Radiohead falls into the category of music I should know, but know little about. My wife has several of their charts on her iPod, but whenever I'm driving the car and her iPod is on, I tend to skip past them. Often for "Weird Al." And occasionally Billy Joel.
Bodysnatchers is much more "traditional" in terms of pop and rock'n'roll, only that what's happening in it is much more similar to the entire period than a specific sub-genre. There's electronic music happening within, but there's a solid punch to the ride to highlight the time. The lyrics are hard to understand to my pep band damaged hearing, but there's a good melodic guitar riff, even if overdriven from time to time. The synths get some solo lines.
Overall, this chart is a rather boring way to close out our listening because there's nothing really new happening. Yet, maybe this is a good way to end, because a lot of what's happening is a synthesis of what we've learned. There's the roots in jazz, the development into rock, and the late 20th century pop too. It might be a bit boring, but it's also rather comprehensive.
Sunday, December 7, 2014
Module 7
By this point in American popular music, we've come a great distance from where we started with the folk songs of late 19th century and the early jazz of the 20th. While everything that now exists owes its genesis to that which has come before, it's hard to continue to hear that genesis in the music making of the 1980s.
I've never liked Prince or his music. I honestly thought it ran the risk of ruining Tim Burton's 1989 take on Batman, yet I acknowledge a brilliance to what he does. I don't like electronic pop, nor do I like his take on it, but there is a musical and theoretical genius to how he creates. Our choir director is a local "pro" rocker, and he opened our variety show last year with his choir covering a Prince chart. He confided in me that when Prince first came on the scene, he hated his music, but like I did, he come to respect the brilliance of it. His kids wanted to sing 1999, and he took them up on their request. And in doing so, we all came to grow in our musicial understanding.
We’ve shifted in this module from the style-line of jazz-big band+blues-rock to something more unique and less grounded in the above line. Prince embodies 80s and 90s pop rock with a techno-flavor. Dubstep, Europop, Techno are all more rooted in the styles of When Doves Cry than When Doves Cry is in what has come before. Electronic instruments and synthesizers are used for more music making than ever before and in more unique ways than ever before too, and proto-synths are being used here. The shift to the focus being on the performer rather than on the chart or the listeners being active participants in the dance is in full shift. Soon, Whitney Houston will solidify this with her rendition of the National Anthem, something that will mark the fullness of The Time of ME! and will continue right through Renee Fleming’s rendition this past Super Bowl. When Doves Cry is boring. The bass line, a driving force of rhythmic cohesion in other styles is bland and has little influence. The drum set, rather than the bass (electric or acoustic) has taken the bass part’s role in time keeping and cohesion with boring, simple patterns and limited fills. To me, Prince isn’t innovative, he’s simplistic. Not my style.
I've never liked Prince or his music. I honestly thought it ran the risk of ruining Tim Burton's 1989 take on Batman, yet I acknowledge a brilliance to what he does. I don't like electronic pop, nor do I like his take on it, but there is a musical and theoretical genius to how he creates. Our choir director is a local "pro" rocker, and he opened our variety show last year with his choir covering a Prince chart. He confided in me that when Prince first came on the scene, he hated his music, but like I did, he come to respect the brilliance of it. His kids wanted to sing 1999, and he took them up on their request. And in doing so, we all came to grow in our musicial understanding.
We’ve shifted in this module from the style-line of jazz-big band+blues-rock to something more unique and less grounded in the above line. Prince embodies 80s and 90s pop rock with a techno-flavor. Dubstep, Europop, Techno are all more rooted in the styles of When Doves Cry than When Doves Cry is in what has come before. Electronic instruments and synthesizers are used for more music making than ever before and in more unique ways than ever before too, and proto-synths are being used here. The shift to the focus being on the performer rather than on the chart or the listeners being active participants in the dance is in full shift. Soon, Whitney Houston will solidify this with her rendition of the National Anthem, something that will mark the fullness of The Time of ME! and will continue right through Renee Fleming’s rendition this past Super Bowl. When Doves Cry is boring. The bass line, a driving force of rhythmic cohesion in other styles is bland and has little influence. The drum set, rather than the bass (electric or acoustic) has taken the bass part’s role in time keeping and cohesion with boring, simple patterns and limited fills. To me, Prince isn’t innovative, he’s simplistic. Not my style.
Nirvana and Smells Like Teen Spirit… I rather prefer the Weird Al satire myself, but this came first. It is so different from Prince, and as different from Prince is as Prince is from what has come before. Our two required listening examples this week are so diametrically opposed from one another. This is still Rock, with a pulsing bass line, and my observations about Prince are completely the opposite here, as the bass line is handled by the electric bass. There are extended guitar solos, and we’re back to the music being about the music. At least until they smash their guitars in some live performance of the chart. Pity that Nirvana wasn’t able to stay on the scene for too long.
Prince stands out in this week’s listening as one of the major pivot points in popular music history. Much of the remainder of the listening, including Aerosmith, Van Halen, and the like, are all similar to Nirvana than they are to Prince. The bass grooves, the set is interesting, and the groups are about the music. It might have a nice beat that you can thrash to, but the music is about the music.
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