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

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.

Just saw an ad on fb for the upcoming Journey tour with...the Pretenders.

(Though there was probably some audience overlap in the early ‘80s.)

Journey still very popular

Yeah Journey rule, yah boo to the haterz. Compared to a lot of their contemporaries they still have some kind of cultural cache, although a lot of those early 80s arena rock bands seem to have the one song everyone knows - Toto (Africa), Styx (Mr Roboto or Come Sail Away), Foreigner? Er, REO Speedwagon?

Foreigner = I Want To Know What Love Is

Excuse me, REO Speedwagon have more than one song everyone knows!

They do all sound the same though

pretty sure I've never heard an REO Speedwagon song, but I do see a building painted with the actual car every week

Yeah, I've heard the name REO Speedwagon mentioned on ILM, but I've no idea what their music is like.

This is the only place I know REO Speedwagon from

https://img.gifglobe.com/grabs/partridgecloud/S01E04/gif/csBRwA4njI9g.gif

I was really into the dot-com era cyberbiz band, SEO Speedwagon

Do the Isley Brothers meet the thread’s premise? Some days I think they’re the best band ever.

REO Sweedwagon had at least two substantial hits in Aus ("Keep On Loving You", "Can't Fight This Feeling Anymore") though I could easily believe that folks under 30 could have escaped hearing them before a recent TV advert that makes use of the latter for "LOL '80s" vibes. There doesn't seem to be any popular radio format here to accommodate them or Journey in the 21st century.

Do the Isley Brothers meet the thread’s premise? Some days I think they’re the best band ever.

Elijah Wald's How the Beatles Destroyed Rock n Roll is good for a lot of these.

― All along there is the sound of feedback (Sund4r)

Speaking of which: I thought Mylo was going to have a big career based on his 2004 Destroy Rock 'n Roll debut album, quid non.

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

― No language just sound (Sund4r)

"kind of cool" not a phrase I've heard used to describe the BST "Sympathy for the Devil" before... mind you probably still a patch on Louis Prima's "Symphony for the Devil" where there's all this moog and Jesus Christ Superstar and fucking hell Louis what are you even _doing_

I occasionally check out a message board largely populated by millennials, I've given up potsing there because it's far too depressing but the other day there was a thread on favorite horn rock. The first five posts all mentioned Chicago independently. Nobody seemed to have mentioned Blood, Sweat, and Tears.

Anyway it's all nonsense, everyone knows the _real_ best horn rock record is Flamengo's "Kuře v hodinkách", I can't imagine _why_ the canonical history books ignore it...

Chicago had really effective branding i guess, and very good cover art.

_Elijah Wald's How the Beatles Destroyed Rock n Roll is good for a lot of these.

― All along there is the sound of feedback (Sund4r)_


Speaking of which: I thought Mylo was going to have a big career based on his 2004 Destroy Rock 'n Roll debut album, quid non.

I inherited my grandpa's music collection several years ago, and he seemed to have gone through a horn rock phase - he had a bunch of stuff from the late 60s/early 70s that looked like it could be some kind of cool psych band but a lot of it was horn rock. Some of it was cool psych bands tbf, but not a lot. So I own a 2xLP of Blood, Sweat & Tears 1st and 3rd LPs. why they packaged them up like that and omitted the 2nd LP I'm not sure. tbh I am not a fan.

one hell of a cover for their last album

https://img.discogs.com/kXyY47z-ClGv31kTFiGvjsAyiME=/fit-in/600x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-1679289-1391201203-5175.jpeg.jpg

Fwiw Journey's career arc into the 80s is discussed in Covach, with a picture of the band. I've been hearing them p much my whole life, although I feel like "Lights" and "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'" got as much as play as "Don't Stop Believin'" (still, a top 10 on initial release in the US, Canada, and Ireland) when I was younger. I remember driving across upstate NY in the late 00s and hearing that song 10 times on different radio stations (I counted) during the one drive. Covach actually gives close musical analyses of Boston's "More Than a Feeling" and Foreigner's "Feels Like the First Time". I can think of eight Foreigner songs that I hear on US/Canadian classic rock stations ("Feels...", "Cold As Ice", "Hot Blooded", "Double Vision", "Urgent", "Jukebox Hero", "Dirty White Boy", "Head Games").

So I own a 2xLP of Blood, Sweat & Tears 1st and 3rd LPs. why they packaged them up like that and omitted the 2nd LP I'm not sure. tbh I am not a fan.

The second one was still a pretty big seller on its own. Columbia/Epic did a ton of those twofers as budget releases in the 70s, bundling together slower-selling catalogue titles on big artists.

I think in the US there was a resurgence of interest in Don't Stop Believin' in 2007 because it was prominently featured in the final scene of The Sopranos