h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There are, only so many cominations of notes, tempo, tambre that can be done... and what goes around, certainly comes around; Listen to any old Sabbath LPs from the 70's, and if you pay close enough attention you can see how influenced they were (weather they knew it or not), by J.S. Bach and beethovan... seriously... Of course, its easy enough to just come up with a series of notes whilst trying to compose something... and then... hang on... oops... I know this tune already!

Ill admit that 98% of everything is crap (Sturgeons Law) - but I fancied a counter-blast at the idea of Pop as the inferior form. What we find, in fact, is that Pop has all the good ideas, some of which are eventually taken up by the much less inventive, more constrained and more derivative form of Rawk.

As for classical music in Rawk - do me a favour! If you want classical music, listen to classical music: they do it so much better.

I didn't say they don't do it better, I was indicating, that sure unorigionality exists within pop, modern pop or other popularist forms of music dragging themes and influence onto itself from earlier versions of the same, but also that this theme in music, of simular meladys, chord structures and patturns goes back a lot further than that, heck a lot of the early composes stole stuff from each other often enough...

I've been listening to a bit of Ethiopian music recently, very interesting to my westernised ears, as their scale has a differnt number of notes, and the intervals are not the same...

Ultimately though, all music is pointless really, until such time as it finds a listener for hwhom it has some significence or is capible of evoking a certain emotional state.

Also depends what you 'do' with musick; I rahter like creating music, the music I like creating the most is the music I hate listneing to the most. figure...

Actually rock tends to owe much more to blues and jazz than it does to pop.

So where do you think Pop came from?

Youre not making a land grab for all of the 20thC African-American musical forms on behalf of the narrow sub-genre of Rawk, surely?

C'mon...tell me that Louis Armstrong or Robert Johnson werent Pop.

@2legs:
>>I've been listening to a bit of Ethiopian music recently, very interesting to my westernised ears, as their scale has a differnt number of notes, and the intervals are not the same...

Ooh! Ooh! Recommend some, please! I was reading last week about the Armenian ( ! ) marching bands that Haile Selassie imported into Ethiopia.

I'm not saying pop and rock don't share a similar origin, but those bands and artists from which modern rock ultimately originates had no thoughts of pop in their heads at all. You cannot say that blues and jazz influences in Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath were filtered through pop first.

Proper rock has no pop in it.

>>Proper rock has no pop in it.

Then it must be damn stale and fusty.

We already established in the flares thread that you know nothing about proper music so shush.

Just remembered...I re-watched the No Direction Home documentary on Bobs 70th birthday. They had a segment where they were interviewing people coming out of the infamous Manchester Free Trade Hall ~Judas!~ gig.

About 75% of the audience had been appalled. One guy said:

We didnt come here tonight to see some (sneer) Pop group.

And a guy a few places in front turned around and said,

Youll not see many pop groups like that, mate!


How odd it must feel to have missed one of the great artistic moments of the 20thC, *despite having been there*! Something to tell the grandkids, eh?

Mr D:

Im not saying anything against rock (other than it should also roll). Its the denigration of pop that deeply puzzles me, though. It absolutely has its place in rock - or is it a hermetically sealed genre all on its own? If it is - why would anyone restrict themselves to a walled-off dead end?

Meh. To my mind the best music is the kind that steals from anywhere it can get away with. And the kind you can groove to.

Okay... saying proper rock has no pop in it was be being a bit naughty and having a little troll...

The thing is though, people do restrict themselves to walled-off dead ends and when a band or artist they like breaks down those walls it's the Most Terrible Thing Ever. Look at what happened to Metallica in the 90s, or Black Sabbath once Toni Iommi was the sole original member (though you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who *doesn't* think No Stranger To Love is an abomination). I'm sure there are people who turned their backs on The Beatles when they stopped turning out catchy three-minute love songs.

As for groove... well, you can find that everywhere... even in flare-clad prog/doom bands.

Ive been trying to get my kids into Hip Hop. Should be the other way around, surely?

Actually...Neil Young is someone whos at his *best* in a dead end, isnt he? He built it and hes damn well going to stay in it until hes bust the walls down.

Famous heckle:

Audience member: All your songs sound the same!

Young: Theyre all the same song!

It depends if you're scissors.

Hip hop is a whole nother . When done right it can be very, very good but so much of it just seems to be about guns and money and hos.

I'm more partial to Chap-Hop anyway.

'Pop', IMHO, refers not so much to the genre of music but to the fact that any particular genre is popular. Punk was 'pop' in the late seventies, Louis Armstrong was a 'pop' star in his time too. I think the lines of music genres have become blurred over the years, 'indie' music could happily sit in many different categories yet would still be classed as 'indie'. It's all about individual taste, of which( according to my other half as she laffs her way through my music collection) I have none.

Wouldnt disagree at all about the commercialisation of Hip Hop, Mr D. In fact we had the N-word discussion at home recently. I maintain that theres some great, political Hip Hop where its use is fully justified (Chris Rock says that us white guys can ~Get your Dre on!~), but other instances where the commercialisation is actively oppressive.

*However*...as Shinehead OConnor, whos been a great advocate for Hip Hop has said, there are a lot of double standards. Commercial Hip Hop shouldnt be singled out for particular criticism. Look at the attitudes portrayed in Male Chicken Rock.

Can I say Cock?

Apparently. I'm generally against music which actively promotes disrespect of women in any way.