Bland on Blonde: why the old rock music canon is finished

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by MarkTWIC, Aug 29, 2018.

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  1. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product

    LONG LIVE ROCK!
     
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  2. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product

    don't be upset Who fans, I just like this version
     
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  3. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product

    I'm still discovering music from all eras ... and no matter what the whiners say, I reckon that's great
     
    Shak Cohen and Terry like this.
  4. Terry

    Terry Senior Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee
    Rock will not die and will outlive us all.
     
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  5. PhilBorder

    PhilBorder Senior Member

    Location:
    Sheboygan, WI
    You might check out Phil Freeman's 'Marooned', sort of a sequel to the Greil Marcus edited anthology 'Stranded' about desert islands discs. Of course the original was inforemd by a late 70's perspective, when classic rock whne just beginning to fray, and punk was rudely barging in. we were so innocent - no idea what the atrocious 80;s would bring.

    Anyways a good chunk of Freeman's book is indeed hip hop. And I found a lot of it to be quite awful. NWA remains one of the most overrated acts ever, though the production is often stunning. To me, hip hop sounds dated like its trying to catch up with itself with itself. Autotune is the Syndrum of this decade. well, I listen to new music and some hip hop but remain unconvinced of merits. One thing about rock: outside of David Crosby and Paul Kanter, no rock and rollers ever tried to verbally convience listerners how 'relevant' they were. They generally shut up and played, for better or worse.
     
    Mechanical Man likes this.
  6. EdogawaRampo

    EdogawaRampo Senior Member

    This, in a nutshell. "Moving on" or "progressing" as a concept in music appreciation was fetishised a long time ago by people who haven't necessarily replaced the old with the better, but simply replaced the old.

    It's great to find new things to be excited about, but moving to something else or something new simply for the sake of the moving seems pointless to many people.
     
  7. puddingdish

    puddingdish Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sydney
    Hipster yells at rock music.
     
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  8. Celebrated Summer

    Celebrated Summer Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    The problem with breaking things down into gender is it actually belittles the real accomplishments of female performers because it makes them into symbols more than artists.

    Case in point: I am a HUGE fan of old soul music. On my Facebook page I used to post great-but-obscure records, like Colette Kelly's "City Of Fools," The Orlons' "Spinnin' Top," and Joan Baker's "Everybody's Talkin.'"

    But I stopped doing this because people were leaving comments thinking I was down with some sort of "cause" or posting these things to make a bigger political statement. I was posting them because they're killer records! Great performances! But these people didn't care to listen to the actual music. Their only interest was in discussing artists as being symbolic of the plight of women (or something).

    Metaphorically speaking, it was like making a wrong turn into a boring college lecture when you meant to go into a dance club. (This, in fact, is what's wrong with most music criticism. It values the literary and the literal over the actual music, but I digress.)

    Conversely, if I posted something by, say, Todd Rundgren, these same people would comment on the song, not on whatever Todd symbolized. So, in politicizing everything, people actually lessen the accomplishments of female artists.

    I also think that people who do this don't really like music much or understand it. They're using it for political purposes only. The same probably goes for other art forms.
     
    troggy, Hermes, bigstar87 and 5 others like this.
  9. INSW

    INSW Senior Member

    Location:
    Georgia
    All this says to me is that your Facebook page was populated by idiots, like every Facebook page.
     
  10. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product

    Look to me "Rock" music covers a huge variety of stuff, and I have great rock albums from 2016 .... I don't have any albums beyond 2016 yet, because it normally takes me a while to find the stuff I want ... but as of 2016, Rock was far from dead. If twelve year olds aren't buying it, I'm not really perturbed, they'll get around to it.
     
  11. zen

    zen Senior Member

    Cool man.
     
  12. Thomas D

    Thomas D Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bradenton, FL
    I see his point about Rolling Stone editors deciding what are great albums and not. RS has pushed Astral Weeks for years, and I never understood why. Just a critic or two's idiosyncratic favorite. And RS slammed the Moody Blues early albums, which I thought were great. But didn't all these lists label themselves as like "100 greatest ROCK albums", etc. Sometimes there would be simply a greatest albums of all time list that would be more inclusive. And there were plenty of women on these lists. I think this guy is nuts about reggae, hip hop, etc. and is just POd that it doesn't get as much attention as other music so he's seized on this idea as a way to rag about it.
     
  13. If I Can Dream_23

    If I Can Dream_23 Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    Well said. And this is me in a nutshell.

    Life is too short to just digest every piece of new or random music just for the sake of digesting, rather than enjoying the music you sincerely love with a true or more focused passion. It's never about quantity for me. It's always about quality.

    As you said, just because time and trends progress whether I like it or not does not mean I am obligated to deem it as "progress". We have "progressed" to CGI in films or digital color manipulation too. That doesn't mean I personally enjoy films made that way versus actual film stock, technicolor prints, or hand-made effects. Trendy or new does NOT automatically equate to progress (or better). :)
     
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  14. Schoolmaster Bones

    Schoolmaster Bones Poe's Lawyer

    Location:
    ‎The Midwest
    Well played
     
    NaturalD likes this.
  15. Mirror Image

    Mirror Image 200 Years Of Anton Bruckner

    Location:
    United States
    Blah...blah...blah...another article telling me what is popular and what isn’t popular. I don’t give a rat’s ass what this writer thinks nor will I ever put any stock into someone who makes these kinds of idiotic assertions. Seeing as it’s written from someone who contributes to The Guardian, the idiotic part goes without saying really.
     
    Celebrated Summer likes this.
  16. Lemon Curry

    Lemon Curry (A) Face In The Crowd

    Location:
    Mahwah, NJ
    It's not about rock, per se.

    What album recorded 5 years ago does anyone passionately care about today?

    Vs.... Beatles, Beach Boys, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Big Star, Bob Dylan, CCR, Aretha Franklin, Buddy Holly, Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Jimi Hendrix, etc etc etc...

    Music mattered, bands were better, albums strived for immortality.

    It's No Contest. Any conversation that tries to explain the change as a function of "taste" is just comedy.

    There's a reason Sgt Pepper 50 went to #1 last year. There's a reason Modern Times went to #1.

    The music is GREAT.
     
    Hermes likes this.
  17. moonshiner

    moonshiner Forum Resident

    Location:
    Italy
    Another white male is bad article, that's what I needed.
     
    klockwerk likes this.
  18. Willowman

    Willowman Senior Member

    Location:
    London, UK
    ‘Albums strived for immortality’ is just hindsight talking. People make music for a lot of reasons, but hoping they’ll stilll be listened to in 50 years is not one of them.

    Come to my house and hear what gets listened to: very little of your 60s canon, although that’s a part of it. Most popular is probably Vanpire Weekend, XX, Arcade Fire, Tracey Thorn. All from the past few years, all wonderful.
     
    Andrew J likes this.
  19. Lemon Curry

    Lemon Curry (A) Face In The Crowd

    Location:
    Mahwah, NJ
    To be brutally honest, as I own a good portion of the catalogs of the artists you list, I think you can slot them into the "fading fast" category. Arcade Fire? Really? I mean I was THERE with Joan of Arc, but is that immortal?

    My canon is not just 60's. I covered 50's, 60's and 70's in my list, and there are plenty of 80's classics too. Why do you think people buy box sets by Dylan, Big Star, The Beatles, XTC, Buddy Holly, and so many more, today? It's half a century later!!
    There's much new music I like. I thought Wilco was fighting the good fight for a while. Same with Arcade Fire. Especially with Guided By Voices, who may outlive them all! But I don't see the commitmemt, either from the bands or the fans, that so many groups enjoyed in the past.
     
    Hermes likes this.
  20. klockwerk

    klockwerk Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ohio USA
    It's The Guardian. It's a daily diatribe.
     
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  21. Willowman

    Willowman Senior Member

    Location:
    London, UK
    Those box sets are bought by a minuscule number of people - a few thousand at most, and bought by the same obsessives who write for music mags (or post on this forum). Apart from, I would say, The Beatles, none have a great impact on new listeners.
     
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  22. pathosdrama

    pathosdrama Forum Resident

    Location:
    Firenze, Italy
    If you are talking about the "rock canon", I may agree. Music in general, not so much. I could list many recent albums I care deeply about.
     
  23. Tim Lookingbill

    Tim Lookingbill Alfalfa Male

    Location:
    New Braunfels, TX
    I guess this long thread didn't mention one major point about old fart rock in that most of the folks who grew up first listening to it did so because they're friends were listening to it and wanted to fit in. Women don't dominate this socially expressive art form because they didn't go chasing after boys by listening to what's cool, hip and trendy. The boys came to them. Remember that?

    Most women I hung around with in high school as a kid weren't interested in Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan or even the Beach Boys. Music was a past time as a way to cut the silence at sleepovers and parties, not a means to socialize and come across cool and hip. They didn't have a social agenda as boys did in their musical choices. Maybe it was upbringing or hormones. Who knows.

    A shorter answer being there are folks who listen to a genre or style of music so they can fit in socially and others listen because they have a good ear for creatively original and progressive music no matter what gender, race or social clique one is in. Most women back then and today have their heads in a different place in setting priorities in their life compared to the male gender.

    Rock and roll will always be around as long as it is listenable and liked. There's going to be future generations who are going to rediscover this style of music no matter if it was created in the '60's or in 2060. The reasons outlined above on choices made will still exist as well. Is it cool and hip? And just maybe they'll ask..."Can you dance to it?".
     
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  24. moonshiner

    moonshiner Forum Resident

    Location:
    Italy
    " I think an awful lot more women – especially women of colour – will find themselves elevated: Tori Amos, Erykah Badu, Mary J Blige, Janet Jackson, and – the nemesis of Guardian comment threads – Beyoncé. Much more hip-hop will be included, and not just the hip-hop that crosses over and earns approval from rock fans. Kendrick Lamar, Jay-Z, Beastie Boys and Public Enemy will be joined by more Kanye, more Wu-Tang solo albums, more of-the-moment oddities (which would themselves disappear in due course). Chic will assume their rightful place in the pantheon. Various forms of African music will enter the lists, not just Fela Kuti; ditto the many offshoots of dance music."

    Luckily I will be dead by that time
     
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  25. Tim Lookingbill

    Tim Lookingbill Alfalfa Male

    Location:
    New Braunfels, TX
    Music isn't a form of expression that can be dominated. It's a democratic platform for self expression.

    If you've got the goods and can make music people will like, it doesn't matter what gender or race you belong, you get to dominate by selling your product on the open market. If it doesn't sell, it is not the fault of the market or race or gender.
     
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