlbum
Continuity Bands in the 1970s
Rock and Roll in the Second Half of the 1970s
U.S. Punk 1967-1975
1974-77: Punk in the UK
American New Wave 1977-80
British New Wave 1977-80
The Hippie Aesthetic: 1966-1980
The Rise of MTV
Michael Jackson: MTV's Unexpected Boon
Madonna as Disruptive Shock Artist
Prince and Janet Jackson
Other Groups Who Benefited from MTV
1980s New Traditionalists and New Wave
1980s New Acts, Old Styles and Blue-Eyed Soul
1970s Progressive Rock Adapts to the 80s
1980's Heavy Metal
1980s Heavy Metal and L.A. Hair Bands
1980s Ambitious Heavy Metal
The Beginning of Rap
1980s: Rap Crosses Over to Mainstream
Late 1980s Hard Core Rap
Punk Goes Hardcore
Late 80s Indie Rock Underground
1990s: The Rise of Alternative Rock
1990s Indie Rock and the Question of Selling Out
1990s Metal and Alternative Extensions
Hip-Hop in the 1990s
Classic Rock of the 1990s
1990s Jam Bands and Britpop
Female Singer-Songwriters of the 1990s
The Rise of Teen Idols in the 1990s
1990s Dance Music