Punk Killed music ?

[Cuba]

Originally Posted by Orca

Cuba - Have you seen the film 'Dogs in Space' :-?? It's about the late '70s Melbourne Punk scene

I might have been in it :wink:

[yfs87]

you just have to look at european death metal
particularly swedish death metal

opeth
in flames
skyfire
soilwork

many many more if you care for me to list

then there are a few decent american metal bands

nevermore
shadows fall
killswitch engage

just my opinion tho

[garry]

Originally Posted by rktek

I think music is more of a period in which we live our glory days. We experienced a lot of things when we were young and music was a part of all these memories. It is sort of glued to short movies in our heads and this is what it makes it so beautiful. Obviously, we like the era in which we lived in. .........etc etc.

Very nice words... For sure everyone is entitled to the memory's of a time that encapsulated personal and formative years.
My 'Glory years' should have been (were) the mid 80's for example.
I'm not for one second dismissing music from the 80's or 90's as substandard in any way.
Look at the bigger picture: Throughout the recent century of music a clear and defined progression can be seen up to 1977.
Post 77 music not only appears recycled but the chronology would appear interchangeable. eg. Take the last two decades and jumble up all the tunes...it still works. No musical traits would appear to define 80's or 90's music other than it is in one form or another based on 50's 60's or 70s formulas.
Will we here people say 20 years from now that a song sounds very 80's or 90's ?....I don't think so as 80's and 90's sounds rely heavily on the decades that preceded.

eg.
"Dont you want me" by the Human League.... Sounds very much like motown except the singer is drawn and depressed (the 'Punk' urban attitude added) and the shooWops have been left out.

[AirTreesWaterAnimals]

I planned to say more earlier, but ran out of time.

The most obvious example of a modern band that is going to go down in history is Tool. They're fairly popular among the general public, but have a die-hard following otherwise.

Aenima is one of the greatest rock albums of all time and Lateralus (their most recent) was in no way a letdown from that album.

They sacrifice nothing (lyrically or musically) to fit any type of image or sound. A very respectable, very honest rock band.

One of my other favorites is Nine Inch Nails (Trent Reznor), another that has lost popularity over the years but still releases quality music. Despite it's bleak outlook and "industrial" sound, The Downward Spiral is another album that will go down in history. Trent followed that up with an incredible double disc called "The Fragile." A lot of people think they have any idea what NIN is all about just from the name, classifying it among all the depressing "grunge" artists. That couldn't be further from the truth.

Other than that, Pearl Jam is the only other band I hold on to from my teenage years. Try and find something negative to say about Pearl Jam, I dare you.

As I mentioned with Tool, all three of those bands have huge "underground" followings. They produce the type of music that truly connects with people, which builds loyal followings. All have pretty much shunned the media at this point, so they don't get the kind of publicity they used to (Pearl Jam won't even make videos anymore..).


There is much more than that out there though, it just requires a little digging. I really don't keep up with the rock scene at all anymore, so I'm unaware of most of the bands.


Once Linkin Park and all those other crap-*** bands started in I gave up on rock. I was getting bored and didn't feel like digging deeper because I started getting into hip-hop, which is where, IMHO, it is all happening at right now.

There is A LOT of VERY GOOD hip-hop out there. I'm very interested in politics and change and hip-hop really does that for me. And I don't mean Nelly or any of those other MTV f*cks. I don't know that I listen to anything that gets play on MTV.

Here's a few of my favorites -
Sage Francis
Aesoop Rock
Saul Williams
Atmosphere
Del

And a couple "hip-hop" DJs-

RJD2
DJ Shadow
Dan the Automotor

Three of the rappers I listed there are white, which I mention only because the ability to relate is very important with music (I'm white). This is what keeps a lot of people away from hip-hop, as the media would have you believe it's all about being black. Most people think Eminem is the only white rapper.

Anyhow, that's what I meant about looking in the right places. You have to find somewhere to start and dig from there.

This is a great song from Non-Prophets (Sage Francis) check it out.

[AirTreesWaterAnimals]

I figure it's worth mentioning that I grew up on classic rock and would take an album of Tom Petty's worst songs over anything put out by any modern "punk" band.

I was born in 1980 so I missed out on most of what is being discussed here because I was too young and my dad had a huge influence on what I listened to. My first real album purchase was Vs. by Pearl Jam.

[jetman]

You guys are stuck two decades back and have no idea what punk music has evolved into. That 70's brit punk sound and its modern wash are hardly a representation of the punk genre. Its a small subset. And it mostly sucks.
Punk is the new folk.

[Orca]

That's kind of the point Jetman :! :wink: We "old fogies" don't like the new Punk sounds. Give me The Banshees or Joy Division or Killing Joke any day For me, Punk became "Positive Punk", then Goth, then Industrial, then Crusty, then Dub. We modernised, in a manner of speaking :wink: Hey, I only just found out that Bud Alzir are in fact Terminal Cheesecake :! Some will need an expanation, others will "just know" 8)

I couldn't say that many musical genres that followed would not have followed without Punk, but I do know that without the Punk attitude, many of the great performers thereafter would certainly not have been so widely known. I'm thinking of, say, Steve Albini, Trent Reznor, Curt Cobain, Thurston Moore, et al. That said, where would music be without Leonard Cohen, or Bob Dylan, or Jefferson Airplane, or Hawkwind. They were all "Punk" in a way ...

[jetman]

Punk is still Punk. Ever heard of NOFX, Bad Religion, Sublime (dead, but whatever) Boucing Souls, Lagwagon, Avail, Good Riddence, Sovial Distortion, Screeching Weasel. You guys are only aware of some mainstream, corporate crud. This has nothing to do what punk was or is. Industrial music, Goth etc might sound loud and angry, but it aint punk.
Greedy, Corporate Monkey Feathers killed music.

[Orca]

NOFX (they're the "Drugs are Good" bunch, right?), Bad Religion, etc were okay - would you include Rancid in that lot? I kinda like some of that odd college Punk stuff, like Sloppy Seconds or even Ween, but it's of a different culture to me. I can't relate to US Punk in that way. I can relate to The Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, Circle Jerks and certainly Iggy Pop. Looks like a time and a place kind of thing, which I think Garry was talking about ...

New Model Army (post-Punk/Folk Rock) were angry ... Alien Sex Fiend (Positive Punk/erm, Goth - yeah right!) are loud ... I'm not sure what you're saying. I'm sure there's a lot of loud, angry, erm, socially conscious? US Punk bands. I'm not disputing that. If we're playing a kind of trans-Atlantic "who's better, who's best" (ask your Dad about that one) ... erm, we've got Motörhead ... what you got :-?? I'll keep Conflict, Discharge, Crass and The Exploited incase you've got something louder or TG, Psychic TV or GGFH in case you've anything more extreme

This is a great example of the next generation claiming their stuff to be the best ... I can see how my Dad feels now :wink:

[garry]

Look at Greenday.... No different to The Skids.... No different to SUM42.....

This is the point.

Nothing new since 77......

[Orca]

I got your Skids reference from an earlier post - that Jobbo danced almost at weird at Ian Curtis ... although not quite at cool :wink: I do like the way some US Punk melded a kind of urban reggae beat with their Punk though ... some would say Ska (or later Suedehead style bands) did it first and better, but I kinda like their stuff.

[Mattlach]

Originally Posted by garry

Post Punk: what happened? ......

a) the 80's (it sucked, I should know I was there )
b) the 90's (I selectively declined to join in)

The 90's were kinda meh..

But I definitely disagree ith you on 80s musicm (partially because I almost exclusively listen to music written in the 80s, or heavily inspired by prevalent 80s sounds)

I don't much care of 80s rock (I mean some of it is fun, but as you said, nothing new.. just using the same old formulas) however, the 80s New Romantic sound egged on by widespread adoption of synthesizers I feel changed music quite dramatically.

Depeche Mode, The Cure, The Smiths, Kraftwerk, Jean-Michael Jarre, Human League and many more than I can mention here are all bands who's music I cherish (Speaking of cherish maybe Madonna should be mentioned too?)

Then there's all those one hit wonder synth acts.. how could I forget them....

[rktek]

Yeah! And don't forget, the 80's were the birth of electro music (This was a revolution back then, remember?) with weird synthetic sounds coming out of a kind of weird piano-organlike box with a wire plugged in the wall... AAAAAAhhh! Good times!

[valbowski1980]

Originally Posted by BurnsSide42

MTV killed the music industry

There is a brilliant quote by Louis Black: "MTV to music is what KFC is to chicken"

I believe greed killed the music insustry. They've found the formula for what sells and that is what they push. As for me, I miss the grunge era, in fact I have Alice in Chains on as we speak.

[jetman]

Again, more to the point. If you heard it on the radio or saw it on MTV, its hardly punk.

[fabric]

Originally Posted by rktek

Yeah! And don't forget, the 80's were the birth of electro music (This was a revolution back then, remember?) with weird synthetic sounds coming out of a kind of weird piano-organlike box with a wire plugged in the wall... AAAAAAhhh! Good times!

Kraftwerk was doing this in the 70's. They pretty much are the origin of electronic music. synth-pop is a little different, though.

I don't understand the English fascination with House. I've always thought it rubbish.

[Munki]

Originally Posted by garry

Artists like Yes, ELP, Floyd (not Rush, they were rubbish :P :wink: ) strove to push the boundary's of music. In retrospect it seems to me that Punk trashed a century of musical exploration.

'Push the boundries' you say...but in what direction. The direction of turgid, bloated and totally pointless. Sorry mate, but for me a 30min self indulgent prog-rock track is not pushing the boundries of music. It is getting fat, lazy, self congratulatory and idle. To me this was formulaic music. The punk era came along and took the focus off of the old established bands and the tired old disco scene and put it soundly back on to Rock and Roll. Music created by the young, for the young. Fresh and exciting. Sadly, the great rock and roll swindle was the shape of things to come.

One of the greatest killers of a thriving music scene was the invention of the CD and the subsiquent death of the single as a meduim. The single is now only there to promote CDs and the general public are happy to take such trite tosh as Coldplay and play it at their dinner parties. The music buying public has changed. Now it is the middle aged that drive the charts and the airplay....sad indeed. I know, I am one of the middle aged...Although I still like to believe that I have better taste then most of my peers.

Oh, and video killed the radio star don't you know?

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Munki

Now it is the middle aged that drive the charts and the airplay....sad indeed. I know, I am one of the middle aged...

So you're the one buying all those Busted, Blue, Girls Aloud and McFly singles :!

[Munki]

Originally Posted by Stuart

So you're the one buying all those Busted, Blue, Girls Aloud and McFly singles :!

Damn...I've been found out!

[garry]

'Push the boundaries' you say...but in what direction. The direction of turgid, bloated and totally pointless. Sorry mate, but for me a 30min self indulgent prog-rock track is not pushing the boundries of music. It is getting fat, lazy, self congratulatory and idle. To me this was formulaic music. The punk era came along and took the focus off of the old established bands and the tired old disco scene and put it soundly back on to Rock and Roll. Music created by the young, for the young. Fresh and exciting. Sadly, the great rock and roll swindle was the shape of things to come.

That was exactly the way I used to think. Until recently when I took a look at the progress made in the last two decades. The 'anybody can do it' simplicity and attitude Punk brought with it was icy fresh at the time.. I now think its influence in retrospect possibly extended too far extinguishing many a good flame or indeed mighty furnace of talent.
The thread and issues go against the grain, I know that ... Its just want to promote some 'what if' conversation.

One of the greatest killers of a thriving music scene was the invention of the CD and the subsequent death of the single as a medium.

Yes and no.... The invention of CD itself brought a decent and affordable level of HIFI into an audio snobby world. Vinyl IS technically better however you have to spend at least £1000 even in the mid 80's to achieve a 'higher' fidelity.
The problem with CD was greed. The question ran through so many peoples minds "why buy a CD single when the whole album is not much dearer"
Additionally, most people knew someone with a CD player in the early days and swore blind that a tape recording from CD was just better than a pre recorded cassette.

Coldplay/The Verve/Tavis etc..... got to agree... very lame.