response 75 of 104:

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?

response 77 of 104:

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.

response 81 of 104:

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.

response 83 of 104:

Aug 4 21:38 UTC 2000

where's tiffany now that we need her?

response 85 of 104:

Aug 4 22:10 UTC 2000

  I think they're both alone now..

response 87 of 104:

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.

response 89 of 104:

Aug 5 19:23 UTC 2000

has he ever played with dick hyman?

response 91 of 104:

Aug 7 16:30 UTC 2000

don't forget: Moog rhymes with rogue.

RCA built one of the first modern synthesizsers in the early 50's.
It took up a whole room.  and could only play one note at a time.
Programmed by punchcards no less, not a 'keyboard'

response 93 of 104:

Aug 8 23:54 UTC 2000

I guess it all depends on how you pronounce "rogue"...
Is it "roog" or "rohg"?

response 95 of 104:

Aug 9 01:10 UTC 2000

righto.  The "other" pronunciation makes him sound like a cow.

response 97 of 104:

Aug 11 21:55 UTC 2000

lots of good music in the 80's, Blue Oyster Cult, J.Geils, Blondie, Huey
Lewis, Hall and Oats, Robert Palmer...

response 99 of 104:

Aug 12 19:11 UTC 2000

Van Halen