GAP jeans!
MaxWedge said:
There are plenty of references to how much better it was 'back in the day'. And I'll agree it seems things were better. But what happened to make things worse? What went wrong? Just asking. What's your opinions?
"SUITS!" Ad men! CDs! Music Videos!
Some say the world changed after that late 60's Stones Concert where they hired Angels as security and some kids in the audience were killed. We lost our innocence and the magic went away.
I dunno. I lived those times and it seemed that by the time the 80's hit the world was changing faster and faster but not always in a good fashion.
Drugs became much stronger and exclusively "body stone". Nobody wanted to make a "Journey to the centre of your mind". They wanted to white out, roll into a corner and wake up 8 hours later to brag about how great it was.
Denim was no longer good enough. Fashion and a Cyndie Lauper wardrobe was king.
The CD replaced vinyl. This killed the 45 single. You had to buy an entire CD album for $25. It usually contained one or two good songs that had made it as singles on the radio but the rest of the CD was just filler crap. The music labels never had it so good.
'Course, you didn't have to make good music anyway. You simply had to make a good video. If it was good enough it would sell a mediocre song no problem. If you looked like a young angry rebel like John Cougar or Bon Jovi you would sell. Meanwhile a more ordinary looking but far better songsmith like Bob Seeger started to decline...
We started off with Trudeau-mania and thought we were electing a hero. When the 70's ended we felt let down. Soon we gave Mulroney the two biggest majorities in our history and then whacked his party down to only TWO seats! Again, our hero had let us down and we turned our backs to him and his ilk.
Manning came on the scene and again many of us thought we could vote for someone we actually liked, instead of someone who smelt less than the other guys! He got over a million votes in Ontario and virtually owned the West but that scene too changed. Manning's big point was in having your MP represent his people first and his party second. Now Harper exercises iron control of party solidarity and fired Garth Turner's butt out into the cold, effectively driving a stake through Manning's dream.
We used to go out in the evening for a few beers and to hear a live band. You can still get a beer but most of the band scene is gone. We've now got smoke-free but empty places.
We used to "Go Green" by organizing drives to clean up garbage in parks and creeks ourselves. Now kids seem to just sit on their butts with their Xboxes and demand their government send their parents' tax money to countries like Russia or China to buy "emission credits", instead of cleaning up our own mess. Toronto chose not to send their garbage to fill up an old pit mine in Kirkland Lake out of "concern for the environment". Instead they send it in hundreds of garbage trucks hundreds of miles to Michigan, where I guess the environment is out of sight and thus out of mind.
Jessica Simpson can sell a pile of CD's while lipsyncing on Saturday Night Live. After all, she's very attractive and always fashionably dressed. I'll bet dear Janis Joplin would never have a chance today, even though she had ten times the talent. She wasn't quite as Barbie Doll pretty and would never have let a label boss her around into think pulling a "Millie Vanelli" was good career advancement!
Worst of all, "pods" came into the guitar market. "Will make virtually ANY amp sound!"
The definition of "virtual"? "Like, but not the same as the REAL thing!"
