Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?

Subject: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 06:09 AM

I wonder if any of the popular music of the last 100yrs will survive in the general consciousness of music lovers for any length of time. For example, Bach has been dead for over 250yrs but is still well known; however, I would suggest that someone like Louis Armstrong - the first great improvisor in jazz history - is rapidly drifting further and further from the general consciousness.
    And, if we go back into the 19th century, how many popular musician and composer are still, even reasonably, well known ? Arthur Sullivan springs to mind and Stephen Foster?
    “Classical” composers and musicians names will be kept alive in colleges by music professors and genuine - and not so genuine - concert goers but who will keep the popular musician names alive?
      The continued fame of popular musicians is very much tied to the music industry and the making of money.
The last 100yrs is filled with artists who were once massively popular but are now just fading memories in the minds of old folk.
    100yrs from now, The Beatles, will more likely to be remembered as a cultural phenomenon rather than for their music.
    Of course, I’ve know doubt that, in the future, some popular artists from the past will - from time to time - be “rediscovered” like Scott Joplin was in the 1970s.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 06:34 AM

You are not comparing like with like. Bach is remembered for the music he wrote. Louis Armstrong is remembered for the music he played. Performers will eventually drift out of the public eye but good written music will be forever performed by others. By that measure the Beatles could well be remembered as a phenomenon but 'Yesterday' could still be the most covered song ever :-)

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 06:37 AM

To bring it round to folk music, does anyone remember who originally wrote and performed 'The Wild Rover'? No. Will people still be performing it in 100 years? Yes.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Will Fly
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 06:56 AM

Aha - we've already split the question into three... :-)

1. Composers
2. Performers
3. Songs

I'll get me coat!

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: gillymor
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 07:03 AM

I'm still trying to figure out who put the ram in the ramma lamma ding dong.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 07:05 AM

"Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?"


we'll never know...

so make the most of it and enjoy it while you can...

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 07:21 AM

Nowt much to do with it, but a few days ago, at Pencarrow House in Cornwall, I saw the actual piano on which Sullivan composed Iolanthe.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 07:26 AM

Yesterday may be the most covered song? but Mc Cartney or Lennon did not have the songwriting skills of myriad American writers like Porter, Berlin, Lerner, not to mention the great contemporary writers like Simon, Goodman, Chapin/Carpenter, Prime, Mitchell and dozens more.
The Beatles stuff though popular is mundane and lacking in depth, even "Imagine" is a simple anti war dirge when stripped down.
Ray Davis is undoubtedly a superior songwriter, even if he has not produced in the quantity of M and L and there are plenty of excellent writers in the contemporary idiom here in the UK. Unfortunately their talents are seldom recognised Pete Bond being a good example.
Gerry Rafferty could have knocked Mr McCartney into top hat.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 07:32 AM

Sounds like a teenage rant in a fanzine.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 07:40 AM

I wouldn't know, I never read "fanzines?"

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 07:41 AM

I think it was the same person as put the bop in the bop-sho-wop-sho-wop.

Will, you make a good point that set me thinking. There are indeed 3 elephants in the equation. Trad music will only ever be remembered for itself as no one now knows the composer BUT some performances may be remembered separately and I will come back (Bach?) to that. The composers of classical AND classic (in the newer sense) music will be remembered for their music. Performers and performances were not remembered before because, by nature, they were transient. However, and this is where I was going, performers are now remembered because they have been captured in a myriad of ways and a record of their performances will be there forever.

Let's take, for instance, Bohemian Rhapsody. Not becuase it is a particular favourite (although it is) but because it could now encapsulate all 3. It is a classic song that people will remember. It was written by Freddie Mercury, who will be remembered as a composer and now Freddie's performances have been encapsulated on various media forever. He will be remembered as the master performer he was well beyond the 100 years specified. Worth considering?

Will - This thread with you in it set me to thinking about something else. PM on its way.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 07:50 AM

Bohemian Rhapsody is a performance piece rather than a well constructed song.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 07:59 AM

A few ideas:

1 If what we are told is true, then many of the songs now regarded as 'folk' began life as 'popular music' and have lasted, albeit sometimes via deliberate 'revivals'


2 I don't think Armstrong will be forgotten: they study the origins of jazz on academic courses just like classical music is studied, so his influence remains even if this is a minority interest genre.


3 Changes such as the Internet have maybe altered the way we access music from the past, eg early jazz and blues which might have been forgotten. So things will work differently in the future from the way they did in the past.


4 While we are in 'who put the **** in ***'mode, may I be the first to mention Scunthorpe?

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 07:59 AM

I'll always remember Bohemian Rhapsody..

I had a memorably passionate snog with a girl i fancied
throughout it's entire duration at the 1975 xmas college Disco...

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 08:00 AM

Gerry Rafferty could have knocked Mr McCartney into top hat.

Much as I love Rafferty's work, I wonder why he didn't then? :-)

But I do not believe this thread was meant to be a platform for those who no longer have access to the confrontation below the line. I think it is a genuine question and worth investigating seriously without rancour. Let's keep it that way.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 08:17 AM

Tell your friends to keep it it that way and keep your opinions of me to yourself.

The birth of a song that will never die    There are many more "The street where you live" being another example.
They are well constructed and have great emotional content....

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Senoufou
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 08:23 AM

Regarding Bohemian Rhapsody, has anyone seen that ghastly John Lewis ad (it may be their Crimbo offering, though it's a bit early for that!)
Children rendering the song with a load of space-themed props on a school stage. It makes me cringe. Thank the Lord for the remote control and the mute button.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Nick
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 09:52 AM

>>4 While we are in 'who put the **** in ***'mode, may I be the first to mention Scunthorpe?

Would that be the National Trust or the hammer-wielding god?

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 10:00 AM

Woody Guthrie, a man who knew what a good song is:

I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard traveling. … I am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood.
I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work.
And the songs that I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts of folks just about like you. I could hire out to the other side, the big money side, and get several dollars every week just to quit singing my own kind of songs and to sing the kind that knock you down still farther and the ones that poke fun at you even more and the ones that make you think you've not any sense at all. But I decided a long time ago that I'd starve to death before I'd sing any such songs as that. The radio waves and your movies and your jukeboxes and your songbooks are already loaded down and running over with such no good songs as that anyhow.

Woody hated God Bless America and he wrote This Land Is Your Land as a riposte. His original working title was God Blessed America. I'm pretty sure that the above quote was referring to songs such as that and Smoke Gets In Your Eyes and Street Where You Live. I think I'll take his word for it.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Gordon Jackson
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 10:01 AM

Someone needs to spell out the obvious: there is no objective 'best'; only subjective favourites.

My favourite songwriters are Richard Thompson, Steve Earle and Sandy Denny. None of them have been mentioned by anyone else, and why should they be - they are my favourites? Others prefer Ray Davies (who I think is brilliant), L&M, Gerry Rafferty and Freddie Mercury. Great, it can be interesting to see who others like, but it still doesn’t make any of them the best.

As for being remembered, who will tell us?

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: gillymor
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 10:45 AM

What's going to fill the void? Unpopular Music?

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 11:10 AM

gillymor, you are not paying attention!

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: gillymor
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 11:15 AM

Just don't rap me cross the knuckles with your ruler, Sister.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 11:17 AM

I like all yours, Gordon. Not everything by all of 'em by a long chalk, but good stuff there.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 11:27 AM

That's just your opinion ;)

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 11:40 AM

"Gerry Rafferty could have knocked Mr McCartney into a cocked hat"
"Why didn't he then?"   Well for a start McCartney was a Beatle and Beatlemania sold any shite, trinkets magazines clothing and records.
Also Gerry's fatal flaw, he thought he was a producer. Almost every song was over-produced and choked with sinths. It worked on Baker Street but ruined many better songs, such as my particular favourite "The right moment"
I knew Gerry when his only accompaniment was his old acoustic and the admiration of the big yin.
That was contemporary music at its very best.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 11:40 AM

I can't make up my mind which is best song between the birdie song, agadoo and viva espana

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 11:41 AM

Apologies, the last guest was I.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 11:42 AM

If I say I like something, it means I'm saying that I personally like it and am in no way saying that it's intrinsically good or that you should like it. Therefore it's an expressed opinion. I happen to like big troughs of cheap jelly with a big dollop of butterscotch Angel Delight on the side too. Preferably with hundreds and thousands sprinkled liberally on top.

Unless you're Dave who accidentally didn't log in, in which case ha ha.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 11:43 AM

birdie song and agadoo joint best - too narrow to decide...

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Gordon Jackson
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 11:47 AM

For me RT's and Sandy's work ranges from the sublime to the awful, with the sublime making up for the awful. Steve's songs, on the other hand, seem top class all through. My least favourite, Galway Girl, is still a decent song; can't say what my favourite is though, because there are just too many: Jerusalem, Have Mercy, The Week of Living Dangerously, Tom Ame's Prayer, The Unrepentant ...

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 11:48 AM

Don't wanna start a fight, but it's a tossup between Ging Gang Goolie and Kumbaya...

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 12:31 PM

And don't even mention fields of athenfuckinry...

We now may have a fourth elephant. Production! Who will remember Phil Spector or George Martin? Yet they had a massive influence on the music. As Ake pointed out, Rafferty was shit at production so he did not make it as big as the Beatles who had the sense to stick with the right producer. Every facet of music seems to be important. As Jan Akerrman once said,

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 12:34 PM

... I feel like a clog in something turning.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: The Sandman
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 01:00 PM

i hope it is

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 01:03 PM

Why is that, Dick? Surely you don't want a society that cannot listen to music that is popular?

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 01:19 PM

.....genuine - and not so genuine - concert goers .....

What is a non-genuine concert goer?
   Someone who buys a ticket but doesn't turn up?
   Someone who sneaks in to listen without buying a ticket?
   Someone who sits with their fingers in their ears and refuses to listen?

DC

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 01:35 PM

"i hope it is"

folk music is like a flea bite on the arse of popular music


Let's keep things in perspective...

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 01:38 PM

I once went in a restaurant, paid for a meal and then ran out without eating it. Wonder if it is something like that?

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Gordon Jackson
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 01:50 PM

Funny, I once ate a meal, then ran into a restaurant and paid for it.

I'm a non-genuine restaurant goer.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 01:55 PM

total thread drift...

Me and the mrs were in an affordable indian restaurant in central london
when a fat bloke on a table near the door decided to do a runner..

remember he was a fat bloke...

the waiter easily caught him by the leg,
dragging him back into the restaurant..
and in the ensuing farcical struggle fat bill dodger's trousers and pants were pulled down...

hilarious, but not a sight to relish whilst eating....

there may have been some popular indian music on the restaurant background sound system...

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 01:59 PM

I think " Her Father Didn't Like Me Anyway" is a terrific song by Gerry Rafferty. When this song emerged, I remember thinking that it was such a clever idea for a song that I was amazed that Dylan, or some other top songwriter, hadn't thought of it before.
BTW, I saw The Humblebums ( Gerry and Billy ) supporting Fotheringay at the Free Trade Hall Manchester in the 70s, and amazingly, I felt they suffered from lack of projection and failed to strike any rapport with the audience.

Terrific Rafferty song

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 02:00 PM

The most dramatic event of the year last year was when the chef chased a man out of the Indian in Bude along Burn View wielding a meat cleaver. It ended without bloodshed and nobody got done. We know how to do drama in Bude.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 02:22 PM

My mate Chris jumped out of the window of an Indian place expecting to land on the flat roof below. The flat roof ended about 6 feet short of the window, he fell 2 floors and broke both his heels. He said he hid under a bench and so got away with it. Was it worth 2 months on crutches for a vindaloo and pilau rice? I think not :-)

Not thread drift. Popular culture!

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 02:58 PM

Pop-padom music! Naan-a Mouskouri! Abbey Road: You never give me your pilau! Lovely Raita Meter Maid!

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 03:03 PM

Curry that Weight

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 03:05 PM

With regard to the question asked in the thread title - Of course it is doomed to oblivion, that is the transient nature of the commercial beast that is "pop" music.

By the way DtG why was your mate Chris wearing heels?

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 03:10 PM

Forgot to add, two things that really are about as low as you can go:

1. Spiking or adulterating anyone's drink

2. Welcher's, like your mate Chris, who run out of places to avoid payment - nine times out of ten the poor waiter or waitress has to make good on it.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Jeri
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 03:19 PM

Folk music is pop music that proved to be not so transitory.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 03:21 PM

You're right Tunesmith, Billy and Gerry were a mismatch.
Billy was in awe of Gerry's talent, and Gerry didn't have the charisma/ego to carry the duo. Lack of projection is correct, yet when Billy and Tam Harvey worked together, they had all the projection in the world. the audiences loved them.

"Her father didn't like me anyway" is indeed a great song and Gerry singing it live would break your heart, but on the recording from the Humblebums LP, you can hear the backing becoming obtrusive....annoyingly so, to someone who has heard the live solo version. I don't think Gerry wrote many poor songs, most could stand against anyone poetically and musically, but the perfectionist in Gerry was never still...to the detriment of a lot of his output.