All countries still have music, and just like this country, each individual defines what's music to them.
At this moment I'm listening to "Santana". Am I listening to music? |
All of them I think.
There's lots of interesting stuff out there now. I don't know if there is a Bach or a Mozart toiling away outside the top 20, but if there is, he can get to us via the internet now if the big production houses turn him away.
With the availability and expansion of internet radio, I'm listening to Paris radio stations, Argentinian radio stations, you name it. The other night I parked on a Bosnian station for hours. Just folk music, but I was absolutely captivated by it. The time just flew by. I never could have done that with this kind of fidelity just 10 years ago.
Beyond that, I'm finding old ditties that my grandfather used to sing like The Night Pat Murphy Died. I didn't find that being sung in the background in a Ken Burns period piece on PBS, I found that on ITunes of all places! Unbelievable.
I do agree that the Beyonce type media constructions are forgettable. They could be CGI for all we know. The performances of those stars remind me of workout shows.
Britney Spears. Remember her? You couldn't get away from her name, it was EVERYWHERE, but I couldn't remember a damn thing she sang, nor could I recognize her voice from any of a dozen others on the radio at the time.
But that's all top 20 stuff. Those lists are ruled by kids. Kids have entertainment money to burn. Their taste is rebellious and loud and centered around sex. That's fun as hell when you are 16. Nothing wrong with it. We used to crank Metallica and Molly Hatchet. Our elders looked at our leather jackets and long hair and musical taste and called us thugs and losers. Metallica has stuck around and I cut my hair and got a real job, but I last saw Molly Hatchet playing to a small throng of 40-something people in mullets and acid washed jeans at a local fair. Dreams I'll Never See came to mind, but was not on the playlist.
Richard has a good point. We sound like old people. My grandparents thought Buddy Holly was a cute kid, but not very talented. They were used to big band guys and personalities like Louis Prima and Satchmo. Coming from that, I could see them questioning the spare, seemingly simple work of Holly. My dad thought 70s music was awful. All of it. No melody worth remembering and mostly noise. He once did some telephone work for "some scruffy looking guy named Dy-lan in Woodstock." He didn't even recognize the name! Now, he listens to the Eagles as if for the first time. "Where were these guys?" he asks. "Geez, EVERYWHERE" I reply. I forget that he was working overtime then and the little that could make it into his consciousness at the time all probably sounded the same. Everytime he turned on the radio he probably heard Blowin' in the Wind, More Than A Feeling or Afternoon Delight.
In modern pop I find interesting people. The Carolina Chocolate Drops are incorporating old folk - hornpipe and reel type stuff - in their music along with modern rhythms and instruments, just create music; Mumford and Sons is acoustic and about as far as you can get from the top 20 sound, but they've created a popular following with their intensity; Zac Brown is fun country music, but it sticks to you and their enthusiasm is infectious; Adele put an adjustment on the expectations of what you can do with popular music with the album 21. I didn't bother to sample it for quite a while because I thought she was just another marketing creation. Whoops.
And I'm not even mentioning virtuosos and artists in Jazz, Blues and instrumental genres. Or discoveries, like Susan Boyle, who may not be an artist, but who serves to remind everyone that talent isn't restricted to those who look like Beyonce and the internet age can find you an audience that 20 years ago would have been off limits.
I love the age we're in. The best of the past is available in a variety of formats and current music from all over the world is more discoverable than ever. |
Okay. But in keeping with what I perceive the OP's topic is, there comes a point where all variations, melodies, and especially harmonies according to what actually works, have been explored. After which "only" dissonance remains,not to be confused with Jazz. That, or what we're subjected to of late, straight monotones of higher and lower sequences or non-melodic ones. The stuff that was tossed over the shoulder hopefully into the trash when the real stuff was being written. |
"At this moment I'm listening to "Santana". Am I listening to music?"
Absolutely!! (sorry shakey, I just can't help it.)
Santana will always have a special place with me. Reminds me of the good times at places like the MEXICANA bar in Frankfurt, Germany, back in the late 60's. Those were the days, great music, great women, great cars, great era.
Cheers |
Rok, yes it was, even better in Weisbaden where I was.
Some music appeals to the mind and soul, some to regions bit further down the torso. |
Schubert:
I purchased my first real audio system from the audio club in Weisbaden. Sansui,PE,Wharfedale. You were surrounded by great audio clubs. Mainz and Rhein-Main etc.. I was stationed in Hanau and had to travel to see all the audio goodies.
Cheers |
A lot of good jazz out there. A lot of great musicians who are not popular because they don't sound like the "Giants" we grew up with. The music scene will be very good once the large group of boomers, which I am part of, are gone, and they stop dictating what is good music. People will be saying, where was I while Mathew Shipp was playing in his prime, and who is this William Parker. The young players I hear on my local college station, KNTU, are good to exceptional.
Support local young musicians, and let them grow into the next Giants! Don't blow them off because they might use sounds and styles from their generations. |
Acman3, you speak a great deal of wisdom. My local college has a jazz studies program that has been rated #1 in US several times by Downbeat magazine.The talent of these young musicans is amazing, the few concerts I've been to were outstanding.
If I were younger, I'd pay more attention to jazz but as a classical fan I've yet to probe all there is to Bach, Mozart, Schubert et al. If only I had another 60 years of serious listening ! |
A dude walks in Manhattan looking for Carnegie Hall and asks first stranger "How Do I get to the Carnegie Hall?" A stranger, who turned out to be a musician answers "Practice".
Orpheus, since I believe that Santana knows a-bit about C# or E-flat scales, It's a music.
Yes you can also start playing musical instrument without knowing the music bases, but to advance, you'd better get on to the books and teachers to preserve and prosper your talent. At least many even garage rock musicians went through the advanced music training just like Paul McCartney with Ravi Shankar. The rock musicians who could handle instrument with virtuoso reefs were often more known and popular vs. thouse who was soft and mainstream as an example.
Contrary to my statements above,
Why waste time and Why work hard when you can simply program some beat, copy a couple of notes onto the WAV file, connect it to the PA system and talk 'snit' to the microphone in front of retarded due to our financially depleted educational system urban crowd?
No need to practice. No need to advace...
Should this REALLY should dominate top 20???
Should there at least be some common sense? |
It clearly doesn't matter. Do you think you'd be listening to better music if it did? |
If it's so simple to programs some beats, then please tell us what beats you've come up with, sold for large sums of money and have been used in hit records. According to you it ain't even hard work! |
Some of the best artists out there didn't have formal training, but I was referring to current production which might as well be what the OP has stated. I guess I was simply in agreement/but not. |
Onhwy61, No matter how many beats I've come up with. I don't have any connections and sponsors for show-biz which is the main reason to get through. |
The please tell us what you've come up with that sold for large sums of money and was used in hit records argument is weak and Palinesque, (as in Sarah).
Coming up w/ a hit record can be easy or very hard... skill and knowledge are often poor predictors of financial or artistic success. |
Duanegoosen, at least you admit that it could be hard. Some people insists that it's so simple. |
There are probaly 50K bands as good as any other in USA and space for say 30-40 in industry, any moron can ,and do, make a "hit", whether anybody ever hears it is either sheer luck or having connections. |
I'm sure there are plenty of legends in their living rooms. Everybody seemingly has a pat excuse for why they're not rich and famous. The fact that you might not have the tenacity, balls, talent or will power has nothing to do with it. If the world would just beat a path to your front door, then you'd show 'em. |
"The fact that you might not have the tenacity, balls, talent or will power has nothing to do with it. "
That's usually what it takes! |
Hmm, something to tenacity perhaps, but there is ZERO dicernable talent involved in pop music. |
" but there is ZERO dicernable talent involved in pop music"
musical talent need only be solid and not outstanding to be successful in pop music. There are other kinds of talents involved as well that go into making someone appealing to the masses, which is what pop culture is all about, along with the $$$s that go along with it. |
Some of the best modern tunes ever done were pop. Remember Burt Bacharach, Dion Warwick,LULU, Jackie Dushannon to name a few? Scores of others without whom it would have been an entirely different landscape. No where near as fun. |
Oh yeah, the minute I heard Bacharach I went off Bach for a year. It is a matter of taste of course, good taste and bad taste. |
We're at that weird crossover point between centuries. To make an analogy to the 20th it's James Reese Europe time. We haven't got past late 19th century brass band/ragtime. Stravinsky & Jazz & the "new" that will replace the tired 19th century conventions are still a few years out. So if you think you're hating this early 21st century, last gasp of rap-rock-dance 20th century pop culture idioms just wait. You'll probably dislike the 21st century evolution even more |
