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Re: celebrity culture

Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 7:20 am
by dsmg
Avon, you say that George Michael made truly awful music.
Rather subjective I feel. He sold more than 100,000,000 records and is ranked 40th on the all time greats. Not on your list maybe but there again maybe you prefer Motorhead, Englebert Humperdink, Bob Marley, Susan Boyle or Mozart. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Re: celebrity culture

Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 8:44 pm
by rockfreak
dsmg wrote:Avon, you say that George Michael made truly awful music.
Rather subjective I feel. He sold more than 100,000,000 records and is ranked 40th on the all time greats. Not on your list maybe but there again maybe you prefer Motorhead, Englebert Humperdink, Bob Marley, Susan Boyle or Mozart. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I'd say that Bob Marley and Mozart certainly made better music, but then of course these things are rather subjective, as we're seeing.

Re: celebrity culture

Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 10:41 pm
by sejintenej
rockfreak wrote: I'd say that Bob Marley and Mozart certainly made better music, but then of course these things are rather subjective, as we're seeing.
It's too bad that people try to block music. George Martin wrote Pepperland as part of Yellow Submarine - good tune now blocked by UMG_MK whomever they may be.
Roberto de Recife took this tune and arranged it as one of the two theme tunes for a soap called Pantanal - even better than the original (which they acknowledge as being the basis) which is also blocked. The other theme tune Sagrado Coração da Terra is almost as good.
Apart from themes from Pantanal I like some Italian (l'Italiano for example), as well as old waltz music, Khachaturian, Albinoni, Kettelbey, Rachmaninoff, Santana, Johnny A - a right mix which depend on my mood and what I am trying to do at the time

Re: celebrity culture

Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2017 2:40 pm
by J.R.
You mentioned George Martin, (later Sir George), David.

Many moons ago, The Cricketers pub in Dorking was my local watering hole. Almost next door was Strawberry (recording( Studios owned by the band 10cc.

George used the studios regularly and popped into the saloon bar of the pub on occasion. A true gentleman who had the time to talk to anyone.

Re: celebrity culture

Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2017 7:24 pm
by Avon
dsmg wrote:Avon, you say that George Michael made truly awful music.
Rather subjective I feel. He sold more than 100,000,000 records and is ranked 40th on the all time greats. Not on your list maybe but there again maybe you prefer Motorhead, Englebert Humperdink, Bob Marley, Susan Boyle or Mozart. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
No. He and his ilk are the result of a sophisticated but cynical mechanism that chose and manipulated what you heard and therefore what you liked. Only the ubiquity of the internet has challenged that. So GM is popular because, although blessed with talent, his popularity was artificially amplified in an age where record companies bought and pulped vinyl to boost their own acts.

It feels somewhat churlish to observe this about someone so philanthropic and downright nice, but he was lyrically and musically average; over produced and saccharine.

Re: celebrity culture

Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2017 9:10 pm
by rockfreak
Going back to the very start of this thread, Chuck Berry certainly got the big media treatment when he died, including TV concert footage. When Dr Scuffil and I were at school rock 'n' roll was denigrated by the authorities at school and elsewhere, partly perhaps because it was just so wild and partly, I suspect, because it was heavily influenced by black American music. More than once I heard it referred to as jungle music. Even the rock singers sometimes felt it necessary to express admiration for Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee on their album sleeves (great artists both but ploughing a different furrow). When I was in Col B in 1955/56 we had a house captain called Oxlade whose mission appeared to be the promotion of higher art forms. Top table had a wind-up gramophone and a collection of Bill Haley and Little Richard shellac singles. I was in Oxlade's study being lectured for something or other and he was just congratulating himself on having restored peace and harmony to the dayroom when the deafening strains of "Awopbopaloobaawopbamboom!" burst out.