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What's Wrong With Music Today
NYC Talking ^ | November 3, 2012 | Gerard Perry

Posted on 11/03/2012 1:38:09 PM PDT by OddLane

It’s often said that art appreciation is wholly subjective. Aesthetic tastes naturally differ, de gustibus non est disputandem, etc… And if art is a matter of taste, and not subject to critical scrutiny, then so it is with music, which is simply a subset of art. In one sense, the people who posit this argument are correct. There’s no objective, non-arbitrary measure by which you can judge the quality of a musical composition, artist, or genre. In another sense, these people are completely wrong.

I hew to the Adam Carolla theory of musical appreciation. That is, there is a distinct, unmistakable cleavage between music that is good and music which, for lack of a better word, sucks. The problem is that today, for a variety of reasons, many cannot distinguish between the two. It explains why, whenever you enter a club, a bar, or a misguided friend’s party, your ears are bombarded with an unremitting stream of reggaeton, dub step, and execrable Top 40 hip hop and pop.

It’s why you will never hear a single by Iris DeMent, John Wesley Harding, the Carolina Chocolate Drops or any other musician/band who doesn’t make you long for the sweet release of death.

(Excerpt) Read more at nyctalking.com ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Music/Entertainment; Society
KEYWORDS: americanrattlesnake; musicindustry; pop
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To: SkyPilot
rap "music" is vile and feral.

Somebody left the c off the front.

61 posted on 11/03/2012 5:17:32 PM PDT by TBP (Obama lies, Granny dies.)
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To: Donkey Odious

Max Stalling. Thanks, another discovery.

Complaining about “the music today” is one of signs of growing old. Your parents compained, now you do. It’s always been like it. My Fakebook “friends”, all post links to some bands of yesteryear, most of those links quite pedestrian, thank you, that is to say showing the same old, same old, by the same old, same old, no discoveries, no hidden gems. Nostalgia. I don’t miss nostalgia, sorry.

In the meantime, there is plenty of great music out there, and it is relatively easy to find via the Internet. As a reviewer in the WSJ wrote a few weeks ago, the two genres of popular music in great shape today are Americana and electronic. I can’t say anything about the latter, but as far as the former, I cannot keep up with the artists I have discovered in the past year, there are so many.

Check out this up and coming diva: http://brookeannibale.com/Final/watch.html


62 posted on 11/03/2012 5:27:09 PM PDT by Revolting cat! (Bad things are wrong! Ice cream is delicious!)
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To: equaviator

My car radio stays on Deep Tracks 95+% of the time. I have a self-seeded Deep Tracks-like Pandora channel I listen to in my home office and in my wife’s car via streaming it from my iPhone.


63 posted on 11/03/2012 5:30:19 PM PDT by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est.)
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To: OddLane; CatherineofAragon

Good god, Ce-Lo Green ripping off the Ramones’ Blitzkrieg Bop. Just shoot me now, you were so right.


64 posted on 11/03/2012 5:35:53 PM PDT by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est.)
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To: OddLane; John S Mosby

Yeah, Steve and the Deep Canyon Rangers are certainly worth checking out.

I like the Old Crow Medicine Show as well, in that general space.


65 posted on 11/03/2012 5:38:32 PM PDT by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est.)
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To: smalltownslick
Someone gave me a rather rational explanation why I don’t like any new “music” - there’s no melody. More precisely, the music most of us know and like, no matter what the style, consisted of SONGS. Songs have a beginning, middle and end. Most of what’s popular today doesn’t have that - it’s more like never-ending chants with no variation.

Interesting. That's about the time I quit listening to pop music. And I agree with you that today's "music" has no melody. It's just crap.

My theory is that all the good song-writers are dead and have been for decades.

There's nothing out today that I would bother listening to.

66 posted on 11/03/2012 6:36:52 PM PDT by OldPossum
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To: OldPossum
Not ALL of them are dead. It just takes a little searching to find them.

Google Darrell Scott.

67 posted on 11/03/2012 6:44:17 PM PDT by brewcrew (Mr. President, we DID build that. You broke it. We'll fix it. You're fired.)
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To: OldPossum

For some reason I thought that I was posting to a person who noted that he or she had quit listening to popular music in 1970 and who made the referenced comments on songs. Oh well, I’ll try to excuse it by claiming old age.


68 posted on 11/03/2012 6:45:20 PM PDT by OldPossum
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To: brewcrew

Does this Mr. Scott write songs on the level of, say, “Hello Young Lovers” or hell, “Sixteen Candles”?


69 posted on 11/03/2012 6:53:02 PM PDT by OldPossum
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To: OldPossum
I went to his site and he's not to shabby. Definitely some clean lyrics and pickin'

Click the picture for a jukebox to preview...

70 posted on 11/03/2012 7:51:40 PM PDT by Dust in the Wind (U S Troops Rock)
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To: OldPossum

But with all due respect, it is not the same genre...


71 posted on 11/03/2012 8:00:48 PM PDT by Dust in the Wind (U S Troops Rock)
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To: OddLane

Music, as it’s defined in western culture, contains melody, harmony, and rhythm.

If a piece of aural art is missing any one of the above three components, it’s not music.


72 posted on 11/03/2012 8:05:17 PM PDT by Windflier (To anger a conservative, tell him a lie. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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To: OldPossum

But with all due respect, it is not the same genre...


73 posted on 11/03/2012 8:05:46 PM PDT by Dust in the Wind (U S Troops Rock)
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To: FreedomPoster
OCMS is amazing!

Next Go Round

I love their music.

74 posted on 11/03/2012 8:27:47 PM PDT by OddLane (If Lionel Hutz and Guy Smiley had a lovechild together, his name would be "Mitt Romney." -KAJ)
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To: FreedomPoster

Tom Petty’s Buried Treasure reminds me of some of the things Detroit DJ’s could do with their station’s libraries. I remember a program called “Seventh Day” on either WABX or WWWW (W4). It featured 7 albums, back-to-back, every Sunday starting in the afternoon and ending in the early evening.


75 posted on 11/04/2012 4:30:24 AM PST by equaviator (There's nothing like the universe to bring you down to earth.)
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To: equaviator

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sStExSxmPuE


76 posted on 11/04/2012 4:32:34 AM PST by Sir Francis Dashwood ("Arjuna, why have you have dropped your bow???")
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To: OddLane

You mean that indescribable audible noise I hear on the radio is music?


77 posted on 11/04/2012 4:37:57 AM PST by monocle
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To: OddLane

Eisbrecher “Miststueck 2012”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGTXF7cyJ6w


78 posted on 11/04/2012 4:38:17 AM PST by Sir Francis Dashwood ("Arjuna, why have you have dropped your bow???")
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To: equaviator

Had a rental car recently with XM Radio and found myself listening to Deep Tracks a lot.


79 posted on 11/04/2012 4:42:46 AM PST by Yardstick
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To: Dust in the Wind

I was too lazy to look up Mr. Scott’s music (sorry).

My tastes are pretty eclectic though they lean heavily to Broadway and movie show tunes and the rock and roll era of the mid and late 1950s and all of the 1960s, but I also enjoy some country and western, so I might like his music. Thanks for the reference.


80 posted on 11/04/2012 4:49:04 AM PST by OldPossum
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