The Music Thread

[chairdriver]

Is there nobody left who still likes punk, metal, even genuine indie/acoustic etc?

 

Has everyone here grown out of it? Is the guitar dead/dying?

 

I don't see a single music post on these forums anymore that isn't either pop (typically the most obvious/current solo female artists, sometimes some mid-nineties nostalgia-fest) or dubstep/ebm/dance.

 

I think the guitar is dying, as a thing.

[The Bard]

The guitar is eternal, it's just slightly displaced from mainstream consciousness. The "thing" with the the guitar, what it was that caused popular fascination with it, was its timbral qualities, and what kept that fascination alive is its incredible diversity and ability to produce new sounds depending on what you did to the signal. The problem though is, people are becoming less and less interested in analog music; shit that has a discinctly manual and human element contained within the actual struggle to play the damn thing, and more interested in the novelty factor of different qualities of sound synthesised precisely and clinically. The guitar is something of a go between.

 

Either way, analog, expressedly manual instruments have something that digital, electronic music can never replace, and vice versa, it's just the novelty of the new that fascinates everyone, as well as the fact that dub, dance, electro etc has become about as inextricably associated with contemporary culture as Motley Crue and Bon Jovi were with the Eighties. And look at em now; nobody but middle aged housewives marauding for a nostalgia dicking gives a fuck.

[The Peeps]

Guitar music/bands is far from dead. It's just not mainstream anymore. You need to know where to find it.

[Zell]

I think if you look at how big outdoor festivals have become in the last decade then you'll see that rock/guitar music isn't dying. I've been to Sonisphere every year since it started and I think the attendance has doubled in three years. Download and Reading/Leeds keep on getting bigger as well.

 

Rock music isn't popular with the mainstream now, but trends change over time. I think it was only about 6 years ago when indie was the big thing.

[gmac]

I also present this rather famous quote

 

We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out

 

Decca Recording Company rejecting the Beatles, 1962

 

[chairdriver]

To be fair, it is quite reasonable to question The Beatles. There's no reason why they should be so massive.

[The Peeps]

You can say that about anything.

 

I see no reason for Kanye West to be popular.

 

It's easy to dismiss The Beatles if you're not into that kind of music, let alone the fact that their music is 50 years old.

[The Bard]

To be fair, it is quite reasonable to question The Beatles. There's no reason why they should be so massive.

 

Except the fact that they're absolutely masterful songwriters, backed by an excellent composer with a great sense of adapting strings and orchestral sections to pop music, and finally the fact that they had without a doubt the best production of their era.

 

Of course, they could just as easily languished in obscurity if it wasn't for a few beneficial circumstances, so I guess ascribing success solely to musical competence isn't wise.

[Ramar]

To be fair, it is quite reasonable to question The Beatles. There's no reason why they should be so massive.

 

You're right Rihanna is more worthy.

[Paj!]

Current + Guitar

 

[ipaul]

Current + Guitar

 

 

Lovely choice! I bought that album on vinyl recently

[Ganepark32]

So have given the teasers for Ladyhawke's new album, Anxiety which is out on March 19th, a listen and like the sound of it. There's definitely hints of the debut album in there but there's more guitar going on and some heavier drums in some of the tracks (from what I've heard of them being performed live. Pip says that's been carried over to the album so great).

 

For those interested:

 

 

 

First video shows a little studio action, with new song 'Sunday Drive'. Second video has 3 teasers for 'Anxiety', 'Sunday Drive', and 'Blue Eyes'. Really looking forward to the album myself because of the greater focus on guitars as well as having apparently taken influence from the likes of Joan Jett and The Dandy Warhols amongst many others.

[The Peeps]

Brother just sent me a link to this:

 

 

 

@Ganepark32 thanks for posting that, I'm looking forward to the new album!

 

I've actually seen Ladyhawke live supporting The Ting Tings lol

[Dan_Dare]

Is there nobody left who still likes punk, metal, even genuine indie/acoustic etc?

 

Has everyone here grown out of it? Is the guitar dead/dying?

 

I don't see a single music post on these forums anymore that isn't either pop (typically the most obvious/current solo female artists, sometimes some mid-nineties nostalgia-fest) or dubstep/ebm/dance.

 

 

I'd say indie is dead, yeah. And good fucking riddance. Rock, though...nah. It's too ingrained - it's the new black. It's not really mainstream per se but there's always blues, metal et al to look for.

 

Personally, my musical tastes have swung round to guitar pop again from years back. Simon and Garfunkle, Paul Simon and Fleetwood Mac all the way.

 

I think that's true of modern groups too, though. Indie as a guitar driven punk offshoot championed by the likes of Arctic Monkeys is over (again, hurrah!) but if you look at bands like Yeasayer and Animal Collective or TV on the Radio, they've taken the 'rock group' and replaced it with the bigger, pop band model of the 60s and 70s.

[The Peeps]

Indie is not dead.

[Platty]

To answer your question Shorty, I still go to A LOT of gigs from Big bands to local bands playing in pubs. I love going to see a live band play, nothing better. I still buy CD's too. Yes a CD! I don't do downloading, I like having the physical media and use the website recordstore.co.uk all the time. They stock all sorts and you can find bands on there which are out of the mainstream and only printed like couple hundred albums and some special edition LP's for those of you who like your vinyl. Support the small bands, the indie label is dying!

 

I'm pretty much still into what I have been my whole life, British Indie type bands tbh. Just picked up Maccabees new album as it goes. Pretty chilled out compared to their first two but amazing nonetheless. Going to see them in Belfast in a small little venue in March too. Can't wait.

[spirited away]

 

I come bearing a gift.

 

Are there many Beatles fans on the forum? I've recently been trawling through the complete back catalog and it's just staggering the relative lack of fillers on albums such as Rubber Soul and Revolver. I'd place Rubber Soul up there with Pet Sounds as my two favourite albums of all time.

 

Michelle has to be one of the best love ballads ever written. Bliss.

[Jon]

Until they rewrite musical theory and how a song is constructed, the guitar is going nowhere.

[Zell]

 

I come bearing a gift.

 

Are there many Beatles fans on the forum? I've recently been trawling through the complete back catalog and it's just staggering the relative lack of fillers on albums such as Rubber Soul and Revolver. I'd place Rubber Soul up there with Pet Sounds as my two favourite albums of all time.

 

Michelle has to be one of the best love ballads ever written. Bliss.

 

I've always like The Beatles, but it wasn't until a couple of years ago that I completely submerged myself in their entire catalogue and realised their true brilliance. Revolver is my favourite, it's just so flawless.

 

[The Bard]

Same here actually, I remember the first music I ever owned was a Beatles anthology on tape that my dad bought me when I was about six or seven, and that became a big part of my childhood. Weirdly, I stopped listening to them as I grew older, and pretty much forgot all their material, until I properly rediscovered them a few years ago and realised, man, there have been all these melodies kicking around in my head for fifteen years, and I didn't know that these were all ripped straight from Beatles tracks.

 

There's something overwhelmingly infectious in their ability to create these iconic melodies, from acoustic almost folky stuff like Blackbird and Mother Natures Son, to experimental unusual stuff like Come Together and Happiness is a Warm Gun

 

One of the best bands of all time.

[chairdriver]

Revolver is my favourite, it's just so flawless.

But then, at the same time, Taxman came up on my shuffle while I was walking to my lecture yesterday, and I actually thought I misheard the lyric "If you get too cold I'll tax the heat, If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet", but I didn't. Genuinely really bad. Like, jumped out at me as being bad.

[The Bard]

Oh god, of course you'd notice that Chair . Makes me cringe too, but then, Taxman is a George Harrison song, like literally the only Beatle who can't fucking write a lyric to save his life (Ringo too, but his are so bad they come back around and amuse the fuck out of you) and was consumed by these horribly pretentious ideas of pseudo-spirituality that he really couldn't back up because he was dumb as a post. The merit of the whole band shouldn't be distilled down to one shoddy song though

[chairdriver]

Sure, I understand.

 

[i doubly hate that song Taxman because it's just [i]bad[/i] politics. How the fuck do you think the road you're walking on gets paid for? Roads aren't cheap. Don't whine about taxes, go sort out a way to stop bank CEOs from garnering a £10m annual bonus if you want more money.]

[gmac]

well he was getting taxed at 95% at the time (I know he was still making a fortune!)

[The Bard]

Sure, I understand.

 

[i doubly hate that song Taxman because it's just [i]bad[/i] politics. How the fuck do you think the road you're walking on gets paid for? Roads aren't cheap. Don't whine about taxes, go sort out a way to stop bank CEOs from garnering a £10m annual bonus if you want more money.]

 

Yup, once again, Harrison was an overentitled, barely literate shit for brains that made his tastelessness regarding his own overwhelming wealth known by the fact that he was whining about being in the countries highest tax bracket (which at the time was at 95%), regardless of the fact that this still left him with more money than he could spend in a lifetime of extravagance.