The general decline in standards today

[V.C. Brunswick]

anyone else remember KMET-The Mighty Met in Los Angeles?

I remember KMET though I used to only listen to it for Dr. Demento. He used to be on Sunday nights from 6-10 PM. In fact Dr. D was my first introduction to music of the Golden Era. I still have loads of cassette tapes of his show that I used to record off the radio.

[video=youtube;uFnk__zGowU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFnk__zGowU[/video]

 

[rue]

I remember KMET though I used to only listen to it for Dr. Demento. He used to be on Sunday nights from 6-10 PM. In fact Dr. D was my first introduction to music of the Golden Era. I still have loads of cassette tapes of his show that I used to record off the radio.

[video=youtube;uFnk__zGowU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFnk__zGowU[/video]

I remember KMET and KROQ

 

[Widebrim]

I remember KMET and KROQ

KROQ is still around. But how about Boss Radio, 93-KHJ?

 

[rue]

KROQ is still around. But how about Boss Radio, 93-KHJ?

Gosh.... I don't think I remember them.....

 

[TidiousTed]

I never listened to country music when I was young, it was just not the done thing where I grew up. We knew it was there, but it was music for people out in the sticks. We were city boys and we listened to the bands of what you Americans call the British Invasion. British rock and pop really ruled my childhood and early youth. The first record I ever bought was The Best Of The Animals and I still got it, still listen to it.
I didn’t start to listen to country music till well into the 1990s and I still shudder when I hear older mainstream country (usually called sobbing country round my neck of the woods). But I’ve come to like at least a few country artist since then. People like Garth Brooks, Blake Shelton, Brad Paisley and Trace Atkins. Besides through my love for celtic music I’ve come to like bluegrass as they are related somehow.

 

[Edward]

Bluegrass and other elements of American country owe their roots to Irish and Scots folk music taken over by eighteenth and nineteenth century immigrants.

There is also something of a relationship between Celtic folk music and blues, i don't recall the details, but I remember Rory Gallagher talking about it.

 

[Viola]

I started listening to country when I was 12, which is about when I started having music preferences that did not align with my parents', who don't like it all.

I like "sobbing country" though - Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Hank Williams (not Jr.!). I am fond of Charlie Pride and Conway Twitty when I'm in a specific mood. I also like Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson. And Dolly Parton is one of my heroes.

Of the modern artists, I think Alison Krause is amazing. Of the men, Toby Keith is a guilty pleasure, Brad Paisley is hit and miss, and I'm not entirely sure if I like Blake Shelton's music or I just... like Blake Shelton, the man. Montgomery Gentry had the first country albums I ever owned so I am fond of them, too.

 

[Tomasso]

My standards have seen no decline. Granted, I speak for myself.

 

[C-dot]

Jazz in the 20's was considered subversive and a threat to morals of the time. It had new looks in clothes, sex, attitudes and music. And yes, even pot as you point out.

Now if you only look at the hippies you see in films and TV as you would since you weren't around when the true "hippie" movement was going on, you'd know there there was more to it that just "free love" pot and lamenting the "squares".

It'd be like me saying all Canadians just watch hockey and say "eh" after every sentence. But we both know that not to be true. Sure there's probably many that do, but that's a small part of the group.

This coming a little late, but I took a break for life.

Just because I wasn't there doesn't mean I don't know about the hippie movement. I can't possibly list all details of it in one post, so what I do say is very simplified. My "credentials" include a methodical study of 20th century pop culture, for which I've won academic awards for, as opposed to believing what the TV tells me, like you seem to think I do. Is that good enough?

Now, in regards to the blanket generalizations: You make a good point about stereotyping Canadians, yet you are stereotyping all musicians from the 1920's to the 1950's as hippies. Were all hippies also musicians? Were all musicians also hippies? To borrow your phrase, if you looked a little more closely, you'd know there is a lot more to it than that.

Back to regularly scheduled programming.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The thing to remember is that the movements we think of today as characterizing any given era were in fact a very small part of the greater population.

Most women in the teens weren't suffragettes.

Most people in the twenties were not shieks and flappers, nor did they live the high life in speakeasies, fight alongside Al Capone, or move to Paris to sit around drinking themselves into a stupor while scrawling furiously in little leather notebooks.

Most people in the thirties weren't members of the Popular Front, nor did they load all their worldly goods onto an old truck and set out for California. Most people in the thirties weren't even unemployed.

Most people in the forties never saw a zoot suit, and would have laughed derisively if they did. And most of the jitterbugs settled right down once they were drafted.

Most people in the fifties never heard of Jack Kerouac, and thought Elvis was a vulgar hillbilly. And truth be told, after about 1953, they realized McCarthy was a crackpot.

Most people in the sixties weren't hippies and most of what they knew about hippies they learned from "Laugh In." They thought the Beatles were nice young men until they grew the beards and got all weird.

Most people in the seventies never set foot in a disco. And "punk" to them meant unemployed teenagers who hung around poolrooms.

Most people in the eighties didn't get rich on Wall Street or wear those ridiculous contrasting-collar shirts and giant shoulder pads.

Most people in the nineties thought grunge was what you wiped off the floor under the refrigerator.

Most people in the 2000's -- well, that may be the exception. Most people *were* terrified into irrationality during the 2000s.

But that's the lone exception -- in every other decade of the last century, these fringe movements have just been a small part of a much bigger picture. When we start thinking in terms of these Sunday-supplement characterizations of any era, we end up losing any real sense of historical perspective.

 

[TidiousTed]

Another aspect is what you see and what you think you see. The fashion industry has always been good at latching on to any movement’s visual concept. In the summer of love what looked like hippies might have been hippies. Two years later half the young generation looked like hippies because the fashion industry told them to.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

This wonderful taste in music and a gun fan? No wonder we get along so well lol

I like "sobbing country" though - Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Hank Williams (not Jr.!). I am fond of Charlie Pride and Conway Twitty when I'm in a specific mood. I also like Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson. And Dolly Parton is one of my heroes.

Of the modern artists, I think Alison Krause is amazing. Of the men, Toby Keith is a guilty pleasure, Brad Paisley is hit and miss, and I'm not entirely sure if I like Blake Shelton's music or I just... like Blake Shelton, the man. Montgomery Gentry had the first country albums I ever owned so I am fond of them, too.

 

[PoohBang]

This coming a little late, but I took a break for life.

Just because I wasn't there doesn't mean I don't know about the hippie movement. I can't possibly list all details of it in one post, so what I do say is very simplified. My "credentials" include a methodical study of 20th century pop culture, for which I've won academic awards for, as opposed to believing what the TV tells me, like you seem to think I do. Is that good enough?

Now, in regards to the blanket generalizations: You make a good point about stereotyping Canadians, yet you are stereotyping all musicians from the 1920's to the 1950's as hippies. Were all hippies also musicians? Were all musicians also hippies? To borrow your phrase, if you looked a little more closely, you'd know there is a lot more to it than that.

Back to regularly scheduled programming.

congratulations on your multiple academic awards for 20th century pop culture! Again, I never asked or used the word "Credentials." That was James.

and when I referred Jazz to hippies as in how they scared the status quo... I wasn't referring ONLY to the musicians. Jazz was an age that also had music.

No, all hippies were not musicians, just like all hippies were not drugged out mindless youth.

Now since you're so educated on the subject, why not go into more about the Hippie Movement so stereotypes don't exist?

Again, Lizzie makes a great point.... again.

 

[Tomasso]

all hippies were not musicians, just like all hippies were not drugged out mindless youth.

You weren't there, but it was the later.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I started listening to country when I was 12, which is about when I started having music preferences that did not align with my parents', who don't like it all.

I like "sobbing country" though - Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Hank Williams (not Jr.!). I am fond of Charlie Pride and Conway Twitty when I'm in a specific mood. I also like Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson. And Dolly Parton is one of my heroes.

Of the modern artists, I think Alison Krause is amazing. Of the men, Toby Keith is a guilty pleasure, Brad Paisley is hit and miss, and I'm not entirely sure if I like Blake Shelton's music or I just... like Blake Shelton, the man. Montgomery Gentry had the first country albums I ever owned so I am fond of them, too.

One country singer I've become a fan of is the late Slim Dusty (1927-2003). Here's a couple of my favorites.

[video=youtube;EsKYxJ4kGVQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsKYxJ4kGVQ&feature=related[/video]

[video=youtube;borGLUCQRrs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=borGLUCQRrs&feature=related[/video]

 

[HoosierDaddy]

I think that it is fine to study history and delve into what is written about it...and have an interest beyond much of the hype. It can also be very revealing to have the chance to talk to various plain folk and family members who lived through it to get a glimpse from their perspective. My father was born in 1905..and gave me his impressions of the great depression..and WW2. He was living in San Deigo when Pear Harbor was bombed and designed aircraft throughout the war. I remember him telling me(from a human level) that these were scary times....and it wasn't a 'sure thing' of just who would win. Otherwise..he was there..and experience the feeling in the air of those times...and the uncertainty. He also read the headlines and what was written down about how those involved 'surely felt'...and thought. Often he would laugh at much of it or have a look of disgust simply stating..'That wasn't really the way it was'. I got alot of that from Uncles fighting in the Pacific and ground pounding in Europe as well. From Grandparents that helped raise me. Listening to their stories throughout the years. My father retired at 71 and passed away in 1984.
I grew up during the '50s&'60s(well maybe I'm still 'growing up'). When JFK was shot...I was home sick from high school and watched it on TV in real time...or as 'real time' as that technology then allowed. Ruby shooting Oswald. The King assination. Met and chatted with Bobby Kennedy at the UAW local a couple weeks before his life ended. Elvis...then BeatleMania during the latter part of HS. That music morphing into the sounds of Joplin/Hendrixs/Dylan beginning another powerful era. Graduating high school with the draft and a killing war as a future. I felt the emotion..the 'feelings in the air' or all around me..that all of my friends felt. The uncertianty. The arrival of pot replacing the cold six pack of a more innocent time. Buddies returning with wounded minds..spirit and bodies. Speed..Mesc...LSD..hash...and all the cool terms to go with them. To perhaps calm the pain..or the fear. Derived out of all this another movement was inspired..an illusion..if you will. The enchantment of just stopping a whirlwind world in it's tracks with the enlightenment of the drug. Seemingly adding to the intellectual new refrain of peaceful harmony or involvement that required less responsibility but greater insight. The Hippie factor. The same mindset and lifestyle that progressed(or digressed)into to spitting on me and screaming 'BABY KILLER' as I marched in uniform. Hate filled expressions that proclaimed peace togetherness and harmony with the next breath. Those that had finally wandered into eating any pill to help justify 'the cause'...or 'a cause'.
Somehow..all this filtered down to my little town in Indiana...and I believe it was 'in the air' especially concerning my age group...even in most other places. It affected all our lifes..and in fact was life at that time. There seemed only a few choices...and many felt they had no choice. I've read many historical
facts...or takes on that era...and shook my head(just like my Father)..'that wasn't the way it really was'!

 

[rue]

I have always been repulsed that the military was spit on and yelled at when they were coming home. My dad was treated that way too. He doesn't like to talk about it, but he's thrilled that the men and women fighting today don't get treated as badly.... at least not as often.... I have a few stories of that kind of treatment from the husband (he's a recruiter now), but guess who is doing it even after all these years?

 

[PoohBang]

You weren't there, but it was the later.

I wasn't where exactly?

 

[C-dot]

congratulations on your multiple academic awards for 20th century pop culture ... Now since you're so educated on the subject, why not go into more about the Hippie Movement so stereotypes don't exist?

Thanks anyway, but I don't need congratulations. I also don't need to "go into more" of anything where you're listening, because I detest nitpicking and disagreement for the sake of disagreement, both of which are sport to you. I'd rather discuss celestial mechanics with my cat.

I've read many historical
facts...or takes on that era...and shook my head(just like my Father)..'that wasn't the way it really was'!

Well written, HD :eusa_clap No amount of study into the era can replace experiencing it.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

I now firmly believe that the 1960s offered a big boost to the general decline in standards today. Most of the radical activists set up the cause..the victims..and then 'used' or made their plight useable to maintain or contain it. Leading to the next complaint...then the next. Without dispute their road to Utopia begins to crumble. They don't care to realize that what is fair to some ... is always unfair to others. No control can change that....but it is the fight that counts for their gratification. Until many are popping their pill that you mustn't offend anyone. Maybe we need a new drug to help that finally materialize.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6uEMOeDZsA&ob=av3e