What exactly does he mean by this?
>>131264420He's a big King Crimson fan
>>131264426A much later episode than this shows him listening to ELP
>>131264434and singing along to Owner of a Lonely Heart
>>131264420imo the weakest year of the 70s. record labels were cutting costs during the OPEC recession and tended to be risk-adverse, and there wasn't really an obvious sound or zeitgeist that year.
>>131264426He's an even bigger fan of Grand Funk Railroad
>>131264657can't beat that bong rattling bass
>>131264426Then he missed out on their best album
>>131264420Led Zeppelin was performing live
>>131264420I hate how Homer Sneedson is canonically 35, so by now he grew up with Green Day and MCR
>>131264420>Is Homer correct?Nope.
>>131264426And Alan Parsons Project
bold pick, I'd still put Peter Gabriel's stuff ahead of it
>>131264420This is literally a joke. Nineteen Seventy-Four was a byline for shitty music like no year before or since: Clapton's "I Shot the Sherrif", "The Night Chicago Died", Paul Anka's "You're Having My Baby", "Rub It In, Rub It In", "Billy Don't Be a Hero", Terry Jacks "Seasons in the Sun". There's a reason Dave Barry singled it out as the worst year in the history of rock 'n' roll.The joke is that Homer picked the most notoriously terrible year in rock history to champion while living in the mid-'90s, which was even then already being considered a new golden age for the genre. It's the same as the jokes throughout the series, including earlier in this very episode, about him being a fan of Grand Funk Railroad.
i recall that Cuckgau didn't write a Consumer Guide column for January 74 because he said the releases lately had been so bad that he would have had nothing but C and D grades
>>131268738Considering Matt Groening was 20 years old in 1974 and very likely listened bands like grand funk railroad, I don't think its all that deep.
>>131268738it was arguably the weakest year of music since 1962
>>131268738it's a joke on how everyone is super into music when they're 16 and stop caring at a fast clip after that, i.e., that's when Homer was supposedly 16, at least according to the first decade of showit wasn't a super-inside joke about the 'state of the industry' or whatever autistic fantasy you think. pro-tip, mass entertainment doesn't generally risk losing audience by making 'jokes' most wouldn't get.
>>131264657also 74 was the year GFR fully sold out and became buttrock
>>131268871Groening was a huge Frank Zappa fan, he's talked about this.
>>131268938teenagers are actually a terrible music audience and know next-to nothing about it except listening to whatever their peers deem cool, and 15 years later most people decide their teenage favorites didn't hold up and are cringy as fuck
The joke was literally made in 1989
>>131268999>the absolute shame of when you thought Dying Fetus were okwe've all known that feel, anon
>1974The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway and...I'm stumped. Also it was when KISS debuted so that alone makes the year belong in perdition.
>>131269068Dylan's comeback was probably the biggest event that year.
Yes
>>131264650that's true unlike, say, 1970 there's no obvious sound that year had
>>131268999irregardless if they are a discerning audience or not, 16 year old's actually care about and listen to new music, while 35 year old's (Homer in depiction) generally don't (especially if they have a full time job and 3 kids).so the joke is obviously just based on Homer's famous and humorous lack of self-awareness (not realizing he thinks 1974 best because that was his peak new music listening years).
>>131264650Sure, recessions can do that but that alone doesn't explain why a given year is lacking. The two worst years of the 90s for music were 97-98 when the economy was booming.
>>13126917774 had not only a recession but probably lack of inspiration once the protest era was over
>>131264420sorta right
>>131269177And the good part of the 90s was during a recession.
>>131264420I always took this as a joke of Homer picking the exact year that was widely regarded as the weakest year for rock music since like 1962.
this is his flashback immediately after the above that explains the joke.he just likes pop culture from his teenage years and Homer's teenage years were first depicted as being in early to mid 70's.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ8tepLoI4w
