I would say the Eagles sold plenty of records in the UK, the others not so much.
― Michael Oliver of Penge Wins £5 (Tom D.), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 14:51 (four years ago) link
Oddly, I remember hearing Chicago blasting in a pub in Liverpool in 09, I think bc I was with a bunch of pop music scholars who were commenting on it. "Hard to Say I'm Sorry", I think? But yeah, I thought silverfish was in Canada. I only heard of Brotherhood of Man bc of relatives in India, tbh. I still don't think I've heard them.
― No language just sound (Sund4r), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 14:52 (four years ago) link
xxp later than that even, but there was at least agreement that madonna, prince, michael jackson, etc. were the biggest stars from the 80s onwards
― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 14:53 (four years ago) link
I know eagles sold a reasonable amount of records, but can't remember hearing anything apart from hotel california being played anywhere
― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 14:54 (four years ago) link
Bay City Rollers had a bunch of Top 40 hits in US and Canada, incl #1 in both countries with "Saturday Night", but you don't hear them much now.
― No language just sound (Sund4r), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 14:55 (four years ago) link
Bay City Rollers had a #1 single in the US, which strangely wasn't even released as single in the UK, and seemed to have been pretty well known.
― Michael Oliver of Penge Wins £5 (Tom D.), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 14:56 (four years ago) link
(xp)
Ha, "25 or 6 to 4" is in the same book. It was in I, Tonya as well and I think The Good Place? Surely Chicago still gets frequent airplay? I think they are generally discussed in American rock history books, at least for their jazz-rock period?
― No language just sound (Sund4r), Wednesday, October 30, 2019 10:28 AM (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
Those two placements -- I, Tonya and The Good Place -- are the only two times I've heard that song broadcast in the last decade. They've largely disappeared from "classic rock" radio, though something like "Saturday In The Park" might get play on an oldies station. They only really get discussed/namechecked alongside Blood, Sweat & Tears when the brief fad of rock-bands-with-big-horn-sections comes up.
Meanwhile, they've* been touring with Earth, Wind & Fire, whose songs never disappeared from the airwaves, and whose horn section was never as stupid and clumsy as Chicago's.
*Out of the original lineup, they're now down to two horn players and the keyboardist.
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 14:57 (four years ago) link
xp that is very strange, can't say I've ever heard Saturday Night, but interesting that they managed that at the tail end of their uk chart career
― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 14:58 (four years ago) link
xxxxp
I am in Canada. I guess I just don't pay much attention to the music in supermarkets and dentists offices. I'm familiar with plenty of classic rock from the radio, but soft rock/adult contemporary stuff is kind of a blind spot I guess.
What's weird about this chicago album is that so far there have been two songs where at the start I'm pretty sure I've heard it before and then it turns into something else. For 25 or 6 to 4, there is a green day song that basically uses the opening riff, for saturday in the park there is another song that I can't place that sounds similar.
― silverfish, Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:03 (four years ago) link
Wet Wet WetThe Beautiful South
― 29 facepalms, Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:04 (four years ago) link
I’d wager exposure varies from province to province and from state to state.
― pomenitul, Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:05 (four years ago) link
Best thing Chicago ever did:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ4eh2x2B1E
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:13 (four years ago) link
There seems to have been a chasm between UK and USA in the 70s.
this isn't just the 70s, it's every decade. The crossovers are the exceptions.
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:20 (four years ago) link
there is a green day song that basically uses the opening riff
"Brain Stew"
― No language just sound (Sund4r), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:22 (four years ago) link
(xp) The chasm has narrowed considerably as the decades have passed.
― Michael Oliver of Penge Wins £5 (Tom D.), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:23 (four years ago) link
Admittedly, I could just be recalling childhood overexposure to Chicago in commercial establishments.
― No language just sound (Sund4r), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:23 (four years ago) link
xxxp There is, yes, but also there seems to be much more in the way of international stars in the 60s, 80s, etc.
― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:24 (four years ago) link
I'm not sure if my theory that American rock bands have never been very popular in the UK quite holds up but...
― Michael Oliver of Penge Wins £5 (Tom D.), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:26 (four years ago) link
rock and country of course! looking at this list https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-certified_music_artists_in_the_United_Statesand I have no idea who George Strait at #11 is, don't know if I've even heard the name before
― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:30 (four years ago) link
I'm not familiar with that name either.
― Tuomas, Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:32 (four years ago) link
And who are Alabama at #29?
― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:32 (four years ago) link
one of our poorest states iirc
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:33 (four years ago) link
Both financially and in terms of overall quality. (I can say that 'cause my brother lives there. He drags the whole state down.)
― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:35 (four years ago) link
Most of the unfamiliar ones seem to be country of one sort or another, but wtf are these guys at #65?https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannheim_Steamroller
― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:36 (four years ago) link
UK radio was a very different beast to US radio back then, it was basically Radio 1 for pop plus the odd local station. So rock music was seen as this niche aberration, Led Zep and Pink Floyd et al were huge but their big songs weren't really known outside the fan bases.
xpost
― Cornelius Fondue (Matt #2), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:36 (four years ago) link
Yes, we didn't have this classic rock music rubbish clogging up the airwaves.
― Michael Oliver of Penge Wins £5 (Tom D.), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:38 (four years ago) link
Never heard of George Strait either. Or Alabama or Alan Jackson, for that matter.
― pomenitul, Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:38 (four years ago) link
No we had the Wurzels and Brotherhood of Man iirc
― Cornelius Fondue (Matt #2), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:39 (four years ago) link
Tbh, based on anything I've seen/heard of commercial radio from the UK, I'd happily stick with classic rock.
― No language just sound (Sund4r), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:40 (four years ago) link
Strait, Alabama, and Alan Jackson all got cursory mentions in Ken Burns' recent country music series, so they're canonical to that extent
― Brad C., Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:42 (four years ago) link
There's very little country I can stomach, so my ignorance is partly willed.
― pomenitul, Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:43 (four years ago) link
peel used to mention, but not play, george strait from time to time so i know a few song titles but not songs. All My Ex's Live In Texas being the one i particularly remember.
― koogs, Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:43 (four years ago) link
Who needs classic rock when you've got this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0fC_HL2NL8
(This is the closest thing I can think of to a guilty pleasure, in that I quite enjoy it while simultaneously feeling mortified that it even existed)
― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:49 (four years ago) link
Oh, so they were basically ABBA with native English speakers?
― No language just sound (Sund4r), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:53 (four years ago) link
And without a modicum of talent? Yes.
― Michael Oliver of Penge Wins £5 (Tom D.), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:55 (four years ago) link
Basically this, yes.
― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:56 (four years ago) link
But with somehow genuinely classic tunes occasionally poking their noses out and being buried beneath shitheaps of end-of-the-pier tastelessness.
― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:59 (four years ago) link
Most of the unfamiliar ones seem to be country of one sort or another, but wtf are these guys at #65?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannheim_Steamroller
― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length)
lol, those guys are HUGE here every december, it's chip davis (who did "convoy") doing these kind of gaudy new-age christmas songs, do you know trans-siberian orchestra? kind of like them but mannheim steamroller were around first. my mom had all the mannheim steamroller tapes when i was a kid
it's not any worse than any other christmas music to be honest
― tantric societal collapse (rushomancy), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 15:59 (four years ago) link
I had a high school friend whose praise for Mannheim Steamroller somehow always worked in the descriptor "classically trained." Like, did you know all the guys in Mannheim Steamroller were classically trained?
Yawn, so's everybody in the New York Philharmonic. Ditto the local community orchestra; doesn't mean they don't suck.
― tempted by the fruit of your mother (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 16:04 (four years ago) link
Mannheim Steamroller sales are 98.5% people who donated to NPR fundraisers in the 80 and 90s. Post-Reagan equivalent of exotica records, Music to Stir Risotto to
― file of unknown origin (bendy), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 16:07 (four years ago) link
do you know trans-siberian orchestra?
No.
― Michael Oliver of Penge Wins £5 (Tom D.), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 16:08 (four years ago) link
George Strait has like 800 #1 Country songs, but he never tried for any pop crossover, so he's largely by non-Country fans for "Exes Live In Texas"
― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 16:09 (four years ago) link
Yeah Mannheim Steamroller and Trans-Siberian Orchestra reliably sold hundreds of CDs every Christmas when I worked at a chain bookstore, no doubt they continue to do so. They're radically different in sound but equally unlistenable trash. Mannheim are saccharine while TSO are bombastic. When we got the in-store promo copies the music staff had an informal agreement to scratch the shit out of them on day one so they could never be played. It didn't always work - the store manager would just buy copies and make us play those.
― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 16:14 (four years ago) link
TSO are basically a power metal band (formed by ex-members of Savatage; Alex Skolnick from Testament toured with them for years) playing Christmas music.
― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 16:20 (four years ago) link
Trans-Mannheimian Steamrollerstra reliably sell out the US circuit of medium-to-smallish-city theaters (mostly season-subscription places that have whatever the town's local orchestra is, Livingston Taylor, and An Evening With Terry Gross).
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 16:23 (four years ago) link
Never heard of either of those bands, such parallel worlds we live in!
― Tuomas, Wednesday, 30 October 2019 16:26 (four years ago) link
I've been checking out the trans-siberian orcestra.
1. fucking hell they are awful
2. but also why are they so cheap-looking? for example surely they can afford to pay a designer something to make a more acceptable cover for this platinum-selling LP?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/dd/Night_castle.jpg
― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Wednesday, 30 October 2019 16:39 (four years ago) link
My brother in law asked me to get tickets for Paul Heaton when they went on sale last week and were sold out in 3 minutes.
― Dan Worsley, Wednesday, 30 October 2019 16:54 (four years ago) link
Eat your heart out, Necrolord.
xp
― pomenitul, Wednesday, 30 October 2019 16:57 (four years ago) link