Of course in every thing is the seed of the ‘other’,


like thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, or more like fashion du jour, and the 60’s and 70’s were no different. No sooner had psychedelic band-oriented rock captured the airwaves, than it was trumped by an expanded singer-songwriter acoustic-folk style that it itself had replaced only a few years before and an improved blues-rock format dominated by jazz-inspired technical virtuosity. This in turn was couped by gender-bending glam-and-glitter rock turning to disco when left to rise and baked. Enter a revitalized cosmic-cowboy style of country music and the re-discovery of bluegrass and some feel-good laid-back island-rock from Jamaica and you’ve just about covered all the easily accessible options for adaptation to album-oriented rock. Of course commercial singles-oriented rock just kept jingling along mindlessly in the background all along. Despite the soundings from apparently different corners, all this happened relatively simultaneously and the net result was money, Big Business, which, when combined with the corporate takeover of the film industry, re-defined the entertainment industry. Hollywood suddenly went global, with ramifications still felt to this day and probably far into the future. When Thais think of American music, they still think of it as they first received it, with the Eagles, John Denver, and the BeeGees listlessly ruling the charts, and Bob Marley still poster-boy number one for the disaffected. Still, the system worked, and antithesis saved the day from utter boredom. The punks and new wavers came along and of course said, “Fuck all this,” and started banging out kick-ass rock-and-roll once again, with a nod to the Beat poets thrown in for good measure, as if that were the one hand left to be played. There is a God.

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