Artists/bands that were once quite popular, yet nowadays are mostly ignored in canonical history books

Oh yeah, and both schlager and iskelmä are almost always sung in the local language, not English, which would partially explain its obscurity among Anglo listeners.

(resisting the urge to post some awesome Jürgen Marcus songs)

(for now)

My main experience of schlager is members of Can and Neu moaning about it in krautrock documentaries

"Big A&M Herb was there** His offices had fresh air. But his rota was mediocre. US purge, rock 'n' pop filth. Their material's filched." Kinda true of Johnny Rivers too as he was not really a writer, although he had the dough to buy whatever tunes he needed. Which was also from what I understood was true of a certain Matchbox Twenty (allegedly).

― earlnash, Thursday, October 31, 2019 8:44 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I never realized "big A&M Herb" was Herb Albert. Learning a lot itt!

Side note: Why isn't there a huge annotated book of Fall lyrics by now? Way overdue.

There is an insanely detailed and obsessive website of annotated Fall lyrics. Now MES is gone I suspect something like a book is possible.

There was one:

https://images.app.goo.gl/WKFztQECJNYRucpS9

https://dqzrr9k4bjpzk.cloudfront.net/images/7909113/937613239.jpg

It was quite big..

The only mention of Bryan Adams in the Covach is in a list of artists Max Martin has worked with. No mention in Starr/Waterman. (Obv, he is discussed in the Canadian edition.)

There are Bryan Adams tribute bands--a kind of canonization anyway

It was quite big..

Annotated?

My main experience of schlager is members of Can and Neu moaning about it in krautrock documentaries

― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Friday, November 1, 2019 4:27 AM (five hours ago)

this is how i know it exists!

Schlager is just corny pop/light entertainment music, isn't it? And it's popular all over Europe.

It's primarily a central European thing.

And I'm using 'thing' in the monstrous, John Carpenter sense.

Popular in Scandinavia too though? Certainly (early) ABBA had schlager elements.

Fair. It seems to work best in Germanic and Germanic-adjacent cultures, which I suppose does encompass most of Europe. (What about the Angles and the Saxons, though?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWuyGc9jEXM

Re tribute bands, I worked with a teenager whose school choir was doing an arrangement of "Summer of 69". Adams is 'canonized' in the sense of being a radio fixture and concert draw worldwide, despite being a crap guitarist imo. (Seems to be weirdly huge in India.) I'm not sure he gets much ink in non-Canadian history books, though.

(What about the Angles and the Saxons, though?)

It wouldn't be called schlager but it's the same thing really - it certainly existed in the 60s/70s and probably the 80s. The Celts have their own variations.

(xp) There's an advert on UK TV at the moment built around DHL(?) delivering a guitar from a factory to... Bryan Adams standing on a stage singing "Summer of 69".

nice

A couple of pages are devoted to Chicago in Starr/Waterman, with a fairly in-depth look at their career arc; no mention of Neil Diamond at all. Covach discusses Chicago's jazz-rock period along with BST - some discussion of individual singles. They also come up later just as an example of 70s bands (along with Styx and Foreigner etc) who continued touring decades later with diminished but continued popularity. Diamond is mentioned in a couple of places but only for his Brill Building songwriting.

i'm pretty open when it comes to music but even "peak" early Chicago and Blood Sweat and Tears is like nails on a chalkboard. i can somewhat stomach a couple of the smooth yacht rock type Cetera-led hits but the rest is just anathema for me.

and i think that specific sound they both kinda share has aged horribly

Four Words: David Clayton-Thomas Syndrome

The first BS&T album (w/Al Kooper) is tight tho.

That horn rock thing of BST and Chicago seems like the first of a periodic fad where everyone gets excited about combining rock and soul/jazz/funk and it just sounds embarrassing a few years later.

I'm sure BST sounded like a great *idea* in the moment: "wow man, imagine if Dylan had Memphis horn charts". But it's awful. And not inherently awful! In theory, it's not far off from MC5's "Skunk" from the same era.

Subsequent iterations: funk punk/ska punk, rap metal/nu metal, Dirty Projectors, etc. There's always exceptions that prove the rule, but they tend not to be hyped (Minutemen come to mind). It's like people *want* these fusions to exist 'cause they like the component genres, and they can overlook the results for a while.

MC5's horn arrangements on "Skunk" are more from Motown/Sun Ra end of things than Memphis horn charts

funk punk

this may not be the appropriate place to ask this question, but can anyone give me a real example of this?

you mean like the clash? or gang of four? or esg?

because all those bands kicked fucking ass at that stuff.

the LA axis: Fishbone, Red Hot Chili Peppers, etc.

^ yes that

Pop Will Eat Itself

I made a thread once
The thread for late 80s/early 90s black funk-rock (Living Color, 24-7 Spyz, Urban Dance Squad, etc.)

ahh, gotcha. yeah i don't like any of those folks. but there was some people doing it decently.

Rick James called his music Punk Funk.

Rick James said a lot of things

BST arrangement of "Symphony for the Devil/Sympathy for the Devil" kind of cool and uses a 12-tone row in the intro.

MC5's horn arrangements on "Skunk" are more from Motown/Sun Ra end of things than Memphis horn charts

Bloomfield/Kooper/Stills’s Super Session album does the “rock band with horns” things wayyy better than BS&T in my opinion.

yeah, and that album sucks even then, so who knows.

Tower Of Power

ahh man, east bay grease is a great record.👍

Tower of Power are an interesting case, because they've probably seen more ink for guesting on other artists' records than for their own extensive recording career.

yeah, and that album sucks even then, so who knows.

The first BS&T album (w/Al Kooper) is tight tho.

^^^

OK -- here's one to add - 25th best selling Rock band world-wide (48 million records), arguably the creators of Arena Rock, and 2017 Hall of Fame inductees: Journey. In the eighties, ya couldn't go more than a few hours without hearing Steve Perry crooning the hits from Infinity through Frontiers. They made a big impression on me as a young musician, but thank god Black Flag and other hardcore/punk/metal overshadowed that impression. I throw up in my mouth a little at the ubiquitousness of 'Don't Stop Believin'' and I outright hurl knowing that Jonathan Cain is married to White House snake-oil, prosperity Christian figurehead Paula White. This band is such a fucking joke now.

I don't know where in the world they were selling all those records, they never did much business in the UK. I'd never heard a note by them until a few years ago.

Journey were a joke then, and they're a joke now. The "Separate Ways" video should have done a Billy Squier on their career, full stop. But they're still pretty much all over classic rock radio, and it isn't just "Don't Stop Believin'."

Xpost

Don’t Stop Believin’ only made #62 on it’s original release in UK, think it was being featured in Glee which gave it a second wind, #6 in 2009.