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| Author |
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| 25 new of 104 responses total. |
lelande
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response 64 of 104:
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Jul 29 18:14 UTC 2000 |
check this out:
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/threads/patmetheny.htm
metheny was one of the many cats in the development of fusion jazz,
which has its ups and downs like anything else. he was friends with one
of my favorites, jaco pastorius, one of the most versatile, lyrical
bassists in the history of the instrument, and played with him in a
couple groups. i remember him playing with jean-luc ponty, fusion
violinist (i can imagine a lot of people would categorize ponty in the
reviled 'smooth' category, or attribute roots of 'smooth' to him),
another favorite of mine.
after the early 80s, which was a depressing time for any type of music
(except rap), i know nothing of metheny. before this time, i know only a
little, of which i'm not really a fan. but i'm pretty sure he knows his
stuff about the craft and theory of muzique.
but this doesn't look like the appropriate item.
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krj
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response 65 of 104:
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Jul 29 18:39 UTC 2000 |
Peter Gabriel, Pat Metheny, they both start with P :)
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russ
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response 66 of 104:
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Jul 29 21:02 UTC 2000 |
Re #56: I thought _Sledgehammer_ was a tribute to Marvin Gaye Jr.,
and was a hit in no small part because of that. (Never saw the video.)
_So_ (short for "Sellout"?) had a lot of blatantly commercial stuff
on it. Not too surprising that it was a raging success compared to
Gabriel's typical work, and part of a trend (remember "90125"?).
It's a pity that music often has to be watered-down and derivative
before the masses find it accessible enough to give it a listen.
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brighn
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response 67 of 104:
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Jul 29 21:32 UTC 2000 |
Since Metheny has jumped item:
Mary, if you have a reasonably decentsoundcard, might I recommend judging for
yourself? www.cdnow.com has MPEG soundbites of each.
My own assessment: I listened to three samples of Metheny's latest, Trio, and
found it fairly typical jazz fusion... somewhat poppy, hints of dixie, a
twitch of muzak. Entertaining, didn't stand out. I listened to two samples
of Kenny G.s, or tried to. I couldn't get through the 30-second clips of pure
muzak New Age dreck.
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russ
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response 68 of 104:
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Jul 30 14:30 UTC 2000 |
Re #63: I disagree strongly with that appraisal, at least at the
extremes. Kenny G. has, AFAIK, never done anything more lively
than "Puttin' on the step", which is a lightly syncopated, slightly
bluesy variation on his usual. I'll be happy to play you some
Pat Metheny which you would *never* hear in an elevator. It's not
representative of all Metheny, but that's not the issue.
I'm afraid that the choices of some (most?) DJ's deny you the
chance to hear this for yourself without going out and buying the
CD (or visiting Napster). Even WDET is not blameless. The 12-3
show has featured several cuts from "Imaginary Day", but they've
all been the more Muzak-y ones. Sometimes you'd hear two out
of three cuts, missing the high-energy one in the middle. The
artist isn't to blame for a DJ taking unrepresentative excerpts
from a work that's much stronger as a whole. You could do the
same butchering with Beethoven. Metheny does the equivalent of
symphonies; in my experience, Kenny G. does not.
You want stuff that's really hard to Muzak, try _Thonk_ by Manring. ;-)
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twinkie
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response 69 of 104:
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Jul 31 06:49 UTC 2000 |
Straight up, anyone who's cool with Jaco is inherently cool.
Weather Report in tha house.
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dbratman
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response 70 of 104:
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Aug 2 17:43 UTC 2000 |
If "In Your Eyes" is actually Peter Gabriel, then somebody's playing a
joke on me, because I found a song of that title on some web site
listing the contents of Phil Collins albums.
But whatever the story, it does indeed prove my point: they're pretty
similar.
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gypsi
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response 71 of 104:
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Aug 2 20:35 UTC 2000 |
The website could be wrong. Either that, or Phil Collins also had a song by
that name.
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brighn
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response 72 of 104:
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Aug 3 00:17 UTC 2000 |
CD Now doesn't list any Phil Collins songs by that name.
It could be out of print, though.
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lumen
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response 73 of 104:
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Aug 3 09:59 UTC 2000 |
resp:64 Pardon me for the drift, but the early 80's was a depressing
time for music? I would think au contraire.. rap actually appeared on
the scene in the very late 70's, by the way.. the Sugar Hill Gang was
just one of the first to cash in on it in 1979. Techno was also being
developed in Detroit, which I think someone pointed out earlier. Of
course, it's more vividly associated with European groups now, but then
electronic music and technopop from the UK and Europe got a big boost
when MTV hit the airwaves.
I explained in the "Video Killed The Radio Star" item that music really
drastically changed then because videos weren't being made very much
domestically when MTV started out; the staff needed more videos than
the existing 200 that they had in stock.
Yes, it's true that not all of the music had as much aural substance as
it did in video form-- many speak of the music that hit it big
primarily because of their videos. But then MTV also called on
performance artists (such as Devo) in its early years-- and these
groups didn't really consider themselves musicians anyway.
I mentioned "Sledgehammer" because it has been listed as both one of
the best and as one of the most played videos on MTV. The literal mind
candy comment was funny-- for those of you that might not have seen the
video, it's a Claymation of a head and shoulders Gabriel singing with
swirling images around him and such-- and one was his hair turning into
cotton candy.
Phil Collins isn't a staple of MTV anymore, but he does fit into the
discussion somewhat-- like many other artists, his music is being used
to sell movies. It's true-- how many movies have there been that were
pretty lousy in and of themselves as far as the actual screenplay, but
were noticed because we liked the soundtrack so much?
Thankfully, Tarzan was an *excellent* movie-- I've had mixed feelings
about Disney films as of late. (But I'm biased.. a relative of mine,
Don Bluth, has worked in animation outside of Disney for about.. 20
years after being Disney's right hand man. But I still haven't seen
Titan A.E. .. shame on me, I guess).
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lelande
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response 74 of 104:
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Aug 3 20:32 UTC 2000 |
i agree; the early 80s was a fantastic time for rap and hip-hop, like i
said. and i have to give credit to new wave, albeit not *too* much; in
the meanwhile, punk was on the decline, and early 80s jazz (i think)
typically sucks.
other than thinking of it in terms of influences and directions
building, i'd place the origins of detroit techno in the latter half of
the 80s. i could be entirely wrong.
in comparison to music from the 50s to the 70s, i don't think the early
80s has much merit to speak of.
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brighn
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response 75 of 104:
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Aug 3 21:14 UTC 2000 |
I'm not sure it's fair to compare one era's music with another without
providing the parameters... are we talking about lyrical quality, lyrical
content, musical quality, musical content, influence on future styles,
amalgamation of previous styles, entertainment value, political relevance,
social relevance, aesthetic appeal, or what?
I also don't think it's fair to characterize music primarily in terms of
decades. The 70s went from CCR to Abba to Sex Pistols... which of those is
the msot representative (out of the three) of "70s" music?
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lelande
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response 76 of 104:
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Aug 3 21:50 UTC 2000 |
i'm not classifying music primarily by decades rather than using
decade-sized chunks (or half-decade sized chunks, in terms of "early
80s") as a quick organization of the progression and development of
music in its different styles and genres. by saying "70s music", i'm not
trying to suggest a style or type of music that is recognizable by its
"70s-ness", i'm generalizing the music and music movement that was made
in the 1970s. in these terms, the only way a musician or group thereof
or song or style (&c.) would 'represent' "70s" music would be if it was
made and performed and diffused into the culture in that decade.
we could produce reams and reams of text talking about individual songs
and musicians and style movements and aesthetic musical revolutions and
innovative musical theories in practice and and and . . . and how they
led to their artistic successors and inspirations, or opponents.
i think the music "diffused into the culture" during the first half of
the 80s was subject to an increase of music-making and musical trends
that were derivative of earlier styles and aesthetics while hitting an
onrush of mass(ive)-media -- one of those periods in which everyone is
trying very hard to find "the next big thing" because the last big
thing(s) made fuckin truckloads of money and social change.
i suppose it could sound like i'm suggesting that music that occurred in
the early 80s wasn't good because of some aberrant aesthetic ripple
warping the musical abilities of the world. so, i don't mean that. what
i mean is that i find the musical culture of the early 80s to be the
bland, downswung tail-end of a lot of cool musical trends that were
being beaten to death by a million camera-lenses, which made space
backstage for the more intriguing, innovative, building up-swings of
some trends to come down the road to nab their beginnings.
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brighn
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response 77 of 104:
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Aug 4 14:56 UTC 2000 |
Pop music in general seems to be pulled by three major forces (at least):
Entertainment value
Artistic value
Sociopolotical value
Certainly it could be said that top 10 music of the early 80s to the present
has had Entertainment Value as the most important of those three factors,
while pop music of the Free Love era held artistry highest and the Vietnam
ear (which overlapped a good deal with Free Love) held sociopolitics highest.
Going back to the late 50s/early 60s, entertainment is again tantamount --
the development of the Beatles from a pure-pop entertainment groups (B*Boys
and N'Sync have nothing on 1962 Beatles for pure, mindless GLITZ with no
substance) to a protest group ("Revolution") and an artistic group
("Revolution 9"). When the Beatles split, Lennon went along the protest line,
with some artistry, Harrison went along the artistic line, with some protest,
McCartney went along the entertainment line, with some artistry, and Starr
went along the "I'm not all that talented so let's milk my fame for all it's
worth" line... but that's another story.
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jerryr
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response 78 of 104:
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Aug 4 16:02 UTC 2000 |
i heard ringo became a train conductor for a while
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lelande
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response 79 of 104:
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Aug 4 18:29 UTC 2000 |
This response has been erased.
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lelande
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response 80 of 104:
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Aug 4 18:29 UTC 2000 |
77 speaks for the forces that pull music up, forward, or any word you
can surmise that speaks for growth of music industry. what decelerates
that movement 'forward', or accelerates it in the opposite (presumably
'backward', 'down') direction?
to follow up that point, ringo starr's "i'm not all that talented so
let's milk my fame for all it's worth" career direction isn't really
another story at all, it's the main plot-line of music in, e.g., the
early 80s.
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brighn
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response 81 of 104:
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Aug 4 21:06 UTC 2000 |
Well, except that Ringo had only one single that came close to being a hit
(The No-No Song), and his most famous opus outside of The Beatles may very
well be a movie, not a song ("Caveman!").
There is talent behind B*Boys and N'Sync, just not artistic talent. I've said
it before, and the point's gone unnoted: They have entertainment talent. They
(being the entire force behind the groups, including management) know how to
put on a show. Maybe the music has negligible artistic merit, but does "Twist
and Shout" (covered by the early Beatles) really have all that much artistic
merit? the early Beatles didn't get famous, and didn't get their clothes torn
off, and didn't get girls swooning over them, because their music had artistic
merit -- I know this is heresy, but it DIDN'T. It's their later music that
has the artistry to it... the early stuff is pop crap with chords and beats
and structure that had been around for a decade before. It shared the radio
waves with Louie Louie and Wild Thing.
The difference between The Beatles ca. 1963 and The Backstreet Boys ca. 1999
is in who has the entertainment talent -- in the case of the Beatles, it's
the group themselves, and they're later able to take that entertainment talent
and mature it to artistic talent. In the case of the Backstreet Boys, it's
the management of the group, not the group itself, and so when the boys mature
and want to do more serious, artistic music, they won't have the skills to
do so, and their management will be on to the next boy group.
I'm using B*Boys as an exemplar; I'm not picking on them specifically. And
the trend of the paper-doll band starts with The Monkees (who did, in fact,
have a little bit of talent themselves, but not enough to overcome the
incredible machine and pressure against them, with the possible exception of
Mike Nesmith), but really picks up steam in the early 80s, with Banarama (who
not only didn't write any songs, they didn't play any instruments... three
chicks who sang and looked pretty) and Samantha Fox, among others, through
Kim Wilde and "I Think I'm Alone Now" (what WAS her name) to LeAnn Rimes and
then Hanson... ^We're ^
That' and the early 80s saw the popularization of the synthesizer, which had
been around for a few decades, but was both expensive and crappy sounding
(moog, anyone? The Monkees used a moog, or something similar, for "Star
Collector" and other tracks). I think one reason why early 80s music sounds
so fake was because synthesizers still sounded fake, and people were playing
with them. Many groups prided themselves on having little musical talent,
claiming that they were bringing the music to the youth, and inspiring the
youth that it doesn't matter how talented you are if you've got something to
say (that's something Human League, for instance, claimed; Missing Persons
made a similar comment).
But, in the aftermath, the synthesizer (and the mdigitized music revolution
in general) had a great impact on how the music industry worked. Nearly
everything sounds more commercial when it's cleaned up. This isn't just true
in the music world... with the Internet, everyone's a graphic designer now,
too.
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mcnally
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response 82 of 104:
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Aug 4 21:21 UTC 2000 |
"I Think We're Alone Now" was covered by Tiffany and also by Lene Lovich.
the smart money is betting that the Tiffany cover is the one you had in mind.
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jerryr
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response 83 of 104:
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Aug 4 21:38 UTC 2000 |
where's tiffany now that we need her?
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krj
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response 84 of 104:
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Aug 4 21:47 UTC 2000 |
And where's Lene Lovich?
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mcnally
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response 85 of 104:
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Aug 4 22:10 UTC 2000 |
I think they're both alone now..
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brighn
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response 86 of 104:
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Aug 4 22:25 UTC 2000 |
Maybe they're alone together...
Yes, I was thinking of Tiffany. I don't recall Lene Lovich going through a
top-of-the-pops phase.
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lelande
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response 87 of 104:
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Aug 4 22:30 UTC 2000 |
side note, mostly to m-netters: i think alex just got himself a moog, so
look out world. he's graduated into the next realm of space travel.
i guess i've neglected your schematic, outlined below, but i sure don't
disagree with it:
-- entertainment value (appealing to the audience; tweaking their
nipples)
-- artistic value (focusing on the form, the craft; leaving your
signature for future artistes to emulate)
-- sociopolitical value (making an impact on the way people see the
world and how they live in it; songs into ploughshares)
in each of these categories there can be further comparisons made
between skill levels and, say, intensity of the innovation of the
particular artist. unless i'm wrong; i suggest that n'sync, as
entertaining as they've become, is lacking in the innovation department,
even in comparison to the early recorded beatles. first of all, they are
still a part of an industry model that was changed and embedded by the
beatles and the beatle-machinations themselves.
your points about the democratization of music through easier recording
tech, synthesizers and 'puters, thrown in the blender with the DIY/punk
ethic that had promoted the use of whatever rock instruments one could
get one's hands around, on both sides of the pond -- are well noted. if
memory serves, this has a tendency to detract from the entertainment
side (which was made up for by the new mtv style of life) of that music
and add to the artistic (new wave) and sociopolitical (punk, rap) sides
of the rubrick. or maybe that's too presumptious of me to make that
generalization; that can be what happens when innovation is high. when
imitation is higher, and more of everyone is on the same korgs and moogs
and drum machines, then it can be more of the same buzz, until it's time
for the next innovation peak.
i won a blue pocket-rocker (anyone remember those?) when i was in 4th
grade. with it i won a boston tape that i never listened to, and
tiffany, with "i think we're alone now" on one side and "manic monday"
on the other. i listened to it until it wore out.
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ea
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response 88 of 104:
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Aug 5 03:56 UTC 2000 |
(I'm a little lost here. I thought Moog was an NHL goaltender, played
with the Stars, and the Capitals, I think)
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