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

"my music collection is dominated by heavy rock and country" [Freewayriding]

Do you mind if I pick your brain, then? I mean to have a little bit of hard rock, and some heavy metal, just not very much of it. So far I've only heard one metal band [AC/DC], and didn't like it. There are other bands, though. The people who run MTV made a list of ten heavy metal bands.* So, that's one down and nine to go.

*1. Black Sabbath
2. Judas priest
3. Metallica
4. Iron Maiden
5.Pantera
6. Slayer
[7. AC/DC]
8. Motorhead
9. Kiss
10. Motley Crue

Another site gives the top ten hard rock groups:

1. Guns n roses
2. Led Zeppelin
3. AC/DC
4. Nirvana
5. Metallica
6. Bon Jovi
7. Aerosmith
8. Queen
9. Black Sabbath
10. Avenged Sevenfold

What strikes me about the two lists is that 3 bands are on both of them. I have two bands that are on the second list: Queen and Led Zeppelin.

I'm listening to Queen right now. They blow me away!

I suddenly noticed that "Waiting for Sugar Man" was on my tv. Missed the first 10 minutes, but was able to tape the rest and will enjoy it later

It's a goof movie, Pierce. The arthouse theater near me showed it a while ago.

Last night I went to see "One Direction: This is us." I thought one or two boys in the band resembled some of the Monkees, which were similarly assembled for a band back in the 1960s. I used to enjoy their weekly television show. They were goof-offs, just like the kids in One Direction. Both groups came into existence through the activities of impresarios -- Simon Cowell in One Direction's case. In both cases, all they had to do was learn songs that someone else wrote, to the accompaniment of instrumentalists who were hired to accompany them.

The Monkees had the advantage of having songwriters of the caliber of Neil Diamond to write for them. I don't anything about One Direction's songwriter[s], except that one of them was pictured in the movie.

I meant "good movie," not "goof movie."

Duly noted and very correct

Makes you wonder how many other great singer songwriters out there are neglected

There are probably quite a few. However, it's kind of tricky to balance the demands of songwriting and singing. The ones who sing the best don't always write the best songs, and the best songwriters don't always have a knack for putting them across. Still, there is always that idea that you get the best interpretations from the people who wrote the songs, since they know what they meant to say by writing them. That's why I appreciate Neil Diamond, Leonard Cohen, and Pete Seeger. On balance, I prefer great songwriters who give an honest effort to sing their own material. There'sjmore to singing than having a great voice.

The ones who sing really beautifully but write second-rate songs should probably sing other people's material. That means Madonna in "Evita," among other things.

I have more heavy metal than I thought I did, thanks to a large collection of musicals. "Spinal Tap" is a heavy metal band that started as a parody in a movie. Meat Loaf is prominent in "Rocky Horror Picture Show." Not everyone considers Meat Loaf to be heavy metal, but Wikipedia does.

English and American rock stars and bands dominated in the second half of the 20th Century. To underestimate their importance would be a bad move, one that I am not making. On the other hand, culture is like a group of rivers that keep flowing into each other and diverging, back and forth. As an example, there's the Pink Floyd CD I'm listening to now. There's a lot of key shifts up and down, reminding me of the organ music in "Phantom of the Opera" and much of the music in John Adams's opera "Nixon in China." Everything is connected.

I'm working to find counterbalances here and there as well. Ethel Waters, Mahalia Jackson, and Dinah Washington did a lot to enrich the culture of their times. Who is to say that the wildly successful rock stars who were growing up listening to them didn't get ideas for their own work?

Even "protest bands" like the punk rockers in Sex Pistols have to realize that they are building on top of the foundation they (tried to) rebel against.

When I was very young I said "out with the old, in with the new" - and with "the old" I meant everybody more than just a few years older than Beatles and Stones

That quickly changed when Jagger & Richards mentioned Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Alexis Korner, Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin' Wolf and quite a few other veterans as great sources of inspiration!

Coincidentally I just yesterday afternoon watched a tape from 1986 (I think it was) where Keith Richards is backing Etta James along with Chuck Berry and a few others. It was great!

I have Bo Diddly and Buddy Holly in my collection, and I saw "Great Balls of Fire" [a bio-pic about Jeryr Lee Lewis] when it came out. I also saw "La Bamba," which was about Richie Valens. Good stuff!

Muddy Waters is intriguing. I might add him, too.

Tijuana Brass would be just plain fun to have!

There are some strong albums by Meat Loaf and AC/DC which I might try.

Last night I played "Spinal Tap Back From the Dead." I pushed the volume control to minus one and enjoyed it.

When I play music from the forties and fifties and sixties, it really takes me back in time. One of the big bands had a song called "One," and it was used as a TV theme song [a game song, I think] starting in the mid-fifties. Well, the game show hung on for decades. Every time I hear that song I think of the days when I was a little kid and the whole world was bright and new and I felt secure and loved in my house. It's just about the greatest feeling there is!

Muddy Waters is great. So is Alexis Korner. Even if both have long since moved on. Their music lives on.

Check out Alexis Korner and John Mayall and his Bluesbreakers, where Eric Clapton grew up, so to speak, with Jeff Beck amng others - a much overlooked guitar guru!

And have you listened to the last records Johnny Cash made? There is some great stuff there! Numbers like "Hurt" and "One" (a cover of a giant U2 hit) spring to mind! Both give me goose bumps!

none of the above are heavy metal guys, but I just had to mention them!

That's okay, Pierce. I just want to find the middle ground between what's wildly popular and what's subjectively great. Sometimes that means quirky choices that appeal to me but not many other people. Mostly, though, I'm charting a path through the huge variety of 20th century music, excluding only the musicals and so-called "classical" genres, as those have separate collections that I've put together. Quite often, great artists influence other great artists. Sometimes jazz influences creep into classical works. Shostakovich wrote some "Jazz suites," though they sound like no jazz I've ever heard before. Stravinsky has some delightful pieces that were clearly influenced by jazz. Debussy and Ravel were clearly interested in jazz. However, to date I haven't come across any serious composers who were influenced in rock music. The closest was Leonard Bernstein's delightful Spanish rhythms in "Chichester Psalms."

As I write this, I'm listening to the soundtrack for "Hair." The track that's playing now is "Somebody to love," one of the most beautiful Country/Western songs I've ever heard. Overall, the whole soundtrack is a delight.

One of the most durable popular genres is Country/Western music. Old 19th-century Western songs were used successfully by Aaron Copland in the ballets "Rodeo" and "Billy the Kid." Santoalla, the composer who wrote the score for the movie "Brokeback Mountain" wrote some great country songs. Country artists can and do fill stadiums for their concerts -- Tim McGraw drew massive audiences earlier this year in a concert in a small town about 20 miles west of Boston. Just about everyone loves the "Grand Canyon" suite by Grofe.

One small exception to the paucity of rock-influenced serious music is a transcription for piano of Radiohead's "Paranoid Android" song that I heard on my local classical radio station. When great piano virtuosi can play Radiohead alongside their Chopin and Schumann, that's got to be interesting, right?

As for Bernstein's "Chichester Psalm" being influenced by rock, what I had in mind was the pervasive Spanish rhythms that inform ragtime, jazz, and rock. 120 years ago, when African American music was taking shape, there was a huge comfort zone where Spanish Caribbean music was concerned. It was much easier to like than the European models that were prevalent in white culture. So, centuries after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, Spain has had her revenge in musical culture at least. And older singers like Tony Bennett can still be relevant by partnering with younger Spanish-American singers. Who doesn't like Spanish music? It's not rock, but rock relies heavily on the rhythms.

One Rolling Stones, I can't get out of my head is the "Rolling Stones" song, "Get out my cloud". I remember the first time I heard it on the jukebox in the cafe and on "Top of the Pops" TV show.

I am not quite sure about hearing "Get off my cloud" on the "Top of the Pops" but it was probably either my sister who played in on her record player or the cafe's jukebox. The cafe rarely changed the records that they kept and I probably first heard it in 1965.

Rock has merged with classical music - or at least classical orchestras - a number of time. And with great success too.

The Moody Blues were asked to write a concert for The London Philharmonic Orchestra and came up with "Days of Future Passed"

This what Wiki has to say about it: "The Moody Blues were asked by their record label in September 1967 to record an adaptation of Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No. 9 as a stereo demonstration record.[4] Instead, the band chose to record an orchestral song cycle about a typical working day.[4]"

But you will of course prefer reading this: http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A38715933
Very nice w*rk by h5ringer, edited by Gnomon, a good read

Another fine example is "Procol Harum Live In Concert with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procol_Harum_Live_In_Concert_with_the_Edmonton_Symphony_Orchestra

Just like "Days of Future Passed" I have both of these masterpieces on both vinyl and cd and they are among the finest pearls in my collection

Many years later Procol Harum played and recorded something similar here in Denmark, but I haven't head it yet:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procol_Harum_–_In_Concert_With_the_Danish_National_Concert_Orchestra_and_Choir

I believe I have mentioned "At the Court of the Crimson King" by the rock group "King Crimson" - well, at least I have now

Check out "Salisbury" by "Uriah Heep" - the closest I can come to remembering a merger between heavy metal and classical at the moment

I've heard of Moody Blues. Let's see, they started as a blues band, then morphed into "progressive rock." Are they still morphing? Nobody morphed more times than Frank Zappa.

[ to check out the album that was mentioned]