Pop music in our music collections

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Are you saying that the Monkees didn't make any good music ??? Or that they weren't particularly interested in the music.

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Indeed, no slagging off of the Monkees here please, they did some great stuff, and Head is IMHO probably the best music movie ever.... "The problem with the young people of today is that they might get exactly what they want". Nearly every line of that film is a great cut up. Total drug fueled weirdness, and there's nowt wrong with that!

Tony.

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

Music is personal and we all have our preferences.

The advantage of a good system is it allows you to explore music of any genre.

One man's poor production is another man's gritty realism. Either way it's pretentious bollocks.

cheers

Nigel

Is mine too.

Alex

(Double rations of LSD hepled).

Steven, if you like strong rhythms and good melodic hooks there are plenty being done that still remain far more interesting IMHO than several of the sources you mention. Ever listened to recent Bill Nelson? He creates superb pop music, but since the market for superb pop from middle aged, not terribly photogenic men isn't great he's criminally overlooked. Maybe have a listen to What's Now, What's Next, a 2 CD retrospective of stuff from 1980 to (almost) the present.

Pete.

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it does tend to be well done. Sometimes too well with the end result coming out a little too mechanical (pitch correction, perfectly metronomic timing), but it's hardly surprising that immaculately produced pop comes over immaculately on a good system. Whether "immaculate" is necessarily the same as good may be a moot point, however, if all the soul has been removed...

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Not quite sure what the point is here. Is accuracy in pitch and timing undesirable in any music or only pop; is it only undesirable when it is achieved post production or is perfect live, unadulterated, performance also not good enough?

Immaculate is not the same as good by definition, what intrigues me is why good might be considered better than immaculate - and how is "soul" measured/defined?

cheers

Nigel

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

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Originally posted by Nigel Cavendish:

Not quite sure what the point is here. Is accuracy in pitch and timing undesirable in any music or only pop; is it only undesirable when it is achieved post production or is perfect live, unadulterated, performance also not good enough?

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It's generally desirable, but not strictly necessary in all cases. A real live human drummer or conductor, even one with a reputation for superb timing, will not be perfect. Do you think it's necessary to clean up the timekeeping abilities of your favoruite drummer or conductor? I don't, and in removing a musician's freedom to stamp their own mark on the music, you may rid it of something elemental and worthwhile.

People sometimes miss a perfect pitch. Modern production can compensate for that. Does that mean all of Bob Dylan's recordings are useless, because he's not technically a great singer? I don't think so. Are Shania Twain's pop hits any better because they did emply pitch correction? Not significantly, I would think.

The human factor is an important part of music, and room for spontanaity and imperfection is an important part of the human factor. To quote Bill Bruford, "An unfortunate side effect of formal arrangements is accidents tend not to happen" (quote from memory, may not be exact but that's the sense of it).

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Immaculate is not the same as good by definition, what intrigues me is why good might be considered better than immaculate - and how is "soul" measured/defined?

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Soul is indefinable and unmeasurable. But I think Aretha has a lot more of it than Mariah Carey. I think Patricia Rosario has a lot more of it than Charlotte Church. A lot of people agree with me. Can I measure it or provide objective proof, no, but I still think it.

When is good better than immaculate? Let's work with an example: "Like a Rolling Stone" or "All Along the Watchtower" vs., oh, probably anything by Ronan Keating, S Club 7 etc. A performance of Carmina Burana with the local schools providing the junior choir and clearly having a wonderful time vs. professionals sight reading it purely 'cause it's on their gig list.

So is immaculate a bad thing? Might be where it amounts to overcooking something beyond the point of doing it (having the BPO play "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" is probably pointless, the music is too simple to warrant the embellishment), but that won't always be the case. I'm very glad Becker and Fagen were studio perfectionists, I think they really helped their music by having superlative musicians perform it.

Pete.

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

The musical genre is not the point here. Dylan is a crap singer and I would prefer it if he could sing in tune - in fact I can't stand much of what he does for that reason. I would not want that to occur from some digital artifice however. So far as I know, Shania Twain can sing in tune and I would not want her, by some digital artifice, to sing like Dylan. In fact, I don't want anybody to be made to sound anything other than what they are.

My point is that if someone(thing) happens to be perfect what's the problem other than you might not like it?

You seem to me to be suggesting that "soul" is to be found in imperfection rather than perfection.

An operatic company singing "Tommy" might well be perfect in every musical sense but sounds daft; The Who singing "Tommy" perfectly (Possible?) would sound great.

cheers

Nigel

Reading your posts here that is absolutely correct. In fact, your taste in music is so bad any of your opinions on any other subject should be disregarded as the witless ramblings of a fool. I personally rate you right up with Steve Grantham (see his monthly Van Morrison diatribe elsewhere) in the premier league of tasteless bufoons.

John

Hahahahaha, good thread. I voted audiophool jazz, but I don't hear it the way you describe it, i.e. tinkly. I have a hard time believing you'd call Mingus tinkly, Ellington maybe!

As for Pop, ah well I don't have time like I used to when I wuz a lad to pore the pages of the pop magazines(NME etc,) but if somebody will point me to good stuff I'll give it a whirl. I liked what I heard so far of Mercury Rev, where do they fit in?

I've a weakness for Fado at the moment, Cristina Branco and Misia. I haven't bought the Misia CD yet.

But I like Todd Rundgren, Rush, Coltrane, Mravinsky and Robin Trower among others.

BTW anybody know where I'll find some vinyl copies of Mravinsky performances ?

Anyway I live in france and Pop here is dreadful, although I did hear les Nubians on Guru's jazzmattaz record and thought they were pretty decent.

cheer

Peter

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Originally posted by Nigel Cavendish:

My point is that if someone(thing) happens to be perfect what's the problem other than you might not like it?

You seem to me to be suggesting that "soul" is to be found in imperfection rather than perfection.

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If that's what I seem to be suggesting, that suggests a bad choice of words on my part. I don't think that soul is necessarily to be found in imperfection, I'm concerned that in creating "manufactured" pop that the folk doing it are so preoccupied with removing anything that even might be considered a flaw that they fail to see what makes the music good in the first place. So, for example, if we make a Sex Pistols hit note perfect and beautifully sung, we remove the energy and anger which are the prime reasons for its existence and our appreciation of it. If we make an operatic aria note perfect and beautifully sung it's far more likely to convey the feelings of the composer/performer.

It might be that someone gets something perfect, and if they convey what they're trying to convey then no problem with that. But if we completely regularise, say, Bill Bruford's drumming I think there'd be considerable danger of you erasing the essential "Bill-ness" of it in the process, and consequently anything he's got to say. If you clean something too much, there's nothing left.

I said before "soul" was undefinable, but I'll have a crack anyway: Soul is the ability to convey information beyond the notes themselves. If you do that by getting them right, it's soul, if you do that by being a bit rough around the edges, that's soul too. Still unmeasurable, of course.

Pete.

cheers

Nigel

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

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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.

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I bought the Elvis number 1's collection last week and was horrified to find out that not only have they been so over-mastered that they have lost much of the character that I love about stuff recorded in the late 50's, but worse still some engineer has a credit on the sleeve for remixing some of the Elvis stuff in Pro-Tools! It seems nothing is sacred.

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