Old fogey opinions on modern popular music amnesty

[xenon]

I kinda go by genre rather than XYZ came out this year so must give it a listen. SO I'll listen to anything from any era following the music trails but really have no idea what's going on pop wise.

Conclusion. There's tons of new music, lots of it's shite, some great. Same as it ever was, except there's just more of everything....

 

[Hollis]

I see bdrmm are supporting Ride on their 30th anniversary tour... small world...

 

[Steel Icarus]

I liked Ride,I saw them at a Lincoln nightclub called Vienna's in...not sure, but only their first EP (the red one with Chelsea Girl on it) was out at the time. They finished with Drive Blind and me and a kid in a Misfits shirt did the crappest synchronised stage dive in history

 

[ska invita]

I see bdrmm are supporting Ride on their 30th anniversary tour... small world...

someone needs to teach these young musicians about vowels...i sometimes cry*


*(a joke for old fogies)

 

[killer b]

fwiw my teen just sent me this to listen to, it's pretty good.

 

[hitmouse]

as a fogey, i like to listen to such as DNA, Ze'ev, Pauline Oliveros, the Fall, that sort of thing, while sipping tea by the fire in my cardigan. today's music is uniform and insipid, and the youth are uniform insipid for liking it.

Oh, come on, Uniform aren't that inspid:

it's true - you get the occasional weird kid who's into it, like some weird kids of our generation were into jazz or elvis or whatever, but even new guitar bands are mostly playing to audiences of men in their 40s

Is that a Manchester thing though? This could be a weird nonsense bias thing on my part, but it feels to me like Manchester audiences are more middle-aged than Yorkshire or Midlands ones. Unless I just don't notice middle-aged men at gigs in the Midlands or Yorkshire as much, which would be a weird thing for my brain to do, but possible?

it's been gradually gathering pace for the last... decade maybe? I think the MBV reunion probably kicked it off properly. Now every new band is a shoegaze band.

Have you heard the term "lad psych"? That proper tickled me the first time I encountered it.

Yes! It grates my ears to fuck.

Only good use of autotune is in the use of Farrah Abraham, where it is brilliant and wonderful imo:

someone needs to teach these young musicians about vowels...i sometimes cry

For some reason, I always always read their name as being short for "boredom" instead of "bedroom". Even though the letters in boredom are not in that order.

 

[mx wcfc]

some of my favourite bands are playing 30th anniversary tours of old albums next year

I saw Tom Robinson's 40th anniversary of Power in the Darkness tour in 2018. It was superb. A venue full of 50 something blokes (mainly), singing along to every word! He had to tell us to shut up for one song which he had updated the words for.
(We are of a similar vintage.)

 

[killer b]

Is that a Manchester thing though? This could be a weird nonsense bias thing on my part, but it feels to me like Manchester audiences are more middle-aged than Yorkshire or Midlands ones. Unless I just don't notice middle-aged men at gigs in the Midlands or Yorkshire as much, which would be a weird thing for my brain to do, but possible?

This could be it, though I've no idea what would cause such an effect?

 

[manji]

ah, they're on my 'don't listen to these guys' list cause their twitter handle is smelly bedroom, and really.

Sonic Cathedral are a great label though

I had forgotten Sonic Cathedral,thanks.

 

[AverageJoe]

There's so much great music out there. You just haven't found it yet.

 

[Cloo]

My music buying more or less tailed off from mid 00s, but now I have a music subscription I do like trying new things. Don't think I'm ever buying a CD again (and the idea that they'd be indestructible, which was widely touted in 80s, has turned out to be bollocks).

An old git gripe of mine about my music streaming service (Youtube music, which is a bit shit) is that is designed for listening like A Young Person - it's all about the songs first, artist second, albums.... ooh, way down the list - clearly the idea is that listeners have everything on shuffle. And you can't turn if off moving onto another album of its choosing when the one you are listening to is finished, which I find really irritating when listening to a new album as I want to experience them as whole things (Adele would approve ) and it's annoying when I realise the last 3 tracks I've been listening to are actually another album or artist it's moved onto without telling me. Rude.

 

[butcher]

No of these troubled teen troubadours can produce a good tune you can whistle nowadays.

And what happened to decent yodellers like Slim Whitman.....

 

[hitmouse]

I suppose this is one of those known unknown/unknown unknown things, in that if there is a scene that's just full of gen z guitar bands playing to other zoomers, this thread would by definition be not a good place to find out about it.

 

[Griff]

Prince Rama were the last band to make great pop music IMHO of course, this last album of their's is great. Shame they weren't actually popular. Split now, but was lucky enough to see them in Hackney a few years back.

 

[krtek a houby]

That Gabriels band are alright, in a retro sounding way. Sault are exceptional. That Galway band, NewDad are rather lovely and do like what I've heard from Priya Ragu. Limerick's Denise Chaila is another one to watch. John Francis Flynn is an excellent new voice (to these ears) as is For Those I Love...

 

[danny la rouge]

I suppose this is one of those known unknown/unknown unknown things, in that if there is a scene that's just full of gen z guitar bands playing to other zoomers, this thread would by definition be not a good place to find out about it.

Hearse Pileup

 

[killer b]

I suppose this is one of those known unknown/unknown unknown things, in that if there is a scene that's just full of gen z guitar bands playing to other zoomers, this thread would by definition be not a good place to find out about it.

From time to time some indie band I've never heard of - usually called The Sherlocks or something similarly dull - will sell out my local gig venue in a couple of hours, and then when the venue post clips of the show it'll be full of young 'uns. I've no idea what they're doing the rest of the time though, there's no regular scene of smaller shows they turn up at or owt.

 

[ska invita]

I've no idea what they're doing the rest of the time though, there's no regular scene of smaller shows they turn up at or owt.

theyre on their phones cyber bullying each other

 

[philosophical]

Can they deliver live without miming these days?

 

[Pickman's model]

From time to time some indie band I've never heard of - usually called The Sherlocks or something similarly dull - will sell out my local gig venue in a couple of hours, and then when the venue post clips of the show it'll be full of young 'uns. I've no idea what they're doing the rest of the time though, there's no regular scene of smaller shows they turn up at or owt.

I'd go and see a band called the morlocks, but not one called the eloi

 

[nogojones]

the whole of rock music is adult pop isn't it really? the kids aren't listening to anything with guitars in it

I've been quite depressed bout the state of the world recently, but this has given me some hope.

 

[nogojones]

Did they go on to form Westlife?

 

[killer b]

theyre on their phones cyber bullying each other

Or twerking on Instagram I guess

 

[Pickman's model]

Did they go on to form Westlife?

Fortunately not

 

[Brainaddict]

(((Guitar bands)))

To be fair there was about two decades of derivative crap from guitar bands before people stopped listening to them. I think they got a fair crack at it. It ain't the kids' fault if they couldn't come up with anything new.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

Somewhat similar to the shoegaze stuff what seems to be popular within the techno scene at the moment is stuff that's heavily influenced by 80s EBM and Belgian New Beat. I'm really not sure if this is because 'the kids' are discovering all this old stuff or because everyone producing it is so old they're rooting through the records they liked as teenagers for inspiration.

 

[killer b]

Somewhat similar to the shoegaze stuff what seems to be popular within the techno scene at the moment is stuff that's heavily influenced by 80s EBM and Belgian New Beat. I'm really not sure if this is because 'the kids' are discovering all this old stuff or because everyone producing it is so old they're rooting through the records they liked as teenagers for inspiration.

do kids listen to techno now? I rarely go to the clubs these days, but when I have done they've had the feel of the northern soul clubs I'd occasionally check out in the 90s, crowd wise

 

[Hearse Pileup]

'Preciate the mention

Hearse Pileup

I can recommend my good friends Trevor's Head, also Morass of Molasses. I really enjoyed Calva Louise when I saw them... There's a couple of bands I've played with that I can't remember the names of now and I feel bad lol. I recently discovered Crying, who I thought were pretty exciting too.

Cavalli are a band I really really enjoyed whilst they were playing, but they've all gone off to do their own thing for the moment.

I've been a bit isolated for the last decade due to problems with my work/life balance, but I'm hoping to get back out into the scene again now.

[EDIT]: WRT gen z's playng to eachother, I would technically be defined as a millennial - probably an 'elder millennial' even lol, but quite a few zoomers seem to have enjoyed our stuff. To the point I've seen a couple relate to a song I literally titled "Generation Y"

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

do kids listen to techno now? I rarely go to the clubs these days, but when I have done they've had the feel of the northern soul clubs I'd occasionally check out in the 90s, crowd wise

Yeah I think they do (subject to the obvious caveat that I'm an old git who hasn't been to a club for years so might be talking rubbish). I think there's definitely an older scene - all those club nights where you can see the same DJs you'd see in the 90s - but I think there's a younger scene as well.

 

[BassJunkie]

I'm off to see Self Esteem tonight. Modern pop music! So this thread's not for me.