posted
MAYBE they agree with you about all the crass, blatant sexual lyrics around today, and their form of rebellion IS to write punk about love and feeling.
^wow that is definitely grounds for saying that i'm really stupid... ummm yeah you're absolutely right...(see my second most recent post)
Posts: 76 | Registered: Jan 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
There's always been a ton of junk in the musical mainstream and quite a few gems scattered here and there. The trick to it, as we look back on our personal musical landscapes, is that we forget most of the crud and keep to heart that which was good (at least to us) or memorably unique.
Everyone remembers Bill Haley and the Comets' Rock 'round the Clock but can you name any of their other songs? Can anyone name a Little Richard song that isn't Good Golly Miss Molly or Tutti Frutti ?
Skip forward a decade: You can roll a hundred songs from The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Bob Dylan and the Kinks out of your memory banks. But can you name one artist besides Chubby Checker who did a Twist-inspired song? You might remember that James Brown proclaimed I Feel Good! but do you remember anything about Love and Tuna Fish?
Saunter into the 70s: Arena Rock slammed into Disco and somewhere along the way Punk was born. KISS proclaimed Detroit as Rock City, USA while Parlaiment Funkadelic tried to make the Earth into the Mothership. Do you remember The Bump or the Hustle or any of the million variations that K-Tel sold us again and again. It was a time when squeaky clean John Denver sweated through the charts with the Village People alongside Johnny Rotten and the boys from backstreet London.
The Eighties (or the NEW, Improved VH-1 decade): Wow, Cyndi Lauper was somehow socially relevant back then, for a little bit as disco went into a death pirouette with New Wave. Donna Summers had her last dance with the lead singer of Flock of Seagulls and we should have lost our love of haircare products right there. But nope, we had to watch U2's Joshua Tree fight with Billy Ocean for airplay. We all know how that one turned out ... big sigh of relief folks. Rap was ushered in as well, thanks to, of all people, Debbie Harry of Blondie (their song Rapture was the first rap song to break into the Top 40) and Snoop Dogg still hasn't busted out some rhymes to thank her.
Marketing Madness: The 90s! Be cool, be hip, be buying our stuff. Let's find some worn out fellas in Seattle who've paid their dues and see if anyone will listen. Hey! They're buying albums left and right? Cool, let's turn the grunge factory to a 24/7 shift. And we learned something we should have learned 20 years before -- you can kill the goose that lays the golden Seattle Sound eggs... from Jimi to Kurt, all we're left with are reissues and a pathetic Hole. And somewhere along the way, the Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen business plan took hold. If kids grow up watching someone, they'll keep buying their albums and videos. Britney Spears or Justin Timberlake anyone? And if ya throw in a dose of sex when those kids hit late puberty, you've got a gold mine. I think they learned this lil addiction trick from the tobacco industry. That and if the big kids like it, the lil kids will follow right along behind.
And here we are today: Same amount of good music out there, but the stream has been filled with a lot of silt. Like an old time miner, if you're willing to pan and pan and pan, sooner or later you'll find your gold. And maybe, with the results of the last couple of American Idols (and the International one) we got to see something a wee bit uplifting: producer/marketer extraordinaire Simon Cowell being turned on his ear when the public chucks a perceived image and votes in the fat black guy and the skinny white kid purely on the basis of their talents. Or a Norwegian hobbit gets the worldwide nod. Now if we could just clear out this avalanche of eye-liner addicted, wrist-sewn-to-forehead, Goth sun fearing bands, we could get past the "New Big Thing" and find something that means something once again.
The public isn't stupid as a whole, but the marketing folks always act like we are. They see what works and throw a ton of stuff our way that's similar, never realizing that you can't recreate magic time and again from the same whole cloth. Sure the crap albums sell, but they get forgotten pretty quickly, pop is just bubblegum as Bono warned and everybody wants some. But we just spit it out when we're done with it. The classics, however, we keep.
posted
I don't know if i *completely* agree with everything you said...but i thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote: oh and rhaegar, i'm sorry but it's really funny that you mention the bands that you do...because (you may argue or not either way is true) i know for a fact that you haven't even listened to half of the bands on your list... sorry i just think its really funny, but maybe it's because i know rhaegar personally hehe
Actually Drums, you know me, but does that mean you know what bands I have heard? No. I don't know the contents of your memory storage any more than you know mine. So, you might want to say something that is physically possible next time, because it is physically impossible for you to know which bands I have heard or listened to or liked. I mean you are not Spock, oyu can't read minds like a Vulcan, can you? Cause if you are Spock that would kick ass, but you're not Spock, you can't read memories or minds, so you can't know.
Yet another great band forgotten in elder posts:
Queen
Rhaegar
[ January 19, 2004, 04:33 PM: Message edited by: Rhaegar The Fool ]
Posts: 1900 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
The left in this country has all but stomped it out. How can we expect any other result when blacks are held to a different standard than the rest of the nation? Those who embrace "diversity" for diversity's sake are the ones robbing people of their identity. Individuals no longer exist to them, but rather, they turn every gathering, everywork-place into a charity event, thus removing the possibility of pride in one's work or self.
What's really amusing about this post is that you seem to be implying that the "standard" colored people are held to is lower than the bar set for whites.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote: What's really amusing about this post is that you seem to be implying that the "standard" colored people are held to is lower than the bar set for whites.
That's exactly what I am saying. The standard for blacks is lower than for others. The left is the most guilty for creating this lowered standard. Affirmative Action certainly lowers the standards. When you add in the sliding standards of inner-city schools, racial preferences for college admissions, etc., the message is clear: Blacks cannot achieve without government help.
Posts: 859 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
Wow, when you back-pedal, you do it with style and grace.
I think we all get caught in the 'meaning of things' sometimes so much that it's hard to remember that it's going to have different meanings to other people, and that that's actually okay. (I'm not saying that's what you did, drumsntolkein, I'm more writing the thoughts I had as I was reading the whole topic's worth of posts.)
Music seems like a mass experience (especially at a really great concert) but actually for the most part it's a very individual experience. Even when we here a song that has lyrics that seem to exactly encapsulate how we feel, our connection may be with a feeling the author/composer never felt, and didn't actually intend to be the meaning of the song. Other times we really have understood just what they wanted to express.
And now that I think about it, I realise that I really like that about music, and the fact that the meanings change even for the individual over time. The personal soundtrack to my life is always changing.
posted
yeah enjeeo, i definitely worded that really wrong at the beginning...i just had a moment of anger because there is so much good music that is not really recognised
Posts: 76 | Registered: Jan 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote: And when I was a junior in H.S., I jumped up and down when I got my Wagner cassettes (yes, before CD players were prevalent. I am old.). So nyah to Maeth, too
I've only one friend who's actually done that. He was telling us about how much money he sepnt on Bach etc etc. Only a few of us really cared but we weren't envious. And I am not old, for I am only a freshman in highschool. The only time you actually hear about that hype for music is from musicians who are going to play it on their instrument. Teens live in their own seperate universes where one love of a certain type of music is hidden.
30 Seconds to Mars( I really recommend it) and Meteora are the cd's/bands I've been hearing about. Most teens like things commonly like upbeat songs. Slow songs ranges for different people. Such as Josh Groban. He supposedly is the next "popular" artist but I'm not ready to accept it. His songs are just not the kind that teens like now. Maybe later but not right now.
I remember listening to 80's and 90's music and thinking I was all cool. Yet whenever I would ask them about some song they would have no clue what I was talking about. So I started listening to "today's" music and it's not bad. It's also helpful to know all of those old songs.
...but classical and jazz... that's a whole other thing for US present teens.
quote:Jazz and orchestrial music is only appreciated by those who play an instrument because they can feel the music. Other than that teen sonly like music with either unique lyrics/imagery or an awesome beat. You can't really expect that much from them..or us, I mean.
Firstly, I know half a dozen non-musicians who like jazz and/or orchestral music.
Secondly, while I'm a non-musician who doesn't like jazz or orchestral music, I sure as hell don't 'only like music with either unique lyrics/imagery or an awesome beat'. I am not that limited, and I know plenty of others who aren't. Hence, nonsense. Sorry.
Posts: 2443 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Wall Bash]](graemlins/wallbash.gif)
ummm yeah you're absolutely right...(see my second most recent post)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Hat]](graemlins/hat.gif)
