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Post by Deleted on Oct 7, 2021 8:49:03 GMT
I was more interested in the idea that rock music is soon going to be seen as something strange and old, like wearing armour, or getting up to change channels, than the old 'rock is dead' discussion which we have every few months. I can't see the distinction.
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Post by DarknessFish on Oct 7, 2021 8:51:01 GMT
I don't know about that. I mean, Radio 1 plays more rock music right now than it ever did in the last 20 years, and not in specific slots, just in the main playlists. Not a lot, by any means, but I hear a handful of tracks a week while driving. And radio 6 plays a fair bit of rock and guitar-based pop.
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Post by oh oooh on Oct 7, 2021 8:51:04 GMT
'we're not building castles like we used to!' versus 'we don't need castles'
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Post by Deleted on Oct 7, 2021 8:53:12 GMT
I think the counter argument is that some of us are still regularly buying and enjoying new music, and don't see that the music of a particular time or style was implicitly better. The question is whether that new music falls within the bounds of rock music, or whether rock music as JC describes was particularly interesting in that time or place. Fair enough. Would you say you're as excited about music now as you were in the past? Do you still hear things and feel "this is fresh and exciting"?
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Post by oh oooh on Oct 7, 2021 8:54:37 GMT
I don't know about that. I mean, Radio 1 plays more rock music right now than it ever did in the last 20 years, and not in specific slots, just in the main playlists. Not a lot, by any means, but I hear a handful of tracks a week while driving. And radio 6 plays a fair bit of rock and guitar-based pop. For sure. I was just wondering if and when it's going to be over for rock. a. predominately female solo acts in the charts b. increasing sensitivity in culture ('', if you like) c. more and more scandals emerging about old rockers d. general shifts in taste
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Post by DarknessFish on Oct 7, 2021 9:00:57 GMT
Fair enough. Would you say you're as excited about music now as you were in the past? Do you still hear things and feel "this is fresh and exciting"? Not all the time. I mean, I've consumed (for want of a better term) an awful lot of music over the last few decades, there's a smaller pool of things from the past to discover - or even things which are new which are directly influenced by things from the past I wasn't aware of. I go through droughts, I've bought hardly any music at all this year, but that's partially personal circumstances preventing me. But yeah, there's still exciting things out there, the whole Nyege Nyege Tapes and modern African scene is properly fresh and exciting, there seems to be a weird thing going on with trad French folk music getting a modern shot in the arm. The createive spirit is always out there.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 7, 2021 9:18:48 GMT
There's probably some truth in GAV'S digs that some of us have become jaded. Of course we will reply that the music of the last 15 years made us like that. It's probably a bit of both. I like that DF still has the enthusiasm to swim in deep waters and poke in dusty corners to find interesting things. He's like our version of John Peel in that sense and we could probably do with a few more like him. I think what has changed is the mainstream is less interesting than it used to be.
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Post by tory on Oct 7, 2021 9:30:27 GMT
To me the issue is that genres of music evolve to a point where they become a thing that one consumes because of specific traits and aspects, rather than being a thing in itself. It happens to all genres. When Rock emerged, it was a new thing that couldn't really be quantified and as such was exciting. But 50-60 years later, it has been "classicized" for want of a better term, where it can be identified through certain things. Bands and artists are "rock bands", whereas I suspect in 1965 The Who for example were not quite so easily defined.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 7, 2021 9:47:27 GMT
I think the counter argument is that some of us are still regularly buying and enjoying new music, and don't see that the music of a particular time or style was implicitly better. The question is whether that new music falls within the bounds of rock music, or whether rock music as JC describes was particularly interesting in that time or place. Fair enough. Would you say you're as excited about music now as you were in the past? Do you still hear things and feel "this is fresh and exciting"? When you say fresh and exciting do you mean it sounds like nothing before or it sounds like something from back in the day but it still gives me a rush? I would propose that probably sixty percent of people's music collections are from a time when they were not aware of those musicians and came to them later through their journey. Interview references to the Doors and Love say from bands in the late seventies for instance made me check them out. I could have decided that the music of my teenage and formative years would be the yardstick of what was the most exciting. Indeed, had I stopped listening to music back in the nineties and decided that thirty years of rock was enough would I find enough there to be happy, probably. What happens I think is that we discover rock music when we are young and it blows our minds man. We naturally want more and begin the process of listening to the NOW and delve into the past. It is ALL fresh and exciting. For some folks, music, like fashion becomes less of a need or desire. You have people who dress like mods or punks all their lives and stick to that sound and look. If you are eighteen today and idles or Porridge radio are the first thing that turns you on then for some that will be the best music/times and maybe the past will sound like poorer versions of what they enjoy. Who knows. Music is like literature , waiting for someone to pick it up. It isn't music's job to continually confound you enough to dismiss the past or re-invent itself. Classical and jazz fans are seemingly happy with time standing still without a care in the world. The rock music of today's bands is made by today's kids. This is their ground zero and their reference point to the beginning of the journey. If music doesn't do anything for you because you don't listen much anymore or you feel it said what it had to say by 1980 then that's you. For me the music of my youth and the past coupled with music today is all good. Questioning if it is still relevent or of a previous standard well, takes me back to my original point. You looked back even when it was new and it wasn't an issue. There are only seven stories to be told after all.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 7, 2021 10:03:35 GMT
People also overestimate the dominance of rock music as a cultural force in the historical past. Growing up in the London suburbs, I'd say more people were likely to be listening to soul and reggae.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 7, 2021 10:09:03 GMT
To me the issue is that genres of music evolve to a point where they become a thing that one consumes because of specific traits and aspects, rather than being a thing in itself. It happens to all genres. When Rock emerged, it was a new thing that couldn't really be quantified and as such was exciting. But 50-60 years later, it has been "classicized" for want of a better term, where it can be identified through certain things. Bands and artists are "rock bands", whereas I suspect in 1965 The Who for example were not quite so easily defined. Lot of truth in this I guess. It's ok to move on and find your thrills in something else. Re- making and re -imagining a Shakespeare play or a western but it's still as you say with specific traits. I like black midi and squid. They are doing something I think that is fresh and exciting. When I posted tracks by them it was met with " I don't like the singer" and "I couldn't be arsed to get to the end". All this is fine but it isn't a firm base from which to cry that rock is dead. It isn't as G says that the mainstream is less interesting it is more that it is so fragmented that it barely exists in the internet age.
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Post by Reactionary Rage on Oct 7, 2021 10:09:34 GMT
People also overestimate the dominance of rock music as a cultural force in the historical past. Growing up in the London suburbs, I'd say more people were likely to be listening to soul and reggae. How many albums did Led Zep sell? Or Van Halen? Or the Stones? Or U2? What about all those stadium gigs? Nevermind, probably the last classic rock album sold over 30 million and people are now celebrating its anniversary 30 years later. I don't think you can underestimate its popularity and the impact some of this stuff had.
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Post by oh oooh on Oct 7, 2021 10:11:07 GMT
Well if we define 'mainstream' as 'the charts' (which I think is fair) then that's just something we barely even consider, as aging rock fans.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 7, 2021 10:11:41 GMT
People also overestimate the dominance of rock music as a cultural force in the historical past. Growing up in the London suburbs, I'd say more people were likely to be listening to soul and reggae. Well yeah. You definitely had soul towns and the desire of record companies to have the next big thing showed that what was happening in Sheffield wasn't the same as Liverpool say.
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Post by Reactionary Rage on Oct 7, 2021 10:24:06 GMT
To me the issue is that genres of music evolve to a point where they become a thing that one consumes because of specific traits and aspects, rather than being a thing in itself. It happens to all genres. When Rock emerged, it was a new thing that couldn't really be quantified and as such was exciting. But 50-60 years later, it has been "classicized" for want of a better term, where it can be identified through certain things. Bands and artists are "rock bands", whereas I suspect in 1965 The Who for example were not quite so easily defined. Yeah. I mean take Led Zep. Aspects of them are cliches now....Robert Plant's lead singer schtick, the riffs, the large stadium shows and offstage hedonism. All codified and shorn of their contextual power but combined with the music they communicated an alternative lifestyle, a bohemian libertarianism that was espoused through the 60s and 70s counter culture...drugs, sexual freedom, individualism, sensory experience etc. When you removed the counter culture "rock" lost a strong element of its transgressive power...the medium is the message but when that message has been diluted, commodified, debased what's left? Something empty and hollow and passe. But with Zep musically there is a lot of variety there too to go with the message....light and shade, exoticism, delicate acoustic songs to go along with the cock waving riffs. Live versions of Dazed and Confused can be really out there...white noise, atonal, experimental, pretty fucking far from AC/DC. The point is, to reduce rock to some basic component parts...heaviness, riffs, lyrics about sex or partying is missing the point somewhat. Rock was greater than that.
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