Old Stuff Which Is Great

[chairdriver]

So, I've recently got into Paul Simon's album Graceland. Released in 1986, it still sounds extraordinarily fresh. It also manages the oft-impossible task of being both interesting and alternative, but also very accessible and catchy. You'll have heard You Can Call Me Al.

 

 

 

So this recent love has got me thinking about the whole process of aging. How things change, and stay the same. How, when you give it the time of day, my parents' music stuns.

 

I learned the other day that my mum was a "naughty teenager", as in, she was the one to always get in trouble at school, and she used to antagonise her teachers because she thought they were incompetent at their job. And I realise this is where I get my "fuck the rules" attitude, and slight "I know better" outlook on life (which is a bit of a flaw, I must admit).

 

So its interesting to see whether her taste -- taste is the window into a persons psyche -- matches mine.

 

Obviously music, and our approach to music, has progressed -- not changed in all cases, but progressed. There have been essentials that have raised the bar [All Saints spring to mind :p], and there is shite that makes me want to die.

 

 

Just rambling a bit really. But I love finding stuff from the past which is amazing. Post thoughts, etc.

[Paj!]

A brilliant album.

 

I hate hate hate people who are afraid of "old things". A good friend of mine has decent music taste, but ONLY listens to "new" stuff. He can't listen to anything pre-90's. And my other friend said she hates watching "old" films. When I asked her definition of "old", she said "before the 90's."

 

[Dan_Dare]

punch her in the head and run

[Paj!]

The party don't start till she walks in/she's hilarious/lovely otherwise, so I daren't. Anyone else though...

 

PS.

[Dan_Dare]

So...so many good films. I'm running a chcklist in my head and most of my favorite movies are pre-90s. Eurgh.

[Ashley]

(Shouldn't it be 'Old Stuff That Is Great'? genuinely checking my grammar knowledge)

 

I appreciate some old films. Can't think of anything off the top of my head... I suppose old Disney. Looking at my DVDs and trying to think what the oldest DVD I have is. Other than Disney I've got some 80s Brat Pack stuff. Actually the earliest films I have are Godzilla (the original obviously) and then La Dolce Vita. But I've watched a lot of 'old' cinema during my studies.

 

Music wise I am getting more into 60's/70's (other than The Beatles, who are kind of standard) lately.

 

And books, I tend to read either contemporary or old. Currently reading Atlas Shrugged (1957) and the next book I want to purchase is Soseki Natsume's 'I Am A Cat' (1905) so...yeah.

 

I'm not sure if this is an answer or a ramble.

[Frank]

Old stuff that is great?

 

Movies <3. My favorite director, Alfred Hitchcock

 

Just the general vibe from years ago. Everything just seems so much more glamorous, romantic, exciting and well...better really. Apart from the obvious improvements of equality nowadays. Also, time could be making the earlier years seem more attractive than they were but it's nice to think it hasn't :p

 

Oh, and most music! I find it funny when people hate "old" music yet don't realize that a lot of music today are just re-using older music and adding beats to it :/ A little ironic.

 

God. I feel a lot of the time that I was born in the wrong era :S

[Ashley]

(I dunno, neither really sound right)

[jayseven]

I hate the adjective 'old'. It's too vague for me! I pretty much exist 6 months behind everyone else when it comes to books/films/games, and by the time I'm going on about how much I love a game I've just started playing, everyone else is already "shit be old, jigga".

 

I'm not one to assume that everything old is, by default, not as good as anything can be. I instead have good faith in my belief that the past holds a great wealth of Stuff Which/That I'd Find Great.

 

I prefer to use the word 'mature'.

[Fierce_LiNk]

I looooove the old "puppety" Gerry Anderson shows. Like Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlett. I wish there were more episodes of Captain Scarlett. That is one show that deserves a proper conclusion.

 

Another thing that I'm a massive fan of is/are the old black and white horror films. Hammer horrors, or science-fiction films, like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, or the original Night of the Living Dead. The sense of paranoia, the impending doom, the questionably sane or insane main character. I could watch these kinds of films for every single second of my life.

[Goafer]

I like most old junk. It generally has more charm than modern stuff. Plus if something is old, but in "as new" condition, it makes me appreciate it more since it's obviously been looked after over the years.

 

Old crap I'm particularly partial to:

 

Cars

Cameras

Electronic Gadgetry

Buildings

Patrick Moore

[Caris]

Mums........

[Coolness Bears]

Soseki Natsume's 'I Am A Cat' (1905) so...yeah.

.

 

IS THE GREATEST BOOK OF ALL TIME.

 

 

that I've never really read, I saw it many years ago in my book store and I keep going to buy it but it never happened. I stood in the store several times just reading it.

 

One day it disappeared off the shelves so I couldn't find it.

 

I want that book.

 

OLD STUFF, yeah I love listening to old music/watching old films. Not just the classics but random stuff they put on film 4.

[Goafer]

(I dunno, neither really sound right)

 

I think it should be either "Old stuff that is great" or "Old stuff, which is great"

[Supergrunch]

I think it should be either "Old stuff that is great" or "Old stuff, which is great"

To resolve all this argument, there's an arbitrary rule that people don't actually follow stating that restrictive relatives (like the topic title) should use "that," and non-restrictive relatives should use "which." So yeah, that's kind of what Goafer is saying, as non-restrictive clauses are normally separated by commas. But in reality, it's as much a "rule" as the idea that one shouldn't split infinitives or end sentences with prepositions - speakers use both "which" and "that" somewhat interchangeably. That said, it seems right for me to use "that" here, and I'd also contract the "is." Still, it may well be that Chair's intuitions differ to mine.

 

And now back to the thread...

[Pookiablo]

Nintendo 64

Nintendo 64

And...

Nintendo 64.

 

I don't care if it's not that old, it's too freakin' awesome to not be mentioned in this thread.

[ipaul]

 

I'd like to think that electronic music can be divided up into Pre-TEE and Post-TEE. It's probably over simplifying it, but still.

[Dan_Dare]

well it's....largely going to be post, isn't it? Massive album though and, like you say, amazing.

[ipaul]

well it's....largely going to be post, isn't it? Massive album though and, like you say, amazing.

 

Fine, I'll be bolder and just say music in general

 

[Jon]

A good Whisky only gets better by the day. I some 40 year old bottle last month and it was amazing how it tasted. Even with all the technology around nowadays, that taste is only possible with some good old fashioned waiting.

[Sheikah]

I would have to say "most games". They make lots more games that are fun to play these days, and many games of a very high standard. In contrast, in the past they seemed to have many low-quality games but also some absolute gems. I'm thinking of old Final Fantasy games, Zelda (up to N64), Chrono Trigger.

 

A little of this is to do with nostalgia and redundancy, though. Like how sequel after sequel has dulled me to the new games, or maybe I'm just not as impressionable. But those games will likely never be bested for me.

[Dan_Dare]

I actually think that, generally, games age very poorly indeed. It's one of the reasons that gaming is incomparable with cinema because technology and design often invalidates what's come previously and going backwards is often unpleasant.

 

There are a few gems though. 2d has definitely fared better than early 3d. I can play and enjoy most SNES games and find them as fun as ever- Super Metroid is, in my mind, untouchable. Early 3d though like PS1, Saturn and N64 games particularly just feel horrible to play now with awful framerates, nasty textures and jutting polygons.

[Ashley]

But that's part of the charm. Kind of like the awful plot mechanisms (Metropolis), nasty special effects (Godzilla) and jutting stomachs (late-era Orson Welles) of early cinema

[Dan_Dare]

Mhm I did think about Godzilla actually. It is kind of similar.

 

Super Metroid is kind of like The Thing . It's the pinnacle of a kind of film making and technology that would soon be superseded but eventually holds up better in the long run. The Thing features what can be considered the best stop motion animation ever made, along with pioneering animatronics and makeup. They would eventually be replaced by CGI but if you go back and watch, say, Spider-Man now the CGI has aged incredibly badly, much in the same way as early 3D games replaced traditional 2D design. The Thing still looks absolutely amazing.

[Ashley]

Are you trying to tell me about film history?