The Music Thread

WTF is Rick Beato? Also, if you're complaining about simplistic music, how can you like the Beatles so much? Nobody did simple and low expectation better than them. They didn't even bother to write real lyrics for a bunch of their songs. I mean, what exactly is this?

"Here comes the sun, doo-doo-doo-doo
Here comes the sun, and I say
It's alright
Little darlin', it's been a long, cold, lonely winter
Little darlin', it feels like years since it's been here."

I would argue that these lyrics are among the most insipid in the history of rock and roll. Well, there is some competition, I suppose, for that title. Among the contenders:

"Ob-la-di, ob-la-da
Life goes on, bra
La-la, how the life goes on
Ob-la-di, ob-la-da
Life goes on, bra
La-la, how the life goes on"

And the melodies? A-C-E, A-C-E, A-C-E, A-C-E-G for the chorus. D-D-D-D-D-D-C-B-A-B, all quarter notes until a half to finish the "idea."
 
grimes70 said:
I saw that show in Dorton Arena in Raleigh but a year? later. Crappiest acoustics ever in there.

Max cut in front of me.:p
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yea i wanted to see the Stones but i was too young. But 5 years later in Greensboro Tour of America i saw them for the 1st of 6 shows. Back then festival seating. I was front row up against the plywood that they had around the stage. 1st tour with Ronnie and Billy Preston on keyboard. It's Only Rock N Roll but i like it.
 
an0maly said:
I play some instruments (for fun) and take music seriously, though that phrase implies less pure enjoyment than analysis, it's really not the case for me. I get extremely strong dopamine hits from simple meledic "hooks"--as they are called--and stronger and deeper emotional involvement also with complexity and challenges to melodic expectations. For me, popular music has gone wrong (not really talking any specific time frame here) when it only meets simplistic expectations, as I think the key to how music rewards is both expectation and surprise. This problem has advanced over time and created a lot of listeners who have developed a kind of culturally induced musical agnosia. They don't seem to even hear music with a lot of different notes, chords and time signature changes as music at all. Rick Beato and others have examined this, and I hope the pendulum swing of cultural shifts moves back the other way again in time.

Anyway, back to what this combination of what I like emerges into, is that my favorite popular music artists are The Beatles and Rush. What elevates them is the combination of creativity, musical skills, and a large collection of great songs. There are many other artists I like a great deal but they do not seem on the same level in all of those qualities combined to me. Other than that I most favor classical music with a heavy lean towards Romantic and Modern Classical music. Favorite symphonic pieces are Beethoven's 9th, Rachmaninov's "Symphonic Dances," and Richard Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (quoted in my favorite film, 2001: A Space Odyssey").

To offer something if anyone has an interest, I will just pick a favorite Rush song, one with a surface of grand musical hooks and as always with them, beneath that extreme complexity in foundations of rhythm and underlying harmonic motifs, and meaningful symbolic lyrics, these about a good and and meaningful life as analogous to running a marathon.

It's not how fast you can go
The force goes into the flow
If you pick up the beat
You can forget about the heat
More than just survival
More than just a flash
More than just a dotted line
More than just a dash
It's a test of ultimate will
The heartbreak climb uphill
Got to pick up the pace
If you want to stay in the race
More than blind ambition
More than simple greed
More than just a finish line
Must feed this burning need
In the long run
From first to last
The peak is never passed
Something always fires the light
That gets in your eyes
One moment's high
And glory rolls on by
Like a streak of lightning
That flashes and fades
In the summer sky
Your meters may overload
You can rest at the side of the road
You can miss a stride
But nobody gets a free ride
More than high performance
More than just a spark
More than just the bottom line
Or a lucky shot in the dark
In the long run
~
You can do a lot in a lifetime
If you don't burn out too fast
You can make the most of the distance
First you need endurance
First you've got to last

This should be experienced on the best system you can find:

Click to expand...

Excellent observations. Kudos. Special props for references to Beatles, Beato, and Classical music... and also pointing out what should be the obvious fact (perhaps not obvious enough to a lot of people) that "popular music has gone wrong." Period.
 
superrific said:
WTF is Rick Beato? Also, if you're complaining about simplistic music, how can you like the Beatles so much? Nobody did simple and low expectation better than them. They didn't even bother to write real lyrics for a bunch of their songs. I mean, what exactly is this?

"Here comes the sun, doo-doo-doo-doo
Here comes the sun, and I say
It's alright
Little darlin', it's been a long, cold, lonely winter
Little darlin', it feels like years since it's been here."

I would argue that these lyrics are among the most insipid in the history of rock and roll. Well, there is some competition, I suppose, for that title. Among the contenders:

"Ob-la-di, ob-la-da
Life goes on, bra
La-la, how the life goes on
Ob-la-di, ob-la-da
Life goes on, bra
La-la, how the life goes on"

And the melodies? A-C-E, A-C-E, A-C-E, A-C-E-G for the chorus. D-D-D-D-D-D-C-B-A-B, all quarter notes until a half to finish the "idea."
Click to expand...
Great. A Beatles basher. Stay in your lane Super. Your opinion on music has been weighed, measured and found wanting. What instrument do you play? Do you sing? Any credentials at all? Talking about writing lyrics and such... casting aspersions on chord progressions... Tell us: What's the function of an Ebm7b5 chord in the key of Dbm? Also, what would be suitable chord substitutions for that Ebm7b5? In other words, what other "names" can one assign to that inversion?

Now, everyone has their opinions and entitled to same. However, some opinions weigh more heavily than others when critiquing something of which you are considered an expert or a novice.

And for what it's worth, "Here Comes the Sun" is one of the most streamed songs on Spotify, hit more than 1 billion plays over a year ago. A timeless and universally appealing song. But we can agree that it may or may not be everyone's cuppa tea. Personally, I perform close to 100 shows per year. Some are full band jazz shows, some are just duo or trio wine bar gigs. And several are solo spots. I always open my solo gigs with Here Comes the Sun. And it always gets a positive response amongst young and old listeners.

All that said, your opinion is just that: your opinion. But it's validity is just about 0.001 in a discussion amongst real musicians.
 
ZenMode said:
My two favorite alternative/rock bands to binge are Foo Fighters and Catherine Wheel. Most everyone has heard of Foo. Few have heard of Catherine Wheel.







Click to expand...

I still have Ferment and Chrome on cd from my college days. Great band.
 
Centerpiece said:
Great. A Beatles basher. Stay in your lane Super. Your opinion on music has been weighed, measured and found wanting. What instrument do you play? Do you sing? Any credentials at all? Talking about writing lyrics and such... casting aspersions on chord progressions... Tell us: What's the function of an Ebm7b5 chord in the key of Dbm? Also, what would be suitable chord substitutions for that Ebm7b5? In other words, what other "names" can one assign to that inversion?

Now, everyone has their opinions and entitled to same. However, some opinions weigh more heavily than others when critiquing something of which you are considered an expert or a novice.

And for what it's worth, "Here Comes the Sun" is one of the most streamed songs on Spotify, hit more than 1 billion plays over a year ago. A timeless and universally appealing song. But we can agree that it may or may not be everyone's cuppa tea. Personally, I perform close to 100 shows per year. Some are full band jazz shows, some are just duo or trio wine bar gigs. And several are solo spots. I always open my solo gigs with Here Comes the Sun. And it always gets a positive response amongst young and old listeners.

All that said, your opinion is just that: your opinion. But it's validity is just about 0.001 in a discussion amongst real musicians.
Click to expand...
1. The ability to play music does not imply the ability to assess music; if it did, then hair metal would not exist. Nor does the relationship work the other way around. Now, if you want to tell me that I cannot assess the difficulty of playing a certain set of notes on an upright bass, I will not argue with you about that. It's true.

2. WTF does D-minor have to do with the Beatles? 95% of their songs are written in a major key.

3. Popularity is not the same as quality. In fact, in pop music, there is usually an inverse relationship. What you say about Here Comes The Sun reinforces my point. People of all ages like it. . . . because it demands nothing of the listener. It is just sugar dissolved in water. People generally don't want complexity in their popular music. Fine. I have certain philosophical views on that issue, and we don't need to get into them now.

My point was that it's mind-boggling to 1) talk about how simplistic popular music is today and 2) laud the Beatles as great artists. The Beatles fucking invented simplistic formulaic bullshit. In the late 50s and early 60s, America was grooving to Chuck Berry, Elvis, surf rock and some occasional Latin music (e.g. La Bamba). Heck, even Take Five charted. Then the Beatles show up with their "Love Love Me Do" crap -- no soul, no heart, and certainly no complexity. We are talking about a band whose drummer could be profitably replaced by a metronome!

I'm not a big Grateful Dead fan, but I can appreciate that the Dead had serious game. Dead >> Beatles, in virtually every way. I don't really care for surf rock but Dick Dale literally melted guitar picks when he played. The Beatles had a few songs where they broke out of the tired formula, mostly on unreleased songs (which is fine!). Credit where it's due. But for the most part, the Beatles were and are popular because they were and are safe. And if you like that, it's fine but it's comical to hear people slamming on other bands as too simple.
 
an0maly said:
I play some instruments (for fun) and take music seriously, though that phrase implies less pure enjoyment than analysis, it's really not the case for me. I get extremely strong dopamine hits from simple meledic "hooks"--as they are called--and stronger and deeper emotional involvement also with complexity and challenges to melodic expectations. For me, popular music has gone wrong (not really talking any specific time frame here) when it only meets simplistic expectations, as I think the key to how music rewards is both expectation and surprise. This problem has advanced over time and created a lot of listeners who have developed a kind of culturally induced musical agnosia. They don't seem to even hear music with a lot of different notes, chords and time signature changes as music at all. Rick Beato and others have examined this, and I hope the pendulum swing of cultural shifts moves back the other way again in time.

Anyway, back to what this combination of what I like emerges into, is that my favorite popular music artists are The Beatles and Rush. What elevates them is the combination of creativity, musical skills, and a large collection of great songs. There are many other artists I like a great deal but they do not seem on the same level in all of those qualities combined to me. Other than that I most favor classical music with a heavy lean towards Romantic and Modern Classical music. Favorite symphonic pieces are Beethoven's 9th, Rachmaninov's "Symphonic Dances," and Richard Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (quoted in my favorite film, 2001: A Space Odyssey").

To offer something if anyone has an interest, I will just pick a favorite Rush song, one with a surface of grand musical hooks and as always with them, beneath that extreme complexity in foundations of rhythm and underlying harmonic motifs, and meaningful symbolic lyrics, these about a good and and meaningful life as analogous to running a marathon.

It's not how fast you can go
The force goes into the flow
If you pick up the beat
You can forget about the heat
More than just survival
More than just a flash
More than just a dotted line
More than just a dash
It's a test of ultimate will
The heartbreak climb uphill
Got to pick up the pace
If you want to stay in the race
More than blind ambition
More than simple greed
More than just a finish line
Must feed this burning need
In the long run
From first to last
The peak is never passed
Something always fires the light
That gets in your eyes
One moment's high
And glory rolls on by
Like a streak of lightning
That flashes and fades
In the summer sky
Your meters may overload
You can rest at the side of the road
You can miss a stride
But nobody gets a free ride
More than high performance
More than just a spark
More than just the bottom line
Or a lucky shot in the dark
In the long run
~
You can do a lot in a lifetime
If you don't burn out too fast
You can make the most of the distance
First you need endurance
First you've got to last

This should be experienced on the best system you can find:

Click to expand...

Great post. Love RUSH and so grateful I got to see them one more time a few years back before Neil's passing. Also a big fan of Rick Beato's YouTube channel. Lots of good content on there and really appreciate the way he breaks down subtle elements of music to highlight the special genius of certain songs artists and songs.
 
Croatoan said:


The best argument against those that don’t like, at least a little, country music.
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Love Gary Stewart! Out of Hand may be my favorite. Also been listening to a lot of Willie lately - Red Headed Stranger album in particular. Recently stumbled into some old YouTube clips of Willie and Buffett playing together in the early 70s. Just great stuff.
 
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