Music

As a 64 y.o. I sometimes think I'm 'past music'. It's all so pretentious nowadays. So still stuck in the Stones and the 70's although maybe there've been a couple of half-decent acts in the intervening years. Suzie? Travis? Arctic Monkeys?

Then this afternoon I'm messing about on the Spotify blues section. And up pops this 19 y.o. guy from Massachusetts called Quinn Sullivan with his album Midnight Highway.

And not only can he play his guitar and belt it out like a goodun' but he can also construct a song that speaks to me 45 years down the track. Especially the title track. And all is forgiven.

So what's it like for everyone else?

 

Given up on “new” music. Mainly listen to classical and jazz now - plus old faves from the 70s and 80s.

 

Each generation will have 'their' music but there are gems from all eras, it's just a question of wading thru all the dross.
I'm currently listening to Buffalo Springfield but 'Black Willow' by Loma is a new favourite.

 

Two types of music speak to most people. Music from their teenage years, when everything was changing so fast and you could place a song with whatever was going on in your life at the time; and music which is objectively good. Lots of good stuff in the 30s and 60s, less nowadays, though I'm sure there's some.

I was in New Zealand recently and all the background music I heard in bars, restaurants and shops dated from the second half f the 60s and early 70s. There's a reason for that, and not just that NZ is behind the times

 

Current music is largely ****. Sam Smith, ed Sheehan, little mix...it's just totally forgettable. I listen to a music from70s onwards and the occasional recent album like rag'n'bone man . Just had the misfortune to sit through sounds like Friday night.

 

Try Quinn Sullivan then.

 

OK. Will report back.

 

Manic Street Preachers.

Meeting them tomorrow at Rough Trade for a Q and A. Shame the new album is pants but they are entitled to a duff album seeing as it's number 13 for them

 

As a trained musician, all of you muggles have opinions of no worth so you might as well stop pretending you can identify a good piece of music. You wouldn't recognise Raymond Blanc quality if it bit you in the donglies!

 

Hold on. It’s irrelevant what anyone thinks because Molly is a musician. The rest of us are simply not qualified to have an opinion.

 

Hey, I made the snide comment first! Gerrof my lawn.

 

Is it because NZ is behind the times?

Btw, are you Chris Woakes?

 

Last time I dined at Le Manoir, the food, as plated, was dead.

Which was all I expected.

Has it all gone wrong under Terry May?

 

Probably my favourite band over the course of my life (along with New Order) - I'm 41. Lyrically, I don't think there's been anyone as consistently good over that time.

They have a habit of releasing the odd duff album and come back with a belter when you think they're finished.

I still pick up quite a lot of modern stuff - Alvvays and Everything Everything are my latest favourites.

Every generation thinks modern stuff is not a patch on their youth, but I disagree. You just have to look a bit harder when you're not a youth.

 

Quite into Peace at the moment. From Under Liquid Glass is a belting tune

 

It is quite amusing when someone waxes lyrical about a song/band which is the culinary equivalent of beans on toast.

Now I like a bit of beans on toast as much as the next person, but I'm not going to talk like it's the dish to end all dishes.

As a general rule, if there's a drum that barely alters its beat throughout the entire song (it's an instrument as much as any other - imagine a singer sticking to exactly the same note throughout), if the bass is equally repetitive, if the whole song's material can be condensed into about half a minute without repeats, if the chords are so basic and predictable that any half decent guitarist could play along after a single hearing, if the vocal harmonies are just someone following the melody a 3rd above, then what you have is beans on toast. Pleasant, satisfying, but no more than that.

That said, music is designed for different things - dance music for example is all about making people dance, so it needs to be judged on that, not it's musical worth. Stuff like the Manic Street Preachers is about a catchy tune that gets people through a mind numbing day at a factory.

Perhaps the title of the thread needs to be more specific.

 

Be honest, you were thinking of Status Quo when you wrote that third paragraph.

 

Trouble is the last 4 or 5 have been duff. Lifeblood was the last decent one. The guitar and energy/emotion in"1985" is something else.

 

Futurology was great plus the tour too. Did both nights at Brixton. Amazing.Send Away The Tigers was a great tour and good comeback. Journal brilliant but a hard listen if not a Holy Bible disciple like me!

 

Nice

 

Amazing to think that "You're love alone" was more than 10 years ago.
"1985" still the best track for me, the guitar noise at full blast is just great. "Door to the river" and "Motorcycle emptiness" great too plus of course the usual singles.
Nothing they have done in the last 10 years has really grabbed me like the older stuff. They seem to have run out of ideas.

 

Still great live!

 

Great gig. The anger and passion is still there.

 

This is what I love about Simon Rattle. He waves that baton like he really hates the orchestra.

 

I was sort of in agreement with you but I think some artists transcend the 'obviousness' of their chord structures, bass lines, melodies. For me, for example, Tom Petty tunes- you can listen once and know the chord changes - you can play the bass lines with one finger etc, but it doesn't stop the whole thing from being great. Also I think your dismissal of the Manics is unfair - I'm not a huge fan, but Design for Life and If You Tolerate This are terrific tunes with great lyrics, and the first time you hear them the tunes don't go where you would necessarily expect them to. Foo Fighters similarly. I've been learning the bass parts to some Miles Davis tunes and it is a challenge and is definitely improving my playing but to me 'So What' = 'Freefallin' = 'Boogie Wonderland' = 'Always Something There To Remind Me' = 'Rachmaninov No 2' = 'Get Lucky'. All masterpieces of their genre, even though some of them might fall into your classification of 'Beans on Toast'. How would you assess 'All along the Watchtower' (Dylan version)? C#m B A B C#m B A B, three note melody, drums don't change for the whole song...?

 

I don't work in a factory and I got into Rimbaud, Plath and Camus as a result of the Manics. Music can be bread and butter or gourmet. Essentially it's a buffet though for taking the best bits.

 

Having just youtubed it, it's exactly as you describe - it's pleasant enough for a bit, but the drums soon got on my nerves and I'd had enough of the chords by the second verse, especially knowing that they weren't ever going to change.

Compare it to a Chopin Nocturn, and it's just laughable that they both come under the same term 'music', such is the gulf in compositional achievement.

I can understand when people get irked that their favourite band is dismissed as trite or musically worthless, since they might well have invested some of their own personality into that band (dressing like them, decorating their room in their merchandise etc), and that must feel like a personal attack - but that doesn't alter the truth.

Luckily for them, Dylan's 'Along the Watchtower' is far more likely to be compared with 'Achy Breaky Heart' than a Chopin Nocturn, so its musical worth is usually heightened (albeit artificially) and everyone is happy in their little bubbles.

 

Now you are being a d1ck. Chopin noted for his lyrics, was he? I've got no particular drum to beat for Dylan, but to dismiss it as on the same level of Billy Ray Cyrus is just obtuse. I've got a feeling that you are, frankly, a musical snob (who can't spell Nocturne) - you feel immensely superior with your knowledge of Shostakovich and Philip Glass, no doubt, but in fact you just don't 'get' music. You know all the references, the musical constructions, the technical terms, but it doesn't really move you. To put it another way, you've got no soul.

 

There is no snobbery in stating that some music is worlds better than others. It simply is.

I enjoyed reading Conn Iggulden's 'The Conquerer' series immensly - I thought they were a pulsating and thrilling read - but I'm not going to get into a row with someone that appreciactes all the subtleties of Russian literature and claim that 'Wolf of the Plains' is right up there with anything Tolstoy and Dostoevsky could pen, they've got no soul and don't 'get' literature. That really would make me a d1ck.

I don't feel the least bit superior - after all, it isn't me that wrote the Nocturne.

As for the lyrics, that's the problem with this thread - I guess you'd have to have a pop at someone that knew about poetry and accuse them of having no soul because they happen to appreciate Philip Larkin - not really my field, sorry.

 

But you are effectively stating that some genres of music are better than others. Baroque vs Romantic? Which is better? Plainsong vs Bluebeat? Meaningless. It's like comparing Marlowe to Irving Welch. Your assertion that "that some music is worlds better than others" is simply an opinion. No doubt you would not find many who would claim the Wurzels were better than Beethoven, but I'd probably rather listen to Oi Am A Coider Drinker than anything by Arvo Pärt; many would listen to Pärt and knowing that he had won BBC's composer of the year, think 'Emperor's New Clothes', because 'they didn't understand'.

 

As a rule, Romantic over Classical and Baroque, simply because of the advances in harmony and form , Baroque over Renaissance for similar reasons (although there are obvious exceptions to this rule) and having just youtubed 4 seconds of Bluebeat I'd have Plainsong edging it, although it isn't really music as such - more advanced chanting.

What we choose/prefer to listen to and what is better is not the same thing at all.

 

Have it your way, the fact that you had to google bluebeat suggests there are many different types of music you are missing out on, all of which have some excellence within them. Your loss.

 

I suppose it's a question of approach - I prefer to visit a jeweller to find a gem, whilst you rumage around in dumpsters - nothing to say you won't unearth something truly astounding, but I imagine my chances are greater.

 

Of course your chances aren't greater - you already know 95% of the music you are ever going to know.

 

How so? Are you under the impression that a Bach Partita is the same played by Jasha Heifetz as Nigel Kennedy?