How did 70s rock music transition into 80s music?

@tylermunns: One somewhat-artsy New York band I love is Television; their debut album is stunning. On the other hand, I have known a lot of musicians (and civilians) who love XTC, whom, try as I might, I just couldn’t cozy up to. Music is SO subjective and personal. Which is fine, nothing wrong with that.

I had Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica album for a while (it’s no longer in my music library), and even went to see him at The Roxy Theater in ’78. It’s hard to believe he and Ry Cooder were in a band together ;-) .

It was when I heard J.S. Bach’s Concerto For 4 Harpsichords And Orchestra that I learned the music I deeply hungered for was not the Stravinsky and Penderecki I thought it was---you know, "weird" music---but rather that composed by a deeply religious/spiritual man. And though his music sounds more "formal’" that that of S & P, it is actually more radical. Subversive on a deeper level. Authoritarians hate intelligence ;-) .

In much the same way, it was Eric Clapton hearing Music From Big Pink that made him realize he and his peers had been heading down the wrong path. As he has said, hearing that album was for him an epiphany; it’s not about you man, it’s about the song. It put the lie to Jagger & Richards "The Singer Not The Song". Just as Bach is more radical and revolutionary (on the deepest level, not the surface) than any of the 20th Century composers, The Band were more so than any of the late-60’s psychedelic bands, no matter how "out there" the latter sounded. Even The Grateful Dead temporarily wised up (if you don't think Workingman's Dead is a reaction to the first two Band albums, you aren't listening close enough). At least that’s how "good" musicians see it ;-) .

@bdp24 - I also really liked Television, and got to see both them and XTC (before Andy Partridge quit touring because of stage fright). Captain Beefheart, too.... 

But I'm wondering what you meant by Clapton 'realizing he and his peers had been heading down the wrong path'? What path had they been on, and who's to say it was wrong? If it was wrong for Clapton, that wouldn't necessarily apply to his peers. 

The Dead did indeed put out 'Workingman's Dead' and 'American Beauty', but there was a lot of country-rock going on at the time, so not surprising. I always found those albums pointless, but I regard all Grateful Dead studio albums to be pointless! 😁 But I know a lot of people like them. They're all about playing live gigs and those songs are still great! 

@larsman: "Who’s to say it was wrong"? It was Clapton! Of course many of his then peers didn’t agree with Eric, and continued down the path Clapton decided to veer off of. Jimmie Page certainly didn’t agree, and his new band after The Yardbirds ended (a band whose original guitarist was of course Clapton, followed by Jeff Beck!) pretty much set the course and created the template for the future of Rock bands. Ironically, Robert Plant is now making music much more like that of The Band than that of Led Zeppelin. He finally "grew up" ;-) .

You’re right, there was a lot of Country-Rock going on in 1968. Dylan with his John Wesley Harding album, The Byrds with their Sweetheart Of The Rodeo, and then The Flying Burritos after Chris Hillman and Gram Parsons left the former. After the breakup of Buffalo Springfield, Richie Furay started Poco. But all those bands were far more Country than Rock.

On the other hand, The Band was not at all a Country group. They were equal parts R & B, Blues, Gospel, Brill Building Pop, 1950’s Rock ’n’ Roll, Hillbilly, Jazz, and just about every other strain of American music. That’s why they are credited with creating the genre now referred to as Americana.

By the way, Elton John and Bernie Taupin have stated that in their Tumbleweed Connection album they were trying to sound like The Band's brown album. Neil Young said the same about his Harvest album, and he was obviously thrilled to death to be on stage with The Band in the Last Waltz concert.

I saw The Dead live only once, on a flatbed truck in the panhandle in Golden Gate Park in the Summer Of Love (1967). Also performing that day were Jefferson Airplane (hot!) and Country Joe And The Fish (cold). At that time The Dead still sounded like their drug of choice was speed, kind of a biker band. Pig Pen was singing,and playing a Farfisa organ, so they had that Garage Band sound heard on their debut album.

 

I was also very much into Television. That is the band that made me want to pick up a guitar and start playing. I really like both guitarists but appreciate Richard Lloyd's playing the best. I also like XTC although I initially didn't go beyond Drums and Wires much. I've picked up several of there albums since then and really enjoyed them. Todd Rundgren was sort of right about them making their records too complicated for normal listeners because they weren't having to play the songs live when he produced Skylarking but I still like all of their stuff including the stuff with a lot of details. There are way too many great 80s underground bands and I keep thinking of more like The Only Ones, Wire (both started in the 70s along with Gang of Four), someone else caught The the, Bahaus, The Cramps, Psychedelic Furs, PiL, Visage, Prefab Sprout, OMD, Bill Nelson, The Sugarcubes, The Jack Rubies, Yello, Wreckless Eric, Stiff Little Fingers, Jane's Addiction, Let's Active, The Primitives, Madness, and The Residents.

@bdp24 ”Authoritarians hate intelligence.”  Ain’t it the truth.

Authoritarianism, in practice, has obviously yielded bad results throughout history.  But an individual adopting authoritarian thinking, while perhaps not actually making laws or issuing tangible punishment to dissenters, is also destructive.  This type of thinking is immune to political ideology.

An artist like the Velvet Underground who says, “we don’t cotton to this trendy hippy nonsense.  We are going to do our own thing,” is reviled because of their distinct break with the prevailing trend.  The authoritarian thinking here is, “we don’t wear all-black, leather and shades.  We don’t do that around here. We wear paisley, tie dye, bell-bottoms, and denim.  We don’t sing honest depictions of S&M, heroin and amphetamine use, sodomy, transgenderism, and violence.  We sing songs about being anti-war, pro-peace/love, and pro-hallucinogen and pot use.  We do make exceptions for Northerners and Californians appropriating rural southern/Appalachian sounds à la The Band and Sweetheart of the Rodeo.  We also make exceptions for Brits appropriating southern rural American blues sounds à la The Yardbirds, Cream, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and John Mayall and the Blues Breakers.”

Wouldn’t ya know it…50 years later, those VU albums are considered pop music milestones and no one today gives a hoot ‘n heck about Country Joe and the Fish and the Flying Burrito Brothers.

Dylan, of all people, had to deal with virulent opposition to his artistic choices.  For the egregious crime of having electric guitars, organ/piano, bass and drums in lieu of a solitary acoustic guitar and braying harmonica, and choosing to sing lyrics that were not explicit, pointed critiques of injustice and social ills, he was charged with being a sell-out, a heretic, and a traitor.

Wouldn’t ya know it…the majority of people today will listen to Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde 20 times before giving a solitary spin to The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan or The Times They Are a-Changin’.

The group-think that typifies an all-too-consequential contingent of today’s population is very similar to these things from the ‘60s.

Any artist who deviates from the established dogma and orthodoxy of speech and ideation is branded as a conservative, a bigot, and a social problem. Any question posed to these precepts, regardless of its validity, is deemed an act tantamount to  tacit endorsement of bigotry, hatred, and modern conservative ideology.