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Post by karosko on Feb 28, 2011 18:02:30 GMT -5
Great call on Oh, Inverted World. One of the finest albums of the 2000s.
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Post by karosko on Feb 28, 2011 18:06:06 GMT -5
Yes, yes, yes on London Calling. Top 5 Album ever for me.
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Post by karosko on Feb 28, 2011 18:26:40 GMT -5
I constantly find it puzzling what this social group defines as "pop". Perhaps it is the generational difference, or maybe there was a huge disparity in the music that was readily available or common or truly "popular" in your areas of the country. The Shins would NEVER be considered pop where I came from, and definitely not Gorillaz. Mind you, I spent the majority of my life in an area of the country where all but three radio channels were country, and two of the remaining were hair band channels. The only place in a 40 mile radius that one could buy music was KMart or the now defunct Musicland, we didn't have MTV, we were too poor to be very mobile and the internet wasn't wide-spread. Even today, in my hometown, The Shins are virtually unknown. In fact, listening to the music of the 90's that I noted as being an impact (Nirvana, STP, RHCP, Smashing Pumpkins etc), made me a TOTAL weirdo at the time. I heard Nirvana in some rich, progressive hippie's windowless music listening room in the country. I was wide-eyed and amazed because it wasn't Poison or Garth Brooks. I fear some music ends up disregarded as frivolous "pop" by current generations as they take it for granted because it has existed since the genesis of their musical awakenings, or the wide availability of alternative musical genres due to the internet has skewed the understanding of "pop". At any rate, I find the different perspective to be interesting. And I think that all of us, and all artists, are lucky to have the internet widely available. We've all benefited so much. I could still be rocking out RHCP thinking they were the creme de la creme of "obscure" music. You're onto something; I think all music that is popular or en vogue these days has some kind of experimental bent. I believe this is due in large part to the fact that so much music is more available to so many people than ever before--literally, there are millions of albums at your fingertips anytime you log on to the internet, and you can hear any album you read about or are curious about with one click of the mouse. This has lead to people becoming more familiar with certain musical sounds, styles, or ideas a lot quicker. In this day and age, musicians who are truly concerned with art have to experiment simply to stay relevant as artists. When you get a contemporary artist like The Shins, who make comparatively simple (and let me stress that I do NOT use simple as an insult here by any stretch of the imagination) music built around guitars and major chords (it sounds like it could be a great 60s record), it is seen more as being willfully simple--simple as an artistic choice, not simple because of certain limitations that force them to make simple music. When music is made in this fashion these days, people tend to label it pop, because it is in stark contrast to the tendency towards experimentalism previously mentioned. It's simulatenously easy and difficult to understand the tag, which just serves to underline, as cheeky pointed out, the paradox of genre tags. They can't explain the whole story. And I actually come from a similar background to you. I didn't know who The Strokes were until I was 19 and a half years old. Is This It (along with Elephant and Oh, Inverted World) was one of the first albums that opened my eyes to the possibilities that existed out there--it helped me realize not only that there was music out there different than the garbage I got on the radio growing up on military bases, but also that there were different choices for me in life than remaining in crappy smalltowns overrun by Marines. This new music I was listening to, music which was entirely foreign to the world I grew up in, helped me realize there were different worlds out there for me to explore, more out there for me to experience than what was at home. In short, my music exploration (starting when I was 19/20 years old) was entirely necessarily to the life I lead today. Also, The Basement Tapes helped me realize the power of collaboration. Rain Dogs helped me realize how poetic music could be.
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Post by sprout the creator on Feb 28, 2011 23:56:33 GMT -5
Wow. Completely being serious when I say great post.
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Post by Zapp Brannigan on Mar 1, 2011 2:23:53 GMT -5
Word. What karosko said. I guess that's what it really comes down to. The Shins were more poppy, in my eyes, than the stuff I was really into at the time, so it kind of took me out of my element. I didn't mean to imply Gorillaz is pop, that paragraph was worded strangely on my part.
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Post by cheeky on Mar 1, 2011 18:43:51 GMT -5
Kyle, it is so hard for me to even begin to believe you've only really been exploring music in the past 3-4 years. You're so incredibly well-versed.
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Post by karosko on Mar 1, 2011 20:32:00 GMT -5
Kyle, it is so hard for me to even begin to believe you've only really been exploring music in the past 3-4 years. You're so incredibly well-versed. Why, thank you for the kind words, my dear. But, truth be told, you guys know a lot more about music than I do
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Post by sprout the creator on Mar 1, 2011 22:44:32 GMT -5
Kyle, it is so hard for me to even begin to believe you've only really been exploring music in the past 3-4 years. You're so incredibly well-versed. Why, thank you for the kind words, my dear. But, truth be told, you guys, except for sang, know a lot more about music than I do Yeah I'm in the same place. I feel like there's just so much new stuff to listen to every day.
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Post by Airline on Mar 5, 2011 15:18:22 GMT -5
The thing that separates The Shins from being simple is the melodies. If you gave 1,000 songwriters the same chords as most any Shins song they would not come up with the written melodies he uses.
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