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Artless? I don't think the charts were ever about art... more about milking schoolgirls of their pocket money.
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Hummmm.. Well maybe true. The Beatles got a lot of school girl pocket money for sure BUT they did it with classy music that was full of “art”. Led Zep got a lot of school boy money with plenty of “art” as well, at least in my book. Nirvana got a whole lot of money from both boys and girls and they did some cool stuff as well that I think deserves some praise. Tool is fantastic (at least the first 3 CDs) and I think they did a great amout of “art” while selling a bunch of albums.
Every single song that the Beatles released was released with one thought in mind, be a number one hit. The production was geared towards it, the lyrics were geared towards it, the damn album art was geared towards it even. Did that make it bad?? Hell no!!! At least not to me and a whole pack of school girls.
I personally am NOT a big fan of much new music I do love some of it. In the end I think the goal is to produce something that you like and that others like enough to spend money on.…
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and OK, it does sound a complete rip of "Waiting for a girl like you" by Foreigner HOWEVER.........
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Paul McCartney once said (paraphrasing) we stole everything we ever wrote and we wondered how we never got caught. In the end we are all products of our enviroment and we pick up, consciously or subconsciously, on all the music that came before, no one is really to blame I guess.
One point on this that I have pondered for a while though. In Western music (all music really) there is a finite amount of combinations available between tempo, beat, note choices and lyrics, we have to run out some day right?? To put it another way, when Elvis was Elvis they had the beginnings of rock and roll and everything was undiscovered territory. Since then we have seen funk, disco, heavy metal, pop, boy bands, girl bands, soul, easy listening, reggae, R&B, death metal, techno, grunge, new wave, cool jazz and on and on. The question is, what can possibly be NEW after all of this??
When Jimi Hendrix was Jimi Hendrix everyone said “what can anyone do to top that” and 10 years later we got Eddie VanHalen. Now we had (like it or hate it) Marilyn Manson and 10 years later we have….. ?? Nothing new….. I don’t think this is completely the fault of the record industry or the listening public I think we are (gasp) at the end of "new." (I would ve bery happy to find out I am wrong)
The internet allows people to explore ideas that would never have been heard outside of the garage. It is a great tool because it lets all of us speak but it also has the long term effect of leveling the playing field and getting more ideas out quicker to more people. Does that mean we are running out of ideas faster?? I don’t know but I think it has changed music and creativity. It allows more people to be more creative and that is good but it also tends to mix so many ideas that it becomes the great equalizer in my eyes.