Your Top 10 Favorite Composers

[Jo498]

I think you must have quoted the wrong person, but Jo498 was talking about 70s rock albums, anyways.

In any case I did say nothing at all about Jazz which is what Mingus is usually classified under.

Historically, Jazz from the 30s to the early 60s is probably what should be studied to understand how popular music in today's sense (pop, rock etc.) largely replaced Jazz as popular music. And at the same time some strains of Jazz became more and more esoteric. I wonder what happened earlier: (Some) Jazz becoming less popular and more difficult to appreciate or the popular (proto)Rock music of the 1950s being more popular than Jazz among younger people and then the arising of complex and less accessible Jazz because it had became a music for aficionados already.

And again, single examples cannot disprove general trends and tendencies. Correct my if I am wrong but my impression is that the 70s/early 80s "Art Rock" with concept albums and sometimes breaking up the typical "song" into freer and more adventurous forms remained or reverted to a niche thing. Some of the very musicians who were associated with that genre reverted to more traditional songs fairly soon (e.g. Genesis).

[Jo498]

But this is exactly what I criticised you for doing in the opposite direction. You complain about the lack of division of classical, but up until now you've insisted on avoiding divisions of pop music. When I observed that my nephew can subdivide heavy metal, you dismissed the idea out of hand.

You can't have it both ways. If you want people to recognise all the variety within your preferred kind of music, you really ought to have the courtesy of recognising all the variety within the kind of music you don't prefer.

Sorry, but this has nothing to do with preference. The point is not the lack or overabundance of divisions. The point is that BECAUSE the general song format of Anglo-american popular music since the mid-20th century (for lack of a better term) with its standard features is so pervasive that small divisions become important (often in a tribalist way because there is an accompanying youth culture, many divisions are socially more important than musically - the same distorted shouting and brutal sounds are used in supposedly "leftist" punk and in neo-nazi leaning music of some Scandinavian or German groups).

If you don't agree that a Monteverdi Madrigal, a Bach Toccata, a Schubert song and a Wagner opera are objectively and obviously (far) more different from each other than song classified as "hard rock" and "death metal" I simply do not know how to explain this because for me this really is a obvious starting point and nothing I could offer as explanation or elaboration would be as obvious as this starting point.

(That said, there might be good sociological reasons for such classifying, although often they seem merely to be imported from the record selling business.)

[Madiel]

If you don't agree that a Monteverdi Madrigal, a Bach Toccata, a Schubert song and a Wagner opera are objectively and obviously (far) more different from each other than song classified as "hard rock" and "death metal" I simply do not know how to explain this because for me this really is a obvious starting point and nothing I could offer as explanation or elaboration would be as obvious as this starting point.

Again, you deliberately pick two things from popular music you can regard as close together, and pick several things from classical music that are as far apart as you can think of.

This is my whole problem, the habit of making consciously unfair comparisons. You're not picking the popular musical examples to be far apart, you're picking them to be close together. The straw man nature of what you're doing is obvious.

[Madiel]

Heck, I can get further apart than that picking items from a single band.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2OmNmV3y4Y

vs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvYmxHN4z7k

vs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=552CM7Syslw


are a better representation of the width of popular music than anything you would offer when you're trying to prove your own argument that it all sounds the same.

That's one band and one singer on all those three tracks.

[James]

Actually, let me try a James:


"50 Best Albums of 2015

40 Songhoy Blues, 'Music in Exile'

To find the heaviest-hitting blues-rock of the year, take a sharp left at the Mississippi Delta until you're in the deserts of Mali. Though rooted in the nation's world-famous guitar lineage and chugging with the rollicking Saharan-rock rhythms made popular by contemporary bands like Tinariwen and Terakraft, Songhoy Blues are a far harder and punkier affair: Think Ali Farka Touré's iconic desert blues shredded out by kids raised on hip-hop and Jimi Hendrix. Their debut album, produced by Marc-Antoine Moreau and Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Nick Zinner, is the blazing solution to a year without a new Black Keys or Jack White album, full of lyrical solos, entrancing rhythms and melancholy lyrics like those of "Desert Melodie," a protest of the jihadists who outlawed music in the northern part of their country."


Let me know if you need a higher ranking one James, and I can cut and paste for you.  (I mean, come on, you mentioned Hendrix, the reviewer mentioned Hendrix ..)

Pop music reviewers wouldn't know music if it came up and bit them right in the ass, based on the description I'm cringing. And really, another blues-rock effort? I'll sample it .. but seems like a lame suggestion in light of what has been done before, Todd.

[Madiel]

Heck, I'll even show some range in popular music with one song.

Here's the original version in 1995: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSbSfYy2Tdg

And here's the live version in 1999: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odHOOC2uNP8

[James]

Radiohead, Tori Amos, Something for Kate (or Paul Dempsey as a solo artist), george or any of the Noonan siblings' subsequent projects (Katie Noonan being more prolific), Patty Griffin, Beyoncé's last two albums, Fiona Apple (especially her last album), Janelle Monae, Moloko / Roisin Murphy as a solo artist, and the only album by the Dissociatives. That'll do for now.

I heard of many of them, on the radio and abroad. You're going to have to do much better than this, I'm afraid.

[Madiel]

I heard of many of them, on the radio and abroad. You're going to have to do much better than this, I'm afraid.

"Many"? Name which ones you've heard. Not "heard of", "heard". Because frankly, the odds of you having heard certain ones of them are quite remote. It's very easy for you to write such a sentence, and quite hard for me to believe you.

[James]

"Many"? Name which ones you've heard. Because frankly, the odds of you having heard certain ones of them are quite remote. It's very easy for you to write such a sentence, and quite hard for me to believe you.

What are you kidding me .. Radiohead, Beyonce, Tori Amos, Fionna Apple .. this is yesterday's news. I've heard those, most people have. I quickly checked out a few of the others you mentioned, as I'm not always privy to 'names' .. and I recognized a few others, but overall .. none of this stuff is worth getting excited about.

[James]

Heck, I can get further apart than that picking items from a single band.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2OmNmV3y4Y

vs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvYmxHN4z7k

vs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=552CM7Syslw


are a better representation of the width of popular music than anything you would offer when you're trying to prove your own argument that it all sounds the same.

That's one band and one singer on all those three tracks.

Omg .. what is this mediocre shit, in light of this discussion .. you've got to be kidding me.

[James]

Heck, I'll even show some range in popular music with one song.

Here's the original version in 1995: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSbSfYy2Tdg

And here's the live version in 1999: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odHOOC2uNP8

?!?!?!?

This is the kind of stuff you're hinging your argument on? I knew I was wasting my time .. 

[Madiel]

Omg .. what is this mediocre shit, in light of this discussion .. you've got to be kidding me.

Whether you like it is irrelevant to my argument.

[some guy]

Karl, you were in charge of popcorn, right?

I'd like some, please.

(Who was in charge of drinks? I could use some root beer, too, if I may.)

[Madiel]

What are you kidding me .. Radiohead, Beyonce, Tori Amos, Fionna Apple .. this is yesterday's news. I've heard those, most people have. I quickly checked out a few of the others you mentioned, as I'm not always privy to 'names' .. and I recognized a few others, but overall .. none of this stuff is worth getting excited about.

Yeah, as I thought. All the big names. None of the Australian ones which I mentioned. None of the more recent ones or ones that don't make the top 40 radio.

The odds of you being familiar with george's superb "Unity" album or the bizarre Dissociatives song "Horror with Eyeballs" are remote indeed. These aren't terribly well known pieces of music in their own country, never mind anywhere else. It doesn't bother me whether you know them. It doesn't bother me whether you like them. The issue here is the attitude that you know anything and everything there is about music.

This, from a man who regularly showed himself incapable of even writing his own thoughts on music until myself and others started calling you out on it and identifying the sources you had copy-pasted from. I can't think of any other regular poster on the forum who is LESS qualified to hold themselves out as some kind of definitive expert on the state of music. The only things you've shown yourself to be an expert in are CTRL+C and CTRL+V.

[Mirror Image]

That's right, orfeo, James is the Copy-And-Paste King. He can't express any thoughts on music because he's too busy living vicariously through someone else's.

[Mirror Image]

Karl, you were in charge of popcorn, right?

I'd like some, please.

(Who was in charge of drinks? I could use some root beer, too, if I may.)

(Slides Some Guy a root beer in a chilled mug down the bar table)

[James]

The odds of you being familiar with george's superb "Unity" album or the bizarre Dissociatives song "Horror with Eyeballs" are remote indeed. These aren't terribly well known pieces of music in their own country, never mind anywhere else. It doesn't bother me whether you know them. It doesn't bother me whether you like them. The issue here is the attitude that you know anything and everything there is about music.

Hey, I sampled the few I didn't know on YouTube as well .. you had your chance and totally blew it.

This stuff you are championing doesn't even approach the best pop music and it's (a little over) 100 year history. Never mind coming even remotely close to what the best Art music has on offer to someone.

[some guy]

Thanks, Mirror!

I know we've had our differences in the past. And probably will in the future as well.

But that was some fine, refreshing root beer. Mmmmm.

Anyway, back to the show....

(Munch, munch, slurp, slurp.)

[Madiel]

Hey, I sampled the few I didn't know on YouTube as well .. you had your chance and totally blew it.

This stuff you are championing doesn't even approach the best pop music and it's (a little over) 100 year history. Never mind coming even remotely close to what the best Art music has on offer to someone.

Excellent. Post the links.

[James]

Excellent. Post the links.

Go on YouTube .. take a few of the names you've suggestion and punch them into the search engine and sample. OR use Google Videos. I didn't save or favorite the links.