191–200 of 312 posts
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I mean that it is a shared obsession that can intensify our better and worse natures, but the worse outweighs the better.
FWIW a couple of the absolute worst periods has been under decidedly atheist regimes (Communist Russia etc + French revolution). Then again I think atheism is a religion too.
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"If anything labels are more important than ever and music sales are driven by the kind of marketing campaigns that only big records labels can afford." That's what record companies would like you to think. Counter-example, Milk Records, Melbourne. It's might be a record company but it looks so much like a startup. - http://messandnoise.com/features/4666617 - http://diymag.com/2015/03/23/courtney-barnett-its-like-tur…
I've been traveling all over the world and all I hear everywhere I go is crap American top 40 pop music. Like I said there's a ton of interesting stuff going on outside their purview but they control the conversation right now.
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>I never heard anything from West that was worth being arrogant that what I meant I think you're getting caught up in marketing. While you're not the target it still effects you and how you enjoy music. I've started to ignore what artists say or do and it's really allowed me to appreciate a lot more music because I can just enjoy it for what it is instead of thinking about the image they're trying to sell.
Fair point. But in West's case, it's not even marketing, his running into Swift to rage about Knowles award loss was him entirely. Unless it was his PR team that gave him the idea. I'll keep your idea in mind though.
Since I never liked Bowie I spent 60 min listening to him today, in a try-again attempt. No luck. RIP.
> 1) Each week we pick a guest
> 2) We give the guest a critically acclaimed album they've never listened to.
> 3) The guest explains why they've never listened to it, laying out any potential prejudice in advance. i.e. "I've never liked the cut of Pink Floyd's jib" or "Mark E Smith frightens me".
> 4) The guest has to listen to the album at least three times, this acclaimed album that they've never bothered listening to, and then tell us whether it was worth it or not.
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Me too, on July 2 1990 in New Brunswick. I won't ever forget it not just because Bowie was awesome but because a woman that climbed on stage to grab Bowie's arse leapt over the barriers and landed on my girlfriend, knocking her out. I had to lift Em over the barrier so the roadies could take her off to get medical treatment and I spent the rest of the concert trying to find her. Poor Em was a bit stunned by the blow…
What became of Em?
She and I dated for a few more months but kinda drifted apart as teenagers do, though we're still keep in touch. That's always a fun memory to relive.
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"If anything labels are more important than ever and music sales are driven by the kind of marketing campaigns that only big records labels can afford." That's what record companies would like you to think. Counter-example, Milk Records, Melbourne. It's might be a record company but it looks so much like a startup. - http://messandnoise.com/features/4666617 - http://diymag.com/2015/03/23/courtney-barnett-its-like-tur…
I've been traveling all over the world and all I hear everywhere I go is crap American top 40 pop music. Like I said there's a ton of interesting stuff going on outside their purview but they control the conversation right now.
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I think Bowie was the antithesis of this. If you'll forgive the hyperbole, he is the archetypal outsider, the patron saint of the dispossessed. So for all those who don't feel that they belong, Bowie's activities provided a message - 'It's OK to be an outsider', and, curiously, through that message provided a sense of belonging - I'm going to get all metaphysical and say that that is alchemical / transformative in a…
Bowie may have been an outsider, but consider that your exact feelings are social, those feelings of belonging and connection to an icon. The music industry is just as adept at monetizing those feelings as they are of monetizing teen-age angst or adolescent her-worship of boy bands. My point being, that while Bowie and many others can stand outside of the industry, I don’t believe the basic dynamics are going to chan…
I'm not actually a big fan of Bowie, I'm a bit too young, but it's something I'm observing. I'm also aware that those feelings of alienation are keenest for teenagers and that the music industry exploits that. However, whilst the music machine exploits the latest pop star - if you were to compare and contrast say, Justin Bieber or Taylor Swift with Bowie, then there is a difference in what they symbolise for the fan, and, whilst the outcome of a sense of belonging is effected in both instances, Bieber / Swift do not represent the outsider, they are just more grist for the mill.
ps. if you start humming "ice ice baby", thats ok too I guess :D
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The "50s to the 90s"--which is so laughably general, that's four generations of music, if not more--had The Beatles and David Bowie and it also had The Monkees and Men Without Hats. We have the artists who it's funny to make fun of, like Bieber, and we have Jack White, we have Kanye West, we have Radiohead--and we had David Bowie, he's a modern artist today , have you listened to Blackstar, which openly tips its cap…
> we have Kanye West For what it's worth Kanye West is still regarded like a sort of a joke in most of Europe, at least for people like me, who are over 30. > and we have Jack White At first I said to myself "who's that?", then I saw that he used to sing for the White Stripes. It's a so-and-so band, at least one of their songs got pretty popular among the football ultras, as did the Pet Shop Boys' "Go West!" back in…