Celebration of the Music of 1973, Part 1

Last year I dropped two posts celebrating the 50th anniversary of the music of 1972. Those posts can be found here and here. They were so well received that I've decided to turn the celebration into an annual event. 

When it comes to popular music, 1973 (like 1972) represents the high point of the classic rock era. The remarkable creativity of the music of that time period was the result of three main factors. First, artists benefited from advances in studio recording technology pioneered by 1960s bands like the Beach Boys and the Beatles. Bands or individual singer/songwriters with enough of a production budget could take the time necessary to make recordings as provocative as possible. What might have been a simple folk song in 1953, with a three-chord guitar arrangement, by 1973 could be an elaborate score featuring string or horn arrangements, the synthesizer, and/or a variety of special effects. 

Second, record company executives at the time took risks on artists that marketing surveys or focus groups might have told them to avoid. The risk paid off: 1973 ended up being quite profitable for the record companies, as it turned out that the baby boomer audience really dug all of the fresh, original sounds. 

Third, FM radio was generally excellent at the time. Even smaller market stations featured DJs who loved the music and did not spend every day updating the weather and running through stale playlists. The best jocks were music lovers, and they used their shows to educate listeners about the uniqueness of bands, singer/songwriters, albums, and individual songs. (Former WNEW-FM DJ Richard Near's book is must reading on this topic.). 

This post identifies 25 noteworthy albums from 1973. Later this year, part II will identify another 25. 

#50: Sly and the Family Stone, "Fresh". The last top-10 album recorded by this legendary funk-rock outfit, "Fresh" is today widely recognized as a funk classic. Pop culture critic Eoghan Lyng's 50th anniversary review says the record, "didn't disappoint, an album that was contemporary yet as scintillating as anything heard on the rock airwaves." My favorite song on the album is "If You Want Me To Stay," a funk-rock-pop classic that the Red Hot Chili Peppers did a spectacular cover of in 1985. 

Sly and the Family Stone: If You Want Me to Stay

 

#49: Joe Walsh, "The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get". In between guitar legend Joe Walsh's stints with the James Gang (1968-1971) and the Eagles (1976-today), he released three great albums, the second of which was his breakthrough "The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get." The album's most famous song, "Rocky Mountain Way," gives us a guitar riff that's every bit as iconic as Clapton's "Layla" and Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water." In 2012 Walsh revealed to Howard Stern how the song came about. 

Joe Walsh: Rocky Mountain Way

#48: Ellen McIlwaine, "We the People". The late Ms. McIlwaine (died 2021) was one of the most underrated singer/songwriter/slide guitar players in the history of music. In the 1960s she was a popular act at Manhattan's famous Cafe Au Go Go, opening for some of the great blues musicians of the time. "We the People" demonstrated her eclectic mix of blues, gospel, pop, and rock. The most heard song on the album was "I Don't Want To Play," a tune that best represents her vocal, lyrical, and slide guitar style. 

Ellen McIlwaine: I Don't Want to Play 

#47: Billy Joel, "Piano Man".  Billy's breakthrough album that put him in the same league as Elton John, Paul Simon, and other noted singer/songwriters of the era. The title track is probably the most famous, but for me "Captain Jack" is the tune that makes the entire album worth the price of admission. The song's message about a bored, 21-year-old suburbanite masturbator whose mom still makes his bed and who has to visit heroin dealer "Captain Jack" to get a thrill in life was 50-years ahead of its time. 

Billy Joel: Captain Jack 

#46: The Allman Brothers, "Brothers and Sisters". One of the Allman's most popular albums from their classic period, "Brothers and Sisters" was a breakout record for guitarist/singer/composer Dickie Betts. Two Betts penned tunes, "Ramblin' Man" and the instrumental "Jessica" became staples on FM radio and in the band's live performances for many years. The Allman Brothers defined the southern rock sound and inspired scores of artists in the genre. 

The Allman Brothers Band: Jessica

#45: The Marshall Tucker Band, "The Marshall Tucker Band". Want an example of an Allman Brothers inspired band?  How about the Marshall Tucker Tucker Band? From Spartanburg, South Carolina, their debut album in 1973 incorporated blues, jazz, country, and pop elements. "Can't You See," written and sung by lead guitarist and main songwriter Toy Caldwell (died 1993) remains as one of the towering tunes in the southern rock genre. 

The Marshall Tucker Band: Can't You See

#44: Lynyrd Skynyrd, "Pronounced 'Leh-'Nerd 'Skin-'Nerd". Want another example of an Allman Brothers inspired band? Lynyrd Skynyrd's first album was one of the most popular debuts in rock history, with a number of songs that got heavy airplay on FM radio throughout the 1970s and beyond. After a tragic 1977 plane crash killed lead singer Ronnie Van Zant and other band members, the song "Free Bird," with its poignant lyrics, soulful Van Zant vocals, and Gary Rossington's jaw dropping guitar runs, took on added meaning for the band's legion of fans. 

Lynyrd Skynyrd: Free Bird

#43: Bruce Springsteen, "Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J." When this debut album by Bruce was released, it was popular with music critics who saw him as the new Bob Dylan. It wasn't until two albums later, with the release of "Born to Run," that Springsteen became a household name. "Greetings From Asbury Park" actually survives as one of his best albums, with songs that remain in his concert set list to this very day. 

Bruce Springsteen: Growin' Up

#42: Steely Dan, "Countdown to Ecstasy". The second album from probably the greatest jazz-rock outfit of all time. The innovation and creativity that Steely Dan band leaders Donald Fagen and Walter Becker brought to popular music--both lyrically and instrumentally--was remarkable in its time, inspired generations of musicians, and still sounds as fresh as anything you will hear on the radio today. 

Steely Dan: My Old School 

#41: Paul McCartney and Wings, "Band on the Run". In 1973 all of the former Beatles released solo albums. "Band on the Run" defined McCartney's post-Beatles sound, included a number of radio hits, and is still his most successful post-fab four recording. 

Paul McCartney: Band on the Run

#40: Ringo Starr, "Ringo". After the breakup of the Beatles, the world learned that drummer Ringo Starr was actually a pretty good songwriter. He had a number of hits in the early 1970s; several of them appeared on this album. 

Ringo Starr: Photograph

#39: George Harrison, "Living in the Material World". George's 4th solo album, "Living in the Material World" gives us the former Beatle at his most preachy and spiritual. 

George Harrison: Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)

#38: John Lennon, "Mind Games". Not John's best album, but still a significant part of his catalogue. The title track has always fascinated me because on it John plays slide guitar in a way that sounds like a full orchestral arrangement. If someone told you that the London Symphony Orchestra was playing on the song you would believe it. 

John Lennon: Mind Games

#37: The Pointer Sisters, "The Pointer Sisters". The debut album from the legendary girl group, The first song on the album, a cover of Allen Toussaint's "Yes We Can Can," is a soul-funk classic. 

The Pointer Sisters: Yes We Can Can

#36: Tanya Tucker, "What's Your Mama's Name". Released when she was just 14 years old, "What's Your Mama's Name" was Tanya Tucker's country teen-idol classic. She was a big influence on modern stars like Taylor Swift, and really all artists that got their start as teens. 

Tanya Tucker: Blood Red and Goin' Down

#35: The Eagles, "Desperado". The Eagles' second album, featuring the country and folk influences that were the Eagles' brand in those early days. Thanks to the Seinfeld episode in which Elaine's boyfriend is mesmerized by the song "Desperado," I've never been able to listen to it again without chuckling. 

The Eagles: Desperado

#34: Aersosmith, "Aerosmith". The first album by the Boston-based band led by lead singer Steven Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry. The album became most known for the mega-hit "Dream On" which was, paradoxically, the song least typical of the Aerosmith sound. The song that best represents the Aerosmith sound, for me anyway, is "One Way Street," a rockin' blues based tune that shows the band's Rolling Stones and garage rock influences. 

Aerosmith: One Way Street

#33: Suzi Quatro, "Suzi Quatro". The first album from a groundbreaking artist. Before Suzi Quatro, hard rock had been a mostly male-dominated field. With her funky bass playing and raunchy vocals, Suzi showed that women could rock with the best of them. Her cover version of "All Shook Up" might be the best one ever recorded. Elvis liked it so much he actually invited Suzy to Graceland. 

Suzi Quatro: All Shook Up

#32: Steve Miller Band, "The Joker". Steve Miller is a guitar legend. In the 1960s he mostly recorded and performed psychedelic rock in tune with the hippy vibe of the era. "The Joker" did not really deviate from that formula, but the songs were less spacy and more radio-friendly. The title track is one of the first songs I remember hearing as a 12-year-old, and at the time I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever heard. It certainly was the first time I had ever heard the word "pompatus." 

Steve Miller Band: The Joker 

#31: The Doobie Brothers, "The Captain and Me". One of the best albums from the original Doobie Brothers. "Long Train Runnin'" was one of those monster hits that was rockin' enough for FM radio but catchy enough for AM. It features the great Tom Johnston at his vocal high point. 

The Doobie Brothers: Long Train Runnin'

#30: The Spinners, "Spinners". The first album released by the Spinners after they left the Motown label, "Spinners" is a classic example of the "sweet soul" sound. In 1973 "I'll Be Around" and "Could It Be I'm Falling In Love" were in heavy radio rotation. 

The Spinners: Could It Be I'm Falling In Love

#29: Little Feat, "Dixie Chicken". Thanks mostly to lead singer, songwriter, and guitar player Lowell George (died 1979), Little Feat had one of the most unique sounds in rock history. They were a kind of funk, country, R & B, jazz, pop, rock hybrid that has never been recreated. "Dixie Chicken" was the band's breakthrough album, and created a loyal fan base. 

Little Feat: Dixie Chicken

#28: New York Dolls, "New York Dolls". The debut album from a band that had great impact on the "glam" rock movement of the early 1970s and the punk rock movement that would start later in the decade. The entire album is a high energy, rockin' good time. 

The New York Dolls: Personality Crisis

#27: Jim Croce, "I Got A Name". Folk singer Jim Croce died tragically in a plane crash at the age of 30. "I Got A Name" was released after his death. It includes some of his most popular songs, including the title track and "I'll Have to Say I Love You In a Song." 

Jim Croce: I Got A Name 

#26: Chicago, "Chicago VI". How popular were the jazz-rock-pop band Chicago? In the 1970s they released five consecutive albums that reached #1 on the charts. Chicago VI was the second of them, and also the last one to include all the original band members. Other bands have produced songs with great horn arrangements, but Chicago had a way of doing it in a Beatles-esque fashion that appealed to serious as well as casual listeners. 

Chicago: Feelin' Stronger Every Day

Sometime before the end of the year we will post the to-25 of 1973.  Have some suggestions? Feel free to reply to this post or email me. 

Artificial Intelligence, The Free Market, and Joyless Culture

In late May, hundreds of industry leaders, scientists, academics, and others intimately involved in the development of advanced artificial intelligence signed on to this statement: "Mitigating the risk of extinction from A.I. should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks, such as pandemics and nuclear war." The statement follows a period of fairly intense media and government scrutiny of A.I., including a May 23, 2023 headline grabbing hearing on the matter by the US Senate Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law.

Sam Altman, the 38-year-old co-founder of OpenAI, told a US Senate Committee, "if this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong , , , We want to work with the government to prevent that from happening."

Mainstream media coverage and punditry tends to focus on the emergence of A.I. with a tone that makes audiences feel as if A.I. represents the coming to fruition of the warnings of generations of science fiction writers. We've all heard the dire scenarios: artificial intelligence will take away our jobs, enable even faster and more devious spread of disinformation, further dumb down our children, turn humans against each other, and/or make us completely irrelevant. Lisa Joy Nolan, co-creator of HBO's popular sci-fi epic "Westworld" (which imagines a world of sentient robots that eventually mirror the "real" human capacity for violence and revenge), now believes that the show should be considered a "documentary film" as opposed to fantasy. 

As someone who works in higher education, I have more than a passing interest in the implications of ChatGPT and other A.I. devices for teaching and learning. The Chronicle of Higher Education has published a number of recent essays on the topic, with titles like "How Will Artificial Intelligence Change Higher Ed?," "How ChatGPT Could Help or Hurt Students With Disabilities," "Will ChatGPT Change How Professors Assess Learning?," "ChatGPT is Already Upending Campus Practices, Colleges are Rushing to Respond," and so on. On my own UW Oshkosh campus, A.I. sparked a spirited discussion among instructors on an email distribution list, been the topic of a guided discussion on Zoom, been brought up for discussion in virtually all academic departments, and will probably be a major subject of faculty/academic staff senate and/or administrative policy initiatives in the near future. 

In the hit HBO program "Westworld," Evan Rachel Wood's character Dolores Abernathy is a sentient robot who mimics the human capacity for ruthlessness and revenge. Much reporting and punditry about A.I. imagines a world overcome by intelligent bots. 

My own observations of the dominant perspectives on A.I., both outside and within higher education, is that for the most part they tend to see A.I. as more causal than symptomatic. It's very similar to the mainstream view of cell phone usage; "the phones have made us more distracted and less able to live in the moment" is a common refrain. Maybe that's true. But can anyone point us to the Edenic period when the majority (or even a significant percentage) of humans stayed focused on tasks at hand and lived in the moment, especially in radically individualistic cultures like the United States? As someone who has now been teaching for forty(!) years, I promise you that American college students have NEVER had an easy time staying task focused and in the moment. Thus a strong argument could be made that problematic phone behavior was and is a symptom of the human tendency to seek distraction and do anything to avoid the real hard work of communicating in the moment with other human beings. 

When it comes to artificial intelligence, I see the abuses as symptoms of two major features of modern society: (1) the uncritical acceptance of the idea of the free market, capitalist economy as best suited to serving human needs; and (2) the joyless culture that results from mass-level allegiance to the values of that economy. Obviously this is a big topic that deserves book-length treatment. In this rant I will only sketch out a few ideas. I promise that none of them have been generated by ChatGPT. 

Artificial Intelligence and the Free Market

When the Soviet Union broke down in the late 1980s and early 1990s, western media immediately adopted the Reagan Administration's framing of the upheaval as the victory of democracy and the market economy over tyranny and communism. More rigorous reporting would have exposed the over simplicity (and absurdity) of this framing. It would not have required defending the corruption and cruelty of the Soviet empire builders to point out that their defeat did nothing to minimize anti-democratic tendencies in the west, and nothing to challenge what Eisenhower called the "unwarranted influence" of the military-industrial-complex. Indeed, more than thirty years after the disappearance of the Soviet Union, the only thing Democrats and Republicans in Washington can agree on is raising the military budget. As noted by journalist John Nichols, "there's never a debt ceiling for the military-industrial-complex." 

The market economy that rose from the ashes of Cold War, technically called "neoliberalism," is essentially a global version of Reaganomics. Canadian author and activist Naomi Klein in her 2014  book This Changes Everything succinctly identified the three main policy pillars of neoliberalism as "privatization of the public sphere, deregulation of the corporate sector, and the lowering of income and corporate taxes, paid for with cuts to public spending." 

The impact of neoliberalism on blue-collar workers should no longer be up for debate. The so-called "free-trade" deals empowered corporations to engage in the never ending quest for cheap labor, with devastating results for American manufacturing. Promises that workers would be retrained to participate in a much-hyped high wage business service economy turned out to be hollow. Instead what we've had is a mostly bipartisan enabling of low road economic practices. The Democrats became so overtly associated with these practices that millions of Americans impacted by them somehow imagined Donald Trump as a potential solution. Some Dems, like Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, have recognized the "wreckage" of neoliberalism and advocated for reforms that would move the economy toward a high road. 

Absent some kind of radical reforms of our economy, artificial intelligence systems will easily wipe out huge swaths of the white-collar economy. And why wouldn't it? Does anyone honestly believe that multinational corporations--eager to exploit foreign labor abroad while betraying blue collar workers at home--will not eagerly do the same thing to college educated, white collar workers? The fact that most white collar workers, in the 1990s up to today, showed little solidarity with those victimized by the low road economy will make the road to reform more difficult. 

If the global, neoliberal economic order remains intact, then the vanguard leading that economy will make sure artificial intelligence benefits them exclusively. At the same time, they will gaslight the masses with a rhetoric of how "A.I. disrupting the work force in the short term is a necessary condition for long term growth." In such an environment our only real hope is to engage in grassroots organizing rooted in an international spirit of solidarity across lines of class and race. This will not be easy, and the odds of failure are much greater than success. But if the alternative is to trust that the same vanguard that got us into this mess will somehow be more moral and mindful when it comes to A.I. impacts, then we are fooling ourselves. 

Artificial Intelligence and Our Joyless Culture

Here I will focus primarily on academia, as that is the realm of existence I have most familiarity with. My experience has been that every time a new technology is introduced that has implications for education, academics divide into two groups. The "neo-Luddites" are usually slow to accept or adapt to technological change, want strict policies put in place to deter student cheating, and resist any suggestion that "tried and true" methods of education (e.g. the lecture, the lengthy term paper, the essay test, etc.) might be anachronistic. The "Futurists" do not dismiss any of the neo-Luddite concerns, but generally see technological change as something we should embrace and shape to help meet the requirements of sound pedagogy. The Futurists are the kinds of instructors who might address student cell phone use not by banning it entirely, but by using phone apps in classroom activities so that the technology can be put at the service of learning. Similarly, the Futurist might have a policy in place to punish irresponsible use of A.I., but they are also more likely to educate students on "smart" uses of it. 

Most teachers, myself included, have both neo-Luddite and Futurist tendencies. What has always frustrated me, whether in the relatively low-tech classroom of my early teaching days or the more high-tech environment of today, is what seems like a high percentage of students who simply do not get joy out of the act of creation. When I tell students that I have been writing a column of at least 900-1000 words every month for over twenty years, and a huge reason for that is the sheer joy I get out of thinking, creating, and provoking, I often get perplexed looks back at me. Many of my colleagues across campus get similar reactions when they talk about their own creative output, whether it is peer recognized scholarship, artistic performance, or any number of expressive works. 

I've come to the conclusion over the years that the problem is we somehow created a culture that places a high premium on behaviors that do not correlate very highly with joy: getting the "right" answer, repeating back "authoritative" knowledge, and doing everything on-time. I often require students to come see me to talk about paper or speech assignments, and those meetings are fascinating because students frequently expect me to tell them what to write or say. I try hard in those meetings to provoke them to come out with some original thoughts, and then praise them lavishly when they do in the hope that they will get a feeling of joy from creating something that someone else perceived as fresh and original. Sometimes I unwittingly do end up giving them an idea for a paper or speech, in large part because I am experiencing joy in thinking about the topic while we engage in conversation. Obviously there are exceptions to what I am describing here; a number of students get joy from the act of creation. But the exceptions always seem to prove the rule.  

Student support systems on campus, all of which are run by extremely competent and well-meaning professionals, sometimes reinforce the joylessness. For example, when students are having difficulties with course material, they are often told to go talk to the professor to find out "what they want." Or when told to seek academic advising, they are told that the meeting should be strictly about "what courses to take." In a real sense, the students are being prepared for the neoliberal economy described earlier, in which their material success will be tied to their ability to appease power. If you think the lack of joy in education is confined to higher ed, you should read Susan Engel's excellent 2015 piece in the Atlantic called "Joy: A Subject Schools Lack." 

A number of schools have already banned ChatGPT. The argument of this rant is that moves to ban A.I. systems minimize or ignore the cultural issues that make A.I. attractive in the first place.

In a joyless culture, using A.I. to write a paper makes total sense, does it not? If I get no joy out of creating original work; if my only real value is the extent to which I can repeat back existing knowledge, and do it on time, then why not use A.I? In this culture, the joy of creativity is simply not part of the equation. As of January 2023 nearly 1 in 3 college students reported using ChatGPT on written assignments, and I expect that to rise substantially in the next few years. Academics, especially the neo-Luddites, will rush to create policies to deter and/or ban A.I. usage, but they will be missing the point: as long as we continue to prioritize and reward joyless behaviors, even our "best" students will continue to be content with "getting shit done." The joylessness of school work was a problem before A.I. and will continue to be in the future unless we make a concerted effort to rethink our dominant cultural values. 

Of course what I am describing is not just a problem for students or for education in general. I read an article in the New York Times recently in which a lawyer representing a man who sued an airline used artificial intelligence to prepare a court filing. The lawyer's legal submission, which will now be subject to a hearing to discuss possible sanctions, was "replete with bogus judicial decisions, with bogus quotes and bogus internal citations.” The lawyer in question did not promise to never use artificial intelligence again. Rather, he "will never do so in the future without absolute verification of its authenticity." 

No doubt that lawyer will claim that he simply was overwhelmed with work and ChatGPT presented a quick way to get the court filing in on time. When academics are caught using A.I. to write scholarly articles they will probably say the same thing, as will journalists and any other professional whose work relies on message creation. In a joyless culture that is the product--at least in part--of the unforgiving and predatory economy in which we exist, we should expect nothing less. 

Wanting to mitigate the risk of extinction from A.I. makes total sense. Thinking we can do that without addressing the serious deficiencies of the culture that created A.I. makes NO sense. 

July 2, 2023 Update:  In today's New York Times, writer and podcaster Evgeny Morozov has an op-ed called "The True Threat of Artificial Intelligence" that also makes a connection between AI and the neoliberal economy. --Tony Palmeri