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If you think pop music is shallow...


costard

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1965-1975 was the golden age of rock & roll and it generally declined after that. There was still some good stuff that came out of the late '70s and '80s, but it became rarer and rarer. There is still some good stuff that pops up now as well, especially among musicians that take their music seriously rather than just a way to parade their egos and make a lot of bread. But for now, the heady days when lots of artistic ground is being broken are long behind us. Probably the cycle will continue and something both truly revolutionary and worthwhile will turn up, but I haven't seen it yet.

Michael

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IMO there's plenty of good music being written and recorded - but it is often no longer limited to the world-wide stars.

Making a CD is now realtively cheap - all the CD's & music DVD's I've bought in the last year have been by local artists who I know personally & have for years - bar one - Leonard Cohen toured here & I got his live one at the venue :) In many cases these artists have made 3 or more albums, and this is in a city of only about 400,000 ppl.

Publishing music is no longer the sole preserve of the record companies large or small - if you want good music then IMO you probably don't need to do much more than look locally - if you are in a large city - a million or more population - you should have a massive choice.

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...So no music that's good has ever been made by people who weren't high?

So every time I've heard my musician friends play high-quality original songs and display fine musicianship while they were completely sober, it was just a rose-colored-glasses delusion?

:rolleyes:

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...So no music that's good has ever been made by people who weren't high?

So every time I've heard my musician friends play high-quality original songs and display fine musicianship while they were completely sober, it was just a rose-colored-glasses delusion?

:rolleyes:

Your not suppose to take it literally. He's referring to pop stars and not musicians in general.

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So every time I've heard my musician friends play high-quality original songs and display fine musicianship while they were completely sober, it was just a rose-colored-glasses delusion?

:rolleyes:

Nah, you were all high - on creativity and the groove. Which the modern poppers miss out on. Sad, y'know?

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1965-1975 was the golden age of rock & roll and it generally declined after that. There was still some good stuff that came out of the late '70s and '80s, but it became rarer and rarer. There is still some good stuff that pops up now as well, especially among musicians that take their music seriously rather than just a way to parade their egos and make a lot of bread. But for now, the heady days when lots of artistic ground is being broken are long behind us. Probably the cycle will continue and something both truly revolutionary and worthwhile will turn up, but I haven't seen it yet.

Michael

Michael one more "You may be right" to add to your sig line. 65-75 was the best years of rock.

From the Animals to Frank Zappa - all good stuff in that era. And then along came disco - barf.

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Michael one more "You may be right" to add to your sig line. 65-75 was the best years of rock.

From the Animals to Frank Zappa - all good stuff in that era. And then along came disco - barf.

I disagree. I think good rock was still in existence well into the late 70's.

Van Halen - 1978

Van Halen

The Cars - 1978

The Cars

Pink Floyd - 1979

The Wall

3 Foreigner albums from 1977-1979

Supertramp - 1979

Breakfast In America

And I'm sure there's more...

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I disagree. I think good rock was still in existence well into the late 70's.

Van Halen - 1978

Van Halen

Nooooooo!!!!!!

The Cars - 1978

The Cars

Eh. Not impressed.

Pink Floyd - 1979

The Wall

Okay, that one was good.

3 Foreigner albums from 1977-1979

Not impressed.

Supertramp - 1979

Breakfast In America

Not impressed.

And I'm sure there's more...

Actually there was. The Eagles-The Long Run.

Gerry Rafferty-Station to Station.

The Doobie Brothers after Michael Macdonald joined.

And others. But like I said, the heady days when almost very day brought a new, mind-bendingly great song were gone.

Michael

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I'm not saying music died in 1975. 65-75 was the Golden age.

Disco - barf

Punk took some getting used too. A few good bands Ramones, Social Distortion.

The "Hair" Bands of the 80s. - freaking noise. White Snake, Van Halen, AC/DC, Mottley Crew, etc. They all sounded alike.

KISS:Make up with a few good/great songs - Why the paint? I don't get it.

The screaming banshee women of the early 90s- Mariah Carey, Celineon Dion, Paula Adbull - I'd prefer to jab sharp pencils in my ears.

I recently discovered New Order 80/90s - great music.

Blues is great too.

Best song writer ever - Paul Simon.

Best vocals - Tossup between Eric Burdon - Jim Morrison.

Guitar - Carlos Santana or Eric Clapton.

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I listen to some great tracks that have stood the test of time from not overly commerially famous groups. What I find is most groups can manage a few truly great tunes and it is rare that they have a whole catalogue of really ggod stuff. Probably some very recognisable tunes here - particularly Air's All I Need. That one really goes stright for the emotion buttons in the brain. I prefer up-tempo most of the time as I am convinced up-tempo is pyschologically better. But then like the weather you need all sorts to appreciate the difference! Zero 7

Give it Away
In the waiting line Air
AND THE ETERNAL
All I Need Minus 8
Elysian Fields
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Pop music is actually more reflective than ever.

Nope. Sorry, but you can't get more reflective than Dylan was on his albums from The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan on through Blond on Blond. And he was far from being the only one of that era.

Not to say there is no good stuff coming out at the present moment, but even much of the good stuff sounds like it was written during a psychotic episode. That may be appropriate to the present age, and one more reason why I wish I was living in a different one.

Michael

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Nope. Sorry, but you can't get more reflective than Dylan was on his albums from The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan on through Blond on Blond. And he was far from being the only one of that era.

By "reflective" I wasn't mainly referring to lyrics. But pop music has become more aware of its own historicity. You can hear it in all sorts of sampling, allusions, quotations, borrowings of style.

What triggered my -- admittedly somewhat smartassy -- response was a certain rockistic old fart yearning for the good old days implicit in some of the posts in this thread.

FWIW, I sort of agree with your assessment of the rock era, and I think you know that I share your valuation of old Dylan. But rock isn't synonymous with pop music, it just happened to occupy a hegemonic position for a few years. And considering some of the atrocities of mid-70s through 80s rock, it's a good thing that it has lost it.

Today's pop music is a chaotic and diverse collage of subgenres, and for those who seek (and have a lot of time), there's good music to be found in most of them. There's no central place "where it's at" anymore (if there ever was one), and there are arguably more hot spots in genres like house, electro, or ambient than in the aftermath of rock these days. But even in the post-punk alternative genre there's music that I wouldn't rank behind some of the heroes of classical rock.

There's good song-writing as well, albeit possibly not on the same level as Dylan. Maybe you could say that for a brief moment, mainstream rock managed to combine aspects of pop music like danceability, sexiness, liturgy, rebellion, that have subsequently become "functionally differentiated" to some extent. You can certainly do better in terms of sexiness and danceability than rockers' beer bellies and guitar solo wanking... ;)

Maybe some people miss the unity. I suspect it also has something to do with the years of your formative experience. Seems safe to assume that those years were during the rock era for a good part of the population of a forum like this.

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