Pop music in our music collections

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So, your musical collection is one of the following? :-

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Not even slightly. You seem to imply that the alternates are to listen to pre-pubescent school girl music / bland adult orientated rock / pop music from a bygone time (implying we must be out of touch), or even worse audiophile crap. Reading this forum will prove most here listen to intelligent and pretty cutting edge underground stuff that is happening right now. Many of us have collections built up over decades containing challenging music from many periods and of many different genres.

I for one am certainly no fan of the current manufactured and formulated boy / girl band pop "culture", it annoys me that the record labels perpetrate this brainless crap at a time where there is so much really interesting new music happening. The only benefit is that it is no longer necessary to endure TOTP each week!

For the record I do own some stuff that charts - Doves / Coldplay / Eminem / REM / Mercury Rev etc.

Tony.

PS Trivia point: Did you know its Andy McClusky ex of OMD who writes the Atomic Kitten pap.

I don't have anything against the sort of stuff you mention, but wouldn't choose to buy it: after all, I find it quite interchangeable and have a decent tuner. IMHO it's too bland to be considered actively bad: check out Mariah Carey, Michael Bolton and the like for truly noxious things that really offend my ears. Have you listened to something like XTC's Apple/Venus? It isn't actually that ancient at all, but may open out a whole new side of pop music you hadn't appreciated before, or even realised that they do "make them like that any more". Try the Lemonjelly.KY album: it's certainly pop and was actually recommended on the Forum by the manager of the naim record label IIRC. And on the subject of the naim label, the Foo Foo album is clearly in the pop camp, but far more interesting than Britney et. al. If naim are producing and recommending this sort of thing themselves it clearly isn't frowned upon to pump it through a nap 500!

Pete.

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Originally posted by Tony Lonorgan:
The only benefit is that it is no longer necessary to endure TOTP each week!

For the record I do own some stuff that charts - Doves / Coldplay / Eminem / REM / Mercury Rev etc.

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Hi Tony, does that mean TOTP is no longer on? I haven't had a TV for ages now, so haven't endured it for a long time, but it was always fascinating how you had to watch it, even safe in the knowledge that it would be dreadful. The main point always seemed to be to say "Crap!" for just about every record in the countdown and moan about the state of the chart...

What's Eminem like? On my almost constant diet of R3/R4 I don't get to hear him, and have assumed that since he is a media sensation he probably isn't worth checking out.

Pete.

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Hi Tony, does that mean TOTP is no longer on?

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Its still on, but as far as I'm aware it almost exclusively deals in manufactured boy / girl band crap. It seems that the days of every fifth record being by a remotely interesting act is long gone. At one time more left-field bands would appear on it, lets face it, even Can had a TOTP appearance once. I get the impression that deals are done relating to TV show tie-ins with the kids bands such as Steps, 5ive Hearsay etc, in which they get access to certain shows as payment for appearing on others. The bottom line is that the current groups that are absolutely massive on the indie scene such as Sigur Ros, Godspeed, Mogwai etc will never be represented on TOTP. The nearest TOTP will ever get to the cutting edge is to perhaps show a REM video, and as such can now be safely ignored (nowt wrong with REM though).

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What's Eminem like?

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IMHO very funny indeed. Kind of join the dots outrageousness and shock tactics combined with a deeply sick sense of humour. About half of each album is truly excellent (the other half is almost filler - he could have made one absolutely stunning album!). His sense of vocal timing is both amazing and hysterically funny. Both albums are great fun, though I would probably start with the first. If I were a kid today I would definitely be pissing my parents of with Eminem albums exactly the way I did with the Sex Pistols etc.

Tony.

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Originally posted by Jonathan Ribee:
Hey - someone else who is living without a telly - excellent! Nine and a half months for me so far - how long is "for ages?"

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Haven't had one for 3 or 4 years now, before that I happened to share a house with a communal TV, but didn't watch it much (Star Trek Next Generation, The Simpsons and, errrrr, that's it), and that after spending the 3 previous years without one.

I don't dislike TV, but I don't miss it at all if it isn't there. Quite happy to watch Simpsons, Thunderbirds and other Proper TV if I'm somewhere with one on. If I didn't have a radio though, that would be serious...

Pete.

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If you like the album and are interested in that early Warp thing then you might like Speedy J's "Ginger" & "G Spot", Fuse's "Dimension Intrusion" or Autechre's "Incunabula".

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I'm in, and I'll raise you Bytes by Black Dog Productions.

Tony.

It's always a nice day for it, have a good one
Steve

I missed last night too. Shame on me, but wanted to catch the RSNO doing Schosta 11 at the Caird Hall. Bit bloody intense, that one: Wow!

Pete.

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Musical snobbery, IMHO, is essentially the pretention of enjoyment of jazz/classical music etc. to the exclusion of all types of more mainstream music.

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Having any form of taste can possibly be construed by those who haven't as being snobbery… I don't think Naim need worry too much about us lot alienating Steps, Hearsay, Bob the Builder etc fans as their average age is about 5. They are probably not key Naim buyers unless pocket money is radically higher than when I was a kid.

Tony.

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Originally posted by Steven Toy:

Musical snobbery, IMHO, is essentially the pretention of enjoyment of jazz/classical music etc. to the _exclusion_ of all types of more mainstream music.
It is possible to enjoy classical, jazz, etc. alongside many other musical genres, some mainstream, and others more obscure.

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So Beethoven and Mozart aren't mainstream? Common classical repertoire is about as "mainstream" as you can get!

I don't see that enjoying something and not something else is necessarily snobbery. Saying the something else is objectively no good, possibly, but not enjoying it is a just a case of not enjoying it. I don't enjoy Mariah Carey: I don't resent people that do[1].

Pete.

[1] even if they are clueless and taste free... ;-)

cheers

Nigel

It's always a nice day for it, have a good one
Steve

It's always a nice day for it, have a good one
Steve

It's always a nice day for it, have a good one
Steve

It's always a nice day for it, have a good one
Steve

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Snobbery: I will listen to my Oasis CDs on my 'kitchen radio' - a JVC radio/cd - but cannot stand them on my main system because it just shows up how badly recorded they are.

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Oasis sounds great on my system - sounds like snobbery to me

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I'm not sure how much Black Dog stuff you've got but it's well worth searching out a copy of "Virtual" and the it's remix.

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I've got all the albums I know of, but don't have any singles. I have Bytes, Temple of transparent balls, Spanners, Parallels, Music for adverts, plus the Applied Rhythmic Technology comp that features a couple of early tracks and I also have the Peel session. Got all the Plaid stuff too.

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Not sure about BDP.

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I suspect Jonathan's list was largely sourced from me, so it probably refers to Black Dog Productions!

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Plaid is pretty good and did a bit of stuff on Bytes. I have listened to Trainer and quite liked it although IMHO it needs a fair bit of listening to get into.

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Plaid were half of Black Dog Productions, they split off just before Music for adverts (and that album suffers massively as a result - its the only weak one released by either band). Trainer is a compilation of early stuff that was released either under the BDP name or as Plaid - it contains some truly excellent material. The other Plaid albums (Not for threes, Rest proof clockwork, and Double figure) are all IMHO stunningly good.

BDP and Plaid are to my mind responsible for some of the most innovative and original music produced in any genre during the 90s. Buying Bytes when it came out changed the ground rules for me, this was a album that sounded totally unlike anything else I had ever heard. The obscure timing and unusual though truly melodic nature of this music remains fresh today. Essential stuff. Their influence can be heard today throughout the electronic scene right through to works by massive sellers such as Radiohead, Bjork etc. To my mind they were the Neu! or Can of the nineties, no one really noticed them outside of the music scene so they did not get any real public acclaim, but their ideas will be reverberating around for years.

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Not sure about B12. I may check them out myself so cheers.

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I have both the B12 albums, and they are very good - both fit very well with the Warp AI feel. I don't see them as being the real innovators that BDP were, but its good stuff nonetheless.

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I'm not sure how deeply into the scene you are but if you like Ritchie Hawtin's stuff then I can happily suggest some other Detroit Techno stuff that is worth checking out.

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Yup, go for it.

Tony.

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Originally posted by Steve Catterall:
Oasis sounds great on my system - sounds like snobbery to me

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I bought "What's the Story" because I thought the songs (Champagne Supernova excepted) were between quite and very good. But the quality of production is self-evidently dire: for example, the strings on Wonderwall sound considerably less like strings than the ones on my old, second and rather scratched "A Collection of Beatles Oldies" take on Eleanor Rigby. George Martin knew how to record things well, whoever does it for Oasis either can't or won't AFAICT. I don't listen to WtS as much as I might because I find the production so grating, nothing to do with the band.

Pete.

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It then starts to go horribly wrong as the overall mix just sounds like mushy grunge with no definition in the sound of the individual instruments - after the very good sounds of singer + guitar.

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I am not that familiar with the Oasis stuff, I have not heard this track on a decent hi-fi, just in clubs and on TV, though my guess is that the end product you hear is what they wanted and aimed for in the studio. On the TV or club systems I have heard their stuff does work, and whilst I am certainly not their greatest fan, I do think I understand pretty much what they were after… sort of strum strum strum sing sing sing KARRRUUNNNGE!

Tony.

I think Tony has hit the nail on the head - what you hear is the sound they were after. It may well sound dreadful on some systems ... but I've heard loads of stuff sound dreadful on some systems. On my system it really rocks. Now music for pop people

Jesus Of Cool XXX

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Anyone else feel this summarises the problem?

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Do you listen to everything in this analytical fashion?

Oasis is rough and ready music (though lyrically, for pop, well written) recorded the same way. You like it or you do not, whatever system it is replayed by.

cheers

Nigel

I wouldn't say either of those was true

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I'll agree that the Monkees were initially a manafactured band who used session musicians at first, but they later produced some fine songs which they both wrote and played on as their musical careers matured.Everyone seems to dismiss them as a musical joke and overlooks the fact they actually made some great records.
Right,Got that of my chest..on with slating Oasis...