Good music, or lackthereof

Sorry...I wandered off at the words 'Popular culture' *shudders*

I think to ask the question is to miss the point somewhat. There is a huge amount of really really great music being made these days. It took me a week after buying the Arcade Fire album before I bothered listening to anything else, Coral Fang by the Distillers (out last year I think) is probably the best hard rock record I can name. Martha Wainwright, Hard-Fi, Hotchip, Heather Nova have all produced albums in the last couple of years that I absolutely adore. William Shatner, of all people, made the most extraordinarily vulnerable, honest, and moving record I can think of. If nobody else remembers them in 30 years, I will. Liana has a point, things don't become classics these days because they don't have a chance, no sooner is a record out than it is swamped by a hundred others, it can be a pain finding the good stuff amoung the dross, but ultimately there is a lot more exciting music being made now that there ever has been before. I looked at Ben's list and thought for a moment Bob M was Bob Mould. Which deomonstrates why my opinion on the matter is probably worthless.

Incidentally, I got contacted yesterday by some random unsigned band I wrote about in a piece for abctales. If you google their name it pops up on the first page. I am very relieved I didn't write anything nasty.

I have recently realised there is a difference between what I like to listen to and what others call 'good music'. I realised this when sitting at a table of future teachers and they were talking about bands which they thought were brilliant, and they were all trying to 'out-band' each other: naming obscure low-fi cross-country folk rockers from Surbiton or wherever. Some of the bands they mentioned I liked. Some I didn't. Music is for listening to, for singing along to, for filling you up with joy, or completing your woe, or your lust, or your unrequited feelings for someone a long way away. It is also for dancing to. I was listening to the Magic Numbers yesterday and thinking how much I like bands which have male/female voice mixes. I was listening to Nick Cave and thinking his stuff is sublime really, if you are in the mood. I was listening to Chesney Hawkes and believing I was still 13. I was listening to The Mamas and Papas and just singing at the top of my voice. I was listening to Jeff Buckley and thinking the old adage is probably true: 'you can get any girl to sleep with you if you play her Hallelluiah' But seriously, I do think there is a lot of good music around now - a good mix of everything from fantastic throw away pop, to lovely folksy twangy stuff. Music is inspiring and lovely and wonderful. It can be transient, or lasting. Either way. It's probably hard to tell what will last now because there IS so much good stuff.

Ooh, I'm going to see the Magic Numbers this week. I actually don't rate the album that much, but they were dead good live. Is that Hallellujah by Handel, or Leonard Cohen?

The (British) radio is generally plagued by playlists (a.k.a commercial music-menus) that drip with uninspiring and unimaginative wishy-washy melodies, e.g. Franz Ferdiand, so if you want exciting and imaginative music, it means going to your local music clubs and bars etc.. which isn't a bad thing really. Personally the Eighties Matchbox b line disaster are doing their level best to bring some chaos to this drab, methodical musical order.

Personally, I'm still all about the Pixies, and Frank Black generally. I'm actually quite excited about one album, the new Fiona Apple (who...ooooh controversial....imo is Tori Amos but better). I LOVE J Buckley, Grace is one of my favorite albums. I've also been having a 50s 60s 70s thing going on recently, the Mamas and the Papas have featured heavily, along with the Stones and Sinatra and Supertramp and other bands beginning with 'S' (er...not exclusively.) I've also heard a lot of good things about Art Brut. Will check them out thoroughly. Give me Surfer Rosa anyday. Ben.. www.thedevilbetweenus.com

That's a point, actually, miss tweet-tweet - I was completely limiting myself there to American / English. I'm not familiar with current Indian music but the Spanish, South American's and French have some good stuff from bits I've heard. And it's not really my type of thing but rap for me sounds MUCH better in French and Spanish. However, I went to Live8 in Rome a few months back and can categorically say most of the Italian music there was awful, although that may not be representaive of all Italian music. Ben.. www.thedevilbetweenus.com

Hmmmm, what have I been listening to? Loads of stuff: Run The Road Compilation - All the exciting new 'Grime' acts including the wonderful Lady Sovereign. I'm not sure whether I'm down with the kids or whether, like a youth club leader who likes all the modern bands, from level 42 through to UB40, I'm just bopping embarrassingly. Jane From Occupied Europe - Swell Maps The Only Fun In Town - Josef K The Glasgow School - Orange Juice Luke Haines Is Dead - Luke Haines/Auteurs/Baader Meinhof Here Come The Warm Jets - Eno Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi - Camera Obscura Fear and Whiskey - Mekons Sleep It Off - Christina Reproduction - Human League Station to Station - David Bowie Kleenex/Lilliput - Kleenex/Lilliput Los Angeles - X The Power Out - Electralane Pisolero - Frank Black House Tornado - Throwing Muses Telstar - The Tornados Seamonsters - The Wedding Present Gentlemen - Afghan Whigs Retrospective - Red House Painters Not much that's new there really. Maybe I'm getting old too. Cheers, Mark Brown, Editor, www.ABCtales.com

Not for the first time in my life, I'd agree with Pesky. While there may not be albums that will stand up to repeat listening in thirty years time, who says that's the test? Perhaps music is rather more like fashion than literature. Sure, you can have a dress that is made with consummate care and skill and will be timeless, but you might also want to buy something from H&M that is entirely of the moment and you don't care if you only wear it twice. Personally, I'm delighted to be surprised by a band like Alfie who seemed to be going nowhere and then produce one of the sweetest, most uplifting albums I've heard in ages. And the new Franz Ferdinand is funny and spikey - and do you know what, I don't care if they've devoured Gang of Four alive, because wherever they took their influences they've cooked them into something that's worth listening to. My actual thought on the nostalgia-complaint is this - if you wanted to listen to good music in the Sixties and Seventies, it was easy to find it. You went for the Beatles, Stones, Animals, Kinks, The Who, Dylan and Van Morrison and it was simple. There's good music about now, but it doesn't lay in front of you. You need to go and find it. I'm sure that I'll buy ten albums this year and next year and the year after that I'll love, but I have to make the effort to find them.

well goodness me ... how nice to see emily yaffle ... (drop us a mail emily ...) and i think that i may be the only person on here ... or possibly alive ... who doesnt really give two hoots about music ... i enjoy it now and again ... but really i prefer silence ... good lovely silence in the house ... i have felt inferior quite long enough ... unable to identify whatever noises were bulging out of a speaker ... so here i am standing up for the party of one ... i don't think much about music ... i dont know much about music ... i dont think music matters that much ... and i don't care ... ooo that feels better ...

I find I listen to less and less music as I go along. I tend to buy world music, jazz, opera and classical nowadays - and the odd pop or rock or hip hop or whatever by a modern beat combo thingie. Then when I do listen to some of my old stuff (I have 3,000 LPs and around 1,000 CDs) I get to loathe some of it and love some of it. For example this weekend I noticed in the Observer that a Moondog retrospective had been released. I immediately went to my old Moondog album - and it was magical. It took me on to Terry Riley and then to Elgar and then to New Riders of the Purple Sage, to the Dead and to Zappa (inevitably). Now none of that stuff comes from the last 25 years - and some of it sounds dated - but a lot of it was way ahead of its time. When you get going, you never stop discovering new music - but just how much can a little head hold?

I'm very excited about new TaTu and Sugarbabes albums this week (although not excited enough to buy them in public, will use the handy annonimity of amazon yet again) Hello Emily.

OK, SO I LIKED PRINCE!!!! i care not a jot about who's in and who's out. If it moves me I like it. I really can't be doing with people like Mark Lamarr who hide behind the kudos of cool and sneer at the popular because it's the thing to do. I like Robbie Williams and I just don't give a damn! Why should I? I have a theory that people like Mark Lamarr just can't dance and so have to say it's all crap instead. well I love to dance and when the time comes I can lay down my shit with the best of 'em so bring on your Prince and your Robbie, your Presley and your Brown. All hail your Slims, both fat and shady. I'll take a bit of your 'phonics and your Gallaghers and even your Jackson, sod it! when I've finished enjoying some music I want to be sweaty and happy not rubbing my chin and trying to drag unknown gems of trivia into the conversation in an attempt to earn some more student bar brownie points and distract the attentions of anyone searching their wallets in vain for a fully paid up lifetime membership to funkaholics anonymous. I know Mark Lamarr is into some very funky music but he's still a music snob and, George forgive me, some of that 50's stuff he plays is so formulaic and obviously piled high on a band wagon it makes the factory churned out sample frenzy of the 80's sound like Mozart's wet dream.

Hi Emily – good to see you again. At my fortieth, some poor unsuspecting 25 year old came along, and although she was up dancing all night, she later admitted that she hadn’t heard any of the music before. Now, there was a fair bit of ska and such like, so I wasn’t surprised about that, but there was also the Stones, James Brown and loads of really famous dance stuff that I’d heard at her age even though they were technically before my time. (‘Oh so that’s Brown Sugar,’ she said.) I think maybe it’s because radio and clubs are so specialised now that you don’t have the chance to come across stuff that’s out of your ordinary. You have to know what you’re looking for before you can go find it, if you know what I mean. p.s. I'm with Ely on Mark Lamarr and I sing loudly in the car to the Sugababes.

Welcome back Emily Yaffle!! And if you buy on Amazon then please make sure you click through from here - we get 5% and it costs you nothing more!

its hard to find god music on the radio, so if thats all you are listening to it makes sense that you might come away underwhelmed. those legendary artist everyone talks about were not abou the radio or even the record store, they where about the FESTIVALS! so go out and check the music scene, go to shows and festivals the big and small concerts. that is where the art is at. I went to Coachella this past year and i go to shows every weekend, i dont feel that i have ever missed out on real good music. (that is until i turn on the radio or MTV and realize that consumerism has degraded the word "art" and made "artist" out of talking dolls)

Enzo, your initial post omitted the single most important musician, or 'song and dance man' as he likes to describe himself, of the 20th century. Bob Dylan. Having said that, every generation produces it's own music and they stand by it all their lives. It's the 'soundtrack' to their formative years and landmarks their every life-changing event. There's also a certain amount of 'conditioning' going on, mostly perpetrated by record companies and pop radio. There IS a lot of good music around today, though it was recorded in the second half of the 20th C. There ya go. A prime example of my own hypothesis!

Generally agree with what people are saying about the goalposts being moved these days. If anything, there's too much good music these days for legends to emerge. You could argue legends only come about when a few artists are so much more interesting and original than everyone else that everyone gravitates around them. If there are lots and lots of interesting and innovative artists, then the fanbase is far more spread out. Or you could argue that legends only come about when certain people write books and make documentaries on them - when their story is told, and certain things exaggerated. Plenty of people who grew up in the fifties and sixties don't regard Dylan or the Beatles as legends. Much as I like him, Dylan did not 'blow everyone's mind but Cohen's' - lots of people just shrugged and went 'meh'. And, as seemingly evidenced in the recent documentary, many of those that became fanatical about him seemed to completely miss the point. All legend contains an element of myth.

Bob Dylan is... mmm, okay. Lyrics are pretty good but not good enough to justify the number of verses he puts in most of his songs. And, I only like his songs with pop choruses. I agree about an abundance of good music meaning that no-one is going to be everlasting. Plus, there are so many genres and if you take the time to delve into any (even hard house and death metal) you will find there is wonderful music which, within that genre, has been groundbreaking and will be important for a long time with those in the know. I'm interested by Fish's admission about not liking music. It's a funny taboo isn't it? It's okay to say that all paintings/sculpture etc are shit but not to say you don't like music. New music I've liked (some briefly, some lastingly): Bright Eyes, Dangermouse and Jemini, Arcade Fire, Tom Vek, Bedouin Sound Clash, Luke Vibert, Aphex Twin, Bjork, Blackalicious, Boards of Canada, Ordinary Boys, oh yeah, and the new Kate Bush single... so good! Joe

Although both frequented Jazz clubs, neither of my parents have ever been to a pop concert, let alone a festival. They still managed to acquire a liking for the Stones, the Beatles, James Brown, The Kinks, Donovan, Otis Redding, Elvis, Dusty Springfield, Delaney and Bonnie, The Beach Boys, Van Morrison, Janis Joplin…

um... I noticed the other day that the songs that I get bored of and delete out of my iTunes library are 'new songs' -- even songs by bands I like such as Embrace, Oasis, Toploader, David Gray. You know why? I get bored of them. However, music that is older, such as old Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan, Jonny Cash, Stones, stays in my library. I'm not sure why this is... I think it must be because the songs are more distinctive and multi-layered? But I must say that James Blunt rocks.

ab27, do you think it might be something to do with the fact that in the main you could actually hear what the singers were singing in earlier material. That, coupled with the ability of yesterday's performers to either write a good melody or at the very least identify one. spack, you're entitled to your opinion of Bob Dylan and I would defend your right to express it, but I prefer to give credence to Professor Chris Briggs (Professor of English literature), who not only teaches Dylan in his university lectures but claims he is as important to English literature as Shakespeare. I admit I find it a little difficult to see the comparison, but then I'm not really a scholar of English literature, like you, I just know what I like. Dylan has long been the object of derision by lovers of popular music, mainly because he doesn't have a 'pretty' voice, but his ability to string words together is awesome, (to use a favourite word of our American cousins).

oooo, that ...*those in their fifties and sixties*... bit stung! Though I didn't take it personally as I don't have any heroes. Actually I didn't really start listening to Dylan until around 1972 (10years after he started performing professionally), and didn't see him live until 1978, so he did nothing for me until I was in my late 20's. It's usually a reasonable guide to an artists worth to listen to what their peers have to say, and practically everyone of his, (apart from Charlotte 'look at me, I'm pissed and got my tits out again' Church), hold him in the highest esteem as a writer. Wasn't James Blunt that homosexual art guy that sold secrets to the Russians?

How come no depressed 38 year olds have mentioned Morrissey yet? Ah, I know, they have finally realised he is shit. Someone once said to me, after I had called The Smiths' music 'boring', "listen to the lyrics." I did and it was still shit. I listen to music for the music. If I want great lyrics I'll read poetry or a good book or, in the case of The Smiths, some Jeffrey Archer.

Found myself getting all nostalgic when I heard the Smiths the other day, until I remembered I couldn't stand them at the time. (Talking of old bands - just watched The Real John Lennon, anyone else see it? Anyone want Yoko as a flatmate?)

"Anyone want Yoko as a flatmate?" You sure you don't mean 'rat bait'?

Rat bait, scarerow.... She really was toxic. He should have stayed with dear old Cyn, or Mai Pang. Heard a story years ago (I think Paul was telling it) that Paul had suggested that he and John get together when he arrived in NY to 'smoke the peace pipe.' Story goes that Yoko tipped off customs and got him arrested.

As usual, you get things wrong rita. I didn't say kids today don't listen to the music of previous generations, I said that all generations adhere to the music they grew up with. That doesn't preclude them from listening to other stuff, just that the music of youth has a special place in their hearts. The kids of today that listen to 'yesterdays' music are most likely the percentage who either recognise the music of their peers as being a fucking racket or have sufficient musical taste to know which is better. Just to correct the misunderstanding between you and pesky. The song WAS called 'Things Have Changed' and won a grammy a few years ago. It was featured in a movie (the name of which slips my mind, and I can't be arsed to google it) Most youngsters today aren't really into the music of the 50/60/70's, they only know it by having to listen to their parents play it.

Rita, I never said parents played their records for their kids. What i said was they have to listen to their parents records, (or leave home young) and they assimilate them by osmosis. That's how the two kids who I never had, but nevertheless have the same DNA as me, came to be influenced by Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Elvis Presley and the whole gamut of post-war popular music from Rosemary Clooney and Patsy Cline to Dire Straits and The Eagles. OK, this is the last civilised post I shall make in reply to your persistent rubbish-strewn ramblings. For christ sake write your crap in decent English, you present a damned good argument for nuking India.

I'm 19 and right now I am listening to a mix with Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin Frank Sinatra, Bessie Smith, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Louis Armstrong, Elvis, The Beatles and Dean Martin. My parents are in their fourites, this wasn't music I certainly didnt hear it from them. and unfourtunaly they will make fun of me, i guess they just werent cool parents like rita, it was music i heard from my friends (with the exception of Hank and Frank that stuff was my Grandparents when i listen to it i feel close to them). the reason people as young as me still listen to this stuff is quite simple it good! and no amount of time will change that. Good music is Good music. me and my friends do listen to a lot of old music, then again me and my friends listen to a lot of music in general. and its not just 50s 60s and 70s, Bessie is from the 20s! i love reading people discuss music but it makes me sad that there are Morrissey and Smith haters, they are certainly not shit they are THE SHIT! and there is a big difference. i guess thats enough for now, i just wanted to bring the young perspective to a discussion about young people, please carry on.

"they are certainly not shit they are THE SHIT!" Seconded! No chance that a love of the Smiths is confined to those who grew up with them. That agegroup are all buying up James Bland's 'Back to Boredom' these days.

Say what you like about Morrissey, but at least he hasn't released a book of poetry. Hello, Billy Corgan!

And press return... It's interesting you say there are classical tunes that are the equivalent of "sixpence none the richer." Ah, bilious memories. Classical music gives off the impression that it is all high-art, which, as you point out, is balls. To keep it underground, I shall now only listen to Atilio Ariosti and Theodore Dubois. They're real composers. I googled "Obscure Classical Composer"... That's how to keep up with the kids. And there's so much intelligent electronic music out there... in fact, an orchestra called the Sinfonietta perform astonishing interpretations of Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada and Squarepusher - the complex percussion, layering and mili-second tight programming keeps the orchestra on its toes. Oh yeah, and Bjork. She's still pushing the envelope. Into a wacky iceland shaped postbox. Joe

What's so wrong with a nice tune, eh?