https://theweek.com/articles/827454/strange-death-easy-listening
Rock music was essentially adolescent. It was written and performed by very young people who had nothing of particular importance to say about a world they had very little experience of. All the songs were about premarital sex — wanting to have it soon, being sad because you can't have it soon, being mad because someone else is having it, and even, occasionally, just about having it. Their response to these no-doubt very serious emotions was to scream about them over the same three or four chords — even their seemingly daring experiments with things like time signature were drug-abetted infinite-monkey theorem-type accidents. The AC/DC lads were only half right: Rock 'n' roll is noise pollution, but it has survived anyway.
WTF, I'm with the kids on this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ah1JM9mf60
Can't do the linky.
Can’t do the linky.
It was working a minute ago. May have upset the mods. Wasn't really thinking about that when I started the thread.
So all rock music, has only ever been about sex and teenage angst? Let's forget all the protest music etc - and so what if it is.
Writer is a bellend.
Music journalist in "up their own * and talking *" shocker!
Writer is a bellend
Very much this!^
...and personally I've never found* listening to James Last all that easy. Paradoxically.
(*I imagine I wouldn't. Though I've probably committed some awful hipster faux pas and am about to find a bit of Hansi is de rigueur these days amongst the moleskin-clad of leg.)
May have upset the mods.
Not just the Mods.
Wonder if he posts here?
Urgh, rabbit hole. What a twunt.
I must say though, the charts currently, when I'm accidentally exposed to it, seem to be populated almost exclusively by middle of the road, whining, easy-listening middle aged garbage. And that's coming from a middle aged person
I mean the charts is never a barometer of what actual decent music sounds like I suppose but still.
Jack Ozram, Adele, that ginger one. Why do so many young people now seem to share music tastes with their parents/grandparents?
Shocking state of affairs.
Most chart music does seem to sit in the middle of the road, not pushing anyway strongly towards a genre. The majority of it could be described as inoffensive and in my opinion bland. It's popular though...
We need Dez to correct him! Go on, dare you to fire off an e-mail and tell the old fool where he's gone wrong.
Why do so many young people now seem to share music tastes with their parents/grandparents?
music used to be a main plank of youth culture. I don't think it is anymore. Not that I'd know, for well over 50 good reasons. Disconcertingly a fair proportion of what I listen to these days I got into via my middle kid. Though he is into some jazz, some of which is quite easy to listen to.
Yeah, bloke's an idiot "It's because it's pleasant to the ears" - what's pleasant to one person's ears is poison to another. Berk.
I can listen to "Easy Listening" eg. Glenn Campbell, followed by, hmm I dunno proper NOISE [url= https://newyorkhaunted.bandcamp.com/album/nyh156-various-for-the-bees-really ]Like this! [/url] That's the beauty of it, there's no reason for liking one thing or another, you just do.
Why do so many young people now seem to share music tastes with their parents
I was only recommending some Spotify tracks to my 16 year old the other day..
We both love a bit of Travy P 😀
Surely it's only a matter of time before the disaffected kids rise up against the (us) adults again.
Can't wait we deserve it!
Jack Ozram, Adele, that ginger one. Why do so many young people now seem to share music tastes with their parents/grandparents?
Well, it seems to be upsetting their parents, if this place is any indication, so, job jobbed - parents offended by offspring's choice of music and best of all they think that they haven't just fallen neatly into the "kids today with their awful choice of music" trap because this time it's different, their music IS crap, not like when people slagged off rock 'n' roll, or The Pretty Things, or Sabbaff, or the Pistols, or Boy George, or the Prodigy or Ed Sheeran (Da Capo).
Touche Nico
Why do so many young people now seem to share music tastes with their parents/grandparents?
All the youth in London listen to trap music. Wouldn't call that easy listening, almost fell off my chair laughing when I heard Snoop Dogg do a parody of it on an interview the other day.
We have either London inner city kids listening to Trap and the stabby drill genre or white middle class straight edge vegan kids listening to bland, middle aged soft indie.
It's all gone Pete Tong.
Why do so many young people now seem to share music tastes with their parents/grandparents?
Why is this a bad thing? My 15 year old daughter and me now have shared playlists, and its a great 2-way street, music-wise. I've recently been introducing her to Queens of the Stone Age, The Pixies, Buzzcocks and The Cult and she's been introducing me to lots of very, very shouty punk stuff. Her and all her mates went to a Shame gig the other week, her first big gig, and she was straight down in the mosh pit. I couldn't be prouder 😀
Don't assume 'da kidz' are all sat watching X Factor and listening to the crap in the charts. They're really not!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTGJXrs3UE0
Bit of James Last via Amorphous Androgenous to keep us all sane
Why is this a bad thing?
I think he meant it's a bad thing that kids who listen to chart music are force fed inoffensive, easy-listening ballads, that they can share a love of with their no-taste parents... there is a lot of it about. I remember having some grime on in my car while giving my son and his friend a lift - his friend thought it quite shocking that I listened to such shouty noise. (This, of course, I took great pleasure in.)
kids who listen to chart music are force fed inoffensive, easy-listening ballads
Because back in the day we didn't have Stock, Aitken and Waterman, Chris de Burgh, etc. etc. My 19 year old daughter listens to plenty of shouty stuff.
Because back in the day we didn’t have Stock, Aitken and Waterman, Chris de Burgh
Exactly what we're saying. The modern equivalent of that stuff, which no-one with any taste listened to, while the ones who did shared their crappy "Now That's what I Call Phil Collins followed by Agadoo" tapes with their parents. I dunno what the discussion is - nothing's changed!
"I mean the charts is never a barometer of what actual decent music sounds like I suppose but still.".. is what kayak said anyway.
😆
Musical taste is acquired, acquired being the important word there. What people find enjoyable is simply down to how much they've been exposed to certain types of music. Some people just don't get to listen to much variety, so they find it jarring to listen to sounds they haven't really listened to much.
It actually wouldn't take much for someone with a bland inoffensive taste to start to like other kinds of music, they just need time to get used to it.
Personally I can listen to all manners of weird shit, just down to pure exposure to a vast variety of music since i was young(My older brother had an awesome record collection that I could explore which kick started me.).
Have you ever heard something new for the first time, and thought mmmm, not sure if I like that, then few listens later(or even months or years later) you are thinking it's the best thing you've ever heard. That's what I mention above in practice.
Basically, your musical taste is just a culmination of all the music you have been exposed to over time. It does take time to get there though.
Problem is, the vast majority don't actively go seeking musical variety, so are happy in their own wee world, they literally don't know any better.
For that reason there never will be the death of easy listening, it's needed for the majority(and why not, they probably get the same enjoyment of out their music as I do mine). Personally, I'm fine with that as long as I there's music around that I can enjoy(everything from simple to complex is all good for me), happy days. I don't really need the masses to verify my musical taste! 😆
I think the bloke writing that article was being a smart alec. Probably a Merkan thing too. Mind you, in 1967 two albums duked it out for top of the album charts - Sgt. Pepper and the Sound of Music. Whatever happened to Ray Connif?
Whatever happened to Ray Connif?
Boeing 737?
Are you all making your assumption that youngsters listen to M.O.R shit because that's what you hear on the wireless? Kids don't listen to the radio anymore.
Nobody listens to the radio anymore... except the ones who do.
Jack Ozram, Adele, that ginger one. Why do so many young people now seem to share music tastes with their parents/grandparents?
I have no idea what constitutes the music charts these days, I lost track when TOTP was taken off the Beeb, but if what I hear on the radio at work, Radio One, Heart, One Xtra, blah, blah, it shares virtually nothing with what their parents likely listened to, unless their parents only listened to dance, house, rave and all the other infinite varieties of electro, certainly it bears no resemblance to what I’ve listened to for sixty years, (my first memory is of a song on the radio, which was released in 1957, when I was three!), and while I like some artists like Glen Campbell, The Carpenters, Dusty, I’m as likely to be found listening to King Crimson*, Rage Against The Machine, Soundgarden, Massive Attack, Elbow, Portishead, and God knows how many others. Certainly none that I’d expect to hear on any current chart station.
*While I was familiar with the Stones, The Beatles, Jethro Tull, etc, from the radio, the first rock album I actually heard was ‘In The Court Of The Crimson King’, which I borrowed from a classmate at school - my folks hated it, result! 😁
Edit - just read the article, it could have come straight out of the Daily Mail, it’s just so full of the Mail’s attitude that ‘grown-ups’ listen to jazz and easy-listening music, anything else is for children. Goes with sensible slacks, comfortable shoes, shirt, tie and a cardigan, which is also what the Wail seemed to think a grown-up should wear.
Yeah, right, over my dead body.
I think the bloke writing that article was being a smart alec.
That's my view too. No-one in the 60s listened to Hendrix? Yeah, right.
As others say, surely it's best to enjoy a wide range of music. For my part, I use it as a drug. For sleep-aid to a romantic evening. For memory lane and for bouncing lunacy and agit-prop. For work and meditation.
And going out! What was your best 'going out' song? Remember those days when the prep and style of your hair and trews were of deadly importance on a National level? It was Friday night and there was one song that boosted you out through the door into the promising night, on a waft of perfumed-poncense and hormonal rage against what the washing-machine had done to your favourite shirt?
If your answer was 'Tom Sawyer' by Rush*, or 'The Flat Earth' by Thomas Dolby, then like me you were most often going it alone after kicking out time 🤣
*Things improved with LZII. That thing is like Lynx.
The Jam and The 'Oo did good 'getting ready to go out' music.
*While I was familiar with the Stones, The Beatles, Jethro Tull, etc, from the radio, the first rock album I actually heard was ‘In The Court Of The Crimson King’, which I borrowed from a classmate at school – my folks hated it, result! 😁
Ha! You could almost be me*! I borrowed "In the court ... " from a schoolmate, but I think my mum quite liked that mellotron sound. I remember her commenting favourably on "It's a beautiful day". Mind you that was almost easy listening anyway. My rebellion was to be as obscure as possible in my musical tastes, like many kids, and you can see that continuing well into later life on this forum.
* I also own an old Skoda
My big sis was my early influence. The Beatles arrived in the house (though not in person) when I was 9. Once I was in my teens it was Floyd and Tull first then on to ELP, Yes, Genesis, Zepp and eventually Zappa.
My mum quite liked Floyd, particularly "Wish You Were Here". She sat through "The Wall" (knitting) and at the end summed it up with "well that was miserable. She was a little bemused by Hawkwind - "why are they singing about a sewing machine?", loved Alice Cooper (well "School's Out").
You know you're growing old when death metal brings you joy, not rage
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47543875
I’m as likely to be found listening to King Crimson*, Rage Against The Machine, Soundgarden, Massive Attack, Elbow, Portishead, and God knows how many others Certainly none that I’d expect to hear on any current chart station
That's all music that's at least 20 years old so it won't be on any chart stations. All played on radio 2 though innit. And it was pretty mainstream in the grunge/trip-hop days so was on Radio 1 etc.
Not that there's anything wrong with any of those bands. Except Elbow.
Also, I doubt things are any different now to the past, most people just want some music to be on in the background or know the songs at a wedding. Doesn't matter how old they are.
my neice loves this new rap stuff that's out which she says is popular. Some of the lyrics are not parent friendly at all.
Anyone remember Lava Lounge at the Underground, Leeds?
On a Tuesday night, so Wednesday mornings were always a bit of an struggle.
Groovy.