In keeping with the theme of my last post, in which I begged respect for the 1970s in general, lets talk music for a moment.
Issac Hayes is kind of the quintessential Bad Mother...(shut your mouth!). He practically invented it. Actually, I suppose James Brown invented the concept, but Isaac certainly refined it, with Curtis Mayfield giving it the intellectual tweak. In any case, Isaac Hayes made a lot of great albums in the 70s. They were blatantly of their time, full of lush arrangements, over the top production, and dripping with sex appeal. Any of these albums are worth knowing, and are solidly dated in their era, but strong enough to stand the old test of time. Today, I played side two of "...To Be Continued" for the children. "Isaac's Rap" blends right into his version of "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling", making for a dead solid 15 minutes of what I told my boy was a "dirty jam", and I meant it as an ultimate compliment. Wrap it up with "Runnin' out of fools", and you've got half an hour of filthy. Very distinctly 1970s, and very unstoppable. A good rap producer could make about 25 jams out of this record and maybe a Dionne Warwick album easily, if he's worth his salt.
On the other end of the spectrum, we followed up with this:
I'll go ahead and pronounce Led Zeppelin's "Physical Graffiti" as the definitve big rock record of it's time. Huge, aggressive, no apologies offered, it comes at you like a steam roller. Jams like "The Wanton Song" are the reason I begged for a drum set when I was 11, and went on to play the drums for twenty years. The cover, with the cut out windows and interchangeable inserts, is argument enough in my book for the supremacy of vinyl as a thing to own. The way this stuff sounds and feels by way of needle and wood is the closing argument.
Besides all this, the 70s were the last days of our revered concept of "old fashioned"ness. Dad still wore suit to work. Most of the stuff in your house was made in USA...and most of it is still around. And this was the popular music on the radio.It may have been a generally ugly decade, but it wasn't all bad.
Think it over before you write off ten years of history wholesale, or at least listen to Isaac Hayes and Led Zeppelin on vinyl sometime. Then we'll talk.
