Sir Elton John find out the Internet is Serious Business

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Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 2:59 am

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007350453,00.html

Saying we should close the Internet because you don't like it? Isn't that a little... selfish?

Anyone, thought someone may enjoy this article. Wink

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 4:51 am

If Elton says we should close it then I don't understand why I can still see this thread!

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 5:22 am

He should just go back to wearing shiney suits and dodgy wigs and eating pies, or whatever he does these days.

He's got far too used to throwing a wobbly and getting his own way whenever he doesn't like something.

Lets all just ingnore the little stroppy madam. Wink

Baiting Guru Joined: 11 May 2004 Posts: 2163

I can't see anything wrong with his ideas. The music sucks these days.
Go Elton!

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 7:43 am

<br>This comes from a man that once rang his agent in London from LA in a strop to ask him what he was going to do to stop it raining! What a pr*ck.

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 7:52 am

Quote:

He claims it is destroying good music

Noone should be allowed to destroy good music than the man himself!

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 8:34 am

Tommo Shanter wrote:

This comes from a man that once rang his agent in London from LA in a strop to ask him what he was going to do to stop it raining! What a pr*ck.

.. What does a strop mean. Similar to ironing ?

Have looked in the dictionary, i have to ask just to make sure Embarassed

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

Here's a counter-example. All without meeting face to face, and I believe, without even talking to each other -

Colin Mutchler uploaded a guitar track: My Life (mp3)
Cora Beth added a violin track to it: My Life Changed (mp3)
Lawrence Cosh-Ishii added a video and Takahiro Miyao added lyrics: My Life Changed Completely (13MB video)

License: Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 9:19 am

Lorenz wrote:

.. What does a strop mean. Similar to ironing ?

I am sorry, I forget that some readers aren't familiar with some of the colloquial and slang English.

If you are bad tempered, and you go into a rage at somebody for no good reason, this is known as "Throwing a strop" or "Going off on a strop" or even "Getting stroppy".

It's basically just being angry for trivial reasons.

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 10:09 am

Older Ozzies will remember Strop as a character played by John Cornell that was Paul Hogan's sidekick in the early days of Hoges' TV career.

He stayed a close personal friend and went on to become Producer of the Crocodile Dundee movie(s).

He was also married to Delvene Delaney - one of my favourite 70's pinup girls Cool

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 11:02 am

Fat man in periwig wrote:

All I can do is write at the piano

Didn't the pianoforte kill off the beautiful clavichord ? Evil or Very Mad

Ban all pianos now!

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 1:01 pm

Quote:

He said: �In the early Seventies there were at least ten albums released every week that were fantastic. Now you�re lucky to find ten albums a year of that quality. And there are more albums released each week now than there were then.�

This is the attitude I don't get anymore, everything was so much better in the past than today. I understand that humans as a whole tend to remember the good stuff over the bad so it does seem that the past was better, but making stupid broad generalizations like this is just retarded. Elton boi needs to go back and actually remember the 70's, but I am sure it is all just a haze for him.

Baiting Guru Joined: 06 May 2004 Posts: 4012

TheGreatOok wrote:

Quote:

He said: �In the early Seventies there were at least ten albums released every week that were fantastic. Now you�re lucky to find ten albums a year of that quality. And there are more albums released each week now than there were then.�

This is the attitude I don't get anymore, everything was so much better in the past than today. I understand that humans as a whole tend to remember the good stuff over the bad so it does seem that the past was better, but making stupid broad generalizations like this is just retarded.

I think this is not retarded, but unfortunately true. It is idiotic to blame the internet for this, but I think it is a fact that in general the quality of today's music is not up to the standards of the time between 1965 and 1975. Elton John may not be the right person to point this out (just listen to some of the atrocious shit he published during the last twenty or so years Shocked

), but that does not make this wrong IMHO.

Cause someone else said it a lot better than I ever could, I will just quote this guy. Sorry for the loooooong quote - just scroll on if you are not really interested. Laughing

The author may exaggerate a bit too much, and he may not appreciate the good stuff that was released after 1975 enough, but I do think he makes a good point:

Quote:

No-one will probably argue with me when I speak of the Sixties as a 'revolutionary' period in popular music, aw, what the heck, in music as it is. The decade brought in a virtually new type of music, and with it, a new type of mentality. Yes, the original beginnings of rock'n'roll go back to the Fifties - after all, it wasn't the Beatles or the Rolling Stones who started rock music: Chuck Berry, Bill Haley and Buddy Holly all came before them. But in the Fifties, rock'n'roll was just a new type of popular music, teenage-oriented dance ditties that were catchy, groovy, and certainly innovative, but also dismissed by the 'serious' public as just a passing fashion trend of appeal exclusively to the dumb hordes of rebellious teens. Nobody could predict Sgt Pepper back in 1956 or 1958.

What the Beatles and their worthy contemporaries and followers, such as the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, the Who, etc., made, was, for the first time in man's history, and I stick to this, build a solid bridge between mass culture and 'serious art'. There had always been 'serious' music in this world as opposed to 'pop' music; it's a serious misconception that 'mass culture' only originated in the 20th century. J. S. Bach as opposed to a boozy street minstrel, or the Confucius- approved musical styles vs. workingman field songs in China, are the direct equivalents to the opposition Stravinsky/Chuck Berry in the Fifties.

The Beatles and Co. broke this stereotype: while the process of their work's 'serious' recognition in the late Sixties and later on has been relatively slow, it has worked. There aren't too many musical points in this world on which lovers of Bach and Tchaikowsky, on one hand, and lovers of Chuck Berry (or the Clash), on the other hand, could agree, and the Beatles happen to be the most important.

(...)

Anyway, like I said, I don't think that too many people will argue with me when I say that the Beatles and Co. provided us with the most important musical revolution in the 20th century or, in fact, with one of the most important musical and cultural revolutions ever. The big problem is: so what? The Beatles are the biggest, right, but where did this revolution lead us? What happened later, and was there anything really serious done in pop music after the Beatles?

To answer that question, one has to ponder upon the tricky question of what is a musical revolution and what are normally its reasons and its consequences. A musical revolution represents an essential turning point that brings in a completely different musical style: not just a new instrument or a new time signature or a new approach to singing, but a certain change in musical conscience. Of course, a musical revolution has nothing to do with political revolutions (at least, not usually), and its very nature is of an entirely different kind: musical revolutions do not happen in a day or a year. Roughly (very roughly) speaking, there have been three important musical revolutions over the course of the last few centuries - the Classical Revolution of the XVIIIth century, the Jazz Revolution of the early 1900's, and the Rock Revolution of the 1960's. The first one established a new type of music - music for the sake of art, music that had to be listened to as a self-estimated value, not devoted entirely to church or festival or other applied necessities. The second one was a crucial point in toppling the old, bearded values of Classical: music was rejuvenating, throwing off the shackles of the obsolete European style and going back into the masses. And the third one was even more important in that it was a blistering, successful attempt at reconciliating everything: old values with new ones, 'elite' with 'working class', and protest audiences with conservatives. Come to think of it, what is rock music? Out of all the known genres, it is probably the hardest to define. If one takes Dylan's 'Mr Tambourine Man', the Clash's debut album, and Yes' Close To The Edge, all of which are normally considered to be 'rock', one can see that such enormous gaps as exist between the three can hardly be found in any other type of music.

In other words, what I'm essentially trying to do here is to demonstrate the complete accordance of this rough musical theory with Hegel's dialectics: Jazz is taken as a backlash to Classical, after which comes Rock and reconciliates all the three. Not bad, eh?

Now the problem is: when and how does a new musical revolution occur? The obvious answer is - when the previous musical genre has exhausted its possibilities. While a certain genre is new and fresh, its supporters are many and its new creations are welcome. But sooner or later, it inevitably dies down - simply because no type of art is limitless. Classical music was given two centuries to flourish, after which it withered down and, let's admit it, died a miserable death. How many important classical composers do we know in the 20th century? One can probably count a handful, but even these won't really be able to compete with masters of the Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin or Tchaikowsky species. And it's no big surprise that the most accepted 'classical' composers of the 20th century were much more 'experimental' or 'avant-garde', rather than purely 'classical', like Stravinsky or Schnitke.

Jazz was given even fewer time: about half a century. Again, jazz is not completely dead today, but who has superated or even come close to Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, etc., etc.? Nobody. Jazz is exhausted as a genre, and today's jazz is an esoteric and almost perverse affair enjoyable only by complete jazzmaniacs.

Why the hell does that happen? People will tell you about the lack of brains, the corruption of our time, the conservatism, the need to grow... rubbish. It all happens simply because the 'pool of ideas' has become shallow. Like I said, nothing is limitless. After all, music is not magic, at least in the process of being composed. Music consists of notes played by people on instruments. The number of notes is limited. The number of instruments is limited. The number of note combinations is huge, but, first of all, not all of these combinations are pleasant to the ear, second, even this number is limited, too. No matter how long you are able to create good music using a given pattern, you won't be able to do it forever - even if you're the greatest genius on Earth.

The fact that jazz became exhausted in much fewer time than classical (and, in my opinion, the fact that rock became exhausted in much fewer time than jazz, though I'm running a bit ahead) does not, of course, mean that jazz is a more limited or 'primitive' genre than Classical. This has a lot to do with human progress in general: much more people were able to compose jazz music in their time than there were, or could have been, classical composers in their time. And, of course, with rock standards, when practically anybody in the world had a chance to form his own band and write his own music without any damn musical education whatsoever, it is only natural that the 'pool of ideas' was exhausted in fifteen or twenty years.

(...)

Which brings me to my final, and decisive point. Rock music is dead. The few interesting bands that are still in circulation today can be fun and entertaining (even if 99% of them can only be found in the Underground), but overall they are mostly conservative - bringing up and fostering the old values of the same Beatles, or Yes, or Mott the Hoople, or the Police, but not coming up with ideas that would be essentially new. The widespread idea that rock is alive and well and the only problem with it is that it needs to be saved from corporate greed and greedy, murky managers that only feel the need to stuff the public with all that brainwashing crap like Alanis Morrisette or Puff Daddy or Marilyn Manson, is a myth. It is a myth created by people who simply do not want to face the obvious: there will never be another Beatles, or another Doors, or another Jethro Tull, in rock music. There will be amusing, entertaining bands that'll go in and come out and be forgotten, but that's not it. Rock is dead. We do need another Beatles - but these new Beatles, if ever they are bound to appear (and I do hope for it, since I'm an optimist), will not be an element of rock music. They will create another type of music - I don't know what's it gonna be called, nor what instruments or harmonies it is bound to exploit, but it's gonna be something different. Something totally different from rock - rock that died, just like jazz and classical died before it. Do not try to deceive yourself and say, 'oh no, you're wrong, it's all the fault of our commercialized and greedy recording industry'. Recording industry was always commercialized and greedy - yet it let out the Beatles. Do you think today's recording industry would miss another Beatles if it saw 'em? They sure could bring even bigger bucks!

Full (and loooong essay here: http://starling.rinet.ru/music/essay1.htm )
Check out the rest of the page as well, this is IMHO the very best website about pop/rock music you can find. http://starling.rinet.ru/music/index.htm

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 2:47 pm

My view, he's tripped up and now we see he is just an angry old man shouting, "Kids and their musics these days!" while shaking his fist.

But what do I know, I hate music.

Yes, ALL music. I don't even know what 'Sir' Elton John plays. Rolling Eyes

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 3:02 pm

That is a real good post Meyer. I am saying that making broad generalizations about things is retarded. It is the same as saying all Nigerians are scammers, which is not true nor is the reverse true that all scammers are Nigerian.

I would also like to say that I agree with his point that if a "new Beatles" is ever found it will be a completely new style of music. Personally, I don't listen to a lot of pop music; I am an underground Punk and Ska man myself. I could not call any music dead though, just because the chords have been done before does not mean you can't be innovative. Look at books, movies, and other stories, technically there are no new stories ever being told. You can trace the main plot of any story to one of several standard story lines. Does this mean nothing innovative can come out of literature too?

I am just saying wait 30 years and see what people will be saying then about music from our time compared to theirs, I am guessing, without some new form of music appearing, it will be the same. Don't get me wrong I think a lot of good bands came from the 70's but to say that is so obviously better than today is just good ol' day syndrome.

@JXD - You are absolutely right, his newest album didn't sell well so it has to be someone else's fault not his.

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 3:17 pm

TheGreatOok wrote:

I could not call any music dead though, just because the chords have been done before does not mean you can't be innovative.

Quite right too. Try telling a band like Muse that you can't do anything with the same old chords and notes. I'm no big fan, but you can't deny that they are innovative. Some of their sounds seem to come from another planet.

TheGreatOok wrote:

I am just saying wait 30 years and see what people will be saying then about music from our time compared to theirs, I am guessing, without some new form of music appearing, it will be the same.

I wholeheartedly agree, I'm old enough to remember and appreciate (and be a fan of) 70's music. But I'm also young enough to appreciate some of the great stuff produced today.

I think the old chubby drama queen is too old to have a listen to young stuff with an untainted ear. He's literally looking at things through his huge rose tinted glasses.

Definately a case of "Better in my day".
I'll be like that myself one day no doubt. But hopefully I'll not be too pampered and spoilt to think I can force my opinion as "Gospel" on everybody.

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 4:21 pm

Quote:

�There�s too much technology available.

Quote:

�I don�t have a mobile phone or an iPod or anything.

�I am such a Luddite when it comes to making music. All I can do is write at the piano.�

So, he says there's too much technology available, although he doesn't use any of it so he's clearly in no position to be making informed opinions, and on the basis of this he's saying no-one else should use the technology he doesn't like?

Sounds like someone's getting grumpy becuase he's not popular anymore.
And the reason that there aren't 10 albums coming out every week that are "fantastic" is probably becuase he doesn't like modern music, whereas he did like music in the 70s.

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

A good number of those fantastic albums in the 70s were his. In 1973 Goodbye Yellow Brick Road led off with Funeral For A Friend and Candle In The Wind. Two iconic tracks, full of atmosphere and emotion.

But 24 years later he couldn't write a new song when a good friend died and he was to perform it for the nation. He had to plagarise his own back catalogue for inspiration.

He should remove the plank from his own eye before he condemns others.

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