Bubblegum Prog - Progressive Rock Music Forum

80's Rush wasn't influenced by The Monkees or The Osmonds, but by The Police and The Fixx.

And to call The Police or The Fixx bubblegum or garbage is beyond me.

Leif Garret

cstack3 wrote:

"Owner of a Lonely Heart" comes to mind immediately.

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote:

It's a bit of an oxymoron in my opinion. Sure, there is some cheesy sounding prog but I don't think I would call any of it "bubblegum."

"Owner of a Lonely Heart."

At the 40th Anniversary concert in Chicago, there were many families including parents and their young "tween" daughters.

When OOALH was played, said tweens gave out a collective squeal of delight = the definition of bubblegum.

Howe, on the other hand, looked like he had just eaten a rabbit poo sandwich as soon as he started to play that song. (Tip o' the hat to Lazland for the "rabbit poo" analogy).

I am not a Robot, I'm a FREE MAN!!

Nothing to do with prog, but the Sweet is called bubblegum and I think many are thinking them to be absolutely rubbish band. Really recommend all seventies heavy music fans to listen their Sweet Fanny Adams-album, it´s in my ten best seventies heavy albums list.

M27Barney wrote:

Who are van Hagar? A Scandinavian van Halen tribute band?

no, this is how some people named the Sammy Hagar years with Van Halen. Obviously "Van Hagar" is meant to be a derogatory term.

I think it was a small step from bubblegum to glamrock.
Both were manufactured and producer-driven with lots and lots of help from outside-writers.

I like glamrock because of it's playful and sexual approach. Not as a genre but more as a way of songwriting (Queen, Uriah Heep, Roxy Music).
For the same reason I can enjoy disco not as genre but more incorporated in music.

M27Barney wrote:

Perhaps it's just me. But signals hasn't got a single track on it that I would wish to hear again. It's absolute garbage. From moving pictures to signals is possibly the biggest drop in quality over one release in the history of music. Signals is awful. Period. Moving pictures is not as good as it's predecessors but it's not a heaving pile of electro pop rubbish. Or is my memory of it mistaken?

You wouldn't be the first person to abandon Rush after MP. Yes, Signals, and subsequent albums were quite different than Rush's 70s output and they went pretty heavily into synths, as many, many 70s rock bands did in the 80s. Bigger hair, more synths, more power ballads, more music in general from bands in the 70s that rocked and now in the 80s were venturing from rock to a more adult contemporary sounding music. No question about that but again to say that Rush went that way in order to line their pockets is simply wrong.

Edited by Jeffro - May 01 2018 at 05:14

Jeffro wrote:

M27Barney wrote:

Perhaps it's just me. But signals hasn't got a single track on it that I would wish to hear again. It's absolute garbage. From moving pictures to signals is possibly the biggest drop in quality over one release in the history of music. Signals is awful. Period. Moving pictures is not as good as it's predecessors but it's not a heaving pile of electro pop rubbish. Or is my memory of it mistaken?

You wouldn't be the first person to abandon Rush after MP. Yes, Signals, and subsequent albums were quite different than Rush's 70s output and they went pretty heavily into synths, as many, many 70s rock bands did in the 80s. Bigger hair, more synths, more power ballads, more music in general that was venturing from rock to more adult contemporary. No question about that but again to say that Rush went that way in order to line their pockets is simply wrong.

To be fair - I'm offering that as an explanation to attempt to exonerate the Rush trio - I can forgive the output due to greed - they are only human....Mind you if you are saying that they went that way because they thought it was better.....how come they didn't do any track longer than six minutes?? - They could have done a couple of nostalgic releases surely?

Jeffro wrote:

cstack3 wrote:

"Owner of a Lonely Heart" comes to mind immediately.

Sure. Owner of a Lonely Heart sounds just like it was written for the Archies or the Monkees in the 60s/70s. Confused

Good lord, if we actually think that Owner of a Lonely Heart is an example of bubblegum rock then I just don't know what to say anymore. I think people need to brush up on the bands that are considered to be bubblegum and exactly the type of music they were producing.

Exactly. Well said.