My quibble: Pop music used to be quality music. I'm old enough to remember when pop was defined by the likes of; Beatles, Stones, Who,Temptations, Supremes, Byrds, Simon&Garfunkle, Squeeze, Joni Mitchel....on and on. Catchy melodies, Lyrics that were simple but had meaning. All that dfined the well writen song. What was to abuse? There is nothing wrong with the IDEA of pop music it serves a purpose. Today however the chaff is thick on the ground. True artistry in the idiom is rare. The standouts are truly 'pimples on the nose of reflection'. I rarely listen to the radio. The players of this pap are as manipulated as the 'artists' they spin. A depressing environment that only reflects the dumbing down of the public they entertain.
I do so agree that pop music has taken a twisted fall towards its fate, however, I'm sure there was a WHOLE lot of music being played on the radio back in the 60 and 70s that sucked just as bad as the pop music of today. The reason those bands/artists you mentioned were given any credit lately, is because for whatever reason, those choice names endure the test of time, and blooms in the glory that is fame and stardom. I'm sure down the road, people like us (who enjoy QUALITY bands, not just what's force-fed to us) will say the same things of the "new" music of their era while idolizing the music that's been coming out today. We don't remember EVERY band that played in the 60s and 70s, but the ones we do were GREAT.
Originally posted by trippletaurus My quibble: Pop music used to be quality music. I'm old enough to remember when pop was defined by the likes of; Beatles, Stones, Who,Temptations, Supremes, Byrds, Simon&Garfunkle, Squeeze, Joni Mitchel....on and on. Catchy melodies, Lyrics that were simple but had meaning. All that dfined the well writen song. (nowadays) True artistry in the idiom is rare. The standouts are truly 'pimples on the nose of reflection'.
Pop music and True artistry cannot and NEVER have coexisted, especially not in the 60’s. Pop music in the 60’s was not the Stones, Who,Temptations, Supremes, Byrds, Simon&Garfunkel, Squeeze, Joni Mitchell. Pop music in the 60’s was the swing jazz and show tunes of Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin, the calypso of Harry Belafonte and the pro vietnam war music of AM radio. The music you mentioned is what we called in the 80’s as college radio and the nineties as alternative. The Beatles were played pop music when they first came out and didn’t have artistic freedom until Sgt. Pepper once they proved that the public was ready for it after the success of Rubber Soul (every Beatles album before that was half full of cover songs (mostly Chuck Berry's) which the record company owned the rights and royalties to). Once the Beatles tok over the reigns and stopped having only half an albums worth of original material, they stopped being pop and sparked a musical revolution; as John Lennon said "The Beatles are more popular than Jesus". The Stones did the same thing... tons of cover songs, until they got big enough to wave their own power. Look at their first 4 singles all cover songs!!! Simon & Garfunkel had artistic freedom, but didn't make any money doing it and were stuck playing colleges and small bars in Queens until they caught a huge breaj and their music appeared in the movie 'The Graduate'. The Temptations and the Supremes were both Motown acts and thanks to the vision of Barry Gordy, they played on a different playing field and did not have to succum to the wastelands of the major labels. most people think pop music is short for popular music, it is not. the term pop music comes from the term pop art, which was coined by andy warhol. pop art is art of the popular culture, making art out of things you see everyday like tomato soup cans and marilyn monroe's face. andy used the medium of the silkscreen to make multiple copies of his work so it would be even more accessible to the public. pop music stands for music of the popular culture. what is the popular culture? popular culture is the buying public and since most records, nowadays cd's are purchased by and for 10 to 17 year olds, the recording industry targets this age group with music they think that they would buy. This is if not you, 99% of your friends liked the 'pop music' that came out when you were 10 to 17. In the 60's most 10 to 17 year olds had more choices and hence a better taste in music because the record industry was then made up of 30 to 40 different labels instead of just the 2 majors we have today. If you're old enough to remember this music, you should also remember that AM radio played the pop music back then, not the FM stations and all of these bands even the Beatles were not pop when they came out. Pop music of early 60's was swing jazz like frank sinatra and bobby darin and harry belafonte's calypso not rock n'roll, in the late 60's was all pro war songs and folk music. these great bands became very popular though and FM radio took over the music scene. The REVOLUTION of the 60's happened and the world was upside down. Pop music took a backseat in sales to rock n roll and psycedelic rock and rythym and blues. In the 80's almost every record company went under and were bought out by SONY and TIME WARNER. Now we have less choices, but only on the surface. Behind the facade of Pink and Britney and NSYNC is a vast universe of independent music!!! in much the same way the 90's created independent film and brought art back to the movie industry. afterall 'raging bull' was the only hollywood film of the 80's and everthing else was a movie. When M. Night Shamalan made a movie (the 6th Sense) for $60,000 that made as much money as hollywood's Titanic did, Hollywood looked at it like “hey we spent $90,000,000 to make $300,000,000 and they only spent $60,000... we LOST money!!” Guess what 2 companies own every major hollywood studio? Time Warner and Sony... see a pattern developing? Independent Film of the 90’s was the movie revolution that changed hollywood for the better, much the same way the Beatles changed music in the 60’s. The record companies hate change. They are afraid of it. They do not fear Napster because kids can download Britney Spears or Linkin Park or NSYNC songs for free. They spend hundreds of millions of dollars forming and developing and promoting these bands. Downloading a song is FREE PROMOTION for them. That same kid will eventually buy the whole album instead of downloading every song and buy the concert tickets and the T-Shirt and the PEPSI product endorsements and the record company still makes money!!! What they are really afraid of is a bunch of kids downloading INDEPENDENT music from INDEPENDENT BANDS AND ARTISTS who are getting FREE PROMOTION and selling theri CD’S online and T-Shirts and concert tickets WITHOUT corporatesponsors and the record company gets NONE of it!!! Sure, they lie to us... they can afford to! They make BILLIONS a year, that’s why they spend so much on lawyers and public relations people. Look at Prince. He played music that was so good and so popular that the record company wanted him to keep putting out the same stuff. But he wanted the artistic freedom to play what he wanted. He tried to legally change his name to a symbol to get out of the contract but it backfired and the record company made fun of him in the press. Now, he’s fullfilled his contract obligations and he plays the music he wants to. It doesn’t get played on MTV anymore, but he sells it online and instead of selling 3 million copies and getting 50 cents for every one that sells in the record store for $16.99, he sells 60,000 copies online and keeps all of the $15 he charges for a CD. But you sell your own music on a website without some form of exposure and Napster gave the exposure to the unsigned artists and bands. There is still good music out there, you just have to find it.
I always pondered this:
The music I listen to and I think is mindblowing and quality gets no airplay on the radio (with the exception of Tool and a few others)
Mr. Bungle, Failure, Refused, and many other quaity bands will be unknown to others of the future and 20 or 30 years from now will not transcend into what will then be called "classic rock".
So my question is this:
Were there bands 20 or 30 years ago that are very unknown that were of better quality than say the Beatles, or Led Zeppelin or The Who?
This has always made me curious to know more about older music but I have no idea how to even begin researching it.
There were no independant music publications then like there are now.
Any insight would be appreciated.
__________________ If I were invisible for a day I'd beat up a mime.
no. But there was a band called The Velvet Underground that was very unknown for tis time, but they were so good that they're now very popular. So I guess if any of the bands you listen to now are really good then they'll be really famous in about ten or twenty years. Like My Bloody Valentine, for example.
Nico tried to go Art Pop after she was kicked out of VU, but of course that failed.
Glad you chose to show that there is a difference between Pop and Popular music. Though I disagree with you when you say pop and art can't be together. The Microphones are pop, they are art as well. The Beach Boy's Pet Sounds was true artistry, and it was real poppy. And today we have lots and lots of labels, but yeah, teens usually go for interscope or any other huge label. Let me assure you though, that interscope is not crapping themselves at the thought of an indie band making money. First of all, a band isn't really indie when it's that popular. And second, if a band is that good, and profitable, then they'll just sign them. For example, Sigur Ros got signed to a MCA for ( ) because they knew that Agaetis Byrjun was a great album.
But what I want to know is, what's the difference between an indie label and a major label? Both of them are concerned with making money, and both are equally assholes. Is it just that one has more money?
I don't really see why we should bash major label music because, when you think about it, major labels produce the best music. Do you think that Beck could've done it if he was on Tomlab? Could tool have made such an amazing product if they weren't rich? I know that I would sign to a major label if I got an offer to. Not for popularity, but for the extended options I'd get. With more money comes more equipment. If tool was an indie band and didn't have a lot of money, then do you think Danny could buy such an expensive and amazing drum set? Sorry indie kids, but corporate labelsdo it better.
On an incredibly elitist bastardly indie music site called pitchforkmedia.com their top 20 of their 100 best cds of the 90s were mostly corporate. The ones that weren't were on Matador, and K.
But I really think you're right soul. There's great music everywhere, but you need to look for it.
ok... the beach boys pet sounds was pop sounding and very artistic.. there are some other exceptions... radiohead and u2 come to mind, but for the most part pop music is 'safe' because you aren't pushing the envelope and creating something new. art is the creation of something new... hmmmm... kind of a contradiction, don't you think? but then again that's just one opinion, Picasso said 'Good artists copy, great artists steal' but to me, as an artist, not in any way a musician I feel that art is taking something someone else did, making it your own and spawning ideas for someone else in the process. my favorite artist was salvador dali, but his art is dead because the main focus of art branched into a differnet direction from him and the other surrealists into something different, cubism, then abstract expressionism. but it can be brought back to life if someone else expands the ideas of surrealism into something else that transcends the medium and propels the art world into another spector... \
ok, some more useless information from soul_excursion. interscope is supsidiary of atlantic records which is owned by time warner... (i always laugh when they give someone like madonna her own record label, e.g. maverick records, a division of crystallis, owned by time warner.) did you also know that 90% of the major companies in the united states are owned by about 12 major corporations? aol/time warner/disney/abc/touchtone is all the same company, same with pepsi/burger king/tacobell/snapple/lipton/kfc.pizza hut/frito lay.... cocacola/columbia pictures... it gets really funny when people boycott certain comapnies and unknowingly use the same company with a different name.
wow,you raise some issuses that ring so true.
but for me this raises the question, are these corporations really clever or are people really just sheep?
I think todays society ha smuch to do with people becoming sheep. They watch the tv and read magazines and society, through media tells them what they should like. But in a way, we are all sheep. We all copy each other. So i dont necessarily think that people being sheep is the problem.
People have just become so brainwashed as to what good music is and now no longer listen to music, but listen to noise (made to sound like music) because thats what society wants them to do.
And yes, smart marketing in the media also contributes to this "brainwashing". I think its a mixture of societys stance on what is "cool , and, smart marketing strategies (brainwashing) that has led to the downfall of popular music today.
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Quote:
Originally posted by J1516 no. But there was a band called The Velvet Underground that was very unknown for tis time, but they were so good that they're now very popular...
There's great music everywhere, but you need to look for it.
Ahhh, I listened to The Velvet Underground for years thanks to my father and his obsession with music. Forever grateful for introducing me to Tool.
To get back the thread I have always found radio to be pretty substandard and only Triple J in the great land of Australia "thinks outside the square" so to speak and tries to introduce unknown artists into the music industry. Many bands such as The Vines and Grinspoon have a lot of their fame due to Triple J.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that there has been crap all throughout the ages, but it's only the memorable music that really got parties started back in their day, that gets remembered and makes up the stereotypical "pop".
But like has already been said, there is good music you just have to find it. For any people from that drought-ridden land down under, I recommend taping Rage Friday nights and watching it when you can. Always plenty of interesting bands that you can find on there, releasing their videos for new songs...
Tim
__________________ When the movie is over...
... and the movie goers have left en masse, the only sound you hear is the bang of chairs returning to their upright position .
neo_taboolie (Tim),
yes, Triple J is/was ok, in that it was above the class of radio known as "foul excrement of the musical void" and in the one known as "just tolerable (on a good day)". But in my honest opinion Triple J is still grossly unacceptable insofar as finding new music.
I suggest you (and others) inverse the 60s AM/FM thing...basically, STOP LISTENING TO FM. Radio sucks majorly, but there is some good stuff on AM, unbelievably late at night by truly INDEPENDENT people who want to hold the public's hand just because they can no longer bear feeling like the only soul on the planet with REAL taste.
So I will hold some people's hands too.
1st step) goto www.warprecords.com
that will expose you to some truly creative artists, and whether or not you like them will be a major determining factor in whether you really are a person with an open mind to music. mmmkay
2nd step) Stop listening to bands that only sing/speak or are based in the English language. There are others out there you know. How many of you, for instance, can say you've honestly given French rap a chance? What about German techno? Israeli goa trance? Try www.newint.org (New Internationalist magazine) for the international releases in their "shopping" section.
3rd step) As well as being proactive, go back in time. Go to a classical music store, and ask for a cd by Stockhausen. Ignore the look of utter contempt you're likely to receive by the tool behind the counter, and go and listen to the true father of electronic music. For the record, he's the guy who TAUGHT the Beatles how to play electronic music.
4th step) At bare, bare minumum, make the effort to listen to NEW things every day. That's right, EVERY DAY. Some others to try are the Constellation Label, Kranky Records, and Reprise.
Neway, I'm off to go and listen to more subversive melodies that are no doubt polluting my mind in the same fashion that flouride in our drinking water is turning our children into communists. Hope I've helped. Peace
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I shall explain:
Just seen the Korn forums (for a laugh) and all my fears were justified: WHAT A BUNCH OF FAKE ASSHOLE FANS THEY HAVE!!!!
They don't know SHIT about music, all they have to say is which PORNO movie they've seen (not that there's much wrong about that, but you get my point), how they must sing to sound like Jonathan Davis, how Jonathan Davis is fat/pretty/awesome,cool...., they don't talk about the lyrics/ album content and stuff, they're just bullshitting around (Crazy Town is cool etc etc), it's full of large annoying pictures and then I come back here and I read some interesting posts about how music has evolved through the years, record companies, really refreshing!
