{"id":319,"date":"2007-01-11T13:24:28","date_gmt":"2007-01-11T19:24:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php\/2007\/01\/11\/a-new-appreciation\/"},"modified":"2007-01-11T13:24:28","modified_gmt":"2007-01-11T19:24:28","slug":"a-new-appreciation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=319","title":{"rendered":"A New Appreciation"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a kid in the seventies (I graduated from high school in 1981) who was aggressively contrarian about music (into classical, punk, the Who and Springsteen, mainly), I pretty much eschewed most of the Top 40 pop of the day.\u00a0 Of course, much of it deserved eschewing; it was the era of “Afternoon Delight” (still the worst song ever to make the Top 40, which after all these years continues to squeak a “win” out against Britney Spears’ loathsome “Lucky” and anything Dennis DeYoung ever sang), a time when people like the interchangeable Alan O’Day, Roger Voudouris, Henry Gross, Rupert Holmes, Robert John, Robbie DuPree, \u00a0and Sammy John (no, I mean it.\u00a0 Look them all up.\u00a0 They were all interchangeable musically and <\/em>visually.\u00a0 It says something about the impact of MTV that the musical careers of guys who looked like 35-year-old Woody-Allens-via-artin Scorsese dried up overnight) had interchangeable hits (“Undercover Angel”, “You Better Get Used To It”, “Shannon”, “The Pina Colada Song”, “Sad Eyes”, “Bread and Butter”, “Hot Rod Hearts” and “Chevy Van”).\u00a0 As to mainstream rock, I have two words; KissandTedNugentwere Thetopgrossingtouringacts. <\/em>Foreigner ruled the charts, making Boston seem like Ray Charles in comparison.<\/p>\n

Dreadful stuff.<\/p>\n

And yet in the past few years, I’ve actually started to appreciate some of the stuff I hated so badly for what it was; solid, well-crafted, hook-laden pop.\u00a0\u00a0 I’ve learned to listen to some of it the way it was meant to be listened to; unquestioningly, uncritically, like a good consumer.<\/p>\n

And here’s what I’ve found:<\/p>\n