No love for 70's guitar bands?


When I was in high school it was the heyday of the pop guitar bands. Journey, Foreigner, Styx, Boston, REO Speedwagon, Loverboy, etc. These bands were immensely popular during the late 70s and early 80s and continue to tour (with scant remnants of the original bandz) but they don't seem to get any love here at Audiogon. They are almost never mentioned in the "what are you listening to threads" and you never see them mentioned in the "what is your reference CD/LP/file".

I think a lot of them did some decent work early in their careers and I think all of them eventually made big money on sappy sickening ballads that shortened their careers at least in terms of credibility.

I saw most of these bands live in the 80's and have the hearing loss to prove it. I loved them at the time. Rarely think of them now. The reason I thought of this is that I found a copy of Styx Cornerstone on vinyl in my meager collection of LPs. I think my wife won it in a contest. It is the album with "Babe" on it. I'm listening to it now.

It is terrible.

Thoughts on these bands in terms of relevance today? Relevance in their heyday?
n80

Showing 5 responses by lowrider57

I saw many of these bands in the late 70s. Boston's first album stands out to me as the most innovative guitar sound and production at that time.

As I got older, these bands seemed so homogenized and overproduced.
Since I started streaming and rediscovering these bands, the  sound of these recordings doesn't seem to be engaging. The wall of sound type of production.


@stevecham , all great stuff covering several decades. If I'm following n80's post correctly, there was a wave of guitar oriented rock groups that were popular in the mid to late 70s, early 80s. Some of them new, some of them formed by musicians from other bands creating supergroups, such as Foreigner.

I really do need to play some of the old vinyl rather than streaming. 
 
It's interesting how some of the posters list Zeppelin and Black Sabbath together as favourite bands. Where I grew up in the NYC area and played in garage bands, there were two camps; LZ or Sabbath. In their world they were rivals and as fans we acted the same way. It was Zeppelin for me.

Also, the top cover bands all had Zeppelin in their repertoire. Bands such as Zebra, Rat Race Choir, Whiplash used to make big money playing covers of the bands we've mentioned. 


@bdp24,  very few girls at guitar band gigs in the 70's. The big hair rock bands of the 80s drew the girls in. Really wimpy music.