Rate-A-Record

Acid Ratings

Tripping the Lights: Fantastic

Photo by Jorik Kleen on Unsplash

It should all look so pretty like this: a live concert, the artists performing for all they’re worth, and you and I — we’re there, grooving, funking out, and maybe, maybe…

Well, I’m supposed to keep this audience-friendly, and while being altered has its place, Dick Clark never allowed it on American Bandstand, but then, he and ABC didn’t much allow its “live” performers to perform live. And that’s what made “Rate-A-Record” more honest than anything else on the show (even the Top Ten was copped from Billboard).

I didn’t worry about those things back in my debatable adolescence — debatable because does anyone know or rate adolescence when they’re three minutes and twenty-seven seconds into it?

I did wonder how the teens on Dick’s stage could fairly judge a record between 35–98 when they heard only thirty seconds at most of the featured tune. But then, you and I might be able to judge anything if we, as teens go, could get a year’s supply of Clearasil or Stridex Pads.