What Do We Know?
One of them makes music for a living. The other just really loves it. What Do We Know? is hosted by professional musician and producer Danny McCrum and hobby guitarist Mike Harrington. Each week they dig into the albums, artists, gear, history, and big debates that make music worth talking about. Expect strong opinions, genuine curiosity, and more laughs than they probably intended. Join the conversation.
What Do We Know?
6. Was 1991 the best year in music?
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Danny has a theory. Was 1991 actually the greatest year in music history? Mike's not convinced. So the two pseudo-scientists did what any reasonable person would do: built a scoring system, applied it to the evidence, and let the results speak for themselves. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, U2, Red Hot Chili Peppers. 1991 had everything. But does having everything actually make it the best? It's closer than you'd think.
Okay, now listen, I didn't say it definitely is the best year in music history. I just said it might be.
SPEAKER_01Nope. You picked your horse and you gotta stick with it.
SPEAKER_00You took it and ran with it and turned it into something bigger. Exactly. I was driving along with someone I used to know a few years back, and we were talking about 1991, and we the more we started to remember what music came out in 1991, we're just like, oh my god, this year seems to have been overlooked. And we we we got back to his house and started Googling and looking at the list and just couldn't believe it. And I've been pretty much thinking about it ever since.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's really close. It's just off by 20 years.
SPEAKER_00You gotta back it up. You gotta back it up. That'll be another episode. We've got a we've got a new Facebook group, a private group, so you can actually join the conversation with us before episodes and after episodes and and you know other various things. One of the things we did this week is you set up a poll, and the question that you asked was, what was the question again?
SPEAKER_01What was the best year in music history?
SPEAKER_00We didn't ask them if they thought 91 was the best year because we didn't want to lead the question. But Toby said 95 to 97. What's his argument there?
SPEAKER_01Um Toby said, I can't think of any better period than 95 to 97, it's actual insanity. And then he did list uh a whole bunch of albums that came out, and we're talking about you know, Radiohead, the Benz, um, Rage Against the Machine, Evil Empire, uh, Tracy Chapman, Tool, Rancid, Tupac, Biggie, Everclear, Foo Fighters, Pennywise, Bone Thugs, Sublime, Oasis. Um, you know, the list goes on.
SPEAKER_00Um as you were reading that list there, you were jumping all the way up and down the list constantly. Yeah, you weren't going in order.
SPEAKER_01No, I wasn't.
SPEAKER_00That's an amazing incident to how your brain works. I would have just gone down the page.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I jump around a lot.
SPEAKER_00I've been trying to follow him, and I was like, where is he going?
SPEAKER_01I've just got the one that cut my eye that I like.
SPEAKER_00Uh then our good friend Stephen Gallagher, who's um been on the show before. Um so is Toby actually, Toby Lloyd. Um but Stephen uh he said 1400 BC.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, this was my favorite answer, by the way. Nice one, Stephen.
SPEAKER_00Is that the Hurian hymn? Is that how you say it?
SPEAKER_01I have no idea, I'm assuming.
SPEAKER_00Committed to a clay tablet, one of the first examples of human music recorded in written medium. Amazing.
SPEAKER_01Banger.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I looked it up, found a performance of it on YouTube. Um I assume it was a performance from then.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because I'm pretty sure they had YouTube back then.
SPEAKER_003,000 years ago. I think they did, yeah. Um, and it's beautiful. It's a beautiful piece of music. I'm actually tempted to see if I can find the sheet music and play it, because it's lovely.
SPEAKER_01Um I've listened to it as well. You know, there was like that rake that that it would do. It did like a bit of like a chord rake and then into a melody right after? That was cool. I was I was immediately thinking, oh shit, how would you do that on a guitar?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm sure you'll find a way. Logan said 91 to 94, so there's a couple of votes in the 90s. Rooney spoke up and said 91, didn't he? Didn't he vote for 91? He did vote for 91. So he's the only person who got it right, I think.
SPEAKER_01Um He was also off by 20 years.
SPEAKER_00So 1991 is also the year I started playing guitar. So it was this sort of turning point in my life.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's why.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00No one's biased, no one no one's objective truly about anything, right? Yeah, that's true. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um it's always it's always what's influenced you in your journey.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I knew I wanted to be a musician from very, very early on, and and it just took me until then to start playing the guitar. What I've thought about in recent years is why so so this will sound strange, but I sometimes look back and go, why did I decide to pursue music not just as a hobby but as a job to throw everything into it, which of course means throwing away everything else I could have done. And sometimes honestly I don't remember. Sometimes I look back and I go, What did I do that for? And then there are occasions when I will hear something again from that period.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah. And I go, Now I remember it.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Music used to be awesome. Which I know it sounds like the old man rant. Very much so. Um and there is always gonna be that that dynamic where you're particularly in love with the music of your time. Um they often talk about when you're like 13 or 14, those are the most informative years. Um, and you whatever bands you're into at that age are often the bands you stick with.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, probably.
SPEAKER_00Because it's when you're developing and emotionally becoming your own person, thinking for yourself for the first time, often having your first you know, girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever, and you know, so it's a very real, raw time in your life, and music is right there with you.
SPEAKER_01I'm not even sure if most people actually do that these days. Think think for themselves.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, very good point. Maybe a different episode, but um, but I yeah, I just remember like I was being bombarded with amazing stuff at that period. Like every week something came out that was that again changed music, I felt like. Like it was an exhilarating time to be a music fan.
SPEAKER_01I also kind of wonder, um sorry, I don't have any research on this. This is something that's just kind of come to my mind now, but I wonder if you look at the volume of music that was released in prior decades, like you have to think recording um technology has to play a part in that as well, you know. There was only so many albums that were coming out in the 60s and 70s because the actual you know production side of it was was so much more intense. Um obviously, as technology increases. I mean, you look today and there's probably a new album dropped every 20 minutes on something like Spotify. So we're almost inundated with with so much more. But the 90s was probably a bit of a um a bit of a golden moment in time where the barrier to entry was probably lower than it was in the previous decade. So, you know, that's more accessible for people to actually get their music recorded and heard um from a wider audience. It was also being distributed a lot more. You have um, you know, you got MTV, you're kind of in that that period where you have a collective um consciousness almost. There's that sort of public zeitgeist where everybody's listening to the same stuff. Whereas nowadays we're so fractured everybody's in their own algorithm. Yep. Just don't know if you'll ever have that same sort of explosion of a whole bunch of bands that have that sort of cultural impact at the same time.
SPEAKER_00I'm not sure. I'm with you on almost everything. I'm not sure about the barrier to entry thing. Um I I don't know enough about that uh in terms of how many available available studios there were. But as I'm thinking, I'm not even sure if that's relevant because I remember when I first started the professional era of my lot of my playing life in my twenties, one of the things that was quite noticeable was that record companies and management companies were slashing their rosters. Um they were taking on far fewer artists because Napster and all of that stuff had had really hurt the industry. And um it it it was this moment where the big companies started to take far less risks. What sort of era was that? Sorry, 2000s, early 2000s. Yeah. Yeah, they were already feeling the effects. I'm told that piracy knocked the industry back by 20 to 30 percent in turn in terms of global income. And so the immediate response was let's take less risks financially and also creatively. And thus started the period where music became safer. Yeah. We had less bands and artists coming out that were trying new stuff, we had less of the kind of whatever mental stuff from the 70s and 80s. Which means we lost out whoever was going to be the next Bowie. We you know, we we lost whoever was gonna be the next prince, and everything started to to fall into this kind of cookie-cutter thing, which has continued and continued and continued, um, and is very much a big problem in pop music these days. Now anyone can get their music up on the streaming platforms, so there is an enormous amount of variety out there now, probably more than there's ever been.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, but most of it doesn't go anywhere. Right?
SPEAKER_01So in 1991, spoiled for choice, what do you actually look and listen to?
SPEAKER_00From the artist's point of view, though, do you go and practice for eight hours a day and invest hundreds of thousands of dollars and go out on a three-year tour? Do you do all that serious investment into your craft and building your audience? Why would you do that these days? All of that is gonna run at a loss. So back in 1991, the stakes were much higher. And you could justify spending a lot more money on a better studio or a better producer or whatever, because whatever you were gonna do was much more likely to actually get an audience and make money in, you know, so people worked harder, it was more important to write better songs, it was more important to play it at a higher level, you're in a highly vibrant, competitive, money-making environment. And I know people hate talking about money in the context of the arts, but I'm sorry, that's what drives it.
SPEAKER_01I mean, it's i it's the reality of the situation, right? You can you can be the best artist in the world, but if you can't feed yourself and get clothes and shelter your family, you're not gonna be making much. That's right.
SPEAKER_00So that's why these days people get a couple of beats and they just sort of improv some stuff over it and they make sure their Instagram looks good and they call themselves an artist. I'm not cynical. No, not at all. Not at all. No, I'm totally clear-minded. Um, I should also say, as a disclaimer, we're gonna miss a lot of stuff out here. Um, obviously, as we talk about the different eras in music, there's so much music out there. Yeah, for sure. I try desperately to create meaningful lists, and it's just like I know I miss pretty much everything. Um, I'm pretty sure as I edit this episode, I'll keep remembering stuff I forgot to mention. But this is also a chance for people to leave a comment and tell us what we missed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, we can already see just from the engagement we had in the group on that first chat, you know, this is this is a topic that clearly people um think about um from time to time, and and clearly we all have different opinions. So yeah, I think there's there's um some meat on the bone here.
SPEAKER_00And and I don't know if I said it before, but just in case I didn't, I don't actually 100% know if I'm right. I just regardless of whether I'm right or wrong, one thing I do know is that you're wrong.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think that's the one thing we both agree on.
SPEAKER_00Um one what why don't we first start off by defining what a great year in music would look like? So, what are the categories that we would use to judge whether a year is good or not? And I've got a couple of checklists here. I've made a copy for each of us, and we can add add on as as you as you suggest some. I'll tell you what I wrote down. So the first one is quantity, meaning the amount of interesting and amazing stuff that came out that year. Um, the second one is legacy artists, as an artist that really stuck in the zeitgeist. So one hit wonders and whatever, you know, they still have value, um, but it's different if we're talking about Nirvana, right? That's that's a different ball game. Yeah. So there's that diversity is diversity of styles, as in not just one genre, but whether it's across the board or not. Uh I've got cultural impact, which of course is the impact on society and life. You know, the the most obvious example of cultural impact is the Beatles, because they basically changed everything. Musician Impact, what I'm getting at there is bands that changed the face of music, like Stuart Copeland's drumming influenced basically every drummer that came since him, came after him, I should say. Um Van Halen's playing influenced a whole generation of guitar players after him, so musicians impact. Commercial versus critical. Uh that's kind of getting at those moments where I guess you the stars align and it does a ver it does very well commercially. The critics are also like this is the best, you know, where it just really ticks that box. Um it's still relevant if it's only one or the other. And then um I think normally it is one or the other. Yeah. I think you're right. Um and then technological shift, meaning things like Sargent Peples was a breakthrough production-wise, and and so on. There'd be lots of examples of or like Kid A, Radiohead, you know. Something comes out where it's like, oh my god, they just thought of a new thing. Yep. So that what do you reckon? Have I missed anything?
SPEAKER_01Um, no, those are the main points I definitely would have touched on. I think the musician impact is a big one. Um it's easy to just say what which albums charted the best or which one was the most commercially successful, who sold the most albums, but that doesn't always mean um what sort of legacy or impact they would have had. Like who who was the artist that was actually influenced, and can you hear those influences in the next generation of musicians? Yeah. And I feel like to me, those are sort of the big inflection points that I always look for is who is a cultural touchstone that, oh, everybody that came after started to sound a little bit more like that or started to pick up on some of those tricks.
SPEAKER_00I think we need to actually spend 10 seconds longer on that point, is that commercial success means diddly squat when it comes to art. Um I saw an interview actually with Sting where he said, I don't conflate commercial success with quality. And I thought it's a great line, you know. I I probab I've probably told this before, but I I was in a conversation with someone once who was arguing that this particular artist, who I didn't think was very good, um, has sold more records than you. So clearly they're better than you. And I my answer to them was yeah, but McDonald's have sold them probably more burgers out of any than any than literally anyone in the world. Surely Wendy's or whatever haven't sold more than them, right? Does anybody get confused and say, well, therefore they're the best quality burgers? No. I don't think many people would argue that. And I don't think that's a controversial point.
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_00That's just McDonald's are servicing a particular need. You know, if you want a really high-quality burger, uh you'd probably find it in some street vendor somewhere or some local, you know, mum and pop shop or something something like that where they really take care in what they're doing. Urban art on Kingsland, believe it.
SPEAKER_02The best in the world? That's one of the best ones I've had. I haven't been there. It's amazing. Oh, check it out.
SPEAKER_00You're so faster than you. Yeah. But yeah, we go there a lot. So I I I think that's worth pointing out because people often bring commercial success, which these days is often not sales anyway, it's more posturing. But but that that's not the same as it being good.
SPEAKER_01No, not at all.
SPEAKER_00And another point to consider is the context around great years. Like, are great years in music a coincidence? Or are they brought on by something that leads up to them in the zeitgeist in the world? How relevant do you think it is to talk about the context?
SPEAKER_01I actually think it's very relevant. I don't understand how you would review the cultural impact without actually viewing what the macroeconomic culture of the time was like, you know. Yeah. Um, and so often those periods of time where there is um a lot of tension or strife or conflict or um prosperity. You know, it doesn't always have to be bad. Um, sometimes you know, you get the summer of love, everything's good, and then you get that sort of hippie movement. And um it's it's one way or the other, but I think when you have those periods of either um higher pressure or or you know, a bit of tailwind, either way, those are gonna have an effect on the artwork that the people who are living in those moments in time create. Absolutely. And so I don't I don't really understand how you look at that without taking that into account.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I mean the hippie movement you refer to is also heavily informed by the fact that only moments earlier World War II ended.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00You know, and and then there's the rise of pop culture. People some people argue the teenager was invented in the 50s by companies like Coca-Cola. Uh, and then you've got colour television eventually comes along, and you know, so now if you're if you're a teenager in a black and white world, colour is a commodity, it's a totally it's an amazing thing. Let's you know, and is it any surprise that hippies wore such colourful clothes and they're talking about peace all the time? I mean, it makes perfect sense. In the early 90s, you had a strange situation where the rock bands that had existed moments earlier had become big commercial corporate giants that were more about makeup and outfits and image. The image, the spandex and the hair moose and all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01And the Which is fantastic, right? Exactly. I mean that's what I dress up when I go out to for a raid on the town.
SPEAKER_00But and I think for a while there it had its novelty and it was fun and whatever, but I think it felt it stopped feeling real, genuine, authentic. I think I think that started to get lost in there. Uh because you can see it kind of creep in a bit. I mean, you could go back to the late 70s and you know, there's Aerosmith and Van Halen and stuff like kicking that genre off, but back then they're still like dirty, gritty rock bands, you know. And it's just sort of along the way it got a bit more and a bit more and a bit more to the point where arguably they weren't really saying anything.
SPEAKER_01It's almost a caricature of what it was.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. And it was sort of all written about nothing, and and the only kind of exception to that was Guns N' Roses. And a lot of people call Guns N' Roses pre-grunge because they had that kind of punk rock attitude and that visceral, raw, honest attitude to what they were doing, which was very much not of their time, which is quite strange. But not only that, we're in a situation, I've got a list here. The Cold War had just ended, the war came down, the Gulf War just happened, AIDS was devastating communities, um, the recession was biting, the stock market had just crashed, and the extravagance of the 1980s had backfired. The youth were resentful and angry. Culture was reaching a boiling point. Does that tension produce better music? I think it does. Because I think the young generation coming up had had enough.
SPEAKER_01I agree. I think it does too. Um I mean the the year that I often go to is 1971, which is a similar situation. Um maybe it happens every 20 years. Who knows? Yeah. Feels like it. Next next generation comes up and realizes the same thing. You know, you grow you grow up with sort of rose-colored glasses, you think the world is one way, and then eventually um life punches you in the mouth and you go, oh wait, it's something a little bit different. Right. And maybe that builds up a bit of a bit of uh natural anger and and resentment and aggression. Um and you know, people get that out in different ways, but one of the ways that I think is the healthiest um is through artwork, yeah, through through music, through through painting, through movies, whatever it is. Um but it definitely does have an effect on the art that is, you know, uh eventually produced on the back end.
SPEAKER_00Especially when there's disillusion and resentment in terms of authority, you know, like in the early 70s there was a lot of anger about how Vietnam was being handled and stuff like that. Uh the reason why I think the stock market crashing was an interesting moment for music was because and I kind of remember this a bit in my life, although I was a probably a bit too young to fully process it, but you're brought up with this you're brought up with your parents and teachers basically saying if you do ABC, you're gonna get there. Like this is the way that you do life, this is the way that you win, these are the things that are important, and then all of them screwed the pooch. You know, the whole thing that they had constructed fell apart. And I think the the generations came up behind and went, you know what, screw you guys. That wasn't real, it it wasn't, you know, it wasn't meaningful. It's still not. It's kind of happening again, though, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01I actually think it is. Yeah, we've had this discussion in the past where I think people are starting to push back on on just how commercial everything is, how fake everything feels. Um, it does feel like there's a bit of a movement towards uh authenticity.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, whatever that word means, it's a little bit of a buzzword. Um, it obviously means something different to different people in different situations. But it it I I am noticing that a little bit where um bands that are a bit more outside of the norm, um, maybe have a bit of a gimmick or a theme or something like that, but that sort of authentic music that does sort of break out of the the sort of this is a pop song or this is a rock song, this is your clear genre-defined music, um there's a bit of a natural uh momentum building around that with some of the bands that I've seen, which is exciting.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. I think we're gonna see that probably with um or if we're we probably are already with AI generated content and things like that. People just like, oh no. Uh it's interesting how people are already sick of that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, didn't take long.
SPEAKER_00No. Um, but with the early 90s, what's also really interesting is the variety that was coming out. Because of course, this coincides with the rise of hip-hop and all of that. You know, moments earlier there's NWA and all of that sort of stuff. Um, this is a this is a time where it feels like different corners of society are all collectively getting pissed off. Uh and simmering, isn't it? It's simmering in all directions. Yeah. Like if you think about when Nirvana came out, when Teen Spirit came out, it was such an interesting moment because these guys were wearing, you know, jeans and t-shirts, gone with a spandex. And it was so punky and it was so like the way Cobain sang was so unrefined and explosive. And somehow you could tell that it wasn't acting.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It wasn't postured. A lot of the time these days I hear rock bands and I go, eh.
SPEAKER_01You can feel it, and I don't know what it is.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, it's just whether it's real. It's just whether it's real. I think I think humans have evolved to be able to to tell, to to kind of sense the nuance in these things as maybe a survival mechanism.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, probably.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the person who's not authentic might not have your best interests at heart.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I think we learn that over and over again in the arts where you where you really try to carefully put something together and it just doesn't work. And then you just do something randomly and people just get it, and they go somewhere. You know? It's it's in some ways it's funny that we don't learn that lesson better. Like we learn the lesson, then we go to the studio and we still quantize and tune everything.
SPEAKER_01Well, exactly right. Well, that's well, you hear all the noise of people who quote unquote know better than you, right? Yeah. And I feel like that's probably what happens more often than not. Someone maybe comes in with an idea that this is what I'm gonna do, this is what I want to say, and then someone says, Well, that's not gonna sell, or we can't promote that, and then well, that goes out the window.
SPEAKER_00A point that I often find myself making to artists is that i i if you go back to the era where you're recording in old school studios to Reels, um, and there's no image on the screen to look at, you can't see visually where the thing lands against the Grid, all you've got is your ears, and there's no ability to really fix anything without getting a scalpel out and literally slicing the tape and changing bits or cutting bits or whatever, which is a very, very difficult process to go through. So you don't just go, well, let's go and chop all the best syllables from multiple attacks together like they do these days, process called comping. If you're in an environment where uh perfection is not even in any way an option, you therefore never consider it to ever be a goal. Which is quite interesting to think about, isn't it? Because you go into the studio now and you know that you could do anything to it. You could fix up every single last second of it. But if you go into the studio in the early 70s, it's it's just it's not available and therefore it never occurs to you what does your goal become?
SPEAKER_01Focus more on the feel and the intention.
SPEAKER_00Bingo.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Feel and vibe, all that kind of stuff. Therefore, you're not listening to it anymore going, you know, did that stay exactly on the grid? Did I exactly hit the note or anything like that? All you're going on is feel and vibe. You know, and if you go and objectively listen to, like I love listening to Aretha Franklin and hearing how all over the place she is, pitch-wise, because she's giving it everything, and it's so full of life and and excitement and all of that, it's just it just wasn't important to her to give a pitch-perfect performance.
SPEAKER_01I think where you just said it was so full of life, I think that's that's the that's sort of the key, right? Is it actually feels alive. Yeah. Um because when you hear a live person sing something, they're not perfect from one note to the next. There's that ramp up sometimes. They overshoot the note and come back down. Sometimes you have that little break in in the in the voice when they're going from chess voice to head voice. You know, yeah. That's the sort of stuff that actually lets you know, hey, this is a this is a human singing this, and and you get a bit of that feel and emotion coming from it.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah. And one of the great albums that came out in 1991 was Blood Sugar by the Chilies. And Rick Rubin, the producer, one of the things he said to them was, like, you guys sound incredible live, and you've never quite gotten that on record yet. I think what we need to do is just catch you guys playing. Like when you're just standing there all together in a circle, like responding to each other, that's your sound. We need to do that. I believe a song like Suck My Kiss was that the drums were recorded with four mics, one on the kick, one on the snare, and two overheads, which by today's standards is bonkers.
SPEAKER_01Because today it'd be two eight eight not enough. Totally.
SPEAKER_00These days it'd be at least two on the kick, um, one above and below the snare. You'd have everything on the kit would be close mic's, and then you'd have you'd have other mics around the room for various purposes.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I even see that just in like local gig bands. You'll see a drummer will have every single bit of his kit mic'd up. Yeah. Um, just going in front of a house, and it's like, I can't even hear that. I'm just hearing you anyways. Yeah, I'm just hearing the acoustic.
SPEAKER_00But I think that's one of the reasons why blood sugar is an astonishing record, is because they pretty much tracked it as a band and then overdubbed. Tracking it as a band means um what they probably did was caught all the drums, bass, and guitars in one go. They probably had Anthony singing over the top as well, then they likely went and replaced his parts, and they probably replaced um some moments of free shanty's here and there. They may have dropped in here and there on the other guys a little bit to fix up moments, but generally what they're trying to do is they're they're trying to capture everything as as a performance like what you'd expect to see on stage. Where that's different these days is you may have everyone standing in the room initially playing, but everybody's giving a guide track to just get the drums, just get the drums, edit the living shit out of it so it's perfect. Bass player comes back in, drops all the bass over it, edit the shit out of it so it's perfect, guitar player comes in and repeat, and that's why everything has been sterilized all the way through up to the top, and you don't have any of that push and pull and spontaneity and and the that that life. And and when you're talking to some people, they go, What's the difference? It's just the same thing, it's just done a different way. But it doesn't feel the same. It doesn't feel the same.
SPEAKER_01No, yeah, and I think that's I think that's the key part is is the feel of the music, right? Whatever it is about that push and pull or being maybe slightly before or after the beat. I mean, we talked about it um in the Lars and in the Steven Adler episode where you know if you try and really zoom in on it, you're gonna see that oh, they actually are just above the beat, and that kind of gives it that frantic, frenetic, sort of high tempo energy. Yeah. Or it's a little bit on the backbeat, and now all of a sudden we're we're more into like a groovy sort of funk or jazz sort of world, you know. And that's right. Um if you're perfectly on the grid, it's just a little bit boring. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Well, I guess what our listeners are learning is that when they think they're clicking on a show about uh 1991, we're gonna start talking about changes in artistry and technology and but I mean it's part of the uh it's part of our checklist anyway. So I think the the the range of styles that came out in 91 was pretty extraordinary. I mean, on my short list here. Wait a second, let me get to the page. It's almost a page long. I mean, check out the I'll I'll skim through some of this, right? Tribe Called Quest, Bonnie Rate, Boys to Men, Brian Adams, Crowded House, Cypress Hill, De La Soul, Dinosaur Jr., Garth Brooks, Genesis, Guns N' Roses, Ice Cube, Lenny Kravis, L L Cool J. I said that it's such a white guy. L L Cool J. Speaking of White Guy, MC Hammer. Uh Mariah Carey, Massive Attack, Metallica, Michael Jackson, Miles Davis, Nirvana, Pooh, Jam, Pixies, Primal Scream, Primus, Prince, Public Enemy, REM, Radiohead, Red Eye Chili Peppers, Seal, Skirt Row, Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, Severe, Vaughan, Sting, Temple of the Dog, The Prodigy, Tom Petty, and U2 all released groundbreaking, memorable, iconic albums that we still haven't forgotten. Isn't that extraordinary?
SPEAKER_01That is crazy.
SPEAKER_00And I still feel like I've just started the list here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. One that you didn't actually include was Massive Attack. Do you know then?
SPEAKER_00Didn't I say that? Yes, I did. Oh, it's right there.
SPEAKER_01Missed that one, sorry. Yeah. You said so many so quickly. But that was one that I thought of that that really sort of changed like they were somebody who definitely influenced some a bit of a change in music.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Like if you think about the early 60s, because a lot of people would say that the early 60s were the was the really important moment. And it arguably is. I mean, I'd I'd probably change my mind a little bit on that because of course it it was like the beginning of how things went on to be and had such a cultural impact and blah blah blah.
SPEAKER_01All of these bands we're talking about were influenced by Tardera. Exactly. Exactly right. But we turtles all the way down, right? There's always another influence. Exactly right.
SPEAKER_00Um when you look at like 1963 to 66, let's say, I've got a short list here that just only again skims at Bob Dylan, James Brown, John Coltrane, the Beach Boys, the Beatles, the Birds, the Kings, the Stones. Um there's there's obviously a lot more from that time. But it's not as diverse. You know, like James Brown is obviously quite different to the Stones. That's that's a different area. But it's more the birth and rise of rock and roll. Like the music industry hadn't kind of broken into all the different strands.
SPEAKER_01I don't I don't think music in general was as diverse, was it? No, I don't think so. Yeah, that's that's probably something that's come on the back end. You know, you think of all of these bands that were very experimental in their time, they were trying all sorts of new things in the recording studio, trying all sorts of new things with the technology they were using. Yeah. Um they had such large uh bodies of work. Yeah, the bands that are listening to this stuff, maybe they they clip onto something that like they only used in a in an album or two, or only used in a couple songs, and maybe it's not in you know our collective mind, but if it was something that truly inspired somebody, it might have changed them to go off and basically create their own genre. And we see that quite a bit.
SPEAKER_00And that's not a criticism because it's actually more like a family tree. It's like sort of going a few generations back going, oh, there weren't as many back then. It's like, yeah, we're not kidding. Yeah, you know. Um the root spread. Yeah, because the because all those artists I just mentioned, especially the Beatles, I mean, I like to say that they did all the genres across their albums. Like in the six or seven years they were recording, they basically did everything.
SPEAKER_01And the uh the happiest song about a serial killer of all time.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I should know that. Um I feel it's on the tip of my tongue. Um damn it, as soon as you say it, is it off the white album?
SPEAKER_01Uh I think so. Maxwell's Silverhammer.
SPEAKER_00Oh no, that's off the Abbey Road. Oh. Yeah, I should have known that.
SPEAKER_01That'd be uh I think maybe uh like a misheard or misunderstood lyrics would be a good episode. That'd be a good one. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Have you seen the um what's his face, the British comedian, do the misheard lyrics clip?
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I have to check that out.
SPEAKER_00I've got to play it to after we finish recording.
SPEAKER_02Put it in the Facebook group. Okay.
SPEAKER_00There we go.
SPEAKER_02We'll do. We'll do.
SPEAKER_00So, yeah, again, going back to that variety, and yes, of course, this was birthed out of all of these different influences, but uh I'm not gonna read it all again, but you've got you know the rise of RB, like Boys to Men and is that RB? It's R B pop sort of.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'd say it was Yeah, RB.
SPEAKER_00RB. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. Tribe Called West and like Day of our Soul felt really new when it came out. It's kind of a different bent on that whole thing, kind of more party music. There was the rise of all these rock bands, though. I mean, Guns N' Roses came out with their huge double album Use Your Illusion. That's the same year, Ten by Pearl Jam and Nevermind by Nirvana came out. I mean, those are big albums of albums. Game changers. I don't know if you ever got into Primus selling the Seas of Cheese. I love that album.
SPEAKER_01Um so I definitely know of them, but I never really got into them.
SPEAKER_00And I and I think Say Baby Doom Let Down with me. Say Baby Deal Wanna Lid Down Bumps out to Baby Dean. You know that song?
SPEAKER_01No, don't know. Don't know that one. I do know of Primus, and I've definitely heard them over the years, but I never really got into them.
SPEAKER_00You've got REM Out of Time, which has got Losing My Religion, and Chiny Happy People. Yeah, Chiny Happy People as well. Great, amazing songs. But you know, Public Enemy, that's different again. We've already talked about the Chili's, that's the f the the year Oh no, it's got Radiohead Pablo Honey, but that's '93. Okay, so not Radiohead. Don't know how they made the list. Steve Ray Vaughan, Double Trouble, The Sky is Crying, that's a pretty big one. Tom Petty had Into the Great Wide Open. Temple of the Dog plays back into the Rise of Grunge. There's U2 came out with Octong Baby, which was another groundbreaking album. That that has to tick the technological thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_00I mean, it's just it's just kind of ridiculous how much stuff came out this year. So do you think we can give Where's my thing gone? Do you think we can give 91 a tick for quantity?
SPEAKER_01Oh, definitely.
SPEAKER_00And also a tick for what was the other one? Diversity. Diversity. Yeah, for sure. Okay. 1991. And I'm gonna add to this other category 1963. We can't pass 63 on quantity, right?
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_00And again, it's because of the family tree thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And diversity. That's actually the one I meant to say, but probably both of them.
SPEAKER_01Definitely not diversity, no. Okay. I think there was just there was less I mean, you know, genre is a bit of a tricky word and topic, but it there was less, you know, it was a it was a narrower band of the music that was being played at the time. That's right. You had you didn't have an alternative radio station, or you didn't have grunge um subcultures, you know, all of those were still yet to be birthed. So yeah, it would be hard to ever compete in that.
SPEAKER_00That's not a fair thing to make really, but it's still, you know, part of the process. Yeah. I should also add to here, your argument is 1972, right?
SPEAKER_0171.
SPEAKER_0071. Okay, I'm gonna put that on here too. So we should grade them as we go. Does does 71 pass on the quantity or the diversity?
SPEAKER_01I'd say it was definitely closer, and there was a lot of music that came out in 71. Okay. A lot of albums that we're still talking about. Well, I didn't you didn't give me time to look this up.
SPEAKER_00Well, no, you forgot.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, a bit of both. Oh yeah, so 1971, you've got you know, Marvin Gaye's What's Going On. Yep, right. One of the all-time best albums. Um, Led Zeppelin 4, The Who, um, Joni Mitrell Blue, uh, Sly in the Family Stone, Carol King, The Rolling Stones, The Doors, The Almond Brothers, John Lennon, David Bowie, um, Jeff Rotull, and Aqualung. I don't know if you are everybody. Never into Tull, no. Oh, so I'm a big fan of Tull.
SPEAKER_02I'm not a fan of Plits.
SPEAKER_01Um Yes, uh Janice Joplin, Rod Stewart, Funkadelic, Black Sabbath, Um, Pink Floyd, Kat Stevens. You know, it's all That's okay. It's pretty good list. The Beach Boys, yes, Al Green, Bill Withers, Curtis Mayfield, Alice Cooper. Um God, that's got some diversity to it as well, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00Definitely. Wow.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00Just to think that that's a Santana. That's only ten years after the start of the sixties. Like, what an explosion.
SPEAKER_01Uh 100%. Yeah, it was a massive explosion. Yeah. Um Traffic Van Morrison, Crosby Stills, Nash and Young. Okay, fine.
SPEAKER_00You get diversity and quantity. Okay, alright. But you don't get legacy artists. Legacy. You know, artists that stayed with us, and we won't forget. None of those artists I've ever heard of.
unknownWhat the fuck are you talking about?
SPEAKER_00I just I'm reaching at this point.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I don't know how you'd come across that one. Well, we got to tick him for I definitely think d you'd give diversity to 91, but I also think that's part of just the extra twenty years worth of different subcultures growing, right?
SPEAKER_00Yes, but the counter to that, obviously that's true, but it didn't sustain. Because we don't have that anymore. What do we not have? Diversity in the pop world. Well, I think now it's confused because there's a lot more shit out there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But it doesn't mean it's in the zeitgeist.
SPEAKER_01That's true.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah. Now remember, when I'm talking about pop music, I'm not just talking about Britney Spears. Nirvana were the biggest pop band in the world at that point. I mean, I'm talking about popular music.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. So so we don't have diversity in popular music anymore. Not like that. Not like 91. No.
SPEAKER_01Or apparently 72. I don't think so. Um I do think there's some artists that are that are pretty exciting right now in in the pop world that are doing some stuff that is a little bit different. Um some some you know, pulling from all sorts of different genres and different generations. Um there almost seems to be a little bit of like a retro revival. Um, and people are, you know, leaning into these these artists that were recording stuff in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, um, all the way up to the 90s and kind of bringing that into songs today. So I think there's a little bit of that sort of naturally coming back, but I agree. It's it's definitely not like it was either in the 70s or the 90s.
SPEAKER_00I think a mistake people make when they're talking about either the health of the business financially, music industry financially these days, or the vibrance of music as an art form is that they then default to one-off examples, and what you've got to look at is trends. 100%. Right. So I totally agree with you. There are great artists out there. Yeah. You know, there I mean Kendrick Lamar is a recent one who's been fantastic. You know, there's I mean, I played you Leanne La Harvis, she's amazing. There you could I could always we could always tell each other about great artists that are in. Yeah, for sure. But it but does that represent our time in music? I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's hard. It's almost one of those things that it's tricky to really know when you're in it as well. Yeah. It's you know, when we talk about like legacy or cultural impact or musician impact, yeah, that's something that you can only learn retrospectively. So we can only really see that 10, 20 years from now to see if any of the stuff is.
SPEAKER_00I don't know, because the moment Nirvana came out, everything changed overnight. We all knew. We went to school the next day and suddenly we threw out all the old CDs.
SPEAKER_01Everyone got your bought some flannel and some jeans. It was totally like that.
SPEAKER_00It was totally like that. There are moments where it's like a tsunami, man. It's like That's true. Yeah. That's true. Not always. I you know, I think you're right in some ways, but see the other thing that we've touched on.
SPEAKER_01One of those watershed moments.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Another subject that we've touched on briefly, I don't believe on the mic, but off the mic, is I don't give the same amount of artistic credence to music which is a nod back to a past thing, this whole retro idea, like a band going, we're gonna tap into the Motown sound all these years later, or we're gonna, you know, new rock band comes out that's tapping into the Led Zepp sound or whatever. I'm like, that's cool, nothing wrong with it, but this is an example of the art form being pushed forward and innovated forward the way that most of these bands we're talking about did. Like when Blood Sugar came out, they knew that they were influenced by the funk scene in the 70s and large you know amount of other stuff, but nothing sounded like blood sugar when it came out.
SPEAKER_01No, you take you take a you know you take a lick or something from that that genre, but you're putting it into something that's completely new. Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And the same with the Beatles, and the same with good number of the artists we've already mentioned. Yeah, definitely. So I think the idea of artists cut there's a lot of it now where stuff comes out that's made to sound like something else. Again, I think it's harmless, it's not bad, I'm not criticizing it. Some of it's extremely clever and requires a huge amount of talent, but it's just I think I've just written down like innovation. Yeah. Because surely that's got to be on the list here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean, that's sort of tech shift, right? You do kind of have that. But I guess not. But that was more technology. Yeah, not just technology, yeah. It could be um just an innovation of sound or style that catches on.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like that moment in Back to the Future. Yeah. He makes the phone call. Yeah. Who does it bring again?
SPEAKER_01Uh he calls um Chuck Berry's cousin or something. Yeah, he's like, hey, it's Marvin. Marvin Berry, your cousin.
SPEAKER_00You've been looking for that new sound? Well, check this out. Listen to this.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. But I mean, yeah, I think that's where it gets interesting when it's a nod, um, a nod to the cultural references that that you grew up on, but not necessarily just redoing the same thing.
SPEAKER_00And that's what's happening more and more these days, is redoing it. I think like an interesting example of that, probably at the extreme, is Bruno Mars. Like Bruno Mars, I don't know what he's doing now, but for a long time there, everything he came out was a blatant tribute to something else. Like Locked Out of Heaven was a tribute to the police. You know, Uptown Funk, uh, I don't know if he referenced an artist or a scene, but that was coming from the funk scene. He went through this period where he was like, his whole thing was recreating past ideas.
SPEAKER_01Quite on the nose.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And he was I actually don't mind the guy. I I mean I've played Uptown Funk Live lots of times. I really enjoy the song. I've got not no nothing bad to say about him, but I will never refer to him in the conversation of the art being moved forward. Because he's not moving it forward. He's just he's just doing what had already happened.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's fair.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so musician impact. No, cultural impact. Cultural impact, I missed that one out. Which is where these years have an irreversible and unmistakable impact on culture and society. I mean, the Beatles is the most obvious one. Some people even argue that they help bring down the Iron Curtain.
SPEAKER_01I mean, it's a it's you can make the argument pretty coherently. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I'm I'm pretty convinced about that one. Yeah. I read a book about it. And um sounds like a it sounds like it's too big to be real, but it's kind of like if you can creep ideas into the rising generation. And that that generation grows up with those ideas and expands upon them.
SPEAKER_01That is the very reason why art, um, especially when it's rebellious, is something that gets pushed down a lot. You know, that's why some that's why art can be dangerous. Right.
SPEAKER_00Don't play the game and let people tell you what to do. Make your own art, even if they say they won't play it. Fuck those guys.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, I mean nowadays, the one nice thing is you can make it yourself in your garage. You know, you don't no one needs to be able to tell you what to do. You can have a lot more creative license where it gets tricky is then the distribution. And how do you actually get people to listen to it? You might have the best cultural, you know, you might be the next rage against the machine, but if uh only your friends and family ever hear it, yeah, it's not going to make that cultural impact.
SPEAKER_00So I can still remember in the early days of the internet, so like must have been around the year 2000, and this guy I knew said, like, it's just so great, you can put something online, you can put your music online, and millions of people can access it. And I was like, Yeah, but how but how do you get those millions of people to access? Like already, I was like, that's a fallacy. Yeah. So yeah, anyway.
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean, that is kind of what we're seeing now, right? There's it's you're almost inundated, there's so much music, there's so much out there.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But you've got a limited attention span, and you've got all sorts of issues with the modern life um and and the pressures that we're dealing with. Right. How much time do you have to actually go and explore and find new music, especially something that's a bit niche or or something that's new or different? It's it it almost feels like it needs to be something that kind of gets put in your face, whether it's something that ends up going viral and then you see it from that or what. But yeah, it's it doesn't have that same sort of distribution and outlet like we used to have.
SPEAKER_00I think a lot of that probably comes down to people being one busy and having more distractions in life. Um I know I know a lot of people in the business cite that as being one one more of the things that hurt the music industry is there's more op more options. One more straw on the camel's back. There's more stuff to do now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00If you go back far enough, there was like you could go to a band, see a band play, or you could go roller skating. Yeah. You know?
SPEAKER_01And these days there's And then you would still hear a band play.
SPEAKER_00That's right. And these days there's just so many things you can do. But I think people are overwhelmed because when you look at the amount of music on Spotify and you're you go, well, I know I I've always liked this artist or that artist or whatever, it'd be nice to listen to something new, but I'm looking, I'm flicking through a playlist and I don't know. I mean uh and it's just like it's too hard, it's too overwhelming. And maybe music isn't in the conversation like it used to be. It doesn't feel like it is, so it's not it's not often you go you know to dinner or whatever and say, Oh man, I just bought this album and whatever. I mean, maybe you do, I can imagine you would. Because I'm a weirdo. You're a proper music fan. But I think a lot of people it's in the background. Like I'm really surprised at friends and family that I have who just music is so far down the list. What I find weird, tell me if you think this is weird that I find this weird. When you go to people's uh you go to someone's house for dinner or lunch or a drink or whatever, and they don't put music
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, that would throw me off right away. It's so weird. I have music on 24-7.
SPEAKER_00It's such a strange environment to be sitting there with nothing happening. Yeah. Going, so I can hear my own thoughts.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I'm not a fan of this. I just think that's so weird.
SPEAKER_00Scary in here. Um so cultural impact, I think we've got to give it to 91, 9063, and uh and 9071.
SPEAKER_01I I don't know if I'd give the cultural impact over 71.
SPEAKER_00Oh, okay. Well you listed some pretty heavy bands just then.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00Heavy as in uh you know as in influential, powerful moments.
SPEAKER_01That's what I mean. I give the cultural impact to 71 over 91.
SPEAKER_00Oh no, no, we're just we're we're not it's not a race. We're just saying we're just ticking the box of whether each one of these years got the tick box ticked, you know? Yeah. I think all three of them get the box ticked.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, musician impact. And I like it how we without even talking about it, we've narrowed it down to 91, 63, and 71. Why do we do that? Because those are the ones you talked about. This is a very scientific show. On our poll, we had how many? 13 or 14 years?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And I mean there were gaps of years too, right? So Right.
SPEAKER_00Another thing that's interesting is is back in the 50s and 60s when a lot of these guitar heroes were coming up, it's it's quite interesting to realize that Clapton and Hendricks and Page and all these guys, one thing they didn't have was guitar lessons. How did they become some of the most important guitar players in the world? And George Harrison, one of the greatest players that never gets mentioned. Um, how did they get very far without guitar lessons?
SPEAKER_01Because they actually learned to listen. They learned with their ears, not with tabs.
SPEAKER_00Wasn't it because they went to Auckland guitar lessons for picked up a guitar, or whether you've never picked up a guitar or you've been playing for years and feel like you've hit a wall, Auckland guitar lessons are for you. Why are you snigering over that? I'm not.
SPEAKER_01You're snickering at yourself. I was just being quiet.
SPEAKER_00Uh lessons are one-on-one, and every session is built around your goals, your tastes, and the songs you actually want to play. All the fundamentals of technique and theory are covered in an accessible way and applied within the songs you're learning so you can progress faster and actually enjoy the ride. If you've always wanted to play, now's the time. If you've plateaued, Ork and Guitar Lessons will unlock your playing, rebuild your confidence, and get you moving again. Head to Aucklandguitarlessons.co.nz or email info at aucklandguitarlessons.co.nz to find out more. I did better that time. That was better last time. That was better. I kind of ate ate the poodle on the last one. Is it the same?
SPEAKER_01I don't know. I think you might have just made that one. I never heard that before. This is gonna become a thing now or we're just gonna start laughing when you've got to read them.
SPEAKER_00I'm so useless in it. I could I could barely read before and now my eyesight's all messed up and yeah, it's not going well.
SPEAKER_01See, it's getting harder.
SPEAKER_00I was actually saying that really fast because I was just like trying not to fall off.
SPEAKER_01Just to get in there get it over and done with.
SPEAKER_00Get the momentum to get me through. We also waited so long to get the ad break in, it's almost the end of the episode. That's all right. That's fine. That's right. We'll get there. Uh musician impact. Which of these years did not heavily influence musicians?
SPEAKER_01I think they all definitely did. It's almost yeah, who do you which year do you think influenced people the most? Um and that's actually kind of tricky. That's where I think it's sort of the reverse of the family tree situation we were saying before, where obviously the further you go back, the more um impact you can have in the future if people are still listening.
SPEAKER_00True. Uh and I think Yeah, less less noise around you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And very clearly, people still listen to the Beatles. People still listen to that that first run of rock in the 60s.
SPEAKER_00Um that comment's not so much about fans though, it's more about the musician community. Like, you know, mm people still listen to musicians still listen to the Beatles and pull their songs apart. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, that's that's just just to make sure we're on that nuance. Yeah, oh for sure.
SPEAKER_01And I mean uh you see like I know you and I differ a little bit on this where I like to have the the you know, the sort of YouTube uh musicians where they break songs down and you get reactions and stuff like that. Yeah, that's true. I mean, well, so are we, so that's why you it's okay. I get I can call it. What do we know? What do we know?
SPEAKER_00We finally used it. We kept forgetting to use our tagline.
SPEAKER_01One of these times. But but I think you know that's that's a big a big part of it. Um what I find interesting is so many of those songs from the 60s and 70s are still regularly getting broken down. Um people are still like, hey, what made this album so great? Yep. Um you know, we recently saw the the You'll Hear It Guys do Um Marvin Gaye's What's Going On. Yeah. Terrific breakdown. Incredible. Terrific breakdown, incredible album. So good.
SPEAKER_00We should give them a proper shout out. Like go on uh they're on the podcast apps too, I think. I think so. But on their YouTube channel's great, you'll hear it is the name of the show. It's filmed. They're two really good jazz musicians who do these album breakdowns, really highly recommend.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's fantastic.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But that's you know, that's what I think's interesting is if you talk about the the musician impact. Well, musicians are still peeling this stuff back 50, 60 years down the line.
SPEAKER_00A lot of my younger students, like teenagers and stuff, they walk in and they're all about learning LED ZEP and Nirvana.
SPEAKER_01Crazy, eh?
SPEAKER_00Doesn't make any sense. It's not it's not even close to being there decade. But they're just not finding anything these days. And that's their words, by the way. Again, I know I'm an old guy. I'm gonna rant, you know. But that's the words of the 14-year-old who goes, There's no good rock music these days. Yeah. And I'd I'd rather learn, you know, Led Z. Okay.
SPEAKER_01I wonder a big part of that's probably you just you grew up with your parents' music too, right? You know, like that's that's why I'm a fan of all of these weird Canadian progressive rock bands, because that's what my dad was listening to, and that's what I sort of grew up on. So I feel like that's a big part of it as well, is what were your parents listening to and how did those influences play out in in your musical choices?
SPEAKER_00I definitely think your your parents' music choices are a big part of that. And I remember clearly growing up listening to their record collection, listening to Led Zepp, listening to Jackson 5, listening to like Tracy Chapman, and heaps of stuff, you know. Oh great album. And I was a big fan of Clapton when I was a kid, and you know, heaps of stuff, right? That wasn't exactly from my time. Which one are you talking about? Tracy Chapman.
SPEAKER_01Amazing album.
SPEAKER_00One of the best albums, I think.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Talk about we're talking at the start about authenticity and things feeling real. That's one of the best albums.
SPEAKER_01Nothing but real. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Everything about it. And I clocked that when I was a kid and it came out. I didn't wouldn't have been able to explain why. But I remember saying there's something about this that feels really deep and meaningful.
SPEAKER_01I wonder what it is. That's something that people have to think about to dive into. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I've got some theories. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because it is the it's something that I can't articulate, but it's something you can definitely feel.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. But what I was gonna say is that I grew up listening to the music of my parents' generation, and I loved it, and I still love a lot a lot of it. Um, but also in 1991 and the preceding, you know, few years, I also loved that stuff. So it wasn't like I was just only listening to the music of my parents, and it wasn't like I was rejecting it either. I was just like interested in music that was good.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I it's interesting that a lot of young people these days I'm pausing because I'm not sure if I'm right. Maybe I'm just getting narrow examples here in my little world.
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean uh you're obviously getting examples from people that are coming to you for guitar lessons. So there's there's clearly something that has inspired them to want to pick up the guitar and play. Um I also see that as well. Um I spent a lot of time um at Gokula Music, which is a uh locally used um music shop in Newmarket. Yeah. Go check it out. Those guys are great. Um But I I see a lot of um young people come in to try out gear that you know they could never get their hands on in any other place. And I'm always interested to hear, oh, what are they playing? Right. And quite often you hear stuff and it's from classic rock, it's from the 80s, it's from the 90s. Yep. Um it really it depends on you know what their vibe is, whether or not they're going to play metal or or blues or whatever it ends up being. But a lot of kids that I see that are clearly in their like you know, early teen years, they're playing stuff from the 60s and 70s today in guitar shops. And I think that's so cool.
SPEAKER_00That is cool. And I just wrote down, I kind of want to save this for the conclusion, but maybe the era of errors is over. Possibly.
SPEAKER_01And I mean, if you think about um how we consume music nowadays, obviously we we've we've harped um pretty extensively on how streaming has killed revenue and killed the industry for a lot of artists. One thing it has done, though, is made um different eras accessible right away. You know, you can listen to something from the 1930s and then listen to something from 2026 and then and then go right back and whatever you feel like at any given moment in time. So um you and I obviously like learning about the history of it, like learning about the cultural impact of when the songs were written, you know, what was going on, why did they do this, why did they choose this instrument? Oh, it's because that's all they had to choose, you know. Um but you uh it's not really presented to us in that same way anymore. You you it's just endless quantities of of very deep um discographies, and you can kind of jump in wherever you want. And part of that is exciting, part of that is also very daunting. Yeah. And so it's a little bit of a double-edged sort of.
SPEAKER_00Because I even remember in the 90s when I was a teenager, I I in my late teens, I kind of realized that I knew loads of the Beatles songs because of course how could you not know their songs because they're played all the time, but I knew nothing about the the sequence of what when they came out or what was off what album or why does yesterday sound so different to Helter Skelter, like Drugs. Yeah. What what was the is you know, the sequence in the story. I didn't know the story. And so I actually went out of my way. I went I went and found some of their early stuff and write, I'm just gonna listen to this for a while, and then I sort of introduced each album to myself as I went along and did this kind of mini, I can I I congested the decade of the you know that the Beatles were recording down into a few months for myself. And I'm so glad I did that because I've got such a deep appreciation for how their story played out. Again, I don't think you get that on Spotify.
SPEAKER_01I actually do that all the time, and I don't know if that's something a lot of people do, but um when I find a new artist, uh normally it'll be like, hey, I like that that one song, and you kind of sit there and marinate it with a bit, you know, maybe you put it into one of your own playlists or something. Yeah. And then when it keeps coming back, you go, hey, I really like this. I'm gonna check out and see if they've got anything else. And I'll normally listen to maybe their you know their top two to five most popular songs, and if those catch me, then I go, you know what, we're doing a deep dive, and I'll start at the first album and I'll go all the way through. Um and just like, hey, for this week, I'm gonna learn what these guys are about. Yeah. Um and it's it's not something a lot of people do anymore. People don't listen to albums start to finish as much as they used to. Um I think maybe me growing up with all of these sort of weird progressive concept albums, that's sort of was my sort of musical journey when I started, and I still like to do that. And I actually noticed that some artists are kind of getting back into that, where their their albums are more cohesive. It's not just six different singles. Yep. Um But yeah, I don't think that's something everybody does.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Well, all of that information is available in terms of the streaming platforms. You can find out what the listening patterns are. Like a really concerning one came up some years back where they realized that a high majority of young listeners were only listening to the first like 20 seconds of a song and then skipping. Like that like talk about a low attention span. They wouldn't even finish one song. Let alone an album.
SPEAKER_01That is my wife to a tea. Or driving in the car. Oh, next, next play one song, please. She's gotten better. She's gotten better over the years.
SPEAKER_00That that well, that's just something that the digital age has given us is that we can actually find the answers out to these things. And and that's where a lot of the music industry people are speaking from a place of knowledge. It's right there in the data. And I hope albums come back because I don't think like singles always had a purpose on an album. They were they were like the salesperson who went out and sold the record.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_00And then the then the interesting stuff happened on the rest of the record, you know, and and we ended up at a point where we just had the salesman and not the interesting stuff. And uh it's a shame, you know. But yeah, so I mean, if we're talking about commercial versus critical, these three years we seem to have narrowed down to they're probably all gonna get a tick again. Right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think maybe the critical side I feel like at 91 there was probably so much different stuff coming out. Like we we I agreed, like I think diversity for sure, um, it's gonna win in that year. And that kind of plays into the whole um commercial versus critical. I think a lot of those things probably weren't well I mean, I don't I haven't done a deep dive on all the different albums that were released and how they were um received, but when things are so new and so different, normally those end up being divisive one way or the other. Either either critics love it uh and maybe fans do too, or maybe critics hate it and fans love it. And it, you know, what's gonna be the cultural impact on that down the line.
SPEAKER_00But um I remember controversies like were you in the rock camp or were you in the rap camp? And things like that. But I mean, Nirvana was just both camps. Everyone everywhere liked Nirvana, and and it changed the way people bought clothes because literally the big department stores changed their clothing designs. And um I mean it was just no one didn't like Nirvana. Cultural impact. Yeah, absolutely. I'm trying to think of I mean the the yeah, I I don't remember there being any significant pushback about any particular genre at that time. I just remember there being sort of a lot of divisiveness between the genres. A lot of that also sort of turned out to not be true. Like I I used to think that there was a massive divide between the Grunge Alternative movement and a lot of the bigger kind of heavy rock bands that had just happened. Like I just assumed that the guys from Guns N' Roses hated the guys from Nirvana because arguably Nirvana kind of knocked them off their perch. But it turns out that Duff McKagan's from Seattle and grew up with those guys. Yeah. They're all really good friends and they there's lots of love there. And I was actually like really pleased to hear that when I when I learned that.
SPEAKER_01That's all from uh salesmen and you know that's they're they're trying to build a bit of mystique or build a story around it or or try and build up a bit of hype, right?
SPEAKER_00Let's just finish the last one, which is technological shift. I I feel like I'm almost afraid to say this. I don't know if 63 gets a tick on that one. Because 63 was an innovative, creative explosion in terms of the writing and the playing styles and things like that.
SPEAKER_01But the shift in recording technology I'd almost put it earlier if you were gonna it either earlier or later. Yeah.
SPEAKER_0067 is multi-tracking and Sgt. Peppers and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01Up 70s is where I feel like recording techniques really almost went too far. Yeah. Probably I don't know. That's a tricky one.
SPEAKER_00Because they were a lot of the early stuff in 63, it was still recorded to two-track, and you had some stuff on the left and some stuff on the right. In fact, famously a lot of the Beatles stuff was actually intended to be in mono, and they they apparently worked very, very hard on the mono mixes and then quickly bounced out of stereo mix. But the stereo mixes are the ones that we all know because only a few years later stereo became the standard.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_00Where weirdly at that early in the early 60s period, a lot of people didn't think stereo would catch on.
SPEAKER_01You know what's funny? I often listen to mono cuts if I can. Oh yeah. Um It sounds like you. Specifically because quite often uh if I'm working in an office environment, I'll have one headphone. So I get the full I get the full mix. That's that's the that's the only reason.
SPEAKER_02You get the full what? The full mix. Oh, full mix, right. Okay, good. What'd you think I said? Full dicks. Different podcast.
SPEAKER_00That's right. So 7191 technological moving. I mean, bands like Massive Attack were changing the game.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_00In terms of production and things like that. I feel like I want to pick 91.
SPEAKER_01I'm split on this one. I think it could go either way. I think 91 definitely had like uh because it had such a wide diversity of the sounds and the songs and the albums that were coming out, they were obviously using all sorts of different techniques that probably weren't around. But I also think even though 71 had a a smaller, um you know, maybe a smaller catalogue of music that was being produced, but it was being produced in a pretty brand new way where recording techniques were pretty much front and center. So I feel like that was a a massive shift in the way music was produced ever since then.
SPEAKER_00They're hard to compare 71 and 91. But I feel like we need to tick both of those boxes though. Because oh do I? Because I keep thinking about music innovation. Like in 91, you had like all sorts of d samples and drum machines and uh entire genres being invented, basically. You know, like massive attack again was you know the and I think early Prodigy might have been around that time. There's a lot of stuff that was coming out that had never been done before that was ha happening because of technology.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_00And like I was about to refer to um 71 back to Joni Mitchell's Blue, which is again an amazing musician, you know, writing and playing album. Don't know if that's a big breakthrough on a technological level.
SPEAKER_01I mean, just if you think about how much uh technology in general, even just outside of music, shifted between the 70s and the 90s. Yeah. Kind of leans into 91, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00It does, yeah. And I think maybe if we had uh 67 on the list, then that would be getting the big tick. I think I think maybe 71 is. That was Sgt. Peffers, wasn't it? Yeah, 77 and also like Pet Sounds, I'm pretty sure was 67 and stuff like that. That was a big one, you know. So I think 71 was still like in the aftermath of the room. So okay, we're not gonna tick 71, we're gonna tick 91 on that one. Let's come back and read the uh the conclusion of our checklist in a minute. Cool. Do you want to take a turn doing the call to action stuff?
SPEAKER_01If you're enjoying the show, leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or tell a friend. It helps us grow and we really appreciate it. And make sure you subscribe so you never miss an episode. If you have any thoughts on today's episode, drop us a comment on our Facebook or Instagram page. Um we've also mentioned recently we've we've started a new private Facebook group where um, you know, Danny and I are both quite active in there. So we'd love to hear from you. Um drop in and and have a chat. Um, we're also doing buy me a coffee now. Um if you head to buymeacoffee.com forward slash what do we know show. Um, you know, you can buy us a coffee and we would really, really appreciate that.
SPEAKER_02So I I I'm in such a need of a coffee.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, me too. I'm feeling sleepy. It'd be lovely.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. So to wrap up here, we need to do our conclusion. Um, we need to look at the results of our little checklist thing. One thing that I've kind of learned through this process is that I used to when I was a kid, I used to, especially like when I was a teenager, I used to constantly look back at the 60s with envy. You know, like I wish I'd been born in that decade. Born in the wrong decade. Yeah, music was so great and vibrant and interesting back then, and I really felt like I'd missed out. I had this constant sense as a teenager, like I'd missed out, and I was oblivious to the fact that I was in the middle of this fantastic decade of music.
SPEAKER_01I think that's just a common you know, that's all that's probably a bit wider than than just music where we get so we get so wrapped up in either thinking about things that happened before or things that are gonna happen in the future, and very rarely do we live in the moment.
SPEAKER_00That's right. And so I wrote down uh maybe one of the big lessons here is we should all spend less time looking back with envy through rose-tinted glasses and spend more time trying to appreciate the moment. Absolutely. And I think that is across the board. Like if if we're just talking about the music world, it's really hard, it's changed a lot, it's hard to compare today to 91 or 71 or whatever. Um, it's it's unrecognizable. Whether you think it's good or bad or over or still going, it's a different thing. But life and culture um it it changes, and maybe maybe it's not maybe music is just not where it's at anymore. Maybe maybe the advancements in culture and everything is somewhere else, you know. But whatever the case, we will likely in the future look back to this moment and wish that we could come back and visit it, just even just for one day. Yeah, absolutely. So it makes a lot of sense, I think, to to try and appreciate the moment we're in. Did you know we're gonna end the episode Sunday Night Tony Robbins? Live in the moment, man.
SPEAKER_01But I think you know, it is one of those things that go out to a live show, go out to a local show, support, support local live music, um, explore, figure out who's who's doing something interesting around you. Pretty much guarantee there is somebody doing something that you'll find interesting if you actually go and look.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, just before we get to our checklist, have you learned anything? What's your conclusion and have you learned anything?
SPEAKER_01I was pretty staunchly uh 71 was a bigger year um before. I think I'm closer to 50-50 now. Okay. I think um I still kind of think the sort of uh legacy and musician impact leans to me more towards 71, but I think a large part of that is it's just earlier in history um it's it's had more years for those tendrils of influence to branch out. Whereas um 91 I think probably wins in the diversity and in the tech shift. Um but once again, I think that's just a culture of the time.
SPEAKER_00When you rattled off those artists from seventy one before, I thought I was basically sunk. They're pretty big. It's a pretty great list. Yeah. And and you could do that from so many periods. I mean, I I love um a lot of the seventies, so that you I could drop in probably like seventy eight and rave about seventy eight for a variety of reasons and so on. Our checklist says 91 wins. It says that 63. That's got nothing to do with it. That's got nothing to do with it. We gave s 1963 five out of eight, seventy-one, seven out of eight, and ninety-one eight out of eight. Oh, fine. But like I said at the start, it's more of a thought exercise.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I I think actually why the question is relevant about 91 is just because no one ever talks about 91. When they talk about the great moments in music history, they always go back to these other moments. There's like the I think is it 58 or 59, the great moment in jazz, for example, really important moment where like kind of blue came out and stuff like that. There's all these, you know, of obviously we're always talking about the 60s because it was such an incredible time. But you just never really hear anybody sort of go back to 91. And I think that's why it's worth talking about.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I agree. And I think we will more and more. You know, it it's one of those things that um time in general ends up being the great equalizer. What are the bands we're still listening to? What are the bands we're still talking about? What are the bands that are still influencing people 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years down the line?
SPEAKER_00Right, exactly. Well, give us something in uh if minor. Head to Aucklandguitarlessons.co.nz or email info at aucklandguitarlessons.co.nz to find out more. Hell yeah!