The exhibition Return of the Rudeboy opened last night. According to the London Evening Standard Don Letts was there with Pauline Black and was despairing at how dull the youth of today are...
"How did the parents become cooler than the kids? Everyone looks like an office worker now. Where are the Bob Marleys?"
Could it be that among other things mentioned on the thread, the 'yoof' have it too easy? I'm not saying anyone should suffer but so many times, it's adversity and challenges make people try harder - and produce better work.
It's as though there's nothing for them to rebel against. Apparently.
Posted:
Sat Jun 14, 2014 1:26 pm
Hugh Too Hot
Joined: 02 Apr 2004 Posts: 13749
Location: New Westminster, BC Canada
Post subject:
hmmm
_________________ There's still nothing wrong with it!
Posted:
Sun Jun 15, 2014 3:56 am
Hugh Too Hot
Joined: 02 Apr 2004 Posts: 13749
Location: New Westminster, BC Canada
Post subject:
_________________ There's still nothing wrong with it!
Posted:
Sun Jun 15, 2014 5:38 am
Harry Too Hot
Joined: 03 Jan 2009 Posts: 1634
Location: London
Post subject:
Someone who used to post on this forum mentioned this conversation on Facebook and one of his friends came up with a list of new bands they rated...
The High Hazels
http://highhazels.tumblr.com/
Honeyblood
https://soundcloud.com/honeyblood https://www.facebook.com/honeybloodeatitup
Go Fiasco
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaWSMrx3YZA
Go Violets
https://www.facebook.com/goviolets
Alba Lua
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkuLR8SMnhc
Alias Kid:
http://louderthanwar.com/new-artist-of-the-day-alias-kid/
Marmozets
http://marmozets.tumblr.com/
The Lovely Wars
http://thelovelywars.bandcamp.com/
I had a listen to each one and all of them (in my opinion) have some merit. But when I listen I find myself thinking ("Oh, this is as good as The Primitives or The Darling Buds") They all tend to remind me of lesser bands of the 80s. One of the groups on the list are an Oasis Lad Rock type band being championed by Alan McGee. Most of the bands wear their influences on their sleeves - nothing wrong with that! but, for me, what's missing is that Wow factor. I can remember the first time I heard The Pogues doing A Pair Of Brown Eyes and being stunned. I think the groups on this list, at best, could achieve the kind of success The Wonder Stuff did in the late 1980s. But there's nothing great here. It's not like hearing Bob Dylan's Positively 4th St, Otis Redding singing Dock of the Bay, or Wreckless Eric singing Whole Wide World. I can imagine going to see these bands live and it being positive. But they're filling a gap rather than carving a niche. I can't imagine any of these bands coming out with a classic album - can you? _________________ I got one art O'level it did nothing for me
Posted:
Sun Jun 15, 2014 9:59 am
Sugarman Too Hot
Joined: 10 Dec 2008 Posts: 6061
Location: Sun Valley
Post subject:
Hugh wrote:
Sugarman wrote:
Hugh wrote:
Starving hungry...
Double Lonely
All me marbles
Spread your chickens
Shocking Headache _________________ I'm having bags of fun
Posted:
Sun Jun 15, 2014 10:18 am
Hugh Too Hot
Joined: 02 Apr 2004 Posts: 13749
Location: New Westminster, BC Canada
Post subject:
Abbey Lincoln mentioned something about the Beatles turning everything to mush. But, Neoliberalism has left an indelible, smoldering mark on our world for the last thirty years.
I sometimes speculate as to which bands of the last forty/fifty years will still be referenced and revered in a couple of hundred years from now ... And the nearer you get to modern day the fewer bands spring to mind .
Have all the various genres been fused and mashed together now .....have all the chord progressions , melodies and lyrics been arranged and re- arranged??
Something big could be just around the corner , but to be really big it will need to be really different and youth galvanising all at the same time . _________________ ..as they sing while you slave,and I just get bored!
Posted:
Tue Jun 17, 2014 7:02 am
Hugh Too Hot
Joined: 02 Apr 2004 Posts: 13749
Location: New Westminster, BC Canada
Post subject:
...and ADD proof. _________________ There's still nothing wrong with it!
Posted:
Tue Jun 17, 2014 4:10 pm
appyammer Gangster
Joined: 29 Nov 2009 Posts: 279
Post subject:
People get old (me included), and hang on to the music that they remember from their formative years.
I'm (very) late 40s - I don't think we're supposed to "get" new music. Some stands the test of time and gets added to the list of what is still "OK" or "Cool" to listen to for the wider audience.
But times change, there's more music than ever so more disposable crap than ever. Did our parents think "our" music was good? probably not.
Rap/boy-bands/Indie -is the norm - a few bits outside that, but maybe we are at the natural point where there's only so much you can do with a few chords.
Posted:
Tue Jun 17, 2014 4:38 pm
dan Too Hot
Joined: 17 Dec 2008 Posts: 2206
Post subject:
here is my sons band junior bill and the scallies they mash up new wave, ska, hip hop, cumbia, reggae and punk and have something to say! quite a lot actually. Any of you who remember his bands as a little kid might to see how theyve progressed and im posting it as an answer to the original poster .
My answer is this. They are still out there. The Skints are another example but are they getting anywhere near the charts, the crowds that decide what to promote etcetc, well no its very hard. but i dont like to hear that music is not as good when what you are actually saying is its not making the mainstream and being old you are less astute at seeking it out!
heres their take on cheer up and java
How are you all ok btw, i left cos i thought the reunion was becoming a joke from the fans pioint of view and i didnt want to continue in loads of endless negative debates, _________________ www.myspace.com/wearethedads www.punksnotdad.com
The golden periods in music have always come about when musicians have been open to taking in new ideas and pushing boundaries in various ways.
Historically that's been true of everything, that's how new styles are 'born' - without that there'd have been no jazz, rock and roll, rhythm and blues, ska, Motown, reggae, punk etc. Even pop music was true to that spirit at one point.
Eventually things stagnate when what began as fresh ideas are overused and become a formula, a tradition; this is inevitable. Obviously musicians need tradition to learn from, it's a basis and a jump-off point - but what we have now is music that either tries to preserve the tradition without necessarily adding anything new, or new stuff that has little knowledge of what's gone before!
More than previously artists are expected to fit into a tradition, a pre-existing style/genre, to fit a specific 'target audience'. I think that leads to 'safe' music.
Posted:
Wed Jun 18, 2014 5:01 pm
Harry Too Hot
Joined: 03 Jan 2009 Posts: 1634
Location: London
Post subject:
no guts, no glory _________________ I got one art O'level it did nothing for me
Posted:
Thu Jun 19, 2014 7:43 am
Hugh Too Hot
Joined: 02 Apr 2004 Posts: 13749
Location: New Westminster, BC Canada
Post subject:
Terry don't know horns?
_________________ There's still nothing wrong with it!
Posted:
Mon Jun 23, 2014 6:52 am
Paul Willo Site Admin
Joined: 16 Aug 2003 Posts: 9587
Location: High Coniscliffe
I like The Talks. I have no doubt that if I went to see them live I'd be dancing and singing along.
But, when I listen I'm thinking: Oh, this one is a bit like In The City by Madness or, the organ on this one is a bit like On My Radio by The Selector or Radio Radio by Elvis Costello. And this song reminds me of The Clash.
The Talks are likeble and they are filling a hole left behind by bands that have split up. But that's not the same as carving a niche for themselves.
The musicians aren't as good as The Attractions, the lyrics aren't as sharp as Costello, and more importantly they're not as driven and intense as Joe Strummer was.
Sometimes I think the last real star was Morrissey...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am5AVaeGg7o
I remember when he did the performance above and I was really stunned. Around this time 1990 Morrissey gave interviews saying that he felt he should have been replaced. After him came Suede, Blur, Elastica and Pulp - all whom I liked. But they weren't ripping up the rule book like Morrissey had done. After that came Radiohead and Coldplay who seemed much worse. America has had some interesting singers rear their heads since then but I can't think of any from the U.K. I never rated The Libertines. I don't think that's because I'm getting on a bit. I think it's because they're a bit shit _________________ I got one art O'level it did nothing for me
I feel much the same as Harry about The Talks. Great that they're taking 2 tone as a point of departure, yet to use a much mangled phrase, it's missing a certain 'X Factor'. Just my opinion.
Adam Curtis (who made the excellent BBC documentaries Century of the Self and Power of Nightmares) shared some observations on music in a New Statesman interview back in February. Even though he later goes on to praise Rihanna, that quibble aside, I pretty much agree:
-----------------------
NS: So, let's start with this idea of “static culture”. Just explain what you mean by that. If we use music as an example, are you saying that musicians today are just going back and recycling sounds and themes from the past?
AC: All culture always goes back and feeds off the past, it can't help it, but there are two ways of doing it. Either you can go back and get inspiration from the past and create something genuinely new, which is the whole history of all sorts of things – not just art and music. What bothers me at the moment is that you get a very different sense out of pop culture, which is that it is literally like a form of archaeology. It's going back and rebuilding it almost as a sort of work of art in itself.
I mean its weird, it’s not just in pop music, you get it in a lot of avant-garde art at the moment. There are people going back and making plays based on Fassbinder films of the 1970s, and they're just literally replicating it, and it's very odd. And that's why I was being a bit rude about Savages because, whilst Savages are technically extremely good, and live are extremely powerful, they are a bit like archaeologists from the 1920s, going back and digging up the tomb of Tutankhamen, and laying it all out for you to see, but they’re digging up The Slits, or New Order, or Siouxsie Sioux, and presenting it to us, and that's it. It's very odd. It's almost like a terminus railway station in a city where all the trains just keep on arriving and nothing ever leaves.
What I'm really complaining about is a lack of progressive ideas in music. Everything seems to be about just going back and reworking it and it becomes static – sort of like a zombie culture. As I listen to Savages, I have a terrible vision of Siouxsie Sioux coming towards me like a zombie. And nothing will kill that kind of music, because, and this is rude, but what is now called post-punk – that slightly angular stuff that borrowed off punk but took stuff from funk and all sorts of other devices – had its time and had its place. At the moment it’s just being reworked and it doesn't have any meaning to it. Like Mumford and Sons rework folk music and they don’t add any meaning to it either. It’s like they’ve stuck on beards.
AC: I think I'm going to do a history of entertainment, and the relationship between entertainment and power. I am subtitling it 'the rise of the media industrial complex', from gangsters and Jimmy Savile in Leeds in the 1950s, to YouTube and Google in the present day, via Rupert Murdoch. Entertainment and Power: The Rise of the Media Industrial Complex.
Posted:
Sat Jul 19, 2014 11:30 am
Paul Willo Site Admin
Joined: 16 Aug 2003 Posts: 9587
Location: High Coniscliffe
Post subject:
I just think The Talks are very good lyrically, very sharp lyrically. All acts hark back for influence as they are doing with 2Tone, ska & punk.I don't think thats not a bad thing, its what drives musicians. They are socially aware as many bands today aren't. The Skints are another good band but as Harry mentioned earlier whether we will see any really great classic albums any more? probably one every 15 years but as iconic as weve seen in the past? nah probably not. _________________ ANGER IS AN ENERGY www.specializedproject.co.uk www.thespecials.com www.theskapones.co.uk
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