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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | DanAbnrml9@aol.com |
| Subject | Re: Another Beatles? |
| Date | Tue, 3 Aug 2004 23:57:12 EDT |
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In a message dated 8/3/2004 6:04:22 PM Eastern Standard Time,
audities-owner@smoe.org writes:
<<I have to think that those kids growing up in the shadow of Kurt
Cobain feel the same way >>
Jaimie, I think you got that exactly right. While a lot of people my age
talk about where we were when we heard that Kurt Cobain had committed suicide (I
was 14, coming back from the geography bee), the reality is that before we
heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on our radios, the world was a different place
to us. I remember really loving the Escape Club a couple years before that,
because "Wild Wild West" really rocked. Like, seriously, this was it... that
was our reality. I know that to some, that seems stupid, because you had
already found the british invasion and punk and new wave and all that beforehand,
but for those of us in our mid-20s now, we were way too young to experience
that firsthand. I listened to top 40 with paula abdul. Nirvana, and the way
that their success caused radio to drag out all of the remaining indie
underground bands into the mainstream, was a major revelation to us. And again, as
I've aged and explored music more on my own, I realize that Nirvana just won
the equivalent of a musical lottery, combined with creating the right thing at
the right time, but it DID influence a lot of people because we wound up
realizing that there were far broader horizons than we'd realized up to that
point. We learned not to accept what we were being spoon-fed sooner than we
otherwise would've. And granted, the entire thing was corrupted within a few
years--when alt.rock radio became the clear-channel controlled crud that gave us
Creed, Nickelback, and other grunge retreads--but an awful lot of us "got" it
in time.
It's funny, because I think a lot of us here come to power-pop from
different sides... some of us herald its independence and almost punk-ish d.i.y.
spirit, others love the meticulously crafted, bright melodies, yet more find it
to be a more "adult" alternative to the top 40 records of our youth, and others
feel it's the closest thing to one of the golden eras of singles, the
mid/late '60s. But I think it's great we all arrive at this common point, even if
we disagree on many other acts (I rather like Jeff Shelton's Spinning
Jennies, but I've disagreed with him many times on list when he's trashed acts like
the White Stripes etc., who I actually quite enjoy). This is all cool,
though, because the reality is that pop fans are coming from an awful lot of
divergent places.
Someone else (I think it was John Micek, but I could be wrong) touched upon
how hip-hop (and electronic music) were in many ways as culturally important
as the Beatles, and I think that brings up an important point. As fans of
guitar-driven pop music, the Beatles are the bread-and-butter... the band we
constantly point to (though, oddly enough, I would say I prefer CARS-influenced
acts more than anyone who is implicitly Beatles-influenced). But go to the
hip-hop world, and the perspective changes drastically. That isn't to say that
those guys don't like the Beatles (check out the brilliant-as-it-sounds "Grey
Album", where DJ Dangermouse mixed the acapella versions of Jay-Z's "Black
Album" with sonic bits--and I do mean BITS--of the Beatles "White Album"), but
the root of influence lies more in a variety of sources from disco to strains
of international music, hard rock, and dance music. There's a tendency
nowadays to point to Eminem as the face of hip-hop because he's had (arguably)
the greatest cultural impact, but hip-hop is as diverse and wide a genre as
rock. Dismissing the entirety of hip-hop because you don't like Eminem would be
like hearing Van Halen and deciding that, because you're not crazy about them,
you also don't like the Beatles. There is really a lot of very thrilling and
challenging hip-hop, and while it occasionally goes through its dry spells,
it's still an ever-evolving and entertaining genre. It's also notable that
hip-hop, like power-pop, is very singles-based. It's odd how the two both rely
so heavily on a catchy hook.
<<Waiting to see where ?uestlove jams his drumsticks after Ralph tells him
that he's not a musician,>>
I just wanted to repeat Stewart's line there. Hip-hop guys ARE musicians.
Calling them anything less IS an insult. It's as insulting as saying that the
Beatles aren't musicians, while Beethoven is, because Beethoven wrote
symphonies, or some equally arbitrary BS. And as he points out with his ?uestlove
example, a good many of them play "old fashioned" instruments as well as using
new-fangled musical technologies to create good music. If you want to search
for "the next Beatles", then you're going to have to stop ruling out modern
music-making techniques--including the use of samples to create tracks.
<< Because the Beatles were the first, and no
one can ever be the first again.>>
See above. If the lessons were forgotten (as they were for many of us in the
late '80s/early '90s), they need to be taught again. And speaking as someone
who is firmly part of generation X (if not Y, scholars disagree), Stewart's
right in that the whole "spokesmen of a generation" crud flung at the Beatles
has done far more to harm their reputation amongst people in my age group
than to help it. Everyone wants to find their own way, not to have things
crammed down their throats, especially when it carries the undercurrent of "mine is
better than yours". I would argue that that very attitude is sort of a
generational "correction" that undoes a lot of the influence the Beatles had in
the first place. I don't disagree with a lot of the rest of your
sentiment--that the Beatles had a cultural influence unlike no other rock band--but I think
that even voicing that attitude has a way of diminishing that influence.
Does that make any sense?
On another note, I've found this thread to be far more interesting than I
had originally expected... what do you know! Bruce's spirited call to arms to
get all of us to start power-pop labels especially brought a tear to my eye,
and got me thinking about the things I'd love to get out there (Squeeze
B-sides! That one Sparks album that was never put on CD!
Already-out-of-print-mid-90s-Britpop discs! Complete reissues of the Cars catalog... okay, now I'm
dreaming) before I came back down to my own financial reality.
In an audities-loving mood,
Jason
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