Are you joking here? The Eagles have so much respect in the music community and from classic rock fans? Theyâre a pillar of classic rock and sell out in minutes when they announce a concert. They put out an album here and there and it sells like hot cakes. They have so many grammys and awesome albums and hit songs. Cheesy listening? Next Iâm sure youâll tell me the Beatles were inconsequential LOLâŚThe Eagles, cheesy? Give me a break? Arena rock is totally NOT the Eagles either. Hello? Thatâs Def Leppard and Kiss and Judas Priest for Godâs sake LOLâŚYour post has left me perplexed??? LOL
You have to know some history of music in order to make the connection. I covered this before but here it is again, with more detail.
Rock and roll was formed from primarily country and jump blues and it existed before white people stole the title but it didnât become mainstream until âThe Blackboard Jungleâ opened up with Bill Haleyâs âRock Around the Clock.â For almost four years, there was a flurry of activity in music, country acts going either R&R or rockabilly (Roy Orbison, Conway Twitty, and Carl Perkins to name a few) and white kids getting into âraceâ music.
And then 1958 happened, a converging of forces that killed R&R. There was suddenly a power vacuum in music because Elvis got drafted, Chuck Berry was in legal hot water for molesting a 14 year old girl, Jerry Lee Lewis was vilified for marrying his 13 year old cousin, Myra, Little Richard left music to join the seminary, and Bill Haley and Gene Vincent were drinking themselves to death. Buddy Holly, while a good songwriter, doesnât really count because he was essentially R&R lite; just like your regular music but with two thirds less swagger and menace.
In steps Dick Clark, who, with an interest in the Jamie-Guyden Distributing Corporation, influenced who got signed and what records were released with the goal of spinning them on his heinous American Bandstand. Clarkâs entire goal in life was to make money and he didnât care how. When the payola investigations started to heat up, he sold his interests back to the company and denied involvement but the damage was already done.
Garbage like the fabricated and soulless teen idols Paul Anka, Fabian, and Frankie Avalon, the brain dead precursors of equally brain dead Justin Bieber and the like, became the norm and R&R was on the fast decline.
Novelty acts and equally greedy clowns like the Big Bopper exploited the genre for all it was worth with their own brand of tripe. Meanwhile, Motown and girl groups began to rise, as did early surf and that God-awful beach music.
As we all know, the Beatles arrived in 1964, bringing nothing new to the table with them. They were a plastic cover band who didnât do anything original until they got into drugs. It was their looks and novelty factor and not so much their music that propelled them to stardom. They set off a wave of copy-cats and were the first part of the first British invasion.
Inconsequential? No, they were very influencial but they werenât much more than a bar band with bad haircuts
The hippy movement made a further mockery out of whatâs been labelled as ârock and roll,â until the end of the 1960s when a hangover seemed to set in, producing much more mellow and far less interesting music until punk finally called it all what it was: garbage. The music (it can be argued that it was a reflection of society and not the cause) helped in breaking down the social moresâ and values that America once had, leaving us with a lack of respect (for authority, for God, for each other) and the seeds of a crippling political correctness.
Punk rock, while largely lacking in talent, had far more in common with 1950s R&R than did anything given airplay in the 13 years hence. It stripped down the essence of what had been erroneously called rock and opened a lot of doors for a lot of future acts, burning itself out in the process because it was so narrow in scope that it couldnât evolve (much like rap now).
I use the term âarena rockâ as a slur for everything that attracts large crowds, being it the Eagles or Def Leppard. Youâre implying that if someone sells out a show quickly, it means that theyâre great. I say that it means we have low standards for what we call âgoodâ music (a somewhat subjective term). Iâve never been to an area show for anything in my life and never will. I donât judge a bandâs talent by how many awards or gold records they have. The more popular a band is, the less likely I am to listen to them.
That said, the Eagles have more in common with country music than with rock and roll.
By your standards, perhaps I should stop shaving and buying toilet paper because with over a billion adherents, Islam must be right.
Unfortunately, ârock and roll,â an old euphemism for sex, has been hijacked and applied to everything that doesnât fall into another catagory.
How sad.
). That one has no drums whatsoever. Itâs all acoustic guitar and violin.