Death of music???

People have said way too much about the death of music and the revival of vinyl on various boards and I feel the need to shout about it. All opinions valid, mine is only one, don't be offended.

Dudes... music is an expressive art. All those guys with laptops and Frootyloops who someone on an SG board so eloquently(?) described as "people who think they have 'it" are just as valid as those people who without a fine art degree pick up a pen and draw the picture they want to see at that moment. 'They' also go on saying we have a saturated market, since when was emotional, political and situational expression floated on the FTSE???? So secondly, STOP TALKING ABOUT MONEY, business plunging down the pan should not be a worry. In fact I bet the same people saying it's a shame they can't make mega bucks from record sales are the same people who say they're favourite band 'sold out' on their last album.

I make music and enjoy my instruments, but I'm an electronics and electrical engineering undergrad and I currently work for Lloyds bank. People listen to my music and I listen to the music of my friends, we give unsigned acts time if they have a good track and before going out to clubs like to listen to 'Shine' or 'Patience' by Take That because they're good tunes.

Studio engineering is no longer a speciality as we are all tech savvy these days and have easy access to cheap equipment and software. I like it, the last three EPs I have been a part of have all been recorded using a collection of equipment set up in a house for a week it makes it all feel so natural.

Me, on vinyl:

Vinyl is a snobs game. I like studio quality sound... I like to hear how the band intended they're music to be heard, CD's bit rate and depth of frequencies may not be a direct physical effect onto a piece of plastic, but it's better for it. If the band had wanted the track to have 'vinyl warmth' they would of produced/mixed the song to sound like that in the studio!

Also I have studied closely the effects of quantisation and Gaussian noise and it is just not going to come into effect on audio signals, unless effects are concerned. Within a studio most subtle modulation effects (flange, phaser, chorus etc...) rely on very short delays where digital effects can sound clinical. But then I like to design and make my own effects, so maybe I'm being an analog snob here, no question digital effects are easier to use and are almost essential live if you like using complex soundscapes.

Thus ends my debut SG board rant, lol.

Death to music!






Long live music!

Henry Rollins said in a recent interview - this is the best time ever for music, but; because of digital technology no one is honing their craft... you can listen to an album and hear where they moved the snare to fix the timing, changed the pitch, muted the guitar, changed a cord... rock will never be the same.

contemporary music is, for the most part, either shite or just plain recycled 60's-80's stuff, and half the time, it's recycled stuff inspired by bands who were themselves recycling the old stuff. not to sound like an old codger, but very little TRULY decent or remotely original music has come out since the eighties started. that said, tehre are some gems in all the bullshit. but for the most part contemporary music is like contemporary art. . . mostly utter tosh.

They call it postmodernity and it's silly.

Music was driven by technology... Electric instruments fed rock and roll, prog soundscapes were created by the invention of modulation effects, harder and louder distortion led to punk and metal. Then synths and drum machines led to electronic music, we've reached a technological peak in music now. Nothing left to do but make things easier to control. So 'the new sound' is hard to create. Once stringed instruments were refined in the romantic and classical eras, orchestral music didn't change for hundreds of years untill abstract and jazz came in.

As for bad musicians making bad music, don't listen to it. Simple. If others do, let them, it's not bad music, it's just not of your taste. Right?

Soz I'm very opinionated, lol.

Fine art, illustration, graphic design, and typography all died with the advent of the computer too.


At least, that's what people were arguing 10-15 years ago.

I've heard the same argument about photography since the advent of digital cameras and Photoshop.

I'm sure no one anywhere will ever take good, artistic, skillful photographs ever again, just because some people use digital cameras and Photoshop. Yep, sounds about right.

I hate music. It's got too many notes.

I was in that play once.

There's a play? I only know the song. Do tell!

Orchestration might not have changed, but orchestral music certainly did.

Also, I'm not sure you've got your musical periods correct here. There is probably only 20-25 years between the end of the Romantic Era in classical music and the beginnings of jazz (and that's giving a very conservative date for the both the end of Romanticism and the earliest jazz). .

Amadeus!!

Wolf Mother rips off Led Zeppelin who ripped off Muddy Waters who ripped off Willie Dixon who ripped of the field hands he worked with who ripped off their slave ancestors who ripped off their African ancestors... &c

Very interesting ...

Truth. Unless you consider jazz's predecessors like ragtime to be "jazz". In which case, early Joplin is contemporaneous with late Tchaikovsky and Dvorak. You could certainly say the romantics were composing around the same time "pop music" was being born.

Amadeus amadeus!
Amadeus!
Amadeus amadeus!
Amadeus!
Amadeus amadeus!
Ah-ah-amadeus!

Dude, pass the bong.

yeah, after i clean the pot out on this Peter Frampton record....no wait, let's use the Solti version of Beethoven's 9th, since i'm a vinyl snob!

Solti? That bastard killed music!

There you go dude, take a long toke.

Awesome, I created debate with my half-knowledge. Sorry pointblank you're right about the dates. But I was talking about technology pianos and violins and the like were only really perfected through the classical era, early C18th and into the end of the C19th. They haven't got better since then, just turned electric, that was my point.

It's nice to see that all you cool postmodernists got talking about the finer points of music history, when the original debate was about where music should be going.

That was not at all apparent in any of your posts. You kinda seemed to be defining what you personally liked.

Vinyl is cheaper to produce from a manufacturing standpoint, particularly in small runs, which is at least part of why it survives. Dance music, punk 7"s, etc. You really want to give these things up because you detect some hint of snobbery?

Give me a break. You made a mistake and got corrected, that doesn't make any of us "postmodernists," and I doubt that you could give me a definition of that in musical terms anyway, but I'm guessing that you think it's some sort of insult.

Also: When did you mention the direction that music should be taking? Call me crazy, but you never mentioned that once, just sort of jotted down some ramblings about how technology and musical innovation is tied together (really, is there anyone who doubts that?). There was no "original debate" or at least not one that I can see here. I mean, did you just want us all to be impressed or say "i totally agree!?"

i totally agree!