Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 03:25 PM

Jeri, quite a lot of the pop which has been produced in the last few decades is superior to the eminently forgettable "folk music" we are presented with today.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: meself
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 03:47 PM

Depends what you mean by 'remembered'. There will be specialists and eccentrics who will 'remember' bits and pieces of anything and everything - as for the great mass of humanity, they will remember the music that was around them when they were sixteen, and what they heard a day previous. There is no reason to think much of what we get all excited about today will be remembered by anyone in a hundred years, other than the odd bored robot shoved in a back room somewhere.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 05:24 PM

I agree, observer. He is an ex-mate.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 05:37 PM

I'm thinking that jazz is regarded as important to an extent where it will be a long time before the contribution of Armstrong gets forgotten.

I think the same will be true of early blues.

Young musicians/singers (ie under 40) do look at some popular music of the past for inspiration both in terms of songs to sing and styles to learn and play. Example that springs to mind, the song 'Fever', I saw somebody under 30 play and sing a version the other day.

I think some of us passed on our likes to our kids, who knows whether they will pass it on to theirs in turn.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Joe_F
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 05:45 PM

The very notion of "popular music" is an artifact of an obsolescent state of technology. If the Web survives (conceivable) and most people use it in a self-respecting manner (less likely), there may eventually be no large audiences -- only many small overlapping ones.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 05:49 PM

Jeri, Date: 14 Sep 18 - 03:19 PM. Nope ask Jim Carroll he will explain it to you.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: GUEST,Captain Swing
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 07:02 PM

We have four children whose ages range from 38 to 23. All of them are great fans of the music of the Beatles. They didn't discover it at the same time they each came to it at different stages of their lives. There wasn't much Beatles stuff played at home ( though I was a massive fan in my younger days), there was much more folk stuff. My children and many of their friends are also very well acquainted with the likes of the Stones, the Who, the Kinks, Donovan, Lou Reed, Pink Floyd etc. They know this stuff better than I do!

I was talking to a lad of 23 the other day who told me which Donovan albums he preferred. I didn't know any of them, I just knew the singles.

If you really want to get an idea of which popular music is going to last, don't go on your own preferences and prejudices, ask the people who are listening to and interested in music that was produced 30-40-50 years before they were born and they are many!

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: GUEST,ripov
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 08:18 PM

I doubt the one in Scunthorpe does much harm. It's the ones in Westminster that I worry about.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 08:23 PM

Good grief, Captain, I can echo that! Though I have just the two, aged 39 and 37. They both love the Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Who, etc. It can't be just the two of us!

Though I'm exceptionally chuffed to say that, along with their dad, they have no time for Dylan. Nowt to do wi' me, natch!

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 09:52 PM

So among the tastes we personally have passed on to our kids are

a) The Beatles
b) The Pogues
c) Clapton Unplugged, which vanished one day only to be found in the bedroom of a sprog who had steadfastly denied ever having heard it..

I remember having to get out an old LP to prove to an offspring that the song Satisfaction was not written by Britney Spears.

What other tastes have people passed on? And .. have they or will they admit to having learned to like anything from their kids? (Admitting to the odd Nirvana song, here.)

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 02:22 AM

You can add me to the list of people who's kids like the old stuff. Some of them even like folk music! :-) I think some of the stuff from the 60s and 70s was pretty dire but the good stuff is pretty timeless and has stood the test of time. I am sure that music from every age is the same but the decades I mention are the ones I remember most fondly. Old git that I am :-)

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 02:24 AM

While I am in nostalgia mode, no one has mentioned the Move or the Small Faces yet. Just to start more arguments... :-)

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 04:19 AM

A hundred years or more ago, the music halls provided much of our popular music. Even today, many people can sing along to the chorus of a good number of these though few know the verses. I suspect that not many know more than a handful of performers and most know hardly any of the songwriters. In time there will be a few knowledgeable people who will present full versions of the songs as folk music.

So it is with today's pop music. Most of it will disappear but a few will remain in our collective subconscious.


DC

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 04:43 AM

But, all these children who know artists from the 60s, can they name one hit record by Benny Goodman, and, apart from White Christmas, can they name a Big Crosby hit? Probably not, and Goodman and Crosby were massive in their day.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 04:55 AM

Well Benny Goodman isn't really pop genre as such, and Crosby is infinitely forgettable! ;-)

Add the Pogues to our multigenerational family obsession too. I reckon that a good handful of Shane's songs deserve to live forever...

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Will Fly
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 05:24 AM

In the Benny Goodman prime era, he was, I would say, the equivalent of a pop idol - "pop" not being a term used in those days - and, as Tunesmith says, a massively popular music star. His small group stuff with Charlie Christian is still stunningly good (I have, of course, to say In My Opinion), and "Air Mail Special", "Waiting For Benny", "Gone With What Wind", etc., are tunes I play regularly. His Carnegie Hall concert sold out immediately, and the kids screamed!

I never cared for Crosby particularly, but he was hugely popular in the UK after the war, having a regular slot on the BBC Light Programme - signature tune "When The Blue Of The Night Meets The Gold Of The Day". His classic recording of "Brother Can You Spare A Dime" still reverberates today.

I suppose as long as there are old farts with longer memories, like me, that music will still be "around", but not to my son, who's in his 40s. HIS popular music was mixing, and he still has his decks...

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 05:31 AM

Agreed on Small Faces being Ace, but lacking CDs by them, it is not a taste passed on in this family.

On Kinks, 'Dead End Street' is still being sung.

Wouldn't care if I never heard Come on Eileen ever again, though.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 05:43 AM

I have sung a Bing Crosby song in both folk clubs and at festivals. "Brother Can You Spare a Dime", written for a stage show, was a hit for both Crosby and Rudy Vallee. Wikipedia gives the genre as American pop.

As a song about the Great Depression era, I consider it eminently suitable.

DC

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 05:55 AM

Let me know if you want some Small Faces stuff Pseudonymous. I don't have much but could share some if you like. I think I have a compilation and, maybe, one other album.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 05:57 AM

So far I've not caught up with this thread beyond "the Move or the Small Faces"

Two of my absolutely favourite bands and most important formative musical influences since I was about 12 in 1971...

Bearing in mind that to a 12 year old in 1971 these bands were obscure old fashioned music from a byegone era...

If it hadn't been for Woolworths and cheap MFP LPs...

[though in fairness, Radio one also occasionally played such golden oldies...]

..and the Small Faces eventually became a crucial influence
on teen punk rockers sick of over complex pompous pretentious prog rock...


now to go back and read the rest of this thread...

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: GUEST,Captain Swing
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 06:13 AM

It might surprise many just how much aged pop music is taught and played in secondary schools these days. We have been to many concerts over the years that featured various styles of pop music dating back through the 70s, 60s, 50s, 40s and further. The students don't just leave this stuff at school many go on to form their own bands and make the most of their background knowledge. One of my daughters plays a song called "Why don't you do right?" which I had never heard before. She told me it was a Peggy Lee song ..... don't know where she got it from, I assume it was the school band.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 06:14 AM

Caught up now...

I own nearly every Move and Small Faces tracks on LPs and CDs [and the odd cassette]..

Apart from stuff selfishly horded by the meanest of bootleg collectors..
and some Move alternative tracks released on MP3 for a very short time..

I'd hoped they'd end up on CD so missed them...

I got into the Move before I did the Beatles..

Beatles Reissue compilation LPS [Blue & Red double Albums]
were full price and out of range of pocket money..

so still have more of an emotional imprinted bond to Roy Wood than L & M...

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 06:20 AM

punkfolkrocker - do you have the stereo version of Please Please Me LP with vocals in the middle?

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 06:51 AM

Bonz - Don't know - was that CD or Vinyl..
Do you know exactly which one you seek...????

But every [I do mean every] Beatle LP and CD, even the most obscure international presses,
has been [is still...???] up on the internet in flac...

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 07:21 AM

That's where I got it, apparently mixed by one of George Martin's sidekicks!

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 07:37 AM

There were some recent Beatle compilation CD releases remixed by Martin's son..
Beefed up to sound more like more contemporary rock music.

Heftier bass, and more acceptable stereo imaging...
I bought 'em and liked 'em..
might it be off one of those...???

Possibly Beatles "1+"...???

Though I'm not a beatle fanatic trainspotter, and might be wrong..

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Will Fly
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 08:03 AM

The Beatles album re-mix by George Martin, assisted by his son, was a mashh-up called "Love", and brought out some of the more obscure details of their work - particularly Ringo's drumming and their backing harmonies.

To get the best from it, you have to play every track in turn, continuously, as they merge imperceptibly from one to another.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 08:10 AM

Will - there was also a 1999 CD "Yellow Submarine Songtrack"

which I only bought and heard last year...

Sounds terrific in good headphones...


Also I'm fairly certain some Beatle tracks were remixed for a computer game,
that one with the tacky guitar shape game controller..

I'm sure they leaked to the fan download sites..

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: doc.tom
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 08:20 AM

First define 'Popular Music'.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 08:32 AM

"First define 'Popular Music'."

Just about anything fanatical trad folkies are clueless about and can't stand........

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 08:32 AM

"First define 'Popular Music'."

Just about anything fanatical trad folkies are clueless about and can't stand........

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 08:33 AM

welll... I thought I only pressed 'submit' once...

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 11:37 AM

If you look at the top 40 popular songs of 100 years ago, several are still known to us (Dark Town Strutters Ball), but others such as the wonderfully titled Your Lips are No Man’s Land But Mine seemed to have got forgotten. However, 1918 was a memorable year of corse.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 11:46 AM

But remember...

Far away space aliens are now picking up our radio broadcasts
from back when all radios ran off steam and were not even in black and white...


Those songs may be warding off invasion for the time being...

We need to worry when they eventually hear how sublime Patsy Cline was...

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 12:24 PM

punfolkrocker - it's the Dr Ebbetts remix of Please Please Me which has centre vocals, much easier on the ear. The sessions for this album make interesting listening, these contain some of the most hideous guitar solos from George!!!

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 12:52 PM

I might have 'obtained' that about 10 years ago...
But haven't a clue which hard drive it'd be on..
or even if it would still power up and spin...???

There were some great music fan's sites back then...

I do remember the Purple Chick Beatles [and Buddy Holly] discogs,
I had them somewhere as well...

Could the track be in amongst that lot...???

Info only, no downloads...

http://www.webgrafikk.com/beatles1/pc/html/deluxe.html

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 04:58 PM

The music of the last century is recorded, so we have the advantage of good-quality recordings of many wonderful performers. I think a surprising number of 20th-century recordings will still be considered "classics" a hundred years from now. Look at the current popularity of many recordings from the 1940s to the 1970s.
It's hard to believe, but 1968 was 50 years ago.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: GUEST,Ebor Fiddler
Date: 16 Sep 18 - 09:18 PM

I believe in The Grateful Dead - but why did we generally not hear of them here in the UK?

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Stanron
Date: 16 Sep 18 - 11:55 PM

Bearing in mind the sheer quantity of popular music produced and offered to the public in the last fifty to one hundred years, it's hardly surprising that most of it will be 'Doomed to oblivion'. Cream rises to the surface and it is not surprising that a proportion of our past popular music will persist. Am I being cheeky in suggesting that this persisting minority may become the 'Folk Music' of the future?

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 Sep 18 - 03:17 AM

well it is unlikely to evolve lyric wise , so it wil have some difficulty being folk music ,an exception being when it is altered by football crowds , however that does not necessarily mean that its alteration improves its quality

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: KarenH
Date: 17 Sep 18 - 05:27 AM

Some of us heard of the Grateful Dead in the UK. I saw them once but remember nothing at all about it. Song Scarlet Begonias and LP From Mars Hotel sticks in my mind. Bit overrated I think now.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: GUEST,Richard Robinson
Date: 17 Sep 18 - 07:41 AM

A bit late to the party, couple of random thoughts ...

Benny Goodman - what about his work with Bartok, will that be remembered ?

The Grateful Dead (aka the Dreadful Great) - "bit over-rated" and "why were they not generally heard of ?". When they were good, they were very very good, but when they were bad they were horrid. They had some really good songs (ie, I liked them) and a lot of bad ones (ie, I didn't) - some of them would stand remembering, and could be played by other people, would work as songs in their own right, but songs are 2-a-penny, there's a lot of competition. If they deserve to be remembered, it would be for their long instrumental episodes, which are *chewy* and tend to take them out of the "popular" category. They take a lot of listening to. Generally, it was a band that needed patience and a fairly high level of interest to get much out of.

Recording. Paper is not the only artificial memory any longer. This changes things.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Allan Conn
Date: 17 Sep 18 - 07:52 AM

In the scheme of things 100 years isn't really all that long. The early rock'n'roll records are already over 60 years old and 50 years ago the 60s was well the way through. My kids like older stuff too. My son's 18th seemed to be lots of jazz being played with lots of Little Richard etc thrown in. The other kids seemed to know a lot of the songs when they heard them! At his digs at uni the posters all seemed to be Dylan, Pink Floyd and Sprinsteen etc. Hardly new music. Likewise my 20 year old daughter has all the early Bowie albums which themselves are approaching 50 years old.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: gillymor
Date: 17 Sep 18 - 08:09 AM

Re the Grateful Dead I'm sure they had hand in introducing (and reintroducing) their audience, myself included, to types of music they might not otherwise be aware or had forgotten about like Country,Acoustic and Electric Blues, Bluegrass, Old Time, Jugband etc. that might otherwise have been "doomed to oblivion. I thought this was especially true in their post- psychedelic pre-hiatus period which roughly spanned '69 to '74.

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Will Fly
Date: 17 Sep 18 - 11:50 AM

The Dead were an interesting bunch of musicians, playing a wide variety of music in any style and combinations of styles that suited them. It helped, occasionally, to have had a smoke or two (so I'm told) to really appreciate them... Two things worth noting about them:

Far from trying to stop people bootlegging their records, they actively encouraged it. At some concerts, there were booths at the back of the hall where dedicated "Deadheads" could tape the music.

Each year, the band members would meet to decide how a proportion of their annual earnings should be spent in supporting a young musician. I recall one year where a young concert cellist was their charitable 'object'. Good stuff.

There's a classic b&w photograph somewhere of Jerry Garcia on stage, before a live outdoor concert - with a wall of about 24 Vox AC30s behind him!

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Sep 18 - 12:01 PM

Dunno whether it's apocryphal, but I heard once that it took two Jumbo Jets to get the Stones and all their kit to a gig!

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: Will Fly
Date: 17 Sep 18 - 12:07 PM

I can believe it. Our jug band was asked to play at a street party in Camden around 1970 or so. When we got to the small terraced street, we found one end blocked by a huge pantechnicon with the tailgate halfway down. We were invited to put our little stage amps on to the tailgate, where everything was miked up very efficiently by a short, broad guy with a beard and long hair.

Turned out he was the Pink Floyd's chief roadie and the van was their tour van! We never sounded better!

Subject: RE: Popular Music. Doomed to oblivion?
From: gillymor
Date: 17 Sep 18 - 12:07 PM

They weren't everyone's cup of tea, Jerry once said, approximately, the GD was like licorice, not everyone likes it but if you do like it you like it a a lot. I like both licorice and the GD a lot, for a musical omnivore like me they were and are the cat's pajamas.