The times they are a'changing (stay on topic)

[Moonbiter]

It’s been a strange week up here on The Reef, and there’s been some stuff going down that makes me wonder about the various trends in popular entertainment and music in general. Before I go on: this is not a thread about our favourite bands or if people like them or not, it’s some thoughts about what we like, and when. Stick to the subject.

AC/DC has always been a politically incorrect band to like, at least up here on The Reef. When that is said, it has also been the band most loathed by the womenfolk in the whole world. Possibly too much testosterone in there, I don’t know.

Spring 1991. AC/DC has had a monster hit with the song Thunderstruck. 6000 tickets for a fall show are put on sale, and are sold out in one day. There is no online sales, so you had to call the newly established TicketMaster on the phone, or visit a local outlet. Demands are high, so they eventually put out an additional 2000 tickets. The largely male audience consists of older (over 25) rockers.

Autumn 1995. AC/DC hasn’t had a hit in five years, but the new album Ballbreaker is considered a triumphant return after a long hiatus. The charts have been dominated by Grunge and Techno for five long years. 7500 tickets are put on sale for a spring -96 show. They are torn away in less than 30 minutes. There are still no online sales, but the fans are in sleeping bags outside the outlets. For the first time in history the TicketMaster switchboard breaks down. Due to an error they end up selling too many tickets, and end up cramming 8700 people into an 8000 capacity hall. The Fire Marshall is not amused. Girls are starting to show up, but the guys are still old. They younger guys are away on raves.

Spring 2000. AC/DC has a new album out and on Billboard Top 25 after another five year hiatus, and expectations are high. I have no clue. A friend calls me at lunchtime on Monday morning and asks me if I have tickets? I have been away on vacation for 14 days and have no frikkin clue they are on sale, and have been so since 9 o’clock that morning. I panic. I call TicketMaster and virtually scream down the line. I’m prepared to offer kinky sexual favours for a ticket. The lady on the other end tells me to calm down, there are plenty of tickets left, and how many do I want? ……. ?????? Come again? She tells me they are just as perplexed as I. After the debacle in -95 they have doubled the switchboard capacity and called in extra help, but the tickets are moving at a snails pace. It takes 2 days to sell out the 8000 tickets, and the touts are all going bankrupt. The show is one of wonder. Young kids, both male and female are coming out in force to see a band that could basically be their granddads. To the remaining old geezers it’s a moment of wonder.

13th October 2008. Norway’s first large indoors stadium, Telenor Arena, with a 23 000 capacity, is set to be finished early 2009. On this fateful morning, at exactly 9 o’clock, 20 000 tickets for AC/DC will be put on sale. The TicketMaster switchboard overloads and breaks down at 08:40, and will not be up and running for another two days. At 09:08, the TicketMaster server goes down in flames. 20 000 tickets are sold out in less than 70 minutes, of which the server is down for 45. Fans are gutted. A 17 year old girl is on the radio in hysterics screaming that she will kill the staff at TicketMaster if they don’t get her a ticket. There is talk of lawsuits and a public hearing. Me? I just don’t get it. This is AC/DC. 20 years ago, when they were at the peak of their power, nobody gave a hoot! No 17 year old girl would be caught dead at an AC/DC concert.

Isn’t it funny? Isn’t it strange? It reminds me a bit about the recent Led Zeppelin hysteria. In the 80s and 90s nobody mentioned Led Zeppelin. Ever! In 1988 they wouldn’t have sold out a moderate club in downtown Oslo. Fast forward 20 years and they’re the Bee’s Knees. When did that happen? When did it become fashionable for teenage girls to be AC/DC fans? Girls walking down the street outside my apartment with Angus’ ugly mug on their chest, and me going “is there a fancy dress party somewhere?” Any thoughts?

[dragon wench]

Very interesting..
I'm thinking back to myself at 17 and any perceptions I may have had of AC/DC. Truth be told, since I have never really been into the genre, though I have an appreciation for some of the stuff I've heard, I guess I didn't have any strong feelings either way.

But, I do find it fascinating that a band considered to be overtly heavy on the testosterone poisoning by most girls at that time (I recall the derisive female commentary pretty well) is now so hot. Maybe it is the academic in me, but I can't help but wonder if it has a lot to do with changing perceptions of what is "appropriate" for one's gender???
Though, Norway, from what I understand anyway, has always been much more progressive than North America in that regard anyway, so it's hard to say how much of a difference that might make.

I have seen similar trends with some of the music I listen to which could vaguely be considered a fusion between rock and folk. When I was listening to that sort of stuff back in the 80s everybody thought I was "weird."
But now, it is all kind of trendy. It is especially funny having my 13-year-old playing me fairly popular stuff on YouTube that he likes... I almost invariably end up saying... "It's good, but nothing really new here.."

[Fiberfar]

Each to their own.
I got myself a ticket, and I didn't threaten nor did I have to kill someone to get one. I might have missed the point of this thread, but I'm horribly drunk at the moment, so please excuse me.

[C Elegans]

Funny, my view of AC/DC is completely different. In my circles, AC/DC was viewed as a mediocre band, too mainstream, lacking in creativity, originality, and real energy. Back in my teenage days, "real" heavy metal was bands like Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Motörhead and a lot of less famous avant-gard bands, whereas bands like AC/DC and Metallica were considered as too softcore, like "trying to sound tough and hard but failing because it's only surface, no depth". They were not viewed as politically incorrect, but overly commercial and they were certainly not viewed as having "too much testosterone", completely the opposite.
Today, AC/DC has become something of a symbol of nostalgia for middle aged people who used to like metal and punk rock in their teens. I know several people who loathed AC/DC back then, but now they gladly play their songs in the car on their way to their work as lawyers or economists

So from my perspective, I think the renewed popularity of AC/DC can be explained in terms of their mainstreamness and lack of disturbing elements; they are plain enough for anyone to enjoy regardless of generation. In popular culture, it's not the extreme but the mediocre and ordinary, that doesn't disturb anyone, that remains.

[penguin_king]

ive only been listening to AC/DC for about a year, i wouldnt class them as metal by todays standards, but 10, 20 years ago i guess they could have been.

as for the PC thing, just listen to Big Balls and you'll get the idea.

[SupaCat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by penguin_king ive only been listening to AC/DC for about a year, i wouldnt class them as metal by todays standards, but 10, 20 years ago i guess they could have been.

If you would say they're metal long time ago, aren't they still now and are the band you compare them with now, aren't they then a different kind of metal? It's like saying that Led Zeppelin is pop/rock band, ignoring the fact that they practicly designed Metal and brought into mainstream.

As for Ac/Dc... It's a band that had hits, sure, but buy one of their album and you'll hear that hit be repeated around the 10 times.

Quote:

It reminds me a bit about the recent Led Zeppelin hysteria. In the 80s and 90s nobody mentioned Led Zeppelin.

I believe Led Zeppelin was still popular in '80 and '90. I mean, they did the Live Aid thing in '85, had a reunion concert in '88 (which all brought alot of people there), and in the '90s they had a lot of stuff too, partly because Kurt Cobain mentioned them as an influence (hell, he even mentioned 'Meat Puppets' and suddenly that band was famous around the world).


Is it good that Ac/Dc is still performing? I mean, each decade has it stereotype music style, is the decade of the 2000-2010 going to be know as the return of classic rock, still performed by the same people from back when it wasn't called 'classic rock'?

[Moonbiter]

And I see even CE misses the point of this thread by a mile. That's what I counted on. I'm not interested in hearing anyones opinions about the musical merits of AC/DC, I'm interested in discussing how one of the most enduring rock acts on the planet can have such wildly different appeal to different target audiences from decade to decade, and how they can go from being a "Boy's Own" phenomenon in the 70s and 80s to appealing to a brand new audience of teenage girls in the 90s. So far the only one who's touched on the subject matter is Wenchie. I'm off for now, but I'll be back to continue this tomorrow.

[Claudius]

There isn't anything inherently male or female about any piece of music. It is just mental labeling to make it so. When that happens collectively in a group of people who excange ideas thats the culture. Culture changes. So male music in the 80s can be female music 20 years later because there is no inherent maleness or femaleness about the music it is just culturally labeled as such.

Like now people view Van Gogh as 'good art' but in his lifetime he wasn't considered anything special.

I say that to be deliberately provocative because I'm sure its hard not to feel that Van Gogh isn't inherently 'good art' in 2008.

[C Elegans]

Moonbiter, I'm not sure what you are getting at here. I thought you were interested particularly in the change of views of AC/DC. Is it the gender question you are interested in? Or the issue of how views change over time in general? Like Claudius already tapped into, the question of how views of cultural expression change over time, is a very general question. Culture change, always has, always will and thus, the view of past cultures will also change. I could name hundreds of artists in art, literature and music whos work, through history, has gone through the whole range of views from vulgar trash to "haute culture". And these alternation are of course associated with specific groups of people as audience, and certain characteristic of that audience. Characteristics such as social class, urban or rural, male or female, retro or avant-garde. I'm not sure what you find special with the case of AC/DC.
In general though, it should be noted that in popular culture, new fashions and trends are always created by using elements from previous fashions or cultures, and combining them in a new way. It's eclectic, not principally new. The elements that are merged are usually elements from various mainstream cultures, not the extreme which is sort of obvious since the too extreme will not appeal to a broader audience. Let me take an example: I'm in Tokyo now, and here you see a lot of teenages who belong to highly specific subcultures characterised by the usual package of attributes: a certain type of clothing, a certain type of hairstyle, listening to a certain type of music and hanging out at certain places. If you analyse the clothing style of these teens, you will find elements from European 18th century bourgeoisie clothing, traditional Japanse garments, specific Manga styles (which I don't remember the sames of, but I recognise some of them) and late 70's London punk (which in turn drew heavily on elements from the then underground BDSM scene). But again: it is not the most extreme elements from each culture that is borrowed and threwn in the new mix, it is mainstream elements from each culture. So, as I wrote above about AC/DC, it is not at all surprising that they survive and find a new audience, based on how all culture change and how youth culture usually develop.