Grown up music

Haha - one of the best posts in the Music room! And I fully agree

Regards,
Jacob

Chavs are taking over the Music forum!

Help us Adammmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

I'm not sure I'm at all comfortable with the notion of grown up music. Music is music, and there are good and bad examples but grown up? There is, to be sure, some stuff which is perhaps not for all ages (be it because of explicit lyrics or the complexities of structure of some modern classical music) but beyond that...?

Mozart and Schubert tedious - how sad for you. But they aren't 'grown up music' I had treasured discs of both when I was a child (along side pop, rock , jazz and plenty more besides).

regards, Tam

Yes but grown up music is something that is portrayed as being very worthy and serious. I can't think of a better example of that than classical music. Just listen to radio 3 sometime - the presentation is as dry as dust. Maybe it's just bad marketing, but I get the definite impression that it's portrayed as
the sort of stuff you should listen to when you're older. Except I don't want to because it doesn't give me anything that reggae doesn't. In fact Classical music to me is a bit like bhangra - it leaves me totally mystified. I don't really have any cultural points of reference. I can pick out little bits but otherwise I have to say I don't understand

Excellent jcs. You are a brave boy, sorry, man, posting that here.
I consider myself to have grown up appropriately and I now listen to far more ambient stuff to relax in the evening than I did a few years ago when I would have been playing more grunge & rock. I still listen to grunge & rock, but now more during the daytime. I have also returned to listening to jazz: Mahavishnu & Chick Corea that I liked yonks ago and which has now lead me into Miles Davis & John Coltrane, which I consider growing up too. I buy a few Gatecrasher & Godskitchen type CD's too to keep myself working at a decent pace during the day which I love, but maybe isn't particularly serious stuff.
I think ambient from Brian Eno, BOC, Aphex Twin etc to be every bit as serious as classical music, and that is where I stand as a parallel to that level of seriousness. In fact all three of them were used as a backing to Dan Cruickshank's programme on Architecture the other night. Just think what Beethoven or Brahms would be producing if they were alive today; it wouldn't be music for orchestras as they were innovators and pushed the boundary of where music would go. If Hendrix was here he would be a serious jazz musician.
Challenge anyone to listen to David Sylvian's Silver Moon off Gone To Earth and say it isn't grown up.
What you are asking isn't about "grown up" or not, it's about snobbery that can prevent some from discovering some of the most uplifting and sublime music mankind has created.
I'm going to stick on the Drive-By Truckers and pull out a bottle of Jack Daniels, and to hell with it. I like to live with a grin on my face rather than a stiff upper lip. If they get to you, you can come round to mine to party. You've got to fight for the right...I'm just about to put on Gorillaz

David Sylvian - now you're talking. A man who looks like he should be in a boy band and yet produces the most beautiful ambient music

jcs - I think you really are a grown-up, with you obvious liking for Miles. If you don't like classical then fine, a lot of it is dull. I have no problems following a Gang of Four record with Bach, or Gerry Mulliagan with Martin Carthy. Variety is the spice of life.

Nigel

I used to be a big Japan fan years ago.I might have to go & dig out the brilliant trees lp. Can any of you recommend a sylvian cd/lp to get me into his more recent work please?
matt

Not all that recent but Secrets of the beehive is good. Gone to Earth is nice - a bit more ECM like. The albums with Holger Czukay - Plight and Premonition and Flux and Mutability are very nice ambient records.s Most of the stuff wiuth Robert Fripp is good but not as good as Fripp and Eno or Frippatronics. Haven't heard his most recent stuff but I believe he's gone back to more song based stuff, although it's supposed to still have an ambient feel

You could try the CD's with Fripp and Nine Horses, but I find it sadly disappointing in comparison with Gone To Earth, Brilliant Trees & Dead Bees. Blemish is awful IMO. Just be careful.

Are They Might Be Giants a grown-up group?

They are my favourite American band.

quote:

Originally posted by Tam:
Music is music,

Tam is right.

Rasher

quote:

In fact all three of them were used as a backing to Dan Cruickshank's programme on Architecture the other night.

Can you name the tracks and artists possibly?
What an interesting programme too.
Thanks

Howard

Blimey Howard!! Don't think so - I don't have that type of memory, but they definitely played "Next Heap With" by Aphex Twin off I care Because You Do.

quote:

In fact Classical music to me is a bit like bhangra - it leaves me totally mystified. I really don�t have any points of cultural reference.

I can say the same about much punk and pop music. Certainly the core of the problem.

quote:

Originally posted by BigH47:

[QUOTE]In fact all three of them were used as a backing to Dan Cruickshank's programme on Architecture the other night.

Can you name the tracks and artists possibly?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________

I might be imagining it but I seem to remember Eno's Apollo Soundtracks being used on last weeks programme. You should buy it regardless, its wonderful.

You're right Malky - Apollo was in there.

I grew up on rock and roll in the 60s and was really rocking out by the early 70s, getting into heavy metal of the time. then went away to college and was poor, poor, poor, for 4 years in Colorado. After that I moved back to California and never had teh funds for much vinyl but dabbled a bit in classical and rock of late 70s and then the 80s came roaring in, "that's when fashion took over rock and roll" is my favorite quote on a documentary of the period. I tried ambient type stuff but popular music was leaving me cold and without a challenge. I got tired of trying to keep up with the latest hit, that 15 minutes of fame.

I went back to school and poor again but I started to listen seriously to big band, some jazz, and classical on public radio. I'd found a new challenge. I have no musical training but I find the longer more complex structures of classical more challenging and relaxing.

However, there is an avant guard in classical to challenge my R&R roots. The interesting thing is there is more of a history behind classical pieces that I find compelling. It's not for everyone. And I bought some old R&R vinyl when I got a turntable 3 years ago. Fun to revisit the old stuff, but I don't chase after the new stuff, I have little interest in it. I've read a psychology article a few years back that studies say what you listen to in your teens and 20s is what you're most comfortable with and stick with, like being hard wired to it's rhythums and chords. No exp[osure to something probably makes you feel detached and an outsider. For me listening to Stairway to Heaven for the umpteen thousandth time is just boring. But Stravinsky's Rite of Spring which is about virgin sacrifice for the spring thaw with it's wild percussion which made the Parisians riot in the hall and out to the streets (gotta love those French) or Berlioz's Symphony Fantastique about an artist's Opium drug trip. Ravel's beautiful Afternoon of the Faun for a trance state or Stravinsky's Firebird and Petrushka. Mussorgsky's Night on Bare Mtn. get the original, not Korsakov's rewrite, or the Disneyfied version which ends in peace, morning's churchbells and an Ave Maria. And of course there's Beethoven's 5, 7 and 9th for introductory pieces. Don't have to buy these, but most guys into classical have recordings some of them. Classical has been around a lot longer than pop has which is what intrigues me.

Classic jazz has similar complex structures, but is more improvisational like R&R. Check out the classic singers like Ella, Sarah Vaughn and Nina Simone for a bit of an earthy wild streak. I'd find starting with male bebop to be a bit strong, like someone's first whiskey, straight up.

but to each his own.

I never expected this to be so long.

quote:

Originally posted by jcs_smith:
Following on from thejejk's posting, have you ever thought, I'm blank now (insert age here) I really ought to try listening to something more grown up, and if so what?.

i reached the grand old age of 22 and thought I was to old to listen to popular music, so I bought an LP of Beethoven symphonies. Sadly, my record player at the time was not up to the job of producing a meaningful representation of the music, so I found it dull and boring and ignored classical music for several more years. Fortunately, at around that same time, punk arrived and re-awoke my interest in poular music.

quote:

Originally posted by Tam:
I'm not sure I'm at all comfortable with the notion of grown up music. Music is music, and there are good and bad examples but grown up?

I'm totally with Tam here.

I started my life in music digging almost everything, continue to do so, and always will. No hierarchy other than good or bad ... it's all music.

To be honest, the idea that there even is such a thing as "grown up music" (and, even more problematic, "un-grown up music") has always chafed against my neck ever since I was a kid. Nothing personal, of course, but it's one of my pet peeves.

Fred

As this was the most recent mention of David Sylvian, I thought people might like to see Damage & Blinding Light Of Heaven - 'Live' from the Road To Graceland '93 tour here. The Damage 'Live' CD was released in 2001 and Amazon uk are quoting 4-6 weeks.

Denis