Grammy nominees for best Americana album

Tokyo Fan
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Post by Tokyo Fan »

BoogieMan wrote:When I browse through the old record bins at second hand stores and such, I get bored because there are so much old shit in them...
What do you expect to find in "old bins" if not "old shit"?

But I admit to being completely surprised and baffled to hear a group of younger people listening to Led Zeppelin x number of years ago, wondering why they wouldn't be listening to something new and current. And then I was at one of those dualing piano clubs, I think it was in Orlando, where the piano players play and sing requests. The table next to ours was crammed with people in their 20's, singing every word of the "old" songs. I asked one guy, how do you know all of these songs? and he replied that after the '70's there wasn't anything worth listening to! Now I gotta admit I think that is total bullshit...but it probably personifies a guy who makes your point, BoogieMan.

Of course, I am not going to agree that Led Zeppelin equates to Spears!

But back to my own incredulous reaction, I can imagine some wizened old guy wondering why my jazz collection is made up of Coltrane, Evans, Davis, Brubeck and Dolphy.

Neverwonagrammy
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Post by Neverwonagrammy »

tele wrote: I would still rather hear Live & Dangerous than most of the stuff that people called Punk
I'm WITH ya bruthaman!
Brian

Talus
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Post by Talus »

Image


Bill Carson wrote:"Punk" is nothing more than a knee jerk reaction to what is popular at any given time.

For example, the "punk" thing today is listening to Air Supply and recommending it on blogs rather than Animal Collective or Radiohead.

It's just doing the opposite of whatever is popular. Almost all of the acts formed by the punk revolution are worthless and almost all of the music has not held up at all.

tele
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Post by tele »

There is alot to be said for generational tastes, musically I grew up in the 70's so that era and it's guitar rock still speaks to me. I was there when punk rock hit the scene. I would still rather hear Live & Dangerous than most of the stuff that people called Punk ( just my taste) , some of it was good, alot turned into it's own version of over hyped BS that itself is romanticized.

calexico
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Post by calexico »

AO wrote:
Specials- Singles collection



Buzzcocks-What do I get and Orgasm Addict

Gang Of Four- Damaged Goods and I love a man in a uniform

Siouxsie

X-Ray Spex-Oh Bondage!-Up Yours!
I really don't want to leave that one out, so there ya have it..
Now, that there is teh schizzle. Great tunes from great bands!

hardwood floor
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Post by hardwood floor »

my friend's daughter told me she likes punk bands, like blink 182, greenday and creed

AO
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Post by AO »

Bill Carson wrote: Almost all of the acts formed by the punk revolution are worthless and almost all of the music has not held up at all.
The term Punk Rock is a term I try and be very careful about using when referring to "genre" as it includes SOOOOO many subgenres and the people on that scene (at least when I was coming up) were SOOOOOO sensitive about the whole thing, that again, I try never to overuse it, however, for all intents and purposes, with regard to recordings that may or may not hold up over time, here are some bands/singles which MORE than hold up from my early 80's tween angst days..
I don't expect todays youth to be as into these tunes as I was/am.
If the are, cool...if not, that's cool too. It doesn't bother me either way.
I'm just as happy for them to listen to their own record collections and reference their own faves as classics.
Cool by me. None of my Beezwax really.
It's up to them.

In no particular order..

The Stranglers-Golden Brown
I love this song so much that it hurts. Seriously. It makes me weep with Joy.
If I listen to it once, consider it listened to at least 50 times in a row.
It's like eating one Lays potato chip. Impossible. 1 = the whole bag.
1 listen to Golden Brown = 50 listens to Golden Brown.
No Shit.

Richard Hell and The Voidoids-Blank Generation
It's like my ears ultimate exercise in exhilaration. For real.
1 listen=50 listens. Easy.

My Specials- Singles collection
Which includes 15 tunes. Rarely skip around, although wait with bated breath for the 12" version of Ghost Town to come on, which happens to be number 11, and I know this as sometimes I will immediately skip ahead to number 11 and then go back to number 1 (which is the tune Gangsters) and listen straight through.
Then other times I'll just press play and enjoy my singles collection in the order it was intended.
BEYOND holds up, at least for my ears. I can't get enough of the entire collection, but Ghost Town, well, it's another 50 times in a rower fer sure.

Some not exactly 50 times in a rowers, but "Holding Up" (again, to my ears) is still an understatement to the max, would be:

Buzzcocks-What do I get and Orgasm Addict

Gang Of Four- Damaged Goods and I love a man in a uniform

There are many many more and I'm not even including bands like Siouxsie and Echo as I was a self proclaimed Super Fan #1 back in the day, so ya know..it wouldn't even be fair, but the above are just random tunes I LOOOOOOVED as an angst ridden tween which never ever seem to loose their appeal on me all these years later.
I reach for them out of my collection with the same level of enthusiasm I did back then.
Sometimes even more...Like Golden Brown, as that song seriously makes me weep. I shit you not.

Edit: I know myself and ALREADY ramdom tunes are popping into my head which are compelling me to sign back on to this post and update my list, something I REAALLLY didn't want to get into doing, however, one more tune I'm seriously aching to add at the moment would be:

X-Ray Spex-Oh Bondage!-Up Yours!
I really don't want to leave that one out, so there ya have it..

Bill Carson
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Post by Bill Carson »

"Punk" is nothing more than a knee jerk reaction to what is popular at any given time.

For example, the "punk" thing today is listening to Air Supply and recommending it on blogs rather than Animal Collective or Radiohead.

It's just doing the opposite of whatever is popular. Almost all of the acts formed by the punk revolution are worthless and almost all of the music has not held up at all.

Sachsen
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Post by Sachsen »

Neverwonagrammy wrote:IS "Dark Side Of The Moon" really "classic"
Good Lord, yes.

If I'm only allowed to listen to one album for the rest of my life, that one's on the short list of candidates.

BoogieMan
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Post by BoogieMan »

I don't know how there would be a revolution in music. Seems like to me everyone treats artists as royalties and it is all about having nice little chats in TV-sofas these days. Everyone is playing it safe, not asking one critical question about an artists latest work. This year Jimmy Page will go on tour, and it will be "the greatest living guitar player is back.." media-bullshit in droves. I wish people would see through all that shit instead of buying into it (paying expensive tickets to watch the musical acts)

You'd think in this era of supposed DIY-bands that at least some of them would try something new in these tv-shows (with everyone playing it safe it would be easy to stick out), but we're far from the Keith Moon-explosion stuff these days. I was surprised to see my Swedish heroes The Soundtrack Of Our Lives play on Leno, and their singer sang most of it in the crowd, which is a very cool and simple thing to get people going.

I think people have been saying this has been a decade where a lot of bands were able to gain exposure through the internet and that the record business is changing and bla bla bla. It's true in some sense, but it feels like in the greater scheme of things everything is still the same. The Grammys are still the same, I still see a lot of bland things in commercials and people still buy all that stuff as well, maybe not as much as before, but it is still there.

The good thing is that there tons of great bands to hear if you ignore all that shit, and if we ignore that all the old-timers are the greatest things ever this year too, then there are loads of cool things to discover.

Neverwonagrammy
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Post by Neverwonagrammy »

BoogieMan wrote: I think an underestimated thing about "the old days" is that a lot of the classic stuff has been hyped out of proportion due to its' popularity at the time, . While I was not there to have an idea of it, it feels to me that there has been a lot of people (who might not have really cared) going along with the latest thing, be it Stones, Zeppelin or whatever. In much the same way, people will consider records by Britney, Robbie Williams and fucking Madonna in a short while to be among the greatest ever. People these days want to believe that the Zep (or whatever) records got hugely popular only due to the quality of the music. Romanticizing the music of the past like that is something I despise.
This is very true.
Punk rock was a response to things like Zeppelin and the Stones, who were the Britneys and Madonnas of that era.
There was a need to get that mainstream shit WIPED OUT!
I was there when that happened.
A "revolution" like that would be hard to pull off today.
There's no real need for one, with so many avenues available to avoid the mainstream today.
I guess that's a good thing, but, it sure ain't as exciting.
Punk rock made the national news back then.
What on earth would need to happen with modern music, to get it on the national news today?
Anything to do with music, that makes the news, is always celebrity related these days.
Never anything to do with actual music, or, social relevance at all...
Brian

Tokyo Fan
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Post by Tokyo Fan »

Obviously "classic" is subjective. I'm old enough that a lot of the "classic" albums were brand spanking new releases when I first heard them. So there wasn't any established canon that had already "established" these particular albums as classics. It was an individual listening experience that immediately grabbed hold of me. Deep Purple In Rock, Machinehead, Led Zeppelin III, Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon, The Who Tommy, Who's Next, Quadrophenia and yes, Free Fire and Water. All of these came blasting out of the speakers and left my junior high brain pulverized. While I do have my third copy of Dark Side of the Moon and have copy number whatever of Who's Next and am secretly wanting to get another copy of Quadrophenia I guess I don't have any of the others that I have referenced as classics (though I have the lyrics and songs imprinted in my brain). Alright Now may come under the category of "played to death" so it has crossed over from classic into torture.

Then there are the albums that don't grab you immediately...but then finally tug at you, finally turn on a bulb of understanding and blossom into a classic. Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, for me.

The jazz world seems to be a whole different game. I am not old enough to have heard much of what is considered "classic" when it was first released. So this is a different category for me. Kind of Blue, Time Out and so on. I do have a large reference guide on jazz to guide me through this world. I have always been curious, though, as to why jazz artists seem to cover so many of these "standards" as covers on their own albums. But I probably don't know much about this world.

BoogieMan
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Post by BoogieMan »

When I browse through the old record bins at second hand stores and such, I get bored because there are so much old shit in them.

I think an underestimated thing about "the old days" is that a lot of the classic stuff has been hyped out of proportion due to its' popularity at the time, . While I was not there to have an idea of it, it feels to me that there has been a lot of people (who might not have really cared) going along with the latest thing, be it Stones, Zeppelin or whatever. In much the same way, people will consider records by Britney, Robbie Williams and fucking Madonna in a short while to be among the greatest ever. People these days want to believe that the Zep (or whatever) records got hugely popular only due to the quality of the music. Romanticizing the music of the past like that is something I despise.

manshank
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Post by manshank »

"Dylan's Christmas album was a joke--wasn't it? God awful at best."

LOL....sort of kind of............

Allllllllllll right now baby its alllllllll right now...................yes I still love that one.................

Neverwonagrammy
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Post by Neverwonagrammy »

What Dr. Z says is very true.
I agree, a "classic" is something you never tire of.
It's all subjective though. Everybody's got their own parameters for what they tire of.
For me, with somebody like Springsteen, I never, ever, get tired of hearing "Tenth Avenue Freezeout", but, I never, ever, wanna hear "Glory Days".
I'm sure there's SOMEBODY out there who loves "Glory Days" as much as I love "Tenth Avenue Freezeout".
"Classics" can easily be a "forced upon society" thing though.
A good example is Free's "Alright Now". Does ANYBODY still get excited when it comes on the radio?
It's been played every day, since the day it was released, yet, I'm sure somebody out there still gets excited for it.
I bet there's people out there who are equally mystified that anyone could still get excited about "Lola", by The Kinks, yet, I still do.
I never wanna hear "Come Dancing" though.
There's no rules for any of this. Everybody has their own opinion.
One thing seems to be a fact though, the more something is heard, randomly through life, the more people will believe it's "classic".
Enough people believe it, then, by damned, it's a classic.
The question is, how many "classics" have we been manipulated into believing?
IS "Dark Side Of The Moon" really "classic", or did we fall for the hype?
Heard it so many times, believed what we read, caved in to peer pressure from people we respected, who believed what THEY read, etc...
That's why there are so few "classics" today.
Nobody out there hypin' 'em up, at the level they used to.
It's very hard to do these days.
Attention spans are too short , more competition, too many available distractions, when it comes to that sorta thing.
I guarantee it's why Wilco are having such great success.
They have an organization keepin' the publicity heat on, very similar to the way it was done in the old days.
I say good for them.
They got a helluva rig runnin'.
They haven't cracked major market radio yet though.
If they accomplish that, they'll be the Pink Floyd of the future...
Brian

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