Classial Ping
Cage?
Whose music awfulness is only exceeded by rap?
This is the Modern Music Ping List. Our topic is music from the 20th and 21st century, from Ravel and Shostakovich through to the Synth Pioneers and beyond.
Topic suggestions are always welcome, and pings to music-related threads are appreciated.
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While he fiddled with music, his brother Levi made a fortune on blue jeans........
Middlebrow is coming back into fashion in the aesthetics world, which is a good thing AFAIC. Popular music has hit its nadir; it may bounce back in the next generation with the underground popularity of Americana, or if the syncretism that is occurring in much non-American popular music makes it across the oceans. Esoteric 20th-21st century classical music (serialism, aleatory, etc.) is becoming increasingly recognized for the non-aesthetic intellectual claptrap that it is, with the singular exception of composers experimenting with just intonational microtonalism—it’s tonal, but goes beyond the usual major/minor. All the “good stuff” in the middle, from traditional classical music to jazz to complex rock, blues, folk etc., is coming back into its own, and the music world, not counting the have-some-music-with-your-drugs-and-sex hit parade, is much the better for it.
I remember hearing the main title and end credit music of Jerry Goldsmith’s score for The Boys From Brazil and thinking, “Gee. I wonder where his inspiration came from.” :)