Three oldies I detest:
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Edit: What's wrong with "Wheel in the Sky?" :-(
It's hard to put my finger on exactly why I hated that song "Wheel in the Sky". It would be easy to say that it was because the song was overplayed during its heyday, and it was; but I disliked it almost immediately.
I was noticing ( at that time ) a change in rock music that I didn't like. A certain homogeneity in rock, and performers and promotion people being aware of themselves as "role models" and stereotypes etc. and accentuating certain things as a result. There were other groups that fit in to this "movement" that had no name, too. Groups like "Supertramp" were at one end of it, and groups like Foreigner and Journey were at the more "macho" end of it, but it all had a sameness to it. I would very much include the group "Boston" also.
Supertramp often sounded more like Neil Sedaka or a broadway show than a rock group, I thought. A link to another insipid song.
YouTube - Supertramp - The Logical Song
But then, after this sort of thing had been going on a while, people expected more of this from rock in general, and so it didn't seem odd to them . You still had a few people like Springsteen and Van Morrison doing more natural stuff with some heart and soul to it.
Disco was starting to have a wider distribution also. Although I didn't enjoy Disco until I had a lot of good memories with women I met at those clubs to associate with it, I still respected the fact that it was more open about its.... artificiality than this kind of rock.
There seemed to be a kind of masculine image that people like Michael McDonald and Tom Jones etc. projected that other rock singers were trying to cash in on, after the fact. That, and the fact that the guy is apparently so emotionally worked up about a "wheel in the sky" versus something more tangible or gritty, seemed cheesey to me. ( I admit to not studying the lyrics closely. )
Meanwhile, elsewhere in American popular culture, there were other examples of Velveeta. Characters like Jack Tripper on "Three's Company" were supposed to be funny because they played "against type" by being different from this kind of masculinity. Sex on that show was always more or less something to snigger at, as they fumbled to keep it hidden. It wasn't really good "farce" either, but something more abbreviated. I remember wondering if people in the future ( now, LOL ) would think that those of us who lived in this 70's/early 80's time period actually
enjoyed pap like this, and that we thought it was funny, as the canned audience laughter cranked away to prompt us. Although the show "Cheers" had some good characters ( I like the "Frazier" role ) , I noticed so many people were filling their time with stuff like this, instead of going to a neighborhood hangout and making their own
real place "where everybody knows your name".
Most guys on TV with long hair then were portrayed as ruthless and /or crude stupid outlaws/drug dealers. It was like it was impermissable to show the counter-culture 60's, but OK to have brief Fonzie/Sha-Na-Na-like glimpses of the 50's, now that this time period was just a sort of novelty or oldie/moldy that was firmly of the past. Eventually we might see some glimpses of the 60's/70's but it would not be Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters.
It wasn't a clear cut black or white thing in my mind, though. Groups that I liked somewhat, such as Genesis, had a bit of Broadway feel to them, too, as did even Pink Floyd, when "The Wall" eventually came out. It's hard to explain why I was more tolerant of their forays n this direction. ( Nevertheless, even with them, I preferred the earlier stuff. )
Punk came out, and lived briefly in a form that wasn't co-opted, as a reaction to some of this; but then they carried things so far in the extreme opposite direction that I thought that was very limiting also.
When I hear old Doo-Wop, I kind of like some of it, even though I suppose sometimes there is an "ironic" or "camp" quality to my enjoyment, like seeing "The Sandman" sung in the movie "Blue Velvet"; itself the title of an old fashioned number, originally, which was used in the film as well . I guess I always associated songs like "Leader of the Pack" and "Teen Angel" with this, even though they are corney. Clicking on your link to the Paul Anka song was the first time I ever heard that number, which I had somehow always sensed that I wouldn't like much. I knew it was a popular number with some oldies folks, but never tried to listen to it. Why do you dislike it ? Is it the word "my" in the title that bothers you ?
Just as I had always sensed that I would dislike the Paul Anka song ( I was right ) I know without ever listening to him even once that I would likely not enjoy "Kid Rock", too; just based on the fact that he would pick such an inspid name for himself/his group. That's all I need to know.