It's not just nostalgia, modern pop music scientifically sucks ass.

[Walkie]

Even though Nick Cave is a fellow Strayan, I can only think of one song that I know: the serial killer ballad "Wild Rose".

He seems to much bigger over here than back  in Straya (he even lives here, in Brighton) , Has headlined  at Glastonury a few times, and is almost a houseghold name these days.  Wrote (and performed) the theme song for Peaky Blinders (Red Right Hand) so that's probably his best-known song nowadays.. . or , hang on, it might be " O children"  because that featured in a Harry Potter film . But , anyway, abck in the eighties, heandhis band The Bad Seeds  were only of interst to  misfits and weirdos, and it's taken them an extremely  long time to develop their current huge following. In the interim, he messed up his brain with drugs to the point that I got thoroughly  bored with him , and it took fervent effots from my son, plus  one or two online friends to persuade me to give his newer stuff a trial. I'm so glad I did! because (now he's clean) he just gets better and better with age.

And now i can't resist posting a link to Red Right Hand, though its not really in keeping with this topic



more to the point, here are a few links to some seventies hits that have  been mercifully forgotten (almost!  ) Beginning with that notorious paedo, Gary Glitter, demonstrating his prestigeous grooming skills





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEhkM3X_teQ



I feel a bit sorry for the Sweet, TBH, cos they were evidently better than the stupid teenybopper chunder  that their studio forced them to play ; and evidently  ill-at-ease with that material.  But that's the sort of thing that sold, and that was the price of fame and fortune.

[Walkie]

Heard this on the radio yesterday.



I love this song. Don't care what other old farts say.

it's alright, but is it really modern? sound like an old-fashioned ballad to me. There's no reason why old farts should have any problem with that, is there? i recall that my 80-year old Mum really liked the Scissor Sisters. New band, new songs, sure, but they had a familiar sound didn't they?

There's not much that's really new enough to offend the old farts sensibilities,  IMO.   There wasn't in the seventies either. My parents used to like Top of the Pops. I was the one who couldn't stand it, and vowed not to have a freaking TV, after i left home.  They didn't like Pink Floyd, cos their stuff was innovative. intelligent, and not so  melodic and predictable as pop.  but then , most of my peers disliked Floyd for the same reasons.  Then Dark Side of the Moon softened people towards them, and they became more mainstream after that. I mean, not only were they accepted into the mainstream, but their style became increasingly mainstream. And i started getting bored with them . Not a generational thing, really, but a question of  different taste.

I'm not  a music buff either, I  just tend to respond to stuff that affects me on a deeper level than disco stuff can reach.  Dance music doesn't make me feel like dancng, as a rule , with a few pdd exceptions such as Talking Heads.  Oddly enough  , my musical choices  often  correspond to what's thought to be exceptionally good, technically speaking. Well, I guess that would help, but i think it's the pure creativity and passion that's getting to me really.

In the 70s I never liked the Sex Pistols. These days I think they are kinda cool.

ah! that's the old fami';iarity factor at work , isn't it?  In the 70's , the Sex Postols were decidedly new . A few decades on, you;ve heard them. and other punk bands,  hundreds of times over.  They are now familiar.

Fuck. I'm going senile.

Wrong old song.

Mad King Bloke's favourite song is copied from "video killed the radio star".

why didnt you just edit the link? Here ya go (cos you can count me in as liking that song, too)



I  find sampling irritating, generally, but it's good, i guess if it raises interest in the original

And modern media has had a positive effect , i think, in that it;s enabled younger folk to discover a lot of the older talent for themselves... though the copyright nazis on You Tube have been  doing their damnest  to undermine that effect.  Ad it also enables them  to check out indie music  from other countries. which was next-to-impossible back in the seventies.   I've noticed that young folk nowadays often have much more eclectic tastes , as well as  more "retro"" tastes than preceding generations.  Its got harder for the Big Labels to dictate what people hear 

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

Dean Lewis's "it'll be alright" was a big current hit when I posted that. His music is excellent and he's not from the olden days.

I just figure people should like what they wanna like and maybe realize when they sound like their parents did when they were teenagers. If you wanna replay that script, that's fine, it's just that the lack of self awareness needs call i by out sometimes.

I never recall my grandfather saying a bad word about any kind of music. He was a professional muso for 60 years or so. He went through several eras of music and had heard all the same criticisms before.

I think with the sex pistols and prodigy their music was too harsh for me to appreciate, but as I got more familiar with similar styles of music I appreciated it much more.

[Walkie]

Dean Lewis's "it'll be alright" was a big current hit when I posted that. His music is excellent and he's not from the olden days.

Sorry, didn't explain myself clearly there.  I got that it was current, but coulnt see what was "modern'" about it stylistically?   Not that I think that new music has to be modern in style; that would be pretty awful    and make for even greater overload on sameness. But i thought you were citing it in support of a particular point, and ...well, nvm, it doesn't actually matter a hill of beans either way, just so long as i didn't unwittingly give offence 
What i meant was just  that it's the sort of thing an old fart could like, just as easily as as young one,  FWIW

[Walkie]

Huh. now i'm obsessing about where else I might have hit a bum note (don't worry, I'll get over it  )

the thing about my parents liking TOTP was meant to demonstrate that there was nothing much in seventies chart music  that was fundamentally new (ignoring the silly costumes)  nothing that would take folk like my parents  out of their comfort zone.  That genuinenely new stuff took them out of their comfort zone was demonstated by the fact that they scathingly dismissed nearly all the music (and literature and films and  pretty much every damned thing)  that  i liked as "weird" (Pink Floyd being cited as a telling example) .

At the same time, i was also  listening to quite a lot of folk music (mostly live, so that didn't get inflicted on them quite so much) which additional fact i hope serves to demonstrate that i certainly don't think that something needs to be fundamentally new to be worth listening to. ( I can see how I might have unwittingly implied the opposite ).  Far from it.   I actually think the striving for öriginality"in the arts in general (not just music) serves to cripple genuine talent, because "originality" springs up, IMO, only  when the tried-and-trusted  tools for expression don't suffice to express the thing that you want to express.  And not before.  You can't force it. And you don't even need it most of the time.

The TOTP stuff was painful to hear, not because it was old wine   in new skin ; but because it was horribly over-commercialised , by and large, most the songs churned out by hit-making factories like Chinnichap, without an ounce of sincerity.

In retrospect , i can see that most of the things that i thought i was saying implicitly were not coming across as expected.  There are too many other conclusions you could draw.  Oops!

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

Walkie, I got what you were saying, I don't think I got the wrong end of the stick too much. Just about the Dean Lewis track, I was kind of saying that it's current pop music. And that current pop music isn't just one style, it's diverse. And some of it would, of course, appeal to a broader audience than just kids between 10 and 25. My rants about grumpy old farts who sound like their parents are just general rants about those people my age who turned into exactly the sort of middle-aged and older people who they hated when they were young. You aren't one of those people. Scrap on the other hand....

There's various music that I didn't necessarily enjoy at the time that grows on me as my tastes change. Stuff that was ahead of its time in some ways, stuff that influenced later music. I wasn't much of a fan of Pink Floyd, but I like them now. I wasn't much of a fan of the Sex Pistols, but I like them now. I was certainly not a fan of Dire Straits, but I like them now.

There's other music that I really didn't like at the time, a lot of American soft rock for example. And it hasn't grown on me at all. I'm not saying that it's objectively bad. Country and Western music as well, not my thing generally.

[Walkie]

 

There's other music that I really didn't like at the time, a lot of American soft rock for example. And it hasn't grown on me at all. I'm not saying that it's objectively bad. Country and Western music as well, not my thing generally.

interesting that you pick those examples, cos i tend to think there's something quintessentially NT about those styles, and almost all the aspies i know have a similar aversion.  With C&W , there's a lot of sickly sentimentality in their songwriting that really turns me off, though i sometimes stumble over bits of music in that genre that i actually like...eg the Be Good Tanyas have a lot of C&W in their repertoire and I can take it from them,

With American soft rock , for me it has a sort "journeyman" feel  to it ; sincerely well-executed foot-tapping stuff that has nothing much to say. Cant fault it, but still it leaves me feeling kinda empty and alone cos it fails to get under my skin.  Here's a funny thing : I used to cite Fleetwood Mac as a major exception to that rule...before I sussed that they're actually a British band 
OK, they lived in the states for donkeys years and picked up two highly salient American members (Buckingham and Nicks) which made them a British-American hybrid from there on, but still, to American ears , they retained a distictly British sound, apparently.

  makes me wonder if my tastes are excessively  parochial in fact? 

But anway, before i go,  I feel impelled to add that actually I really don't like Fleetwood Mac anymore, not ever since they been and gone and went and invented freaking synthpop.    . But , hey! I'm not alone in that. Their album sales dropped pretty dramatically, around  that point in time IIRC

[rock hound]

I listen to all kinds of stuff but only rarely what is "modern" at the moment.

Carla is very into the alt rock sound.  She even knew who Lzzy Hale and Halestorm were before I saw that video of her and HU Band.  My tastes are eclectic, old pop and rock,  folk, classical, some new age and jazz stuff.  Basically I listen to what appeals to me at the time.  Lately I've been listening to early Gordon Lightfoot at home and usually classical in the car.  I hear enough contemporary stuff like katy perry, miley cyrus, etc.  at work since they are on walmarts playlist.   And if we do a long driving journey, the rule is that the passenger in front gets to choose what channel on SIRIUS XM that they want to listen to.   So I am somewhat familiar with the new stuff.  There are sucky tunes in all the genres, but, music, as Dave Barry wrote about in his "Book of Bad Songs", is subjective.    I go by the Duke Ellington quote,  "If is sounds good, it is good!"   And that is words to listen to music by!   

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

Walkie, Fleetwood Mac never did much for me, even though it's obviously good music. Air Supply were an Australian band who did that American Soft Rock style as well. They were never very popular in Straya but did well in the US.

I agree with Rock Hound, it's subjective.

[rock hound]

Walkie, Fleetwood Mac never did much for me, even though it's obviously good music. Air Supply were an Australian band who did that American Soft Rock style as well. They were never very popular in Straya but did well in the US.

I agree with Rock Hound, it's subjective.

Air Supply had a short life in the US.  Successful, but their treacly lyrics and drama llama stage presence has consigned them to the dust bin here.  Nobody that I know can remember their songs or lyrics. 

[Lord of the Ales]

But anway, before i go,  I feel impelled to add that actually I really don't like Fleetwood Mac anymore, not ever since they been and gone and went and invented freaking synthpop.    . But , hey! I'm not alone in that. Their album sales dropped pretty dramatically, around  that point in time IIRC

I'm fairly sure that was Kraftwerk. 

[Walkie]

I agree with Rock Hound, it's subjective.

ummm. irrespective of what Rockhound has to say on the subject, he's also made it abundantly clear, on several ocasions,  that he'll take great offense at certain members of this board (including self) if we acknowledge his presence in any way shape or form. Even if we  plus him.

So bringing him into a convo with me is a lot like saying STFU, Walkie. Which I don't think is what you intended, not  exactly. ...though I prolly have got a little bit tedious  , so  just letting you know for future reference

So, let's pretend you just said  "it's subjective"

And, well,  there's a great big freaking truism isn't it? so,  why the heck have we been discussing this thing at such great length?  From  my own POV , am intersted in what objective qualities the music possesses, and what character traits I and others might have , to account for the wide variation in  subjective responses. And also if some subjective responses might have more value to the listener, or even to the human race as a whole,  than others? (eg i think that sudden;y feeling that you're not alone in the Universe after all is of greater  value - and much harder to stimulate,- than tapping your foot to a catchy tune. No reason why we can't have both ofc, but commercialism is apt to strive for  the latter effect  and undervalue the former . And I think that statement is objective , though arguable) ...blah-de-blah.  could go on for the rest of eternity ofc, but main point is, sorry,  I'm just no  willing to let such an interesting thread lamely end on that note 

[Walkie]

But anway, before i go,  I feel impelled to add that actually I really don't like Fleetwood Mac anymore, not ever since they been and gone and went and invented freaking synthpop.    . But , hey! I'm not alone in that. Their album sales dropped pretty dramatically, around  that point in time IIRC

I'm fairly sure that was Kraftwerk. 

I thought Kraftwerk invented Techno.  But according to Wikipedia I'm making an invalid distincton between Techno and sythpop (possibly entirely based on how much merit it has in my eyes  sort of: Techno,  good in moderation. synthpop : banal and annoying .  Talk about subjective! ) Well, i never did pay much attention to these categories, so am totally happy to bow to your superior knowledge (er, did that sound sarky? I actually mean it)   All I know is that FM started doing synthpop XX years ago, I didn't like it, and they were later credited with starting the whole  thing by somebody else to whose superior knowledge I'd  previously bowed   Think I'll just go back to not knowing the difference 

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

Ah, I was unaware of any feud between yourself and Rock Hound, even if it's a one-sided feud. I like a good feud for the entertainment value, I'm on the lookout for my next feud buddy since Al and Scrap are gone.

Sorry, "subjective" wasn't intended to be a thread killer. It's a bit like morality which I also consider to be subjective. We (humans) need to discuss and agree on what is good and bad morality. The subjectivity of morality his what makes it interesting.

Similar with music, it's the subjectivity of music that makes it interesting. And endlessly discussable.

[Walkie]

Sorry, "subjective" wasn't intended to be a thread killer. It's a bit like morality which I also consider to be subjective. We (humans) need to discuss and agree on what is good and bad morality. The subjectivity of morality his what makes it interesting.

Similar with music, it's the subjectivity of music that makes it interesting. And endlessly discussable.

Wow!just had to you for putting it so concisely. Unlike me.