Thread: Someone saves us from music

Originally Posted by Mario F.

This is going to sound strange, but the reason I speak of this is because I worry about generation clashes. In short, I want to learn how to speak with my daughter...

Do you remember you parents telling you music these days is no good and in their time things were better? I had mine saying this back in the days when I was listening to bands like Fischer-Z, The Cult, Queen, Led Zeppelin (even though this one is from their time), Meat Loaf, Pink Floyd (Roger Water's pink floyd. Just not the same without him), and a million other et ceteras. It was part of my education this intimate knowledge that my parents could never understand me and my times.

So what happens now? I listen to today's music and I vomit. What happened to the 60's to 90's proliferation of colossal bands? What is this that we hear today? Smashing hits that don't last in your hear more than 12 months when bands like Rolling Stones or Nirvana produced songs that gained their place in history.

Even the rap and hip-hop crap we hear today. Do you remember when rap became popular back in the early 90s? Do you remember the quality of lyrics and rap structure of Wu-Tang or Snoop Dog. Do you remember the rap wars? What is this I hear today? What is this crap? And hip-hop... don't get me started on the worst musical style since elevator music was invented.

What's worst? Do you remember a time when mainstream popular bands and singers composed their own songs and lyrics? When they mastered writing and composing along with performing? When you knew that what you were listening to was what was in their hearts. What is this crap I see today? Semi-naked wonderful bodies, pretty faces and ass shaking to go along with songs you cannot remember next year written and produced by someone else who just wants to use their pretty faces.

I vomit and I suffer from chronic yearning. I wish I was back in my youth getting extremely high on Led Zeppelin - Been Loving You, closing my eyes and drinking every sound of U2 - One, bowing my head in respect to names like Vangelis, Cult, Cure, Doors, Procol Harum, Thin Lizzy, Ozzy Osborn, Jimmy Hendrix, and learning for the first time how to love a woman to the sound of Gary Moore - Parisienne Walkways.

So... what's wrong with me? Is it a generation clash or is indeed the music that changed to worst?

Jesus Christ. Couldn't agree with you more. I highly suspect that anyone with the slightest inclination towards intellectualism has felt this way about contemporary music some time or another.

I'll keep it short. Personally, I think the music industry became a purely capitalistic machine (disclaimer: i am not against capitalism. i use the term here to ephasize commercialization) as soon as producers embraced what I personally call the 99-1 principle.

The 99-1 principle states that 99% of all people are basically, sheep. Not that they have sub-par IQs, but simply that they accept whatever is preached as the worldview to be gospel. They do not critically analyze anything beyond simple cost-benefit. They are primarily concerned with survival, at a level that is only slightly higher than biological. The 1% of the population who have a superior general awareness and criticial thinking are the one's who are responsible for delivering the truly valuable products of humanity....like technology, innovation, music, arts...stuff that makes human life better as a whole. This principle holds true universally across the world, regardless of nationality, ethnicity, or religion.

Since the majority of the urban populus is interested in being obscenely rich and indulging in hedonism, hence results the popularity of c-rap. Since kids now read fewer book and fare worse in schools, hence the borderline juvenile content and quality of popular music. And since this has been going on for decades, hence we now have adults who listen to the kind of music that sounds like it was written by teenagers.

Originally Posted by citizen

Interesting principle, but I really doubt it's an intellectual thing. I mean, people who care about music will find samples of genres to be proud of. Pop in the eighties was huge, and it's pretty much Michael Jackson's fault. Radio stations have to go mainstream and play the latest tunes, just because their clinging to their business model (rather than doing at least one dedicated podcast to break out), and need to catch listeners rather than let listeners come to them.

It's not that music suddenly sucks, but marketing sucks, and it always has. It doesn't matter what your test scores are.

I agree with what you said, but you're proving my point indirectly. The marketing only sucks in that it promotes the distribution on the basis of popularity rather than quality. But its doesn't suck as a system because it works...it gets the $$. And the reason it works is because more people would rather listen to music that's easy to ...dare I say....comprehend? And the reason most people comprehend/enjoy such music is because of the 99-1 principle.

Btw...MJ's Thriller is orders of magnitude more structured, richer, and deeper than the no.1s today.

Originally Posted by shawnt

But its doesn't suck as a system because it works...it gets the $$. And the reason it works is because more people would rather listen to music that's easy to ...dare I say....comprehend?

I won't disagree. So let's speculate.

Maybe it's getting tougher for radio stations to survey their audience. It would be easy for a rock station to keep playing rock bands that were popular, and they'd keep their listeners I suppose. But then you made the argument for "quality" which is wholly subjective.

At least concede that looking for the same sound is a dead end. Innovation is sparse - I can agree that a lot doesn't work but I can guarantee that the clash of styles and horrible covers will be worth it one day. Some of that rock and pop "trash" is experimentation, because radios want the genres to evolve quickly for other generations - in the meantime it gets popular because we all appreciate a stupid diddy now and then. I don't see the problem in that, exactly.

If you're looking for hooks and concepts in music, you can still find that occasionally, if I'm not undermining the industry a little. "Read a book" has a message as does "Handlebars" and probably some others I need to find. Sometimes what someone else finds lame, could have lyrical meaning to another person. "Something about Us" and "Places I've Never Been" had made me emotional before. I don't think that's entirely "modern", but I'm mature. Fifteen year olds need something to listen to, and if their getting the worst end of it, poor them, but they'll mature and experiment! I'm sure we can foster a love of music for posterity, regardless.

Btw...MJ's Thriller is orders of magnitude more structured, richer, and deeper than the no.1s today.

I'm glad you said that!

I think what we worry about is that we don't want 50 cent to be classical one day and no one who cares about music wants that. I don't think we have to worry though, the next timeless sensations will come from somewhere and we won't have a clue how they rose up out of this mess.

Not that I have the answers. My ideas on music have prompted some pretty weird thoughts about what old composers would have thought and et cetera.

Coincidently enough I'm listening to Astor Piazzolla as I read the latest on this thread - my daugter loves him too - and I can't but think that true virtuosity, and music as an artistic expression can indeed find an echo in our youngsters minds. Just like Astor did in his time; He died just recently, in the early 90s. All there is a need to is a little initial guidance. Nothing much... just a small push in that direction. After all we don't want to overdo it. My daughetr is free to like or dislike whatever she wants.

What I cannot accept however is this notion of intellectualism as a source of good taste. While I can understand your arguments shawnt, that bit didn't felt right to me.

What I truly think is that younger generations are ready to absorb anything that is thrown at them - a characteristic that is lost with age but they have in excess. But trash is what is thrown at them and, on that I agree, mostly because of a completely degrading and skewed view of the world from the eye of the Business. And yet... they too appreciate beauty, ugliness, simplicity, complexity,... Art, if really motivated into pursuing it.

My daughter is 9. Everyday she faces a barrage of highly marketed kids bands, adolescent and even teen and adult bands of all sorts and shapes, but all sharing a commonality in being essentially useless pieces of crap born and breed specifically for the purpose of making money and getting richer.

And yet, I can with only minimum effort tell her about Adios Nonino or Otono Porteno, have her listen to it and enjoy the moment and appreciate the natural beauty of these compositions where Jazz fuses with Tango and a single celo or a bandoneon has more power than any marketing force telling her to buy, buy, buy.

Nah. There's no intellectual superiority in art appreciation. There's just the need to learn how to identify it. An hard thing to do when you don't have anyone telling you and you live in a world where Business definitely took the reins.

I disagree. Intellectual capacity is a precursor to better taste. Here's why. Better taste = appreciation of higher 'quality' music (unless you believe quality is wholly subjective). Appreciation of higher quality music requires at least a subconscious comprehension of musical elements and characteristics. At the risk of gross oversimplification, many animals may react positively to natural sounds (such as rainfall, bird songs etc), but will interpret Norweigen Wood as noise.

Also, my argument is pertaining to adults. Kids are of course moldable and uncast. Like you said, "theres just the need to learn how to identify it". That act itself changes the subject by increasing his/her knowledge and thereby enhancing his/her intellectualism.

Why does he have to define it? So that you can pick on his definition, instead of his arguments? Could you define such a term yourself? If you can, by all means, debate the arguments, not the term. If you can't, then don't ask him to define it because it becomes irrelevant since you can't contradict or support his definition.

I think we are all intelligent people here and can generally understand the meaning of the term and proceed with the debate, if needed be.

Originally Posted by indigo0086

I would have fully explained why I asked my question had he answered it

Really? How convenient.

Excuse me while I wipe my feet on that mat. I think I stepped on someone else's BS.