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| From | Kerry Kompost <kerry_kompost@yahoo.com> |
| Subject | Re: Music Isn't Dead |
| Date | Fri, 26 Dec 2008 08:57:39 -0800 (PST) |
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Whilst comfortably esconsed on my couch over the holiday, I dozed in and out of blissful sleep while watching VH1's "Best of the '90's", with two of my fat and happy cats curled up alongside.
What struck me -- other than how many great songs there were -- was the fact that MTV, from its inception, was rather like AM radio in the 1970's, in the sense that you never really knew what song was going to hit you next.
In the '70's -- my prime teen "radio listening" years -- I'd hear Sly and the Family Stone followed by Kenny Rogers and the New Edition followed by Beatles followed by Steely Dan followed by Carole King followed by the Delphonics followed by YES followed by Billy Paul followed by Pink Floyd followed by Dolly Parton followed by Elton John.
MTV -- especially in the '90's -- was rather similar in that you'd hear disparate musical genres back-to-back: Soundgarden followed by Teenage Fanclub followed by Pattie LaBelle followed by Guns and Roses followed by N.W.A. followed by U2 followed by Prince followed by Naughty by Nature followed by Jewel followed by De La Soul followed by R.E.M.
As a boomer, I've been guilty of lamenting the "loss" of that classic period of Rock Music(tm) Lefsetz mentions (1964 - 1975 or whatever it was). Watching the VH1 thing made me realize how full of shit I was.
What's happened isn't that great music isn't being made anymore -- it is -- it's that there's now avenues of delivering NICHE MARKETS where one can willfully choose the type of music one consumes; in the '70's those avenues were largely limited to the radio. Now we have radio, TV, internet and satellite.
So instead of ten people humming "I'd like to teach the world to sing...", you have ten people humming their own choice of songs.
Is that such a bad thing?
kErrY
www.myspace.com/nextprogband
NP: Yes -- Drama
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