Hello Gentle Reader
Does music have charms? (Or should that, more properly, be "doth music have charms?". Fear not, I'm not going turn all Shakespearian. Well, no more than usual...). The reason I ask is that writing "music hath charms" is something of a sweeping statement (not that I'm not guilty of those from time to time...), and it's not entirely true. Ok, some music certainly has 'charms', but can we say the same about, say, "Anarchy In The UK"? Not exactly relaxing is it? Or how about "Smack My Bitch Up" (which seems to be the only lyric in the whole bloody 'song') by The Prodigy? Very edifying, I don't think. And as for the rave 'music' of the early 90s... (If you're going to write songs about drugs is it so hard to make them interesting? The Beatles gave us ""Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds", Rush gave us "A Passage To Bangkok" and the rave-mongers gave us "Aceeeeed!" Wow, that must've taken many hours of concentrated thought...)
Anyway the the point of my rambling - and there is a point - is that not all music is of equal quality. Much of the 'pop' music (which I'm sure is so named not because it's popular, but because 'pop' is the sound of its fans' brains imploding) of today is meaningless crap. And that's me being charitable. Some of the most egregious offenders in this regard are the cohort of pop princesses that the music industry inflicts upon us. Let's look at an example, that virtue-signalling hypocrite who promised to leave the US if Trump won, but who's yet to make good on that (and I'm not holding my breath): Miley Cyrus. An artist so shallow that the depth of her material can't even be measured in fractions of nano-metres. I mean, consider this from her song "Younger Now":
What goes up must come down
What goes up must come down
What goes up must come down
What goes up must come down (yeah)
No one stays the same (oh oh)
You know what goes comes back around (oh oh)
Change is a thing you can count on (oh oh)
I feel so much younger now (oh oh)
And you know what? I suspect Cyrus didn't even write this herself, it was likely the creation of a team (yes, a frigging team) of songwriters. Either way it demonstrates that Cyrus' critical faculties are, shall we say, limited. I mean, would you, Gentle Reader, want your name associated with such utter cack?
The thing is, it wasn't always thus with pop music. There used to be quality and depth in pop; not everywhere, but was easier to find than it is now. Consider: yes, The Beatles gave us fluff like "Love Me Do", but they also wrote "Eleanor Rigby" and "Yesterday". Simon & Garfunkel gave us "The Sound Of Silence", "The Boxer" and "Bridge Over Troubled Water", to name but a few. Heck, even fairly recently you could find pop songs that actually meant something, for example "Stop The Cavalry" by Jonah Louie, or "Hey Matthew" by Karel Fialka (now there's a forgotten gem). These days if you want depth you have to look elsewhere than pop. I'd recommend prog (but I would say that wouldn't I?) or folk, or singer-songwriters (Tori Amos, Sarah McLachlan, PJ Harvey, Beth Orton et al). And so I'll leave you with a couple of songs that have real depth. These are meant to listened to, they're not intended to be aural wallpaper while you get yourself tarted up for a night out swilling Lambrini or WKD with your mates.
Bashee-playing magician sitting lotus on the floor
A belly-dancing beauty with a power-driven saw
Had my share of nightmares, didn't think there could be much more
Then in walked Roderick Usher with the Lady Eleanor
She tied my eyes with a ribbon of a silken ghostly thread
I gazed with troubled vision on an old four-poster bed
Where Eleanor had risen to kiss the neck below my head
And bid me come along with her to the land of the dancing dead
"Lady Eleanor" - Lindisfarne
And now for something a little more recent.
She knows what it means to be Evergreen
She's seen more than some eyes would ever see
Clad with green, gracefully, she reaches for the winter sun
The lucky one
Spring leaves learning look to the Evergreen
Carried on the breeze her tales of snow storms and icicles
With proud yarn she will spin her golden memories into stories
She looks to the sky
Holding on to yesterday's goodbyes
She know what it means to be Evergreen
She knows how it feels to have loved and lost
She's seen faces change all around her, and move on
She'll miss hearing wind through now fallen leaves
She'll stand scraping snow-filled skies alone
Questions, if could be asked, would left unanswered
She looks to the sky
Holding on to yesterday's goodbyes
Embrace the past
With a forward motion
No fear of looking back
"Evergreen" - Mostly Autumn
If you're not familiar with Mostly Autumn I'd recommend you check them out - plenty on YouTube. They've been described by 'Whispering' Bob Harris (or was it Steve Hackett?) as "the best band you've never heard of".
Well, that's about it. Just a word or warning: stay away from that Miley Cyrus / Taylor Swift / Ariana Grande / et al. After all, you're not a nine year old. And if you are what in the name of all that's unholy are you doing reading a blog written by an angry old bugger? Shouldn't you be spending your time on Instagram with the other children?
Chin chin.
Does music have charms? (Or should that, more properly, be "doth music have charms?". Fear not, I'm not going turn all Shakespearian. Well, no more than usual...). The reason I ask is that writing "music hath charms" is something of a sweeping statement (not that I'm not guilty of those from time to time...), and it's not entirely true. Ok, some music certainly has 'charms', but can we say the same about, say, "Anarchy In The UK"? Not exactly relaxing is it? Or how about "Smack My Bitch Up" (which seems to be the only lyric in the whole bloody 'song') by The Prodigy? Very edifying, I don't think. And as for the rave 'music' of the early 90s... (If you're going to write songs about drugs is it so hard to make them interesting? The Beatles gave us ""Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds", Rush gave us "A Passage To Bangkok" and the rave-mongers gave us "Aceeeeed!" Wow, that must've taken many hours of concentrated thought...)
Anyway the the point of my rambling - and there is a point - is that not all music is of equal quality. Much of the 'pop' music (which I'm sure is so named not because it's popular, but because 'pop' is the sound of its fans' brains imploding) of today is meaningless crap. And that's me being charitable. Some of the most egregious offenders in this regard are the cohort of pop princesses that the music industry inflicts upon us. Let's look at an example, that virtue-signalling hypocrite who promised to leave the US if Trump won, but who's yet to make good on that (and I'm not holding my breath): Miley Cyrus. An artist so shallow that the depth of her material can't even be measured in fractions of nano-metres. I mean, consider this from her song "Younger Now":
What goes up must come down
What goes up must come down
What goes up must come down
What goes up must come down (yeah)
No one stays the same (oh oh)
You know what goes comes back around (oh oh)
Change is a thing you can count on (oh oh)
I feel so much younger now (oh oh)
And you know what? I suspect Cyrus didn't even write this herself, it was likely the creation of a team (yes, a frigging team) of songwriters. Either way it demonstrates that Cyrus' critical faculties are, shall we say, limited. I mean, would you, Gentle Reader, want your name associated with such utter cack?
The thing is, it wasn't always thus with pop music. There used to be quality and depth in pop; not everywhere, but was easier to find than it is now. Consider: yes, The Beatles gave us fluff like "Love Me Do", but they also wrote "Eleanor Rigby" and "Yesterday". Simon & Garfunkel gave us "The Sound Of Silence", "The Boxer" and "Bridge Over Troubled Water", to name but a few. Heck, even fairly recently you could find pop songs that actually meant something, for example "Stop The Cavalry" by Jonah Louie, or "Hey Matthew" by Karel Fialka (now there's a forgotten gem). These days if you want depth you have to look elsewhere than pop. I'd recommend prog (but I would say that wouldn't I?) or folk, or singer-songwriters (Tori Amos, Sarah McLachlan, PJ Harvey, Beth Orton et al). And so I'll leave you with a couple of songs that have real depth. These are meant to listened to, they're not intended to be aural wallpaper while you get yourself tarted up for a night out swilling Lambrini or WKD with your mates.
Bashee-playing magician sitting lotus on the floor
A belly-dancing beauty with a power-driven saw
Had my share of nightmares, didn't think there could be much more
Then in walked Roderick Usher with the Lady Eleanor
She tied my eyes with a ribbon of a silken ghostly thread
I gazed with troubled vision on an old four-poster bed
Where Eleanor had risen to kiss the neck below my head
And bid me come along with her to the land of the dancing dead
"Lady Eleanor" - Lindisfarne
And now for something a little more recent.
She knows what it means to be Evergreen
She's seen more than some eyes would ever see
Clad with green, gracefully, she reaches for the winter sun
The lucky one
Spring leaves learning look to the Evergreen
Carried on the breeze her tales of snow storms and icicles
With proud yarn she will spin her golden memories into stories
She looks to the sky
Holding on to yesterday's goodbyes
She know what it means to be Evergreen
She knows how it feels to have loved and lost
She's seen faces change all around her, and move on
She'll miss hearing wind through now fallen leaves
She'll stand scraping snow-filled skies alone
Questions, if could be asked, would left unanswered
She looks to the sky
Holding on to yesterday's goodbyes
Embrace the past
With a forward motion
No fear of looking back
"Evergreen" - Mostly Autumn
If you're not familiar with Mostly Autumn I'd recommend you check them out - plenty on YouTube. They've been described by 'Whispering' Bob Harris (or was it Steve Hackett?) as "the best band you've never heard of".
Well, that's about it. Just a word or warning: stay away from that Miley Cyrus / Taylor Swift / Ariana Grande / et al. After all, you're not a nine year old. And if you are what in the name of all that's unholy are you doing reading a blog written by an angry old bugger? Shouldn't you be spending your time on Instagram with the other children?
Chin chin.
