Never understood the appeal of Tom Waits. 1/10.
Always reminds me of the Bowzer levels of Super Mario Brothers.
P.S. Van Der Graf Generator is awesome. Prog forever.
Never understood the appeal of Tom Waits. 1/10.
Always reminds me of the Bowzer levels of Super Mario Brothers.
P.S. Van Der Graf Generator is awesome. Prog forever.
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi
It's the classical-stuff-that-ELP-covered thread! Which, to be fair to Keith Emerson, comprised most of my education in classical music.
I always thought it was 'Bear Mountain'. So it's 'Bare Mountain'?
Anyway, not bad at all. 7/10
While we're around there, this is one of my favourite melodies in any genre.
I don't know. On the Mussorgsky album I have, it's titled "Night on Bare Mountain." Everywhere else I've seen it, it's titled "Night on Bald Mountain."
As to your song, a little slow and saft for my tastes, but still enjoyable. 7/10.
Continuing with my ELP cover theme.
Emerson, Lake and Palmer are at once both a testament to the commercial and artistic possibilities of progressive rock, and a salutary reminder as to why it is, when all is said and done, largely a waste of time. 6/10.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLFLrTnue9s
'Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.' - Groucho Marx
It's an interesting observation, and worth a bit of exploration.
The late John Peel - who, as non-Brits may not not know, was the most respected DJ on the BBC, and who provided a route to the airwaves for just about every emergent genre of popular music from the late Sixties to the Nineties - once mused that he'd been mistaken about what would be remembered.
"I thought that the progressive stuff would be the legacy - ELP, Genesis, Yes - but it turned out that what really stayed with people was Build Me Up Buttercup."
(I'm paraphrasing - I can't find the actual quote.)
He wasn't bitter or defensive about it - he was simply admitting to having backed the wrong horse.
But actually, he wasn't as wrong as he thought. People do still listen to the prog stuff from the Seventies (especially in America), and it's not just fifty-somethings harking back to their youth. 'Progressive' music is as much part of the canon as Motown and bubblegum and Britpop.
And that's all it is. What prog failed to do was change everything. Foxtrot didn't represent an evolutionary advance from Sgt Pepper, from which there was no turning back. It was a new branch - just another limb of a tree that kept growing in every direction at once.
George Martin said that the great shame about the Beatles splitting up was that they were on the verge of developing a completely new format for pop music - one that transcended the three-minute song. You can see his point. While prog adopted the forms - and quite often the content - of classical music, or attempted to address themes more usually associated with 'serious' art, the second side of Abbey Road represented an innovative exploration of what pop music could do that was firmly rooted in what it had done up to then. That, had it been pursued, might have changed everything in a way that prog failed to.
So I don't think that prog rock is largely a waste of time - or, at least, no more of a waste of time than jazz-rock or Stax - but I do think that it sets itself up for a quite pointed form of hubris, because its aspires to something more than merely being a sub-genre of pop music. If one regards it in the same light as any other sub-genre, then - predictably - there's good stuff and bad stuff. One picks and chooses, and then launches oneself into exactly the kind of arguments for and against that this thread's set up to provoke.
Having said that, sixsmith, my taste in music and yours seem to coincide most of the time, so I consider it my sacred duty to put you right about the intermittent genius of Paul Simon. So - 7/10 for Springsteen, and here's the crooning gnome doing his bit for zydeco.
Last edited by MarkBastable; 02-25-2011 at 07:35 AM.
Bravo, Mark! I was just going to say that if prog was a waste of time, so were almost every other genre of music that isn't popular in the main stream. You did a much better job defending the greatness of (good) prog.
As to the your song: I really like Paul Simon. Just not that particular song so much. 4/10.
"Promenade" of Pictures at an Exhibition. Right now, this is my favorite piece of classical music. So great.
Bump. This is, in my useless opinion, the best forum game here, so I'm selfishly bumping it (and, please, don't let my petulance at criticism of my songs stop you from doing so...though I'd think the likelihood of that wouldn't be huge with Pictures at an Exhibition).
Good 7/10
Mark's mention of John Peel in the post above reminded me of Peel's favourite song by The Undertones - a simple song with a good raw sound. I always thought Feargal Sharkey was unhealthily skeletal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oskM5XD_Yc4
Alright, but I'm not crazy over it 6/10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0JSZu4t388
Edit: Sorry if you haven't seen the opera, but yes Dido dies at the end.
Last edited by OrphanPip; 02-26-2011 at 09:01 PM.
"If the national mental illness of the United States is megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia."
- Margaret Atwood
Yes, I'd have given it 6 too. I don't like opera - call me uncultured - I've been called worse - but I don't like the singing. Technically it must be good, but I don't find the technicality does anything for my ears.
3/10
Now what to follow it with?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOO8-Jp-xsg
It's not my favourite Beatles' song, partly for the crazy video 9/10.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgPqmRNjoTE
"If the national mental illness of the United States is megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia."
- Margaret Atwood
I don't think Ringo gets enough credit for the delightfully whimsical nature of the songs he contributed. Loved the video! 8/10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgDXy5kTokQ
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its' own reason for existing." ~ Albert Einstein
"Remember, no matter where you go, there you are." Buckaroo Bonzai "Some people say I done alright for a girl." Melanie Safka
8/10 because it The Beatles, but not one of my favorites--I prefer the "serious" songs over the "light-hearted."
Arguably the first true heavy metal song ever composed. (You may be surprised.)
Not surprised, mostly because I've heard every Beatles song, I wouldn't call it metal though, it's hard-rock and pretty heavily influenced by The Who. 7/10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJIqnXTqg8I
"If the national mental illness of the United States is megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia."
- Margaret Atwood
I like it, especially the instrumentals. 7/10, probably eight if I were in the right mood.
This one comes to you from Turkey:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4WIkRD5Bpw
__________________
"Personal note: When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once when I was six, I did. At first the brightness was overwhelming, but I had seen that before. I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink, and then the brightness began to dissolve. My pupils shrunk to pinholes and everything came into focus and for a moment I understood. The doctors didn't know if my eyes would ever heal."
-Pi
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
