whatever happened to music

[Aidan]

I'm in a hotel tonight and have the official top 10 on the tv as background while I work. 

Its the first foray into chartland for probably a year or two.

At first I wondered if age had caught up with me, but no,  I've decided its because I still have some taste in music.

it is relentless unmitigated shite, not a single spark of musical talent or passion among the   manufactured, formulaic X factor inspired , and hopelessly exploited boyband crap that is interspersed with equally formulaic and lacking of real passion, feeling and heart hip hop and rap.

What happened?

[pcolbeck]

You got older. The charts have been full of rubbish since they started in the 50s. You just have a selective memory that only remembers the good ones.

[Ian H]

Bring back the good old days, eh?

[Moloko]

What happened?

October 7th 1959. That's what f**kin' happened. (besides other stuff)

[Flying_Monkey]

This is without doubt the era of the most diverse and interesting music ever... it's just not in the charts (much) and never has been.

[pcolbeck]

Here you go. The Top Ten for this time of year in 1959, 1969, 1979, 1989 and 1999. All of them have boy bands and and a novelty act. 1969 even has a band so manufactured that it existed only as a cartoon ! Same old same old though 1979 did seem to be a bit of a purple patch.

1959

01   Adam Faith - What Do You Want?
02.   Emile Ford And The Checkmates - What Do You Want To Make Those Eyes At Me For?   
03.   Cliff Richard And The Shadows - Travellin' Light
04.   Neil Sedaka - Oh Carol
05.   Johnny And The Hurricanes - Red River Rock
06.   Bobby Darin - Mack The Knife
07.   Paul Anka - Put Your Head On My Shoulder
08.   Avons - Seven Little Girls Sitting In The Back Seat
09.   The Everly Brothers - ('Til) I Kissed You
10.   Sandy Nelson - Teen Beat

1969

01.   Archies - Sugar Sugar
02.   Kenny Rogers And The First Edition - Ruby Don't Take Your Love To Town
03.   Rolf Harris - Two Little Boys
04.   Stevie Wonder - Yester-Me Yester-You Yesterday
05.   Blue Mink - Melting Pot
06.   The Tremeloes - (Call Me) Number One
07.   Engelbert Humperdinck - Winter World Of Love
08.   Elvis Presley - Suspicious Minds   
09.   Marvin Gaye And Tammi Terrell - The Onion Song
10.   Jimmy Cliff - Wonderful World Beautiful People

1979

01.   Pink Floyd - Another Brick In The Wall   
02.   ABBA - I Have A Dream   19
03.   The Police - Walking On The Moon
04.   Fiddler's Dram - Day Trip To Bangor
05.   Tourists - I Only Want To Be With You
06.   The Sugarhill Gang - Rapper's Delight
07.   Paul McCartney - Wonderful Christmas Time
08.   Gibson Brothers - Que Sera Mi Vida
09.   The Three Degrees - My Simple Hear
10.   The Pretenders - Brass In Pocket

1989

01.   Band Aid II - Do They Know It's Christmas?
02.   Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers - Let's Party   
03.   Jason Donovan - When You Come Back To Me
04.   Soul II Soul - Get A Life
05.   Kaoma - Lambada
06.   Andy Stewart - Donald Where's Your Troosers?
07.   Madonna - Dear Jessie
08.   Tina Turner - I Don't Wanna Lose You
09.   Linda Ronstadt And Aaron Neville - Don't Know Much
10.   New Kids On The Block - You Got It (The Right Stuff)

1999

01.   Westlife - I Have A Dream/Seasons In The Sun
02.   Cliff Richard - The Millennium Prayer
03.   John Lennon - Imagine {1999}
04.   Cuban Boys - Cognoscenti Vs Intelligentsia
05.   S Club 7 - Two In A Million/You're My Number One
06.   Artful Dodger Featuring Craig David - Re-Rewind The Crowd Say Bo Selecta
07.   Steps - Say You'll Be Mine/Better The Devil You Know
08.   Mr Hankey - Mr Hankey The Christmas Poo
09.   William Orbit - Barber's Adagio For Strings
10.   The Vengaboys - Kiss (When The Sun Don't Shine)

[clarion]

What happened?

October 7th 1959. That's what f**kin' happened. (besides other stuff)

Some say the music died on Feb 3 1959.  Somehow it managed on life support until that fateful day...

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Sugar der der der der der der ah honey honey

I'm going to be singing that all night now, thank you.

[Moloko]

07.   Paul McCartney - Wonderful Christmas Time.

That deserves a shout from straight out of Commando comic:


Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

[pcolbeck]

Sugar der der der der der der ah honey honey

I'm going to be singing that all night now, thank you.

It could be worse, you might have got Jive Bunny stuck in your head.

[Aidan]

Sugar der der der der der der ah honey honey

I'm going to be singing that all night now, thank you.

It could be worse, you might have got Jive Bunny stuck in your head.

Or Mr Hankey the christmas poo

[andygates]

He loves me and I love you!

It's just age.  The charts have always been filled with rabbit-randy brats droning on.  It was cool when we were too. 

[Aidan]

Right. I've thought about this.

 Yes the charts now are utter tripe.
Yes, the charts have always mostly been tripe
No, its not age
Yes the top 40 show I was watching had no redeeming moments
There have been times when there has been some very good music in the charts
I have always mostly found the charts rubbish, I just needed reminding

It wasnt a peasant experience






Either that or I'm a grumpy old git

[Cudzoziemiec]

Why the "either...or"? 

There should be a yacf Grumpy Old Gits section. No minimum age. 

[Really Ancien]

It became available to us 24 hours a day, so I see 'Mack the Knife' from 1959 and I can call up a Louis Armstrong version from 1956  <a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/hLIrS5dtTZI&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/hLIrS5dtTZI&rel=1</a>  Any young person with any sense does much the same thing. New music reaches me via a few radio shows , mainly Radcliffe and Maconie, where the ratio of old to new seems to be about 7 to 1.

Damon.

[border-rider]

New music reaches me via a few radio shows , mainly Radcliffe and Maconie, where the ratio of old to new seems to be about 7 to 1.

Agreed

Radio (even Radio 1 though it's less to my taste these days) is where you get new music.  TV is the home to bland MOR balladry chosen by bland middle-aged business people.

What is missing is a TV outlet for music that's not filtered by the likes of Cowell.  For all its faults, TOTP did provide a route for that (though mostly its output was generic pap)

[nicknack]

Now I no longer have young children and have given up radio, I don't get any exposure to this stuff. Occasionally I think that, as a teacher of things musical, I ought to acquaint myself with some of this modern stuff. So that when the younger ones of my students respond to my question, "What do you like listening to?" with some R&B shite (I will never get used to calling this crap R&B), I have some idea what they're talking about. Then I accidentally catch some on the tv or being played in a shop and I think," Never in a million years..."

Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep, anyone?

[mattc]

New music reaches me via a few radio shows , mainly Radcliffe and Maconie, where the ratio of old to new seems to be about 7 to 1.

Agreed

Radio (even Radio 1 though it's less to my taste these days) is where you get new music.  TV is the home to bland MOR balladry chosen by bland middle-aged business people.

What is missing is a TV outlet for music that's not filtered by the likes of Cowell.  For all its faults, TOTP did provide a route for that (though mostly its output was generic pap)

Well, you are right; but then why do we need music on TV when we have radios?

Here you go. The Top Ten for this time of year in 1959, 1969, 1979, 1989 and 1999.    
...

'79 - rocks (mostly)
'89 - pretty iffy (1or2 goodies)
'99 - sucks

I don't see how anyone could dispute this!  

(59 & 69 are before my time, so I don't know all the songs - they might be great? There's a good Elvis track in there.)

[border-rider]

Well, you are right; but then why do we need music on TV when we have radios?

We probably don't

30 years ago we had 3 TV channels, one national pop radio station and the early years of the local commercial radio sector.  Exposure to new music was mostly through a very few routes.

Now we have an effectively infinite supply of radio via the net, a bunch of national pop/rock stations and more TV channels than anyone really needs.  It's fragmented.

[andygates]

Well, you are right; but then why do we need music on TV when we have radios?

To sell advertising!  So we can watch our idols bump and grind.  

30 years ago we had one other thing we still have: gigs where you can see your bands performing.  That's always been more than just the tunes.  And gigs are on the up!

[LEE]

What is missing is a TV outlet for music that's not filtered by the likes of Cowell.  For all its faults, TOTP did provide a route for that (though mostly its output was generic pap)

Later with Jools has been my outlet for that for over 10 years.

You only have to listen to BBC2's "The sounds of the 60's" to realise it was a predominently crap era for chart music.  For every "Hey Jude" there were ten terrible Beatles clone records (Easybeats, Beatnicks, Merseybeats, Freddie & the Dreamers and so on), that doesn't include all the terrible balladeers of the time (Des O'connor, Max Bygraves and the like).

The charts are used as a test of age and it's pretty reliable.  Once you utter the phrase "This is all just noise" then you just got old.

Fortunately though I have never stopped discovering exciting new music in the Album charts (and beyond).  

Spotify has been a revelation for doing just this.  

[pcolbeck]

And for Every Elvis there was a Cliff Richard ...

[Moloko]

Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep, anyone?

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/HSNSTerj2Kc&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/HSNSTerj2Kc&rel=1</a>

[Jaded]

with Basil and jogler on backing guitar/vocals. 

[Jaded]

some R&B shite

Indeed forgettable formulaic tosh.