What Are You Listening To Now VII

patrick jane

patrick jane

BANNED
Banned
annabenedetti said:
Okay, well that was fun... kind of. :chuckle:

But I have to end with this: I don't agree with you that it wasn't a good decade for music. I think that's your opinion, and that's fine, but I think there was a lot of good music being created - just maybe not in the places you were looking.
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There was tons of great music in the 80s.
 
Arthur Brain

Arthur Brain

Well-known member
PureX said:
That's true, but I don't consider artists that began in the 60s or 70s as "80s" music. Pink Floyd was fantastic, but even though they were touring in the early 80s, I don't consider them 80s artists.

The Ramones and Sex Pistols, etc., were great in terms of their reaction to a banal culture (much as the early rock-and-rollers were) but the music was so simple it just didn't leave them anywhere to go. And punk was really born in the late 70s, not the 80s.

I really think the best of the 80s was in the genre of full on pop, like Micheal Jackson. He was truly spectacular in the 80s. Yet even he did not come from the 80s, but from the late 60s and 70s.

We think of the Bee Gees as quintessential 80s (disco) musicians, yet they, too came from the late 60s and 70s.

The music that actually came from the 80s was new wave, disco, glam rock, and a whole lot of pop-schlock. Almost all of which were more about making money than making music.
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I was born in the early 70's and find most pop music pre or post to be serving a market oriented industry and that follows through to the 90's and to the present. You can't single out a decade of popular music to be doing anything particularly different to its predecessor essentially as there has to be an audience for it.

I hate "pop" music in its generic term but the 80's were no less deprived of innovators within the genres of rock etc as any other. In fact the 80's and early 90's informed bands that pushed the boundaries in the electronic music scene that branched off into the underground electronic/electronica/rock 'hybrid' scene and all sorts that I appreciate today. Nothing that could be considered 'popular' as such in regards to "chart Success" but then bands in the 80's were still tipping their hats to futuristic pioneers such as 'Tangerine Dream' in the late 60's, early 70's etc that paved the way for popular music and the innovative to be compatible and accessible still.
 
freelight

freelight

Eclectic Theosophist
Tears for fears - woman in chains...

Tears for fears - woman in chains...

~*~*~

Another awesome song and video from this band, featuring Oleta Adams, done in 1989 (Phil Collins was drummer for studio cut and Pino Palladino on fretless bass).

Tears for Fears - Woman in chains




You better love loving you better behave
You better love loving you better behave
Woman in Chains
Woman in Chains

Calls her man the Great White Hope
Syas she's fine, she'll always cope
Woman in Chains
Woman in Chains

Well I fell lying and waiting is a poor man's deal
And I feel hopelessly weighed down by your eyes of steel
It's a world gone crazy
Keeps Woman in Chains

Trades her soul as skin and bone
Sells the only thing she owns
Woman in Chains
Woman in Chains

Men of Stone Men of Stone

Well I feel deep in your heart there are wounds Time can't heal
And I feel somebody somewhere is trying to breathe
Well you know what I mean
It's a world gone crazy
Keeps Woman in Chains

It's under my skin but out of my hands
I'll tear it apart but I won't understand
I will not accept the Greatness of Man

It's a world gone crazy
Keeps Woman in Chains

So Free Her So Free Her

~*~*~

Songwriter-

ROLAND ORZABAL

wiki (info)
 
PureX

PureX

Well-known member
Arthur Brain said:
I was born in the early 70's and find most pop music pre or post to be serving a market oriented industry and that follows through to the 90's and to the present. You can't single out a decade of popular music to be doing anything particularly different to its predecessor essentially as there has to be an audience for it.

I hate "pop" music in its generic term but the 80's were no less deprived of innovators within the genres of rock etc as any other. In fact the 80's and early 90's informed bands that pushed the boundaries in the electronic music scene that branched off into the underground electronic/electronica/rock 'hybrid' scene and all sorts that I appreciate today. Nothing that could be considered 'popular' as such in regards to "chart Success" but then bands in the 80's were still tipping their hats to futuristic pioneers such as 'Tangerine Dream' in the late 60's, early 70's etc that paved the way for popular music and the innovative to be compatible and accessible still.
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By the late 70s money was becoming the goal of a lot of 'artists' and their handlers. And the music they were making was clearly suffering for it. Punk was a reaction to that, in fact. But punk was a very limited form, and burned itself out, quickly. New wave was what punk left behind in the 80s. And some of it was innovative and sincere, but it was soon swallowed up by the money machine and became mostly just more pop. Disco was a way of making and selling music without paying musicians (machines were used instead) to increase profits, and that idea (profiteering) led to the endless chain of canned pretty-boy bands and the 'strutting sluts' like Madonna.

Terrific artists are always around, trying to make terrific music. But the 1980s ushered in the 'greed is good' philosophy among all those who were involved in the music manufacturing industry, and their influence acted as a sieve, weeding out the sincere and truly creative, while producing and promoting a whole lot of banal pop schlock.

I was born in the 50s. I remember when making music was not about getting rich or living a decadent lifestyle. It was about making great music that could change people lives. There was no music 'industry', there were just record companies and radio stations. And although I'm sure they were looking to get rich, if possible, they did not control who made music and how. That happened in the 1980s. And it's still happening, today, for the most part.

The artists are still out there. And they are still trying to do their jobs. But the music business has become their enemy in a lot of ways that it had not been, before. And that's why we are no longer seeing the great innovations that we saw in past decades. The real artists these days have to go through the internet and become their own record companies to get their music out because the music industry has become so stiflingly greedy and banal.

Unless you've lived in previous decades, it's quite possible that you just assume it was always this way. But it wasn't. Our culture really went to hell in the late 1970s/early 1980s, when the baby-boomers began having families and having to work for a living. All their 1960s idealism went right out the window and they became all about making money. And this phenomena effected everything in our culture. Including our music.

I see Micheal Jackson as a great 80s artist because he became an artist WITHIN all that pop greed and phony glitz. He drove right down the most crowded center of that greedy pop-schlock highway and cut a swath so wide that nobody could touch him. He wasn't great in spite of the pop schlock, he was actually great BECAUSE of it! And to me, that's true creative greatness.

 
PureX

PureX

Well-known member
freelight said:
~*~*~

Sharing some more great music from the 80's despite nay-sayers ;)
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No offense, dude, but you aren't making much of a case.

Think of "great music" from the 1950s (Elvis, Carl Perkins, etc.). Now, think of "great music" from the 1960s (Beatles, Woodstock, etc.)! And think of 'great music" of the 1970s (Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, etc.).

And then look at what you've posted. :shocked:

See a difference?
 
Arthur Brain

Arthur Brain

Well-known member
PureX said:
By the late 70s money was becoming the goal of a lot of 'artists' and their handlers. And the music they were making was clearly suffering for it. Punk was a reaction to that, in fact. But punk was a very limited form, and burned itself out, quickly. New wave was what punk left behind in the 80s. And some of it was innovative and sincere, but it was soon swallowed up by the money machine and became mostly just more pop. Disco was a way of making and selling music without paying musicians (machines were used instead) to increase profits, and that idea (profiteering) led to the endless chain of canned pretty-boy bands and the 'strutting sluts' like Madonna.
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Pure, money would have been the aim of most to all artists who were trying to make a career in a band or in music. It's not a phenomenon that emerged in the 70's and that's not to say that making a living and creativity can't go hand in hand anyway. How much money have Pink Floyd made through the years by way of? I detest manufactured boy bands and the like but consider a minute. Who were the first 'boy band' to strike it huge? I'd say 'The Beatles', and don't kid yourself that their image wasn't marketed to the hilt, and then consider Elvis before that. We may have TV's with a million channels in most houses nowadays but the same principle of marketing/advertising was going on back way before the 80's. Technological advancements simply make it progressively easier to 'spread the word'.

Not sure where you're getting this whole thing about disco just being 'made by machines' exactly. The Bee Gees were people weren't they? There's plenty of disco outfits comprised of performers so I don't think you've thought that through particularly. Where it comes to 'machines making music' then you need to explain just what you mean by that anyway. With the advent of the synthesizer then it was bound to be utilized and adopted by musicians, sometimes solely as the source of the music - aka Tangerine Dream, Jean Michel Jarre etc who had more than a modicum of popular success in the electronic genre. Pink Floyd and rock bands used such back then and until the present also. Technology is there to be used after all. Now, I'd agree insofar as technology nowadays can make a crap singer sound like a diva but that's not the fault of the 70's and 80's anyway but rather the cynical side of the modern music industry where image takes precedent above all else on the 'pop front'.
Terrific artists are always around, trying to make terrific music. But the 1980s ushered in the 'greed is good' philosophy among all those who were involved in the music manufacturing industry, and their influence acted as a sieve, weeding out the sincere and truly creative, while producing and promoting a whole lot of banal pop schlock.
Click to expand...

The 1980's didn't "invent" greed and nor did it infect everyone involved in the music industry. That's complete hyperbole. There's all sorts of banal pop in any decade and IMNSHO not more so than the last decade or so where we're inundated with 'X Factor' shows and the like. That's not to say there aren't plenty of creative musicians/bands/outfits creating cutting edge and innovative music just like there were in the 80's.

I was born in the 50s. I remember when making music was not about getting rich or living a decadent lifestyle. It was about making great music that could change people lives. There was no music 'industry', there were just record companies and radio stations. And although I'm sure they were looking to get rich, if possible, they did not control who made music and how. That happened in the 1980s. And it's still happening, today, for the most part.
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There was a music industry Pure, just not as advanced as the technology allows today is all. Record companies are just that, and what does any company look to make from its product?

:think:
The artists are still out there. And they are still trying to do their jobs. But the music business has become their enemy in a lot of ways that it had not been, before. And that's why we are no longer seeing the great innovations that we saw in past decades. The real artists these days have to go through the internet and become their own record companies to get their music out because the music industry has become so stiflingly greedy and banal.
Click to expand...

And then of course there's the flip side to your argument. With the advent of greater technology and the obvious advertising and marketing potential available to 'tycoons' and the like, it also becomes more accessible to those who in years gone by wouldn't have been able to afford it. There's many an independent label that thrives off the 'underground' scene that would never threaten the charts but is popular nonetheless - something that wouldn't have even been available to artists in the 50's doing something 'different'.

Unless you've lived in previous decades, it's quite possible that you just assume it was always this way. But it wasn't. Our culture really went to hell in the late 1970s/early 1980s, when the baby-boomers began having families and having to work for a living. All their 1960s idealism went right out the window and they became all about making money. And this phenomena effected everything in our culture. Including our music.
Click to expand...

I think that's just unduly cynical and rose tinted to be honest.
I see Micheal Jackson as a great 80s artist because he became an artist WITHIN all that pop greed and phony glitz. He drove right down the most crowded center of that greedy pop-schlock highway and cut a swath so wide that nobody could touch him. He wasn't great in spite of the pop schlock, he was actually great BECAUSE of it! And to me, that's true creative greatness.
Click to expand...

I think you give him too much credit. You can hardly venerate Jackson and reduce Madonna to a 'strutting slut' as both forged lucrative careers within the industry and became 'pop icons'. I hardly see Jackson as being some creative genius frankly so I'm a bit surprised at you in that regard, and especially when you're having a go at Freelight for posting 80's pop and comparing it with Pink Floyd/Led Zeppelin etc. A bit of a double standard there IMO...

I hate chart generated pop music in general so I can get to say that...

:banana:



Anyway, this is a thread for listening to music so if you're going to respond how about let's start a thread about it and take the convo there?
 
zoo22

zoo22

Well-known member
PureX said:
No offense, dude, but you aren't making much of a case.

Think of "great music" from the 1950s (Elvis, Carl Perkins, etc.). Now, think of "great music" from the 1960s (Beatles, Woodstock, etc.)! And think of 'great music" of the 1970s (Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, etc.).

And then look at what you've posted. :shocked:

See a difference?
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Don't you ever get sick of listening to yourself? Please take it somewhere else.

This thread is for sharing music you're listening to, not for putting down other people's music. It's simple.

Please.


Always Crashing in the Same car by David Bowie
 
PureX

PureX

Well-known member
A few quick points since zoo seems to be getting upset.
Arthur Brain said:
Pure, money would have been the aim of most to all artists who were trying to make a career in a band or in music.
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Actually, I think you are quite wrong about this, but having grown up in the 80s, I can see how you might think so.

I am certain that none of the artists I mentioned did what they did for the money. None. Not one. Because that's not how artists think, and if it were, they wouldn't have been any good. I'm not saying they didn't like the money when they got it. But it was not why they made music.
Arthur Brain said:
Who were the first 'boy band' to strike it huge? I'd say 'The Beatles', and don't kid yourself that their image wasn't marketed to the hilt, and then consider Elvis before that.
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You are quite wrong about this, also. These artists were not singing models, performing cogs in a manufactured pop music machine. The Beatles wrote their own music and arranged it for the most part, themselves. What we saw and heard was their creative product. Certainly their handlers promoted them, as has always been the case, but their handlers weren't dictating the content. Not so for the many canned boy-bands of the 80s and thereafter. They were hired singers, plugged into a 'pop boy-band formula'. And the proof is in the number of them that have been manufactured in subsequent years. These people aren't artists. They are just paid performers, doing it for the money, and perhaps for the illusion of being an "artist".
Arthur Brain said:
We may have TV's with a million channels in most houses nowadays but the same principle of marketing/advertising was going on back way before the 80's. Technological advancements simply make it progressively easier to 'spread the word'.
Click to expand...
Yes, but in the 80s this part of the music industry took over creative control, for the most part, and the result generally sucked. Because that part of the industry is all about making money, not making great music. The artists want to make great music. But their handlers were calling the shots, and they just wanted to make money. And it's been that way ever since.
Arthur Brain said:
There's many an independent label that thrives off the 'underground' scene that would never threaten the charts but is popular nonetheless - something that wouldn't have even been available to artists in the 50's doing something 'different'.
Click to expand...
An "underground" wasn't needed in the 50s. Back then, the record producers sent people out looking for the artists to produce and promote. But starting with disco and the 'greed is good' 80s, they decided they could just manufacture the "artists" themselves. Which is why their "artists" sucked. And the real artists out there had to find their own ways of producing and promoting their music. Or they learned to live without access to a mass audience (like the punks did).
Arthur Brain said:
I think you give him too much credit. You can hardly venerate Jackson and reduce Madonna to a 'strutting slut' as both forged lucrative careers within the industry and became 'pop icons'.
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You are right, Madonna does deserve some credit for reinventing the classic 'strutting slut' routine (aka Marilyn Monroe, etc.). But keep in mind that she was following Jackson's lead. And he was doing pop song and dance decades before anyone ever heard of her.
Arthur Brain said:
I hardly see Jackson as being some creative genius frankly …
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Then you don't have an artist's eyes and ears. Because he really was spectacular at inhabiting a song, in every way: costume, voice, movement, staging ... And although Quincy Jones had a lot to do with the audio arrangements, Jackson was smart enough to give him that control, and work with him to perfect it. Micheal Jackson was the 'Elvis' of the 80s, and as proof of how good he really was, none of the many attempts at copying his style, since, have even come close. Perhaps Madonna. But she was reprising the classic slut act as much as she was following Jackson. She was a hybrid more than a direct copycat.
Arthur Brain said:
I'm a bit surprised at you in that regard, and especially when you're having a go at Freelight for posting 80's pop and comparing it with Pink Floyd/Led Zeppelin etc. A bit of a double standard there IMO...
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Everyone has their preferences and opinions. And I have mine. Especially when it comes to art, and music.

But I can back mine up with thoughtful observation. It's not just blind whim. Just sayin'.
 
PureX

PureX

Well-known member
Leaving behind the ugly 80s, the 90s turned out to be a sort of minor musical renaissance, with the resurgence of the American singer-songwriter. We were hearing some great music from about the mid 90s to the mid 2000s … Not on the radio, because the corporate conglomerates owned all those by then, but on satellite radio, and on a few progressive TV shows (ACL, Sessions At West 54th, SoundStage).



 
Arthur Brain

Arthur Brain

Well-known member
PureX said:
A few quick points since zoo seems to be getting upset.Actually, I think you are quite wrong about this, but having grown up in the 80s, I can see how you might think so.
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I'll answer this here and if you want to respond then please start a thread on the subject so as not to disrupt this one any further. Zoo has a valid point as this thread is about what people are listening to, not talking about.
I am certain that none of the artists I mentioned did what they did for the money. None. Not one. Because that's not how artists think, and if it were, they wouldn't have been any good. I'm not saying they didn't like the money when they got it. But it was not why they made music.
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If you're trying to make a career as an artist then you're looking for an income, maybe not megabucks but something to support yourself, and as I pointed out before, there isn't necessarily a 'selling out' by being creative and getting paid for it.

You are quite wrong about this, also. These artists were not singing models, performing cogs in a manufactured pop music machine. The Beatles wrote their own music and arranged it for the most part, themselves. What we saw and heard was their creative product. Certainly their handlers promoted them, as has always been the case, but their handlers weren't dictating the content. Not so for the many canned boy-bands of the 80s and thereafter. They were hired singers, plugged into a 'pop boy-band formula'. And the proof is in the number of them that have been manufactured in subsequent years. These people aren't artists. They are just paid performers, doing it for the money, and perhaps for the illusion of being an "artist".
Click to expand...

I wasn't saying that The Beatles were the creative 'musical' equivalent of JLS or some such but rather that they were one of the first bands to be marketed on image as well as their product. I'm not sure how you can deny that. Ever seen footage of the hordes of teenage fans at their gigs? It was a different image to the boy bands of today (wearing suits etc) but the same marketing principle applied.

Yes, but in the 80s this part of the music industry took over creative control, for the most part, and the result generally sucked. Because that part of the industry is all about making money, not making great music. The artists want to make great music. But their handlers were calling the shots, and they just wanted to make money. And it's been that way ever since.
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Dude, the music industry has always been about making money, just like any other industry...this fevered thing you have about disco and the 80's suddenly rendering any creative artistry impotent smacks of delusion frankly. There's plenty of bands who were marketed because of their product, not restricted by it.
An "underground" wasn't needed in the 50s. Back then, the record producers sent people out looking for the artists to produce and promote. But starting with disco and the 'greed is good' 80s, they decided they could just manufacture the "artists" themselves. Which is why their "artists" sucked. And the real artists out there had to find their own ways of producing and promoting their music. Or they learned to live without access to a mass audience (like the punks did).
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What, did everyone in the 50's just want to listen to rock'n'roll or something? There's always an 'underground' in music even if you aren't aware of it. Your fixation with disco and your obvious dislike of it is duly noted once again, and you're still wrong about it anyway. Disco wasn't purely 'machine music' as I had to point out to you in my latter.

You are right, Madonna does deserve some credit for reinventing the classic 'strutting slut' routine (aka Marilyn Monroe, etc.). But keep in mind that she was following Jackson's lead. And he was doing pop song and dance decades before anyone ever heard of her.
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I'm neither a fan of Madonna or Jackson but the veneration you give to one and the slagging off of the other is really tiresome frankly.

Then you don't have an artist's eyes and ears. Because he really was spectacular at inhabiting a song, in every way: costume, voice, movement, staging ... And although Quincy Jones had a lot to do with the audio arrangements, Jackson was smart enough to give him that control, and work with him to perfect it. Micheal Jackson was the 'Elvis' of the 80s, and as proof of how good he really was, none of the many attempts at copying his style, since, have even come close. Perhaps Madonna. But she was reprising the classic slut act as much as she was following Jackson. She was a hybrid more than a direct copycat.
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Oh, so I need to be a fan of Jackson to have an 'artists eyes and ears' do I? Ya know, it's more often than not I agree with you on plenty of matters but on this subject you're an arrogant stuffed shirt and a berk to presume as you do. Jackson carved out a highly successful niche in the pop market and fair play to him for that. So bloody what? Essentially the music was still generic and not particularly innovative but for commercial pop he fit the bill as well as having the image to fit as well.

I'd much prefer to listen to early Tangerine Dream who were acquainted with Salvador Dali (Edgar Froese especially) and broke boundaries of 'rock' that reflected through their music and record cover artwork - and were still 'popular' to make a career out of being cutting edge at that time, but then what do I know, being supposedly artistically and musically deaf and blind?

:plain:

Everyone has their preferences and opinions. And I have mine. Especially when it comes to art, and music.

But I can back mine up with thoughtful observation. It's not just blind whim. Just sayin'.
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Music, art and film are three of my biggest passions, and I don't recall ever attempting to patronize you over a difference of opinion like you have with me. 'Thoughtful observation'? Ya, sure.

:plain:
 
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