2761 replies to this topic

[Wilfrid]

Those bands don't sound fresh (okay, fresher than "Good Ship Lollypop"), but they do sound like an image that some people want to project.

Well that's the point. "Roadrunner" among contemporary indie pop may not be entirely camouflaged, but doesn't stop traffic like "Good Ship Lollypop" would have in the mid-70s.

I'm sure someone will tell me Shirley Temple was doing much the same thing as Caravan, Man or Chicken Shack.

[Wilfrid]

Shocking news: People who like old music listen to old music!

The shocking news is that everyone listens to old music.

[Adrian]

Those bands don't sound fresh (okay, fresher than "Good Ship Lollypop"), but they do sound like an image that some people want to project.

Well that's the point. "Roadrunner" among contemporary indie pop may not be entirely camouflaged, but doesn't stop traffic like "Good Ship Lollypop" would have in the mid-70s.

That's a minimal point we can agree on.

[Wilfrid]

Does the fact that they listen to Louis Armstrong mean that jazz stopped?

It means the world of popular music is now flat. It doesn't matter when something was recorded. Maybe this is a good thing, but let's not pretend it isn't a relatively new thing.

We had some seventy or eighty years of out-with-the-old, in-with-the-new.

[g.johnson]

Roadrunner is actually developing photographic plates of cloud chamber paths rock. But that's a long story.

[hollywood]

Does the fact that they listen to Louis Armstrong mean that jazz stopped?

It means the world of popular music is now flat. It doesn't matter when something was recorded. Maybe this is a good thing, but let's not pretend it isn't a relatively new thing.

We had some seventy or eighty years of out-with-the-old, in-with-the-new.

Have you been reading Thomas Friedman?

[Wilfrid]

That was the allusion, but it's second-hand; I haven't read the book.

[hollywood]

That was the allusion, but it's second-hand; I haven't read the book.

Check this.

Thomas Friedman in possession of 500 pages of ruminations on the metaphorical theme of flatness would be a very dangerous thing indeed. It would be like letting a chimpanzee loose in the NORAD control room; even the best-case scenario is an image that could keep you awake well into your fifties.

[Sneakeater]

"Well into your fifties."

[Adrian]

That was the allusion, but it's second-hand; I haven't read the book.

Check this.

Thomas Friedman in possession of 500 pages of ruminations on the metaphorical theme of flatness would be a very dangerous thing indeed. It would be like letting a chimpanzee loose in the NORAD control room; even the best-case scenario is an image that could keep you awake well into your fifties.

I remember reading that in undergrad. Absolute classic.

[Stone]

Friedman's new book is the worst, most boring kind of middlebrow horseshit.

I'm guessing this was written before Malcolm Gladwell?

[Wilfrid]

[Adrian]

No where else to put this, three pre-teen/early teenage kids on the street car discussing pop music:

Kid one: "Demi-something-or-other-that-I've never heard of is a good singer"
Kid two: "no she isn't, her songs suck"
Kid one: "it's not her fault, she doesn't write her own songs, she's a really good singer"

Wow.

[Sneakeater]

I kind of feel the same way about her.

Also, if you listen all the way through the Mosaic Complete Columbia Mildred Bailey set, you'll often find yourself saying the same thing. (Indeed, if you listen all the way through the CBS Complete Billie Holiday set, you'll often find yourself saying the same thing about her -- in fact, she and Louis Armstrong invented the art of sending up stupid material through irony, making them the precursors of rock singing.)

So I guess we're back to the future or something.

[hollywood]

I kind of feel the same way about her.

Also, if you listen all the way through the Mosaic Complete Columbia Mildred Bailey set, you'll often find yourself saying the same thing. (Indeed, if you listen all the way through the CBS Complete Billie Holiday set, you'll often find yourself saying the same thing about her -- in fact, she and Louis Armstrong invented the art of sending up stupid material through irony, making them the precursors of rock singing.)

So I guess we're back to the future or something.

You're comparing Demi Lovato to Billie Holiday? Or, are you saying this proves pop music has stopped?