Andrew Hickey’s History of Rock Music in 500 Songs podcast (& books) — discuss!

Yes, he's said "I probably won't" a couple of times, leavening it with a possible bonus episode on MBV. I mean, who knows maybe he'll change his mind.

That will be a hard moment for me, since I'm sure he'll feel compelled to do a big Oasis thing, but maybe he'll make it interesting. Definitely the whole Tony Blair/neoliberalism/Cool Britannia moment could be used to discuss Oasis and Blur as exports.

Discussing Britpop alongside Blair is already giving me J*** H***** flashbacks, please no

He will probably do something more interesting!

I think he should cover shoegaze but I’d also be kind of stunned if this podcast makes it to the late 80s at all. I’ll be grateful for whatever we get of course

it seems pretty obvious hickey won't be able to make it to the 90s given his current pace and how every half year his pace markedly decreases. which is fine, he clearly loathes half the music and most of the people he's covering in the late 60s and i'll be surprised if he won't grow even more negative and focused on the salacious and drug-addled aspects of the 70s and 80s. a more accurate title of this podcast might be a history of rock music in 500 content warnings.

4+ hours on the byrds' country turn and gram parsons' early years feels like it seriously needs both an editor to cut it down to 1 hour, and to also ask, what is the theme of this episode... is this about turning away from psychedelia to a pastiche of ultraconservative music, or is it regrounding rock closer to one of its constituent birth parents, the plaintive minor key strummy yawpy dirges of rodgers and williams, which would bear fruit in the often corny but occasionally revelatory singer songwriter genre? but is that genre really influenced by sweetheart?

i suppose i am biased against sweetheart as an album, it has always felt like an above average late 60s country record fakeout by a poisoned compromise between mcguinn and parsons rather than some sort of true template for all the more full-blooded country rock to come from dylan, eagles, stones, neil, dead, etc.

One of the joys of this podcast, besides being such an amazing example of citizen scholarship, is Andrew's idiosyncrasies.

Feels like there's been a lot less of this as he feels compelled to follow the conventional history of boomer rock - so these days the bonus episodes, where he gets to play outside that canon, are a lot more fun imo.

Yeah the current one on Arthur Brown is my favourite thing he's done for a while.

he clearly loathes half the music and most of the people he's covering in the late 60s

I don't get this impression. Which music do you think he loathes?

@Daniel_Rf: See what you mean about the podcast becoming a bit less idiosyncratic, though he did go out of his way (again!) to talk about Firesign Theatre via Gary Usher. And I love it. But I also agree that Arthur Brown bonus episode is a lot more fun than the Byrds one was overall.

The one act I'm 100% he hates so far is The Kingsmen - though I know he's not that keen on The Rolling Stones or Jefferson Airplane.

The Satisfaction episode was a great one though.

I loved Hickory Wind, and didn't mind the length at all. The one time I felt impatient for him to *get on with it* was on the episode on The Weight, where 40 minutes of the 2 hours was spent on Ronny Hawkins.

Next up is All Along the Watchtower, which is both an obvious, and fantastic choice.

So we’ve had four straight episodes of basically country rock. Eager to get back to some actual rocking type rock.

But first a detour to Nashville Skyline!

the nashville dylan detour is good, glad to take spend some time on the slow road to electric ladyland

New bonus episode on Arlo Guthrie is a good listen.

The cool bit where he isolates on the drums of Lay Lady Lay made me appreciate that song a lot more. Love it when he dives in like that (also on the My Girl episode for instance)

Isolating the percussion in Lay Lady Lay was really cool. It made me realize the drums barely register for me on any pop of that era that's not headed towards hard rock.

I had a similar reaction--I thought the isolated drums, even before the congo-and-cowbell part he was highlighting, sounded great. And I doubt I would have noticed otherwise

I finally finished listening to the Hey Jude and Hickory Wind episodes. I agree with the earlier posts that the Hickory Wind episodes illustrate a need for an editor and I also have the impression he stopped liking the music he’s discussing. His writing has increasingly become overwrought and pretentious. I don’t think the recent episodes are “bad,” far from it—but I’ve become a little less excited for new episodes.

I guess, at this point, I’d prefer listening to him talk about stuff enthusiastically rather than completing this project! Maybe that’s the subscriber episodes?

Did Hickey dismiss Axis Bold As Love and Band Of Gypsys? Seemed to be less than positive about them.
I thought they were widely liked and possibly just a little less superlatively good as material considered his best.
I may need to listen through the episode again.

I've seen people write off Band of Gypsys as a step backwards. Foolishness imo.

My friend Doug Decker recorded that Band of Gypsys stuff. He worked for Wally Heider. Then he did the sound for the Johnny Cash Show. Then he worked for Takoma Records. Just another historical tidbit from your pal Scott. Good day, music fans!

I was surprised to hear him say that Band of Gypsys is generally considered relatively weak. I've always loved it and just assumed other Hendrix fans did too.

I think it's just not considered by everyone to be his greatest work. Seems to have been pretty influential and get a good score not a superlative one.

But Hickey hates men who are violent to women. So may be valorised by that.
Came back to me after I posted this morning.
I got Band of Gypsys this week and it's pretty good. Ordered it a week or so ago cos I found it cheapish.

Good score = rated highly where I'm seeing it reviewed. So contrary to weak.

That is seeing it getting 3.7 or 3.9 out of 5 where his best work is 4.15 or something.
& that is high if 3.5 is a decent scoring. A point less than its getting would be mediocre/weak. It's also getting a lot of people bothering to review it which means it is creating some reaction and a weak l.p. probably wouldn't. A lot of titles only get a handful of responses. That's RYM and a few other places.

It seems to me the reputation of Band of Gypsys got a bump around 1990. Miles Davis said in his 1989 autobiography that he preferred that band to the Experience, and then through the '90s it seemed that BoG was the hipster's choice of a Hendrix album. I think it has some of Jimi's best solos on it. Wikipedia suggests the album was long influential in black music circles. Hickey frames it as a contractual obligation record iirc, but it wasn't just that.

But Hickey hates men who are violent to women. So may be valorised by that.

Interesting. I still need to listen to the episode. I would’ve guessed Hickey would’ve defended Hendrix from the invented accusations and used it as an appropriate opportunity to discuss the use of racial caricatures in American and British media.

It seems to me the reputation of Band of Gypsys got a bump around 1990.

Unless you were in the funk or metal scenes where “Band of Gypsys” was considered canonical far earlier than 1990. Hell, Maggot Brain came out the next year.

He does note the influence of Hendrix on subsequent black music, including Funkadelic, though IIRC he doesn't credit Band of Gypsys for being especially influential in that respect

xp you seem very sure that these were "invented" but it seems there are quite a number of women who reported Jimi being violent towards them.

This is the only story I am referencing. https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/jimi-hendrixs-ex-kathy-etchingham-scuse-me-while-i-defend-my-guy-20140603-39h1n.html

in the episode he acknowledges that she has consistently denied any abuse and takes her at her word, but says that there are multiple reports of abusive behavior towards other women that he was involved with.

this is well established and uncontroversial

presumably the biopic was doing the shitty biopic thing of "well we do have to address this part" and was extra shitty for not consulting the person they used as stand in for representative victim

but if there was racism in his portrayal in the british press which it's hard to imagine there wasn't there must be better angles to tackle it from

and invented accusations really rubs me the wrong way with shades of the freaks on classic rock message boards who are very insistent that john lennon only ever hit a woman once in spite of all evidence

I have to admit I haven't listened to this thing since it entered the canonised by rolling stone era which I would prefer wasn't covered too exhaustively without (less canonised) respite but I can't tell him what to do I'm just a consumer

Hickey is pretty transparent in his hatred of everything RS endorsed in the late 60s fwiw. Especially all the SF bands of the time. Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother & the Holding Company are all damned with faint praise.

Weird

I can never tell when Hickey hates something. I didn't even get the impression he hates the Dead, though I would guess he's not a fan

He doesn't strike me as someone who hates many bands. And I bet in the course of deep diving for a month on a band, you come to appreciate stuff that you thought you never could.

enochroot otm, this is something i really like about Hickey. Listening to the recent "Hey Jude" one and Byrds/Gram Parsons one, I did get the feeling that he probably likes the Beatles substantially more than he likes the Byrds. But in both episodes, he really strikes a fine balance of describing the respective bands and where they stood in the broader rock/pop context of the time--both artistically and within the economics of the industry.

It's really rare to hear anything that sounds like either hagiography or hatchet job on the podcast, and there's also enough insight and ideas and unexpected connections that it avoids the "I'm reading wikipedia into a microphone" trap that some podcasts fall into.

Like you can tell when he thinks the members of a group are kind of dopey--like in the Cream episode--but there was also a really good contextualizing of the band in that episode and the critiques he makes of them are usually insightful, not just potshots.

A History of Rock Music in 500 Potshots, would listen.