tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31671374.post6787016115581445..comments2023-10-30T07:10:34.610-07:00Comments on Underbelly: The Good Old Days Again: MusicBucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16452321114185736762noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31671374.post-67877596288235983262012-11-24T17:42:01.539-08:002012-11-24T17:42:01.539-08:00The 50s are the highlights of Lieber/Stoller, the ...The 50s are the highlights of Lieber/Stoller, the only time Phil Spector is worth anything, and the beginning of Motown and Buddy Holly. Not to mention the days when Rap Music was started--by Italian guys on street corners who would later claim their successors "aren't music."<br /><br />Where it succeeds is still having Show Tunes translate to Pop hits. Yes, you get the mediocre and worse (Fabian Forte makes Milli Vanilli seem like artists; the hype of Shelley Fabares, Annette, and a bunch of chick pop "singers"--notably excepting the Leslie Gores and Petula Clarks, and stipluating that the likes of Jeri Southern, Rosemary Clooney, and Eartha Kitt are jazz singers--who aren't that much worse than their equivalent in other eras but were totemized beyond ability. Not to mention the male equivalents--Tab Hunter, Pat Boone, John Gary, Troy Donohue--who were worse. When the best voices from the period are the aforementioned Charles Hardin, Frankie Lymon, Mitch Ryder, Chuck Berry, and Sam Cooke, you can't go too far bad--or too far, if you're restricting yourselves to the white artists who will be alive by the time the Beatles cover "Roll Over, Beethoven."<br /><br />There's a lot that happens, but there's little that's on the surface. All in all, I'm with Joel. The follow-through is better from the 1950s to the 1960s than the 1960s to the 1970s.Ken Houghtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01440837287933536370noreply@blogger.com