blissblogger said:
that's obvious, borderline trite -- and doesn't alter the fact that the Beatles and Stones reworking of Black American music was more successful/more advanced/more influential than those groups nearest contenders in white America doing a similar kind of reworking at that time -- they were closer to roots of the music than the Brits, but there was still some distance involved -- since it was mostly non-Southerners reworking essentially Southern music.
Funny how people totally forget Elvis, eh? The Stones and Beatles pioneered the STADIUM ROCK thing, ironcially not an American invention. And then there's the Sonics, Seeds, the whole unsung Pebbles regional garage rock of the US, which was all pretty much electrified white soul. But yes the 'British Invasion' was a massive influence on American bands, still is actually....
i don't think anyone's ignorant of that actually -- indeed i would match and raise you on that one and say that from 1963 to circa 1983 the UK is either running tings or at very least giving the
USA a serious run for its money. White Blues -- UK-driven (aka the Brit invasion). Psychedelia -- 50/50 between UK and West Coast. Heavy metal (as you said) -- UK invention. Prog rock -- UK invention. Glam -- like you said. Punk rock -- much more moot than people are wont to say, the UK punks had their own precursors (mod, glam'n'glitter, pink fairies/hawkwind, pub rock) as well obviously drawing on the garage punk/velvets/stooges/ny dolls lineage. And bear in mind that American garage punk is a response to Them/Kinks/Troggs/Yardbirds/Animals/Stones in the first place. Postpunk -- UK running tings lets be honest. New Pop -- obviously derivative in large part on black american music (at least the stuff that wasn't synthpop) but there's a reason it was called the Second British Invasion when it arrived in America.
Funny thing is that these bands were MASSIVE influences on KISS, who to many represent everything that is horrible and disgusting about CORPORATE ROCK (and they well and truly 'perfected' it!)..
Post-punk was defintely a MADE IN UK phenom, and prolly the point where the whole UK/US war started, as stated in my previous point, but then you could almost track it back to the 'Mods' - the great rock enigma if you ask me...!
But as JoeSchmo so succinctly pointed out, the US stopped giving a fuck and started to create some really ORIGINAL musics at this time like hiphop, hardcore punk, psychadelic noisecore and we all know what THAT did to UK music - 'Blissed Out' book anyone???
The thing I prefer about US music is it's lack of 'class distinction' and self-consciousness, part of the reason why even underground musics can become very populist. But the triple irony is that the underground American musics only get accepted in UK/Europe before back home. Thats also due to the fact that Americans generally don't have as good taste as the Poms or Euros.
The mystery, which warrants its own thread, is what went wrong - why did this two decade period when Britain was co-regent with America in terms of the global Anglophone pop-rock hegemony come to an end? Did UK music just turn crap, or did America get isolationist, or what?
Stock Aitken and Waterman and Rouge Trade Records had alot to do with it - the Smiths had a seriously reactionary agenda that filtered into a somewhat sort of nationalism, but the Smiths were always a bit of a mod band at their best... Grunge rubbed their noses in it. Techno/electronic started to muddy the waters, but hiphop seems to be getting it's pay-back these days and prolly will until the end of the decade. I predict some perverse sort of Christian rock to become the next domination, what with Foo Fighters and Weezer and ColdPlay being some of the biggest live tickets, NERD are black-Chritian hiphop, and country music becoming oh so chic....Get used to it..
i really like some of his other films, but i thought VG was a failure -- really disappointing.
Shit films have good soundtracks.