It's about what ubk said many times.

It's my own stupid fault for demanding that modern music doesn't change. After a guzzled beer, I realize this.

Those old school characteristics are indeed addictive or habit forming, especially if you don't compromise on them (like a strict old baffoon).

It's also my own stupid fault for restricting myself to the mainstream corridor. There's lots of room outside of that in 2012. TONS of room.

I'm unable to have the view creegstor and T'Mershi do - that uncompromising view - demanding that the artistic standards of the past remain constant. It was driving me nuts the last few days. My own stupid fault.

I now will spend the next week figuring out a way to adapt to the new reality of music in 2012. Intelligence = adaptive ability. I don't want to be stupid or self-punishing anymore. And anyone who has success in the modern music industry in the 21st century, I hope it gives them a good life, a good standard of living for a very very long time and I hope their fans have joy too.

That's it. No sarcasm. My apologies for being stagnant, narrow minded and stupid.

Sincerely,

Happy Musicfan


P.S. I know there's a ton of good music out there, I just have to open my ears and my eyes considerably. It's not 1979, or 1968, or 1982 anymore.

Back in the 70s, when someone posted a mea culpa, they always used a lot more sarcasm and blamed it on other people, not like today where people get all sincere and just cave in and admit that they might be wrong or something. Oy vey, the world is collapsing.

Congratulations good sir.

Preach it!

I don't seem to have much love for the music being made today, mainstream or otherwise. This could bug the hell out of me, but it doesn't.

As luck would have it, damn near all the music that was ever recorded is now at my fingertips, and they keep unearthing more every day. Turns out I don't need music that's new, I just need music that's new to me.

And in that light this is possibly the coolest part about being alive right now: you don't have to like what anyone else likes, not with music, not with food, not with lifestyle choices... none of us are beholden to the aesthetic fashions of the day.

The modern cultural archive is extensive and damn near ubiquitous... so dig in, feast on what you love and ignore the rest. And if you truly believe something is conspicuously absent, I reckon it's your sacred duty to create it, something about 'being the change'.

Besides, making art beats bitchin' about life, that much I promise.


Gregory Scott - ubk

Great point.
I like a decent amount of newly made music, but there's hours and hours of stuff from the last 50 years I haven't got around to checking out yet.

I really enjoy tracing the influences of my favourite contemporary artists, sometimes I'll already know the older artists but often I'll find something that I'd never heard before.

A good example of this was Nine Inch Nails. Had been a massive NiN fan for over a decade, and then finally got around to checking out Gary Numan. Blew my mind.

Yeah, the idea that only new music is relevant and old music is irrelevant seems like a pretty narrow and close-minded way of looking at things...

and you can trace him back to Bowie and Marc Bolan...and you can trace Bowie back to Anthony Newley, The Beatles and many others...and you can trace Marc Bolan to Chuck Berry, Gene Vincent and Bob Dylan...

^ This is what I would have said. But I'll add that whenever I'm confronted with something I don't like, don't understand, not comfortable with, don't get.. instead of closing off and pushing it away, I find myself asking what I'm missing. Why would someone else enjoy this thing? What are they getting from it? Perhaps I could find something in it to enjoy, something I haven't noticed or considered from the right mindset. Perhaps I just need to find some "missing links" before I can appreciate this new thing.

I have really little love for what's being done in the "mainstream"... but its not important that I have any love for that... its important that there are a few bazzillion kidz that think its good - the mainstream is for their generation - not mine.

However - there is soooooo much cool stuff being done in the "now" that I'm not forced to suffer the crap the majors are spewing these days. Prypyat is really excellent... taking some traditional instruments and doing some new and exciting things with them. Terry Anderson and the Olympic Ass Kickin' Team - great "bar band" stuff... and I constantly find stuff I need to look into more on Pandora [like I discovered R.L. Burnside a couple of months ago... seems like he's been around for a good long while but its all new music to me].

What's really unfortunate is that mainstream music companies and radio have abandoned anything other than the Lady Gaga bull**** of the world. If you think about it there is no way Warner Bros. goes anywhere near Frank Zappa today... but they did in the 70's. There's no way Kraftwerk gets on modern radio if they came out today... but they did back then. It seems that you have to look harder to find interesting music... but at least in my world, its worth the effort... in your world, things could be different.

Peace

No offence, but this seems like an episode of grumpy old men.

I know people in there 40's / 50's / 60's who love music that has / is coming out now.

It seems like there is a change is scary situation, the people who survive are the ones who get on board.. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying people have to like anything or even much.

But come on, adapt..

I like classical
I like Melodic Death metal
I like artists like Usher
I like Moody Blues

I just like good music, made by talented people.

There is so much I like, you just have to find the positive.. Stop being stuck in your ways and look to the future.

I don't think Jimi Hendrix made the music he did to sell to bazillions. I think he did it for one person. He was totally immersed in what he was doing, not trying to impress anyone, it just happened.

Make the music that turns you on when you play it back. If it is good enough other people will feel it too. If it is really good you might even make a living off of it.

It takes time to come around and be able to approach music from a different angle than you're used to. I know from experience. It took me a very long time to stop wanting/expecting everything I heard to have more chords, harmonies, structure, time signature changes, i.e. basically be prog rock! It really helps to have friends who love music and can point out to you some things that are cool about the things they like.

It's about listening to what is there instead of what they could be doing. Like, every song could be made more complex and more musically challenging potentially --- but would that really help it achieve its aims any better? Or would it just impress music studies majors? If a song is about a groove, or about a feeling, or about a character, does it really need to start veering off and exploring every possible direction? It's better to focus on what is there. And if you're only just looking at this whole other cultural world with an open mind for really the first time as I'd tried to in the past, everything can seem like BS until you have learned enough of the context to be able to properly understand what's going on; that's especially true when dealing with pop music as so much of it is based on the current. It's why it's easier to relate to the pop music we grew up with -- because you know what they're talking about! I didn't grow up listening to hip hop. It took a while for me to start getting what a lot of rappers were saying, to understand where production was at in each decade and be able to spot who was ahead of their time.

But obviously you know, it's not just about hip hop or pop music, that's just the surface. There's just so much out there that you're bound to find something that you legitimately and instinctually love if you try enough stuff. And it's so easy to try stuff! Get on Spotify and click around, get on Pandora, get on youtube and look at related videos for stuff you like, ask friends what their most recent music obsession is and actually listen to it, etc. And even if you listen to everything under the sun and determine, it really is only harmonically advanced classic pop-influenced music that does it for you, there's a ton of it that's been going on in the last two decades or so to dig up. It's certainly not a forgotten art.

So yeah, hopefully you're somewhat sincere about all that in the first post and if you are I think it's great to actually acknowledge that it's going to take a little bit of work to break the paradigm. Certainly give it more than a week. But I can tell you, once you find something new that you never would have thought you'd be into but are nonetheless genuinely curious about, you might be falling into the rabbit hole at that point. Keeping up with new music can at times be a totally different way of experiencing music than digging up old art-rock albums to listen to in their entirety, and it's a lot of fun, and it can totally co-exist with a love and appreciation for great music from the past.

I was into hiphop, technology, loops, sampling, the whole bit...always into whatever was "new" and happening...then I got completely bored with it, probably because there's not much going on there and I don't like it enough to be into it anyway...

...I like most every kind of music to a certain degree...

But life's too short to listen to music that I don't like or admire or that doesn't really move me...and I'm not going to feel bad, or feel out of it as if I don't "get it"...

If other people want to torture themselves, it's fine with me...

No offense taken; for what it's worth, the old men here seem at peace with where things are at, in fact that's the whole point of this thread.

Your post, on the other hand, sounds a bit like an episode of grumpy young men.

"Don't get me wrong I'm not saying people have to like anything or even much."

Actually, it sounded like you were saying exactly that:

"But come on, adapt... Stop being stuck in your ways and look to the future"

It is entirely possible to respect and embrace one's ways without being 'stuck' in them. Being 'stuck' implies that something is wrong and I can't get where I'm going, but the beautiful thing about life is that you can't *not* get where you're going.

You are, in fact, always there.


Gregory Scott - ubk

Well said. This is the crux of it. Its generally others that are doing this that I enjoy listening to, whether they be on the scene currently or something from the 20th century.

I can find plenty to be excited about these days in music, both on my "tone slut" and "art slut" sides. It is actually these days that the two worlds collide in such an interesting way. The computer as a creative tool has really brought sound manipulation to new levels, and this married to well crafted "fringe" music is a new frontier for exploration.

Couple this with the fact that "tone barriers" outside of the pop realm are completely broken down to the point where radically varying tonal approaches can be artistically used to enhance the mood of music freely, at will, without great judgement from critical listeners. These things among many others are something to get excited about for sure and to experiment with.

Russell

It's always a little iffy to claim that musicians did what they did purely for the art. In the many, many documentaries I've seen about musicians of the past, I don't think a one of them has given the impression that this is true.

One I was watching the other day had an interview with BB King, who you'd think would be on that for the art side of things for sure. But he said he grew up in a church where the pastor played guitar. So he wanted to be like that and be a preacher who played guitar. But, when he went out on the corner to play, people would pat his head when played a religious song, but they'd put money in the hat when he played some blues. He said that's what really got him interested in going in that direction.

And it's hard to count the number who said that they got into it for the girls, or least the perceived girls, and that the money certainly didn't hurt.

Anyhoo, I'm not try to contradict the believe that some musicians are in it more for the art than others, since that's pretty clearly obvious. Anyone who has gotten to legend status and has serious technical ability can't have been in it just for the chicks. But the motivations always seem a lot more complicated than just for the art when you hear them talk about what got them into the business side of music.

To me, the computer as creative tool seems (and sounds) like an old frontier...but maybe you're right...

I think if someone is blessed, it doesn't matter what their motivation is...

I think it's just hard to answer such a question, or even be sure of one's own motivations sometimes.


Yes!

well said, man. we could all benefit from wakeup calls like that. Peace. props

I was slightly drunk and exhausted, which is why I said that (1st post in this thread). I thought I was being mean, but in reality, I was calling it as it is by saying the musical standards in pop music 1965-1985 were higher than they are today in regards to : melody, harmony, chords, natural singing, natural instrumentalism, songwriting, lyrical poetry and dynamics.

As someone who respects those elements / song ingredients, I just can't sit idly by as they are continually neglected, ignored, dismissed or trashed. This eventually would lead to their elimination.

Then, we'd have music without musical elements. Music without musicians. Music without the art.

To end this post positively and constructively : Janelle Monae, Bruno Mars, Coldplay, Radiohead and Adele are 5 who are entirely respectful of the 1965-1985 pop music standard.

And yes, there are many many more as well, both in and out of the mainstream. I really sense a resurgent groundswell of respect for those old school standards coming back. Most people hunger for it, instinctively. They hunger for *real* music.

I actually think in a way that music as an artform needs a periodic diversion from the basic rules and normalcy that is the basis for "great" music.

Think of the serialist movement as an example. It was (from my viewpoint) a reaction to what was becoming an over saturation of the (i think) romantic music (which was degrading in quality) of the time.

Maybe what we're seeing in the majority of the pop charts ATM is a reaction to the overly cloying pop that was in vogue up until recently? Pop is definitely becoming more aggressive sounding on a whole IMO.

It doesn't really bother me much either way - i dont pay too much attention to what is on the radio - but it is something to think about.

Well, there are musical futurists and musical traditionalists. I don't see why the futurist camp thinks they have to abandon and trash most or all of the old school elements of the traditionalists in order to provide something new, fresh and exciting.

Of course, they might be trying to carve out their own sound by neglecting melodic themes, harmonic progressions, natural vocal skills, natural instrumental skills, songwriting skills and dynamics in order to simply provide sonic carnivalshock.

I'd be surprised if anyone was thinking about it much one way or the other...

Janelle Monae, Bruno Mars, Coldplay, Radiohead and Adele and 1000's of other modern acts are trying to be unique without disrespecting or neglecting traditional musical requirements.

They are certainly thinking about incorporating those aspects into their songs, maybe subconsciously though, rather than consciously.

Go and make some then man...... and prove the modern musician wrong.

I'm heading back to Quebec this spring, to form a Jazz Quartet with 2 former classmates of mine. My pop-rock dreams might recover in 2-3 years or so, at the earliest.

There are plenty of 'new traditionalists' to fill the vacancy until then.

But to return the sentiment, I'd like you to be hired by a band who needs a skilled musican, you seem to be even *more* stuck in the modern paradigm pitfalls than I am.

Seriously.

I think - especially in Radioheads case - they're just concerned about writing music that they enjoy. I doubt that even subconsciously they'd be thinking about it. The more mainstream artists might be though.

You are right. But in Radiohead's case, they have enough respect for (and history *in*) songcrafting, that their respect and value for melodies, chords, lyrical poetry and overall artistry always seems to come through strongly.... even though it's not consciously on their radar.