Unlike others I don't equate successful sales with relevance.

Me neither. In fact I completely made that last statement up.
My Fav band 'The Dear Hunter' (Not to be confused with Deerhunter) have absolutely no relevance aside to a small bunch of us fans.

i bet that in the years you refer to that you haven't "played" a stones track you've certainly heard the stones being played numerous times such as on radio, tv or watching movies. likewise the beatles

however I was referring more to people who do actively listen to those acts by choice. of course as with any other artist there will be millions of people who don't actively listen to them, but there will be millions more people who actively choose to listen to the stones or beatles music than there are people who actively choose to listen to the vast majority of other artists in the entire history of music, such is the impact they had on the world

why do you say that? it sounds like you've jumped to a conclusion without anything to go by


this sounds like the start of the typical discussion on this site where someone starts moving the goalposts by adding extra words into things that weren't asked originally


as someone who was interested in grime music when it started many years ago, but now consider what is released under the name of "grime" as something akin to "complete and utter shite" that's dated and hasn't changed or moved on in any way of notable value, for example the recent skepta album that got a mercury music award, I would say grimes relevancy is considerably less now than it ever was, even though some people still making grime music may argue otherwise. just as people who work in Tesco or some other shitty job may argue in favour of what they do

thing is however, it doesn't matter what new music the put out, the old classic stones albums are still relevant today. they are still being rehashed aka rereleased, repacked, etc every few years. of course that's primarily to make money, but they can only do that as long as people are interested in buying them, and certainly people are still interested in hearing stuff like exile. they can roll out a new album that's complete shite and people will buy it and give it a play or two and forget about it and go back to playing goats head soup, over and over and over again

the dark side of the moon is still relevant today and it will be relevant for many years to come. no amount of barrel scraping of reissues is going to stop that. a great album that's been hugely popular and sold for over 40 years isn't going to stop being popular in a hurry


kendricks butterfly album isn't bad, but in the grand scheme of just the hip hop world, in 5 years time I don't expect it to be in my favourite top 10 hip hop albums. hip hop is down the dumper at the moment. I've listened to the stones more since that album came out than I listened to anything by Kendrick in my life. however i'll probably listen to butterfly more times in my life than I listen to the next stones album, although in saying that it could turn out interesting as it's a bunch of covers of old classic tracks covered relatively faithfully, rather than a bunch of 70 year olds trying to make something that sounds like the shit most people usually hear on the radio

I'd say there were other classic hip hop albums that are more relevant today than Kendrick lamars. fear of a black planet for example. i'll be playing that for a long time

but i have chosen not to listen to these by choice, so im suggesting they are of little, if any, relevance to me.

i hear a lot of music on the radio tv etc, and not by choice but because its being played. ive heard westlife.... does that make westlife relevant to me?... not in my books matey!

however, i do understand you are referring more to the people who do chose to listen to them today and its clear that to them, they are relevant.

So do you think the deviant, dangerous bad boy Stones of the 60s and 70s have turned into the pillars of the establishment today? And did you consider this relevant or was my assumption fair enough that you didn't consider it relevant?


People understand terms like relevant in different ways. That's really the only point I'm making here. I'm simply disputing that it is a meaningless term as suggested by some posters, I'm simply suggesting that it means different things to different people.

For me, and I see that not many agree, that in the case of some artists whether their image and what they represent is still relevant. The Stones were relevant to the youth of the 60s because they were part of the counter culture of that era; using drugs, sexually liberated, anti-establishment, white boys doing the blues and that was what made them attractive. Are those things relevant to the youth of today, probably not as the youth of today are considerably less deviant than those in the past.


You are considering in the quotes above why some music may be considered relevant and some may not. That's my only point that it is perfectly possible to consider some music more relevant than other music or artists and that it is not a meaningless term as others suggest.

Me personally, I would consider relevant not what people listen to but more projected on the artist themselves.

There is another thread about Robbie Williams being relevant or not and IMHO he is not relevant in music timelines, he just releases chart friendly stuff Heart FM listeners will embrace , and as soon as he ventures out too much it becomes quite embarrassing (Rudebox single anyone)

You could say Adele is relevant, for being responsible for "New boring" (Ed Sheeran, Emeli Sande-I don't find HER boring but I can see people saying that, Sam Smith)

I would also name Craig David as bringing a face to UK garage back then and the whole of 2000/2001 UK garage was the main pop genre

the things I've highlighted from your post is simply opinion and not fact

in what way were the rolling stones "dangerous" and what makes you use the words "pillars of the establishment today" ?

I don't consider them to have been any of those things. they were musicians. the most dangerous thing one of them did was fall out of a tree


yet you take a simple question and reply and add something that wasn't mentioned initially. it's like the usual DS thread where a simple question is asked, a simple answer is given and someone tries to argue buy adding in a third element of the equation

whilst people may interpret words differently, there are dictionary definitions of most words, including the word being discussed. it's got such an open meaning that in many cases the answer will be a simple yes or no


that's it, it's your opinion and your thoughts. other people will consider them relevant for other reasons. some young people may listen to the music for whatever reasons and others won't. young people listening to the stones may not care about things outwith the music they are listening to, it's the sound that may matter the most, or the lyrics. not what they did before or after making the music


how do you consider some music more relevant than other music?

and what difference does it make unless you wish to use the data for commercial reasons?

Actually it was a question not a statement and I was asking whether you agreed with the opinion expressed. And you stated your opinion. That's a perfectly normal exchange. You don't have to agree.

And if you don't consider some of the Stones behaviour and work dangerous try deviant, consider some of their brushes with the law in relation to deviance. That's only the social side of it. They also deal with some dark issues in their songs.


You are always mentioning dictionaries, here's an entry for 'relevant' (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/relevant) accessed at 14:51, 2/11/2016

'Full Definition of relevant
1
a : having significant and demonstrable bearing on the matter at hand b : affording evidence tending to prove or disprove the matter at issue or under discussion <relevant testimony> c : having social relevance

2
: proportional, relative'

Even in the dictionary there are multiple meanings irrespective of the context they are used. Meanings change over time as word are used in different contexts. ('gay' is more loaded with meanings nowadays which it didn't have in the past). Music is one of them where relevance has been used.

You have your own understanding of relevance in a popular culture/music context and have mine. And you have expressed it in earlier posts.



Many of the posts here are expressions of different personal opinions and thoughts. Is that not the joy of DS?

I work in academic environment (both hard technology and soft cultural studies) where the standard of evidence are much higher than on here but you still get competing ideas where agreement is hard to get. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's quite normal.

I deploy different cultural and social theories in relation to 'relevance' or cultural value as part of a wider remit around culture and technology.

That's the short answer to your questions. So commercial interest is marginal.

whilst it was a question, it's still a matter of opinion rather than fact what you were asking. i note you declined answering why you thought the stones would be referred to in such a way


so do you consider them dangerous? can you list 3 dangerous things you consider them to have done, so there is some facts to consider rather than just accepting that the did dangerous things because you said they did?


as the dictionary shows, there are definitions for words and often they have more than one definition and allow for some variance. so need to add more to it or come up with your own interpretation of a word that others won't use


that would simply be your opinion if you found joy in people disagreeing on things because they don't understand the words used or have misinterpreted purposefully or otherwise what the OP is saying

however if someone posts something that's factually correct, answering back with something that's merely opinion and does not prove the comments of the earlier poster to be false, then sometimes it's worth pointing out that what someone posts in reply is opinion and not fact



and what are they? for example the OP didn't mention "young" in his post but you replied asking why something is relevant to the young. there are more people on this planet who aren't young than those who are, so effectively you would be excluding the vast majority of the population if your views of relevance were restricted to only including the young. if you really do work in an academic enviroment as you claim, you should surely know that can result in some greatly flawed results


that's simply your opinion and not fact however. can you provide facts to back up that statement?

I always think of Westlife as a prime example. They had a whole succession of hits, no 1s and sold shed loads of albums, yet they were never considered relevant or made any real contribution to music because all their recordings were essentially covers.

well said..... id suggest ignoring the other posters response as they are clearly looking yet again for another argument. youve expressed your opinion, clearly, it is reasoned and not inflamitory. i personally agree with what youve said and i expect others will too.

Music, like art, is very subjective. If you like an artist/band, you like them. If you don't, you don't. No amount of argument can alter that.

Yeah, amazing number of hits though. Maybe they are relevant to people interested in chart success?


I think you are right and we've been here before.



All I would say about that, is that it's not always about you the individual. You know if you prefer Kandinsky to Rothko or any other art and that is personal and subjective.

But I am interested in the process that means Kandinsky and Rothko's works are recognised as great art and the works of other contemporary painters are not.