EDWARD'S LECTURE NOTES:
More notes at http://tanguay.info/learntracker
C O U R S E
History of Rock, 1970-Present
John Covach, University of Rochester
 |
C O U R S E L E C T U R E Rock and Roll in the Second Half of the 1970s Notes taken on November 23, 2015 by Edward Tanguay |
•
Progressive Rock in the 1970s
•
King Crimson
•
1974 disbanded
•
Genesis
•
Peter Gabriel left the band after "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway"
•
after a search for a singer, they decided to use the drummer, Phil Collins
•
1976 A Trick of the Tail
•
Genesis continued on without any real disruption
•
although Peter Gabriel fans won't agree
•
but this was true at least as far as the commercial health of the group
•
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
•
1977 "Works", Vol 1 and 2
•
last big shot
•
Jehtro Tull
•
1977 "Songs from the Wood"
•
Yes
•
1977 "Going for the One"
•
even Rolling Stone hailed this as the return of the band after a long pause
•
Rick Wakeman was back again
•
other groups that blended Progressive Rock
•
more prog heavy, more radio friendly
•
Kansas
•
1977 "Leftoverture"
•
"Carry On Wayward Son"
•
1978 Point of No Return
•
"Dust in the Wind"
•
Styx
•
out of Chicago
•
led by Dennis DeYoung
•
1977 "The Grand Illusion"
•
addition of Tommy Shaw into the group
•
"Come Sail Away"
•
great vocals
•
guitars were more blues rock than what you would find in most progressive rock
•
heavy guitars
•
classic sounding keyboards
•
pop oriented to the vocal hooks in the song forms which will now fit to this now increasingly constrained but much bigger world of FM rock radio in the second half of the 70s
•
Rush
•
Canadian band from Toronto
•
Geddy Lee
•
Neil Peart
•
Alex Lifeson
•
the biggest group to push progressive rock in the second half of the 70s
•
"Fly by Night" 1975
•
1976 concept album 2112
•
important point of arrival for that band
•
1980 "The Spirit of the Radio"
•
1981 "Tom Sawyer"
•
one of the last songs to be unusually long for radio play
•
one drawback
•
just when they were coming along with long, elaborate songs, radio was constraining even groups like Yes so they couldn't get their long songs onto the radio
•
but they always had these hits that permeated FM radio
•
British Bands of 1970s
•
Alan Parsons Project
•
Alan Parsons was a recording engineer for Beatles and Pink Floyd
•
did recording for "Dark Side of the Moon"
•
1977 "I, Robot"
•
Electric Light Orchestra
•
run by Jeff Lynne
•
takes the Beatles songs with strings idea
•
"Strawberry Fields Forever"
•
"I am the Walrus"
•
"Glass Onion"
•
turned it into their own style
•
in 1995, when the surviving Beatles got back together, Jeff Lynne did the production on the new tracks
•
George Harrison, the Traveling Willberries
•
1975 Eldorado
•
"Can't Get It Out of My Head"
•
Queen
•
Freddie Mercury
•
guitarist Brian May
•
observing traditional principles of guitar voice-leading
•
guitar solos
•
1976 "A Night at the Opera"
•
"Bohemian Rhapsody"
•
has gone on to be one of those songs like Stairway to Heaven
•
became emblematic as 1970s rock
•
eclectic approach to different styles
•
such as Paul McCartney was doing
•
singer-songwriters
•
in the first part of the 70s they were fronting bands
•
Bob Dylan
•
second half of 70s very active
•
1975 "Blood on the Tracks"
•
"Tangled Up in Blue"
•
a feature of rock radio and the rock world
•
turned to a Christian religious perspective toward the end of the 1970s
•
he often remade himself in this way
•
Elton John
•
1975 "Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy"
•
"Somebody Saved My Life Tonight"
•
1975 "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"
•
1975 "Philadelphia Freedom"
•
Paul Simon
•
1977 His "Greatest Hits"
•
"Slip Slidin' Away"
•
1980 "One Trick Pony"
•
"Late in the Evening"
•
disappointing effort commercially
•
the accompanying movie flopped
•
although it had an interesting story, touring around in the movie with a band
•
included many of the most musically sophisticated songs he had done up to that point
•
Billy Joel
•
Long Island New York
•
1973 "Piano Man"
•
his version of Harry Chapin
•
1977 The Stranger
•
"Just the Way You Are"
•
atmospheric ballad until it turned into a wedding band classic
•
Jackson Browne
•
out of L.A.
•
1972 "Doctor my Eyes"
•
1978 "Runnin' On Empty"
•
Bob Seger
•
Detroit
•
goes back to the 1960s
•
1977 "Night Moves"
•
Bruce Springsteen
•
New Jersey
•
1975 "Born to Run"
•
a mixture of Bob Dillon meets Phil Spector meets the Rolling Stones
•
was just getting started
•
this period, the last half of the 1970s, can be see as a synthesis of previous styles or a homogenization
•
an interesting period in which Rock music is refined and made lean and mean and compact
•
becomes so homogenized because it is shooting for the big album, that it loses its visceral effect
•
too many of the sharp corners are sanded down
•
too radio friendly
•
Rock and Roll had been neutered
•
no longer had the edge, commitment, and authenticity that it had in the first half of the decade