When you think about it, it's the perfect test. Compare it to Oddball's choice of the Mike Curb Congregation in Kelly's Heroes, done perfectly for comic effect. i.e. Laughable.Introspective wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2024 11:59 amThat is a rather strange litmus test for "attitude," sir.
Sorry, that's a little obscure for me. Something about manhood, perhaps? Sorry, I'm not Bear Grills, I see nothing inherently manly in climbing mountains. It's the kind of thing I mostly associate with weak minds and insecurity - people who feel they have to prove themselves to the world. Pitiable creatures, in the main.donkey tugger wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2024 1:06 pmYes, but have you ever seen Shania Twain play a gig atop Everest? Beyonce on the slopes of K2?
That's infinitely worse now because it's all buried under an avalanche of krap that most of us have absolutely no hope of sifting through.Constructed Identity wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2024 2:57 pmNo, music has always been diverse, I (we?) was just not able to hear most types because they didn't play it on the radio and that was my only source to hear music as a kid.
I imagine it depends how old you are because there was definitely a period in the late 70s and early 80s where you heard a lot of different music on the radio. A lot of it even charted. Could you imagine the chances of something like Laurie Anderson's O Superman getting enough airplay to make the charts today? So much of the music of that era that I still listen to today came from the radio - Alien Sex Fiend, Bauhaus, Clan of Xymox and The Sisters of Mercy are all bands I first heard on the radio. If you were in the UK, you were even luckier because you had John Peel to play you all the latest out-there stuff.Growing up there really was just 'radio music' and I was not very interested in hearing most of it, genres only exist for me now because of the Internet and access to everyone's music.
It is probably impossible to express the change to you kids who grew up with access to the Internet.
I don't miss the old days, but I still feel we've lost something in our obsession with categorizing everything.
TV was once equally useful, in that there were half-a-dozen weekly music shows, half of which were willing to play almost anything. One of the most commercial of all of them turned me on to Killing Joke, by reviewing their debut album and playing a few snippets between the likes of Hall & Oates and Olivia Newton-John (in her early Country phase).
The thing with the internet is that it has, until relatively recently, mostly required you to know what you're looking for. The first useful recommendation algorithm I came across was Zune's, maybe 15 years ago. Before that it was very hard to find new music worth listening to but Zune's amazing ecosystem put me onto quite a few bands, new and old, I doubt I'd have discovered any other way. Since Microsoft dismantled Zune, I haven't found anything more useful. It takes me way more time and effort these days to trawl through Bandcamp and Discogs recommendations to find something I like. I just wonder if I was 15 or 16 today, whether I'd think it was worth the effort.
OTOH, I only care bout the music, I m happy for it to have absolutely nothing to do with me if it makes the song better and I get to perform it.Bombadil wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2024 4:20 pmEverything in my music is me. If I can't play something on the keyboard, I don't enter the notes on the grid. I practice until I can. If I lay down a stinker of a vocal take, I'll redo it. Everything I do is, to a large extent, me.
Why does it all have to be so egocentric? I just want more good music in the world, I don't give a f**k where it comes from or if it someone else's music is better than mine, as long as mine is good enough. I've never wanted it to be in any way about me, it has to be about the music.I view all the great, organic music that came before as a gauntlet thrown down. The task, for serious people, is to better it, not wallow in mediocrity.
