Keeping Up Appearances

[admin]

I have always been intrigued by the first impressions that are formed when we are exposed to a new music group.

Sometimes these impressions are fleeting and sometimes they are longlasting.

I am curious as to what first impressions either attracted you to a 1950s or 1960s group or had you shy away.

My first impressions of The Beatles have lasted 45 years! It was a fresh new sound and the showmanship of Lennon raised the bar so high that few other groups could meet in the early 1960s.

The Stones, on the other hand, were far less appealing and seemed a motley crew and were less appealing in the beginning. Nonetheless, I have many friends who were instantly attracted to these "bad boys" such as they were.

So how important is our first exposure to a new group. Does it endure or are we likely to change our views as we obtain more information about the personalities and talents of the group? Does their personal life matter to us or is it only the music that counts? To what extent does our personality figure in the like or dislike of an act?

[ric330]

This is of particular interest to me as I was exposed to music before MTV and other visual stimuli of todays music scene. For me it was about the music first and if by chance I would see the band in some other format beit an interview or TV performance it was usually a plus. But now sometimes things are getting pushed a bit too far with videos in the forefront. Luckily if you don't like something you can just change the channel or turn off the radio... Having said that I am interested in what bands or artists are doing outside just the CD cuts and musical performances to a point. Great topic Peter. I'd like to hear some other views on this.

[sowhat]

1. First go the Beatles, of course. I've heard them (my Dad had a good collection of bobbin tapes) before i saw them, wasn't so much impressed with the sound but they were the first band i could identify (probably because they were the best known). Then (pa-dam!) i saw them on TV, and i thought John Lennon was soooooo handsome i wanted to marry him "right here and right now" (unfortunately, he has already passed away by then). Mind that i was in primary school back then. Later on, my impression has changed, right after i saw him in glasses. (Today i think Ringo is the most attractive of the four. Moreover, due to some things that happened later, i do not like the Beatles.)
2. The Stones were perhaps the only band which i was exposed to visually (photos) prior to audially (hmmm, is that correct English? If not, sorry). Well, actually, i did hear some of their songs by then but i just didn't know it was the Stones. Guess what? Yeah. I thought Mick Jagger was soooooo handsome. I didn't want to marry him, though, cause i've already been outta primary school for about a year. However, the Stones have never been among my favourite bands.
3. The only band that i really liked "audially" but was shocked with their visual characteristics was Slade; but they're rather associated with the 70s than with the 60s, albeit personally i prefer their earliest albums recorded in late 60s.
4. Information that made me wanna quit? Hmm, yeah. CCR in general and John Fogerty in particular. Still like his older brother's solo work, though.
5.

Does their personal life matter to us or is it only the music that counts?

Music is much more important, indeed. Albeit in case i find out that a certain musician is a proud Father of two (three, four, five, six...) and loves his children more than anything in his life, that only makes me like him more. Perhaps that makes him more of a real living breathing human to me, and i like real people.

[nick_allen]

My first impression of the Beatles was strictly musical. I was 14, we had just moved house, and I heard Love Me Do on the radio and was totally blown away by it. It was probably a while before I actually saw them, because as I recall we didn't have a TV for a few months. By then of course it was Please Please Me and Beatlemania, but my initial impression was as I say musical - and it stayed!
The one example of information about the act affecting my view of them is Led Zeppelin. I was never crazy about much of their music anyway, and things I heard privately, and later stuff that is in the public domain (e.g. Bill Graham's autobiography) totally put me off them...

[royclough]

I suupose my first exposure to pop on TV was with the oh Boy TV Series here in UK, won't mean mush to those of you not in UK of course but I recall seeing Cliff Richard for first time on that show and thinking "He won't last two minutes, he's just trying to be a poor man's Elvis"

I was wrong.

[tamborineman]

Plus one regarding The Beatles and The Stones, Peter!
The Kinks slayed me when I first saw them. The power-rock sound of You Really Got Me and All Day And All Of The Night was unique at the time. Visually they were stunning! longer hair, dandy suites, Flying V Gibsons, WOW! Later Led Zepplin, I thought, took a quite simmular road.
The Byrds were also visual trend setters. Capes, granny glasses RICENBACKER 12 STRINGS.....oh yahh!
As far as changing opinions about rock stars or heroes, the book 'The Love You Make' by Peter Brown changed my image of The Beatles for ever. I felt saddend and sorry for them in some ways. Jonh Lennon was portrayed as a boar and a bully! Maybe I shouldn't have read it for my own good.
I generally I don't like hearing 'celebrity rock stars' dispareging the USA [where they made all they're money!] I know I'll have some bombs thrown at me for saying so but its true. I'm an immigrant to the U.S. so if I didn't like it I guess I really would 'Go back where I came from.'
I am happy playing music and leave politics and international affairs to the politicians and diplomats. In the words of Chuck Berry, 'I'm so glad I'm a livin in the USA'. Let's rock on.

[wmthor]

I am curious as to what first impressions either attracted you to a 1950s or 1960s group or had you shy away.

For me it was the song's lyrics and not the music. For example, I really didn't care for The Beatles' music until I was a senior in high school and they released Hey Jude. However, I was a huge fan of among others, The Rolling Stones (Paint it Black), Johnny Rivers (Poor Side of Town), and The Four Seasons (Rag Doll), & Cream (White Room).

But also during that same period of time, I was a just a singer (and a member of the high school choir), who didn't play any instruments. It wasn't until I started playing an instrument (piano at first) that I began to be impressed by a group's music and not just the lyrics.

[admin]

Richard: I really enjoyed your post. You have underscored the importance of our stage of development in our music preferences. Often times what we look for depends the unique aspects of our socialization at time of our introduction to groups. How often did we hear teens on American Bandstand focus entirely on the beat with little attention paid to the lyrics, the instrumentation or the appearance of the band in question? A guy who focused on the words in the 1960s. Who would have thought that this focus would have been a guiding light for you. "Should five percent appear too small." Go to the head of the class.

[winston]

A number of acts or artists that followed the footsteps of the Beatles had a touch of vaudeville in their act and banter.

I came to despise vaudeville, having grown up on a fairly steady diet of inept performances by amateur singers and performers etc with little or no talent. These people seemed to populate service clubs. The audiences were so kind in those days that even those who were hideously poor in delivery or in content were politely applauded.

Freddie and The Dreamers comes to mind immediately and fit my comment to a tee. Lyrically their songs were sadly lacking as well. I also lump other artists such as Tiny Tim and The New Vaudeville Band in this admittedly rather broad category of those who failed to impress. Their lack of tenure in their profession seems to support my view of them.

Off the top of my head, some of the bands and artists from the 50's and 60's that had airplay in the UK and that impressed me right from the first time I heard them are as follows:

(content warning, the list covers a broad spectrum of music)

Nat King Cole
Muddy Waters
Howling Wolf
The Rolling Stones
The Searchers
Manfred Mann
John Mayall and The Bluesbreakers
Chuck Berry
Little Richard
The Temptations
Wilson Pickett
The Supremes
The Ronettes
Cilla Black
Lulu
Dusty Springfield
Them
Pretty Things
The Kinks
The Nashville Teens
The Who
The Fortunes
The Hollies
Buddy Holly
Bill Haley and the Comets
The Beach Boys
The Merseybeats
Cliff Richard and The Shadows
Johnny and The Hurricanes
The Shadows
The Ventures

I could go on and on of course. The point is that very few that came into public view for any length of time, failed to impress me in some way. Many of those listed above rose to a high level of prominence over the course of their careers and I liked them all.

[wmthor]

I also wanted to add a comment or two about the music that my parents listened too as it may have influenced some of my musical traits. My mother was born & raised in Mississippi and listened to country music. In fact, I have the Silvertone radio (AM/SW) that my grandparents bought a year or so after she was born. She says that many a Saturday night was spent gathered around that radio listening to the Grand Old Opry. She also a fan of the 40s "pop stars", but was never a fan of early rock-n-roll, because as she states, she was married with children before the birth of rock-n-roll.

However, by the time I started Jr. High, my parents had divorced (my father listened to the classics; symphony, opera, etc.) and my mom had remarried. My stepfather was born and raised in Mexico and of course listened to Mexican music; ranchero, conjunto, folklorico. He was also a poet, who sold a number his poems to a South Texas based Mexican music record label.

My mom's love for country music, along with my stepfather's Mexican music may very well have had influence on my early trait of basing my likes and dislikes upon a song lyrics.

[royclough]

Freedie and The Dreamers were not that bad in my view they made some good records but the music was overshadowed by the antics, I still feel that Feel So Blue the B side of their first single, certainly here in UK was British Beat at it's best.

[dedicated_follower]

My first impressions of The Beatles have lasted 45 years! It was a fresh new sound and the showmanship of Lennon raised the bar so high that few other groups could meet in the early 1960s.

The Stones, on the other hand, were far less appealing and seemed a motley crew and were less appealing in the beginning. Nonetheless, I have many friends who were instantly attracted to these "bad boys" such as they were.

So how important is our first exposure to a new group. Does it endure or are we likely to change our views as we obtain more information about the personalities and talents of the group? Does their personal life matter to us or is it only the music that counts? To what extent does our personality figure in the like or dislike of an act?

I am the opposite to you. I liked the Beatles, but they didn't really grip my attention as much as The Stones. They had and have far more enrgy and excitement.
As for first exposure, The Kinks "You Really Got Me" was soooooo.... exciting it gripped me then and still does. No point in considering personal lives. The artists are generally, drinkers, drug users, smokers, gay, etc. Our backgrounds probably play their part in our choices.
By the way thank goodness this thread isn't about Mrs Bucket!
Jim

[dedicated_follower]

Good topic, so must make some further comments. Other acts that gripped my attention included The Searchers, whom I liked immensely in the 60s but don't care for their nicey, nicey music act now, The Who, more excitement. Away from guitar groups, one of the very few vocal groups that caught my imagination were The Walker Brothers. The almost Phil Spector sound was so powerful. Small Faces, more energy.
As for being put off, the first thing that comes to mind are The Mojos. Their number one Everything's Alright. I saw them on the TV and just decided to give them a miss.
Jim

[sowhat]

Freddie and The Dreamers were not that bad in my view they made some good records but the music was overshadowed by the antics, I still feel that Feel So Blue the B side of their first single, certainly here in UK was British Beat at it's best.

Speaking of Freddie and co, when i first heard them, i thought, "what the [censored], why should they ever try to play music?!" I was pretty much disgusted by "You were made for me", Freddie's "oversugared" vocals in particular. But when i saw them, my impression has changed, and now i think they were kinda cool. Yeah, Freddie looked strange, acted strange and sounded strange, but he was sooooo handsome but their performance was such a lot of fun that i couldn't resist any longer. I thought, "the guy who looks so funny is hard to dislike", not that i've become a fan ever since but i found a certain pleasure in even listening to them.
The Searchers, on the other hand, looked quite faceless (as much faceless as you can look having a crazy (in good sense of that word) drummer and a red haired guitarist in the band) — good looking boys in smart suits. But they had something special about their sound, perhaps due to rhythm guitar sound and (sometimes) drumming. Some of my friends say they not only looked, but also sounded "pretty much like everyone", and they cannot understand why i once got so much hooked on them. Oh well. I cannot understand it either. And i was always wondering what would they be like had they started later, at the times when punk rock was a big thing.

[royclough]

Surprised you did not like The Mojos Jim, I thought they were great, Everything's Alright was their biggest hit but made number 9.

They managed two other hits Why Not Tonight and Seven Daffodils.

Doubt many of the regulars on here would have heard of them though.