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Have old people ruined pop music?
mushymanrob
Posts: 17,992 Forum Member
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hear me out....
(and no its not directly another pop at watertwit)
as i see it, after getting into pop music in the 60's, (as a boy), there have been successive styles, genres, created by the youth of the day and spoke to the youth of the day. from rock n roll, through merseybeat, british r&b, psychedelia, glam, prog, punk, new wave, new romantic, indie, madchester and others, each new genre or sub genre is theres any pedants around, lol, was created by the youth of the day for (primarily) the youth of the day.
i think the real rot set in (to call it that) was britpop, when there was as many parents at the big oasis gig as there was 'kidz'...
some will say whats the problem, indeed there might be no problem, but with uber commercialisation of pop music, and the habit for old acts to refuse to lay down and die, letting more new acts get in on the scene, are us old buggers the reason why theres been no strong youth movement , or at least original youth movement since the 90's?
back in my day it was virtually unheard of for old acts to get a look in, their time was dead and gone, they were no longer relevant to the youth of the day. isnt it the same now?... i hear prodigy are releasing new material, along with a plethora of 'old' acts who are still selling, but who too?
it appears to me, that since the turn of the century modern youth has given up, or been pushed out, of creating original pop music ... oh yes i know 'its there if you search hard enough', that old chestnut...but back in the heyday of pop you didnt have to search, because there was one or more (often more) differing, original styles to chose from.
(and no its not directly another pop at watertwit)
as i see it, after getting into pop music in the 60's, (as a boy), there have been successive styles, genres, created by the youth of the day and spoke to the youth of the day. from rock n roll, through merseybeat, british r&b, psychedelia, glam, prog, punk, new wave, new romantic, indie, madchester and others, each new genre or sub genre is theres any pedants around, lol, was created by the youth of the day for (primarily) the youth of the day.
i think the real rot set in (to call it that) was britpop, when there was as many parents at the big oasis gig as there was 'kidz'...
some will say whats the problem, indeed there might be no problem, but with uber commercialisation of pop music, and the habit for old acts to refuse to lay down and die, letting more new acts get in on the scene, are us old buggers the reason why theres been no strong youth movement , or at least original youth movement since the 90's?
back in my day it was virtually unheard of for old acts to get a look in, their time was dead and gone, they were no longer relevant to the youth of the day. isnt it the same now?... i hear prodigy are releasing new material, along with a plethora of 'old' acts who are still selling, but who too?
it appears to me, that since the turn of the century modern youth has given up, or been pushed out, of creating original pop music ... oh yes i know 'its there if you search hard enough', that old chestnut...but back in the heyday of pop you didnt have to search, because there was one or more (often more) differing, original styles to chose from.
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The old buggers have seen their fortunes whittled away by falling interest rates, alimony payments and bad investments. so they come back again.
I've always liked some chart music and music outside of the mainstream (eg current playlist has Hozier, Ella Henderson, Cab Calloway, Stephen Stills, Rhiannon Giddens, Laura Marling, Murder by Death, Leveret, John Surman, the Do, We are Augustines, Young the Giant, Theatre of Hate etc). Through my life, some people have been interested in a wide range of music and some haven't.
This board is predominantly subscribed to by people who seem only concerned with "current pop."
You'd think with a board title of "Music" the contributions would be more diverse.
Although I have my preferences, all my life I've made it a habit of listening to any genre of popular music, of whatever era, as long it has a good tune/sung well.
There's the crux of the problem. People have become far too conservative when it comes to music, they prefer to keep to what they know rather than branch out. This is why the vast majority of people in this country listen to mostly music from the US and UK even though there is a healthy music scene across Europe.
Speaking as a rock/metal fan, you have an excellent stoner/doom metal scene in Sweden and Greece. You have the symphonic metal scene thriving in Belgium, Holland, Germany etc.
Then there is the excellent Jazz music that you have been sharing on this forum.
Plus Radio 1 played a broad range of music, both new and old, throughout the day with the evening and weekends often being completely different.
In addition there was television, The Old Grey Whistle Test, Top Of The Pops, Revolver, The Tube, etc, and that is just in my lifetime.
What is there now? Pretty much nothing. There is virtually no maintream avenue for any new music or a band to break through. Hard Rock/Heavy Metal/ etc still manages it through the old fashioned route of relentless touring, but that is getting ever more expensive and, unless there is record label backing, almost impossible these days. That is not to say it can't happen, bands like Alter Bridge, Within Temptation, and Black Stone Cherry show it can be done.
The Graham Norton Show only has the latest, heavily-hyped, very commercial, established acts and Later... With Jools Holland covers such a narrow spectrum of popular music it is laughable. If the people who choose the bands don't like you, you won't get on no matter how successful or popular you are.
Well, at least your recent threads are doing a grand job of keeping Jazz alive on this forum, while the OP is doing a grand job of keeping the sixties alive on this forum.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007cpgz
Across the Line is a brilliant radio show that promotes and plays a wide range of upandcoming artists from an eclectic musical styles.
That may be true if a few cases but I think the vast majority do it simply for the love of doing it.
Malcolm and Angus Young of AC/DC, for example, are said to be worth in excess of $150m each, I doubt Angus Young is embarking on their, probably last, world tour because he needs the money.
Although, ironically, as a Rock/Metal fan I find myself listening more and moer to those European bands than UK or American bands because what they are doing is often far more interesting.
We are the exceptions ;-)
Couldn't disagree with this more, I think Jools Holland does a great job with his show. A lot of the time some of the more outlandish acts aren't my cup of tea but that's a price I'm willing to pay for his diversity.
I've been turned on to numerous acts I might never have been exposed to from watching Later... over the years.
It isn't the continued presence of older musicians that's the problem, it's the old farts in the music industry. You only have to look at the middle-of-the-road dross that gets nominated for The Brits as proof of that. Not that most people give a toss about The Brits, but the equally old farts in the media welcome it as lazy, cheap material for newspapers and television.
at the same time the increase of technology allows people to make music with less skill required, such as sampling. so less time is perhaps spent jamming with other people and coming up with new ideas, and more time spent alone without a collaborative period
but also at the same time, there are a lot more genres and sub genres of music, perhaps to the degree that most things are covered and almost any style of music already has a sub genre mixed with another genre, like classical metal or country rap, but with so much choice spread so far online, the most common heard music is the lowest common denominator music
of course kids typically have a far better standard of living today than in the past, and each generation of parents will tell their kids the same thing. but these days most teenagers will have lived a live where they have everything from computers and dvd players and internet and mobile phones and all sorts of stuff to play with, millions of channels on the tv, they can download and play anything, so no need to pick up and learn and instrument as a hobby as there is so much stuff waiting to take their spare time from them, such as videogames. what's sad in that respect is kids spending hours playing games with pretend plastic guitars when if they spent that time with a real one they would probably be able to play it very well
if you think things are bad now, imagine what it'll be like in the next 20 years
I don't really watch it these days as I'm bored to tears with him now, but the show used to be a lot more diverse, but personally I had no interest in the really diverse bands that he got on, which seemed more like a challenge to get the weirdest acts in, as he always had a nasal flute band from Ethiopia one week or some Tibetan monks chanting the other week, and then want to play boogie woogie piano along with radiohead. it improved a lot when he stopped those extreme bands. its still diverse enough with a mix of styles from rnb to rock and hip hop to dance, and he doesn't tend to join in as much these days, which is great
A lot of the current music-making generation are more conservative than previous ones, but that's their choice. They are making music that appeals to vast swathes of their peers, irrespective of anyone's opinions on it. The more creative of their generation are drawn to other areas to express themselves more, which can be seen on cinema or in literature, for example.
If you were to ask Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, Symphonic Metal, Progresstive Music, etc, fans of their opinion of the show they would very much echo mine, as a trawl through the relevant genre music forums would show.
Despite its massive popularity not only in the UK but globally, that end of the music spectrum is almost completely ignored by the BBC, Later... included. Yes, there have been a few exceptions, Alice In Chains, Metallica, and more recently Mastodon come to mind but, whilst I may have missed out one or two, those I've given are very much the exceptions to the rule.
On the plus side he does have some interesting guest artists. Particularly in the jazz field. In fact, his is the only show you're ever likely to see any.
The days when there was a weekly programme from Ronnie Scott's on the BBC are now half a lifetime ago.
Although as I've said many times before, he will often insist on duetting with attractive female guest singers. What we get is an under-rehearsed compromise between his honky-tonk style and theirs.
Two artist stick in my memory, Amy Winehouse and Anita Baker. Both performances were abysmal.
I also think that these days he's often going through the motions. His frequent "loved your CD," seems sometimes so insincere.
I record the show "just in case" because have to fast-forward through the many "string-strummin' cacophonous cowboys," where I find, "only the names seem to have been changed to protect the innocent," they all sound so similar. Their "stage mannerisms" often like a parody of well known group artists of decades ago.
But in the end it really doesn't matter. Thanks to YouTube you can watch or listen to any artist of any genre of any era, but unfortunately it doesn't bring some fantastic performances to a wider public.
I 'found' Rival Sons on Jools Holland only a couple of months ago. ;-)
You do have a point, there is probably less hard rock/metal acts than others but they are covered. He might wait till the rock acts are established before he takes a chance but I'd still say that he does,l plenty of acts I think SHOULD have been on his show though.
I've actually found internet radio is the way to discover new stuff these days as there are stations for every genre imaginable and it's great you can just favourite an artist that's pique'd your interest.