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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
hifiman5's avatar
hifiman5
1,823 posts
 
So?
n80 OP
2,107 posts
 
What did you say? ;-)
stevecham
3,340 posts
 
It depends. I listened to Genesis, ELP, Yes, Pink Floyd, Strawbs, Triumvirat, Passport, Elton John, Joni Mitchell, Tubes, Peter Frampton, Gentle Giant, Brian Eno, David Bowie, Jethro Tull, The Who, Peter Gabriel, Automatic Man, Cars, Ultravox, Boston to name a few in the 70s. I had a couple of Kansas records that were ok, but I never really got into Journey or Styx but classmates in college certainly were into them. And then there was the played-out-of-a-dorm-room-window-endlessly Grateful Dead. I didn't need to own their records, they were ubiquitously everywhere 24/7.
lowrider57's avatar
lowrider57
5,397 posts
 
@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. 
 
n80 OP
2,107 posts
 
Ah, I forgot about Kansas.

Yes, there was plenty going on in the late 70s and early 80s and I was more into British bands but it seems like the bands I mentioned seemed to get a lot of the attention but have not survived as well as Floyd, Yes, Elton John, Eagles, Skynrd, Zep and others from a critical standpoint.

The only place I ever hear them is on classic rock stations. And they are most of what you hear.

And maybe it is just me to see them as sort of their own genre.

They weren’t ’southern’ like Skynrd or Molly Hatchett. They weren’t as raunchy as Aerosmith. They weren't Kiss. They weren’t British. They certainly weren’t prog rock although Styx kind of took a shot at that late. They all ended up making radio/chick friendly ballads.

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