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Acts whose biggest hit now wasn't their biggest hit then

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    #76
    It was decor man... just set dressing.

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      #77
      Is it worth mentioning that ABBA's stage costumes were so outlandish because they could get tax breaks from the Swedish government?

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        #78
        Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
        Ta. My post wasn't on that thread, so this is (at least) the third time around the OTF block for Don't Stop Believin'...

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          #79
          Originally posted by ad hoc View Post
          Objection. They [Psychedelic Furs] were reasonably big in their day (which was sort of early 80s I think and therefore I perhaps remember them more as that was my prime music following time). I can't tell you the names of their songs/albums mind you, but they were reasonably high profile for a while. And you know they were British right? So at the very least they had a local following "East of the Atlantic"
          Oops: if I did know, I've clearly long forgotten it. Which I think goes more to prove my point – for those like me too young (and I'm 38) to remember their heyday, such as it was, there's no profile now worth speaking of bar the residual memory of Pretty In Pink. If you can't remember the rest even despite being there, I think that only reinforces this!

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            #80
            Originally posted by Bruno
            I don't really know what to make of that. There's no point in arguing about it, but it seems to read something into what Journey were trying or expected to do that I don't see.



            Right, I just meant British pop from the 80s, wasn't meaning to refer to the marketing phenomenon that the term connoted later. By "personalities and faces" I take it you just mean "that you like better." I would think the fans of stadium bands are as interested in the personalities of the musicians they like as anyone else.

            I know pejorative labels like stadium band and arena rock and corporate rock are part of rock critic ideology, but I think they're pretty unhelpful for explaining the music they refer to, especially the question of what motivated the artists writing songs. Acts that are popular enough to fill stadiums works for me. After that it's just music.



            I think their genius was accepted at the time, too, it's just that many had stronger objections to what they were genius at. I specified "rockist critics" meaning anyone who still subscribes to the rock authenticity narrative.
            (Not very helpful that the quote facility on the new board doesn't allow for previous comments, but what the hey...)

            You seem quite sensitive about all this. I appreciate that some labels are by-and-large meaningless, but others aren't necessarily 'pejorative' as much as they are at least helpful in ball-parking a certain sound/style: regardless of what I might think of them, Journey seemed to be treading a pretty familiar and well-worn path - that's what they did, that's what their fans wanted, surely? That was my only point.

            As for certain scenes throwing up characters/faces, I really don't see what the issue is here at all. Broadly speaking, the US stadium-rock scene of the late-seventies/early eighties wasn't 'about' that in the way that the faster-moving (and arguably more disposable) British pop/rock scene of that time was - lots of posing, make-up and front-covers: this has nothing to do with 'what I like more', it's just fact. I'd hazard a guess that most of Foreigner or Toto et al could safely walk down most streets without being recognised. This really isn't a criticism as such. (At the risk of repeating, I don't have much problem with most of those acts - just Journey, who IMO reduced it all down to one very ersatz and lumpen formula.)

            UK pop/rock of the same era was (un)arguably sharper, leaner and wittier.

            (NB 'Britpop' wasn't so much a marketing phenomenon as it was a journalist's label [Stuart Maconie's, in this instance] that somehow took hold. Few of those bands had much in common, other than that they were largely white and played guitar music that borrowed heavily from various UK scenes of yore. Which is maybe enough, to be fair...)

            I don't think we disagree about the perception of Abba.

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              #81
              Originally posted by Jah Womble View Post
              (Not very helpful that the quote facility on the new board doesn't allow for previous comments, but what the hey...)
              There is a way around it Jah, just a cumbersome one. You have to find the previous quoted post yourself, and click the 'Multi-Quote This Message' button at the bottom-right (immediately to the right of the 'Reply With Quote' button) on there as well as on the post you're immediately replying to. This will plonk the text of both into your reply.

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                #82
                Elton used to go to Tesco in this, fact fans.

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                  #83
                  Could it be that the girls in ABBA dressed like that to encourage interest amongst young men? Speaking as a young boy at the time it worked! I do think they were belting songs. Funny when you listen now to a lot of the stuff, not just their stuff, from that time you think wow and yet at the time I certainly was at best ambivalent

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                    #84
                    Originally posted by 3 Colours Red View Post
                    Is it worth mentioning that ABBA's stage costumes were so outlandish because they could get tax breaks from the Swedish government?
                    I was going to say this. Their clothes were deliberately not what you'd wear on the street so they would count as "workwear" and therefore be tax deductible.*

                    Livin' on a Prayer is Bon Jovi's most famous song but beaten in the charts by two of their other singles. (Not by much, mind)

                    You Sexy Thing was not Hot Chocolate's only number one, despite 3 releases

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                      #85
                      Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                      Livin' on a Prayer is Bon Jovi's most famous song but beaten in the charts by two of their other singles. (Not by much, mind)

                      You Sexy Thing was not Hot Chocolate's only number one, despite 3 releases
                      I think that the danger is that we're focusing on UK performances here: You Sexy Thing was certainly Hot Chocolate's biggest international hit - it went gold in America, unlike the British chart-topper So You Win Again, which performed only moderately on Billboard.

                      Livin' On a Prayer sold over two million copies in the US alone and pretty much has to be considered Bon Jovi's biggest song: I also suspect that, even though a couple of singles bettered its UK chart placing (#4), it'd probably have outsold them overall.

                      VA - not sure I'll ever get around to that, but thanks. (Next - how to stop OTF from continually logging me out on my iPhone...)

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                        #86
                        Fair points throughout.

                        I guess if I'm making any point about 'faces', it's that while various members of Journey, Foreigner, Toto, etc, might well have found their way onto the cover of Guitar Monthly or whatever, many of yer early eighties UK pop tarts would've been equally (or even more) likely to show up on the front of the TV Times or similar. (Obviously many would understandably see this as detrimental to any musical kudos.) So although of course I accept your knowledge - and following - of Journey, their individual images wouldn't have sat in the general public consciousness in the same way that Boy George's might have done. And I'm sure they'd have been very happy about that. It was just a very different game, that's all.
                        Last edited by Jah Womble; 29-07-2017, 19:05.

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                          #87
                          It's possible that You Sexy Thing was also more well known and bigger selling in the UK originally than So You Win Again. YST was #2 when Bohemian Rhapsody was #1. SYWA was #1 during the Jubilee summer of 77, a lower selling time of year.

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                            #88
                            You're likely right - So You Win Again went silver only in June 1977 (somewhat appropriately), meaning that it'd have stopped at around 250,000 copies or so. You Sexy Thing did similar business here in 1975.

                            However, if we're to include the various reissues of the latter, then undoubtedly it would be the bigger seller. It was a UK Top Ten hit on three separate occasions.

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                              #89
                              In three different decades

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