RE: Why Is Modern Pop Music So Terrible?

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RE: Why Is Modern Pop Music So Terrible? - 9/20/2017 11:41:17 PM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: WhoreMods
Did you know Stephen Stills, Charles Manson, Harry Nilsson and David Crosby were all turned down for the Monkees?

David Crosby was already well-placed and doing well with The Byrds at the time of the Monkee try-outs, so tell us about that one.

Not to say it never happened, just interested.

Even if so, the list above just proves the artistic fluidity as existed then, Frank Zappa doing a TV movie with the Monkees, e.g., that existed in a way then that it never could now.

There is now no Zappa or Beatles or Who or Hendrix equivalent to begin with, the point you missed. Unless you think that the dollar's worth of computer chips and the fuckwits punching buttons is the same as Clapton and Elvis and Arethra to be the same cultural progression.

I mean, there has to be at least some modicum of artistry to begin with, but in any case less meaningfully conveyed by 25 cent drum chips and 50 cent auto-tune chips. Good luck with any of that.

Yes, I understand that in modern pop music, "fresh cultural statement" is above all else, trying to stand out, ect. . It has always been thus, but understanding that until radio and recorded music and speeches, things didn't move nearly so quickly in that regard.

I can understand from the musical mindset that Al Jolson and Sinatra and Elvis were taking things down a bit vs. the previous, but many of us (including me) were just caught up in the performance and the r/l execution of it. As we eventually were with the Beatles' and Brian Wilson's and Joni Mitchel's et al. song and in some cases performance.

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RE: Why Is Modern Pop Music So Terrible? - 9/21/2017 12:08:05 AM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: PeonForHer
This is really interesting ....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVME_l4IwII

The speaker mentioned timbre and addressed that issue to a respectable degree.

Many have had that not occur to them, specifically.

But what was interesting is that the emphasis now is not on properly recording or or conveying to live audience (my bailiwick, in the day) the timbre, but eliminating that consideration before we start.

I Think the guys at Texas Instruments, Intel, etc. had no Idea, when starting out, how important they were to the modern cultural milieu, especially the engineers working in the "cheaper is better" department, who were designing such chips because there was such a market..

The sound used to be the guys designing all the drums, the luthiers, etc.

A one dollar chip makes it all gone. For some, anyway.

The decline in musical experience has been accomplished to a large degree by degradation of sound experience and pandering to half-deaf ears as much as the on-its-own cultural 'musical' aspect.

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RE: Why Is Modern Pop Music So Terrible? - 9/21/2017 12:21:24 AM

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The two go hand-in-hand.

It started with good intentions (Oh boy).

How would we not miss the chance to hear Rubenstein playing Brahms, if there is no way to make travel or the ticket? That was the advantage and the ultimate purpose of recorded music in the beginning.

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RE: Why Is Modern Pop Music So Terrible? - 9/21/2017 4:50:42 AM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Edwird

quote:

ORIGINAL: WhoreMods
Did you know Stephen Stills, Charles Manson, Harry Nilsson and David Crosby were all turned down for the Monkees?

David Crosby was already well-placed and doing well with The Byrds at the time of the Monkee try-outs, so tell us about that one.

Not to say it never happened, just interested.

Why's that a strange notion? Think about it. Crosby was a conceited little arse who thought he was too big a deal for the Byrds and spent most of their appearance at Woodstock saying so, while sitting in with everybody else he possibly could, most notably Jefferson Airplane, to try to prove that he was too a decent musician and writer rather than just somebody who did harmony vocals. (There's a reason why Roger McGuinn has refused point blank to work with him again since he quite the band to form a dull folk rock act with somebody else who auditioned for the Monkees and one of the Hollies. I don't think Stills, Nash or Young are very impressed by what he's managed over the last thirty years or Crosby as a person either, are they?)
It's worth remembering that all of the west coast psychedellic bands were besotted with the Beatles as well, and that the Byrds were promoted and pushed as America's answer to the Beatles for a while. Whether this had anything to do with their initial success, I don't know, but if Crosby thought it was a factor, he'd see the Monkees as a threat to his own band, and possibly a better bet to get rich and famous, wouldn't he?

As for the other, that's a whole other discussion, but it's worth remembering that the Beatles (unlike Zappa or Hendrix) weren't really sold for their astonishing skills as musicians. (Neither, come to that were Bob Dylan, the Kinks or plenty more of the big '60s name.)

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RE: Why Is Modern Pop Music So Terrible? - 9/21/2017 5:11:18 AM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Greta75

quote:

ORIGINAL: bounty44

one of the inherent characteristics of humanity is critical spirit of new or contemporary things and a sort of longing for the "good ol' days" where "whatever" was better in the past.

I don't believe for a moment that todays pop music is "so terrible" or that its worse by comparison to any other time period in pop music history---where its very likely some crotchety fellow was sitting around saying "why is todays pop music so terrible---why in my day...."

But Modern Music today is basically, a guy in headphones playing with his computer infront of a whole crowd now. No live singers. No instruments. All just made up by computers! Isn't Calvin Harris the number 1 pop artist in the world now?

RIP real music and real instruments in the near future.

greta, while i'll buy what youre saying occurs, that's not really indicative of the status of modern music.

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RE: Why Is Modern Pop Music So Terrible? - 9/21/2017 8:16:05 AM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: WhoreMods
It's worth remembering that all of the west coast psychedellic bands were besotted with the Beatles as well, . . .

Hardly. The Byrds were not a psychedelic band at the outset, though Jim (later, Rodger) McGuinn did say he went straight away to get his 12-string Rickenbacher after seeing A Hard Day's Night. And aside from Grace Slick not being exactly complimentary of them ("a 23 yr. old man singing about holding hands with a teenage girl?"), I didn't hear anything from the rest of Jefferson Airplane or The Doors or Quicksilver Messenger Service or Country Joe McDonald et al. in reference to them as musical influence. In the early days, the biggest influence from The Beatles for other bands wasn't the music of theirs, but rather their providing inspiration that you could go with a buddy to the music store, buy a couple of guitars and get on the radio, maybe. People like John Phillips (Mamas and Papas) had been floundering in folk music purgatory for years, then were inspired that all they had to do was tweak things just a certain way, and BOOM!.

A lot of people already in the business (like Grace Slick, et al.) weren't as impressed by The Beatles' early music (doesn't matter if I am or not) as much as they were by 'the phenomena' and the reaction. "Just think, if we could do this with our music, we can really piss people off!"

quote:

As for the other, that's a whole other discussion, but it's worth remembering that the Beatles (unlike Zappa or Hendrix) weren't really sold for their astonishing skills as musicians. (Neither, come to that were Bob Dylan, the Kinks or plenty more of the big '60s name.)

Never said otherwise, not even alluded to that aspect at all. Early Zappa wasn't about musicianship qua musicianship to begin with, nor was much of latter Zappa anyway. It was about the creativity. Speaking of artistic creativity, Dylan just took that inability to hold a steady note or ever sing in tune to begin with and ran with it. The Yardbirds didn't get on the radio because of Eric Clapton or Jeff beck particularly, but because of their interesting take on pop music and what could be done with it, at the time. The whole band were responsible for that.

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RE: Why Is Modern Pop Music So Terrible? - 9/21/2017 8:28:24 AM

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It was Rolling Stone magazine and others who went all berserko over the musicianship thing, and well after the fact. Nobody gave a shit at the time. Just make it interesting, however you do it.

Today's pop fare has gone far past being uninteresting and gone full-bore into being annoying as fuck.

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RE: Why Is Modern Pop Music So Terrible? - 9/21/2017 9:23:30 AM

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I'm not saying the Beatles were the only influence, but they were definitely one of the main ones, even if by negation: Grace Slick might not have liked them much, but Marty Balin and Jorma Whatsisname were both pretty keen. The Dead came out of the jugband thing and were more about playing really loud folk music, whatever nonsense gets spouted about classical or jazz influences, and Country Joe obviously formed the Fish as a Fuggs tribute.
On the other hand, most of the garage bands were doing stuff that seems to be equal parts Kinks and Beatles, The Beach Boys (who, despite lacking the hipster pretensions of most of their peers were the biggest west coast band in the '60s by a mile) were quite keen on the scousers and were coming at pop music from a similar angle as well.
(The fact that nobody gave a shit who else was in the Byrds until Gram Parsons joined is probably another cause of Crosby's ragequit, mind...)

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RE: Why Is Modern Pop Music So Terrible? - 9/21/2017 12:57:19 PM

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The reason I hate Rolling Stone mag and always have is because of how much overboard they went in trashing The Beach Boys in '67, or essentially, Brian Wilson.

If anyone hears The Warmth Of The Sun or God Only Knows and isn't completely taken aback, wtf are they doing being a 'music commentator' in the first place? Was RS's requirement that your soul be dead to be hired? (Regarding classical or pop or whatever, they delude themselves as being "critics." They were/are just commentators, with their accumulation of pre-twitter clever twitter comments piled together into an 'article.')

Aside that, I just don't like people telling me what I'm supposed to like anymore than I like anyone telling me what I'm supposed to think.

So while on the subject, B Wilson was already a multi-millionaire and had several items in the top 40 and top 10 before he knew anything about scousers, or what that meant. He did attest that he was as flabbergasted as anyone else when the tsunami hit. "I was like everybody else. I was watching Ed Sullivan that night."

There was a nice back-and-forth for awhile, there. Wilson said that after hearing the N American version of Rubber Soul, he said "Damn, a whole album good songs, Why can't we do that?" Hence Pet Sounds.

Which upon hearing, Macca said (I'm paraphrasing, here) "All those instruments! Listen to that arrangement, that production, that sound! Why can't we do that?" Next: Sgt. Pepper.

If you or anyone else heard the studio track runoff of the later-aborted Smile album that I had ahold of for a short while, you'd be floored. I think these are called 'out takes' now, but nobody knew/knows what's an out take or not until the final mix. And this was scheduled for release in December of '66. It was actually on schedule until B Wilson had his melt-down in the last week of recording it. We got to hear various items from that project as tossed out piecemeal among subsequent albums. But it was amazing, as the album was originally intended, I mean just crazy good.

Read/watch any interview of Brian Wilson, watch any of his appearances on TV or stage, and you can see that he's not quite 'all there.' So be it.

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RE: Why Is Modern Pop Music So Terrible? - 9/21/2017 1:43:06 PM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: WhoreMods

I'm not saying the Beatles were the only influence, but they were definitely one of the main ones, even if by negation: Grace Slick might not have liked them much, but Marty Balin and Jorma Whatsisname were both pretty keen.

Jorma Kokonut, but I knew what you meant.

Kaukonen's Embryonic Journey and Jimmy Page's version of Black Mountainside were/are kind of the gold standard for wannabe ex-R&R-now-finger pickers.

"Asking for a friend" etc.

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RE: Why Is Modern Pop Music So Terrible? - 9/22/2017 4:38:23 AM

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Brian Wilson has never actually struck me as all that mad, if I'm honest. Yes, he's very hyper and intense even now, and he's obviously more than a little neurotic, but after the ghastly childhood and adolescence he seems to have had that's hardly surprising. Besides which, anybody who rerecords their best album from scratch for its final definitive release so that they can have a version without the cousin who demanded a chunk of songwriting royalties for two lines added to the chorus and who tried to get them sectioned so that they could seize their actions can't be playing with a deck that's missing too many cards, can they?

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RE: Why Is Modern Pop Music So Terrible? - 9/22/2017 9:46:16 PM

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Well yes, one would imagine there being a difference between having a compatriot saying "Okay, how about we do this with it?" upon hearing your contribution, vs. the 'compatriot' saying "what the hell is this about?"

JL and PM came to fangs in the last years, but at least they were capable to begin with and held on by common artistic progression alone as long as they could.

Having the enemy within the group isn't the worst problem, as the Beatles proved. But the enemy being clueless, and within the group, doesn't work out well.

After reading about all the internecine blah about the Beatles in last albums, all I could say was, "well, at least the other guy wasn't Mike Love."

What a horror that must have been for BW once he started expanding, being next to a guy with not the least artistic notion to begin with.

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RE: Why Is Modern Pop Music So Terrible? - 9/23/2017 4:31:38 AM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Edwird
After reading about all the internecine blah about the Beatles in last albums, all I could say was, "well, at least the other guy wasn't Mike Love."

You'd probably be better off trying to work with Varg Vikernes than Mike Love, and he stabs people to death...
(There's some pretty bad vibes on The Troggs Tape as well, if that's the aspect of Let It Be that sticks in your mind, btw.)

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RE: Why Is Modern Pop Music So Terrible? - 9/29/2017 1:29:33 PM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: bounty44
one of the inherent characteristics of humanity is critical spirit of new or contemporary things and a sort of longing for the "good ol' days" where "whatever" was better in the past.

Good point, and true.

But the counterpart is that a seemingly inherent characteristic exits today where no one can appreciate at all what happened before. Not any use for it at all, actually. Nobody wants to know, no one is the least interested.

All that as a generality, obviously.

At least youtube is good for something, like letting us know that there are more than a few 12-20 yr. olds out there who appreciate music above noise, as witnessed by commentary in uploads presenting music even before Elvis/Beatles. And thanks to that sort I can find something created recently that I can actually listen to.

For some of us, it's not resistance to 'new,' it's against fingernail-on-chalkboard sonics parading as "artistry."

Quit arguing that dumbing down is progression. It's just not.

PS

Last comment (and essentially the whole post) directed to the general audience, not to the poster I responded to.

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RE: Why Is Modern Pop Music So Terrible? - 9/29/2017 7:54:22 PM

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ORIGINAL: WhoreMods

I got about a minute into that. If you're complaining about contemporary music being crap, it'd be handy to have a better yardstick to measure it against than Sergeant Pepper's. It isn't even the best Beatles album, FFS!

Who ever said that the best album of all time and the Beatles' best album were supposed to be one and the same?

So good luck in any case in your herding-of-cats endeavor in trying to pin down the best Beatles album.

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RE: Why Is Modern Pop Music So Terrible? - 10/22/2017 11:25:10 PM

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ORIGINAL: WhoreMods

On the other hand, most of the garage bands were doing stuff that seems to be equal parts Kinks and Beatles,

I wore out my first Kinks Kronicles album because of roommate's cartridge/stylus being 5 years past expiration date. Bought a new album when I got my own rig.

I hardly listen to that stuff anymore, but good gosh I got such a blast out of that (double) album at the time. Unrelenting social commentary combined with subtle humor in minor musical details, especially background vocals. Nobody else did it that way, not even The Who, not to that level.

Don't ask me what is the best song or 2-3 best songs from that collection.

I saw your reference and this one popped immediately to mind, nothing more to it than that:

Wonder Boy

But soon after that:

Autumn Almanac

Listen to the whole song, but pay special attention at 1:40, the last part of it being "Coz everybody I meet, seems to come from my street, And I can't get away, because its calling me, (come on home) Hear it calling me! (come on home).

I have worked many excellent musicals in my former profession, But I know I've never heard a stretch of pavement being portrayed by background vocals, as in this song.

I completely fell to the floor when this sunk in, on third listening, I think. You know me, I'm all buzzed about musical merit before anything else, but that one hit quickly anway, by all measures.

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RE: Why Is Modern Pop Music So Terrible? - 10/23/2017 3:26:23 AM

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My favourite Kinks song is definitely Apeman, but that's 1970 not the '60s.

Of course, the really great thing about Davies and his bunch is that you can always name a load more songs as well: Days, Lola, A Gallon Of Gas, Superman, Low Budget, Dead End Street, Come Dancing, You Really Got Me, All Day And All Of The Night... the list just goes on an on. They were one of the best singles bands ever, and you sometimes wonder whether the chip on Davies shoulder has something to do with his band being seen as a "best of" outfit rather than them being esteemed for the concept albums he spent most of the '70s churning out...

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RE: Why Is Modern Pop Music So Terrible? - 10/23/2017 2:23:23 PM

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I think his (Ray's) effort to social commentary was by far the best.

I read that he pissed off some segment of the working class with songs such as Waterloo Sunset and Autumn Almanac, et al.

The lyrics were a bit harsh, but mostly truthful in any case.

But he didn't wait for the '70s to get that going. Maybe not for the whole album, but we have to recall how up in the air things were in the '60s.

So then we have A Well Respected Man (1965) and Dedicated Follower Of Fashion and Sunny Afternoon (1966).

No holding back, there.

Some have pointed out that The Beatles mostly mimicked the R&B they took after in their singing. Yes, we could hear the British here and there, But Ray Davies spoke/sang in native tongue almost always.

< Message edited by Edwird -- 10/23/2017 2:40:49 PM >

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RE: Why Is Modern Pop Music So Terrible? - 10/23/2017 7:36:08 PM

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quote:

Why Is Modern Pop Music So Terrible?

Because you, like me, are an old fart.

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RE: Why Is Modern Pop Music So Terrible? - 10/23/2017 8:33:17 PM

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You are far from 'old', miss sweet face.

If you just begat a brat, you aren't old.

Some bit of wrinkles are better than any make-up.

Forget what I think. Here's what Rod Stewart thinks of you:

And You Wear It Well

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