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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
maxnewid
449 posts
 
Funny you should post this 70's guitar comment this week. As a guilty pleasure, I bought the Foghat classic album box off of ebay this week- their first five albums. Yesterday while driving with my wife, we listened to "Slow Ride" at obnoxious levels. I felt like I was back in high school. Even though my bride teased me a little bit, she had a big smile on her face. 
n80 OP
2,133 posts
 
@stevecham : I listened to a lot of the same bands. Also BTO. The Sweet. Remember hiding the Black Sabbath albums from my parents.I think in 1980 a single album was $7-8 bucks and was a big purchase for me.

I also remember reading every single liner note and studying album covers until I knew every detail.

That’s another reason I think used CDs are the bargain of the century. I can get all that stuff for $3-5 each.

Of course CDs are not as cool as a Panasonic all-in-one record changer/receiver with round speakers and a stack of LPs piled onto the record changer. (Sadly, that’s why all my remaining old vinyl sounds so awful.
roberjerman
4,319 posts
 
90℅ CR*P!
lowrider57's avatar
lowrider57
5,418 posts
 
It's interesting how some of the posters list Zeppelin and Black Sabbath together as favourite bands. Where I grew up in the NYC area and played in garage bands, there were two camps; LZ or Sabbath. In their world they were rivals and as fans we acted the same way. It was Zeppelin for me.

Also, the top cover bands all had Zeppelin in their repertoire. Bands such as Zebra, Rat Race Choir, Whiplash used to make big money playing covers of the bands we've mentioned. 


big_greg
6,674 posts
 
Something I thought about is that in my youth I was more into "hard rock" and had a disdain for "pop" or "mellow" artists.  As I've grown older I still enjoy blasting some AC/DC or Judas Priest, but I've opened up to some things that I wouldn't have even considered listening to or didn't think much of in my youth - ELO, 10CC, Wings, and others come to mind.  One of my favorite pieces of "ear candy" is 10CC's "I'm Not in Love".  The production values of some of those artists during that time were very high.
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