What Music Do YOU Like?

[RWood]

Its funny, I liked Simon & Garfunkel, Art Garfunkel solo work, and early Paul Simon solo work. By the time of Graceland I had stopped following his work. The few times that I have heard it I was completely unmoved. It just shows how diverse a community we have here.

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

Ah, well, then as long as it is "Graceland" or "So" ... we CAN be in the same room listening to music without one of us gagging!!

Isn't progress wonderful??

"Progress"? I prefer the term "serendipity" - it has a much friendlier and fateful ring to it.

G'nite you son of Oz!!

Oh, my, I've not had that one before! I am most tickled (as you will see if you glance left and aboard my avatar). Thank-you.

I assume when you referred to "gagging" you were mostly referring to Sugarhill Gang's Rapper's Delight (I am only going on the low probability that you have heard John Butler Trio's Get Funky Tonight)?

I, of course, cannot fault you on that. I somewhat expect it of many folk, and I expect it not in a condescending way but in an acknowledgement that my pleasure in all things can often extend to the superficially Dionysian.

You see, in music (amongst other things), while my tastes do extend to the despairingly angry rants of The The's The Mercy Beat or the heady tones of Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill amidst everything else, usually lyrical, that strikes the right notes (or, more likely, beat, since percussion shakes my cockles), if I want to "get funky tonight", then closing all the blinds and dancing alone in my room in my arrhythmic and uncoordinated Natalie Imbruglia-fashion to George Michael's Freedom 90 or howling along to Robbie Williams' tongue-planted-so-incredibly-far-in-his-cheek-it's-surprising-he-doesn't-have-two-mouths-to-feed Let Me Entertain You or filing photos to the funky beat of Get Funky Tonight or the bum-wiggling bass of Rapper's Delight is the kind of thing where my massively-introverted chronically-inhibited, "cold as a razor blade, tight as a tourniquet, dry as a funeral drum" spiralling self-absorption and self-loathing can be righted, and bob to the surface of the drowned woods in which I wallow, and let me head out to sea on my own private party boat.

I don't have problems saying "I like icecream" or "the most fun I ever have is at a waterslide park" or "I like good, kids' cartoons/animated movies as a kid" because joy is not always easy for me to find, especially when I overlook the visceral pleasure these provide. My neurology quite often doesn't seem to concern itself as much as I often do with maturity, or appropriateness, or depth, or intellectualism. If the cockles are anywhere to be tickled, they're possibly truly centred not in my heart but in my hindbrain, where the gibbon lurks. I don't mind letting the gibbon point me in the direction of fun sometimes. He points to the tribal, the pop-ish, the bright colours and the sugary, creamy sweetness of icecream most often.

So, yes, please, anyone, feel free to mock and berate and belittle me (but I'll remind you of a common reaction of monkeys in the zoo to such actions ), call me a musical heathen; tell me I'm hanging with the hubris of the hoi polloi; condemn me for at all supporting manufactured "art" rather than created art, but, regardless, I'm going to say it anyway...

I love the Spice Girls' Wannabe !

There, I feel better now. You'll find the Ignore feature of the forum right here (<-----linky).

Cheers,
Marc ("...I wanna really, really, really wanna zigazig ah")

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by RWood

Its funny, I liked Simon & Garfunkel, Art Garfunkel solo work, and early Paul Simon solo work. By the time of Graceland I had stopped following his work. The few times that I have heard it I was completely unmoved. It just shows how diverse a community we have here.

My father liked it all. I recently bought the DVD of The Concert in Central Park, but have yet to arrange to watch it. Thursday night, perhaps...

Thanks, Good Mister Wood. I'd have not thought to otherwise (I am alone Thursday and Friday, apart from the dogs - free to be me, no matter how ugly it gets ).

Cheers,
Marc

[RWood]

Marc: Throughout my teen years we lived with the threat of atomic war ending civilization today, tomorrow, the middle of next week at the latest. Music was one of the true pleasures. (I said "one of" not "the only") Without passion there is no joy and life becomes mundane. You and I differ in our musical tastes. Big deal. I like Zevon and you like Simon (Paul, not sure about Carly.)

What music is real and what is manufactured? All of it is both. For me it all goes back to my basic division of music: there are only two types -- boring and interesting. In the US in the 60s the pop charts were topped by the British Invasion bands (Beatles, Rolling Stones, Hollies, Animals, DC5, Moody Blues, etc) and an outfit from Detroit called Motown Supremes, Four Tops, Dianna Ross, etc.) Their music was every bit as manufactured as any of the British girl or boy bands of the past 20 years. What matters is not how the music was created but how you feel about it when you hear it. Enjoy it.

There is no reason to shun certain music just because it is created by professional musicians.

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by RWood

...
There is no reason to shun certain music just because it is created by professional musicians.

The problem with me over-dramatising something (as I am wont to do) is that sometimes the irony and the intended statement becomes lost in unnecessarily elaborate rhetoric. It makes my point an occluded, self-caused travesty.

Between our paragraphs, there occurs the music of the spheres; the aforementioned "serendipity" of thought; a choral "Hallelujah" in an acoustically perfect auditorium.

Which is to say, Good Mister Wood, "We are, and have always been, in agreement".

Sorry 'bout the profusion of prose. My mind's a tangled net of word-wankery at the moment, struggling to be free so it can go to Massimos and give itself an icecream headache.

Cheers,
Marc

[Donnageddon]

I am, again, sans pants.

Why does this always happen to me?

[WDecraene]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

The irony was clear in your posts ... not so much in his/hers. And, I did read the whole thread. Again, very clear in your posts ... his/hers not so much. And, when people say unkind things about people I like and respect, they generally tend to find out that I do not take kindly to it. If they are joking, better to make that ever so clear, because I'll go to the mat for those I support.

Just for the record Rick, I WAS kidding !! I still have to get used to this forum stuff where you can't actually see or hear the persons talking so I should have used

Yet I DO prefer Tom's version of Downtown Train over Rod's.

Oh, and as far as language errors are concerned, you should realise that a lot of the people on this forum are not native english speakers - I being one of them ....

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by Donnageddon

I am, again, sans pants.

Why does this always happen to me?

Because your parents have gone away and you like that old time rock and roll?

Cheers,
Marc

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by RWood

What matters is not how the music was created but how you feel about it when you hear it. Enjoy it.

There is no reason to shun certain music just because it is created by professional musicians.

Actually, being from a musician family caused me to shunt vocal based stuff, I was mostly interested by the unending solos and musical structures. At first it was Zeppelin, Deep Purple and heavy metal as it was called at the time. I played bass in a garage band. Further on, progressive rock came to the scene as our skills got better, then we were good enough for Steely Dan which was our springboard into jazz. A woodworking accident cost me two fingertips on the left hand, tearing up my dreams of being a musician and composer; but I don't believe I was good at it anyway.
Out of spite I tore up and burned all tapes we did. So for the past 25 years, I've been mostly enjoying music as a critical listener.
Although I do not like the raspy voice and the drug induced mantras of Waits, his connection to the channel of creation is notable and pure.
Having tasted the composition and performance sides of music, there are kinds of music I truly can not stand. Singer interpreters (Celine Dion's kind) and canned music producers such as one can find in techno, rap and elevator music; although there are little jewels there... sometimes.

Music is good to the soul and we are the lucky who can enjoy it. My father now in his seventies, played professionally in a military band and a little in the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. He is now loosing his hearing because of the loud volumes of the band classes he used to teach in small classrooms. That is the worst nightmare for me.

[UncleDuke]

Throughout my teen years we lived with the threat of atomic war ending civilization today, tomorrow, the middle of next week at the latest.

good one, i remembeer those days, i forget a lot, i remember one lady who played sax, i liked her music, i was a dirty young man then

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by RWood

I'm not a big fan of Tom Waits, I only have about 25 of his albums so perhaps I have not heard enough. Of his own music I think his best album was Small Change -- "Small Change got rained on with his own 38"

yes, if you only have about 25 albums, you must not like him any more than i do.

ah, Small Change... Tom Waits, as i have said before, should be the poet laureat of our generation. he is, in my own personal reality...

Originally Posted by RWood

Of his songs performed by others (cover versions) my favorite is Ol' 55 as performed by the Eagles and the aformentioned Downtown Train.

Downtown Train really is a masterpiece. Strange Weather is amazing too. and I hope that i don't fall in love with you. and... well, i'll stop there, otherwise this post will never end.
EDIT : oh, and Shore Leave ! you should listen to that one too.
EDIT : Burma shave !!! amazing lyrics.

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

Although I do not like the raspy voice and the drug induced mantras of Waits, his connection to the channel of creation is notable and pure.

i *adore* his raspy voice. i love deep gravelly voices.

Having tasted the composition and performance sides of music, there are kinds of music I truly can not stand. Singer interpreters (Celine Dion's kind) and canned music producers such as one can find in techno, rap and elevator music; although there are little jewels there... sometimes.

ugh, céline dion... <shudder> but i have to stand up for rap ; like the blues, it was born out of a dispossessed population's need to express and affirm themselves and their identities, and honestly the less commercial rap can be brilliant and poetic and brutal. and some of it can also be hilarious fun (beastie boys...). techno drives me crazy as well, however *electro* can be brilliant stuff when done right.

Music is good to the soul and we are the lucky who can enjoy it. My father now in his seventies, played professionally in a military band and a little in the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. He is now loosing his hearing because of the loud volumes of the band classes he used to teach in small classrooms. That is the worst nightmare for me.

amen to that.

[yvanleterrible]

but i have to stand up for rap ; like the blues, it was born out of a dispossessed population's need to express and affirm themselves and their identities, and honestly the less commercial rap can be brilliant and poetic and brutal. and some of it can also be hilarious fun (beastie boys...). techno drives me crazy as well, however *electro* can be brilliant stuff when done right.

Rap as text, I respect so as Slam (Grand Corps Malade comes to mind. That is art). Rap as a musician means nothing to me. Most sounds are an elogy to the laziness of not properly learning an instrument. It takes years of dedicated work to do so. Bluesmen took the time to learn.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

Rap as text, I respect so as Slam (Grand Corps Malade comes to mind. That is art).

hey, you know Grand Corps Malade over there ?? wow, he's international !! i'm glad ; he deserves it. you're right, it *is* art. although here we call it "slam" ; that's the spoken word, where musical accompaniment is secondary or absent. but it's all part of the same family.

Rap as a musician means nothing to me. Most sounds are an elogy to the laziness of not properly learning an instrument. It takes years of dedicated work to do so. Bluesmen took the time to learn.

hey now, a little respect learning to be a turntablist is just as demanding of skill, practice, technique and hard work as the trumpet. and the great mcs are really poets. the good ones also take the time to learn, just like the bluesmen. if you ever see the DMC World DJ Championship you might change your mind ; the really good DJs are playing turntables just like an instrument. in fact, in 2002 the winners were a french team, Birdy Nam Nam (they're on my list already... ). on their site http://www.birdynamnam.com/outro.html (which, incidentally, is graphically amazing) you can listen to some of their songs (in "sounds" page). one of my favorites is abbesses.

or here is a video of the 2005 Championships, with maximum respect for tradition and the musicians who have come before them :
http://ma-tvideo.france2.fr/video/iLyROoaftvB2.html

[zelda_pinwheel]

i forgot, if you want to learn about the history of turntablism, i recommend the film Scratch by Doug Pray. excellent film.

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

hey now, a little respect learning to be a turntablist is just as demanding of skill, practice, technique and hard work as the trumpet. and the great mcs are really poets. the good ones also take the time to learn, just like the bluesmen. if you ever see the DMC World DJ Championship you might change your mind ; the really good DJs are playing turntables just like an instrument. in fact, in 2002 the winners were a french team, Birdy Nam Nam (they're on my list already... ). on their site http://www.birdynamnam.com/outro.html (which, incidentally, is graphically amazing) you can listen to some of their songs (in "sounds" page). one of my favorites is abbesses.

or here is a video of the 2005 Championships, with maximum respect for tradition and the musicians who have come before them :
http://ma-tvideo.france2.fr/video/iLyROoaftvB2.html

I did not insult anybody. I said that to me it means nothing. Turntables are to music the same as throwing paint on a canvas to art. Yes you need skill, yes you need to master composition but working at it to make it work will not take long to master.