Guest, Not Webster,

If you were Webster then you would have looked up a dictionary and found that "shite" has a long history of usage in the British Isles. For a Mudcat discussion on this:

Pronunciation over there


So, back to the topic:

My previous comments about modern music were specifically about the huge shift I have noticed towards more and more rap, with little emphasis on music, melody, arrangements, and less musical-music being played on the Oz alternative station Triple-J. This station is always way ahead of the commercial stations in trying out new music and are often months or a year ahead of the other stations picking up albums and giving them good airplay. Their brief is to play alternatives to the Top Forty/commercially developed pop/pap.

So, what has been happening in the last year or so is there has been a creeping increase in the percentage of non-musical rap because the words are worthwhile or it is something different. But what it means for me because I find it very, very difficult to decipher lyrics at the best of times, and even more so when the enuniciation is unclear, I am finding less and less music that I like to listen to on that station. If I wanted to listen to poetry with a drum beat and a token gesture of "music" I would listen to it, but I want to listen to music.

Repetition of rhythm parts over and over, with no variation, and often out of sync with the rest of the arrangement (I suspect not deliberately, but due to a lack of musical knowledge and/or ability) start to really jar on my ears. It reminds me very much of the Muzak in the British tv series The Prisoner. He is stuck in a room with continual piped mindless music and every time he contrives to break the speakers the little repair-bot comes in and fixes them.

Living in the same house as someone who prefers to have the radio on constantly, on the stereo in the room which is at the exact centre of the house, means that I cannot get away from the music unless I shut the door and play my own music in my office. A very unsociable thing to do.

Up to a year or so ago I would still have been listening to this station fairly regularly, but lately the Rap music has driven me away from it.

It reminds me of the time (oops - old codger alert!) when disco took over the airwaves (before Triple-J started being beamed into our area) and the antidote was punk. So in rock/pop music there were only really two extremes to listen to. I chose punk, despite its relative unmusicality, because of the social messages and their attitudes.

I have always thought that Rap was a legitimate social commentary, but I can listen to some, like Michael Frante, and not to others, like Eminem who seems to be advocating violence, hate, anti-gay sentiments, putting women down, etc etc.

There is only one song I stop to listen to at this stage on Triple-J and it is a new single called Zebra by the Western Australian group called The John Butler Trio. Look out for them. In my opinion, they are worth listening to.

Last January, when Triple-J did their Hottest 100, voted on by the listeners, I only liked about 2 songs in the whole lot. (We were driving back from a holiday down south so we heard the whole broadcast from 9am to 6pm). In previous years, I sould have liked at least a third and really-liked a few.

Helen