The Vanilla Revolution

The scotsman.com

 

Forty years ago, Sixties radicalism reached its peak, so why was 1968 such a bad year for pop?

CRAIG BROWN offers up some theories

 

THIS YEAR HAS BEEN A MAJOR anniversary for baby boomers: 40 years on from 1968. For cultural commentators and academics 1968 looms large as the moment of generational dislocation, when the counter-culture scaled the barricades and pushed the old order out of the way.

 

As the Parisian cobblestones flew, university campuses became hotbeds of political activity and the world's youth moved – as they saw it – to set the world to rights.

 

The odd thing is that, musically, 1968 was all but a dead-end, or at very least, a serious wrong turn into the cul-de-sac of rock. The point was made forcefully on 22 November, with the release of The Beatles' White Album.

 

During the 1960s, the Fab Four were a bellwether of the cultural and musical climate. They may never have been the first to do something, but when they took up a musical direction they felt was worthwhile, the world and its wife would inevitably follow. But when the stylus fell on the White Album, what did people hear? A sprawling album containing dross and diamonds in equal measure, but all rooted firmly in the studio. For all its musical spread it feels small, homespun and contained. It is difficult to believe that the band who had barely a year previously produced Sgt Pepper, an album that had done more than any other to blast open the possibilities of what pop music was capable of, seemed to have lost their ambition for invention. Gone was the dimension-hopping, shape-shifting sound of Strawberry Fields Forever and in its place was Yer Blues in all its downbeat, ramshackle bluesy-ness. It must have come as one hell of a shock to fans.

 

But it wasn't just The Beatles; 1968 saw pop's serious creative efforts kicked into touch. Having produced two tune-laden prime pieces of pop psychedelia with Are You Experienced and Axis: Bold as Love during 1967, Jimi Hendrix headed back into the studio the following year and returned with Electric Ladyland, a double album full of blasting solos and elongated jams. The pop nous of its predecessors was virtually absent.

 

The same goes for the Rolling Stones, who released the freewheeling Between the Buttons and the diseased psychedelia of Their Satanic Majesties Request in 1967, before leaping with both feet into the turmoil of 1968 with the scratchy southern rock of Beggars Banquet. The Stones were perhaps the only group whose creativity grew exponentially from that year on, but that may be because, at their very core, they were a rock band in waiting.

 

At the same time, the likes of The Grateful Dead, Neil Young and Van Morrison were creating albums that stepped away from any sense of "pop" – that is, memorable melody-based songs that are done and dusted in three minutes flat. Even Bob Dylan, the man who had deliberately stepped away from his folksy civil-rights roots to become the counter-culture's grinning Cheshire cat, was drawn to this downbeat introversion. Gone was the wired, wide-eyed surreal sneer of Blonde on Blonde or Highway 61 Revisited, or even the cryptic fables of John Wesley Harding, and in their place was the nasal country tones of 1969's Nashville Skyline – no-one's favourite Dylan album.

 

It's not that the music was bad in itself – any respectable "100 Best Records" lists will contain records from 1968. It's just that in a year of increasing political and social momentum, the soundtrack was one of musical retreat.

 

Why was this? For a start, there were the politics: was there ever a time when the question "whose side are you on?" had more significance? Faced with the Cold War, Vietnam and the hardening political attitudes of their now-student fanbase, musicians couldn't help but find themselves pulled in – even if they were motivated more by protecting their careers than a desire to nail politics to the mast.

 

Unfortunately, when a musician adopts overtly political, socially aware views, they can't help but bin any "bourgeois" pop creativity or sense of melody in preference for some misplaced desire for "authenticity" and "credibility", whereby the message takes prominence over the medium. They start to tie themselves in knots as they try to navigate the various flavours of left-wing ideologies and activism. A scoop of Leninism, sir? How about a bit of Trotskyism? A little Stalinism? Perhaps not. The result, invariably, is a mish-mash of half-baked platitudes that does them few favours and will invariably be a source of much embarrassment at a later date. (The one exception that proves this rule is the Gang of Four's first album, Entertainment.)

 

Given the political ferment of 1968, it is little wonder that when recording the two versions of The Beatles' Revolution, John Lennon apparently spent hours fretting over whether he should be "counted in" or 'counted out' of said activity. In the end, the student activists decided they didn't like either response – nobody likes a fence-sitter – and roundly castigated him.

 

In search of the authenticity that the times demanded, musicians on both sides of the Atlantic looked back to the old blues artists. The likes of Son House and Mississippi John Hurt, who spent their lives in poverty and were now entering their dotage, suddenly found themselves on stage at festivals facing a sea of fresh-faced white students, kicking to one side the soul influences which had fed the Mod scene up until then, and which had sustained the previously questing pop scene.

 

In the absence of the "anything is possible" approach to creativity, bands simply turned up the volume or, if they were American, adopted a country and western sound, for example, The Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo. Of course the deepening drugs scene didn't help pop either. By 1968, what had started out as experimentation and an aid to creativity – and let's face it, without drugs most of the best records would either have been markedly different or never even made – turned into a form of acid fascism. "Turning on" became as much a political act as pinning a Maoist button or pulling on a Che Guevara beret. For those who abandoned consciousness expansion for something a bit more "serious" and "bluesy", there were always amphetamines, and heroin for the comedown.

 

The jamming on of the creative brakes was already being tracked by social trends elsewhere. San Francisco's Haight Ashbury scene, the ground zero of the original counter-culture, had already sunk into a quagmire of teenage runaways, tyro cult leaders and drug abuse, as witnessed by Joan Didion in her article "Slouching Towards Bethlehem". The dawning of the Age of Aquarius, a time of renewal and creative flowering that everyone in the late 1960s had been promised, had obviously been postponed. Indefinitely.

 

In the face of such disillusionment and disappointment, it's perhaps unsurprising that musicians who had preached love and peace sought some sort of cultural retrenchment. At times of uncertainty and fear people fall back on the familiar for comfort and reassurance, just as in times of economic crisis they look for a form of escape – Glam and New Romanticism were both born in subsequent gloomy periods.

 

Perhaps it was inevitable that the stratospheric creativity that had powered music throughout the 1960s should eventually run out, in which case it's unfair to be so down on 1968. Of course, the baby boomers will clasp their copies of Creedence Clearwater Revival and Van Morrison's Astral Weeks close to their breasts as talismans against such attacks on their heritage, but there was a clear line drawn in the sand by the youth in that year that said, creatively, "here and no further".

 

So, whether they like it or not, 1968 is as much to blame for prog rock, heavy metal, country rock and all their abysmal AOR permutations as it was responsible for the creation of its inevitable nemesis: punk.

 

There is more than a hint of irony in the fact that Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren was obsessed with the Situationist politics and slogans that drove the student riots of 1968, and used the very same approach in shaping the career of his protégés, whose sworn aim was to wreck the orthodoxy established by that year. However, if we're being really honest, it could be said with some validity that there was no real challenge to 1968's hegemony until the advent of hip-hop and rap in the late 1970s, the shockwaves of which we are still feeling 30 years on. Perhaps that was the real revolution

 

Do you agree or disagree with these views about 1968?

It seems as though 1968 was the year that pop seemed to become irrelevent and Rock took its place. Seems to be a question of labels to me. Probably to do with the drugs just as much as any political situations of the time. Music went back to basics and stretched out.

i cant bsee it tbh... pop in 68 was as good as ever , but in them days the difference between generic definitions was broader.. it was ALL pop. i think what was largely lost out of the charts were the groundbreaking pop singles that proliferated in previous years. in 68 you saw the rise of 'pop' pop... silly 3 minute nonsense tracks, but pleasant non the less. (eg bubblegum, casuals, manfred mann...etc..)

I do think 1968 was the year that Pop & Rock music split into two separate genres of music.

I do think 1968 was the year that Pop & Rock music split into two separate genres of music.

 

well yes... as i see it it was the 'beatles' generation maturing into rock/psychedelia and leaving the charts for new, younger people, hence bubblegum, dave dee dbmt, manfreds etc proliferated. i think the generation that embraced merseybeat, r&b, 'mod' ... were used to 'new' inovative sounds as pop evolved. i cant see the same fans taking a step back to embrace 'fox on the run'... music was in those days very polarised, there was HUGE snobbery around and you were expected to 'fit' into one camp or another...but never both/all. (it was punk that destroyed those boundaries).

 

as i remember (and its from an 11 year olds perspective), i dont think 'rock' was used much in '68, as i remember it it was 'psychedelia' that was the dominant term.

I think the split also came from the fact that the album started to become the defining musical statement made by a band from the moment Sgt Pepper was released and the importance of the single started to decline from then on.

I think the split also came from the fact that the album started to become the defining musical statement made by a band from the moment Sgt Pepper was released and the importance of the single started to decline from then on.

 

Yeah, and then you get the likes of Led Zep who defiantly never released a single, instead selling absolutely MILLIONS of albums and coming up with probably the greatest live shows the world has ever seen.... Pink Floyd were another band who moved away from single releases for over a decade...

 

Yeah, and then you get the likes of Led Zep who defiantly never released a single, instead selling absolutely MILLIONS of albums and coming up with probably the greatest live shows the world has ever seen.... Pink Floyd were another band who moved away from single releases for over a decade...

 

exactly.... hence the snobbery and polarisation that grew out of the late 60's. the inovators and fans got right 'up themselves' (not saying they were particualy wrong).

exactly.... hence the snobbery and polarisation that grew out of the late 60's. the inovators and fans got right 'up themselves' (not saying they were particualy wrong).

 

Well, no they weren't wrong mate... If not for the innovators like Zep, Sab, Hendrix, Floyd, VU, The Doors, MC5, The Stooges and others, well, we probably wouldn't even have the fertile alternative musical cultures that came along from the late 60s to present day..... All things considered, I'm glad the likes of these great bands were a bit "up themselves" and pretentious.... The music was great, unlike, say Bono, who's a pretentious tw@t who writes cr@p music.... :lol:

Well, no they weren't wrong mate... If not for the innovators like Zep, Sab, Hendrix, Floyd, VU, The Doors, MC5, The Stooges and others, well, we probably wouldn't even have the fertile alternative musical cultures that came along from the late 60s to present day..... All things considered, I'm glad the likes of these great bands were a bit "up themselves" and pretentious.... The music was great, unlike, say Bono, who's a pretentious tw@t who writes cr@p music.... :lol:

 

dont agree.... im not bothered how masterful and creative they are, it aint on to sneer at other genres of music which IS what the early 70's were like. everybody started somewhere, and ok... 'fox on the run' aint 'my generation', but both have a place in music history. i dont take anything away from the creative brilliance of hendrix, zep, purple etc etc etc.. but like it or not, 'chirpy chirpy cheep cheep' had its place and imho REAL music fans should allow others to embrace their chosen favs...

 

 

(unless its by pete waterman of course..... :lol: )

dont agree.... im not bothered how masterful and creative they are, it aint on to sneer at other genres of music which IS what the early 70's were like. everybody started somewhere, and ok... 'fox on the run' aint 'my generation', but both have a place in music history. i dont take anything away from the creative brilliance of hendrix, zep, purple etc etc etc.. but like it or not, 'chirpy chirpy cheep cheep' had its place and imho REAL music fans should allow others to embrace their chosen favs...

(unless its by pete waterman of course..... :lol: )

 

Some music deserves to be sneered on mate.... You want your comment on Pete Waterman to appear jokey or throwaway, but in your heart, you know that what I'm saying is true.... Look at the utterly bland times we live in now, Cowell, Walsh, X-Factor..... Christ, this sh!te doesn't even qualify as music FFS..... Sorry mate, I have absolutely NO problems with looking down on certain types of "muzak" and MOR crud. We need another Punk-type Revolution to wipe this sh!t off the musical map....

 

And "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep" is utter guff mate..... :P :lol:

Some music deserves to be sneered on mate.... You want your comment on Pete Waterman to appear jokey or throwaway, but in your heart, you know that what I'm saying is true.... Look at the utterly bland times we live in now, Cowell, Walsh, X-Factor..... Christ, this sh!te doesn't even qualify as music FFS..... Sorry mate, I have absolutely NO problems with looking down on certain types of "muzak" and MOR crud. We need another Punk-type Revolution to wipe this sh!t off the musical map....

 

And "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep" is utter guff mate..... :P :lol:

 

i dont agree..... realistically you will NEVER get everyone into music to be 'cool'. besides if everything was like that then there would be nothing to rebel against! :lol:

 

much as i detest watertwatesque /cowellesque/ walshesque productions they ARE popular amongst a certain section of society, and, unfortunately, they have a right to like what they do..

much as i detest watertwatesque /cowellesque/ walshesque productions they ARE popular amongst a certain section of society, and, unfortunately, they have a right to like what they do..

 

That statement alone proves to me that essentially, you yourself, DOES look down somewhat on this type of Muzak.... Just be honest, it's sh!t, you look down on it because it IS a lesser musical form... I'm not afraid to be honest, I dont pretend to be some sort of populist who's just willing to sit there like a zombie and soak this pish up... Popular Culture has become totally dumbed down and most people have too much of a sheep-like mentality to be remotely critical about it, it's undeniable....

 

You can still like something, but at the same time dont just sit there and blithely accept it at face value..... People really have to be more aware of where this stuff is coming from... Same with telly and films... This stuff is all-pervasive and I reckon people just sit back and dont think about it...

That statement alone proves to me that essentially, you yourself, DOES look down somewhat on this type of Muzak.... Just be honest, it's sh!t, you look down on it because it IS a lesser musical form... I'm not afraid to be honest, I dont pretend to be some sort of populist who's just willing to sit there like a zombie and soak this pish up... Popular Culture has become totally dumbed down and most people have too much of a sheep-like mentality to be remotely critical about it, it's undeniable....

 

You can still like something, but at the same time dont just sit there and blithely accept it at face value..... People really have to be more aware of where this stuff is coming from... Same with telly and films... This stuff is all-pervasive and I reckon people just sit back and dont think about it...

 

oh i dont claim to be some kind of musical pc saint! :lol: ... yeah there are loads of styles of music i abhore.. i do look down on things that i simply hate. BUT , much as much as i hate it, others like it... eg.. mariah, westlife, celine... they ANGER me i hate them so much... but to some they adore their music. it grieves me to say it but who am i or you to tell them they cant like it?..

1968 was a great year as was all the 60s from 1963.

 

There were many genres of music hitting the big time, at the same time.

Pop, Rock, Ballads, Motown, Soul, Country, Reggae and 90% of it really great stuff.

 

Unlike today were the charts are filled mainly of R&B/Hip Hop and Boybands with the odd good rock track thrown in.

Edited July 16, 200817 yr by Euro Music

I can't see how 1968 was deemed a bad year, I can think of a dozen years between 1960 and 2000 which were worse.

 

Lifted from your 1968 best of songs TIP, some of my favourites from this year, I would say pretty diverse choices, something for everyone :)

 

Amen Corner (or American Breed) - Bend Me, Shape Me

Aretha Franklin (or Dionne Warwick) - I Say A Little Prayer

Barry Ryan - Eloise

Beatles - Hey Jude

Beatles - Lady Madonna

Beatles - While My Guitar Gently Weeps

Bee Gees - Got To Get A Message To You

Crazy World Of Arthur Brown - Fire

Dave Dee Dozy Beaky Mich & Tich - The Legend Of Xanadu

Deep Purple - Hush

Doors - Hello I Love You

Equals - Baby Come Back

Foundations - Build Me Up Buttercup

Gary Puckett & Union Gap - Young Girl

Glen Campbell - Wichita Lineman

Herb Alpert - This Guy's In Love With You

Hugo Montenegro & Orchestra - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Jimi Hendrix - All Along The Watchtower

Joe Cocker - With A Little Help From My Friends

John Fred & His Playboy Band - Judy In Disguise (With Glasses)

Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger Trinity - This Wheel's On Fire

Kinks - Days

Louis Armstrong - What A Wonderful World

Love Affair - Everlasting Love

Manfred Mann - Mighty Quinn

Marvin Gaye (or Gladys Knight & Pips) - I Heard It Through The Grapevine

Otis Redding - (Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay

Rolling Stones - Jumping Jack Flash

Rolling Stones - Street Fighting Man

Rolling Stones - Sympathy For The Devil

Simon & Garfunkel - Mrs. Robinson

Sly & The Family Stone - Dance To The Music

Small Faces - Lazy Sunday

Status Quo - Pictures Of Matchstick Men

Steppenwolf - Born To Be Wild

Stevie Wonder - For Once In My Life

Tom Jones - Delilah

Tommy James & Shondells - Mony Mony

Beatles - Back In The USSR

Beatles - Revolution

Bee Gees - Words

Dusty Springfield – I Close My Eyes And Count To Ten

Love Affair - Rainbow Valley

Mason Williams Classical Gas

Manfred Mann - My name is Jack

Move - Fire Brigade

 

it grieves me to say it but who am i or you to tell them they cant like it?..

 

There's a difference between "liking it" and just being a total sheep, sitting there zombified.... Liking something doesn't mean you cant think about it.... There's plenty of Hollywood films that I like on the one hand, but on the other hand I know are putting across some pretty dodgy sub-texts.....

 

if you took 1968 completely out of history, what influences would there be now ? Brass bands ?? because the big thing that's non pop on the sgt pepper that jumps out that's so un-pop is that a lot of it is brass bands and organisation.

 

if not for 1968 (everything that follows would be completely changed)

 

i'd love to see a top 10 without certain influences...

 

what would the charts have been like if Punk hadn't happened.. Kylie/Jason (better I know at the time etc)

 

who do we blame for the current drone of lifeless 2008 RnB/Hip Hop c**p we are fired with now.

if you took 1968 completely out of history, what influences would there be now ? Brass bands ?? because the big thing that's non pop on the sgt pepper that jumps out that's so un-pop is that a lot of it is brass bands and organisation.

 

if not for 1968 (everything that follows would be completely changed)

 

i'd love to see a top 10 without certain influences...

 

what would the charts have been like if Punk hadn't happened.. Kylie/Jason (better I know at the time etc)

 

who do we blame for the current drone of lifeless 2008 RnB/Hip Hop c**p we are fired with now.

 

if punk hadnt happened our 80's charts would have been like americas... loads of aor, big hair soft rock, and the emerging rap/hiphop ..

 

and if kylie/jason (ie watertwats mob) hadnt happened our charts would have far more decent tracks in it!

if you took 1968 completely out of history, what influences would there be now ? Brass bands ?? because the big thing that's non pop on the sgt pepper that jumps out that's so un-pop is that a lot of it is brass bands and organisation.

 

if not for 1968 (everything that follows would be completely changed)

 

I reckon that's pretty spot on tbh.... Heavy Metal would never have happened without the great musical genius that was coming out in '68... No, the Counter Culture was completely 100% necessary for the musical revolutions that were to come... Everything that's remotely "alternative" stems directly from this period....