Qwertyuiopia

Old stuff time again! This article presents five albums from the US at the end of the sixties. Hippie masterpieces, intrascenal irony, prog snobishness and Punk Rock’s toddler steps, all here!

This selection of albums is intended to give a clear idea about the end of the 60’s hippie scene in the US and a few new musical styles that emerged.

Paul Kantner and the Jefferson Starship – Blows Against the Empire (1970)

This album is a side project of Jefferson Airplane’s singer and rhythm guitarist Paul Kantner along with a supergroup known as Planer Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra and members of most of the major San Francisco Bay Area bands, such as Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, David Crosby and Graham Nash and members of Quicksilver Messenger Service. Yup, Grace Slick is there, too.

Blows Against the Empire is also one of the first rock concept albums, telling the story of the hijacking of a starship –yes, by hippies — in order to colonize another planet. Its main themes are freedom, love, revolution, independence — a very nice manifesto for the time’s ideals. It has also been nominated for the 1971 Hugo award for dramatic presentation, making it the first time a rock album receives that honor.

I picked this album because sound-wise it paints a pretty full and accurate picture of the path that musical exploration took in that particular place during the whole decade past. Individual styles and influences are easy to spot, as most of the musicians that took part in the writing and recording have already developed their individual styles and stand up to no less (and no more) than what’s expected of them. It’s the kind of perfect work that bases itself on a fully evolved principle, and usually marks the beginning of the decline of a particular scene.

Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention – We ‘re Only in it for the Money (1968)

Though Frank Zappa was not the first one to make fun of hippies and their dedication to the contemporary ideals, he was probably among the first people to understand so profoundly the trend he was making fun of. The album’s satirical lyrics do manage to grasp some of the hippie movement’s major flaws and naive delusions, but the most impressive part is the music: Here, Zappa really shows off his knowledge and understanding of the sound of the era.

The album abounds with allegorical, naive manifestos of freedom, nudeness and the right to burn one’s head with substances; obscure, noisy sample parts that closely resemble the trippy experimentations that were unsparingly used by the “hip” groups of the period; and barbs directed to the fact that the driving force of the movement was solely the need to belong.

Though perhaps a bit bitter, We’re Only In It For The Money is caustically accurate, and at points takes the music to a whole new level of complexity, pureness and idealism being replaced by Zappa’s thorough musical compositions and cynical, insociable views.

Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band – Trout Mask Replica (1969)

Though this first wave of psychedelic rock clearly displays signs of stagnation as it approaches the turn of the decade, it has sown the seeds of a newfound appreciation of surrealism in music, and the use of experimental techniques in recording and production in order to achieve specific atmospheric results.

An avant-garde mix of free-jazz, rock and blues, Trout Mask Replica is experimental to the point of being inaccessible to the average listener. Atonal melodies, nonsensical dialogue parts and often deliberately out-of-sync vocals that scream and mumble surrealist lyrics create an elaborate atmosphere of discord.

Though Captain Beefheart never came to be a big commercial success, this album is considered by many to be both Beefheart’s masterpiece and a cornerstone of experimental music (also occupying the 58th place on the List of Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time). Though definitely an acquired taste, Trout Mask Replica is an album that’s worth being familiar with.

Velvet Underground – The Velvet Underground (1969)

New York. While the tree-hugging movement on the West Coast is busy resting at its peak, the bohemians over here have just come up a new concept that’s bound to transform expression from that time on: Pop Art. By now it’s been two decades since the recording and production of music is possible, and enough examples of commercial success exist to allow pretty precise marketing principles to emerge.

Since art can be regarded as communication, the application of some of those principles would help ensure that as many people as possible would get the message (and buy the record, yes ). Understanding of your target group can ensure that the message is well-directed. Pop Art tries for a balance between artistic expression and accessibility to the mainstream.

The Velvet Underground are a group that Lou Reed and John Cale put together, with strong ties to Andy Warhol, who practically defined the original concept of Pop Art in the visual arts. In general, the group’s work is considered to be breaking new ground with each album throughout the nine-year period that they were together.

Although their most famous record is The Velvet Underground & Nico, for which Warhol designed the cover, their 1969 album is at an equilibrium between their old, aggressive sound and the musical paths that Lou Reed would later explore. Partially this is because John Cale had left the group, of course, but nonetheless this album is a nice example of this balance between noisy experimentation and easy to follow (but at the same time intricate) melodies, and bittersweet, easy-to-relate-to lyrics complemented by absurd and inaccessible poetic parts.

Stooges – The Stooges (1969)

And so we come to the roots of the punk revolution. Produced by John Cale, the Stooges debut album had never known much success, as it is generally perceived that it’s come before its time. It wasn’t until their 1973 album, Raw Power and the help of David Bowie that a punk scene existed for the Stooges to be a part of.

Simply put, although the Stooges did have some obvious influences from their contemporary Rock & Roll scene, there really wasn’t that much music dealing with the kind of feelings the Stooges did. The album’s themes of angst, lust and social desertion and –for a good part– the Stooges’ lack of musical knowledge is an early expression of Punk Rock, one of the major new musical styles that the seventies would have to offer.
And ta! That was the second article in this series. Well, if you read through it all, I guess you should also try and find this music.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 7th, 2007 at 18:58 and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.