Something for those of you who don't like American Idol and the state of popular music in general

[ghostsofgiants]

I was inspired by Parche's American Idol thread, haha. Nomad559 posted this a couple days ago but it got no attention. I doubt it will now either, since I'm the one posting it, but whatever.

Before The Music Dies Trailer:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8935545790731546326

And a clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irk3_p15RJY

http://www.beforethemusicdies.com

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. And the real irony - most of these shitty new bands don't even know Les Paul

is a real person, and I bet if they heard his music, they'd say he sucks.

And Les Paul wouldn't stand a chance in hell of getting a record contract today.

And as the other guy said, neither would Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder. Or Bob Dylan. Or Pink Floyd, Yes, Genesis, Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Allman Brothers, Doobie Brothers, Janis Joplin, Hendrix, or any host of actual artists.

But the greatest irony is that Les Paul, the guy who made rock music possible, wouldn't stand a chance in hell.

[ghostsofgiants]

3. It is pretty sad.

[Crabby Appleton]

7. I couldn't agree more

[enigmatic]

6. He'd have to dress up in drag to get noticed

No Les Paul= no Rock Guitar...

[eyepaddle]

11. Speaking of which....

how's that guitar playing comin' along? Have you crossed that magic point where you no longer hate EVERYTHING you play? (It took me about six months to play my first "good" parts, and about two years before I could chug through and string together a song.)

I've been at it for 22 years now, plenty long enough to appear semi-skilled, but even more it's long enough to know how much better I would be had I really applied myself.

Keep after it! :)

[swag]

2. Magnificent, old bean. Thanks for the repost.

Thanks also to Nomad559.

[sakabatou]

4. Okie dokie

http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=sakabatou19

[Manifestor_of_Light]

5. Yes it's sad

Very sad.

I have an excellent and trained voice and no place to sing that I want to sing. I don't want to sing in a church choir, and I don't want to sing anything religious or anything in English, unless it's an art song. I'm too old to be accepted into an opera company training program, and auditioned in 05 for my local opera chorus and flunked. I sang in my local amateur opera production of The Elixir of Love, in Italian, which was a total blast, but they never called me back because I had to wear my glasses on stage, in order not to fall off. That was a cardinal sin.

So I'm working up some stuff in different styles, and foreign languages, and have decided I'm going to make my own arrangements of it on my Kurz and sing it in front of my artist friends who live in warehouses.

Why? Because they have parties on weekends. They usually have shitty bands whose idea of music is abusing vinyl by scratching it back and forth, and sampling, but they will LISTEN RESPECTFULLY to any kind of music. And they won't yell at me demanding shitkick.

[mainegreen]

9. I hope your not saying sampling and scratching aren't music but...

instead are saying these bands just happen to suck at samplings and scratching.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

15. Yes I am saying they are not music.

Stealing other peoples' licks from a vinyl record is not making music IMNSHO.

It's combining stuff but it's not creating stuff from scratch, like composing your own tunes, writing your own words, or even arranging somebody else's song in a different instrumentation, or a different style.

Making music is studying music, taking a lesson from a teacher every week on an instrument for years, learning to read music, learning to play by ear, learning the circle of fifths, learning chords, learning the 24 different keys and playing in them, learning expression, practicing technique, improvisation, and all that other stuff that takes solitary WORK. And I haven't even mentioned working in a group like a choir or an orchestra or even a duet.

[mainegreen]

16. Wow. Just wow. I suspect you are thinking only of idiot style rap.

You true-ly have no clue how hard it is to make non-traditional music. I suppose you think all scratching and sampling is P-Diddy rap style simplicity? That *real* musicians with musical training don't using scratching, sampling, along with a vast array of other non-traditional means of producing tones aren't making music? Have you ever tried to find the right record(s) to blend into music which the artist has written, scratch it at the right speeds to both fit the beat *and* tone all the while managing about 15 other tracks? It's as hard as any instrument. That because in the write hands ANYTHING is an instrument. A record player? Instrument. An old game boy? Instrument. A dot matrix printer? Instrument (true-ly). Sheets of properly sized metal? Instrument. Fine grained control of electrical signals? Instrument. Properly blended samples? Instrument. Two rocks? Instrument. Ping pong ball? Instrument.

Hopefully your views on this are just the result of ignorance due to exposure to what is playing in the mainstream radio and other mainstream sources and not a result of a close minded viewpoint that only traditional European styles of music are music.

[ghostsofgiants]

19. Don't even bother.

The kind of ignorance about sampling and such are so prejudiced and belligerent that it's pretty futile in most cases to try and convince people otherwise.

Though I will state that sampling has a longstanding precedent in classical art really, with collages and photomontages. Just because you're using something that already exists doesn't mean that's what is produced from it isn't skillful or art/music (as the case may be).

Some people just don't want to accept new things. Let them be stubborn, they'll eventually be completely irrelevant.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

24. Yep.

I dare anti-samplers to listen to somebody like DJ Shadow and still complain about it.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

23. Jimi Hendrix couldn't read music.

Just saying. ;)

[seemunkee]

8. Thanks for reposting this

I didn't see it before.
Unfortunately this film will suffer the same fate as the music it is trying to call attention to. A couple of art house theaters in large cities will show while the latest Adam Sandler crap will be on every screen in the burbs.

Go to http://www.aquariusrecords.org/ and check out the reviews and samples. Lots of stuff you won't hear anywhere else.

[eyepaddle]

10. Thanks for the post

psrt of me really likes that songwriter-guy though. Just cranking out tunes at the drop of a hat like that, I spend months and months on a tune--and they almost never feel really finished.

Don't get me wrong though, your point is well taken.

[izzybeans]

12. Just ordered the DVD. Thanks!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. Blame the lack or inadequacy of music education in the schools

Financially strapped school districts tend to drop music, considering it a "frill." This has gone on for a long time.

In many districts, what little music instruction that exists is inadequate and doesn't even come close to teaching what kids are capable of.

If the family is not into music, then the kids grow up with little exposure to anything that's not on TV or Top 40 radio. Of course they think that American Idol is wonderful. They don't know any better.

In one sense, the arrival of PBS was a blow against the arts in this country, because it isolated the arts on one channel where people could avoid them. I'm old enough to remember the days before PBS, when the Big Three networks devoted Sundays to cultural programming and showed Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts, a proto-Nova called Conquest, occasional broadcasts of opera or ballet, and regular series of documentaries. In the evenings, everyone watched the Ed Sullivan Show, where a borscht belt comedian might be followed by an original cast number from the latest Broadway play and then a pop group and then an opera singer and then some sketch comedy. Dick Cavett and Jack Paar often had quite highbrow guests on their talk show. Even earlier, there was a weekly program called The Voice of Firestone, which featured opera excerpts. On network TV.

Now classical and jazz are off in their little PBS, NPR, and low-end-of-the-dial ghettos, and it's easy never to discover them.

[johnnie]

14. Thanks for the post

It looks like an interesting flick.

In my few short years on this planet, I can remember in the 70's "The music of today blows", and then in the 80's "The music of today blows" and then in the 90's "The music of today blows" and now almost at the end of the tens "The music of today blows".

The more things change the more they stay the same.

When I was a teen, I started getting into the blues and realizing the connection between the blues and rock. We used to bring our guitars to school and sit out in the smoking lounge and pass the guitars around and shit and I always pulled out a slide and did a few licks. Of course people thought I was going to play some Zeppelin or Clapton, because most of them never heard of Muddy Waters or Elmore James. They were musicians that just didn't want to learn their craft.

I always tell young kids that I work with in the studio that to do anything worthwhile, you must learn your craft. It doesn't matter if you don't dig the music, listen to it and see and hear what they are doing.

It's like the American Idol shit here, hey.. it's part of the craft like it or not. There is nothing wrong with listening to all types of music and trying to see if there might be even a small snippet of something to add to your bag of tricks.

I think there are kids today who study their craft. I don't really think it is much different these days than it was before except for the fact that record companies have blown their wad so bad that they have destroyed that aspect of music. But the internet has opened up a whole new world and it is becoming what the record companies could have.

Fuck the major record companies. Support the music on the internets and don't worry about the music that the corporations are feeding you.

Ok, enough of my sporadic rambling.

[baldguy]

17. Empty Vee News interviewed Bill Clinton in '92.

After Tabitha Soren asked who he dreams of playing sax with, she asked "Who's 'The Loneliest Monk'?"

[ghostsofgiants]

18. Please...please tell me you're joking.

That's ridiculous.

[RedStateShame]

20. Wait? My Morning Jacket? Didn't they sell a song to sell low-carb beer?

Oh, not as you do!!! OK, continue playing frat-rock.

[ghostsofgiants]

22. I think there's a difference between selling the rights to use your music in a commercial...

And intentionally making shitty music because that's what sells.

[ironflange]

21. Today's most telling phrase:

"Music Industry"

Music is now treated like cars or toasters or toilet paper or whatever. It's simply another product to be sold en masse.