The day the music died...

Roger_This

ok it's a bit gloomy, but reading all these tributes to Jacko got me wondering. What was the day the music died for you?

I was too young for Buddy Holly, still too young for Elvis to make an impression; Jimi, Janis and Jim were just part of the romantic notion of the live fast die young rock'n'roll myth.

More recently I was moved by the deaths of Jerry Garcia, Richard Wright of Pink Floyd, Ian Carr the great British jazz trumpeter and Hugh Hopper, the Sof Machine bassist (god this really is depressing).

But for me it was 8th December 1980 that was the saddest day of all, because John Lennon died. That was the end of the Beatles, the end of the sixties, the end of the romantic notion of love and peace and worst of all the beginning of the godawful eighties.

Right - what was yours? And try not to be so blumin depressing 8)

Wooliferkins

+1 First musical death I was old enough to appreciate.

CHRISNOIR

I think for me it was Kurt Cobain - seems quite minor when put against Elvis, Buddy Holly, Lennon etc but it was quite a big one for kids our age.

It wasn't really 'the day the music died' as Oasis and all that Britpop explosion was around the corner and within the space of twelve months we all went from long, lank-haired cider-swilling scruffs with thousand yard stares to Ben Sherman wearing club-bound coke-sniffers. It all seemed oddly liberating to be free from all the mopey attitude that grunge had around it. And I never listened to Nirvana again until a few months ago and was amazed by just how fresh it still sounded.

cee

Les Paul died yesterday.......



RIP

fatandwheezing

+1 for Kurt Cobain.

I was 14/15 at the time, and just getting really into music.

Also Ayrton Senna died around the same time, (I was just getting into F1 too).

That was a wierd period.

MattC59

Surely formation of the 'Cheeky Girls' was the day the music died ?

Matt

iainment

I cried when Jim Morrison died.

But great music just kept happening, I guess it dies when you do.

Porgy

When John Peel died for me.

Although I was quite affected by Lennon's death - I was 13 at the time and just trying out all sorts of music including my Dad's Beatles records - I wasn't even quite sure which one Lennon was - but it turned out that my favourite songs were the ones he wrote.

iainment wrote:

I cried when Jim Morison died.
.

So did I probably - but for different reasons - I was about three at the time.

MattC59

Porgy wrote:

When John Peel died for me.

Good point...... +1

simonaspinall

Surely the dawn of coldplay, travis, keane and other diet coke indie bands

Infamous

2nd May 1985

The birth of Lily Allen.

juanperro

when that bastad dave pearce signed ian van poxy dahl bastad bastad bastad :evil: :evil: :evil:

Smokin Joe

The Beatles were long gone when Lennon died, and his solo stuff was very forgettable as is McCartneys. With the Beatles, the whole was much greater than the sum of the parts.

Without each other neither Lennon or McCartney would have been anything worth remembering.

passout

I know that Jive Bunny isn't real and so can't die, so lets say his appearance instead.

Seriously though, Freddy Mercury would top the list for me, even though he didn't die at the height of his 'powers' - I guess the AIDs might have had something to do with that!
Kurt Cobain is up there too.

Anonymous

The day Peter Andre was accepted back from musical exile by the Uk.

Anonymous

simonaspinall wrote:

Surely the dawn of coldplay, travis, keane and other diet coke indie bands

Ohhhhhh yes.

Oh yes indeed.

Anonymous

Thank god for Kasabian and The Prodigy.

Barkiesnake

For me it was the day i realised that the record buying public would go for anything if it was packaged right. A trend which led to number 1's for (in no particular order)
Mr Blobby (Mr Blobby)
St Winifreds School Choir (There's no-one quite like Grandma)
Joe Dulcie (Shut uppa your face)
The Smurfs
Aqua
and anything by Wings
8)
PS nearly forgot
ALL of Cliff Richards christmas number ones. :evil:

iainment

Smokin Joe wrote:

The Beatles were long gone when Lennon died, and his solo stuff was very forgettable as is McCartneys. With the Beatles, the whole was much greater than the sum of the parts.

Without each other neither Lennon or McCartney would have been anything worth remembering.

You are so wrong.

But it's all opinion anyway.

Porgy

Smokin Joe wrote:

The Beatles were long gone when Lennon died

only ten years. The influence was still strong. Lennon still had plenty of fire, and was about to go out on a world tour. I would have expected something of worth during the 80s...even if it was only live performance of old songs.

A Lennon and McCartney reunion may well have occured.

And I disagree about the solo stuff - much of the later Beatles output was virtually solo work anyway - plenty of the solo work by both L & M was as good as The Beatles.

Saw McCartney at Glasto 5 years ago - and he was great - a one man Beatles. I felt priveleged to be there.

Smokin Joe

Much of the Beatles stuff was written mainly by one of the two, but it was the input from the other which helped to make it unique.

What did either one do of note after the split? Neither wrote anything that even remotely compared to their work as a pair, and please don't cite that childishly embarassing piece of garbage Imagine. I am a Beatles fan, but I cringe whenever that drivel comes on the radio.

Porgy

Smokin Joe wrote:

Much of the Beatles stuff was written mainly by one of the two, but it was the input from the other which helped to make it unique.

What did either one do of note after the split? Neither wrote anything that even remotely compared to their work as a pair, and please don't cite that childishly embarassing piece of garbage Imagine. I am a Beatles fan, but I cringe whenever that drivel comes on the radio.

I wasn't going to!

there's quite a bit from McCartney - less from Lennon who semes to have become distracted initially by Yoko, then by politics, finally by his child.

I like quite a bit of the Plastic Ono stuff - especially the experimental album he wrote with Yoko....and also the number 9 dream period...some tracks off the album imagine are v. good...and Mind Games is mostly excellent.

It's been years since I listened to his stuff properly mind you - i've got it all on vinyl.

Anyway - Imagine - you might hate it - but it's on a par with All You Need Is Love - it could easily have been a Beatles song.

Lots of McCartney's early solo stuff was written for the Beatles and may sound unfinished - Macca's lazy about his own stuff - and I admit he needed someone there to push him - but there are great songs in there - Back seat of My Car; Junk; Maybe I'm Amazed; Uncle Albert; Monkberry Moon Delight; My Love, big Barn Bed, Live and Let die...there's even tracks from the 80s that stand up.


Anyway - I'd have to sit down with the albums again to find all the tracks i like - but I don;t think it's so much that Lenoon and McCartney couldn't cut it by themselves - because they clearly could - it's more that they both wrote their best songs - and were most prolific when they were in their twenties - as is just about every artist.

But many artists come back and have a second or third wind maybe even as good as their first wind - though less prolific - Lennon wasn't given a chance - and I think McCartney had his second wind with his early solo albums and again with Wings and again in the 80s.

Aggieboy

I simply miss Lowell George's voice.

hopper1

cee wrote:

Les Paul died yesterday.......



RIP

+1...

I think I lost interest in music when Joe Dolce's crap single held Ultravox's 'Vienna' from the number 1 slot!... :roll:

Too young for Elvis, but understood the impact of his death, same with Lennon, Buddy Holly, etc...

Michael Jackson was a 'great', until Thriller. After that he just got more wierd, to the point of just being a freak! His death meant nothing to me, the publicity of it all was in the same league as a Jeremy Kyle show... :roll:

Woodchip

Music never dies, it evolves over time like a living breathing creature. Stars come, stars go, but music will remain.


As for the day music died, surely the break up of Take That had to be the biggest death of the music world. All hail the second coming though.

Seriously, I'd probably say the two biggest deaths in music for me were Freddie Mercury and Kurt Cobain.

Lastly... To stop this whole McCartney was rubbish after the beatles mud-slinging. Who can forget Mull of Kintyre or The Frog Song.
Bom, bom bom. Ayee-aye. Bom bom bom. Ayee-aye. Bom bom bom bom bom.

hopper1

Woodchip wrote:

Lastly... To stop this whole McCartney was rubbish after the beatles mud-slinging. Who can forget Mull of Kintyre or The Frog Song.
Bom, bom bom. Ayee-aye. Bom bom bom. Ayee-aye. Bom bom bom bom bom.

:shock: Cheers, mate... I had forgotten both of those!! :roll:

Now, if I start humming either of those two.... :evil: :evil: :evil:

Woodchip

hopper1 wrote:

Woodchip wrote:

Lastly... To stop this whole McCartney was rubbish after the beatles mud-slinging. Who can forget Mull of Kintyre or The Frog Song.
Bom, bom bom. Ayee-aye. Bom bom bom. Ayee-aye. Bom bom bom bom bom.

:shock: Cheers, mate... I had forgotten both of those!! :roll:

Now, if I start humming either of those two.... :evil: :evil: :evil:

It could be worse. Every time I see the name Buddy Holly I start singing the Wheezer song in my head. :evil:

iainf72

No one can deny the impact of Cobain's death to anyone who was young in the early 90's. I was a minor fan but it did strike a chord with me.

More significant for me were

Dwayne Goettel from Skinny Puppy / Download / Doubting Thomas. At the time I was a huge Skinny Puppy fan who was moving into being into techno a lot more and Dwayne was responsible for Puppy's techno bits. At the time I was in emails conversation with the other members of the band so it seemed very personal to me.

Jeff Ward upset me a fair bit when he died. The back story was he was a junkie, hired a drum kit using his name, sold the drum kit to score some smack and when they came to get the kit back he popped to his garage and killed himself.

And the one which impacted me after it happened was Cliff Burton

Rob Mitchell who founded WARP records died of cancer in 2001. Warp are a record label I've bought pretty much everything they've ever released and I can honestly say I felt like I'd lost a friend when I heard he died. Vincent Gallo wrote something about him in the liner notes to his second album which was extremely moving.

Anonymous

Keith Moon.

bikerbill

Joe Strummer's death was a bugger. He was a hero to me and no doubt many others.

RIP Joe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F10tP5HIpaA

Jez mon

Dimebag amazing metal guitarist shot by a crazed "fan".

If I look back, perhaps Cliff Burton, even though I wasn't around at the time, looking back at Metallica's music there is a definite loss after his death. Of course further back, Jimi Hendrix's death is tragic and as was John Bonham's.

However, truthfully music doesn't ever die, popular music may go up and down in quality, but there will always be someone someone writing/performing music which will speak to you, it's just sometimes takes patience and luck to find it.