The documentary series Sometimes When We Touch delves into the world of soft rock.
See Also: Sometimes When We Touch - S1, Ep1 Review
Soft rock is a subgenre of pop music that emerged in the early 1970s. It was characterized by sensitive lyrical content, feathered hair, and open-collared rayon shirts, along with smooth harmonies, piano leads, and memorable melodies.
The production by MTV Studios combines narration, archival footage, and contemporary interviews with people who were either there at the time or who still remember the songs. Some of the people interviewed include Kenny Loggins, Marilyn McCoo, and Toni Tennile, as well as Sheryl Crow, LA Reid, Big Boi, and Stewart Copeland.
The opening line: "What was the inspiration behind a soft rock?" A rhetorical question is posed by the narrator. Subsequent visuals depict demonstrations for social justice in the 1960s and early 1970s, anti-war riots. In the early 1970s, door gunners and helicopters flew above the rice plains of Vietnam, and "Richard 'Goddamn' Nixon."
The main idea is: "It was kind of relaxed back, 'We're just going to take everything down a notch,' - it almost seems like everybody was a little stoned, and they probably were."
The soft rock sound began to permeate the Billboard music charts in the early to middle of the 1970s. The Carpenters, Barry Manilow, Player, Bread, Orleans, and Dan Hill broke through on the Hot 100, Easy Listening, and R&B charts.
Susan Soft rock became America's go-to musical genre. This was around the same time that the country began to embrace its more contemplative side. It explored its yoga side, its exotic cocktails side, and its cheeky references to the infidelity side. In 1979, Rupert Holmes reached number one with his song "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)."
The structure of this piece is very similar to that of a documentary on VH1. A narrator makes the connection between phrases such as "tsunami of softness to heal from '60s chaos". The yacht rock tool kit includes the following: piano instead of guitar, a subtle backbeat known as the "Doobie Bounce", track after multi-layered track of vocal harmonies, and themes of love and emotion. Richard Marx discusses how the Rhodes keys had an impact on the entire genre of music.
Marx considers it to be more seductive. "It's like if you took an acoustic piano and some vibrations and bred them together to make a new instrument." Billy Joel was aware of the potential of the Rhodes instrument. He uses that knowledge to propel the sound of "Just the Way You Are" into the top ten in 1977. Sometimes When We Touch tends to resonate most when musicians of today give props to these sounds from the 1970s.
Although artists from the era are featured here - Ray Parker, Jr. probably deserves his own specific documentary. If only to hear more stories of his tours with Stevie Wonder and The Rolling Stones as a teenage guitar wunderkind. Sometimes When We Touch tends to resonate most when musicians of today give props to the sounds from the '70s.
LA Sheryl Crow gravitated toward the smooth acoustic rhythms of Bread while she was a roller skating teenager. Vernon Reid claims that the radio was his "introduction to all of these lovely tunes." She even belts out a couple of lines from the song "Baby I'm-a Want You."
Sometimes When We Touch is now available for streaming on Paramount+.
