Was Journey, Foreigner, etc Bad?

[jabbr]

Yesterday on the interweb, I happened upon a live video of Foreigner from a 1985 concert, and was absolutely floored by their phenomenal performance. When it ended, my first thought was "they don't make them like that anymore" (these days, "vocalists" lip-sync on stage and use pitch correction in the studio. Lou Gramm? Not so much.). My second thought was an old memory of being lifted up by my underwear because I liked Foreigner.

 

Arena Rock, Commercial Rock, Boardroom Rock, The Carpenters, whatever you call it; I have two, no, three questions for those of you who openly or mentally ridiculed guys like me for buying Foreigner "Four", Journey "Escape", or Kansas "Leftoverture":

 

1. What was it about these bands you found distasteful?

 

2. Do you still believe the ridicule was warranted or fair?

 

3. Do you now like any music you ridiculed in your youth?

 

1. I think it comes down to the difference between the Beatles and the Monkees. There are groups that pioneered their own original sound, and then there are "follow on" groups that repeat a certain sound, usually in a commercialized, watered down and formulaic fashion. There are groups which produced a single song on an album that was geared toward mainstream radio, and there are groups whose entire essence was mainstream.

 

2. Yes

 

3. Rap/Hip Hop which I didn't initially understand, nor appreciate, also perhaps the Carpenters who did in fact have their own unique sound (though I don't frequently play)

[jabbr]

And I vehemently disagree with the notion that music written with commercial success in mind is automatically excluded as a high art form.

 

I have no problem with commercial success though I place weight on originality but that's just me -- you asked

 

As it turns out the groups that have had the highest commercial success according to Wikipedia have also had a unique and genre defining sound -- Beatles, Elvis, Michael Jackson, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, to name most of the very top group

Originality is perhaps the highest form, but hardly the only one worthy of our time. I have an equal appreciation for the originality of John Lennon's music as for the pop material Paul McCartney wrote (John & Paul have always been to me what "Beatles vs Monkeys" are as described in your above post).

There's lots of "pop" now but the Beatles and particularly Paul literally invented that ... so very original and very high impact.

[jabbr]

I think it is not quite as simple as saying the music must be original. That would pretty much leave out a lot of classical music, and of course, things like reworking classical music themes or melodies has always been a near guaranteed ride to a pop hit.

 

I have an interest in classification schemas and have always enjoyed looking at the history of music with respect to both combining styles as well as diverging styles. Composers/groups/artists that have unique sound, while not necessarily entirely original, usually have an original combination of older styles, or a specific divergence from an older style.

 

You could look at Led Zeppelin, for example, while derived from Electric Blues,

https://ledzeppelinproject.wordpress.com/musical-influence/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Led_Zeppelin#Musical_style

 

blend English Folk and then derive psychedelic influences. If we take Led Zeppelin along with Black Sabbath, there are the roots of a huge swath of the "hard rock" and "heavy metal" that followed.

 

Umm- I would say that the Beatles pretty much perfected pop for their time, but they didn't invent it. (grin) Come to think of it, I think that is at least partially true for all the artists you listed up there. And for any modern artist I can think of.

 

In a similar fashion the Beatles' unique sound is derived from Rock N' Roll but then goes on to form its own unique (at the time) style of pop, (Paul) as well as psychedelic (John) ... well that's way too simplistic but that is the general idea.

 

In any case I'd say that both are really original as well as tremendously commercially successful.

 

Likewise with classical there are subgenres that distinguish e.g. Mozart from e.g. Dvorak from e.g. Shostakovich.