Was it the cocaine? Was it the labels? What the hell was it?

[Magpel]

(Unabashed and somewhat harsh personal opinion to follow--no offense intended to those who disagree, 'cause "there's no accounting for taste.")

 

I was sitting in an office the other day--tax accountant, running late--when a local soft rock radio started playing that Jackson Browne song, "She must somebody's girl" or whatever it is called...

 

Now, there is plenty of Jackson Browne material that I find palatable, at the very least, some that I even think is pretty OK, but this...it made me ill. Everything about that whole era of production values--the "glassy" guitars, the mallet-y FM synths, the "tastefully" uniform bass tones with the tastefully occasional slap and pop, the sheen. Ill, I tell you, it made me ill. And I realized, you know, that's probably Lee Sklar, whom I love (and who doesn't?) playing that awful bass.

 

Who misled so many? Was it the labels? The mountains of cocaine? Could it even be the MI industry? How could so many good players and good writers be so thoroughly estranged from their original sonic values (like, say, the sound of a good guitar or a nice drum well struck?) So estranged from the sound of reality? Who was calling the shots? Don't tell me it happens every decade, 'cause it doesn't.

 

As I sat, fearing my tax accountant, I thought: "Better nothing---BETTER NO MUSIC AT ALL IN THE WORLD--than this egregious {censored}."

[ultravibe]

Ever listened to Jackson Browne... ON WEED?!

[Mudcat007]

 

...Who misled so many? Was it the labels? The mountains of cocaine? Could it even be the MI industry? How could so many good players and good writers be so thoroughly estranged from their original sonic values (like, say, the sound of a good guitar or a nice drum well struck?) So estranged from the sound of reality ? Who was calling the shots? Don't tell me it happens every decade, 'cause it doesn't....

 

 

 

I believe during that whole period of time many artists/engineers/producers/labels/radio stations wanted to produce/broadcast "modern" sounding music (whatever that means). I remember an interview with Mellencamp in the md-80s where he said he tried to use instrumentation and production values that would never "date" his music, as compared to so much of what was going on then, as artists were trying so hard to sound modern & up to date.

 

Funny thing about Jackson Brown at that time, as much as I loathe "Somebody's Baby," I really like "Lawyers In Love" (including the early 80s production values). That song cracks me up every time I hear it. It was nice to see that Mr. Brown could actually exhibit a bit of a sense of humor.

[elsongs]

 

(Unabashed and somewhat harsh personal opinion to follow--no offense intended to this who disagrees, 'cause "there's no accounting for taste." I was sitting in an office the other day--tax accountant, running late--when a local soft rock radio started playing that Jackson Browne song, "She must somebody's girl" or whatever it is called... Now, there is plenty of Jackson Browne material that I find palatable, at the very least, some that I even think is pretty OK, but this...it made me ill. Everything about that whole era of production values--the "glassy" guitars, the mallet-y FM synths, the "tastefully" uniform bass tones with the tastefully occasional slap and pop, the sheen. Ill, I tell you, it made me ill. And I realized, you know, that's probably Lee Sklar, whom I love (and who doesn't?) playing that awful bass. Who misled so many? Was it the labels? The mountains of cocaine? Could it even be the MI industry? How could so many good players and good writers be so thoroughly estranged from their original sonic values (like, say, the sound of a good guitar or a nice drum well struck?) So estranged from the sound of reality ? Who was calling the shots? Don't tell me it happens every decade, 'cause it doesn't. As I sat, fearing my tax accountant, I thought: "Better nothing---BETTER NO MUSIC AT ALL IN THE WORLD--than this egregious {censored}."

 

 

Um, I think there are worse things in the world to be worried about. Or you just wanna show us how "hardcore" you are? Man that's soo junior high.

I actually like the song. If you have a problem with that then it's your problem, not mine. Deal with it.

 

Also wanna let you know it was made for a motion picture (Fast Times at Ridgemont High) and that the song was made a couple years before the DX7 came out. That's no FM synth, it's a Dyno-My-Piano modified Fender Rhodes. And the "synth" you probably wince from hearing is actually a Hammond B3.

 

But go ahead and write about every song you dislike in the world. You'll probably die an early death from all that bile building up in your system.

[Deef]

"Lawyers" was the last Jackson Brown album I bought. I did like the title song, but I could tell Jackson was changing his artistic focus. And, yes, I think it was the coke. You need hits to finance that {censored}.

[Magpel]

"Hardcore," because, like, I prefer Jackson singing "Dr. My Eyeeees..."?

Wishing me an early death from bile accumulation?

"Junior High" for expressing a musical aesthetic at a music forum?

 

Sheesh, guess someone didn't read the bit about how I never judge anyone for liking what I dislike...

 

 

 

Um, I think there are worse things in the world to be worried about. Or you just wanna show us how "hardcore" you are? Man that's soo junior high. I actually like the song. If you have a problem with that then it's your problem, not mine. Deal with it. Also wanna let you know it was made for a motion picture (Fast Times at Ridgemont High) and that the song was made a couple years before the DX7 came out. That's no FM synth, it's a Dyno-My-Piano modified Fender Rhodes. And the "synth" you probably wince from hearing is actually a Hammond B3. But go ahead and write about every song you dislike in the world. You'll probably die an early death from all that bile building up in your system.

 

[Jeff da Weasel]

It's a dated sound. It did seem appropriate for "Fast Times", as I recall.

 

I mean, it's not like Jackson was the only one doing that sound at that time. It's sad in the aspect that a songwriter as talented as he felt a need to emulate something like that, but ALL of the best -- Joni, Neil, etc. -- seemed to go through that phase at that time. They suddenly weren't selling albums like they did in the mid-70s, and found themselves open to ideas that they would have tossed five years earlier.

 

Fear of being made irrelevant has been the cause of many bad decisions over the years. And I'm sure not just talking about music.

[Geoff Grace]

John, if you haven't seen Paul Simon's movie One Trick Pony, then I'd say it's about time for you to rent it.

 

Best,

 

Geoff

[blue2blue]

Jackson Browne grew up practically in my backyard (in OC, California) and then, not long before I did, he ended up (for a while) in Long Beach, where he was briefly a member of the Nitty Gritty String Band.

 

But before that and long before his first solo album (which didn't come out until '71, IIRC), I'd read about him in an article in the old glossy hipster magazine, Cheetah, called "The Orange Country 3." It was about the better known Steve Gillette and Steve Noonan, who both hat records out, I believe, but gave a little extra loving attention to Jackson, who was, I think, only about 17 or so when the article was written. (But he'd already had one of his tunes recorded by Nico [who he had a brief romance with when he was 16 or so, according to legend] and the Velvet Underground.)

 

Browne finally started performing regularly when his first album came out and I saw him the first time with Leo Kottke opening, IIRC, at my college's 'coffee house' nite. I really enjoyed the heck out of the show. He had a great packet of songs (I still really like the first two albums) and he did a fine job accompanying himself.

 

I later saw Browne, with a back up band, with Toots and the Maytals opening and followed by Linda Ronstadt and then the Eagles; at a slightly larger venue, the Anaheim Angels Stadium. Toots came out on stage at, like, noon, outdoors, looking like they'd never played in the daylight before. This was, maybe, '76 or maybe early '77 and probably me and my friends and maybe a few folks in the bands seemed to be the only folks who knew who Toots & the Maytals were. The audience absolutely did not know what to make of them. So basically, they ignored them wholeheartedly, not even bothering to clap.

 

I know, I know... imagine a stadium show packed with philistines. Still, it was pretty much the end for me and mainstream shows. The bands were fine but the audience struck me as about as dumb as a box of rocks. (Was it the cocaine or... are people just stoopid? I tend to think the latter but cocaine definitely does not improve the situation. You just end up with amped up, arrogant, selfish, and vapid stoopid people.)

 

It made me think back to the first time I saw the Eagles, maybe around '72 or so. At that point no one hardly knew who they were. I knew because I was into the LA country rock scene, the Burritos, Byrds, et al, and the Eagles were seen as kind of the successor to the Burritos as an LA country rock supergroup.

 

But when they opened up for a bill that also featured Black Pearl, Edgar Winter and headliners, Yes, they got basically the same treatment as Toots would five years later. (Ah, those eclectic 70s bills. I don't think they were trying to be eclectic. I just think they coudn't be bothered to put together a bill that made sense.)

 

Which in retrospect, cracks me the hell up. 'Cause all the wonderbread-between-the-ears lumpen dolts would, within only a few years be going on and on about how great the Eagles were. And, no doubt, bragging about how they saw them back when. But I can tell you, if they did, chances are they didn't pay the slightest bit of attention or even clap in between songs.

 

 

With regard to later work by Jackson... I liked Late for the Sky pretty well when it came out but I have to admit I've only sought it out once or maybe twice since the 70s. It's in my vinyl collection. Somewhere. Maybe it's time to dig it up on my subscription service... It did get a pretty good write up on All Music Guide, FWTW. [uPDATE: Well, I did but I'm not in the mood. I think I must have listened to it a lot back in '74-'75... it sounds way over familiar even 3 decades later. Maybe I'll go back to the first album, instead. This ain't working for me right at this instant. Yeah, I'm listening to "Jamaica, Say You Will" now from the first album... much better without a big studio orchestra and pedal steel and mixed backup singers. But... I dunno. I'm not sure I had to hear any of this again. Maybe you can't always go home again. Yet when I put on the original single version of Gene Chandler's 20-year-older "The Duke of Earl" -- man it's as fresh as this morning...]

[kurdy]

I just think it's funny that out of all the cheezy records of the '80s, you'd single that one out. To me, it's a harmless little pop song. That little FM synth pad is a little annoying, but at least it was real drums and real guitars, played by real musicians (as far as I know).

 

To me, the height of '80s cheesiness didn't hit till around '86 or so. All drum machines and DX7 rhodes piano. And synth brass. Lots and lots of synth brass! You'd be hard pressed to hear a song on the radio without at least one of these elements.

[rasputin1963]

I think, in the 1980's, it was Britain who led the way, no question, with some ultra-hip and quite techie synth-pop. Just as with the 1960's British Invasion, all American acts could do was watch and learn.

 

Not too many American acts were hip or daring enough to meet Britain toe-to-toe for punky hipness, and a lot of middle-america was terrified of the punk ethos, so American pop degenerated into that DX7, overpolished white man's rock like the kind you mentioned. [To me the nadir of this vanilla Tom Cruise-flavored genre is hearing whatsisname sing, "Meet me halfway....across the sky.... where la-da-la-da waits for only YOU AND I (sic) Waits for I? What, are we rastafarian?].

 

Browne's LAWYERS IN LOVE shtick was leftover 1970's stuff, for people still grooving on "Precious And Few" by Climax. Linda Ronstadt first tried her hand at a punky new sound on her MAD LOVE LP (truth be told, it's a good album), but she was eviscerated for it on both sides of the pond. Her brilliant masterstroke was to turn her back on both strummy, 3-chord 70's Cali-rock and New Wave by diving into her Nelson Riddle trilogy.... Thank god she caught that old 1950's maestro just before he died, 'cause he was a genius and those three records show it.

 

Occasionally that synthy-jazz stuff would produce some great sounds (like Toto or Steps Ahead or EWF), but by-and-large, we had Neil Diamond doing "Heartlight" and Kenny G pulling out his soprano torture device.

 

I synonymize this bland DX7 American sound with those now unwatchable 1980's "teen coming of age" movies, half of which starred Molly Ringwald, those movies in which every mise-en-scene called for a cold fluorescent misty white light which bleached out all the colors, all the girls with big hair, triangular earrings and quasi-Japanese eyeshadow, and now they are cheap and loathsome to look at during their constant replay on AMC and make me sorry to have grown up in the 80's.

[blue2blue]

I would have to say that Rasputin has a considerably more charitable view of 80s mainstream US pop than I.

 

We're on the same page with re Nelson Riddle and Ronstadt, really nice stuff. I like her albums of Mexican pop and folk classics, too. I think she did a pretty good job helping to define that LA 70s sound, too. Listen to some of those classic albums. There's one track, I can't remember which, it's on one of the classics like Heart Like a Wheel in the middle of all these slick but right studio tracks, fitting right in, and at the very end, when they stop, you realize it's live... It gets me every time. It's a flawless, perfect take and recording. (Now, I have no idea what studio magic might have been applied, and not absolutely sure I want to know, but, you know.)

 

Anyhow I saw her a couple times in late 69 or 70 and she was really good. And really cute. Weren't we all...

 

 

PS... I see Mad Love in my subscription service's listing for Ronstadt. I don't think I'll see what that album's about; I'm figuring that the cover -- which is pretty darn scary -- says it all. Ronstadt as a sort of Benatar/Missing Persons new wave vamp is more than a little daunting. I have to say I leaned more to the Nina Hagen end of the female new wave continuum.

[spokenward]

I think we can't underplay the accountant context of your experience. Now if we could find an Tax Accountant / Periodontist we could really recalibrate this experience.

 

The song was a one-off for a soundtrack. The picture was produced by Irving Azoff (manager). A soundtrack placement is always a thoughtful gift.

 

There sure were a bunch of contributing factors. The sound probably owed a lot more to Danny Kortchmar who carried a credit. Cameron Crowe wrote a very early piece on Browne in 1974 (Crowe was fifteen at the time) - so he was a generous fan

[Hard Truth]

I always found the Carpenters the embodiment of everything that is bad about pop music, and so did all the "cool" people at the time. Twenty years later the hipsters started liking them. Now, I wouldn't want to listen to them for more than 2-3 songs, but I can understand some of their appeal.

 

The point-the annoying production elements that annoy you now will probably seem quaintly retro in a few years.

[blue2blue]

Even back then, I really liked Karen Carpenter's voice. And I was pretty anti-pop in those days. Kind of a cultural hard ass. And a lot of their body of work really annoyed me. But, then, as now (I couldn't resist putting them on), "Rainy Days and Mondays" and "Superstar," really knocked me out.

[Phil O'Keefe]

I liked Late for the Sky pretty well...

 

"'cause hes the missing link, the kitchen sink,

Eleven on a scale of ten

Honey let me introduce you to my redneck friend"

 

Great album.

[Magpel]

 

I just think it's funny that out of all the cheezy records of the '80s, you'd single that one out.

 

 

It singled me out!

 

I should have tried harder to suggest, on any other day, the song would have slipped by me without notice--a familiar melody with some era associations. But this day, just this once...

 

Well, I' m not ashamed to admit that there is a lot of music that can have this kind of effect on me. And, I mean, if this is not the place to, every now and then, give vent to a strong reaction, where is? I've been the initiator of a lot of "in praise of" threads: The Band, Elliot Smith, Talking Book -era Stevie Wonder, more. I've also question the divinity of Neil Young and used most every opportunity that presents itself to express my feelings about (post Zenyatta) Sting.

 

Bile has its role. It breaks down fats.

 

Peace peace peace, but keep your judgments lively...

[Geoff Grace]

I think, in the 1980's, it was Britain who led the way, no question, with some ultra-hip and quite techie synth-pop. Just as with the 1960's British Invasion, all American acts could do was watch and learn. Not too many American acts were hip or daring enough to meet Britain toe-to-toe for punky hipness, and a lot of middle-america was terrified of the punk ethos, so American pop degenerated into that DX7, overpolished white man's rock like the kind you mentioned.

 

While I agree that a significant chunk of leading edge music came from the UK during that period, I think you're missing a pretty big piece of the American pop puzzle. I'd like to fill that in a bit with the following acts: The B-52s, Cameo, The Cars, Devo, The Gap Band, The Go Gos, Rick James, Chaka Khan, Cyndi Lauper, Lene Lovich, Oingo Boingo, Parliament-Funkadelic, Prince, Talking Heads, and Zapp. (Of course, those names are mostly associated with the first half of the eighties, before new wave evolved into modern rock and funk gave way to rap. The late eighties was a whole different ball game.)

 

Those acts don't represent the middle of the road, but hip America was also present and accounted for.

 

Best,

 

Geoff

[slight-return]

Good point

I don't know if its fair to class Lovich as "American" in terms of her cultural/musical development. American citizen sure, but she was first generation and spent a big chunk of her formative years in England

 

Im having so much fun...

[Beck]

 

I synonymize this bland DX7 American sound with those now unwatchable 1980's "teen coming of age" movies, half of which starred Molly Ringwald, those movies in which every mise-en-scene called for a cold fluorescent misty white light which bleached out all the colors, all the girls with big hair, triangular earrings and quasi-Japanese eyeshadow, and now they are cheap and loathsome to look at during their constant replay on AMC and make me sorry to have grown up in the 80's.

 

 

Hmmm... I really miss bubblegum lip-gloss myself. Girls just don't look like girls anymore (and some aren

[oldman2]

In the time zone under discussion I was playing 5/7 nights doing Country covers. The Country scene exploded and still out sells most other styles of music. Funny thing is I quit listening to local country stations 5/6 ago.

[Billster]

A lot of what is essentially singer/songwriter stuff from that era was overproduced. If the song had just been singing and strumming, it would have a totally different vibe - and no chance of cracking in on AOR rock stations.

[Magpel]

While I agree that a significant chunk of leading edge music came from the UK during that period, I think you're missing a pretty big piece of the American pop puzzle. I'd like to fill that in a bit with the following acts: The B-52s, Cameo, The Cars, Devo, The Gap Band, The Go Gos, Rick James, Chaka Khan, Cyndi Lauper, Lene Lovich, Oingo Boingo, Parliament-Funkadelic, Prince, Talking Heads, and Zapp. (Of course, those names are mostly associated with the first half of the eighties, before new wave evolved into modern rock and funk gave way to rap. The late eighties was a whole different ball game.) Those acts don't represent the middle of the road, but hip America was also present and accounted for.

 

Excellently true, and don't forget fringier acts such as Television and Pere Ubu. Plenty of edge there. All edge, one might be inclined to say.

[Lee Knight]

 

Now, there is plenty of Jackson Browne material that I find palatable, at the very least, some that I even think is pretty OK, but this...it made me ill. Everything about that whole era of production values--the "glassy" guitars, the mallet-y FM synths, the "tastefully" uniform bass tones with the tastefully occasional slap and pop, the sheen. Ill, I tell you, it made me ill. And I realized, you know, that's probably Lee Sklar, whom I love (and who doesn't?) playing that awful bass.

 

 

The first time I heard that tune was during the closing credits of Fast Times. I saw it with my band mates while out of town touring. It struck me then as very LA studio. But it was a movie, and what's Browne gonna do? That was my reaction then. I also remember thinking though I never really dug him, this was a fun throwback to a romantic doo wop-like past. It was clever in it's naive sappy outlook. Perfect for the characters of the movie.

 

Coincidently, I just heard this tune a week ago. My reaction was the same. Glassy, sterile, etc. But the song was still a clever yet heartfelt throwback.

 

Dyno-my-Piano and all...

[eeglug]

XTC is one of my favorite bands but some of their best material is marred by rinky-dinky 80s production...