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

I'm trying to actually address the thread question! I'm not sure what I'm flexing, other than I used to have a job.

I think plenty would recognise Sunshine of Your Love, maybe even a few others, but doubt they would be able to name the band.

They might actually be an example of a band whose place in canonical history books is out of proportion with their actual popularity, then.

I'm not sure what I'm flexing, other than I used to have a job.

Sad lol.

I do agree that most zoomers and millennials are unfamiliar with the name 'Cream' even though they've heard 'Sunshine of Your Love'. Fwiw this was me until I made my way backwards after getting into Hendrix and Zep and Sabbath.

Amusing inasmuch as ppl saying "history books" itt are probably speaking vaguely metaphorically, thinking of imaginary future books, or general-audience pop-culture writing, so coming in with literal history books is a :D disjunct.

I'd think the Brian Howe version of Bad Company, which did sell some tapes/cds etc. probably eroded the band name a bit.

I think if you take in music Paul R./Simon Kirke did in Free and Mick Ralphs did with Mott, how good they really were is a perhaps more evident. The Bad Company debut is really, really good - maybe as good as say Mott or Fire and Water, but each later BC LP was not as rockin' and memorable - some singles notwithstanding. (Oh yeah, got to give a shoutout to Bozz (RIP) for being in same company with Greg Lake and John Wetton as former bassist/vocalist of King Crimson.

I'd figure Isaiah Mitchell took the BC's gig because it paid well and would get a whole bunch of people to know his band. Unless you got your own cash and some other gig, you get a good paying gig as a guitarist, you take it these days. Maybe they are raking it in, but as much as I like their music, I can't see Earthless as being a big payday full time job type band.

xpost - "Chapter 19: The Great Canadian Indie-Rock Collective Invasion of The Mid-Aughts"

I'd figure Isaiah Mitchell took the BC's gig because it paid well and would get a whole bunch of people to know his band. Unless you got your own cash and some other gig, you get a good paying gig as a guitarist, you take it these days. Maybe they are raking it in, but as much as I like their music, I can't see Earthless as being a big payday full time job type band.

Totally fair, I'm not knocking Mitchell for taking the gig in the least. It was more of a surprise that he was one of the last people I'd expect to see popping up as even a touring member of the Crowes.

The 1989 tour did irreparable damage to the Who’s standing, stature, reputation, etc. It was hugely successful in terms of sellout crowds and such, and the shows were fun, but I believe there are fewer than 10 people on earth who look back fondly on that tour.

When they reunited again in ‘96, it was significantly better (largely due to Zak Starkey), but the damage was done, and they played to a few half-empty arenas in ‘96-‘97. When they toured with a five-pice lineup in ‘99-‘00 (for the first time since ‘82), it should’ve been bigger news than it was, though they still sold out the shed and arena circuit.

But ultimately, no one in the Who — least of all Townshend — gave/gives a shit what their standing is, which is why reissues and tours and new albums have been haphazardly planned and marketed, and why Townshend lets TV shows and commercials use his songs. He never gave a shit about the mystique of his band. The idea of mystique wouldn’t make any sense anyway, since he saw himself from the beginning as having been given a commission by the audience (working class London mods, initially) to speak to and for and through them (and to listen to them, obviously). “Mystique” wouldn’t serve any purpose in that relationship, other than to shut off communication. The end result — and this goes for their whole career — is something far more gawky and awkward and therefore (for me, anyway) far more exciting and relatable.

Oh haha yeah xp to sic

This is a weird conversation. I've never known The Who as anything other than one of "THE IMPORTANT©" bands of the classic rock era. People still know 'Baba O'Riley' and 'Won't Get Fooled Again' (maybe the latter only as a meme, but it's still known nonetheless).

The 1989 tour did irreparable damage to the Who’s standing, stature, reputation, etc.

Which is why no one has heard of them now

I've never known The Who as anything other than one of "THE IMPORTANT©" bands of the classic rock era. People still know 'Baba O'Riley'

My experience as well. That my dad was never a huge fan probably contributed to my ignorance of their music.

Oh exactly, when I was in high school in the early '90s, The Who were absolutely sold to me by older friends as one of the important, canonical classic rock bands. Which kinda underscores my point, because while I would argue that Zeppelin and Pink Floyd still serve that role, I'm not so sure that The Who would even be named by the equivalent theoretical kids today.

the main difference between Zep & The Who is that Zep's records are way more fun

xpost - "Chapter 19: The Great Canadian Indie-Rock Collective Invasion of The Mid-Aughts"

Three pages on Arcade Fire in Ch. 15 of the US edition of Starr/Waterman. The Canadian edition Rock: A Canadian Perspective has a five-page section on millennial Canadian indie rock and post-rock in the last chapter.

what Zep record is more fun than "Boris the Spider"???

Well more like 1.5 pages on AF in the former.xp

I think as mentioned upthread one of the important differences is that Zeppelin was recorded better, has aged well sonically

Growing up w nyc radio in the 80s WNEW would do a weekend of "the big four" once or twice a year and it would be nothing but Beatles, Stones, Zep, and The Who... Definitely seems the Who have slipped from that canon though

An interesting contrast, at least in my personal experience, would be Rush. While we all knew Rush's classic rock staples in high school, my friends laughed them off as kinda nerdy has-beens whenever I would try to play them. I would say the cultural cachet of Rush is higher than that of The Who at this point.

It is my belief that any artist itt could be rehabilitated by the right Netflix documentary or biopic, or inclusion on the soundtrack of a popular movie

I worked at a record store when Rushmore came out and even Chad and Jeremy's stock went up for a bit

Conversely, I get the sense that the Doors's stock is partly back up after a long spell in the semi-wilderness.

XP Their Netflix doc happened in 1979, and is called The Kids Are Alright.

in terms of radio play, imho The Who's biggest disadvantage is that their first few singles, which are fucking incredible and mind-blowing as performances, were at best middlingly-well-recorded at the time, and only sound thinner and tinnier as years go by and they're competing with these booming, FM-ready 70s tracks. so it would be easy to just not realize how dynamic and insane Keith Moon was - you can barely hear him! (might be recapitulating the TS: Moon vs Bonham thread here...). meanwhile, mid-60s rock singles have been really wiped out as CR has advanced forward in time, so that's a big part of their narrative washed away, in a way Zep hasn't had to contend with. or take the Stones - they still "work" as a titanic rock act if you only know them from Beggars Banquet forward and have never heard "Satisfaction" (bizarre though that might seem) --- not sure the equivalent holds true if you start The Who at Tommy and don't have "I Can't Explain" etc.....

Rush's stock definitely rose in the 2010s. I saw them in 2011 and 2013, post-Behind the Lighted Stage, and the crowd was all ages and much more female than I had expected.

Of course this is all from a US perspective. Queen are bigger than Led Zeppelin and the Who put together in the UK.

Queen are the go-to example of a lewronggeneration band

Isn’t that true on this side of the Atlantic as well? For a good while, redditors only swore by Queen and the Foo Fighters.

xp

Queen have been enormous in the UK for decades.

I worked at a record store when Rushmore came out and even Chad and Jeremy's stock went up for a bit

― Paul Ponzi, Wednesday, August 12, 2020 3:09 PM

God damn right!

Signed,
An unapologetic Chad + Jeremy fan

But then we don't really have Classic Rock as a thing in the UK. There are probably radio stations that play that stuff but I've never heard them.

My half-baked theory re Rush is that some of the qualities that might have made them seem cold/alienating/nerdy in the 80s and 90s - the almost machine-like precision of the playing, the fusion of guitar rock with a wholehearted embrace of synths, the ultra-crisp production - are de rigueur now, making them seem weirdly prescient. Even high voices came back in for rock singers. Also, their 90s records weren't that good and we're further away from them.

Isn’t that true on this side of the Atlantic as well? For a good while, redditors only swore by Queen and the Foo Fighters.

If so, it's a very recent development. No way was Queen bigger than Zep during most of my life.

But yeah, since that movie, everyone seems to love Queen.

Re Rush I think the Netflix doc theory upthread helped too, Beyond the Lighted Stage got a lot of people reconsidering the band.

Zep at #5 on this list (US-specific), Queen at #47: https://www.businessinsider.com/best-selling-music-artists-of-all-time-2016-9#5-led-zeppelin-1115-million-units-46

I don't know if I've seen another reassessment as kind as Queen's in recent years. I've seen / heard people suggest that Freddie Mercury —not Michael Jackson, not Prince, not Bowie— was the "true" king pop star of the 80s.

45. Bob Dylan

wut

He's no Garth Brooks.

And we're all the better because of that.

That whole list is interesting. Taylor Swift is the only artist on it whose first album came out this century, and because of changes in consumption it's fair to speculate that even in another 10 years there might not be too many more along with her. Em and Pac as the only hip-hop representatives is maybe predictable, tho I'm not sure I would have guessed Pac as the second one because his run was so short. But he hit at peak CD sale time.

The old fogeys in the upper reaches have benefited from constant reissues and compilations and changing formats, which may not be true for future artists. So it certainly seems possible by those metrics that the Beatles will still be #1 in 50 years. But maybe in 50 years no one will care about those metrics at all.

re: Cream

They still get used in a fair amount of movies/tv shows ("White Room" in a Joker scene)
https://www.what-song.com/Artist/1696/Cream

I don't know if I've seen another reassessment as kind as Queen's in recent years

its crazy cuz it's still only like the same 4 songs everyone is crazy over. their studio albums haven't exactly gone through that sort of reappraisal have they? there's only like 3 good ones.

speaking of Rush one band I've seen become surprisingly ubiquitous is King Crimson, definitely seem to be in a different place than they were when I got into them in 2003 (despite having released exactly 0 albums since then)

yeah King Crimson were definitely helped by the internet/file sharing. I don't think I could ever find their early albums in stores back in the day.

re: queen, it's definitely been interesting to see their LPs go from "we literally can't give this shit away" to "people might reasonably pay eight or nine dollars for JAZZ"

Those are like $15+ 'round these parts!

That aside tho, Queen definitely seems like an old band that sold way more on CD reissues than they did in total sales during their heyday.

Prince is another one of those, even the shit albums seem to regularly go for like, $15-20

Michael Jackson too, never thought I'd see the day when fucking Thriller would be a 20 dollar record

I have a record dealer acquaintance who made fucking bank unloading a ton of previously unwanted Jacko records on eBay right after he died. Several pieces going for $100+.

Baba O'Reilly and Eminence Front because of those rolling loop sounds seem to be the two Who tunes you hear used as bumper music quite a bit.