Entertainment For Lively Minds
A Look Into The Future
Posted by Baskerville Old Face on 10 August 2009 - 10:54pm.
A lot of the music business today is geared towards instant fame. Throw a group of kids together, or sift them through a gormless talent show and the promoters hope one of them will sell a few million tracks before being discarded. Music in the 1960s and 1970s had legs - we are still listening to it avidly today. My question is: who from the 80s/90s and 2000/09 will we still be listening to in 30/40years time?
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I've said it before...
Of the current crop (let's say the last 5 or 6 years) of more or less hyped wannabes, couldabeens, hasbeens, neverweres and mayyetbes, the one who sticks out a mile is Amy Winehouse. She's only done two albums, it's true, but I'd keep them ahead of the combined works of Adele, Kate Nash, James Blunt, Leona Lewis, Paolo Nutini, old Indie Landfill an' all. She has genuine, idiosyncratic, unteachable talent. I hope she makes it to a third album. Great as Back To black is, however, Frank is better.
Bit reductive
A lot of music in the 60s and 70s really didn't have 'legs', and we aren't still listening to it today, avidly or otherwise.
How was the Larry Parnes school of management not geared towards instant fame?
Now Then Auntie...
Well there still seems to be a bit of interest in music by Nick Drake, The Beatles, Stones, The Who, The Kinks, Bob Dylan, The Doors, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Cream, The Moody Blues, Yes, ELP, Jethro Tull, Free, Bad Company, Queen, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Stranglers, The Buzzcocks, (I could go on but you get the picture).
Larry Parnes was not interested in gearing his stable of "talent" towards instant fame, but instant money. He was not known as "Parnes, Shillings & Pence" for his largesse, but for his reluctance to pay his performers their worth. As soon as they were unable to deliver income, he dropped them like a hot potato. He also turned down The Silver Beetles who, as we all know, went on to greater things. Their music seems to retain a certain popularity even now - they are on this month's cover of The Word (not bad for a band that disbanded 39 years ago).
OK, you 're strong on names that have survived
My point being this: a great deal of 60s and 70s music isn't revered today, because it's awful. Englebert Humperdinck. Middle Of The Road. Ken Dodd. Bay City Rollers. Des O'Connor. All million sellers. Rolling out the presently acceptable canon won't convince me that your broad brush strokes are art.
I like many of the acts you name, but your original post was divisive.
And if you don't think that Cowell, Lythgoe, Fuller etc aren't doing exactly what Parnes did, then I am staggered.
Can this those on this site please at least attempt to stop revering the sixties and seventies? I'm 36 and feel that I am far too young to be posting here.
Show me ONE person
who isn´t listening to Engelbert Humperdinck on a daily basis. I dare you.
60s & 70s Music
Absolutely agree that there was a lot of tasteless dross around at that time, just look at the pop charts of the period. But it was albums that began to make the difference. The pop singles were the thing for most punters, but singles have now drifted off into oblivion. What I'm getting at is whether music being created today will be played and appreciated in the future (like the music of the 60s and 70s that we still listen to today - not everyone enjoys it, but you know what I mean).
I agree that Cowell & Co. are doing what Parnes did - but my point is that, like Parnes' acts, the "discoveries" by Cowell & Co. are unlikely to last.
Lastly, I don't believe that anyone's age on the site is an issue. There is a lot of music from the 60s and 70s that was great - some of us grew up with it (and to it). Corny though it is, it is the soundtrack to the lives of those who experienced it and grew up with it. But that music is still around and still popping into the soundtracks of other people's lives (those born in the 80s and after). I expect there are albums or tracks from well before you were born, or sitting up and taking notice, that you enjoy and appreciate. And some music grows on you over time and our opinions change. But I'm with you all the way on The Bay City Rollers - they are still crap to me!
Alex Turner from Arctic Monkeys
looks like he could stick around for a while as a songwriter and performer.
Three albums so far
and none less than four out of five. Good melodies, lyrics and a keen ear for a good arrangement. Looking forward to the new Arctic Monkeys release. I really like Crying Lightning.
I'd say Alex Turner too
but having heard the entire Top 40 countdown on Sunday for the first time in years, I'd be hard pressed to tell any of these singers or bands apart, so I'd have to say no one.
true classic rock/pop reached its peak long ago.
The question implies, rightly in my view, that the apogee of rock/pop as a musical art form was probably reached some years ago.
Indeed, most genres that appear these days are nothing more than re-packaging of earlier genres. R & B simpering pop love songs were done better three decades ago by the likes of the Commodores and other soul singers. Most modern heavy rock/metal is traceable to the earlier classic 70s bands. A truly original singer songwriter is as rare as hen's teeth these days. There will never be another artist like Dylan or Van Morrison. There will never be another Bowie. You could go on and on.
I suspect if I live another 30 years, apart from rather obscure favourite rock records, I'll still play:
80s - U2's The Joshua Tree, Guns n' Roses, Aerosmith and other decent arena rock bands, British bands like The Smiths and The Pogues. Others will probably still hark back to Madonna's provocative, disposable pop and her various imitators as well as Jackson's albums. Will Duran Duran and Wham be reverently remembered in 2039?
90s - Nirvana's Nevermind and the best grunge records, early Oasis, REM Automatic for the People, some decent mid decade Brit indie albums like The Verve's Urban Hymns and Radiohead's Ok Computer. But not much else to be honest. Who can tell whether people will listen to the Spice Girls on 2039 with the same affection that we all listen to ABBA these days?
2000-09 - mostly modern rock bands like Green Day and the Foo Fighters, and the more respectable output from the big names like Springsteen. I agree that talented mavericks in the pop/jazz mainstream like Amy Winehouse deserve to be remembered in some way. Whether she will be of course largely depends on her.