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I listened to a new album by a popular modern group
Listened to some new albums this last week at a friends. He is heavily into vinyl again. Among the albums was one from a recent popular group that had 2 or 3 big noticeable hits over the years. Every song on that album sounded like a regurgitation of those same 2 or 3 hit songs with minor variations in lyrics and melody and beat, to the point by the end I couldn’t stand listening to it any more. It was like we had the same song on repeat 12 times. I won’t mention the group here as I don’t want to bash anyone specific.
I guess lately I’ve been spoiled listening to albums like Orange or Sargent Peppers where it’s all about the music, creativity and art, and not about commercialism or conforming to what the music industry thinks is good music.
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27 Replies
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I know what you mean Jung.
There is of course, a lot of great stuff out there both old and new, mainstream and indie.
While at work listening to music with my Mp3, I gravitate to the MonaLisa Twins and The Moody Blues time and again. Of course, I love scores, if not hundreds, of other artists, as we have talked about in other threads, but for me, those two are the cream that rises to the top.
The vast majority of new “popular” stuff is lacking and is subject to greatly disappoint, eh?
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Hi Michael. I just took a yonder to the current Top 100 Billboard and listened to a sample of what the record labels are pushing, and it is akin to going to a bad Asian fusion restaurant where they use the same sauce for everything. Everything kind of tastes the same and after a while you start feeling a little whoozy and need a coke or beer to wash away that bad after taste. As you say there are a lot of good stuff, old and new out there, but it just gets buried in all the noise.
For me in the 90’s I enjoyed sounds from bands like U2 and Sheryl Crow, before I abandoned modern music and got into classical music with a passion. Most of what was coming out of the modern pop stations just all sounded the same and I lost interest in pop rock music, unless it was classic 60s or 70s rock. When I discovered MonaLisa Twins and returned to modern rock/pop music, it was a breath of fresh air for sure. First time I heard Orange and the studio work they talked about, immediately reminded me of albums like Pet Sounds, Sargent Peppers, Seventh Sojourn, Wish You Were Here, Even in the Quietest Moments (it was nice having an older brother who bought a lot of awesome albums) that had artistry in creating diverse great music. The Wide Wide Wide Land, All About Falling in Love, I don’t Know Birds That Well, Nothings In Vain, Sweet Lorraine, Count on Me, Club 27, Still a Friend of Mine…are modern pop/rock songs I can love again.
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You are lucky you had an older sibling with good taste in music. As for needing a coke to wash away a bad aftertaste, I reckon you’d need something to wash away the coke. Coca Cola is as fake as Santa Claus and together they represent the worst of corporate commercial greed! Celebrating Christmas this way is fine if you’re a pagan.
Prior to Christianization, the Germanic peoples (including the English) celebrated a midwinter event called Yule (Old English geola or giuli). Wodan’s (aka Odin) role during the Yuletide period has been theorized as having influenced concepts of St. Nicholas in a variety of facets, including his long white beard and his gray horse for nightly rides (compare Odin’s horse Sleipnir) or his reindeer in North American tradition.
Folklorist Margaret Baker maintains that “the appearance of Santa Claus or Father Christmas, whose day is the 25th of December, owes much to Odin, the old blue-hooded, cloaked, white-bearded Giftbringer of the north, who rode the midwinter sky on his eight-footed steed Sleipnir, visiting his people with gifts. … Odin, transformed into Father Christmas, then Santa Claus, prospered with St Nicholas and the Christchild, became a leading player on the Christmas stage.”
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You’re right Howard, Coke would’t be my first choice, unless that is all there was in a panic within reaching distance. My thing would be more a Ginger Ale, Winter Ale, or just a piping hot black tea.
Thanks for the video. Coke and Santa are certainly icons of commercialization, which is the problem when the focus is on the commercialization of music or art, creativity is lost, and mediocrity prevail.-
I can attest that both Coke and Santa Claus are real and, apparently, so are Grinches.
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Justin Beiber and Brittany Spears are real too, but they will be forever remembered as entertainers instead of singer/song writers in music history.
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Yes Daniel, along with goblins, trolls, witches and fairies at the bottom of the garden!
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Yes Jung. In fact singer/musician/song writers! They are also becoming recording engineers/arrangers/producers as well.
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You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch. >:(
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Indeed they are Howard! Don’t forget graphic artist and pretty good chefs too.
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Graphic artists and actors yes. Good chefs? Well getting there I guess!
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Me, mean! I don’t think so. The Twins are mature and broad minded enough to accept that not everyone has the same attitude to Xmas and have always made it known that they appreciate hearing our differing views and understandings of the world we live in. Xmas isn’t celebrated the same way the world over. I can understand people getting into the festive spirit during the holiday season, but believing in fairytales is for children and this is an adult club.
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I stand by my beliefs. Looks like you and I won’t be conversing further.
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Well it’s a free world and I guess if you’re entitled to refer to me as mean and a grinch, then I’m entitled to refer to you as a Xmas fairy!
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Hi;
I’m kinda convinced that from 1964 to around 1975 we were spoiled by the musicians. I could list some: Bealtes, Rolling Stones, Kinks, Buffalo Springfield, Byrds, Dylan, Simon, James Taylor, Elton John, Cat Stevens, Joni, Carole King, Gordon Lightfoot, and on and on…..I have probably missed more than I have included. Even the so-called minor artists: America, Poco, Firefall would greatly over-shadow the music of today. I was talking with my wife and we were recalling how music critics tore apart artists like John Denver, the Carpenters, and Barry Manilow in the 1970s…..but today they would more than hold their own. Those artists along with Mona and Lisa followed/follow a practice of not repeating melodies or structure from one song to another. Today if a recipe works they will copy and repeat from one song to another. (Except for Manilow……he had a formula). So, I believe that what MLT is doing reflects what occurred during the 1960s and I cannot think of any song of their original work that repeats……each song is a new and talented adventure. Mike.
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Hey, hi Michael!
Methinks you just enumerated the greatest decade-plus in 20th Century music! Your only glaring omission is The Moody Blues. Beatles’ fans were celebrating the 50th Anniversary of “Sgt. Peppers” in 2017. By contrast, The Moody Blues were actually performing their ground-breaking and historic album “Days of Future Passed” in live concerts all over Europe and America!
Your comment here would have been perfect for my thread “Is This Where I Ask Fellow Fans” in the General Discussion Forum. Howard wants to keep that alive and be the first thread to reach 100; lol!
I myself am not too competitive though! 😉 Have a great weekend buddy! We got 5″ of snow in Omaha overnight. Great; shoveling is old, fat man’s greatest delight! NOT!!!
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Hi Michael, and Michael 🙂 See my comment on “Is this where I ask fellow fans…”. Couldn’t agree with you more about modern music industry and lack of talent and creativity. Doing my part to push that thread to reach 100!
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Yes, have to agree about contemporary music and how MLT and others are bucking the trend by going independent. More on this in MT’s “Is This Where I Ask Fellow Fans” in the General Discussion Forum.
As for groups from 1965 to 1975, a few more serious omissions of course. This subject is always going to be controversial as we all have slightly different musical tastes, with one thing in common though, a like of all things MLT!
The list so far is heavily American influenced and I’d have to include groups and singers like Manfred Mann, The Hollies, The Yardbirds, The Who, The Small Faces, Hermans’s Hermits, Donovan, Cream, Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin, Jefferson Airplane, Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, Little Feat, The Lovin’ Spoonful, Jimi Hendrix, The EasyBeats, The Masters Apprentices, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Iggy and The Stooges, Roxy Music, Ry Cooper, the Doobie Brothers, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, Pink Floyd, Queen, The Allman Brothers Band, David Bowie, Yes, Genesis, Black Sabbath, Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Bruce Springsteen, Joy Division, Talking Heads, Elvis Costello and the Attractions, Steely Dan, Kraftwerk, Grateful Dead, Santana, Supertramp and dare I mention them, The Bay City Rollers, to name a few! I haven’t mentioned all those Punk and New Wave bands as they were mostly post 1975!
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Thanks Howard, Michael Rife, Michael Triba for listing some of the greats here. That’s a pretty extensive list. What do you guys think of Chicago that I noticed is not mentioned? They were quite big in the 70’s with their own distinct sounds, and I like some of their later stuff in the 80s and 90s as well. I was listening to Beatles Revolver the other day and when I heard “Got to Get You Into My Life”, I immediately thought of Chicago. With this one song, I think the Beatles were a pre-cursor to a whole generation of sounds that bands like Chicago, Boston, Steely Dan, Toto, Steve Miller Band, Little River Band etc would go on to immortalize. How great is the Beatles.
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