|
IanB wrote: I think it took the best part of 15 years for English music to recover from the Flat Earthism of Punk. Punk just left the middle ground open to MTV and the greedheads and 100% focus on singles rather than 40 minute musical experiences. Baby. Bathwater.
You can maybe blame Phil Collins for opening the door to the likes of the Lighthouse Family but he didn't create an audience for that bilge. I blame Thatcher myself and the idea of "good taste" being something consistent that you can take off the shelf at Habitat.
Often wondered about that, did punks scorched earth policy really create such a vacuum.I often think that American stadium rock was a bigger problem, Bruford mentioned it in his book, you can't be subtle or intelligent if you want to reach to the back of a 2 mile long stadium, look at Simple Minds & U2, one tried to do stadium rock & failed, one embraced it wholly and became St Bono Inc, LH man to the devil Collins.
Both came out of punk and should therefore be exempt from the faults of their fathers as it were. Once you fill a stadium a whole corporate structure wants you to keep on filling those stadiums, I imagine the artists are probably pretty keen on the money too, and keeping that ball rolling. Was punk responsible for Phil Collins , a man who obviously had some kudos with the art rock crowd at some point and some kind of musical drive[much as I loathe Brand X I can see that they were trying to get beyond the limits of prog,never mind the 3 min single] and give it up to make the bland grey music he went on too make. Or did he just let the machine swallow him because hey 'call me bland & grey but don't forget the rich' has a certain charm, I certainly know that if someone offered me £20million & said the only drawback is that anyone with musical taste will think you're a tosser I'd be travelling bankwards with my bag of swag faster than you could say sellout.
|
