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No love for 70's guitar bands?

When I was in high school it was the heyday of the pop guitar bands. Journey, Foreigner, Styx, Boston, REO Speedwagon, Loverboy, etc. These bands were immensely popular during the late 70s and early 80s and continue to tour (with scant remnants of the original bandz) but they don't seem to get any love here at Audiogon. They are almost never mentioned in the "what are you listening to threads" and you never see them mentioned in the "what is your reference CD/LP/file".

I think a lot of them did some decent work early in their careers and I think all of them eventually made big money on sappy sickening ballads that shortened their careers at least in terms of credibility.

I saw most of these bands live in the 80's and have the hearing loss to prove it. I loved them at the time. Rarely think of them now. The reason I thought of this is that I found a copy of Styx Cornerstone on vinyl in my meager collection of LPs. I think my wife won it in a contest. It is the album with "Babe" on it. I'm listening to it now.

It is terrible.

Thoughts on these bands in terms of relevance today? Relevance in their heyday?
n80
rocknss
130 posts
 
When I was in high school it was the heyday of the pop guitar bands. Journey, Foreigner, Styx, Boston, REO Speedwagon, Loverboy, etc.
Listen to them all. Foreigner, Styx, Boston as well as some of the others mentioned in this thread quite often.

Listening to Boston on a pair of Koss CM1030s when I was seventeen is what started me down the audiophile path.
big_greg
6,670 posts
 
I don't know how "relevant" these bands are today, but they are the stuff of my youth.  I was a little more into AC/DC, Judas Priest, Krokus, UFO, Scorpions, Led Zeppelin and the like, but listened to and saw my share of more pop oriented bands like Styx, Foreigner, Heart, and some of the others mentioned.

The cool thing is that many of them are still around and touring and playing smaller venues with much better sound systems than "back in day".  In the last few years I've seen a lot of great shows, mostly at "affordable" prices - Styx, Foreigner, Cheap Trick, Heart, Bad Company,  Joe Walsh, Fleetwood Mac, Yes, Brian Wilson, War, Todd Rundgren/Utopia, to name a few.  While many of them don't have all their original members, they usually sound great.  They've had a lot of time to practice and refine their stage shows!
pops
2,275 posts
 
I was in college during the late seventies and still to this day is my favorite era of music and gets plenty of play time on my TT.  I remember disco just hitting the bar scene (I was out and about on nickel beer night often as I was always broke LOL) and hearing the Stones answer at the time "Hot Stuff."

As a Stones fan I loved it but thought un-oh, us rockers could be in trouble.  Probably my 3 fav's I go back to:  Robin Trower, Wishbone Ash, and Ten Years After.
tostadosunidos's avatar
tostadosunidos
1,197 posts
 
I couldn't stand any of those bands so they had no relevance for me then and have none today.  I respect the musicianship but the music did not hit me where I live.  At that time I listened to a lot of Ry Cooder and David Bromberg, which helped me transition to older American recordings and artists I had not appreciated properly before.  Different strokes.
jtcf's avatar
jtcf
1,620 posts
 
There's a lot of pop music I can enjoy on the car radio but don't crave to ever listen to at home.Black Sabbath and Billy Joel come to mind.Fun traveling tunes:)
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