Harlepolis said:

No acts/bands in my list. In no special order:

3. Jive

6. Atlantic

10. Def Jam

They were the ones who raped popular music and suckered everybody else into buying their gift wrapped bullshit.

JoeTyler said:

Jive...

Atlantic... I guess after the mid-1970s, their reputation dwindled.

Def Jam... nowadays they're definitely fucking everybody over but not back in the day.

Timmy84 said:

JoeTyler said:

Jive...

Atlantic... I guess after the mid-1970s, their reputation dwindled.

Def Jam... nowadays they're definitely fucking everybody over but not back in the day.

so, basically, all labels are evil?

perhaps their reputation has dwindled in the 90s-00s, but I BLESS what they did in the 50s-80s...

JoeTyler said:

Timmy84 said:

Jive...

Atlantic... I guess after the mid-1970s, their reputation dwindled.

Def Jam... nowadays they're definitely fucking everybody over but not back in the day.

so, basically, all labels are evil?

perhaps their reputation has dwindled in the 90s-00s, but I BLESS what they did in the 50s-80s...

Not evil, just corrupt.

JoeTyler said:

What? Not clear enough?

I suppose every stupid "flavor of the month" artist nowadays just came outta thin air and started to nag us somebody had to pull the strings and its sure not their fame hungry asses.

JoeTyler said:

here's mine:

1.The Monkees (easily the first corporate/sellout/artificial act of modern pop music)

The movie "Head" led to "Easy Rider" being made, which changed the landscape of filmmaking.Criterion happens to think it's an important film - they just issued it. It's David Lynch weird and pretty cynical.

Jack Nicholson wrote the movie. It marked the end of working behind the scenes.Then he became one of the biggest actors in the world.

They played their own instruments.No auto tune, no lip syncing.

Mike Nesmith helped create MTV and was one of the first out there doing country rock, which is what most country music is today.

They had were charting right alongside The Beatles, who were big fans of theirs.Nesmith's in the "Day in the Life" footage when they recorded it, Micky was part of the "Lost Weekend", so I'm sure he sees this Charlie Sheen stuff going on and is having flashbacks.

They were marketed by Don Kirshner but the show was only on 2 seasons. They drew the same demographic Justin Bieber's drawing, but they were doing this right in the middle of psychedelia. Which is prob. why the later shows got weird.

They had Tim Buckley and Frank Zappa on the show. How was THAT ruining pop music??

Songwriters that were hired to write for them became famous in their own right. Harry Nilsson, Carole King, Neil Diamond. There's more. Then they wrote their own stuff.

Elvis doing those cheesy movies was the first sellout/corporate act in pop music. The Beatles had tons of merchandise out there and a Saturday morning cartoon for a couple of years. They were a sitcom with rock music.

I can argue their importance more than I can their destruction of pop music.So can a lot of people.

One of the Sex Pistols first songs was covering "I'm Not Your Stepping Stone".

And had some guy named Jimi Hendrix do his first US tour with them, and there was controversy because moms freaked out over Jimi bumping, grinding and flicking his tongue at the girls. And controversy sells records.

The fans moved on to other things. They didn't hurt anything. After they broke up Davy wound up on Brady Bunch. The show became a rerun favorite with kids for the next couple of decades.

I think after the first wave of rock bands were put out to pasture (the day the music died, Elvis in the Army, Jerry Lee's scandal, Little Richard finding Jesus), that period of time when Pat Boone covered R&B songs up to instrumental surf music, but then the Beach Boys came out, and Motown was picking up listeners) and the payola scandal in 1959, pretty much derailed rock music, and it's because parents were freaking out about the sexuality of rock and the racial integration of the audiences.

I'd argue what happened between 1958-1962 did way more to ruin popular music and Bill Clinton's 1996 bill (which also led to Clear Channel monopolizing FM radio and what people listened to..then Napster happened) than anything you've mentioned. Record companies stupidly tried to kill the singles market in the late 90s. When it comes to pop music, you have to put singles out there.

Bands like Poison and Winger just watered down what was metal, then you had all these ballads coming out. Metal singers doing love songs worked at times, but I'd prob. blame Def Leppard and Bon Jovi for the reasons you said. I was never a big fan of Motley Crue but they looked metal, sounded pop from Theater of Pain onward.

And just look at Billboard charts as to what was popular over the past 50 years. Led Zep never had a #1 single. And look at what was #1 in the late 60s-early 70s.

MJJstudent said:

Timmy84 said:

That's because he didn't take no shit. HUSTLERS don't take no shit. Whitney was NOT a hustler. DIFFERENCE!

Lots of the old school artists were hustlers, some of them got what they want and some had to half-play the system before getting back at the label president. You forget Stevie Wonder was an ultimate hustler. He can play nice and then before you know it, he'll tell you to PAY up, he'll challenge you to come up with whatever it is you demand and then he'll tell you what he WANTS and before you know it, BAM!

Whitney just doesn't have that power. Not even today. She just doesn't.

I'd argue that Dolly Parton's one of the biggest hustlers in entertainment. Anyone who singlehandedly decided to build an amusement park in a place called Pigeon Forge and turn it into a tourist destination? And OWNS "I Will Always Love You"?

Stevie produced hits, so Berry had no choice to give him some breathing space, and once Marvin put "What's Going On" out there and came up with the hits, Stevie took it all to a whole other level.He's shown loyalty to Motown though. I think Smokey Robinson played a part him staying with Motown though. He could've bounced off to other labels if he wanted. When Motown moved, so did Stevie and Smokey.Berry Gordy was way more focused on Diana Ross than he should've been.

People blame Bobby Brown for Whitney becoming a mess, but she brought a lot on herself. Instead of spending the 90s working and touring where she could've retired 11 years ago, she became tabloid fodder.

If your voice is going to spin straw into gold, people are going to want some of it. And I think the one thing artists need to be careful of is how much of a commodity they want to become. If they don't have a strong songwriting skillset or a strong voice, but look good, then they need the army of people around them helping them out. But if they do have a strong songwriting skillset and write memorable songs, then they can do what Bill Withers did and just leave it behind as long as the bills are paid and people still want your songs.

Stevie limits his touring and live performing, & Dolly sticks to small venues for the most part.

Am I the only one who thinks that asking this question, with the 50 year gap between 1960 and 2010 leaves it *way* too open-ended and vague? In order for this to make any reason sense, the cut off point should have been 20 years at the most.

dalsh327 said:

Criterion happens to think it's an important film - they just issued it.

I didn't know about this. I still have the videocassette, but I can't watch it because my VCR is broken. I never bothered to buy the Rhino DVD of the movie because they never restored it and I think it's pan and scan.

chamber said:

Am I the only one who thinks that asking this question, with the 50 year gap between 1960 and 2010 leaves it *way* too open-ended and vague? In order for this to make any reason sense, the cut off point should have been 20 years at the most.

Eh, I think if anything it should have been 1955-2010, that would cover from the beginning of the rock era to the present. I'm sure that some people will argue about when the rock era truly began but sometime in the mid '50s music underwent a fairly significant change and a new era was inagurated where the youth were the ones that decided what music was popular which is still the way things are today.

MickyDolenz said:

dalsh327 said:

Criterion happens to think it's an important film - they just issued it.

I didn't know about this. I still have the videocassette, but I can't watch it because my VCR is broken. I never bothered to buy the Rhino DVD of the movie because they never restored it and I think it's pan and scan.

Shoot, due to your apparent dislike of all things new I had you pegged as someone that watched all of your movies on one of these:

[img:$uid]http://www.oaktreeent.com/web_photos/16mm_Film_Projectors/B&H_535_16mm_Film_Projector_web.jpg[/img:$uid]

Anyway, I never thought that this thread would be so successful, lond and interesting. Thank you ALL

JoeTyler said:

Anyway, I never thought that this thread would be so successful, lond and interesting. Thank you ALL

I aim to please. Excluding toilets, in that situation all bets are off.