Pop "Music:" None Dare Call It So

[Guest]

Junk. Garbage. Noise. THEFT.

So-called "musicians" assaulting the minds, ears and wallets of the world are getting away with it because no one stands up to them.

No-talent clods whose only attribute may be the audacity of their attempt to pluck the public's cash are called "singers," "composers," "instrumentalists," "performers" and "stars."

Are YOU one of the guilty people who will inanely allow such jerks to claim those titles - because you don't have the courage, intellect, or simple guts to barf when this crap is offered for your consumption?

Here's a board set up to allow you to beat your breast, to apologize for buying recordings by Fiona Apple or Blondie or the Go Go's - and other no-talent, no voice, no value schlubs foisted on the public by crafty corporations.

If you are one of the jerks who thinks such latrine filling is "art," go to another board. Make your own haven for the mentally deficient. Drool in a corner with a crowd whose collective IQ, including yours, is 8. This topic is for people who want to warn the unwary about the music pimps.

 

[Dixon Carter Lee]

Thanks for letting me know that you've pissed on this corner of the BB and claimed it as your own territory, but I think I'll pass through anyway. Sure, there's lots o crap out there, but I don't think Blondie and Fiona are really the best examples. Why so vehement? Whassamter? Somebody smack you in the face with a Brittney Spear CD today?

 

[Guest]

Originally posted by Dixon Carter Lee:
Thanks for letting me know that you've pissed on this corner of the BB ... Sure, there's lots o crap out there, but I don't think Blondie and Fiona are really the best examples ... Somebody smack you in the face with a Brittney Spear CD today?

Just remember to wipe your feet before trudging on .... actually, I had to get the restaurant manager today to tell the bubble brain behind the bar to turn the disgusting junk off - when I complained about the nauseating crap on the radio, the idiot wailed, "but that's FIONA APPLE!" Garbage like that, probably really a recording of the agony of a sick cow being poked with a sharp needle, is a threat to public health.

As for Britney Spears, I'd rather see her naked with tape over her mouth.

So far, nothing remotely resembling "music" has come up.

 

[Lasher]

Sure, I'd love to live in a world where the only band that exists is the Dead Milkmen, but I'm also a realist and know that is not gonna happen.

I understand your pain Swordsman, I feel it too, but the subject at hand is too subjective to argue on any type of rational basis. Hell, who's gonna decide what is good and what is bad. Robert Pirsig drove himself insane trying to define "Quality", I sure as hell don't want to take his place. And I'm damn sure I don't want you deciding, cause you've never heard of 90% of the bands I listen too. I don't want some schmuck in BumFuck County, West Virginia deciding cause I real hate country music. I don't want someone in England deciding, cause the English don't make any fucking sense. And have you heard any of the crap that's come out of Japan (anyone remember Loudness?) - I don't want them deciding either. So on that part of the equation you're just about fucked, Swordsman.

Now I'm really gonna drive you nuts. You know what my wife and I did tonite? We went and saw the touring production of "Cabaret" ( I know you must absolutely fucking hate show tunes)...with Lea Thompson appearing as Sally Bowles (who, btw, has a fairly decent voice for a sitcom reject). I'm sure you're rolling in your own piss after that one.

See what happens when you don't take your Prozac, Swordsman. Make sure you get that refilled in the morning.

http://www.geocities.com/r337m0nk3y/icw/004.gif Abandon Hope All Ye That Post Here

 

[Svedish_Chef]

Originally posted by Super Swordsman:
Junk. Garbage. Noise. THEFT.

Here's a board set up to allow you to beat your breast, to apologize for buying recordings by Fiona Apple or Blondie or the Go Go's - and other no-talent, no voice, no value schlubs foisted on the public by crafty corporations.

Hey I like Fiona Apple, also Tool, Led Zep, Floyd, etc and I will never be sorry for what I like!!!!!!

 

[Destroyah1981]

I really hate Brittney Spears and all them
other stupid "pop'singers.I mean,in POP,
all you have to do is be good looking and
you will be number 1!!!!!!!

I listen to 80's rock.Van Halen,AC/DC,
Whitesnake,Guns and Roses....groups
like that.

Face it,90% 0f todays music a trash
and I guess I just have to live with
it.

Originally posted by Super Swordsman:
Junk. Garbage. Noise. THEFT.

So-called "musicians" assaulting the minds, ears and wallets of the world are getting away with it because no one stands up to them.

No-talent clods whose only attribute may be the audacity of their attempt to pluck the public's cash are called "singers," "composers," "instrumentalists," "performers" and "stars."

Are YOU one of the guilty people who will inanely allow such jerks to claim those titles - because you don't have the courage, intellect, or simple guts to barf when this crap is offered for your consumption?

Here's a board set up to allow you to beat your breast, to apologize for buying recordings by Fiona Apple or Blondie or the Go Go's - and other no-talent, no voice, no value schlubs foisted on the public by crafty corporations.

If you are one of the jerks who thinks such latrine filling is "art," go to another board. Make your own haven for the mentally deficient. Drool in a corner with a crowd whose collective IQ, including yours, is 8. This topic is for people who want to warn the unwary about the music pimps.

 

[Laurel]

For all of you espousing your love for Britney, make sure you check the news section of the front page of the site today (5/21/00) for an exciting link...

 

[Lasher]

I heard about that about a week ago. Tried to block it out, thought maybe the damn thing would go away.....

Somewhere in between shots of Tequila and mescaline, Hunter S. Thompson is saying, "I can't believe I used to write for that rag".

 

[Hurley International]

FUCK THE MUSIC INDUSTRY!
thats all I have to say
I love being on a independent record label where I can say that!

 

[MunchinMark]

Originally posted by Lasher99:
I don't want someone in England deciding, cause the English don't make any fucking sense.

Yes we do. Just because you don't inderstand it is no reflection on us.

But I do dislike, sorry, not strong enough, despise "manufactured" bands, which I do think is what you're talking bout here, Swordsman. There is no talent here except in picking a bunch of attractive people. Actually even as I say that I realise that I am wrong. There are talented people involved here. The ones who persuade us to accept this stuff, now that takes ability.

Worry not, sometime there has got to be a backlash and some decent stuff will be heard in the land.

 

[Lasher]

My original comment:

I don't want someone in England deciding, cause the English don't make any fucking sense.

Someone's reply:

Yes we do. Just because you don't inderstand it is no reflection on us.

My response:

YEH?? Then explain Oasis!!

 

[Dionysus]

Yeh.How do you explain Oasis, Bush, Right said Fred or the slew of other bands that pass for British music.

Are you guys in the UK trying to get back at us for losing the War? Or is it for bailing your country out twice(WW1&2).

ttfn
ps
I am a big New Model Army fan.

 

[Cyra_3]

Please Lasher and Dionysus, if you are angry with somebody's comments could you take it out on them and not a whole nation?

 

[Xander]

Jenna64:
Did you have to bring Scott, Aitkin and Waterman up *waaaaaaaaa*
I had selectivly erased them from my memory.

Mind you though. Kylie Minogue did make one hell of a record a few yrs ago. And I never thought I would pay for a Kylie Minogue record. But now I'm glad I did. It rocks wildly.

 

[Ravenloft]

Fuck it raw Hurley! Fuck it bloody RAW!!! Muahahah!!!

 

[MunchinMark]

Right Said Fred? let me guess, they had a huge career over there. Two hit wonders don't count. And Oasis were good, once.

And Cyra_3 is right. Don't bring nationality into this, it's not fair on the country that didnt exist until after the war I think your talking about.

[This message has been edited by MunchinMark (edited 05-22-2000).]

[This message has been edited by MunchinMark (edited 05-22-2000).]

 

[Jenne64]

Settle down boys-))
I'm British in case you didn't know. Some of the Uk music is great some stinks, same in the US if you ask me. I can't stand Britney Spears, Christina whats ever her name is, Steps or any of the mass manafactured bands either just don't tell my kids that or there will be a war in our house.
You can't beat the Mass market but you don't have to join it either. If the kids are buying it then the record companies will manufacture it, remember Kylie Minogue, Jason Donavan from the 80's or am I showing my age here-))Blame Scott, Aitken and Waterman for it all, they started the ball rolling in the first place.
Here's an interesting and little known fact Music like fashion reinvents it's self every nine years apparently. I reckon it's about time for some more Rock and Roll-)) Now there's a cheery thought or not as the case may be.
Be yourself and listen to what ever makes you happy be that classical, 50's, 80's or anything inbetween.
What was wrong with Right Said Fred anyway?

Jenne bows out gracefully before the missiles are thrown across the atlantic once more.

 

[Dionysus]

Ahhhhh nothing like pissing the Brits off. Better to be pissed off than pissed on unless you getting pissed.

I hold no ill will towards my Brit counterparts. I sometimes get a little abrasive. Oh well. That's life.

I even like the beer there but the food kinda's bland. Except for a good curry.

 

[Cyra_3]

I have to disagree with you again, the beer tastes like piss, sorry.

 

[Lasher]

Who's angry? I just want someone to explain Oasis to me.

 

[Svedish_Chef]

Um Oasis are angry!!!! I don't know how to explain that except Faith No More worked that way till they imploded...

And I like Oasis too just nowhere near as much as BLUR

 

[Bigdog]

Concerning the US/UK battle, there is plenty of bubble-gum from both sides of the ocean. I feel it serves a purpose in that it generates interest from the youth towards music, even though it may be fleeting. After all, how many of you listen to the same bands now that you did at 9 or 10? Tastes change as we get older and are exposed to different styles of music, most of us end up with interests that span several categories. Granted, not too many of us end up with John Tesh lined up next to AC/DC, but look at the "Favorite Bands" thread and you will see many of us admit to quite a range of likes.

Do I agree with SS that much of today's music is total crap? Hell yes! But without it, there would be no catalyst for the next generation of bands to rise above the drivel and become the next "Big Thing" by creating their own sound or reviving the styles we have come to love over the decades.

BTW, Xander, what is the name of the KM recording you spoke of? It sounds intersting. Some of my favorite discs are those I picked up on a recommendation.

bigdog

 

[MunchinMark]

Everyone calm now? OK within normal levels of insanity.
I don't think I can explain any group at all, they're people who are making a damn sight more money than me, that's all I know.
But I will always be suspicious of anyone who :
A) Calls themselves a "group" rather than a band.
B) is never seen on stage with an instrument.
If this is you than you are not a musician, you are a dancer. Even if you're a rich one.

 

[Guest]

Interesting .... what serious discussion is posted here tends to be more about the comparative virtues of the "music" of one decade of pop versus another ... still, it is refeshing to discover some people actually *thinking* ....

Perhaps now woud be a good time for the incurable shit-stirrer (MOI?) lay in a few more comments to explain:

A) WHY this subject is even suitable on a discussion board aimed at writers and readers; and,

B) WHAT standards the shit-stirrer had in mind when laying into pop "music."

"A" is a simple answer, but difficult thought. Writers expose life - even writers of erotica - in fresh ways. Writers also are part of the cultural mechanism of "collective memory" .... even those of us who write entirely in the moment save some of that moment, preserve it like a tableau frozen on a stage.

Those writers who THINK about their work are also often the people who link the present culture with its past. So it does not hurt us to occasionally look at those links, and in today's culture the *idea* of music, of performance and skill, of genuine talent as opposed to manufactured, glib, maketing of garbage, is a forgotten subject. As writers maybe some of us might influence the hoodwinked victims of "pop culture," suggest to them that they are free to join in the shocked cry, "The Emperor has no clothes!"

Which easliy segues to (B) - what do I, at least, propose defines the "clothing" for real music?

"Music" is a cumulative and visceral art. Pehaps some anthropologists will sigh and swoon in joy if ever an inventor's time machines retrieves the organized grunting, squeals, thumpings, and hootings of early humanity's campfire singalongs. I personally would find that a fascinating look into origins, but am unlikely to choose such primitive music as my evening pacifier.

Still, the contributions of cave men, David and his harp, or the entertainers of Imperial Rome did however, cumulatively extend the craft, knowledge, and form of music. And the many millenia of human musical effort passed along a growing capability to create music of rich diversity and splendor - as well as passing fads hardly worth remembering.

Today we CAN look back at a rich musical heritage in which both the junk and the jewels are easily spotted. That's one reason it pains me so much to see how public taste has been so viciously perverted in the past 50-60 years. The people whose main cultural development has been shaped by mass media since about 1970, especially, have been deprived. The message has been that beautiful, disciplined voices used by educated musicians, producing well-crafted and artistic music, is boring, uninteresting, unpopular and unworthy.

Rather, untalented persons wo cannot play instrments, whose voices are ugly and limited, working with so-called "rebellious" or "innovative" expressions inappopriately called "music" (Yes, I think this is crap without any socially redeeming value) are held out in the popular parlance as "art."

Talk about educating the people to be stupid and uncritical!

Do I thus declare ALL "popular music" to be gilded crap? Actually, no.
Every once in a while, despite the business and social pressures to "dumb down," some genuinely good work shows up in the pop genre:

- an outstanding performance, whether of good, pedestrian or even terrible composition (Frank Sinatra managed two or three of these around 1949, for example - otherwise he stank);

- outstandid penetrating lyrics; or,

- (this almost NEVER!) an original piece of excellent composition (most of the melodies of pop are recycled, in the few pieces today which even HAVE melodies); and,

- God forbid! sometimes, most rarely, all three in combination.

We have such a superb body of greatness from which to draw a concept of standards and a measuring stick for excellence. We know that besides great work, there were some awful bombs created by Byrd, Dufay, Vivaldi, Buxtehude, Bach, Mozart, Haendel, Beethoven, Chopin, Verdi, Puccini, D'Indy, Stravinsky, Weill, Thompson, Hammerstein, and Bernstein. We know they wrote some junk because we have learned to appreciate the GREAT creations of their minds and their contemporaries'.

Want to hear something REALLY freaky? Listen to the last song in Korngold's "City of the Dead." NOTHING any pop group or performer today attempts could be as scary, penetrating or innovative.

By the way - I minored in fine arts in college, did graduate work in Early Music, studied voice and Renaissance instruments for 7 years, was a staff church singer for 20 years, performed with touring companies producing Broadway musicals, sang with a small opera company in California and get laid regularly thanks to piano bars.

I liked The Doors, got really excited about some of Iron Butterfly, actually discovered a couple of good works in the Eagles and later groups,and even now do spot a very rare gem in pop music. But except for the touring companies, I haven't made my living in music, just my pleasure. ( OK, some beer money, too.)