qLife : Music : Old School Music

jha: April 18, 2008 - 03:39 PM PST

When I first read that, I thought you were referring to JT's friends.

lorcas: April 18, 2008 - 03:20 PM PST from the year of my birth...an ode..and oddly..... almost fortuitous:

Melissa: April 18, 2008 - 03:13 PM PST they never existed, silly

RurouniJT: April 18, 2008 - 10:12 AM PST I had a friend in class write a story about this guy and there was this gang, called The Ramones. He had never heard of the band and refused to admit that it existed.

It was a source of much guffawing from my classmates and myself.

B0ge: April 18, 2008 - 09:56 AM PST

Totally cool mate!
I understand yours and longin4purpose's point. And I really have respect towards the pillars of music in the history, that have created the "path of music".

I think it's allways important to dig out the other sides of issues. And just ask, why you think like this? Why why and why.

Thank you for responding like a gentleman.



Good points Dex, and I second them 100%. In the end the credit has to go to the creator, not to the follower.

Jonathan you have exellent questions mate. Some of your questions dont even need an answer, the goal is allready accieved, when I start to think of them!

Good points too Jack!



Man it is great that you share your opinnion. And I understand your frustration towards this issue.


Basicly my "view for the issue" came from this kind of old situation:

Bob: "Nice song, whose song is it?"
Peter: "What? YOU DONT KNOW WHO'S SONG THIS IS?"
Bob: "hehe, no I don't. But I've heard it lots of times in the radio"
Peter: "You freaking ignorant moron. This is the song of the greatest artist alltime. The god of rock! AC/DC!!"
Bob: "Oh ok! Nice"
Peter: "You should study little bit more history"

After you have this kind ^ of conversation with someone, you would want to ask from Peter, why does he think that it's important to know this information about this band, that you dont like even a bit.


Fantastic guys, we are getting in the roots of this issue!

jha: April 18, 2008 - 09:28 AM PST

Box worthy.


And L4P - the artists you listed could be compared to Beethoven, Mozart, The Beatles... no?

longin4purpose: April 18, 2008 - 09:05 AM PST
This makes sense. Old anything is as important as new stuff. Maybe I've been a little close minded in my views. But when we look at art we dont forget Manet or Monet or Van Gogh. When we talk about writing we dont ignore William "Billy" Shakespeare, Vonnegut, Dickinson or Hemingway. No we remember them, and use them to our advantage. But yes, I can now see that newer music is just important.

Melissa: April 18, 2008 - 08:31 AM PST I got the right stuff

Whoa oh whoaaaa oh

brianbunnell: April 18, 2008 - 08:29 AM PST i'm sorry, i knew that would come off as a little rude, but it was a strange idea. i didn't really think people would have to defend the importance of learning history.

i see your point, though, and i like it. buy newer music. see live concerts. cycle more money into the musical economy! without that, it is extremely difficult to foster the arts of any kind, and even more difficult with the extremely small effort made by the NEA (national endowment for the arts).

my favorite bumper sticker i ever saw said: "buy art." i wish i could afford it!

again, B0ge, i'm sorry. that was the first time i addressed you, and i did it rudely. friends? please?!

atta boy!

B0ge: April 18, 2008 - 07:22 AM PST

Man what you ment with that? Sorry I didn't understand.

longin4purpose: April 18, 2008 - 03:09 AM PST
I think you make a valid point. All of you guys do. And I will think back on this thread a lot more before I criticize people on their lack of knowledge as it pertains to the classics.

brianbunnell: April 17, 2008 - 12:26 PM PST

wow... but this has been addressed already...



"standing the test of time" is what it's all about. how much music can you list that came out 100 years ago, circa 1908? not really a fair comparison, i guess, because that was before recording equipment was commonplace. but i can name a few... gilbert and sullivan (i think), stockhausen (super serial and weird), (this is hard...) um... robert johnson(?) that famous guitarist...

what music from today do you think will be around 100 years from now? the beatles (probably)? radiohead (maybe)? cindi lauper (i doubt it)? standing the test of time is not easy to do, and those artists who are able to last should be studied. put their brain in a jar and dissect it (metaphorically).

some music of olde (like dylan, hehe) is better that today's music. some of today's music is better than music of olde (like ben harper). for the most part, i think chronology is irrelevant to the individual listener, and more relevant to the amateur historian.

just find what is good and listen to it over and over and over...

let me throw out another old name you might want to look up... donovan...

jackfinn: April 17, 2008 - 12:25 PM PST Dylan just won ... literally like a week ago for "significant contributions to art" (not a direct quote but a paraphrase). He's the first musician to be honored in such a fashion.

Dylan has also been nominated for the Nobel in Literature ~5 times but never won, obviously. (Of course, being nominated for the Nobel is apparently not such a big deal seeing as how luminaries such as Hitler, Mussolini, and our current president have all been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.)

jha: April 17, 2008 - 12:08 PM PST

Valid point, you're right!

And Jack, when did Dylan win a Pulitzer and what for? (I could google it, but this seemed more fun.)

longin4purpose: April 17, 2008 - 11:55 AM PST Yes jazz was important. Without jazz we wouldnt have rock or any other modern music. I enjoy jazz quite a bit and know that it was influential in many types of music. But I can entirely understand what you're saying. I just wish more people could make a connection to past music.

jackfinn: April 17, 2008 - 11:49 AM PST

Hmmm - this is interesting ... especially the bit about naming historical/revolutionary figures in other fields.

What about fields where all's people know are historical figures - like art and literature?

Everyone knows Picasso and Hemingway and ol' Billy Shakespeare ... but who can name the US's poet laureate? (Without googling it...) Who knows who Denis Johnson is? Or Junot Diaz? If you know Denis Johnson, please message me - because I may be in love with you!

Before the thread drifts too far - I just like music man. Old, new, whatever - as long as it's authentic and real and doesn't scream "Target audience" and "This song went well in our Focus Group"...

For what it's worth, there's usually a pretty good reason why "old" artists like Dylan (who won a Pulitzer by the way) and Chuck Berry have stood the test of time: they were visionaries.

Just a thought or two ...

jha: April 17, 2008 - 11:43 AM PST That's all a matter of opinion. I don't consider myself a music expert (it is one of my goals though), but the music of today will certainly be remembered 30+ years down the line. Perhaps you're just not listening to the right stuff? It took me a long time to realize this, I too was a cynic of music, especially of the 90s (my theory was that no good bands started in the 90s even though many peaked then).

How much do you know about the jazz movements in the 1920s? Isn't that as fundamental and influential as the few musicians you listed?

longin4purpose: April 17, 2008 - 11:39 AM PST But yes. At some point it can become too much.

longin4purpose: April 17, 2008 - 11:38 AM PST I can see where you're coming from, but there is so much out there that people are missing. The music from this time frame will most likely not last long or be remembered as great. But the music from the 60s, 70s, and 80s will be a staple in music for a long time.

jha: April 17, 2008 - 11:23 AM PST

But you, my friend, are a music enthusiast. Would you be able to name historical/revolutionary figures in other fields? I'm not trying to downplay the importance of it, just saying that the majority of people will only know what's out there on the surface until they care enough to go and do some research about it - it's not just with music, but with anything. And should people be responsible to know everything about everything? When does it just become too much?

longin4purpose: April 17, 2008 - 11:14 AM PST New music is good, but like dex said we need to remember where said music came from. Music from today comes from musicians like Elvis and Stevie Ray Vaughn who in turn got their music from Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington who got their music from African slaves.
Besides music of old was really good. Its hard to not like anything that came out of the 70s or 80s

dex2988: April 17, 2008 - 05:11 AM PST I think the great thing about music is how musicians through different eras have connected in a similar way to the youth of their respective generations. Elvis had a tremendous impact. Eminem has had one too. The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Nirvana, My Chemical Romance...the list goes on, and will ALWAYS go on. Most people will relate most closely to whatever they were listening to while they were 16-18 years old because that's usually the most emotional period of a person's life, and we remember events and details that are tied to strong emotions.

ANY music that can elicit a strong emotional response, regardless of when it was released, is worthwhile to me.

Boyco, the value of listening to the classics is to see where so much of today's so-called "new" music actually came from. Lots of musicians today release new songs that are either highly derivative or flat out remakes of older artists. There's nothing wrong with paying tribute or emulating an influential predecessor, but it IS critical for people to know where the new music came from because it's not fair to claim something is totally original when it isn't.

B0ge: April 17, 2008 - 04:46 AM PST Tell me why people should remember the old hits? Isn't it better that people concentrate on creating new music, and on supporting new bands?

jha: April 17, 2008 - 04:27 AM PST Isn't that a function of every generation, that they shed the popular icons of yore for their own? In 10 years aren't teenagers then going to say "Who's Taking Back Sunday?" or "Who's AFI?"

Seriously though, who is AFI?

longin4purpose: April 17, 2008 - 03:28 AM PST Okay so I've realized how pathetic this young generation has become. People are forgetting the really great music. For instance, a teacher and I were talking about Chuck Berry and the song Johnny B. Goode, and a girl asked me who Johnny B. Goode was! That's one of Rolling Stone's top 500 songs ever written (#7). I was so amazed. Teens these days can tell you about Taking Back Sunday, and AFI, but if you talk about classic rock few people can name a Billy Joel song that isnt the Piano Man. Few can tell you who the Ramones are or who Kurt Cobain is. I mean, come on, Kurt Cobain! He was around just 10 years ago, and peoplehave already forgotten him.

But...just looking to hear y'all's thoughts.