Also, the 1970s were the absolute worst decade in music history. Discuss.

Aw, cut them some slack. Greece wouldn't invent choral music for 1100 years. Egyptians had barely just discovered that drums go with other things too.

I didn't live through it, but looking back fleetwood Mac was pretty awesome. And there was a story about depressed Pete Townsend passing out in an alleyway after a night of drinking with John Lydon where Lydon convinced him that the who were punks' dads. It also the rise and fall of ziggy stardust. But also whatever was on the top 40. The first decade of music I can really remember living in was the 90s. I think limp biscuits cover of a George Michael song was on the tops.. All things considered I'd take the 70s.

Also I think Crime was formed in 1976, whose song "Hot Wire My Heart" would later be made famous by Sonic Youth. Pere Ubu, Can post Malcom Mooney, I could go on..

The 90s in comparison had top 40 shit that was far worse than Dreams by Fleetwood Mac or Heart when Heart fucking rocked. By the 90s, Punk a commodity bought and sold by Hot Topic and Green Day, Grunge made a joke of itself, and ushered in bands that frankly I'd rather be deaf than listen to.

Also I kinda like You Make Me Feel Like Dancing. It makes me want to dance the night away or something.

Everything used to be better.

Every music generation is shittier than the previous one. Every music generation was way better than the one following.

So sayeth everyone who lived those times.

Casey's voice could melt butter, and his meltdowns were legendary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV7WF5VVwuo

As for 70s music, I'll just say that the Moog Machine makes everything better.

Hahaha, that was great!

Wot?

Bowie
Eno
Bauman Era Tangerine Dream

...just getting started. Even the fucking club music was better.

^meant as a reply to Mr. Evilhomer.. I used to be with it. Then they changed what "it" was. Now what I am with isn't "it" and what is "it" seems weird and scary to me.

Yeah lest we forget the fucking clubs. My goddamn generation got jack shacks at best.

Look, I don't dispute that every generation has had it's crap, or that the 1970s did not have any high points. But the crap was far more prevalent, and even the good bands usually only looked good *in comparison* to their contemporaries, and the good bands' most enduring legacy was what and whom they inspired, not what the actually did. For example, I would not consider either Bowie or Fleetwood Mac to be anything more than average, but the 1970s did give us Rainbow. Rainbow was a good 70s band, perhaps even the best 70s band... but was it a great band in a historical context? No. Decent, sure, but, like the Sex Pistols, Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath, or King Crimson, whom they inspired - in this case, Dio, Blackmore's Night, and Yngwie - was far more important than what little they actually did.

As for punk, I have long argued that punk was a cynically marketed commodity right from the start, so there's really no difference between 90s punk and 70s punk aside from the sales figures. And why shouldn't there be such good sales figures for a band like Green Day? Green Day was very good, perhaps, like the Pistols, not brilliant, but certainly head and shoulders above many of their contemporaries, and even their lamest songs would have been legendary had they been performed in the 70s.

Correction - I did not mean to imply that Bowie and Fleetwood Mac were comparably meritorious. It would be more accurate to say that Fleetwood Mac was *above* average (again, for it's time). Had I been alive in the 1970s and not known any better, I might have considered Fleetwood Mac to be a genuinely great band, perhaps as good as My Bloody Valentine, or even, at a stretch, The Cranberries.

Bowie, however, was just crap.

It kinda depends on your definition of punk.. by the time it was like "hurf derp I'm the same old british man who hates the Beatles, now I just got to like the Beatles and I now hate the Sex Pistols (drives away in Rolls Royce)" LA punk was pretty real, and so was the Masque. Black Flag did live in a church and Jello Biafra was thrown in jail in the 70s. X is one of my favorites so I'm a little biased.. I'd argue that punk didn't become a real commodity until artists like Cyndi Lauper started dressing in the style without the musical style..

Simply out of curiosity, why don't you like Bowie? I don't think I've ever talked to anyone who just didn't like him (I'm pretty indifferent but I thought Low was a really good album.)

Name one modern act that is anywhere near Fleetwood Mac, and I don't even like Fleetwood Mac. A band who incest dated each other and wrote songs about it aren't that special, but it's still tons better than anything from the last 15 years.

Agreed. I don't really like Fleetwood Mac either ( own not a single album ) but I can't fail to appreciate what masters of the form they were. They wrote GREAT pop songs. Same could be said of a lot of acts of that period. Supertramp? Yeah, I know, but FUCK YOU they wrote some incredible pop songs. Elton John? Holy shit, I bet you claim to hate him yet you undoubtly know half of his catalog.

Modern pop music is largely undifferentiated. So much production work goes into each song that the end results all sound pretty much the same. That's my beef in a nutshell.

About Bowie? OK, this is guy Homer thinks sucks and can't open a show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDXBeu3198c

Yeah....right.

He's just massively overrated. Everything I've heard of his has either left me with a feeling of profound indifference, or I've hated it (Fashion, I'm looking at you!) It's like he's stuck in this uncanny valley between fun, sugary pop and legitimate rock; a valley of garish technicolor, ruled over by Andy Warhol and stinking of cheap vinyl.

Bowie was a good showman I guess, but his lyrics were dumb and, unlike Fleetwood Mac, he could never write a truly memorable hook or a really compelling chord progression; it was more about the ambiance, the attitude, the lifestyle he was selling. In his defense, Bowie was hardly the only overrated musician of that era, and one could argue that he was both less obnoxious and more interesting than many of his equally overrated peers (Springsteen, I'm looking at you!) but I find it difficult to muster anything more than hostile indifference towards the Bowster.

And some punk bands took it seriously and tried to live the lifestyle; that's alright, I respect that! I love punk, as I've said before, and even horseshit like the Sex Pistols has it's own enduring charm. I've got endless love for people like, say, Sasquatch from Sasquatch and the Sickabillies, this dirt-poor, relentlessly touring psychobilly punk who kicks all kinds of ass but never plays anything bigger than dive bars and the occasional vintage hotrod festival. (seriously, Sasquatch is an entertainment god amongst men, and it's downright criminal how little exposure he gets) But taking a giant put-on seriously does not make it any less a put-on, historically speaking. I am sure there are a great many earnestly devoted screamo bands who've really bought into the hype and hit the ground running with their chosen scene, and there's gotta be at least a few gutterpunks who honestly believe in their own hype.

Ugh, fucking Elton John. The 70s equivalent of Dragon Force, right there. All flash, no substance! He was a much better technical musician than Bowie, I'll give him that, but all that means is he was Gaga minus her solid songwriting skills.

And I couldn't even finish that Bowie song you posted, Mr Wildcat. The intro was neat, and I appreciated the psychedelic influences, but the moment Bowie got on stage and opened his mouth, he totally killed it. It's like watching an orchestra play the opening bars to Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto, and then the pianist rips a giant fart. Bowie ruins Bowie.

See? Predictably, you claim to hate him. But come on, admit it. You hear the songs, you recognize them. You know who's singing.

Face it, Homer. You are Elton John's bitch. There's a little part of your brain stamped "Property of Elton John" and there's nothing you can do about that now, save slashing at the afflicted organ with a straight razor until all perception is obliterated.

To be fair, we all know Elton John songs because music had nowhere to go before the Internet except into real life culture. People would listen to music for its own sake because it was everywhere, so why not. Now, music is a tiny part of the Internet, and a tiny component of advertising, video games, and other media. No one writes a song thinking it will be a good song, they write a plug-in for a larger monetary vehicle. Today, I have the luxury of avoiding the Elton Johns by simply not watching advertising.

It's amazing how the entire spectrum of music passes you up now if you simply cut ads out of your life.

I've never claimed to "hate" Elton John, I just don't think he's very good... because he isn't. He's better than Bowie, both as a songwriter and as a singer, and he can play piano fairly well, although granted he's no Jared Sloan. Bowie has perhaps a slight edge in terms of stage presence and fashion sense, but it's really not significant; they both look pretty tragic, and at any rate image is, for me, the least important ingredient in the package.

I recognize his songs, but then, I also recognize Bieber and Limp Bizkit, so that's not really saying much. All recognition means is that the media has drilled his music into your memory through raw rote repetition.

Another thing that's always baffled me about Bowie is why Veruca Salt, one of the best bands of the 90s, were fans of the guy. I guess it's probably just female hormones or something; I love Nina Hagen, but I find it hard to justify my appreciation of her music beyond "I want to bone her".

memedumpster, a good modern act like fleetwood mac... hmm have you heard the new Arcade Fire? It's about as mainstream as my musical horizons go but I hear echoes of Fleetwood Mac around "Tusk." As far as the drama goes, you don't really get that much in bands anymore..

As far as Bowie goes, I don't really like Neil Young (except for Trans but for different reasons.) People are like "what? You're crazy" and put on something off "Harvest" to prove to me that I'm wrong. Still nothing. It's not that I'm trying to dislike it to prove my point. I just don't like it. But when I worked in this little record store someone put on an album and I didn't know what it was. It was "Trans" and I was like "woah what is this it's great!?" Gotcha..

In Bowie's case, he's known as a musical chameleon because that's exactly what he is. Like Queen, he could write a song like "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" as easily as "Bohemian Rhapsody." For most people, this means there's something for everybody. When I first heard the name, it was because he was collaborating with Trent Reznor and doing very "industrial" stuff.. hard to take "Heart's Filthy Lesson" from the guy suddenly recognized as the "Magic Dance Dance the Magic Dance" from "Labyrinth." This kind of shape shifting has made him a lot easier to like than a band that's stuck in a genre: out of any artist I can think of, he can pull this transformation off the way most people can't: Imagine Insane Clown Possee doing Country to get a picture. It'd be a joke even if they were completely serious about it, and they'd probably lose a good number of Juggalo Army members if they continued to pursue new horizons.

I guess Ryan Adams has done it to some success (yes I like Ryan Adams) going from Whiskeytown to straight-up country to Smiths-esque britpop territory to punk to an ill-advised departure to pursue hip hop.. I could go on but he got shit for it every step of the way because it wasn't Whiskeytown. With Bowie, he makes a shitty album and it gets shitty reviews, but critics don't necessarily write about how they wish Ziggy Stardust to return from Mars.