New music is meaningless

[Boof-head]

I think Eminem's someone who has recognised the hypocisy of the entertainment industry - there must be absolutely zero execs with music appreciation.

More likely they have a better appreciation of what's going to sell. If so, the styles being adopted so slavishly by the industry and its artists can't help but lead to parody, and of course self-parody. Anyone who is an artist with any rationality would probably see past all the hype.

I think there are a lot of talented musos out there, but the whole angst thing has been so done to death, the sex thing is passe, and a lot of artists do subscribe to a rather jingoistic formula - there are bands whose music might be characterised as 'atonal' or 'music with a structure approaching disharmony', say. The idea appears to be to move towards meaninglessness to find some kind of meaning - I think rappers have a somewhat limited approach because speaking, or reciting a poem can only be so rhymey.
The rap style is a kind of minimalist tonal formula, a rap voice is a percussive, monotonal instrument and the music is repetitive and 'simple'. It's time it died a bit of a death, methinks (but then I think it did that when the Furious Five disbanded).

[lemit]

I've kind of had that argument inside my head for a long time.

Is the non-musical music of rap less deserving than John Cage's atonality? They definitely had different origins, but can we really use that to judge their validity?

My favorite form of music, Blues, which I love for the mix of formality and informality, was greatly attacked for a long time, possibly because of its origins. I think you'd have trouble finding people who don't think of the whole blues/jazz/folk/country/rock tradition as music.

(Muscle Shoals is my Mecca.)

History will decide about the current versions. I am of an age and disposition not to like them, but I don't know about their legitimacy.

--lemit

[Boof-head]

I had an English teacher at high-school who took the class through a musical survey (of the teacher's fave artists, of course); this included the likes of Joan Baez, Leonard Cohen (maybe he's an original rap-artist, old Len), Led Zep, a few others.

We were supposed to listen and discuss the lyrics, the music was supposedly incidental. I didn't really get the idea at the time and still haven't. I think Cohen is terminally depressed, perhaps.

Mind you, it was after we'd done Hemingway, so maybe teach was actually surveying terminally depressed alpha-male personality types.

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Boof-head

I think Eminem's someone who has recognised the hypocisy of the entertainment industry - there must be absolutely zero execs with music appreciation.

I think this is one of the silliest claims I’ve heard yet today!

Music execs – producers, promoters, distributors, etc – are a large an varied lot, of which a single person can hope to know and know the extent of the music appreciation of only a few. Many – in my personal experience, nearly all – are at least fair musicians themselves. It’s not unusual for musicians to be their own executives (eg: Witchwood records, which produces and distributes, and is owned and run by members of Strawbs). And lastly, my wife, who has IMHO excellent taste in music and nearly all other things, is an on-again/off-again music produced and promoter.

The opinion that nobody in a the music and wider entertainment industry appreciates music, is, I think, ill reasoned, and almost certainly formed in the absence of personal experience with people in the business.

Originally Posted by Boof-head

More likely they have a better appreciation of what's going to sell.

I think it’s safe to say that people in the business of selling music tend to have good understanding of what’s going to sell, and to whom and how best to sell it. However, being able to sell music does not IMHO, preclude appreciating it. Rather, in my experience, the better produces and promoters.

A list of people who’ve had and currently have executive roles in the music business and are considered to have excellent appreciations of music would be too long to do justice to in a single post. To claim none of them do is just ludicrous. I challenge you, Boof-head, to defend your claim against even a short list of them, such as wikipedia’s “notable music executives”.

[Pyrotex]

Originally Posted by lemit

I've kind of had that argument inside my head for a long time.
...My favorite form of music, Blues...
(Muscle Shoals is my Mecca.)
History will decide about the current versions. ...

Yes, me too. In fact, ever since Crosby, Stills & Nash stopped putting out the "good stuff".
And Kansas.
Muscle Shoals is practically where I was born and raised, just 20 miles from Russellville, Alabama. My parents didn't allow us to hear the Blues at home. But when I went to college, I went crazy for the Blues. Still am.
There are so many musical genres that have all but disappeared, prolly cause they no longer have anything to say to today's generations. Tin pan alley, honkytonk, rinkydink, torch, jungle, boogie and others. But jazz, swing and romantic ballads have survived.
Today's music is so undistinguished. Nothing separates it from the pack, marks it as unique, or associates it with the events of this decade. Remember "...paranoia strikes deep"? How can you forget if you're over 55?

[Boof-head]

Originally Posted by CraigD

I think this is one of the silliest claims I’ve heard yet today!

Wait 'til you hear the latest "great new releases".

I think the music industry is overloaded with wannabes; and that some good artists are hijacked by the hype. Some of them wake up, some get wasted but being successful looks from the outside like being good at avoiding the execs and managing things yourself, or following the conventional route and producing "what they want". About 80% of the releases are complete crap, the intention seems to be: produce the least original uninspiring rubbish possible, you might make that one passable tune you eventually come up with sound amazing by comparison.

Do you play music, can you belt out any 'oldies' like the Stones, Santana or say, Steely Dan?

[pamela]

ahhh Santana, the only band that could move me to dance for hours on end, but then again, i am the only person that i have ever seen dance to the long version of Moby Dick by Zeppelin
Every era has their good and bad share of music, maybe you just haven't heard enough, Boof head. Try listening to some college stations, you will probably find there is alot out there you like

[Boof-head]

I'm not really saying all of the new stuff is crap; but a lot of it seems to be.

I like Dave Grohl and the Foos, I like some of the newer Kiwi bands, like the Datsuns, OpShop, I used to listen to Split Enz a bit. If you've heard of a band called Hello Sailor, I sold a pair of Gohills to one of the members (a long time ago), the ex-lead singer lives up the road, one Graeme Brazier.

You might have once heard a song called "Drink", by an Auckland band called The Dudes, which is something of an anthem here.

[lemit]

So, Pyrotex, are you my long-lost twin?

I'm amazed how often in effective new rock I hear eight-bar patterns. I should explain that I think of eight-bar as real blues and 12- or 16-bar as kind of cluttered.

I led a somewhat strange life in the sixties, so "paraoia strikes deep" didn't strike a note--so to speak--with me. So I searched it. "For what it's worth" didn't help either. But as soon as I read the first line of the lyrics I was transported to a much earlier but not simpler time. That emotional trigger is amazing. I would go out and protest something if I hadn't got promises of support from state representatives and our local congress member for projects I'm promoting. Co-optation? I don't know. Of course the fact that standing more than 15 minutes is extremely painful might make a difference too.

--lemit

[vanamoinen1]

Listening to music in one's car or home is one thing. Hearing it jam in a club is another, and the bottom line of Eminem is that when his songs (or more likely, club remixes of his songs) crank in a club (a club most likely populated by 20 and 30 somethings, many of which are single and cruising), people dance (and I hate to be the bearer of dismal news, but Britney is danceable). In this context, the quality and content of the lyrics-writing become largely irrelevant--the Dre factor shoots up in significance. I'm sorry, but you just can't dance to Cage--or Rorem, or Ives for that matter. I don't mean to devalue their work, but rather to point out that there is at least one environment which is suitable to a type of music and that other environments are unsuitable therefor.

Myself, bluegrass is a weakness, although, really this is for the most part totally "meaningless" music. Traditional tunes are relatively simple Americanised Irish tunes (and some irish-ish native tunes), mostly hanging in 8 bar units. There is limited development/improvisation to it (largely tradition-driven)--certainly no JSBach has arisen to complexify it. Songs, if any, tend to focus on issues either no longer relevant, or so over-done as to be trite. Nevertheless, hit the Blue Plum in Tennessee and you'll see a lot of people enjoying the beats. These same people will buy handicrafts, carnival food and pay for lodging, thus upping the income of Johnson City. And yet, stirrings--New Grass has tremendous potential as demonstrated by Nickel Creek, Gillian Welsh et al. Musical midrash.

Finally, from a slanted patent attorney perspective--we often make the argument that commercial success (of an invention) serves as secondary evidence as to that invention's novelty/uniqueness. The implication is that the invention services some need which otherwise is not being serviced. Taking that over to music--the commercial success of Eminem (and of the rap industry as a whole) indicates that he/they fill(s) some market's need for him/them or the flipside, there is a demand for this type of music and he/they service that demand. Whether there's lasting power in this music remains to be seen.

Boof-Head--anecdotally, I think Mr. Cohen was actually late to the game. The Germans had an odd "musical" period back in the early 1900s where they "orchestrated" entire choirs of what was (essentially) rap. Oy, imagine a whole concert of rhythmic German chanting. Not my idea of a good night out.