Bid for Blab: Adult Contemporary/Soft Rock

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Air Supply rock. Watch an ad for BJ's greatest hits and be surprised by how many you can sing along to - I guess htat just means its ingratiating rather than good, but for some reason I still know half the songs from the New Jersey LP. MOR is a little dull - at least in the 80s we had things being thrown at us like rock n roll twins (Nelson), super bad hair (poison) and the great duet between Donny and Seiko...whatever that was called. Now, I dunno, it just doesn't touch me like it used to, although Ricky Martin occasionally makes me want to shake his bon bon.

― Geoff, Tuesday, 5 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

BREAD!

Wanna hear me sing "Baby I'm A Want You"? Or "I Wanna Make It With You," anyone?

(an encore of the Best of America and Gino Vanelli!)

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Wednesday, 6 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

One day, while waiting to get a grade for a college class, I heard America's "Sister Golden Hair" on the department's radio. Must have been the millionth time (it's a favorite on American soft-rock stations), but still something about the whole arrangement just screamed out "NICK LOWE!" Dunno if there's any connection betwixt, but the connection still sticks in my mind.

Randy Newman, when asked about America's "Horse With No Name," described it as "a song about a kid who thinks he's just taken acid." Rumor has it that Neil Young used to get requests to play "Horse" from the more meatheaded members of his audience at his shows.

And, lest we forget, they did "Muskrat Love" before Captain and Tennille. And it wasn't even an America song -- it was a cover!

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Wednesday, 6 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Gino fuckin' Vanelli! YEAH!

― tarden, Wednesday, 6 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Milli fuckin Vanilli - Yeah! and Bread! and Grayson Hugh! and Charles&Eddy! and now it's time to take my medication.

― Geoff, Wednesday, 6 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

America have been mentioned. Hmmm, interesting. Maybe we could talk about resuscitations / recontextualisations of AOR in the vein of Ultramarine's attempt (on a fantastic album BTW) to rehabilitate the "Horse With No Name" men?

The chord structures of these songs are always, as has been mentioned, incredibly simple and emotionally manipulative. Which *can* work, very occasionally, especially at a young age - I could say that Gary Davies playing Wilson Phillips's "Hold On" when I was 9 helped me through my first depression of any sort, and I wouldn't be lying.

― Robin Carmody, Wednesday, 6 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I like Dr.C's question, what do people get out of this music? A female colleague once confided she found Celiné Dion incredibly romantic and 'just perfect for making love to'. Forced to hear the Titanic theme 9 times a day in my previous job I wanted Dion up for crimes against humanity. Perhaps its the Jennifer Rush-syndrome. Big voice, big tune, big romantic theme, all impressing themselves on a certain sort of listener as stirring, passionate, meaningful, soulful, serious c/w Whitney's 'I will always love you'. Perhaps its the very lack of subtlety, and Hollywood-size sentament that works for some people?

― Stevo, Wednesday, 6 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

It has to be said, this stuff is massive in third-world countries. Is this an indictment of imperialism, or a reason why some people once thought it was necessary?

― tarden, Wednesday, 6 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

There was a good piece in the Village Voice abt 7-9 years ago, by a not-so-young Julio Inglesias fan who worked in the paper's personal ads dept: she saw his show, and interviewed other fans, and broughty back several total Starlust fantasy tales: the only snippet I can remember being the (happily married) mother of [x], who declared her unrequited need to "cradle Julio's testicles lovingly as she ran her fingers though his chest-hair" — or something. If recontextualisation be needed, it starts *here*, far as I'm concerned.

― mark s, Wednesday, 6 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I think Tom made a really good point way above about Travis/Moby etc. - I think why they tend to be more immediately irritating is that they are not only overplayed, but they are overplayed in the assumption that we should thank the radio stations for playing this music with such innovative and risk-taking qualities; it's the value gap between the rhetoric and the actual product that I resent. Celine and her lobbyists rarely make such claims - or at least not in the circles I move in - so there's no need for me to refute them with every breath.

― Tim, Wednesday, 6 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Celine and her lobbyists rarely make such claims - or at least not in the circles I move in - so there's no need for me to refute them with every breath.

You don't know how good you got it, Tim. If I have to hear "but she has a great voice" one more time... I've never heard Travis, but I'll take them sound unheard over "The Power Of Love" and "All By Myself" anyday. How could they be worse ? I'll take bland over excruciating oversinging anytime.

― Patrick, Wednesday, 6 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

In the spirit of trying to understand the appeal of this music, I solicited the following opinions - a) A Garth Brooks fan - "It's just REALLY REALLY good. You should hear it. it's just, like, excellent." b)A Michael Bolton fan - "It isn't DISTORTED. Why does all music now have to be distorted?"

― tarden, Thursday, 7 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

sixteen years pass...

What adult contemporary in the seventies sounded like.

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 10 April 2018 01:53 (six years ago) link

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