For better or worse, this past week I have rediscovered YouTube music videos and concert clicks. Monday night while Stephanie finished the second book in the "Twilight" series - and both of us stayed up late - ultimately leading to Vincent being late to school Wednesday - I surveyed mainly the 1970s. Once before on our desktop I had reviewed some old videos to help Vincent make a concert selection. But those were mainly videos from the MTV revolution period (early 1980s). I have long called the 1970s (that long decade of excess, license, happiness, and heartache) - half serious, half joking - the high point of American culture - from "The Rockford Files" and "Kung Fu" to disco and Southern rock and the beginnings of punk and even rap and the high points of Album-Oriented Rock - to flannel shirts and silk shirts (here - I'm really talking about the mid-1970s, when I became a teenager). This is partly a part of U.S. culture that Stephanie and I do not share, thanks in part to our age difference. Part of a chapter in my Florida book was in fact a paean to the 70s, with my focus on K.C. and the Sunshine Band and the Allman Brothers Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Monday night I focused on the 70s - going back to the early days of disco (and watching almost all of these clips for the first time), from George McRae's "Rock Your Baby" to the BeeGees' "Nights on Broadway" to Kool and the Gang's "Jungle Boogie" to the Ohio Players' "Love Rollar Coaster" to K.C. and the Sunshine Band's "Get Down Tonight." I also got to watch two crucial movie scenes: John Travolta dancing to "You Should Be Dancing" in "Saturday Night Fever" (which served as a model for a key scene in the "Starsky and Hutch" movie) and Robert Carlyle dancing to "You Sexy Thing" in "The Full Monty." Widening my scope, I also watched some clips of two tragic, non-disco figures from the mid-1970s, the late John Denver and the late Karen Carpenter. I dipped back into recent movies to see Abba and up to the late 1970s to see Sister Sledge and Chic. I moved up into the MTV revolution to watch several David Bowie "Let's Dance" clips, including that great "Modern Love" video (which Stephanie remembers), the back to 1970s rock to see several videos/clips of Rod Stewart from that fabulous "Foot Loose and Fancy Free" album, including "Hot Legs" and "If Lovin' You Is Wrong, I Don't Want to Be Right." I finally quit, but have picked up a bit where I left off later in the week. I'll leave you pondering YouTube and the 1970s with the two movie clips
and
-- Perry
1 comment:
I also looked for Cat Stevens clips/videos and Stephanie even watched some new material (with his new name), including "A Is for Allah."
Post a Comment