Music is worth it again.

[gridlore]

I've noticed something over the past several months. Music seems to be swinging back towards band-driven rock, and away from pre packed poster bands. This is, in my mind, a good thing.

I rather watch or listen to a group that writes its own stuff, and believes what it is saying than someone who buys material from a professional songwriter. I will never go to a show that features more dancers than band members. In my humble opinion, the next costume change I want to see is Gwen Steffani ripping off her top and throwing it to me.

I'm also hearing more guitars. Also good. More musical stories, more people who know how to use their instruments to best effect. I think some of the metal-rap acts are looking around and seeing the shelf life of rappers vs, rockers, and adjusting accordingly.

I'm listening to KFOG, which plays a wonderful mix of old and new stuff. The glorious part is that it is flowing together smoothly. Need to clean out the CD collection to make space for more.

Maybe it's because the bands really hitting it big now are of the same generation as I am. They grew up listening to Aerosmith and the Stones, and also to the New Wave and New Romantic movements. Whatever, I like like it.

Comments

[sylvan.livejournal.com]

Wang Chung sings that I believe.

What an interesting definition of music

[(Anonymous)]

What does that word mean to you, Doug? "Music."

You've made it sound as though nothing in the world was happening musically that was of any value. So I'm a little confused. I guess I'm sensing a dichotomy in the way you're sorting music, and it's strange to me, because I don't see an 'either/or', unless you're talking about music that gets charted by major record labels.

But I'm glad that music you enjoy is becoming more accessible for you.

Re: What an interesting definition of music

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Music for me is music. Everything from folk to rap to Mozart to Eastern African drumming. As I said, the accessable music that I've been able to get is more what I want to hear. Having been recovering from cancer and being pisoned by my anticonvuslants makes it bit hard for me to go clubbing. Unless you know of rock clubs that don't use strobes? I do listen to KFOG's new releases Thursday where they do feature local bands that have just released CDs on tiny labels.

This is my journal. I will write about my tastes. Rap is crap, Garth Brooks makes me gag, and I'm eagerly awaits for all the boy bands to appear on Where Are They Now? I sort music into piles: Stuff I like, stuff I don't like. Both piles are quite diverse, but I need to hear it, and that means the radio or friends refering me to the site where I can grab .mp3.

Re: What an interesting definition of music

[(Anonymous)]

What got to me was your opening line "I've noticed something over the past several months. Music seems to be swinging back towards band-driven rock, and away from pre packed poster bands. This is, in my mind, a good thing."

Which isn't at all the same thing as "Music is...everything from..." I mean, the portion of "music" that is defined or exemplified by pre-packed poster bands is so *small* if you're looking at the entire spectrum. If you'd said, "the playlist at KFOG" (or some other subset), I think I would have been much less confused.

And as far as rock clubs that don't use strobes...anything that I know of wouldn't be of much help to you right now. All the ones I'd know of would be local to me, which is most of the state away from you.

For a while, I was finding new music by noodling through peoples' collections via Napster[1], but since the whole Metallica thing, I haven't done that. (I'm one of those people where the crackdown on Napster resulted in my buying far fewer music CDs. In my case, zero.) I miss the "world music" channel that my cable provider used to have. They replaced it with yet another contemporary adult music feed. I've been thinking about spending some more time listening to various webfeeds of music, though.

[1] before someone rants about that, it should be noted that I bought every CD that I could track down for the .mp3s I listened to repeatedly.

--Trinker
waving hello from "anonymous" land

Re: What an interesting definition of music

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

OK. There are hundreds of styles of music out there. Some of them I love, some make me gag, but they are all music. Some people love hard-core C&W. I can't understand why, but hey, if it makes them happy, good for them.

Now, what floats my boat is things like Metallica, The Grateful Dead, REM... various styles, but they all write their own stuff and tend to tell stories in their songs. I am hearing more new bands and artists in this mold. To ME this is a good thing. My opinion. Mine, copyright 2001, Douglas Berry. Your mileage may vary, not valid in Puerto Rico. Understand?

I'm hearing things that I like on the radio that weren't recorded twenty years ago and that I know by heart. This is a positive change. For ME If other people want to listen to N'Sync or whatever the pop star of the week is, i'm not going to stop them. I'm just happy to hear a new generation of singer-songwriters making it big so maybe they'll stick around for a while. Hell, even Bob Dylan is back in form.

Finally, this is my journal. What you see here are my opinions and observations. Reading them, realize that I am a 35 year old, rather conservative in many ways, coot. Some of my veiws on almost any subject are guaranteed to insult at least one of my friends. I'm strongly pro-gun, for example, which puts me in direct conflict with several dear friends. I can keep a lid on my opinions when in public, but don't expect that here. This is my place to vent.

Christ, I don't think that declaring my membership in NAMBLA would have caused me more crap than this.

Re: What an interesting definition of music

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, for fuck's sake, Doug. Just how much crap does an annoying response from me constitute? You had strong opinions about music, I found it interesting to consider discussing it with you. I'm glad you expanded on what you meant, because *now* I understand what you were saying originally, and I think that's cool. Meanwhile, you know anyone we can both foist our lifetime shares of hardcore C&W on? (And yeah. Shocking and wonderful at the same time, the re-emergence of Bob Dylan.)

--Trinker

Huh?

[kshandra]

You've made it sound as though nothing in the world was happening musically that was of any value.

Where do you get this? If he'd said "I've thrown away the remote control to my stereo, and will no longer listen to anything I don't already own," then I could see you drawing this conclusion. But Doug's still listening to the radio, and KFOG isn't exactly a station that limits its playlist to albums old enough to buy their own beer.

Care to clarify? (And care to sign your post next time?)