I Hate New Music
suds macheath
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/11/14/101215.php
I like thew lyrics on the page facing the contents, "Come and Reminisce"
by The Lurkers:
Nostalgia is a lot of fun
Now that I've turned 51
If it's new I won't go,
They won't play a thing I know
The missus thinks it's no good
I've got my second childhood
I won't even buy new stuff
By the bands I used to love
Looking forward to reading it......
js
wouldn't become "tat guy" bitching about "music the kids listen to
nowadays". Even If I do hate the music, I at least try to understand where
it's coming from.
There are two rather valid points in the article:
1) I can pretty much remember the moment Rock radio stopped being Rock radio
and became "classic rock" radio. It was sometime between the Cars' "Candy
O", Pretenders "II" and Joan Jett's "I Love Rock n Roll". It was like time
just stopped after that.
2) That 13 year old Kids spend more time listening to "classic rock" today
than I did AT THEIR AGE should be a pretty scary wake up call for the
industry.
"suds macheath" <sudsmcd...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:so6Gl.30350$qa.1...@bignews4.bellsouth.net...
DGDevin
> God, I fucking HATE that way of thinking. I always promised myself I
> wouldn't become "tat guy" bitching about "music the kids listen to
> nowadays". Even If I do hate the music, I at least try to understand
> where it's coming from.
Yeah, my wife and I make a point of listening to new bands that come to our
attention, and sometimes we hear something good. But lordy we hear a lot of
crap too, real trash, and we're amazed that something so shallow is being
discussed in music forums as if it's the next Beatles or Stones.
> There are two rather valid points in the article:
>
> 1) I can pretty much remember the moment Rock radio stopped being
> Rock radio and became "classic rock" radio. It was sometime between
> the Cars' "Candy O", Pretenders "II" and Joan Jett's "I Love Rock n
> Roll". It was like time just stopped after that.
>
>
> 2) That 13 year old Kids spend more time listening to "classic rock"
> today than I did AT THEIR AGE should be a pretty scary wake up call
> for the industry.
The comments on the negative impact of some technology also have something
to them. Ask a kid the names of the compressed-to-death songs on his iPod,
which albums they came from, who wrote them, the names of the band
members--good luck getting answers, they're just tracks he ripped from his
friend's computer or downloaded someplace, it's all disposable background
noise. I love my iPod, I use Shuffle a lot too, but I can name pretty much
every track on there and who made it.
Now Playing on iTunes Shuffle: Fleetwood Mac, "Rattlesnake Shake" from Live
at the Boston Tea Party. Yeah, Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, the *real*
Fleetwood Mac. You know you're old when you think of the later version of
Fleetwood Mac as pretenders to the throne. ;~)
Misifus
> God, I fucking HATE that way of thinking. I always promised myself I
> wouldn't become "tat guy" bitching about "music the kids listen to
> nowadays". Even If I do hate the music, I at least try to understand where
> it's coming from.
>
> There are two rather valid points in the article:
>
> 1) I can pretty much remember the moment Rock radio stopped being Rock radio
> and became "classic rock" radio. It was sometime between the Cars' "Candy
> O", Pretenders "II" and Joan Jett's "I Love Rock n Roll". It was like time
> just stopped after that.
>
>
> 2) That 13 year old Kids spend more time listening to "classic rock" today
> than I did AT THEIR AGE should be a pretty scary wake up call for the
> industry.
>
One of the things that surprised me in the 90s, when I was a classroom
teacher, was that the kids were so knowledgeable about music that was
written before they were born - heck, before their parents were born.
-Raf
--
Misifus-
Rafael Seibert
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rafiii
home: http://www.rafandsioux.com
RichL
You got a ways to go before you get to real old ;-)
Pretenders to the throne:
- Any version of the Beach Boys including and after the point where
Bruce Johnston joined the band
- Any version of the Stones that didn't include Brian Jones
Monkey Pi
>> Now Playing on iTunes Shuffle: Fleetwood Mac, "Rattlesnake Shake"
>> from Live at the Boston Tea Party. Yeah, Peter Green's Fleetwood
>> Mac, the *real* Fleetwood Mac. You know you're old when you think of
>> the later version of Fleetwood Mac as pretenders to the throne. ;~)
>
> You got a ways to go before you get to real old ;-)
>
> Pretenders to the throne:
> - Any version of the Beach Boys including and after the point where
> Bruce Johnston joined the band
> - Any version of the Stones that didn't include Brian Jones
>
>
AC/DC without Bon Scott
The Who without Moon
Current Skynard
Did anyone notice The Grateful Dead are somehow touring this year?
Monkey Pi
--
_ _
|o| o , o_,' o_, |o|
|O| <%'. _`'_ === <\_ |O|
(0) / | (_)`-' | / | (0)
p-----MonkeyMonkeyMonkey-----q
suds macheath
> God, I fucking HATE that way of thinking. I always promised myself I
> wouldn't become "tat guy" bitching about "music the kids listen to
> nowadays". Even If I do hate the music, I at least try to understand where
> it's coming from.
---Yeah, I like a lot of music from the 90's, and 00's as well....he
does say that not all "classic rock" is great, though...
>
> There are two rather valid points in the article:
>
> 1) I can pretty much remember the moment Rock radio stopped being Rock radio
> and became "classic rock" radio. It was sometime between the Cars' "Candy
> O", Pretenders "II" and Joan Jett's "I Love Rock n Roll". It was like time
> just stopped after that.
>
>
> 2) That 13 year old Kids spend more time listening to "classic rock" today
> than I did AT THEIR AGE should be a pretty scary wake up call for the
> industry.
---Yes, which validates his position that "CR" is superior....we've been
over and over this on this group but the book is turning out to be quite
entertaining.He's a very entertaining curmudgeon, here's an excerpt:
Although Ginger Baker was the first rock drummer to consign a solo
to wax , when he unleashed the tiresome "Toad", it was Led Zepplin's
John Bonham who truly ignited that particular fashion, From the moment
"Moby Dick" surfaced in 1969, expanding out of Led Zepplin ll to consume
fifteen, sometimes twenty, minutes of the stage show, drummers who had
not even grasped the basic elements of rhythm were suddenly miking up
more drums that they could ever possibly reach, and were walloping
everything in sight.
It was a grotesque development and, according to Zepplin manager
Peter Grant, Bonzo himself resented it furiously. When he went to a
live show, he wanted to be entertained and impressed. Most of the solos
he found himself sitting through would have been laughed out of
Zepplin's rehearsal room.
He never apologized for unleashing the plague in the first place,
though. Why should he? Did Picasso ever say sorry every time another bad
painter daubed his doodles on canvas? Does Peter O'Toole cringe whenever
he sits through another Tom Hanks movie? Can Janis Joplin really be
blamed for every squawking harridan who has followed in her footsteps?
There is good and bad in every endevour, and Bonham was lucky enough
that, because he was so good, he did not have to take responsibility for
all the bad he inspired.
suds macheath
----<chuckle> And, back in the CD era, we knew the songs as "Track 1",
cause that's what shoed on the cd player in the car....
>
> Now Playing on iTunes Shuffle: Fleetwood Mac, "Rattlesnake Shake" from Live
> at the Boston Tea Party. Yeah, Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, the *real*
> Fleetwood Mac. You know you're old when you think of the later version of
> Fleetwood Mac as pretenders to the throne. ;~)
---Yup, many folks are stunned when I tell them that "Green Manalishi"
and "Oh Well" are Fleetwood Mac tunes...
RichL
> Although Ginger Baker was the first rock drummer to consign a solo
> to wax , when he unleashed the tiresome "Toad", it was Led Zepplin's
> John Bonham who truly ignited that particular fashion...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denny%27s_Drums
"Denny's Drums". Dennis Wilson, Beach Boys, 1964, appeared on the album
"Shut Down Volume 2".
Also, the Ventures' "Wipe Out" (1963). "Normal" rock instrumental
interspersed with drum solos, if that counts.
I'm sure there are plenty more.
I guess you have to be old enough to have been there.
propman
Gene Krupa, Buddy Riche et al...
suds macheath
---Were they as long as "Toad"?
suds macheath
----Gosh, I didn't know Rich and Krupa were rock drummers...well, ya
learn something new every day....
Nil
alt.guitar.bass:
> ----Gosh, I didn't know Rich and Krupa were rock drummers...well,
> ya learn something new every day....
They kinda were, yeah.
RichL
He did say *rock* drummer. Those guys were good but they weren't rock
drummers.
RichL
Thank the Deity, no.
:-)
Just saying Baker wasn't the first rock drummer to "consign a solo to
wax."
Misifus
No, but the tunes you mentioned were rock. Some folks seem to have the
notion that rock began in the 1960s. I can't imagine why they'd think
that, unless it's that they were just too you to remember the birth of
rock and roll. (hint, it didn't start with the Beatles)
Misifus
In the days of 45's, no songs were as long as "Toad". <g>
Gary Rosen
"Misifus" <rafse...@att.net> wrote in message
news:74ssgqF...@mid.individual.net...
> One of the things that surprised me in the 90s, when I was a classroom
> teacher, was that the kids were so knowledgeable about music that was
> written before they were born - heck, before their parents were born.
Growing up in the '50s and '60s I wouldn't have been caught dead listening
to music from before I was born, but now that is what kids today get
all the time (of course now I'm a lot more appreciative of that era, both
the old standards and R&B swing from the '40s). Is it boomer fascism,
or something having to do with the explosion of mass media accompanying
the rise of television around 1950? Maybe it's that the birth of rock 'n'
roll
in the '50s caused dramatic changes in pop music still being felt today.
- Gary Rosen
Gary Rosen
"RichL" <rple...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:yPednY6l_NayqnfU...@supernews.com...
Ya beat me to it, Rich.
- Gary Rosen
Gary Rosen
> RichL wrote:
>> suds macheath <sudsmcd...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> RichL wrote:
>>>> suds macheath <sudsmcd...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Although Ginger Baker was the first rock drummer to consign a
>>>>> solo to wax , when he unleashed the tiresome "Toad", it was Led
>>>>> Zepplin's John Bonham who truly ignited that particular fashion...
>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denny%27s_Drums
>>>>
>>>> "Denny's Drums". Dennis Wilson, Beach Boys, 1964, appeared on the
>>>> album "Shut Down Volume 2".
>>>>
>>>> Also, the Ventures' "Wipe Out" (1963). "Normal" rock instrumental
>>>> interspersed with drum solos, if that counts.
>>>> I'm sure there are plenty more.
>>>> I guess you have to be old enough to have been there.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> ---Were they as long as "Toad"?
>>
>> Thank the Deity, no.
>> :-)
>> Just saying Baker wasn't the first rock drummer to "consign a solo to
>> wax."
>>
>>
>
>
> In the days of 45's, no songs were as long as "Toad". <g>
We can thank the Deity for that too. Note that Time magazine's
cover "Is God Dead?" came out in 1966, just as rock songs
were getting overlong and overpretentious. Da Man could take
the Crucifixion, the Reformation and the Holocaust, but
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida was just too much for Him.
- Gary Rosen
propman
Yep...sure do...at this end of things, I've learnt that you are a
nitpicking idiot....so off to the land of plonk with ya maboy.
Les Cargill
I think it was cheap radios that caused it. TV led to the abandonment of
radio as a primary medium, and the kids then "owned" radio. Since
these were largely independent channels...
As late as 1965, #1 was the Mary Poppins soundtrack. I still
wonder just how much the rock industry owes to Walt Disney for
dying...
By the late '70s, it wasn't as uncommon for kids to listen to stuff
their parents listened to. I know I did. I bought Brubeck and Maynard
Ferguson* records, too. But I used those old pop & country
records to learn to play.
*MF was kind of a throwback to big band, but if you listened to CTA and
BST, it was right next to it. So it's not that clean a comparison...
"The birth of rock and roll" was part of the birth of
youth culture, the conscious targeting of advertising at younger
consumers. Now the kids have many, many more channels and get
a wider selection. And because the youth culture .... thing has
become aimed as preteens, people grow out of it much
younger.
--
Les Cargill
Les Cargill
But... but... but...
Seriously - the reason Berry Gordy paid so much to Stevie
Wonder for "Songs in the Key Of Life" was because he
knew Motown wouldn't make it unless Motown got out
of the singles business and into the album
business. That also apparently meant moving out
of Detroit.
The driver for albums was money. Longer helped
drive albums.
--
Les Cargill
John O
"Gary Rosen" <garym...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:gseffl$301$2...@news.motzarella.org...
A couple weeks ago I was asked to put together a pile of 50's music for the
pre-show and intermission of the local HS rendition of Grease. In a moment
of inspiration, I realized I could cue up channel 5 on my XM (all 50's all
day). Days worth of 50's, and really random and deep playlists. Very
divergent styles, but the early 60's might have been worse...e.g. Herb
Alpert vs Cream.
I would have never done this otherwise, but listening to that stuff was
fun...there was some real crap, but some interesting, fun, and crazy stuff.
Quite a few tunes I recognized from later bands. Surprisingly, I had to edit
out a few tracks as inappropriate...one was about a hooker at some ranch.
Very funny song, and I wonder if it was ever on the radio back then.
-John O
RichL
How soon we forget...
Flappers in the '20s....big bands in the '30s...Sinatra et al. in the
40s. All youth-driven, to one degree or another. I'd put the birth of
youth culture much earlier than you, maybe to the invention of radio?
Of course, it wasn't a sudden thing and the pervasiveness of youth
culture has grown with each succeeding generation. In a sense I think
it peaked in the 60s through 80s, and one down side of the vast number
of channels is that it's fractionated. Everyone's not on the same page
anymore.
As to listening to our parents' music, maybe I'm the oddball here but in
the late '50s and early '60s I spent hours at a time listening to my
dad's old jazz collections and my mom's Sinatra-related stuff, totally
absorbed.
suds macheath
And I've "learnt" you seem to be a barely literate dope....
....so off to the land of plonk with ya maboy.
----Your loss, Sparky.....
suds macheath
---If you insist....
suds macheath
> RichL wrote:
>> propman <pro...@nowhere.ca> wrote:
>>> RichL wrote:
>>>> suds macheath <sudsmcd...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Although Ginger Baker was the first rock drummer to consign a
>>>>> solo to wax , when he unleashed the tiresome "Toad", it was Led
>>>>> Zepplin's John Bonham who truly ignited that particular fashion...
>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denny%27s_Drums
>>>>
>>>> "Denny's Drums". Dennis Wilson, Beach Boys, 1964, appeared on the
>>>> album "Shut Down Volume 2".
>>>>
>>>> Also, the Ventures' "Wipe Out" (1963). "Normal" rock instrumental
>>>> interspersed with drum solos, if that counts.
>>>>
>>>> I'm sure there are plenty more.
>>> Gene Krupa, Buddy Riche et al...
>>
>> He did say *rock* drummer. Those guys were good but they weren't rock
>> drummers.
>>
>>
>
>
> No, but the tunes you mentioned were rock.
----Yessss....
Some folks seem to have the
> notion that rock began in the 1960s.
---Weren't Rich and Krupa swing style drummers? That's not really rock n
roll, is it?
I can't imagine why they'd think
> that, unless it's that they were just too you to remember the birth of
> rock and roll. (hint, it didn't start with the Beatles)
---True, but I think the point of the guy's essay was that the advent of
15-20 minute solos started in the "FM" classic rock era, where DJ's
weren't constrained and would actually play a long solo like "Toad" or
"Moby Dick" on the air....I'm no expert on jazz drummers, but their
solos (Rich in particular) pre 1968 or so were pretty short and sweet,
weren't they? The video I've seen seems to show this.....
suds macheath
consign a long, pretentious solo to wax....
suds macheath
> RichL wrote:
>> suds macheath <sudsmcd...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> RichL wrote:
>>>> suds macheath <sudsmcd...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Although Ginger Baker was the first rock drummer to consign a
>>>>> solo to wax , when he unleashed the tiresome "Toad", it was Led
>>>>> Zepplin's John Bonham who truly ignited that particular fashion...
>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denny%27s_Drums
>>>>
>>>> "Denny's Drums". Dennis Wilson, Beach Boys, 1964, appeared on the
>>>> album "Shut Down Volume 2".
>>>>
>>>> Also, the Ventures' "Wipe Out" (1963). "Normal" rock instrumental
>>>> interspersed with drum solos, if that counts.
>>>> I'm sure there are plenty more.
>>>> I guess you have to be old enough to have been there.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> ---Were they as long as "Toad"?
>>
>> Thank the Deity, no.
>> :-)
>> Just saying Baker wasn't the first rock drummer to "consign a solo to
>> wax."
>>
>>
>
>
> In the days of 45's, no songs were as long as "Toad". <g>
>
----I think we can blame the advent of FM radio for that....
Les Cargill
Meh. Somewhat. But something was different about the transition
in the '60s. The '60s were more... industrial.
The US assembled a massive propaganda engine to sell WWII to
a fundamentally reluctant public. When the war ended, said
propaganda engine did not. It became Madison Avenue.
In the '60s, advertising completely transitioned from being
targeted at heads of households to being targeted at a
youth audience. As a kid, the whole thing was very
hard to watch - I had no way to parse this change.
I didn't really understand it until I ran across
certain Zappa material that treated this as a
journalism subject - mainly "We're Only In It
For The Money." Throw in "The Hidden Persuaders" (a
book) and a limited set of other material, and it
was at least understandable.
> Of course, it wasn't a sudden thing and the pervasiveness of youth
> culture has grown with each succeeding generation. In a sense I think
> it peaked in the 60s through 80s, and one down side of the vast number
> of channels is that it's fractionated. Everyone's not on the same page
> anymore.
>
This is what does not work. This is why we have problems with
the politics of identity and such. It's about the narcissism of small
differences.
> As to listening to our parents' music, maybe I'm the oddball here but in
> the late '50s and early '60s I spent hours at a time listening to my
> dad's old jazz collections and my mom's Sinatra-related stuff, totally
> absorbed.
>
>
Popular music itself arguably reached a peak with movie-musicals
like "Guys and Dolls" in terms of craftsmanship. It's really
been downhill from there. You can steal more good licks from
that or "The Music Man" than just about any other thing there is,
and they'll fit right into any context.
--
Les Cargill
Nil
alt.guitar.bass:
I do - Krupa and Rich both rocked!
Axel Bergander
> Of course, it wasn't a sudden thing and the pervasiveness of youth
> culture has grown with each succeeding generation. In a sense I think
> it peaked in the 60s through 80s, and one down side of the vast number
> of channels is that it's fractionated. Everyone's not on the same page
> anymore.
Is this really a down side? I mean except for the music industry, that
relied on big stars, pushed through single channels.
With everybody being on a single (i.e. his or her) page, you can play
whatever you want and - thanks to long tail - find you fans. Industrial
klezmer metal is not what I'm really waiting for. But maybe you - so
more power to you.
One other thing is that not all the channels don't have to cater to the
youth. That's the reason why classic rock is still around. At least I
guess.
Axel
--
send mails without spam and tralala
www.tyred.de
Les Cargill
> RichL <rple...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Of course, it wasn't a sudden thing and the pervasiveness of youth
>> culture has grown with each succeeding generation. In a sense I think
>> it peaked in the 60s through 80s, and one down side of the vast number
>> of channels is that it's fractionated. Everyone's not on the same page
>> anymore.
>
> Is this really a down side? I mean except for the music industry, that
> relied on big stars, pushed through single channels.
This is really a down side. It's very hard to find anything
that's truly great any more. In that last five years, I can
count the number of CDs I was inspired to buy , by people
I didn't know about before, on one hand.
I found almost all those through Austin City Limits, too. ACL
is "old school" media, and it worked.
> With everybody being on a single (i.e. his or her) page, you can play
> whatever you want and - thanks to long tail - find you fans. Industrial
> klezmer metal is not what I'm really waiting for. But maybe you - so
> more power to you.
For long as it lasts, sure, but that won't be likely to
be first class industrial klezmer metal. It'll be
low budget.
> One other thing is that not all the channels don't have to cater to the
> youth. That's the reason why classic rock is still around. At least I
> guess.
>
When we get young people at gigs, guess what they're requesting? Classic
rock.
> Axel
--
Les Cargill
RichL
I think there are up-sides and down-sides.
There is more good music accessible over the internet, for example, than
was available overall when I was a kid. You have to hunt pretty hard to
find it but it's there.
On the other hand people tend to get plugged into their own narrow niche
and disregard everything else.
I for one like all sorts of music, and the radio stations I listened to
growing up played all sorts of music.
If something really exciting and really good got started in one of these
niche genres, most of us would be unaware of it. And yes, I believe
there's something to be said about a shared commonality of listening
experience. We had it to a great extent during the '60s and '70s. Not
so much any more.
As for classic rock, yeah I listen to it and I also listen to a lot of
'60s music, which was my background track growing up, but I don't want
my musical sensibilities to stagnate there. I want to see growth beyond
that, so I also include some of today's music in the mix as well as '80s
and '90s music.
Misifus
Yes, Rich and Krupa were definitely not rock, but the tunes I was
referring to were the ones RichL mentioned, "Wipe Out" and so forth.
That was rock.
Benj
> > Gene Krupa, Buddy Riche et al...
>
> He did say *rock* drummer. Those guys were good but they weren't rock
> drummers.
This is true, although Gene Krupa does get the prize for bringing the
"drum solo" out into public view. In the Big Band era of the 30s and
40s 'swing" was very much a young person thing. In the liner notes to
Benny Goodman's Carnegie Hall concert the talks about being worried
the show is a flop as his teen daughter is bouncing in her seat. Just
as Krupa originated the drum solo before rock, Frank Sinatra was first
the "teen idol" long before Elvis or the Beatles. Teen girls screaming
and fainting and the whole bit.
And since, hell, I was THERE when Moon Dog invented rock and roll, I
might as well tell about that too. The problem was sort of like this.
Dance and Teens have a connection. You have the examples of
"Flappers", of "Lindy Hop" to swing, and later what they called
"Jitterbug". But in the 50s Big bands went off in weird jazz "bebop"
directions. Dancing was forbidden. And Pop music got all smooth and
nice. So what's a nervous teen to do? Well, I know what they did.
They turned to black culture. It's a place where dance always plays a
large role and music is danceable. Alan Freed had a radio show in
Cleveland Ohio where he was a DJ broadcasting under the name of Moon
Dog. Yeah I used to listen to it as a kid and it was pure rhythm and
blues "race" records. Quite frankly, the music was a bit too
repetitive and simplistic for my tastes and those of kids my age. But
the ESSENCE of dance music was there. With a bit of selective
listening, teens once again had music that you could dance to! Soon
Radio stations (and of course Alan Freed himself) discovered this huge
market and began offering a slightly "whitened" version of "race"
music to try to grab this larger audience. And the rest as they say is
history! And yes, Moon Dog did used to say "we are gonna Rock and we
are gonna Roll tonight! " The expression "rock and roll" was a black
euphemism for having sex just as the much earlier term "Jass" [jazz]
was.
Yes, Virginia there is a reason that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is
in a God-forsaken place like Cleveland!
suds macheath
----Rock hadn't been invented yet....they blew! ;^ )
Monkey Pi
> Axel Bergander wrote:
>> RichL <rple...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Of course, it wasn't a sudden thing and the pervasiveness of youth
>>> culture has grown with each succeeding generation. In a sense I think
>>> it peaked in the 60s through 80s, and one down side of the vast number
>>> of channels is that it's fractionated. Everyone's not on the same page
>>> anymore.
>>
>> Is this really a down side? I mean except for the music industry, that
>> relied on big stars, pushed through single channels.
>
> This is really a down side. It's very hard to find anything
> that's truly great any more. In that last five years, I can
> count the number of CDs I was inspired to buy , by people
> I didn't know about before, on one hand.
>
Disagree.
Nearly all of the music I've bought in the last 4 years has been new,
and most of it has had good staying power for me.
Some of it is throwbacks, but a lot of it isn't.
This is an Amazing time for music.
Monkey Pi
--
_ _
|o| o , o_,' o_, |o|
|O| <%'. _`'_ === <\_ |O|
(0) / | (_)`-' | / | (0)
p-----MonkeyMonkeyMonkey-----q
Brian Running
> One of the things that surprised me in the 90s, when I was a classroom
> teacher, was that the kids were so knowledgeable about music that was
> written before they were born - heck, before their parents were born.
That always surprises me, too, Raf. I noticed that the old music
they're into many times would not be the music they would have been into
had they been around back then -- for instance, 14-year-olds that are
into Hendrix today would very likely have been into bubblegum or softer
pop in 1968. But they all love the Beatles!
PS -- My spell-checker flags "Misifus" and suggests "Fusiform" instead.
Would you mind changing your name to Fusiform so I don't have to deal
with that? :-)
Brian Running
> 2) That 13 year old Kids spend more time listening to "classic rock" today
> than I did AT THEIR AGE should be a pretty scary wake up call for the
> industry.
"Classic rock" is such an artificial label, and it's become such a
tightly-restricted genre that it's just plain tedious and tiresome.
Radio today has become very focused in its playlists, and I think that's
a shame. Back in the days of top-40 radio, even though it was limited
to the top 40, the top 40 contained a wide variety of songs, so that you
might hear The Carpenters back-to-back with Steppenwolf, and John Denver
back-to-back with Led Zeppelin. Country crossed over all the time, and
it was country, not the indistinguishable-from-pop stuff that they call
country today. Tom T. Hall would play on the same stations that also
played the Doobie Brothers and Engelbert Humperdinck. I liked hearing
Seals and Crofts and Bread right along with Cream and Rush.
DGDevin
> How soon we forget...
>
> Flappers in the '20s....big bands in the '30s...Sinatra et al. in the
> 40s. All youth-driven, to one degree or another. I'd put the birth
> of youth culture much earlier than you, maybe to the invention of
> radio?
Yup, the big difference is the skill and intensity with which later
generations were targeted for marketing.
> Of course, it wasn't a sudden thing and the pervasiveness of youth
> culture has grown with each succeeding generation. In a sense I think
> it peaked in the 60s through 80s, and one down side of the vast number
> of channels is that it's fractionated. Everyone's not on the same
> page anymore.
To some extent the industry has lost control as sub-genres they don't care
to service (because they don't see big enough profits) have flourished, and
from time to time they're surprised when something they sniffed at gets
quite popular.
> As to listening to our parents' music, maybe I'm the oddball here but
> in the late '50s and early '60s I spent hours at a time listening to
> my dad's old jazz collections and my mom's Sinatra-related stuff,
> totally absorbed.
I heard lots of classical and jazz and blues and country when my parents
were listening to their music, I know it had a short term impact in helping
to get me into blues (although the blues had serious street cred in the
mid-late 60s as well thanks to Cream and the Yardbirds and Stones and so
on. It took at bit longer for the other stuff to kick in, but it did, and I
can't help but think early exposure had something to do with that.
Jess Band-ee-Coot
> I liked hearing
> Seals and Crofts and Bread right along with Cream and Rush.
I didn't.
--
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Did you ever once show me any kind of friendship?
Ask my help with a personal problem?
Include me in one of your little bull sessions?
Can you imagine what it feels like to walk by this tent
and hear you laughing and know... that I'm not welcome?
Did you ever once offer me a lousy cup of coffee?"
-- Major Margaret Houlihan "M*A*S*H" ("The Nurses")
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
DGDevin
> I for one like all sorts of music, and the radio stations I listened
> to growing up played all sorts of music.
That's something I miss, those stations decades ago that played Ray Charles
followed by the Stones followed by Leon Russell followed by Chicago followed
by Janis Joplin followed by King Crimson followed by some local band that
had just released its first single. There don't seem to be many stations
left like that, they've mostly seized on a narrow genre with a locked-down
playlist and stick to it.
Monkey Pi
I'm still unbelievably fortunate enough to have a couple of college
stations near me that have huge swings of material. When they suck, they
suck hard, but when they are hitting, they have no equal. Sometimes,
it's difficult when you hear a GREAT song at the beginning of a string
of about 8 songs and you have to keep track of how many you've heard for
when the DJ finally comes back to list them off.
I gave up on most trad radio, because phone surveys have ruined them.
Every station starts out great, but within two months, they start doing
phone surveys and then they jettison all the deep cuts in favor of the
songs people on the phone can remember the name of. Next thing you know,
it's the same 700 songs some other station is already playing.
http://www.spinner.com/new-releases
and
http://music.aol.com/new-releases-full-cds/
are surprisingly good places to find new stuff. Every week, new CDs are
streamed in entirety. I try to listen to each and every one all the way
through. I typically buy about 1 out of every 100 I hear.
Brian Running
> Every station starts out great, but within two months, they start doing
> phone surveys and then they jettison all the deep cuts in favor of the
> songs people on the phone can remember the name of. Next thing you know,
> it's the same 700 songs some other station is already playing.
So true. I'm a big fan of WMMM, they're just a few miles beyond the
reach of my FM antenna, so I have to listen on-line:
Misifus
Uh, yeah. I'll have to get back to you on "Fusiform". <g>
Axel Bergander
> This is really a down side. It's very hard to find anything
> that's truly great any more. In that last five years, I can
> count the number of CDs I was inspired to buy , by people
> I didn't know about before, on one hand.
I'd say: dozens. Older music I just discovered for me, new music just
coming out. There are so many ways to find new things, from amazon,
last.fm, pandora (can't listen to them anymore as I'm outside the US) to
the gazillion of blogs and pages about music. Frankky, I'd say it's hard
not to discover something new. Ok, a lot of the new stuff is bad. As it
has allways been - we just tend to forget that stuff and remember the
good. Which sounds quite reasonable.
Axel Bergander
> There is more good music accessible over the internet, for example, than
> was available overall when I was a kid. You have to hunt pretty hard to
> find it but it's there.
Hunting's never been easier. I don't have to go to this special record
store in the harbour and beg the owner for that special import that'll
cost me twice as a normal one.
> On the other hand people tend to get plugged into their own narrow niche
> and disregard everything else.
Every niche is becoming narrower and narrower. It's a saturated market.
But I see a lot of people enjoying a niche or two or more at the same
time. Hip Hop fans listening to country as well. How many of the kids,
coming to the gigs for classic rock go to raves, dance to drum'n'bass as
well? It's not black and white anymore, you don't have to choose between
the Beatles and the Stones. Which is a silly choice anyway.
> I for one like all sorts of music, and the radio stations I listened to
> growing up played all sorts of music.
You'll find new stations on the net. I like byte.fm, which was founded
by a disgruntled (and still active) classic radio DJ. One of the last
around who knows what he's talking about and still digs out new music.
It's online and I don't have to wait for the DJ to call out the tracks.
Just copy/paste it from the playlist-window.
Misifus
> Brian Running wrote:
>> I liked hearing Seals and Crofts and Bread right along with Cream and
>> Rush.
>
>
> I didn't.
>
>
I did.
RichL
College stations are definitely an exception.
Les Cargill
> Les Cargill wrote:
>> Axel Bergander wrote:
>>> RichL <rple...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Of course, it wasn't a sudden thing and the pervasiveness of youth
>>>> culture has grown with each succeeding generation. In a sense I think
>>>> it peaked in the 60s through 80s, and one down side of the vast number
>>>> of channels is that it's fractionated. Everyone's not on the same page
>>>> anymore.
>>>
>>> Is this really a down side? I mean except for the music industry, that
>>> relied on big stars, pushed through single channels.
>>
>> This is really a down side. It's very hard to find anything
>> that's truly great any more. In that last five years, I can
>> count the number of CDs I was inspired to buy , by people
>> I didn't know about before, on one hand.
>>
>
>
> Disagree.
> Nearly all of the music I've bought in the last 4 years has been new,
> and most of it has had good staying power for me.
> Some of it is throwbacks, but a lot of it isn't.
> This is an Amazing time for music.
>
> Monkey Pi
It is an amazingly difficult time to *find* music. We have a
perfectly good infrastructure that should be used for that,
and it is not used for that.
Meh, maybe I was spoiled when i had KHYI on the
radio. Amazing station.
--
Les Cargill
Les Cargill
> Les Cargill <lcar...@cfl.rr.com> wrote:
>
>> This is really a down side. It's very hard to find anything
>> that's truly great any more. In that last five years, I can
>> count the number of CDs I was inspired to buy , by people
>> I didn't know about before, on one hand.
>
> I'd say: dozens. Older music I just discovered for me, new music just
> coming out. There are so many ways to find new things, from amazon,
> last.fm, pandora (can't listen to them anymore as I'm outside the US)
I just have a whale of a hard time even *thinking* about a
paid* radio-style subscription service like pandora. But
thanks for the jog about last.fm - I keep meaning to do that...
*yeah, I know.... but still... the Music Genome
Project is evil in a jar, sir....
A quick look at last.fm shows ... mostly 10+ year old acts,
a handful of slightly less than that ( Franz Ferdinand,
Killers ) and one or two I don't know about.
last.fm does not - I repeat *not* - replace broadcast
radio in any way, shape nor form.
> to
> the gazillion of blogs and pages about music. Frankky, I'd say it's hard
> not to discover something new. Ok, a lot of the new stuff is bad. As it
> has allways been - we just tend to forget that stuff and remember the
> good. Which sounds quite reasonable.
>
Very true. And pretty much not my point :) I have a 21 year-old
daughter, and I raid her CDs, too...
> Axel
--
Les Cargill
Les Cargill
> RichL wrote:
>
>> I for one like all sorts of music, and the radio stations I listened
>> to growing up played all sorts of music.
>
> That's something I miss, those stations decades ago that played Ray Charles
> followed by the Stones followed by Leon Russell followed by Chicago followed
> by Janis Joplin followed by King Crimson followed by some local band that
> had just released its first single.
Boo rah. Exactly.
> There don't seem to be many stations
> left like that, they've mostly seized on a narrow genre with a locked-down
> playlist and stick to it.
>
>
>
It's ClearChannel.
--
Les Cargill
Les Cargill
> Brian Running wrote:
>> I liked hearing Seals and Crofts and Bread right along with Cream and
>> Rush.
>
>
> I didn't.
>
>
I did.
I did a cover of a Bread song, too:
http://lcargill99.googlepages.com/
--
Les Cargill
RichL
> Axel Bergander wrote:
>> Les Cargill <lcar...@cfl.rr.com> wrote:
>>
>>> This is really a down side. It's very hard to find anything
>>> that's truly great any more. In that last five years, I can
>>> count the number of CDs I was inspired to buy , by people
>>> I didn't know about before, on one hand.
>>
>> I'd say: dozens. Older music I just discovered for me, new music just
>> coming out. There are so many ways to find new things, from amazon,
>> last.fm, pandora (can't listen to them anymore as I'm outside the US)
>
> I just have a whale of a hard time even *thinking* about a
> paid* radio-style subscription service like pandora. But
> thanks for the jog about last.fm - I keep meaning to do that...
Pandora's free...FWIW.
I like it because I can put in familiar acts that I know I like and it
will dig up what it thinks are similar-sounding acts. It's hit or miss,
but I've gotten to know a lot of music that way that was previously
unfamiliar to me.
DGDevin
> I'm still unbelievably fortunate enough to have a couple of college
> stations near me that have huge swings of material. When they suck,
> they suck hard, but when they are hitting, they have no equal.
Yeah, I know what you mean. You might catch the end of the Militant
Feminist Confrontational Poetry Hour but right after that is some great indy
rock or local jazz or something. The lack of slick production values is
kind of refreshing too, I like to hear the announcer's chair squeak and the
sound of his coffee cup being set on the desk.
> Sometimes, it's difficult when you hear a GREAT song at the beginning
> of a string of about 8 songs and you have to keep track of how many
> you've heard for when the DJ finally comes back to list them off.
I used to keep a clipboard at my desk to write down the names of interesting
performers I heard on the radio. I still do that but today it's when I'm
listening to web radio, that's the only place I'm likely to hear somebody
I'm not already more than familiar with.
coreybenson
news:8uGdnc_qCp9tl3DU...@supernews.com...
I agree, Rich... why would anyone DISLIKE Pandora? I'm amazed at some of the
excellent acts I've discovered because of it.
I will say I'm always on the lookout for cool new music though... Classic
Rock (as defined by ClearChannel) drives me f'ing BATTY.
--
Corey Benson
Radio by dogs, for dogs:
http://www.HenryAndBuster.com/
http://www.curbsideproductions.com/
Monkey Pi
> I will say I'm always on the lookout for cool new music though... Classic
> Rock (as defined by ClearChannel) drives me f'ing BATTY.
If I haven't mentioned them yet, there's a band out of Canada called The
Whitsundays. They do a retro thing that sounds like early Zombies.
Anyone who's into early Zombies, Kinks, etc. might want to look up their
MySpace page and give them a listen.
I like that with all of the hip bands now trying to jump on the Odessey
And Oracle (the album with "Time Of The Season") band wagon, these guys
are firmly planted in the "She's Not There" era material.
iarwain
And the High School Musical soundtrack was number one in 2006.
Soundtracks have always existed alongside other genres on the charts,
and Disney still does big business too. So I'm not sure I would use
Mary Poppins as a measuring stick (I like that movie, by the way - it
was one of the earliest mixes of live action with animated cartoons
IIRC. Very surreal).
Les Cargill
>> As late as 1965, #1 was the Mary Poppins soundtrack.
>
> And the High School Musical soundtrack was number one in 2006.
But by '68, that had changed. But oooooooh, great point. I did
not know that :)
> Soundtracks have always existed alongside other genres on the charts,
> and Disney still does big business too. So I'm not sure I would use
> Mary Poppins as a measuring stick
I'm using it measure "shear" - how fast from '65 to '68 - with Hendrix
being the #1 album?
> (I like that movie, by the way - it
> was one of the earliest mixes of live action with animated cartoons
> IIRC. Very surreal).
>
The principal difference is that High School Musical is garbage,
and Mary Poppins wasn't. Mary Poppins does not stand up against,
say "Guys and Dolls", but hey... I'm cherry-picking. Frank
Loesser was *good*.
And don't knock it - there's a lot to be said
for pit band work in musical theater, especially
local, amateur musical theater. It's good for
your chops.
--
Les Cargill
RichL
> coreybenson wrote:
>> I will say I'm always on the lookout for cool new music though...
>> Classic Rock (as defined by ClearChannel) drives me f'ing BATTY.
>
>
> If I haven't mentioned them yet, there's a band out of Canada called
> The Whitsundays. They do a retro thing that sounds like early Zombies.
> Anyone who's into early Zombies, Kinks, etc. might want to look up
> their MySpace page and give them a listen.
>
> I like that with all of the hip bands now trying to jump on the
> Odessey And Oracle (the album with "Time Of The Season") band wagon,
> these guys are firmly planted in the "She's Not There" era material.
>
> Monkey Pi
>> O| <%'. _`'_ === <\_ |O|
> (0) / | (_)`-' | / | (0)
> p-----MonkeyMonkeyMonkey-----q
That's good stuff right there. I'll have to check out those guys.
Thanks for the tip!
Monkey Pi
Speaking of "She's Not There"
I was just listening again yesterday and man...THAT is a bassline.
Monkey Pi
--
_ _
RichL
> RichL wrote:
>> Monkey Pi <Monk...@MonkeyMonkeyMonkey.Com> wrote:
>>> coreybenson wrote:
>>>> I will say I'm always on the lookout for cool new music though...
>>>> Classic Rock (as defined by ClearChannel) drives me f'ing BATTY.
>>>
>>> If I haven't mentioned them yet, there's a band out of Canada called
>>> The Whitsundays. They do a retro thing that sounds like early
>>> Zombies. Anyone who's into early Zombies, Kinks, etc. might want to
>>> look up their MySpace page and give them a listen.
>>>
>>> I like that with all of the hip bands now trying to jump on the
>>> Odessey And Oracle (the album with "Time Of The Season") band wagon,
>>> these guys are firmly planted in the "She's Not There" era material.
>>>
>>> Monkey Pi
>>>> o| o , o_,' o_, |o|
>>>> O| <%'. _`'_ === <\_ |O|
>>> (0) / | (_)`-' | / | (0)
>>> p-----MonkeyMonkeyMonkey-----q
>>
>> That's good stuff right there. I'll have to check out those guys.
>> Thanks for the tip!
>>
>>
>
> Speaking of "She's Not There"
> I was just listening again yesterday and man...THAT is a bassline.
Yeah, it's one of those tunes for which the bassline is the song's
signature.
iarwain
No argument there, but I haven't seen High School Musical so I
wouldn't know :)
You know, I've never seen Guys and Dolls. I should check it out.
Monkey Pi
>> Speaking of "She's Not There"
>> I was just listening again yesterday and man...THAT is a bassline.
>
> Yeah, it's one of those tunes for which the bassline is the song's
> signature.
>
>
Disagree, but if it had to be, it sure wouldn't be sitting down on the job.
--
_ _