Valadilenne (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
valadilenne) wrote2008-10-06 10:39 pm
valadilenne) wrote2008-10-06 10:39 pm
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6/365: Classic rock
I have pretty broad taste in music, but I do have a special affinity for certain genres, and classic rock is one of them.
I can't say that my parents were roadies or groupies at any point in their lives, or that I grew up under a '71 Charger in the process of being badly restored. In fact, my parents' musical tastes are pretty limited: I'm not totally sure what they enjoy apart from Buckwheat Zydeco and the soundtrack to O Brother Where Art Thou? I mean, I've collected their old (pristine) LPs and while there are the expected ABBA records (I wouldn't be related to them if they hadn't listened to ABBA--it's in my genes), there's mostly Disco. But more on that later.
That's not to say that we didn't listen to the La Bamba soundtrack or old Buddy Holly hits in the car on our 500 mile trek up to Grandma's house every year when I was a child. And herein, I think, lie the beginnings of it. It wasn't that my parents liked classic rock, it was that they liked whatever came before that. It was a gateway to later pieces that they had never wound up listening to themselves--and they lived through that era.
And so in the summer of 1996 I felt like I had to make a choice because I was getting out of elementary school: all my friends gravitated toward the Today's Best Hits station on the radio (hard to believe this was the days before CDs were really popular), and I just wanted to find all those old songs that I had listened to before. I hit the 60's station on the dial and stayed there for probably six or seven years. I went to camp and everyone was listening to "The Thong Song" while I wanted the Mamas and the Papas in the background.
But my methods of making sure I got all the songs I wanted on tape were elaborate. I can remember listening to the Saturday night shows waiting for someone to request a song so that I could hit Record and play them back later--over and over and over, sitting in front of my vanity lip syncing along with the Partridge Family or Diana Ross into the mirror, wearing a huge pair of can headphones so the sound came in almost perfectly.
They even had call-ins where people had to guess the name of a song after hearing the first three notes, and let me tell you: I am good at that game. But back to classic rock.
After the advent of the internet, things got interesting. I remember the first song I ever downloaded from Napster: Alicia Bridges' one and only hit, "I Love the Nightlife." What a great choice, huh? Anyway, that made me realize that it was okay to listen to music from the 70's and that my mother was wrong when she told me that "Anyone who likes Disco shouldn't admit it." I don't know what she was thinking--Chaka Khan and Donna Summers are my friends on the treadmill. But for some reason I thought 70's rock music was off limits, like it was too edgy and too dangerous for little 10 year old Melissa. Now I listen to it and think how much better the quality is than the "rock" that's coming out today. It actually had melody and good power chords--even the lame stuff did. Now it's just "let's amp up our distortion machines and scream."
So there you go. I think it was just an inevitable offshoot of all the Beatles and early 60's pop that got me into Free (especially Free), Journey, Foreigner, Pilot, Jefferson Starship (God help me I love ALL OVER THE WORLD)--all those groups whose songs that are bizarrely coming back en vogue; or maybe they never left. And I don't think liking classic rock and liking disco somehow cancel each other out. If we didn't have classic rock, we wouldn't have Guitar Hero. If we didn't have disco, we wouldn't have modern dance music--or a movie where Meryl Streep dances around in too-tight overalls.
I can't say that my parents were roadies or groupies at any point in their lives, or that I grew up under a '71 Charger in the process of being badly restored. In fact, my parents' musical tastes are pretty limited: I'm not totally sure what they enjoy apart from Buckwheat Zydeco and the soundtrack to O Brother Where Art Thou? I mean, I've collected their old (pristine) LPs and while there are the expected ABBA records (I wouldn't be related to them if they hadn't listened to ABBA--it's in my genes), there's mostly Disco. But more on that later.
That's not to say that we didn't listen to the La Bamba soundtrack or old Buddy Holly hits in the car on our 500 mile trek up to Grandma's house every year when I was a child. And herein, I think, lie the beginnings of it. It wasn't that my parents liked classic rock, it was that they liked whatever came before that. It was a gateway to later pieces that they had never wound up listening to themselves--and they lived through that era.
And so in the summer of 1996 I felt like I had to make a choice because I was getting out of elementary school: all my friends gravitated toward the Today's Best Hits station on the radio (hard to believe this was the days before CDs were really popular), and I just wanted to find all those old songs that I had listened to before. I hit the 60's station on the dial and stayed there for probably six or seven years. I went to camp and everyone was listening to "The Thong Song" while I wanted the Mamas and the Papas in the background.
But my methods of making sure I got all the songs I wanted on tape were elaborate. I can remember listening to the Saturday night shows waiting for someone to request a song so that I could hit Record and play them back later--over and over and over, sitting in front of my vanity lip syncing along with the Partridge Family or Diana Ross into the mirror, wearing a huge pair of can headphones so the sound came in almost perfectly.
They even had call-ins where people had to guess the name of a song after hearing the first three notes, and let me tell you: I am good at that game. But back to classic rock.
After the advent of the internet, things got interesting. I remember the first song I ever downloaded from Napster: Alicia Bridges' one and only hit, "I Love the Nightlife." What a great choice, huh? Anyway, that made me realize that it was okay to listen to music from the 70's and that my mother was wrong when she told me that "Anyone who likes Disco shouldn't admit it." I don't know what she was thinking--Chaka Khan and Donna Summers are my friends on the treadmill. But for some reason I thought 70's rock music was off limits, like it was too edgy and too dangerous for little 10 year old Melissa. Now I listen to it and think how much better the quality is than the "rock" that's coming out today. It actually had melody and good power chords--even the lame stuff did. Now it's just "let's amp up our distortion machines and scream."
So there you go. I think it was just an inevitable offshoot of all the Beatles and early 60's pop that got me into Free (especially Free), Journey, Foreigner, Pilot, Jefferson Starship (God help me I love ALL OVER THE WORLD)--all those groups whose songs that are bizarrely coming back en vogue; or maybe they never left. And I don't think liking classic rock and liking disco somehow cancel each other out. If we didn't have classic rock, we wouldn't have Guitar Hero. If we didn't have disco, we wouldn't have modern dance music--or a movie where Meryl Streep dances around in too-tight overalls.