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1970s: Why So Dark?

The Seventies were great: Good music; my job was fun; I was earning a decent wage (£100 per month!); I was also getting more sex than a Boy Scout Leader!

The constant strikes, power cuts etc. were a downer, but life was like Andrex: Excellent on the (w)hole.

maximus otter
 
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Giant R said:
Yes, the Faces were a brilliant band and 'Stay with me' is still one of my favourites from the era. I hate it when artists like Rod Stewart and even (sobs loudly) Bryan Ferry bring an album out of 'Classic songs' or duets - to me it seems they have run out of ideas.
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Have to admit I mostly liked Bryan Ferry's covers.

 
ramonmercado said:
Have to admit I mostly liked Bryan Ferry's covers.

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Yes, I liked These foolish things and Another time another place albums which were mainly covers but I was thinking more of when artists release an album of 'classics' or an album of classic Christmas songs:roll:
 
Giant R said:
Yes, I was a bit too young then but saw them in 79 when Gary Tibbs was with them and they released Manifesto and again in 1980 after Flesh and Blood. Would have liked to see them in full Glamrock mode with Eno playing.
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Avalon for me.

Pop music for adults with lush arrangements, amazing basslines and plenty of Ferry's world-weary vampire persona that I like.

As to covers, I like his version of 'I Put A Spell On You' from Taxi.

My grandfather was an admirer of Bryan Ferry, and he mostly had no time for anything post-Sinatra.
 
I saw Roxy Music play in a room above a pub just as Virginia Plain was hitting the charts - original lineup with Eno. Image-wise they were radically different to the usual jeans/t-shirt stage wear of most other bands. It was packed out but probably no more than 150 - 200 people. Pubs played a major part in the gig circuit in those days. Also youth clubs - remember them?..
 
Eno - out there. I love the first two Roxy LP's, especially the second one. I've also got Eno's 'another green world'.

I repeat, the 70's were great - I don't follow 'dark' Where we are right now is much darker.
 
Cochise said:
Eno - out there. I love the first two Roxy LP's, especially the second one. I've also got Eno's 'another green world'.

I repeat, the 70's were great - I don't follow 'dark' Where we are right now is much darker.
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Yithian said:
Avalon for me.

Pop music for adults with lush arrangements, amazing basslines and plenty of Ferry's world-weary vampire persona that I like.

As to covers, I like his version of 'I Put A Spell On You' from Taxi.

My grandfather was an admirer of Bryan Ferry, and he mostly had no time for anything post-Sinatra.
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Avalon onwards is a too smooth for me -I much prefer the edgier early stuff and like the 1st and second albums best.
 
Bad Bungle said:
Brian Eno was/is just so ... Eno. Seven Deadly Finns 1974, when he had hair and a wandering Minstrel look. I still think yodeling is criminally underrated in pop music.

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Yes yes!! Love it and i am not sure why. It started me on that route into slightly odd music. I was 12.
 
Giant R said:
Yes, I was a bit too young then but saw them in 79 when Gary Tibbs was with them and they released Manifesto and again in 1980 after Flesh and Blood. Would have liked to see them in full Glamrock mode with Eno playing.
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Roxy Music is the archetypal 70’s TOTP band for me where my dad would stare at the screen for a time, snort, and then demand to know if it was a man or a woman. Happy days.
 
Xanatic* said:
My father's generation could leave high school and get a steady job and a house. Today that is pretty much just a dream.
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MY generation could leave school with no qualifications and get a steady job. Don't know so much about a house, lots of my generation are divorced women who are managing on a single income and don't have, and can't get, a mortgage. Going to get scary when rent has to come out of a pension.
 
Amergin said:
Interesting opinion piece by Polly Toynbee in the Guardian the other day. The 1970s weren’t quite as bad as you were told by the Thatcherite spin of the 1980s (and ever since). Certainly fits more with my recollections:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...-really-like-living-back-in-the-1970s-i-wish-
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Despite what Silly Polly says, consider this; just as African Americans had such a jolly, care-free time in the late 19th and early 20th century USA that they invented the Blues, the mid 70s in the UK produced the snarling, nihilist malcontents of Punk. The early 80s were probably more renowned for the vapid wishy-washy musical insignificance of the New Romantics.
 
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Tigerhawk said:
There were a few good things generated in the 70's. Hammer Horror, colour TV, The Incredible Hulk (Lou Ferrigno!), me....
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CBS Primetime, February 7, 1979.

FoaH1swX0AAZgX4.jpeg.jpg


One wonders why this was necessary and how it helped.
 
escargot said:
Hahahaha, TV Cream- what a wonderful site. Makes me laugh so hard it hurts- they describe 'Thunderbirds' as a 'stringathon'. Funniest and aptest word ever made up.
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20 years later, that word stringathon still amuses me. I was randomly thinking about it this morning in fact. :)

Edit - yow, I've just reached the end of the thread and this post again, and a character in 50 Berkeley Square on R4 said '20 years' at the same time as I read it! :omg:
 
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