My oldest son got me to listen to AC/DC a bit. I was never a fan first time around, but some of there stuff grew on me. As a teenager in the 70s I survived KISS. Never did get it. Oldest son was a huge Page/ Led Zep fan. I took him to see Page and Plant when they came around. Maybe it was the Zep saturation we got as teenagers, but I was never a huge fan of theirs either. To me they were the ultimate product of the tail end of the 60s early 70s era where there was a ton of money to be made and a lot of excess in the music. Pink Floyd was a product of that time too. Not knocking either band, but never saw them as the greatest thing since sliced bread either.
It was feeding oldest son different bands and types of music that got me to listen to the Doors again. I'd read "No one Gets out of here Alive" when I was about 15 in the mid 70s. I kind of resented Morrison for literally wasting himself like he did. I've always figured with those kinds of smarts he should have known better. And I always wonder how the legend would have grown had he not died. You can be perfect after you are dead as you can't make any mistakes anymore. I think it tends to make those artists a bit more untouchable. John Lennon is another example of that as is Hendrix. Odds are the 'what if' is always going to be better then the reality of what they'd have done as they grew older.
Oldest son and I would debate this stuff and dig to try and put some kind of perspective on it and we ended up coming to the conclusion that The Beatles and Dylan opened the door and with their success it allowed a lot of other folks to follow in terms of writing their own stuff and controlling what they did. The Stones took it in a more bluesy direction and kept it from getting to pop, with other bands like the Yardbirds, Cream, Zep heading down that path.
The 70s as mentioned headed down the road to excess which wasn't all bad, but it did seem like the music got taken over by the money makers even more and was purely manufactured. It wasn't until the tail end that it seemed like folks like Springsteen, Tom Petty, U2 and folks like that tried to get it back to the music and less of the for lack of a better word 'polyester' that seemed to fill much of that time. The 80s...ugh. Thankfully I was too busy with little ones. The only thing that stood out to me was GNR's first album that seemed to me to save us from hair bands for a time. The 90s and beyond? Three teenagers who thankfully listened to much of what I liked, although the daughters worried me for a long time
The question I've asked my kids over the years is name me something from today that will still be played on the radio in 20 years and stand the test of time. Still waiting for an answer
