From: owner-the-landing-digest@smoe.org (the-landing-digest) To: the-landing-digest@smoe.org Subject: the-landing-digest V3 #38 Reply-To: the-landing@smoe.org Sender: owner-the-landing-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-the-landing-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk the-landing-digest Friday, March 10 2000 Volume 03 : Number 038 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Music vs. Crap [Dishon Gerald Robert ] Cake and musical styles [Daniel Summers ] today's music ["Joshua Edwards" ] Re: Cake and musical styles ["Ryan Sargent" ] Re: college radio ["David Shreffler" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2000 10:57:30 -0500 From: Dishon Gerald Robert Subject: Re: Music vs. Crap I think David makes a very valid point. As a music major, I am exposed to a great deal of "crap" that was written in the middle of the 20th century. Most of it is in one of two forms: "indeterminate" music, where the players will make up some or all of the performance as it happens, or theater/art pieces, where more than just musical sounds are involved. The former would be typified by much of what John Cage did; the latter (on a large scale) by something like "39 Minutes for 39 Autos" (I don't recall the composer) which called for, among other things, the entire city of L.A. and a number of TV and radio stations therein. To get back to something more directly related to Techno and that sort of music, I would like to mention Stockhausen (sp.?) and some of his ilk that were working in musique concrete back in the 60's. He had a piece called "Voices from the Fiery Furnace" that was released on Deutsche Grammaphon and was considered to be a standard work in his genre and era. (Much of his work had a great influence on John Lennon, and he shows up on the Sgt. Pepper cover, I believe.) Is it music in the classical sense that I can sit down at a piano and hash through it? No. But it is an example of someone organizing sounds in time, which is the generally accepted definition of music today. Do I agree with this definition? Not entirely. Would you find me listening to this piece on my own time? Probably not. Do I particularly like the work? Not really. But it is a very different way of looking at sound, and so has to be taken into consideration. The entire American popular musical scene reminds me of some of the stuff that was being done before the British Invasion. Very fractured, very thick and muddy, and quite frankly much of the stuff is not all that great. Hopefully somebody good will come along and light the way for another 20 years or so. Pardon the rant, I just needed to get that off my chest. Gerald Dishon ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2000 10:04:19 -0800 (PST) From: Daniel Summers Subject: Cake and musical styles First of all, Cake's album Fashion Nugget is easily one of the '90's best I think. It includes amazing lyrics for quite a few of the songs and musically is just wonderful. There are only 2 or 3 songs on the album that i am not a fan of; the rest is absolutely wonderful. Unfortuntely I can't say the same about their new(est) album Prolonging the Magic. I don't find it even a fraction as good as Fashion Nugget. Now onto the musical styles comment (Whew, it's nice to have some life on this list!). I personally did NOT find it offensive, even if I do not agree with it completely. I agree with some of Larissa's comments on it. I don't think you can label an entire genre as being "crap" because that is just unfair. I don't care for rap or R & B mostly, but every once in a while something will pop up that is very good! Also, I hate the "genre" thing because many times a band or singer does not fit into one genre (Take SNZ or BoF for example). In my opinion the best music stores would just JUNK genre distinctions and organize ALL music alphabetically in ONE AREA, no matter what the "style". Also radio stations should just play quality music; forget about pop, light rock, country, opera, classical, alternative, R & B, electronica, etc. and just play music!!! Expose us to all that is out there without repeating the same Britany Spears song 5 times a day! Sometimes music is CRAP completely, and I feel that there is NOTHING WRONG WITH EXPRESSING YOUR ABSOLUTE DISTASTE FOR POOR MUSIC. I do it all the time. Just realize that unfortunately not all people will agree with you =) Many people's quality standards are set so low that some people actually like poor quality music!!! That's been a hard thing for me to get accustomed to =) Sometimes music is just plain entertaining, and can be quality just in those regards....but not always. Some music is just plain junk, but I won't mention any names, because like I said, we all have differing viewpoints and different quality standards. It would be nice if we could scientifically examine all music and deduce by scientific method what music is quality and what music is not. Unfortunately that cannot be done =( So we just have to live in the best musically harmony we can. . . . . . . . Sincerely; Trent/Daniel Summers _______________________________________________________ Get 100% FREE Internet Access powered by Excite Visit http://freeworld.excite.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2000 13:13:12 PST From: "Joshua Edwards" Subject: today's music okay, so maybe i was a little hard on some of the music. But you have to admit that most of the artists in the music industry of today are in it for the wrong reason. Maybe i'm just a pessamist but i don't think half of them look in the mirror at the end of the day and say, "I made some damn good music today!" I sincerely think that most of them are in it for the money, which bugs me. Not because their intentions are skewed, but because PEOPLE LIKE IT! I'm not going to go so far as to say that the music that i listen to is the best, because i don't have the right to say that. But I can say that my mind just doesn't conceive why these people are popular. I know its a problem that i have to deal with myself and i apologize if I stepped on anyone's toes. But i'm not going to take what i said back, because my opinions should be respected just as much as the next guy, and I respect your opinions as well. Joshua ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2000 13:24:36 PST From: "Ryan Sargent" Subject: Re: Cake and musical styles In most cases now (mostly pop)the worth of something is determined by how well it sells, rather than its substance. A lot of the time, just because somebody is up on a stage with some instruments doesn't mean they are musicians. And it has nothing to do with if you like or dislike what they are playing. It has to do with their perception of what they are doing, the attitude they have about being up there. And as far as certain music being complex or progressive...its kind of like the whole smooth jazz or what some people used to call progressive jazz. For something to be progressive you have think about the foundation. The foundation of jazz music is blues and swing. So any type of innovation would be based on a blues, a swing or a groove innovation. Now none of this music they called progressive jazz was either in the context of the blues, the use in the context of swing, harmonically, rhythmically, melodically, texturally, emotionally, or spiritually innovating anything over what Louis Armstong, Duke Ellington, Trane, Monk, or anybody else was doing. So if you don't just discuss music from a personal standpoint like "Well I like the way this guy sounds". If we use objective criteria, we see nothing has been developed. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2000 22:24:50 PST From: "David Shreffler" Subject: Re: college radio Well, I guess this is my last comment on this subject (though I too am glad there is now some activity). First, to the person who sent the very intellectual comment "whatever," I do not know what to respond to. Let me point out that I was not dissin' da rap scene, rather merely commenting that most of that talent that goes into making those songs and "cool grooves" are made by musicians, programmers, and engineers, none of which get any credit beyond they're name somewhere on the cd behind some chic's big booty. You don't see them in any of the music videos with the half-naked girls and thriftless waste of money on so many material objects (not to mention all the hundreds of thousands of dollars that go into making the actual video). I was speaking more in the realm of a musician, not a listener. I guess it all boils down to what Ryan said, that a lot of the popular music scene is going in the wrong direction. Nows its all business, not music. And Joshua, I think you're right, if I were on of these bands being criticized, I too couldn't honestly tell myself that I was out there making some awesome contribution to the modern music scene. But there are a lot of simple people out there that like simple music. And there are more than we think, that's why music can turn into this hollow business. Some people can just listen to a tune in their car, like the feel, like some of the lyrics, and go buy the CD. Then there are the more picky (developed, mature) listeners who listen to music, can hear all the parts, analyze them, synthesize this and thoroughly enjoy the result. Then, go to concerts and appreciate a live band who not only can play very well live, gets the audience excited, but then improvises and make the event unique (the Zippers, all the way). And that is my final thought (sigh), david. (PS- Ryan, you're prob right on the whole techno thing, most techno artists, in whatever flavor, are usually not all that complex, I had more in mind the complexity of preforming that music.) ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ End of the-landing-digest V3 #38 ********************************