It Was Bad Long Before MTV
Jan 14, 2010 by Nick
I hope you all enjoyed the story from our new contributor, Aaron, on Tuesday. I think Aaron will be a great addition to the Rock Minutes staff and I know he has some more really good articles in the works.
After reading Aaron’s article I started really thinking about what he had to say and I think his story contains a lot of truths and I tend to agree with what he had to say but I also think the things Aaron spoke of started long before MTV rolled into town and that is what I would like to write about today.
I think it is very easy as a music lover and a self proclaimed music purist to look back on the early days of rock n’ roll very fondly and with more than a little bit of nostalgia. I am definitely guilty of doing this. I tend to speak of the golden age of rock n’ roll as if it is above reproach. You know what I am talking about the days when you could see the Beatles on Ed Sullivan or when Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Bob Dylan and many other seemed to be dominating the musical landscape. We look back on those days, the days pre MTV, as if it was a time of perfection and there was nothing wrong with the world of music and image was not as important as the music. I think in a lot of cases that is the truth but if you look back at some different examples things were not all “Abbey Road” and “Highway 61 Revisited”.
Maybe you remember a little band called The Monkees. They were a very popular band back in 1966 or so. They even had a television show that people liked. Don’t get me wrong I like “Last Train to Clarksville” as much as the next guy but that band was specifically assembled for the TV show. The producers wanted to put together a band that resembled the Beatles and they had hundreds of actors audition for the show. They finally found 4 puppets that fit the mold they were looking for and all of the sudden we have a new rock band called The Monkees. They were good looking kids who made catchy pop tunes and produced a TV show the kids could watch with their parents. Call me crazy but that does not seem to be a very organic way to form a rock band.
Back in the 1970′s one of the most popular pop singers in the world was David Cassidy. Teenage girls were in love with him and teenage guys wished they could be him. I am sure you remember that David was the lead singer of the fictional Partridge Family Band on the TV series. He parlayed that fame into a very successful solo career in the 1970′s. I don’t think Keith Partridge was super talented. I don’t think he played the coffee house circuit in Greenwich Village paying his dues like Bob Dylan did. The only thing he did was look good and have the ability to hold a tune reasonably well. I would venture to say without the TV series he starred in he never would have been a household name. His career was totally built on image.
In the late 1970′s Leif Garrett was the teenage heartthrob of the minute. He was a good looking kid who had done some acting as a child. Teenage girls all had his poster on their wall. Record producers new they could take a kid with his looks and make him a star and that is exactly what they did. He released several albums in the late 1970′s and early 1980′s until he faded into obscurity. Was his career based on his love of the music or was it based on an image? I vote for the latter.
These are just a few examples of where careers were based on style and not substance. I think this is a problem that has been going on for as long as rock n’ roll has been around. It can be traced all the way back to the way Colonel Tom Parker handled Elvis Presley in his early years and it is still happening today on American Idol and it will be happening 50 years from now some other way.
I agree with Aaron, MTV changed the way a generation absorbed their music. In a lot of cases it was not a good thing. I think that is why 80′s music will be a punch line to a joke for a lot of music lovers but let’s not kid ourselves and think that life before MTV was perfect in the music world. There was plenty of crap that came and went before MTV and there will be plenty more crap after MTV. All that I can hope for is that for every Monkees there is a Creedence Clearwater Revival. For every David Cassidy there is a Bruce Springsteen and for every Lady Gaga there is a Wilco.
Later,
Nick
Posted in Nick's Rants
Great article Nick. You are exactly right too. As long as there are kids trying to make music there will be corporate bastards trying to get there greedy piece of the profits. And if they can’t than they’ll just just create the market for expolitation. I guess the advent of MTV just made it more provasive and accessable for the pigs to feed at the trough. Great write bro.