Nice article in Irish Indo on the bland current music scene

Sinfonia

the Telecaster is a 21st century invention?????:rolleyes:

e.doobie

yea i mean, the fact that there getting mentioned on here is adding to their 'success' and proves that all publicity is good publicity.

the whole brit pop scene is just an easy ticket to fame for all those people who consider them selves 'rockers' and claim they have a 'message that can only be told through music''(please) and like thousands others... play instruments.
and unfortunatly, like in politics, the wrong people have the power, therefore this crap, that sadly sells,is what leechy record lables are looking for because they'l make them money...so theyre labeled 'indie rock or 'alt rock', then the band get powdered up and shoot there first vid.. and bam... yet another crappy brit pop wanabe band... that goes nowhere after their first album and suck the life out of our music scene.. well its not my scene.. theere are plenty of good bands out there who dont even take to the mainstream out of pure choice and quite happily sit in the backround playing small gigs to their true fans... and doing great things..

NOTE; i do NOT consider muse or kasabian a part of that seedy , whatever it is.

grumpytrousers

DadaKopf wrote:

So basically, pop music = people who aren't interested in, or even like music.

Utter B*llocks...could you make an even MORE sweeping generalisation.

there is nothing wrong with decent pop music. There never has. Nor will there ever be. I'm not picking you per se, DadaKopf, but the reek of musical snobbery here is really getting my goat.

Sure there's a load of turgid 'heard-it-all-before' crud troubling the Top 40. It has always been so, but that doesnt' mean that it follows that once a song is 'popular' it's crap, cos it's not. I mean, i'll happily - hand on heart- say that as a card carrying member of the 'if there's no guitar, i'm not listening' fraternity (with one or two exceptions, granted!) I remember hearing the Sugababes 'Freak like me' song and saying 'jesus that's good' and buying it.

It was when my 42 year old flatmate (into The Fall, Warren Zevon, Joy Division, Elvis Costello and pre-Warners REM) told me that HE'D nipped out from work to pick it up in the shops that THIS was what 'popular' music really is.

something that people here need to grasp is that just becuase something is popular, it's not axiomatic that it's crap. Nor, for that matter is it axiomatic that it's good; but I think we've been and done that already...

Songs and artists are either good or bad depending on their merits, not on the marketing, not on the name of the genre and certainly not on the basis of how many units they've shifted....but ultimately of course, it's all a subjective decision anyway.

DadaKopf

You're misunderstanding me.

I am generalising. But what I said boils down to whether people are passive or active listeners, and about how far they go to find something exciting.

I didn't say pop music is rubbish, or that music is instantly crap as soon as it becomes popular. What I did say is that when pop music is good - and I'd agree on some Sugababes songs - it's good, and chances are I'll pick up on that with no effort. And I'm cool with that.

But there is also amazing stuff out there that will never reach the charts, and many musicians don't want to be chart toppers anyway. But finding that music really does require quite a lot of interest and effort on part of the individual. This is not, by your definition, pop music. But this is also not to say that people who like pop music don't love music. And there's plenty of boring, turgid music here, too.

There's boring, turgid, woeful music everywhere. But then, this is also very subjective.

But I do think, by any large, people who only respond to what's in the charts - taking that as a mark of artistic prowess - eat the same bland dinner most days of their lives.

I think it's often the case that 'experimental' bands in the charts - Radiohead for example - are often 2-dimensional emulations of more 'out there' stuff, which, to me, is more adventurous, more interesting, more exciting.

But then, it's up to the individual to decide what recipe they want: do you like music because you want a soundtrack to remind you of good times with your buddies, or do you want to go mental, or do you like head music, do you like certain kinds of music just because they're unusual, do you like lyrics, whatever.

grumpytrousers

fair 'nuff...like i said, i wasn't having a pop at you...i just hate the whiff of snobbery one finds 'round these parts...

on the other hand, hanging around the 'indie/alternative' forum shouldn't really lead me to expect much cheerleading for the latest offering from westloife...

*edit* actually, that magazine The Word is quite good for featuring new artists...i mean, the mag would seem to be aimed at the collective dad-rock audience, but the music featured on the Cover cd tends to be of the cutting edge variety...

DadaKopf

Actually, are militantly pro-pop people just as snobbish - sort of invert snobbery because they believe that what's in the charts means that it's 'good music', as opposed to all the 'crap' out there.

grumpytrousers

Some are, surely. I think it might be an age thing. You reach a point where you stop caring about liking 'cool' music anymore and you just like a song 'cos you like a song and sod the begrudgers.

In other words, as a 32 year old who counts Exile On Main St, Never Mind the boll0cks and Excitable Boy by Warren Zevon as three of his most played albums, I have no hesitation in saying that I thought, for example, 'Love Machine' by Girls Aloud was one of the finest pop tunes I'd heard in an age when it came out. It's up there, IMHO, with The Happening by The Supremes as proper 3 minute pop music that will stand the test of time.

I don't say that to provoke a reaction, but if I do, I don't care!!!

Certainly there are inverse snobs out there, or as I call them the 'pretentiously unpretentious'...they're as bad as regular snobs...if not worse!

JC 2K3

There's a difference between people who appreciate music and people who like songs. And of course there's plenty of room on the scale for people in between, although people tend to be one extreme or the other.

Know what I mean?

DadaKopf

Don't people usually appreciate music by liking songs?

JC 2K3

Not necessarily, it's a bit of a hard concept to explain. But a person liking music would know more about different stlyes, open to new sounds and appreciate the music as a whole, perhaps all the songs in the context of an album as opposed to someone who simply gets their kicks from catchy 3 minute songs.