July 10, 2022 by A.S. Van Dorston

Rant on the stupidity of ignoring the Beatles, what makes a rock icon, Stranger Things’ revival of Kate Bush and Metallica, and various YouTube channels I’m watching

I recently had a conversation with a YouTuber who does reaction videos, and they casually mentioned that they’re unfamiliar with a most of the Beatles catalog. With no shame or embarrassment, even though the guy (it’s a couple) is a trained musician who studied music. They have nearly 45,000 followers to listen to them talk about music. Or watch them pulling faces as they hear things for the first time. I’m not going to say who because I don’t think they deserve to have more followers until they listen to some goddam Beatles. I get the appeal of reaction videos to a point. There are artists we love so much but have heard them so often that they’re just like part of our DNA now. The memory of experiencing them for the first time is long past, sometimes even forgotten. So to witness the thrill of discovery via someone else can be sweet nectar, or fresh blood to a vampire. Okay, I made that sound unhealthy, but it’s a very basic function of human social behavior, the desire to share good things and strengthen the culture and community around them.

It’s a big, diverse world, and I get that the Beatles are not the most important musical artist everywhere. However, if you’re going to listen to Electric Light Orchestra’s “Mr. Blue Sky” and compare them to the Beatles, you’re not wrong. But if you are an allegedly educated musician and have only heard a few Beatles songs and have no clue what musical and recording techniques the Beatles pioneered, which influenced almost all of rock and pop music for over half a century, well, you should be fucking embarrassed. Someone should confiscate all your gear. Let’s say you’re just in your 20s. That’s no excuse saying that you weren’t born in the ’50s. Streaming has been available for well over two decades, which means anyone can access nearly anything. So that’s over 7,300 mornings these ‘tubers woke up and decided not to listen to Beatles, even though their entire catalog not counting obscure stuff can be heard in eight and a half hours. Sounds like a fun and well-spent day in the school of rock to me.

I can understand non-music loving civilians (though anyone who doesn’t love music is also likely to be a psychopath) being willfully ignorant of the Beatles, but otherwise, there’s no excuse for any generation, just like everyone should know about Mozart, Beethoven, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Bing Crosby, Billie, Ella, Sarah, Hank, Patsy, Sinatra, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Dylan, Stones and Bowie. I would add essential blues/R&B/soul like Fats Domino, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, B.B. King, James Brown, Sam Cooke, Etta James, Aretha, Otis, Curtis, George, Al, Marvin, Stevie, Michael and Prince. Global would be Fela Kuti, Bob Marley and probably Tito Puente.

Those are just the most basic pioneers, the tip of the iceburg of a huge history of music. And because the variety is so vast, it’s not reasonable to expect everyone to relate to or even love the Beatles as much as some other artist who one has a more personal connection to. But again, in talking about 20th century pop and rock, you gotta know about the Beatles. I may not have ever ranked Beatles as my favorite actually. I grew up with Beatles playing starting in the womb, as my mom had a good collection of their singles plus Rubber Soul, and my uncle, who lived with us and my grandparents when I was small, had all the other albums except for Revolver and Abbey Road. My mom also had some Elvis singles. I remember the first conversation about music I had outside of family was when I was six on the playground. “Who’s your favorite musician?” Elvis! I had no clue the man would be dead within a couple years, after being trapped in a gilded cage in Vegas by the grubby Colonel. I just knew some of his ace sides from the 50s and early 60s. My favorite wasn’t his best, but was perfect for a 6 year-old — “Witchcraft.”

Eventually my favorites would become ELO and Queen. Black Sabbath edges out the Beatles for me for greatest six album run. But Beatles was always a perfect backdrop to grow up to, moving from “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “Yellow Submarine” to “Eleanor Rigby,” “A Day in the Life” and “Helter Skelter.” Hearing Revolver for the first time at 15 was an intense experience, which perhaps was a factor in it becoming part of my all-time top five.

I grew up a band kid, playing cornet/trumpet. We learned all kinds of music — pop, country, classical, jazz. I’d been exposed to big band jazz and polka through my grandma, and country through my gramps. He was a truck driver and I accompanied him on a trip and played a Johnny Cash 8-track on repeat until he threw it out the window. I whined so much we had to pick up more tapes at the next truckstop. There’s been increasingly more music released every year in the past few decades, to the point where it’s overwhelming. But everything have their origins, and I can’t imagine any music lover not being curious about them.

I tried not to be too harsh, but the ‘tuber was quite defensive, and I have a feeling they’re gonna double down and not listen to any Beatles at all in the near future! I also recommended an accompanying study guide by Ian McDonald, Revolution in the Head (1994). Is it gauche to recommend books on YouTube? Does someone need to put highlights of the book in a 15 minute video?

Rock Icons

Pete Pardo and Martin Popoff listed who they thought were the “biggest rock stars.” I would frame it more of who are the most recognizable rock icons. Because it goes beyond who’s most popular. It’s really about those who’s personalities, appearance and brands have transcended their music to icon status. Lots of people know about Lemmy and Iggy who know nothing about their music. It makes sense that a lot of these people had Japanese vinyl toys and action figures made in their likeness. I have Lemmy, Iggy and Ozzy dolls, and if I had the shelf space, I could also get ones for Dio, Angus

I’d have to whittle down from a list of at least 30. Mick, Keith, Pete, Roger, Jim, Jimi, Robert, Lou, Neil, Iggy, Angus, Bon, Ozzy, Lemmy, Eno, Freddie, Eddie, Rob, Dio, Bruce, Joey, Sid, Joe Strummer, Sting, Ian Curtis, Tom Waits. Janis, Grace, the Wilson sisters, Stevie, Joan, Chrissie Hynde, Debbie Harry, Poly Styrene, Siouxsie Sioux should be in the long list at least. Paul McCartney didn’t immediately come to mind, but he did steal the show as the boss in the Get Back documentary 50 years after the fact, and has been a pretty accessible ambassador in the media for decades, his boyish enthusiasm literally making him appear 40 years younger than his actual age. Now that’s some rock ‘n’ roll magic right there. Or perhaps money. Turns out he topped both Pete and Martin’s lists.

Of course there should be icons from the 80s on, but no particular member of Metallica or Slayer stand out, and I’m afraid to say Dave Grohl is getting toward icon status given how he pops up in every damn televised rock-adjacent event and documentary. Good guy, but probably not deserving of such status. Neither was Sid, but that’s pop culture for ya. I excluded Johnny Rotten and Morrissey, because they’ve become such despicable specimens of human excrement that I gotta cross ’em off.

More recent icons – Robert Smith, Shane McGowan, Nick Cave, Danzig, Henry Rollins, Ian MacKaye, Stipe, Slash, Kurt, Björk, Beck, Polly Harvey, Chris Cornell, Thom Yorke, Jack White and Josh Homme. More recent underground icons would be King Buzzo, Wino and Matt Pike. I’m looking forward to all their action dolls.

Justin Hawkins Rides Again responds to Gene Simmons’ “Rock is Dead” Comments

One argument that supports rock being on “life support,” as Gene Simmons recently amended his statement, is the fact that despite all Kiss albums being complete garbage since Creatures of the Night (1982), they’ve all made the top 30 in the album charts. Their last one, Monster (2012) even made it to #3. So if anything rock fans aren’t all that discerning?

No biggie, as many have said the underground is healthy, much more so than in the 80s, when underground bands were playing to small, nearly empty rooms, and practically starving on the road. Now, for example, Limousine Beach can put out their debut album this year on Tee Pee with less than a thousand followers on FB and Spotify, yet through word of mouth, they’re filling rooms and growing a fanbase. Along those lines, Justin might like GYASI too.

This is just the third or fifth cycle of various anti-rock people declaring rock as dead. The first would be 1960-62 when Elvis was hampered by his army stint, Buddy Holly was dead, Chuck Berry wasn’t charting, etc. Yet even if rock & roll songs weren’t at the top of the charts, I’ve got a mix of 230+ songs that prove that rock wasn’t dead or on life support, but evolving. The Shadows, Johnny Kidd & the Pirates, the Ventures and Motown inspired the debut singles in 1962 from The Beatles (“Love Me Do”) and The Beach Boys (“Surfin’ Safari”).

Stranger Things Sparking Renewed Interest in Kate Bush, Metallica, etc.

Stranger Things always made great use of music, but they outdid themselves with two iconic scenes involving Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” and Metallica’s “Master of Puppets.” Previously, I did criticize their use of Joy Division in the first season, only because it was extremely unlikely any tweens in rural Indiana circa 1982-3 would even have access to them, let alone know about ’em. Once New Order blew up, yes, I think I finally saw a Joy Division import in a Dubuque record store by 1985-6.

Instead, I would have expected to hear some Black Sabbath, DIO, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. It took until season four, but they finally got a true metalhead in Eddie Munson, who’s the Dungeon Master of the Hellfire D&D club (with a nice tie-in to the real history of Satanic Panic) but is also the shredder in Corroded Coffin, and proud owner of a denim battlevest emblazened with a majestic DIO back patch.

While they didn’t play a DIO song (Extreme, Kiss and the Cramps are represented), a tape of Iron Maiden’s Piece of Mind (1983) makes a nice cameo in a scene where they’re scrambling for music in Eddie’s bedroom to protect against Vecna’s mind-control powers.

Some people claimed it “jumped the shark” on S03, and it did lack some of the magic, but it’s back on S04, and more metal than ever.

What else I’m watching on YouTube

Living in a rural area outside of Austin, I’m more isolated than ever, and I guess to make up for the lack of having anyone to actually chat with about music, I’m watching a lot of YouTube while I cook, clean, and work out in the gym. Pete Pardo’s Sea of Tranquility channel is a big staple, and he usually has multiple videos a day, which is pretty incredible seeing as he’s holding down a full time job on top of that. He often has at least two women participate in the Hudson Valley Squares series and others, and it’s nice to see the sausage party mixing it up.

Canadian Studmuffin is Larry Graves, some kind of comedian who I never heard of, probably because he’s not very funny. But his extreme music nerdiness is earnest and endearing, and I’ve watched several of his videos from the perspective of a collector, which can get too rambling in their off-the-cuff style, but is comforting while I’m multi-tasking, like listening to a semi-drunk acquaintance drone on about music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51FkuIE252k&t=4s

I followed Niamh the Prog Nerd since she began during the pandemic, and it was fun to see a teenage girl go through the discovery of prog, rock and metal, new and old. She started University last fall and the frequency of her videos dropped dramatically, which is understandable. I’m not too interested in her unboxing videos, and hope she’ll get back to more music discovery before summer is over. She’s so far ignored my comments to check out Motorpsycho. Another collector nerd I recently discovered is The Omaha Introvert.

I’m not a collector. While I did delay paying off student loans for several years because of my CD habit, I gladly shed that habit when downloads and Bandcamp became an option. For 13 years I lived in an apartment that was basically a CD storage facility, with close to 10,000 CDs. When I moved to a condo in 2007, I moved all of them, and vowed, never again (I got rid of most of them before each of my two subsequent moves). I have just one case left with box sets and deluxe editions for their liner notes. Actually what prompted me to digitize everything and gradually sell them off was the fact that at our first new place, the CDs were all the way at the other end of the condo, and I could no longer have everything within reach just a few steps away. I wanted to be able to listen in multiple rooms, and not spend a full day shifting CDs to make room for new ones every month. I used Logitech Squeezebox for many years, and when that was discontinued and my gear died, I switched to Roon and various streamers. If I had a larger doom cave, I’d enjoy having a collection of CDs and vinyl again . . . if I had a Fast ‘n’ Bulbous intern/slave to curate it. Anyway, Omaha Introvert has pretty spot-on tastes in punk and post-punk, and has deep knowledge of power pop.

Aaron Mutha Alamare doesn’t give much commentary on albums other than they’re “really good,” but I still find his year countdowns soothing, kind of like visual ASMR, holding up each album. Also, his 1978 countdown inspired me to listen to the Ace Frehley solo album for the very first time (nice glam stuff, holds up with Kiss albums of that era), and Alice Cooper’s From the Inside, which is a bit showtooney, but better than Muscle of Love. He also prompted me to give proper listens to several Greg Kihn Band albums. I didn’t mind the big singles, but was never inspired to seek out more, but he has a few albums that are pretty solid power pop with a touch of rockabilly along the lines of Dave Edmunds.

Last but not least, A Grrrl’s Two Sound Cents is genius. I wondered if she is also in a Ph.D. program. Either way, I hope she continues to school us in her feminist music analysis.