D&D and the rising pandemic

[Umbran]

You're not wrong. All that we have left for storytelling music might well be Country and even that is being Autotuned and voice synthed away.

Country isn't all that far from the blues and folk roots in terms of its structure and pace for most songs, such that you can sing along to it.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I'm not talking about, say, EDM (which, I admit, generally sounds to me like a Transformer got hold of a bad burrito).

But, the mere existence of lyrics isn't enough. I'm talking about songs constructed so you can sing along.

For rap music, there's a problem - speed. You can't get a crowd of people cogently signing along to rap, any more than you can get them signing along to Gilbert and Sullivan's "I am the Very Model of a Modern Major General". The lyric of the tune is sung by one person, because even the slightest mismatch in cadences turns it into an incomprehensible mess.

Is it possible that there is an overlap between "songs I can sing to" and "music from my childhood and teen years," and that there is quite a bit of music that the teens of today are singing to?

I mean, based on my anecdotal observations (and/or TikTok) it would seem that the youth of today are doing nothing other than dancing and singing to contemporary music (and occasionally sea shanties).

The Youth! That's all they do, you know- just drive around listening to raps and shooting all the jobs.

 

[Umbran]

I'm trying to be optimistic, but I'm getting frustrated. I'm getting frustrated with people. I can't help but feel that if more people had been taking this seriously, had gotten their vaccinations earlier (or at all), then we wouldn't be having such a problem.

Loads of people were misled into taking the wrong things seriously. Wearing a mask? Not a serious inconvenience.

It can be said that the key to dealing with the pandemic really lay in caring about people beyond your own personal experience. And there's loads of folks who have been taught they shouldn't give a fig about them.

It feels like we are living in one of those heavy-handed Star Trek episodes, where they come across a planet where the solution to the problem they are having is obvious, yet they will not accept the solution because of (racism, cultural taboo, mumbledy jumbledy reasons).

Those who do not study Trek are doomed to repeat it. Trek has a morality play structure for a reason.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Those who do not study Trek are doomed to repeat it.

So ... what you're saying is that JJ Abrams never studied Trek before making the reboot movies?

thinking Yep, checks out.

 

[Ryujin]

For a short shining while this summer I was able to return to my daily routine at the local bagel shop for breakfast. Where, not only is it almost always possible to get a jalapeno bagel with sausage, egg, and pepperjack, a small fruit cup, and an unsweet tea, but where there was also generally music from the mid 70s through the 80s being played. Why did everything go musically south after my childhood radio listening years! (I would also happily take most of Motown and select scatterings from the 60s, early 70s, and 90s).

I'm planning on watching "Summer of Soul", on Star, over the weekend to get my fix.

 

[Zardnaar]

Best music of all time is generally whatever you were listening to when you were a teen.

Good modern music seems to be coming out of Europe now. Unless you like K-Pop.

 

[Umbran]

(and occasionally sea shanties).

Interesting that you should mention that. Because that's what I'm talking about.

Sea shanties (note the root word - chant) are originally work songs They are designed to help a group of people who must act in unison do so. The Wellerman isn't exactly a classic chanty, but it is close enough to that root to have similar structure. The song is BUILT to have a group of people able to execute it together with ease. That's its actual purpose, its raison d'être.

The same is true for folk music, which, when combined with the blues, gets us country music. This is music designed for anyone with a fiddle or a banjo or guitar to sit down, and have the entire room signing.

A great deal of pop (and hip-hop) is designed to showcase the skill of the lead vocalist. There's good cultural and business reasons for that, but one result is that, broadly speaking, the genres become difficult for J. Q. Public to follow along with respectably, because they don't have that skill.

And I submit that's why the shared musical phenomenon was a shanty, and not a tune by the big pop stars of today.

 

[Umbran]

Best music of all time is generally whatever you were listening to when you were a teen.

To be 100% clear. I'm not actually knocking anyone's music, or saying modern music is bad. And I sure am not arguing that modern music isn't successful.

I'm saying it isn't suited to this one particular purpose.

Can anyone here get the difference there? "Not good for this purpose," does not equal, "bad". Or is that too easy to lose here.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

A great deal of pop (and hip-hop) is designed to showcase the skill of the lead vocalist. There's good cultural and business reasons for that, but one result is that, broadly speaking, the genres become difficult for J. Q. Public to follow along with respectably, because they don't have that skill.

I think you underestimate the ability of John Q. Public to overestimate his skill.

 

[Janx]

You're not wrong. All that we have left for storytelling music might well be Country and even that is being Autotuned and voice synthed away.

What the flying butt nugget are you talking about?

Iron Maiden is STILL writing songs about stories and stuff, without auto-tune.

Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Empire of the Clouds
Paschendale
Gates of Montsegur
Alexander the Great

to name a few. Every album.

Then there's the steampunks.
The Lisps have a whole album 'Futurity' set in Abe lincoln time with a machine to end all war

The Mechanisms have The Bifrost Incident (and other albums). The Ratatosk Express has arrived 80 years late and everybody on board is dead. Inspector Edda has to solve the case.

I don't know where you buy your radio crack, but you are missing out on the good stuff.