From: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org (shindell-list-digest) To: shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Subject: shindell-list-digest V4 #95 Reply-To: shindell-list@smoe.org Sender: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk shindell-list-digest Monday, March 18 2002 Volume 04 : Number 095 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [RS] everybody talking bout, pop music [jim colbert ] [RS] high school music [jim colbert ] Re: [RS] everybody talking bout, pop music ["Andrew Bonime" Subject: [RS] everybody talking bout, pop music > Maybe. But (and I'm showing my age here) I remember when the pop charts were > filled with the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton, And Crosby > Stills Nash & Young, and The Byrds, Simon & Garfunkel, Fleetwood Mac, Joni > Mitchell, etc., etc. AT any rate, what I was wondering about was how the > group feels about all this. I agree with your explanation. > These performers were quite successful and made a lot of money while producing good, listenable music that was likely an influence on many of the folkies we wax enthusiatically about today. But, I don't recall that back then, you had the all-encompassing mass-marketing of those performers in the same bludgeoning way as someone like Brittany, where the music is just part of the total marketing package. (I would see brittany as more like david cassidy than csny, for instance...) If that makes sense. jpc ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2002 14:48:33 -0500 From: "Sally Green" Subject: [RS] Picture of Howie Howie, you are a sadist. I screamed here at work and people came over to see if anything was wrong. > Look at the picture below and tell me what if anything is wrong. It > > > took me a few minutes to figure it out. > > > > Howie, ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2002 14:49:00 -0500 From: jim colbert Subject: [RS] high school music > Well I can be a "music snob" at times, but I have to say there > is nothing wrong with BS or Madonna. In fact there are a couple > Madonna songs, both dance songs and serious songs, which I will > love forever, period. Sometimes its just fun to just dance > around. If you have forgotten that, please revisit your high- > school music collection. Sorry, weren't no room for dancin' music in my high school collection- unless it was just plain boogiein' with an illegal smile; it was more esoteric rock like crack the sky and be bop deluxe and the head-banging power chords of starz. Cause after all, we were afraid disco was takin' over in the seventies, y'know! Ahem, but then there was always the sensitive stuff like fogelberg! Actually, some of the stuff I was most into then was just a precursor to what I love now, like jackson browne, harry chapin and john prine's old stuff... but anyway. J ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2002 15:05:00 -0500 From: "Andrew Bonime" Subject: Re: [RS] everybody talking bout, pop music You are 100% correct. Even Brian Epstein (the Beatles' manager) was a neophyte by today's marketing standards. The marketing machinery we have today had not even been born, let alone put into practice then. But that was also a time when a producer/A&R guy at a studio could hear a guy from Hibbing MN at a coffee house and sign him to a recording contract at Columbia records and we'd end up with Bob Dylan. And let's not forget The Monkeys - as close to manufactured Britney model as they had in those days, but even there, the music wasn't too bad. It reminds me of the concept of psychoacoustic modeling used in audio technology as a form of compression: Basically there are algorithms that throw away any sounds the brain doesn't process in order to put the most music on a CD or audio stream on the Web. What we end up with is something that sounds like music, but that isn't ALL the important musical information. Well, my point is that the marketing machine of someone like Britney or Backstreet boys throws away what ever doesn't matter - the lyrics, the melodies, and all we are left with is the raw marketing potential - the cute little twinkie who goes around like a Madonna-in-training (although she'll never get there) and sits at the top of the charts - the OPPOSITE of RS - you can psychoacousticize him because you need EVERYTHING (the lyrics, the melodies, the singing, the guitar playing) because it is all so good that it is an essential part of the package. The idea, to me is that if the marketing machine keeps this up, there won't be an audience in the future for anything good. The sense of artistic assessment that we all show by being fans of RS will have atrophied to such an extent that in a few generations an RS won't even get an audience the size of his current audience. I hate to go clichi here, but what about the children? What I think bothers me is the state of all of this. Most of the comments so far have been on the order of "That's the way it is." or an explanation of how it works. But does anyone care that it is this way? Or is that too anti-Zen? Is it just like looking into a mirror and wishing we were younger? In short is it just something that hurts too much because it cannot be as we would like it? Just polling the group. Best, Andy - ----- Original Message ----- From: "jim colbert" To: Sent: Monday, March 18, 2002 2:43 PM Subject: [RS] everybody talking bout, pop music > > Maybe. But (and I'm showing my age here) I remember when the pop charts were > > filled with the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton, And Crosby > > Stills Nash & Young, and The Byrds, Simon & Garfunkel, Fleetwood Mac, Joni > > Mitchell, etc., etc. AT any rate, what I was wondering about was how the > > group feels about all this. I agree with your explanation. > > > > These performers were quite successful and made a lot of money while producing good, listenable music that was likely an influence on many of the folkies we wax enthusiatically about today. > > But, I don't recall that back then, you had the all-encompassing mass-marketing of those performers in the same bludgeoning way as someone like Brittany, where the music is just part of the total marketing package. (I would see brittany as more like david cassidy than csny, for instance...) If that makes sense. > > jpc ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2002 12:15:13 -0800 (PST) From: Scribbling Woman Subject: Re: [RS] everybody talking bout, pop music Hi Andy, Maybe it's because you chose Britney, instead of, say, 'NSync. Having struggled for some twenty odd years with the idea that "lower calf, upper arm should be half what they are," as an aging non-blonde of the female persuasion, it has been a matter of personal survival, for me at least, to accept that "that's the way it is." Just a matter of apples and (saline-enhanced) melons. And, yes, there's room in this world for all of us! :-) Yours, Granny Smith Andrew Bonime wrote: What I think bothers me is the state of all of this. Most of the comments so far have been on the order of "That's the way it is." or an explanation of how it works. But does anyone care that it is this way? Or is that too anti-Zen? Is it just like looking into a mirror and wishing we were younger? In short is it just something that hurts too much because it cannot be as we would like it? Just polling the group. Yahoo! Sports - live college hoops coverage ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2002 15:26:58 EST From: LBECKLAW@aol.com Subject: [RS] Re: shindell-list-digest V4 #93 In a message dated 3/18/2002 2:08:16 PM Eastern Standard Time, owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org writes: > And I don't care for the joannie version of it, > but that's a whole different discussion- her arrangement just doesn't move > me like the > richard version does. > > Okay, I'm out from the shadows to put in my two cents. I too love "Reunion Hill" and could go on and on about why, but I think Jim's rave said it all, and more eloquently too. My comment is that I do like Joan B's version of it (I assume that's the Joannie you are referring to, not Joni or someone else)--a lot--and I think the song is even more moving, if possible, sung by a woman. I can't say that Joan B. is the very best Woman to sing this (couldn't you think of many others, Lucy K., for starters?), but IMHO, she does a nice job capturing the widow's wistful yearning for her lost husband. Last night I was thinking of Eva Cassady doing Reunion Hill, but since she's dead, that would be a long shot. I'd like to throw in a sub-set question to this SOTW challenge: Jim C. mentions that he doesn't care for Joannie's cover of Reunion Hill. Question 1: Can anyone think of a song written from a woman's perspective, like this one, that is sung better by a man? Question 2: Can anyone think of a song written and performed by one singer, but that is better when sung by another? (as in better than the original version)? Back to the shadows. Laura ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2002 15:29:30 EST From: LBECKLAW@aol.com Subject: [RS] Re: heck yes In a message dated 3/18/2002 2:08:16 PM Eastern Standard Time, owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org writes: > . I have sometimes wondered, too, if the army that troops across her > land was the same side her husband fought on. I never really thought of > this for a long > time, but then I thought, perhaps she just saw in those beaten and bloodied > men, not an > army, but men just like her husband regardless of whether their uniforms > were blue or > gray. > I always thought this was true, that she was ministering to men on both sides-- irregardless of which side they were on. I think this is one of the most moving parts (among many) of this song. "Dousing for my husband's face"!? Oh, my. How often I've looked for lost friends and family in the faces of strangers on the street! What a great song!! ------------------------------ End of shindell-list-digest V4 #95 **********************************