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| Author |
Message |
| 20 new of 24 responses total. |
sironi
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response 5 of 24:
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Apr 23 07:55 UTC 2001 |
I was born (like the good rock :-) in 1974.
Radiohead is a younger band than U2 and R.E.M. and it rule!
Anyway my favourite groups are Pink Floyd and R.E.M.
Reveal will be my next cd :-)))
luca_
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raven
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response 6 of 24:
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Apr 23 20:48 UTC 2001 |
Hmm I think part of this may be due to what I would call an information
age effect. Now that everything is digital and more widely available on
the net etc, I think it flattens out differences and that an average
students, 5 cd changer might contain a techno cd, a classical cd, a cd of
mp3s from different genres, and a classic rock cd say. I think most
students have pretty elcetic tastes now that we live in a global society.
Thus classic rock is probably part of a spectrum of music that students
listen to. I get the impression that most peoples listening habits were
more focused on one genre back in the day (with a hearty exception for all
you eclectic grexer geezers ofcourse :-)).
Part of this is probably also due to the conservatism of record companies
in these conservative times. They know the backcatalog and Britney Spears
sells and they aren't too willing to try and promote more experimental
music like they were in the late 60s and early 70s (with an exception for
bands like Radiohead).
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scott
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response 7 of 24:
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Apr 23 22:02 UTC 2001 |
I suspect your last paragraph hits the nail on the head. Right now the music
sucks because we only get to see the proven moneymakers. Why would a company
risk major investment on some new act with an untested style when Janis Joplin
still sells and doesn't even demand her royalties?
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dbratman
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response 8 of 24:
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Apr 24 23:45 UTC 2001 |
Disappearing horizons of the sort Ken describes are common with any new
art form, and I think rock qualifies as a new art form apart from other
popular music. Consider movies: today people watch 40-year-old films
all the time. 40 years ago they didn't, much: their 40-year-old films
were silent.
So the fact that the Beatles (and even Elvis, I suppose) are still
current listening, while pre-rock popular music belongs to a different
era, is a very interesting sociological fact.
Other things move, however. "Classic rock" certainly does. In the
early 80s, the radio stations I listened to defined classic rock as pre-
Beatles. Yes, they really did. Turn to the station during
the "classic rock" hour, and you got Buddy Holly. Slowly the ending
date moved up, and I think it's still moving.
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scott
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response 9 of 24:
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Apr 25 01:33 UTC 2001 |
Well, "retro 80's dance" does seem to be popular in the club scene, so you're
probably right.
I don't think Ken mentioned here, but I'm sure he's said it before. One big
problem right now is that the people choosing which acts to sign and promote
have shifted from being mostly music people to business people.
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krj
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response 10 of 24:
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Apr 25 17:18 UTC 2001 |
My recollections differ from David's; I don't remember pre-Beatles music
ever being marketed as "Classic Rock." What I remember from the late
1970s and early 1980s is a radio format often called "Solid Gold"
which covered the pre-Beatles era.
(As a radio format, the creation of "Classic Rock" is pretty well
attributed to radio programming guru/prince of darkness :) Lee Abrams.)
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carson
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response 11 of 24:
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Apr 25 20:33 UTC 2001 |
resp:3
(any particular reason the author chooses to compare the sales to three
discs which have been in stores for nearly a year apiece? talk about
your misleading leads...)
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krj
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response 12 of 24:
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Apr 25 22:25 UTC 2001 |
"Journey's Greatest Hits" is from 1988. The argument is that, compared
to classic rock, current big-name releases are not showing "legs;"
a 12-year-old album is steadily outselling one-year-old releases from
current stars.
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mcnally
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response 13 of 24:
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Apr 25 23:08 UTC 2001 |
Apparently that wheel in the sky keeps on burning and there's nothing
we can do about it.. What a chilling thought..
It really doesn't surprise me that a one-year-old release from a (semi-)
current star doesn't sell as well as a back-catalog title. Where would
new listeners encounter the songs from the former album? Certainly not
on a commercial radio station or a music video channel -- those are very
tightly formatted and there isn't currently a widespread radio format
that reaches back much into the near past. Journey's "greatest" hits
might be getting airplay on a classic rock station, but you simply won't
find alternative, country, or adult-contemporary stations playing last
year's songs unless they're paid to play them the way they're paid to
play the latest highly-promoted singles.
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krj
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response 14 of 24:
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Apr 26 19:58 UTC 2001 |
As you've phrased it, I see a chicken-and-egg problem here.
Which comes first, the radio airplay or the public interest?
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mcnally
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response 15 of 24:
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Apr 26 22:42 UTC 2001 |
I have no doubt whatsoever that the radio airplay comes first,
and that without it only the most exceptional music has any chance
at public interest.
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dbratman
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response 16 of 24:
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Apr 28 21:20 UTC 2001 |
The stations Ken was listening to in Ann Arbor in the early 80s may
have called pre-Beatles rock "solid gold", but the stations I was
listening to in Seattle and San Francisco used that, if at all, as a
more general term for hits. Their term for specifically pre-Beatles,
or up to early Beatles, rock was "classic rock".
Scott laments that it's business people, not music people, who decide
what acts to sign. When was the golden age when business people kept
out of it? Lament that the bottom line is the only concern dates back
to Tin Pan Alley, if not earlier. And before we wax too nostalic for
the 60s, remember that they brought us the Monkees, perhaps the first
totally manufactured band.
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krj
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response 17 of 24:
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Apr 28 23:34 UTC 2001 |
I've written about this before: in the Good Old Days, music business
executives with taste and judgement had considerable authority to
sponsor artists only on their artistic merit. Ahmet Ertegun at
Atlantic; Clive Davis at Columbia and Arista; Lenny Waronker and
Mo Ostin from the golden era at Warner Brothers; Chris Blackwell
at Island. These are just the names that leap to mind, there are
probably lots more, who are respected by knowledgable fans and critics
for the work they brought out.
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mcnally
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response 18 of 24:
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Apr 30 21:42 UTC 2001 |
Heh.. Ken beat me to the punch.. Ahmet Ertegun and Chris Blackwell
are perfect examples..
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dbratman
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response 19 of 24:
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May 1 04:57 UTC 2001 |
If that's so - that is, if there really was a golden age then that's
completely vanished now - then it was because, for a brief period,
experimental stuff sold.
But I think it far more likely that there was just as much beefing then
as there is now.
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raven
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response 20 of 24:
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May 1 18:04 UTC 2001 |
One factor everyone is leaving out is the rise of independent labels. There
is a lot of good music out there, it just isn't on the majors anymore.
It's hard to imagine that if todays mindset had been true in the 60s that
Ornette Coleman John Coltrane or Bob Dylan would have major label contracts.
They would all be recording on Ryko or some other even more obscure label
IMO.
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orinoco
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response 21 of 24:
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May 2 18:57 UTC 2001 |
There's an interesting chicken-and-egg question in there. Did a drop in
major-label variety cause the rise of the indie labels, or vice versa?
To some extent, though, it doesn't matter. The two occurred hand-in-hand,
and each encouraged the other.
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dbratman
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response 22 of 24:
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May 2 21:15 UTC 2001 |
<trying to imagine chickens and eggs encouraging each other's
reproduction>
It's OK, I know what you mean.
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orinoco
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response 23 of 24:
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May 5 02:29 UTC 2001 |
(Well, the chickens sit on the eggs, and the eggs ... uh ... inspire the
chickens. Sure.)
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jules
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response 24 of 24:
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Jun 6 05:14 UTC 2001 |
classic rock. led zep, genesis, boston, styx, stones, jeff beck...
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