Videos of the day -- sounds of an era
Does anyone else still listen to music like this -- in preference to most of what comes out nowadays?
It does seem like there was a bit more variety in popular music back then -- not every single song needs to be about naïve romantic passion or even-more-naïve political/"revolutionary" passion (yes, I do know what "Save It for Later" was actually about). This is only the merest sliver -- I could easily have come up with sixty songs instead of just six.
It does seem like there was a bit more variety in popular music back then -- not every single song needs to be about naïve romantic passion or even-more-naïve political/"revolutionary" passion (yes, I do know what "Save It for Later" was actually about). This is only the merest sliver -- I could easily have come up with sixty songs instead of just six.
posted by Infidel753 at 12:51 AM
16 Comments:
OK, I'll see your Buggles and Raise you The Broad Band...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPHLSC635CM
Now, look how dated that seems twenty odd years later...
OK... I don't think there's less variety as such. It's just harder to find in the absolute torrent of stuff out there. There has been a fundamental change though. Songs have been getting longer because streaming doesn't require them to fit into slots the same way radio or MTV or whatever needed them to.
I always liked my music a bit more British and obscure than this - such a hipster before it was a thing. So for this era which was what early 1980's I was listening to the Boomtown Rats, Ultravox, REM, The Cure, The Jam, Squeeze, Joy Division, Magazine, the Buzzcocks, Wire, and many others mostly on cassette tapes.
Yes please, 54 more.
I'm not really equipped to opine on this topic as my musical choices fall mostly between classical and the Sinatra era, but I liked the Mary Chapin Carpenter piece a lot.
I agree with you that there was more variety in pop music when we were young. Today's pop music seems very mediocre and monotonous. Singers like Taylor Swift leave me cold. Is it just because I'm an out-of-touch old codger? I don't think so. I do love Mary Chapin Carpenter, I've got one of her "best-of" CDs.
nick,
Listening to a "best-of" CD displays serious "codgeristic" tendencies... :-)
NickM: That's pretty well done. I wonder what will be the next thing to kill the previous thing.
As for the variety only being harder to find, that may well be the case, but I specified popular music. Today music is more dominated by corporate homogeneity and formulas. I know there are still innovators, but they have a harder time breaking through and achieving broad distribution and listenership.
Lady M: A lot of the British stuff was great. I'll probably have more of it in a future similar post, if there is one.
Anon: I'm thinking about it.
Annie: Chacun à son goût. Carpenter is great. I'm surprised she's not better known.
Nick: I agree about most of the modern stuff. I actually like some of Taylor Swift's music, but she's not a real innovator like the Kinks or the Beatles. It's still possible that there will be a genuine fresh, new wave to come -- probably from outside the English-speaking world.
I don't want to encourage Nick-on-Nick rhetorical violence here, but a "best-of" compilation from a good performer seems like a fine thing, and I doubt it's only "codgers" who think so.
Sorry, I should have made that post longer. I wasn't having a go at nick. OK. Everyone talks about "decades" in popular music. The '50s, '60s 70s, 80 etc. I think this misses a big point. I have noticed amongst a lot of people that there is a period of roughly ten years that defines tastes pretty much for a lifetime and that isn't a calendrical decade as much as a period in their lives. It's basically what you listened to between the ages of roughly 15 and 25. Infidel, your selections are exactly "right" for someone in their early 60s which I think you are. It's perhaps not as accurate as tree rings or carbon-14 but it's not bad. As I got through my 40s I realised I'd fell into this rut and actively sought out new stuff because I didn't want to end up like my Dad who basically doesn't believe anything good happened in pop after The Beatles split. That and it spooked me that Radio 2 was playing Suede and Pulp and stuff from my early 20s as "oldies". What really got me was listening to a St Etienne song last year and realizing that 1993 was exactly as far away from now as it was from the release of the Beatles first LP. That was scary.
I should have included this but I didn't have time. Sorry. I hope this clarifies things.
PS. "I doubt it's only "codgers" who think so." True. It also appeals to Biddies ;-)
OK, /sarc. I couldn't help myself. I'n just hiding my own horror at ageing.
I sample lots of up-and-coming singers, hoping for something dazzling, but most of them leave me cold. They just aren't as inventive musically as say, Annie Lennox or Bonnie Raitt or Laura Mvula or Blondie. I don't think it's because I'm an unadventurous old codger. There are plenty of contemporary novels, films and art works that I like. It's only today's music that does nothing for me.
Not now, not then.
NickM: I've heard that idea (about imprinting on the music you hear between 15 and 25), and you're right about my age (63). There may well be something to it, but I'm not sure it's the whole explanation. Other videos I considered for inclusion here were more recent, though still not contemporary. My mother favored groups like the Beatles, the Kinks, and the Rolling Stones, but also some recent ones like Celtic Thunder and Show of Hands, and she was born in 1932. But she had a deep knowledge of music most people don't have.
Nick: Interesting that taste in things like novels and movies doesn't follow the same pattern -- well, movies at least haven't been around very long and change very fast. Myself, I largely favor novels of the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century, so in that area I've got you out-codgered.
Ricko: Whatevs.
Well, obviously it is not the only thing going on but it is a factor. And maybe I'm noticing because I'm 50 and fashion (in lots of things) seems to run on something like a 25-30 year cycle. I've been told copies of things like Vogue of that age are valuable for that reason. Fashion designers use them for inspiration. Interestingly I think the mean age of giving birth to a first child in the UK is about 27.
It's a pet theory of mine that fashion (in the broadest sense) is the most unacknowledged actor in history.
Books, movies and TV... Well, how long between Disney makes of for say "The Lion King"... I know, it's not flogging a dead lion but, "re-imagining for a new generation..."
Books I suppose are different because they can't be adapted and still have a hold on us culturally that very little else does. Consider the holy books of various religions.
I'm greatly enjoying listening to these tunes Infidel and reading everyone's comments. I'd completely forgotten about "Radio Killed the Video Star". What a great bop. I used to own the English Beat album with Save it for Later (probably still have it somewhere on vinyl). They came to Ann Arbor in 2018 and played in a small local club called The Ark. An excellent show. It was a thrill seeing them up close.
I tend to agree with NickM that great songs are still being made but there's a huge amount of mediocre material so it's not exactly easy to find. My kids have been helpful in that regard. They find time to listen to a lot of music and then share the best of it with me.
I know you shun smartphones and with good reason but one of the benefits I absolutely love is an app called Shazam which identifies music. I frequently find myself somewhere where music is playing and the tune grabs my attention. Shazam almost always knows who it is. Early this year, I was in a restaurant and heard a song that reminded me of Ian Drury and the Blockheads, but not exactly. I turned Shazam onto it and found out it was his son, Baxter Drury. Baxter is definitely a chip off the old Blockhead (if I may).
Following on NickM's first comment, next up will be "AI Killed the Internet Stars".
CAS: I'm glad you enjoyed them. It must have been great seeing the English Beat in a small club where you could get up close. I still have a bunch of albums around here somewhere -- no working phonograph, unfortunately. It's just simpler to play CDs or videos on the computer.
A future music post with a different theme will include a couple of more recent songs, as well as somewhat older ones.
Interesting that a program exists that can identify music. Back in pre-internet days I used to save music by recording it off the radio. As a result I often had no idea what the songs I was listening to were called or who performed them. There are some I still can't identify (typing in part of the lyrics and doing a search doesn't always work, especially if I can't identify what language the song is in). I'll have to see if Shazam will work without a smartphone.
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