| Pretty Little Flower |
09-03-2004 12:31 PM |
Can't you Hear me Knocking
Quote:
Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
How are the Pistols different from the Stones? The words are different. So what. The attitude is different. That's a red herring - we're talking sound, not attitude. The chords are different, but not that much different - both are just guitar driven rock music. "Punk" is a disingenuous definition. It was just a way for bands to say "Zeppelin and Floyd suck." It was good, it was necessary, and now its dead.
Yes, its all just pop music. Some is better than others, but its just pop. That its really good doesn't somehow elevate it to another higher category. Even Visions of Johanna is at its core a pop song. Brilliant, but a pop sing.
I really detest semantics. Its my life. These debates, everything I write at work, everything I argue... its all just a mathematical game of which definition fits. I am almost as depressed by this reality as I am by the fact that ever since I've been on the Atkins and alcohol diet, I have seen things that were not actually there. I'm thinking I may have utilized a fat store containing collegiate LSD deposits. Last evening, I looked to my left while sitting in traffic and was certain I saw a girl walking along the road. i looked back and she wasn't there. I also see my cats at the office from time to time, despite the fact that I bring neither to work. Terribly annoying. I need to understand this phenomenon so that I can arrange it so I see nude women instead of cats and random chicks... but I digress. I hate horns.
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I agree with your first paragraph. All guitar-based rock is the same. Rolling Stones. Sex Pistols. Allman Brothers. Circle Jerks. Velvet Underground. Melt Banana. Foreigner. G.G. Allin and the Murder Junkies. All the same. Except, as you note, for the chords and the words and the attitudes. Oh, and also the fact that some grew out of a rhythm and blues history and some completely rejected that and some is played very fast with repetitive aggressive chords while others are based on traditional blues-oriented chord progressions while others adhere to different traditional song structures, and some have an emphasis on improvisation and/or solos while others completely eschew solos, and for some vocal harmonies are key to the song structure whereas for others the vocals may be nothing more than aggressive shouting or even guttural noise. But they are all guitar-based rock and are all the same. I cannot disagree with you on this point.
As to your point that "it is all pop music," I suspect that you and Hank are going to pull your old trick and argue that, implicit in your statement is a limitation that "it" only refers to music that is poppy. But the Boredoms are not pop music. Throbbing Gristle is not pop music. The Dwarves are not pop music. Pop stands for popular. Music that has, to borrow the name of a college radio program I used to listen to, "no commercial potential" is not pop music.
The LSD fat deposit confession is the only thing you have written over the past two days that sheds any light on anything else you have written over the past two days. |
