A Different View on Pop Music and Culture...

Discussion in 'Art & Culture' started by Dave914, Oct 19, 2005.

  1. Dave914 Registered Member

    Messages:
    9
    Note: This is just an attempt to show you a different view on a well known item. I neither condone nor support the ideas here within. Just want to expands your minds a bit. Refute or support this in any way you like, I'm not going to argue anything past the first post. I just hope this sparks a good conversation.

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    So many of us don't like pop music (i.e.: Brittney Spears, Hillary Duff, etc.), however, very few of us know what the premise of pop really is. So you have these icons, icons which are looked up to by the nation's (USA, I've no idea of the situation in Europe or elsewhere) youth. Yet, they write very few songs, create very little music and are catered (sp?) on from head to toe. Is it right to call these "idol's" role-models? Or even go so far as to calling them artists?

    In some cases, yes. Though they do not write their songs, they do perform them: on stage, in music videos, at events. Corporations superficially pump their carrers by creating an investment in these performers. They league up with the stuido and record companies, supporting them and making sure they get the best media coverage possible. As their popularity increases, ads are released showing them drinking i.e.: diet pepsi. The next day, every fourteen-year old girl is drinking Pepsi just like they saw Hillary Duff do on their televisions. They see Britney Spears watching her callories (sp?), soon, others begin to watch their callories. So, in an essence, these media stars are indirectly (and mostly directly) creating competition in the non-durable markets.

    Is this good?

    Yes, for nation's economy, it is. Encouraging competition, even among big companies such as Coca-cola and Pepsi is a good thing for the consumer, the retailer, even the clerk at the grocery store. It creates a small upward spiral in the economy, giving more sales to local markets and thus creating and sustaining more jobs.

    However, is this bad?

    Yes, for the individual it is. Young girls are pressed into a state of mind in which perfect is as fake as what they see on television. They become attached to this state of mind in that they must be exactly like their chosen superstar in order to attract anyone of the opposite sex. And those opposites expect the former to be like that superstar. Morally, it is a downward spiral; if Britney Spears is pregnant, every teenage girl must follow suit.

    So, one must ask them what is better and what they are willing to sacrifice: Themself or the nation?

    Just food for though. Please don't harass me because you feel as though I'm personally attacking your views. I also only use Britney Spears and Hillary Duff as examples because they are readily avaliable in my mind, but the topic is not limited to them.

    Live well,
    -Dave
     
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  3. Hagar Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    151
    People shouldn't make music simply for an image, they should make it because it is good. To me all modern music is either:

    Pop Genres
    a) Superficial and commercial
    b) talented and commercial

    Non-Pop
    c) superficial and non-commercial
    d) talented and non-commercial

    As one who shows a loathing for all things 'modern' I cannot say I appreciate music from any of these four. I am especially disdained by anyone who claims that music D in better than A simply because it is underground or what not. Furthermore, the use of the term 'talent' here is only referring to those who show some level or technical skill or mastery of their instruments, not that the music is genuinely good in any way. Our society has produced amusing musical forms I must say, everything from trance to noise, country to death metal. All of this is garbage in my opinion. It will take our civilization a while to full comprehend the level of complexity and passion put fourth in something as brilliant as Mahler or Handel. Until the time comes when people find it 'popular' to once again attain such levels, I think it best simply to ignore 'pop' music.
     
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  5. Hagar Registered Senior Member

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    151
    On the issue of children, especially young girls, being influenced by pop music I have only this to say: if one's child is devoid of any reasoning skills, education, or moral backdrop, then they are already prone to such low self-esteem in the first place. Perhaps also the fact that the modern world provides so little in the midst of the so plenty, they will perhaps reach out to others as idols to replace the vacancy inside.
     
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  7. Datura surrender to nothing Registered Senior Member

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    Did the teen pregnancy rate go up or something? Is that what makes you mention Brit having a kid?
    Nobody is "pressed" into anything. Sure, kids are influenced quite a bit, but their parents should steer them in the right path. Anyone with brains can make their own decisions pertaining to this even if they are twelve. Parents are pussies.
     
  8. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,690
    Dave: It's been unusual throughout history for the people who compose music to be the same ones who perform it. Very few of the great "classical" composers that Hagar reveres were talented performers. Most could play well enough to hear what their tunes sounded like as they were writing them, but not well enough to play in the orchestra people were willing to pay to hear them played to their fullest glory.

    The "singer-songwriter" or "instrumentalist-songwriter" phenomenon pops up occasionally, invariably in popular music rather than symphonic. The Beatles are a well-known example of the former and Benny Goodman was a well-known example of the latter. But to criticize singers or pianists or guitarists or any other musician because they don't write their own material is to criticize everyone from Enrico Caruso to Van Cliburn to Barbra Streisand to Yo-yo Ma, and to think less of Chaikovski (however you want to transliterate Russian) or Ravel or Harlan Howard or Leiber & Stoller because they weren't great musicians or singers.

    We happen to be living in a rather long era of singer-songwriters because rock and roll and the other genres of jazz that preceded it are popular forms that usually manifest in short compositions with limited dynamics that benefit from as much of the composer's personal feel for the song as possible. But singers like Britney Spears are following in the long and honored tradition of Bing Crosby, Lotte Lenya, Jenny Lind, and ALL operatic singers.

    There is certainly a place for singers, songwriters, and singer-songwriters, especially within popular music.

    Hagar: It isn't "modern" music you dislike, but "popular" music. By definition popular music speaks more to its time and its culture than music which will be remembered long enough to be called "classical." Most classical music is purely instrumental because it's difficult to compose lyrics that are not topical and mired in the feelings of their time. A few popular songs survive the test of time, such as "Greensleeves" and other folk songs. So much popular music has been written since the advent of electronic reproduction that it's statistically likely that a few rock tunes will strike a deeper chord and still be enjoyed in a hundred or five hundred years. My money is on Pink Floyd still being played on generational starships to the next galaxy, and a few Beatles tunes living for centuries as nursery rhymes. Humans living in the Alpha Centauri system may be folk dancing to songs of the Rolling Stones.

    But you need to understand that you are a one-percenter. Most of us don't "get" "classical" music. It doesn't reach us. It goes over our head. Use whatever metaphor you like and be as elitist and insulting as you wish, but most people are a little more of their time than you are and they are more comfortable listening to songs that are sung, in their own language, and about things they are thinking and worrying and wondering about. Songs they can tap their toes to or even dance to. Songs they can remember in their entirety and play back in their heads or even sing in the shower. Sorry but very few of us can do that with Mahler and Handel.

    And I must say that's an eccentric choice, you didn't go with easily defended examples like Bach and Chopin. Me, I'll vote for Vaughan Williams and Strauss. But they're so Twentieth Century, it's too early to tell whether I'm being only slightly less topical and mired in my own place and time than the rock and roll fan that I am for the other 23.9 hours of most days.

    To disdain today's musicians as devoid of talent is a bit too elitist. Jimi Hendrix's talent is on a par with Yitzhak Perlman's. Yo-yo Ma proudly plays with pop musicians and does not consider it to be slumming. Pete Townshend and Roger Waters are as good lyricists as Giuseppe Verdi. Opera was not generally considered high-class in its time.

    As for the commercial aspects of pop culture, blame the advertising industry. Somehow it has gotten control of our entire economy AND culture. Ironic, since the only product that the advertising industry has been proven to be successful at selling is... advertising.
     
  9. Gerry Registered Senior Member

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    65
    There is still great music out there, in the form of Jazz. Jazz is the only Western musical form that is capable of evolving and coming out great.

    Don't get me wrong, I like European classical music too, but ECM is more a museum today than art. Its powerful, beautiful, intense, but since you can only play the notes in the prescribed order, you can never really let yourself out, and thus you, the player, must forever regard the music as something other.

    With jazz, its the opposite. You are expected not to sound too much like anybody else. You are expected to bring your own self into the music. That's why Charlie Parker sounds so different from say, Ornette Coleman. Parker's virtuosity is on par with that of the most dazzling classical musicians, but he speaks with a voice that's his own. Ornette Coleman, too had his own voice. Both were responsible for taking jazz in new directions; Bird gave the world bebop and Coleman free-jazz.

    But I will resist from putting rock in too high a light. I love the work of Duane Allman, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck and Stevie Ray Vaughan, but I wouldn't put them in the same league as John Coltrane. Hendrix might have gone on to better things had he not died so young-- he really had the fire.
     
  10. Gerry Registered Senior Member

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    65
    That should have been "bright a light", I think.
     
  11. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    24,690
    Have you never heard two strikingly different performances of the same classical piece? With so many parts--many more than a jazz combo or a rock band--there is plenty of latitude for interpretation. Dynamics, tone, tremolo, the balance among the instruments. If it's a symphony then the conductor oversees all that but still much of the individual musicians comes out. Even if it's a quartet or a solo piece, the performers put themselves into it. I would expect one of my fellow rock and rollers, who are not into subtlety, to say something like that. But if you really love classical music, don't you hear the spirits of the performers? Even the choice of instruments affects the tone and attenuation of the notes.

    You jazzbos sure go out of your way to diss rock and roll, which is merely one of the popular sub-genres of jazz. Syncopation, blue notes, steady beat, improvisation, iconoclasm... these are some of the main defining characteristics of jazz in addition to the individualism that you cite. Rock and roll has them just as much as ragtime, Dixieland, swing, bluegrass, bebop, Latin, hot, cool, progressive, fusion. You will never hear two rock performers play a tune the same way, unless it's a tribute or a cover band in a bar, any more than you would in any other type of jazz. Rock may not have quite the spectrum of personalities that jazz does, but it's a subtype so its scope is more limited by definition. Rock is only about half as old as its parent genre, it hasn't had as much time to accumulate personalities OR motifs.

    Except for that wonderful flare-up of progressive rock during the late 1960s and 1970s, rock does not have the intellectual focus of some of the mainstream jazz you refer to. That's just not what it's about. It touches people in different ways. So even though there are plenty of superb, intricate rock musicians, particularly guitarists, they're not encouraged to develop the breadth and depth that your Parkers and Colemans are. Today most rock fans want their music to touch them in their hearts, their loins, their guts, and their feet... not their heads. Take me back to a Renaissance or Gentle Giant concert in 1974 for that kind of cerebrally appreciated music.

    Please!
     
  12. Hagar Registered Senior Member

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    151
    I am elitist and I don't apologize for it. Musical criticism is perhaps one of the biggest obstacles because it falls back on a lot of subjectivism and opinion.
    In his own day, Monteverdi was blasted because his madrigals had "unholy" dissonance, yet now he is praised as a genius.
     
  13. Roman Banned Banned

    Messages:
    11,560
    Most classical music goes beyond my attention span. I listen to some Mozart, Wagner (did you know a typo of Wagner is Wanger?) and Beehtoven, and that's about it. Even then, I have like maybe 10 classical pieces on my computer out of like... 2000 some songs. I have maybe twice as many Jazz pieces. The rest is pretty much alt rock.

    Yeeaaaah, I'm shallow.
     
  14. Hagar Registered Senior Member

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    151
    Rock is primitive cave music. I've attended enough mosh pits to realize the utter stupidity and violent animalism of the genre, and thats why I eventually abandoned it, along with every other type of "new" music.

    I must point out however, that the electric guitar is an incredibly poignant instrument that could be put to better compositional use than the pendtry its so often employed for. Its unfortunate that nobody is seriously considering it.
     
  15. Roman Banned Banned

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    11,560
    I like violent animalism. But I've been to enough rock shows where all the scenester kids with ironic t-shirts and homemade buttons stand around, hand on chin, to know you're making an UNFAIR GENERALIZATION.
     
  16. Hagar Registered Senior Member

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    151
    What am I generalizing-stereotyping? What am I being unfair about? That's my interpretation and I think anyone could "seriously" contemplate the multifacited layers of muzak or hip-hop if they wanted to. I could care less about people that are scensters or cult followers or groupies. Keep in mind I have listened to everything from pop rock to doom metal, and I can't say I'm impressed.
     
  17. Gerry Registered Senior Member

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    "I must point out however, that the electric guitar is an incredibly poignant instrument that could be put to better compositional use than the pendtry its so often employed for. Its unfortunate that nobody is seriously considering it."

    No instrument is poignant. Every instrument is.

    But in the hands of people like Jimi Hendrix and Roy Buchanan, the guitar, could, yes, stir the soul.

    There are some fine Electric Guitarists today. Check out Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks of the Allman Brothers Band, Mark Knofpler of Dire Straits......the list is quite long.
     
  18. Hagar Registered Senior Member

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    151
    Hendrix, and for that matter some more recent guitarists such as Tom Morello, are extremely talented (even if the final product is less than desired). I also like to some degree "melodic" metal genres for their interesting melodies, but I would like to see something more akin to guitar masters such as Segovia, Rodrigo or Albeniz.
     
  19. Roman Banned Banned

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    11,560
    Hagar
    So the only part of a large and diverse genre you've seen are the parts with mosh pits. And from this you gather it's all violent animalist music.

    There's a good deal of classical music that's more violent than entire sun-genres of rock.
     
  20. Hagar Registered Senior Member

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    hold on made a posting mistake
     
  21. Hagar Registered Senior Member

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    151
    hold, on made a posting mistake.
     
  22. Hagar Registered Senior Member

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    I have listened to melodic metal, hardcore, punk, grindcore, death metal, black metal, "nu" metal, ambient metal, emo, ska, you name it. I enjoyed these things at one time but decided it was better to grow up.
     
  23. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,690
    If there were as many total hours of traditional symphonic orchestral music composed in one year as there is rock and roll, you'd be just as disgusted with it. The music we call "classical" was composed in an era when few people could hear it so the composers were dependent on rich patrons to put food on their tables. Because of this only the very best composers were able to make a living composing.

    How many great composers were working in any given year on the average? Fifteen? Most of them would be considered prodigious if they could write one symphony every two years. That makes about eight hours of new music every year.

    Rock and roll is popular music, which by definition means that it has a wider appeal during its time but fades away quickly. More people to support the artists. On top of that it happened along during the era of electronic music reproduction, so literally TENS OF MILLIONS of people are supporting the artists. As a result we get several HUNDRED hours of new rock and roll every year, the vast majority of it by people whom not even the most enthusiastic rock and roll apologist could compare to even a second-string symphonic composer like Vaughan Williams. (I picked my own favorite so shut up if you happen to like him too. "The Lark Ascending" is a timeless masterpiece, but most of his symphonies sound like movie soundtracks and at least one of them actually is.)

    I'm sure there are eight hours of rock and roll out there that were composed this year that would stop even you in your tracks. The problem is that even if you're looking for it you can't find it. There's to much material that's ordinary or worse to sort through, and after a while you get really tired of listening.
     

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