Is this another misfiring joke?
Is this another misfiring joke?
Elton's 70's period was amazing, I was playing Don't Shoot Me in the car earlier today, they don't write them like that anymore, his band were great too.
Yes, I realize you English don't have much of a sense of humor. Well, a few of you do!Originally Posted by JJ88
Enjoying any given piece of music justifies it 100% to the person enjoying it. Elton's opinion, yours, or mine are all ultimately irrelevant.
Sleeping at home is killing the hotel business!
News to me!
How dare you make sense!
"So it goes."
-Kurt Vonnegut
Madman is a classic in my house! But lets not get too far ahead of yourself Sir John, if I remember correctly, your OWN career had pretty much shit the bed until MTV came along, yes?
He was also in a band with Elton Dean early on in his career. That's where he got his stage name from, Elton from Elton Dean, John from Long Badry.
Last edited by GuitarGeek; 05-23-2017 at 06:43 PM.
Elton John is totally right regarding the lack of real talent in music today.
For those who keep joking on him, i suggest you to listen to the newly expanded 17-11-70+
Elton was the first "serious" artist I got into. I'll always have a soft spot for his 70s music. As was mentioned a few posts above, he had a fantastic band. I'd even rate Dee Murray as one of the great bassists in rock music. Oddly, I've never seen Elton live. It's on my bucketlist and hopefully I'll see him before he kicks his over ;-)
second
...I don't know if the things I'm thinking are normal thoughts or not.
AC
👍
I don't so much disagree with Elton as think that for someone as well-known as he is the "hey you kids, get off my yard" attitude is slightly unbecoming. Kind of like Neil Young saying no records sound good anymore. There may be some truth there, but I don't think Neil's listening is that wide these days. Or he'd have listened to stuff like Djam Karet! 😃
Of course if he only considers top 40, I guess he's right.
One reason is the songwriting: About ten years ago, a Swedish producer cracked the hit-record code - he figured out exactly what kind of sound and stylistic elements a tune needed to be a #1 Monster Hit. From what I recall, his formula is Eighties Europop combined with hip-hop beats. Soon, he was so busy he had to turn down work, so he trained several apprentices (also Swedish) and gave them the jobs he couldn't do. Soon, they were as busy as he was, and it's worked out fantastic for all of them, and for the Big Time Music Business in general. If one of those guys is involved in the writing and production of a potential Number-One-with-a-bullet, the chances are strong that it will BE Number-One-with-a-bullet. But because all those hit-making miracle men write to the same perfect formula, their songs tend to sound awfully similar.
Not that the Joe Sixpacks and Jane Winecoolers who buy music as a lifestyle accessory care.
Last edited by Baribrotzer; 05-24-2017 at 01:57 AM.
Another Elton fan here. Some of his mid 70’s era albums are brilliant IMO. He lost the plot towards the end of the decade and his 80’s and 90’s albums are much more hit and miss (although there are a few decent ones). He has been on a bit of a creative comeback since the 00’s and has done some really good stuff.
Regarding his comments. I don’t know if today’s top 40 is any worse than it ever was. I remember a lot of dreck back in the 70’s too.
Well, yeah, what did you think he was talking about?! Whenever you hear somebody famous say "music stinks these days", they're talking about mainstream music. In no way are they even thinking about stuff like "prog", or any kind of avant garde or contemporary classical music or whatever. They're talking about turning on the radio (and I mean commercial radio, not some community funded college or public access station) and hearing music that just isn't as good what you would have heard on the radio 30-50 years ago.
But has been pointed out, there's always been lame music in the mainstream. But there's used to also be a lot of cool music in the mainstream too. As far I can tell, with relatively few exceptions, that hasn't been the case for the last 10 or 20 years.
As for Neil Young, from what I gather, the guy has severe tinnitus, so I suspect his problem has nothing to do with recording technology, or the quality of the music or whatever. It has to do with the fact that he spent too much of his adult life playing heavily amplified music, and probably can't hear much of anything correctly.
As George Clinton once put it, that's like making love with just one stroke.
40 years on, we are still discussing Elton's music. In 30-40 years, will there be the same reverence for Beyonce or Bruno Mars? Maybe as nostalgia, but the music (for the most part) seems disposable--like the stuff Shaun Cassidy or Debbie Gibson used to make (okay perform---as they were not the driving creative force behind their own "art.") . I do hope at some point the pendulum will swing back the other way, but I fear we may long passed the tipping point between music as artistic expression and music as celebrity commodity fodder. Yes, there are bands and modern music that are finding varying degrees of success, but can Vampire Weekend, Imagine Dragons or the Chainsmokers reach the creative communal sustainability and relevance of a U2 ---geez, or even a Pat Benetar or Supertramp for that matter? I realize that the music industry is not the same as it was, and I think that is part of what Elton was lamenting.
"So it goes."
-Kurt Vonnegut
I recall a rant from Tom Petty in the late 90s/early 00s about the record companies were going all in on "manufactured shit" like boy bands and dance pop. He compared it to the early 60s, before the British Invasion when the record companies were pushing the likes of Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, acts that could be controlled with songs written in house. Petty said there was plenty of great music out there, but it was all off the radar of the top 40.
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
He also had a great comment putting down modern country music in the "Sound City" film. As well, he stirred that same pot in a 2013 interview.
(I point this out because of your most excellent Bob Newhart quote in your sig line.)
Typically, what happens in a situation like this is that the public get bored with the formula after a while. In the early Nineties, the Big Time Music Industry was riding high on formulaic dance pop (AKA disco), Corporate Rock, early rap, and Hair Metal - all of which followed well-figured-out blueprints, and had become highly professionalized. Then Nirvana broke big, and suddenly genuine rock 'n roll, as made by a few broke guys in a basement rather than the cigar-chompers in their corner office, was happening again.
But music has become so much a lifestyle accessory for most people, and so little a thing of value in itself, that I'm not sure it could happen again.
"...music has become so much a lifestyle accessory for most people, and so little a thing of value in itself"
THIS is Sig worthy! Well spoke, Puck!
.
Well, you might be correct about Shaun Cassidy (though as I recall, his Rundgren produced album Wasps is actually a pretty good record), but Debbie Gibson wrote and produced his albums. I remember it being said that she was the youngest performer to sing, write, and produce a number hit on Billboard's Top 100 chart.
. And while the production was typical late 80's pop production (eg freeze dried digital drums, "Seinfeld" bass, digital reverb on everything, sampled harmony vocals, etc), the songwriting was actually pretty good for "pop music". I always thought Only In My Dreams and We Could Be Together were really good songs, for instance.
Oh, and let's not forget that as an adult, she had a lengthy career as a Broadway performer (though I still wish she had pulled an Alanis, I'd love to hear Debbie's Mirror Universe rock chick doppelganger).
Mind you, it was still mostly bubblegum or, later on, easy listening/show tunes, so maybe it remains inconsequential.
Today's country, as they used to call it in the TV commercials for the local country music station, back in the 90's (maybe they still call it that, I haven't seen any adverts for WGAR in awhile).He also had a great comment putting down modern country music in the "Sound City" film. As well, he stirred that same pot in a 2013 interview.
Junior Brown was once qouted as saying that people keeping coming up to him after shows and saying "I don't usually like country music, but I like your country music". His reply would be, "That's because you've never heard real country music before".
His point being, that the assembly line country music isn't the real deal, and for the last 40 or more years, that's mostly what people outside of that circle end up hearing. That stuff has the vocal styling, the frequently dumb lyrics (yes, even worse than those penned by Stanley Eisen or Gene Klein), and maybe a smattering of twangy guitar or pedal steel, but it doesn't have the vibe, the soul or the roots of any of the classic pre-1970 stuff, before Nashville co-opted the genre and commenced strangling the hell out of it.
If your only exposure to country music has been Garth Brooks, Brad Paisley, Randy Travis, and Kenny Rogers, then you've never heard the real thing. I'm sure Junior Brown isn't the only guy carrying on in the tradition of Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, and Ferlin Husky, but you're never going to know about it if you only listen to commercial radio or see some Nudie suit wearing wannabe on The Tonight Show.
Damn, now I wanna listen to some Bob Wills!
Last edited by GuitarGeek; 05-24-2017 at 02:27 PM.
It is amazing how many of today's pop songs are following the exact same formula. I can literally hum along with them the first time I hear them.
I'm not trying to sound like our parents did back in the day when they called rock "noise." I try to be open-minded. But, there is so much following and no real trailblazing that I hear. Well, very little.
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
I was gonna criticize your use of the phrase "Hair metal", but by 1990, that's perhaps the correct phrase for what was happening. Most of the good glam metal acts from the first half of the 80's had either broken up or gotten sucked down the hair metal funnel, and the results were just...not as good as it had been four or five years earlier.
Personally, though, I prefer the "early rap", the stuff I remember hearing in the 80's, over the nonsense I hear these days. I'm sure what I'm hearing now doesn't represent the totality of what's happening in rap today, I just have no idea as to how to go about finding out what stuff is worth seeking out. I just know I liked rap when they didn't have to insert a bleep (or reverse the words) in every line of the song, and the lyrics were about something other than being a drug dealer or a murderer.
"Genuine rock n roll".Then Nirvana broke big, and suddenly genuine rock 'n roll, as made by a few broke guys in a basement rather than the cigar-chompers in their corner office, was happening again.Yeah, if you say so.
I get the idea everyone was bored with what glam metal had turned into, and it was "time for a change", but I maintain that most of the so called "alternative" bands weren't much better. The music was just was boring (for me it was, anyway) and at the very least, I suspect the image, at the very least was just manufactured as anything else. I'm sure they had image consultants telling them what to say in interviews, making sure they disavowed any and all mainstream music from the previous decade, bragged about their relatively mediocre musical skills, and dissed somebody, anybody (eg Cobain shooting his mouth off about both Guns N Roses and Pearl Jam) in interviews.
It was funny how "anti-establishment" all of those bands were, yet they all made MTV ready videos, did interviews with anyone who stuck a microphone (other than Cobain, who somewhat bizarrely refused to talk to musician oriented magazines like Guitar Player, yet he did who knows how many interviews with MTV, Rolling Stone, Rip, etc). At least Pearl Jam had the good sense to stop making videos after the first album.
And why did all those Seattle bands wear flannel? I remember someone saying there's an actual reason for that particular sartorial choice, but it seems to me like when you're in a band, you don't want to look like every other band who's coming up at the same time as you are. Unless, of course, your image consultant is telling you that standing out and looking different from everyone else would be a "bad thing".
And thing that stinks is some of those bands were at least reasonably decent. I never had any of the Pearl Jam or Soundgarden records, but I kinda like some of the songs I did get to hear. I thought Black Hole Sun and Jeremy were good songs.
I remember reading somewhere that Derek Shulman (who, following his misbegotten youth in Gentle Giant, went over to the Dark Side and became a record company executive/Sith Lord who helped engineer the rise of Glam/Hair Metal) where he said that kids "don't care about music anymore". It's not a key part of their lives anymore the way it was for us.But music has become so much a lifestyle accessory for most people, and so little a thing of value in itself, that I'm not sure it could happen again.
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