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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2020 7:33:38 GMT -5
It used to be exciting to stumble upon a new group ... While I've gone 100% dematerialised music, I do miss the trawling through record shops and the whole experience of the vinyl era. Ferreting through second-hand record shops to find some missing gem for £2 or some weird thing that you've maybe vaguely heard of or maybe caught the end of a track on John Peel or it just looks interesting, and you've never seen any actual physical product of the band and here it is - an album by Head of David, Swans, SPK, Flipper, Lydia Lunch, Albert Ammons, Big Bill Broonzy, etc etc.
Sometimes it would be crap, and sometimes it would be a revelation and start of another fractal search of the music world of similar stuff.
Now: click. OK, got that, what's next?
I wouldn't swap the days of vinyl and having to store several hundred LPs, the susceptibility to scratches and heat damage, and the inconvenience of getting up every 20 minutes to put the other side, or something else on the record deck, but I do miss the 12" sleeve format, and in some ways miss having less music - I think I treasured it more then - I'd know what songs were in what order, and know the band members and the lyrics, and what order the albums came out - though that might have been a function of being younger and more fanatical about music in those days - and having more solo time to enjoy it.
Now - vastly more music to choose from, but I tend to play everything on random play - a lot of the time I don't even know who the artist is, never mind which album/song, and it's mostly on my phone or laptop rather than on the fairly good hifi (which I don't have anymore, having swapped the space for a Sonos unit - which is all very well, but it's not the same)
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2020 8:07:16 GMT -5
Wasn't Kerrang! a metal music zine? Still is, though it's on hiatus at the moment, courtesy of Covid and the consequent shut-down of live music I appreciate how hard it is to put out some magazines due to Covid, but some of them aren’t trying to do anything new. Example: STARBURST did a Top 100 Sci-Fi Films list in its recent issue. I love STARBURST to death, but a film magazine I subscribe to did something similar. I get that there’s nothing new to review, but at least try. To be fair, this film magazine did do a retrospective about JAWS, which I enjoyed (I learnt about plans for the movie to originally feature miniatures in a water tank). But it really does feel like some magazines are just rehashing Top 100 lists, which does feel lazy. And, this isn’t about Covid. Some magazines seem to do this a lot. I’ve lost count of the number of genre magazines which seem to do a Top 100 Films list every so often. Try and do something new. Please. Cover something obscure and retro. In the case of music magazines, without the live music and albums to cover, dissect something that maybe hasn’t been dissected before. Find something esoteric/obscure, but interesting. Some magazines will have it easy. CAR MECHANICS can carry on offering maintenance tips. Retro magazines can plunder the archives. I get that film and music magazines can’t cover things due to the lack of releases, but pre-Covid, they were already doing those lists. Wrestling magazines (some of them) are the same. Do we really need another Top 50 wrestlers list? It seems like the laziest approach at times.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2020 9:00:25 GMT -5
I guess it's a combination of things - (1) a relatively cheap issue to put together, so they can squeeze 12 issues per year out of 11 point something issues worth of material, and (2) TOP N lists do seems to attract people - people like to argue about them.
With a lot of magazines hanging by a thread, even before Covid, anything they can do to squeeze product out under less cost keeps them limping on a little bit further. Ultimately, I think they're all doomed - I can't see how physical magazines are going to survive. They've got slimmer as the ad revenue has dried up, their circulations are at levels which would have been considered catastrophic 10 years ago, their cover prices have gone through the roof, and most of them are "available" on the internet as soon as (and sometimes before) they've hit the shelves. I honestly don't see how they can survive in the current form, and I'm not sure that they should - they consume huge amounts of resources for what is (for most people) a transient product with negligible collector market - the value is all in the IP, which could be served just as effectively, and cheaper, over the internet, though they have the perennial problem of getting anyone to pay for internet content.
I wonder if the sponsored model will manage to keep some going? The Raspberry Pi foundation do it with MagPi and Custom PC - they have a mission to educate people technically, so the magazines are just part of the cost of doing that, rather than having to justify itself; Magpi is available as a free PDF download, and only if you want a physical copy do you pay for it.
Or maybe, you end up with a subscription model, where only subscribers get a physical copy and you know in advance exactly how many to print, though getting people to pay for subscriptions is legendarily difficult, and not helped when magazines and publishers are collapsing, leaving people reluctant to commit their money.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2020 9:27:16 GMT -5
Good points, sir!
Prices are high now. I could get, say, an Amstrad magazine (late 80s) for £2 or less. There are magazines now that are nearly £8. I think CLASSIC ROCK is near to £8.
As for the lists, well some I have spoken to blame Covid, but it was happening before that. I do buy WRESTLETALK, but I wish they’d stop with the lists in some issues. They aren’t breaking new ground. Trust me. Whenever a film magazine does a Top 100 films list, you know THE THING, BLADE RUNNER and THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK are gonna be on there. And these lists don’t tell you anything new. Even an ant living on a remote island has seen BLADE RUNNER. I wish they’d do something different, e.g. my idea of a Top 10 Films from Continental Europe. Or, to keep on topic here, a music magazine doing “Top 50 Metal Songs From Before Metal Existed”. Something different, anything diffferent.
They’ve been doing these lists for years and years. And I doubt anyone is ever surprised by them. If they were to do a Top 100 Rock Albums list, we do know what’ll be on there. Nothing on the list will surprise us. Same with films. I doubt 1984’s RAZORBACK is gonna make a Top 100 Films list.
I do like some magazines. I do wonder if there is something in your idea to have a subscription-only magazine, but the drawback is that some subscribers only discover magazines spontaneously. There have been subscriber-only magazines (WRESTLETALK was one, but it’s now in stores) that some people didn’t even know existed.
So, maybe my earlier post should have explained things better. Covid isn’t the reason some magazines have done lists, they’ve been doing them for a long, long time. I may have even ranted about it here at least 2 years ago. For £5 or £5, pages and pages of “Top 100 Films” doesn’t represent value for money. I can only read the synopsis for PSYCHO so many times.
Still, I wish KERRANG a lot of luck.
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Post by impulse on Aug 10, 2020 10:59:10 GMT -5
I definitely enjoyed the thrill of the hunt and the sensation of discovery looking through the local music shop in my youth. Walking in to see the rows and rows of bands, seeing that rare import, the shelf full of demos and samplers and stickers, or getting my dad to drive me into the city for my birthday to go to Best Buy in the heyday of CDs. They had FREAKING EVERYTHING if it was still in print, and the prices were drastically less expensive than the mall stores. $14 for a CD instead of $22+. (I know you vinyl kids can beat me on that).
I certainly enjoy the ease of access and discovery the modern digital services provide. It's easier than ever to find and try similar artists. I would prefer not to go back, but there was something magical about the experience of hunting. It's a similar appeal to comic collecting was in its heyday. At least it scratched a similar itch for me.
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 10, 2020 11:07:18 GMT -5
It's weird but I sort of have The Go-Gos filed as retro right next to The Stray Cats and Joan Jett... I was listening to them at the time, also Shakin' Stevens, and that one Neil Young '50s Rockabilly style album (that he got sued over for not sounding like himself by the label that signed him). There was a 'this is fun/old time rock' vibe also communicated in their graphics. Maybe the B-52s should be in that mix as well, my DJ brother had their LP, but other than Rock Lobster I wasn't listening really, I'd probably filed them next to Split Enz. Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe could do a retro thing as well, I remember Edmunds on that SCTV fishing show parody. Big Country, Dexy's Midnight Runners, Joe Jackson, Yaz... I'm not sure I was able to conveniently file them at all. Maybe Yaz as 'synth' and yet what a huge voice Alison Moyet had (another reason to be thankful Vince Clarke was born)! It used to be exciting to stumble upon a new group like say The Cure, Oingo Boingo, or (SCTV appearing) The Plastics! from Japan... that stopped happening as often somewhere in the past. Anything different I would latch on to and want to hear more... The Grapes Of Wrath, The Proclaimers, Bjork, Matthew Sweet, Stereolab. I remember the opening riff of Sooner Or Later when the (English) Beat played American Bandstand and was sure I was hearing something like kids in early 1964 heard from the fab four on the Ed Sullivan show! Of course they broke up soon after, and only scattered weirdos across the U.S. 'got' the 2-Tone Ska thing just as it was falling apart into smaller sized remnants (and then I got into some of these great U.S. third wave combos, some equally short lived... oh, plus Fishbone of course). One of the reasons why the New Wave era is "my era" of music (aside from it coinciding with my adolescence) was the sheer volume of experimentation. There were mini-revivals of straight up rock and roll, like Nick Lowe, Dave Edmonds (and their collective Rockpile); there was the ska revival (Madness, The Specials, English Beat), the Rockabilly revival (Stray Cats, Robert Gordon, Marshal Crenshaw , who kind of fell into rockabilly and the roots rock categories), plus some of that 50s and 60s style pop, with covers of songs of that era by fans. Blondie did quite a bit of that, with things like "Denise," and Tracy Ullman's big hit sounded like Leslie Gore had a new song out. Phil Collins covered the Supremes, etc, etc. Then there was punk and post-punk; one was stripped down and raw and the other was better musicians with a similar attitude. There was the electronic experimentation, as synth groups followed Kraftwerk and Brian Eno, and everyone followed Bowie and Roxy Music. The Go-Gos were a mix of 60s pock, roots rock and pop. The Bangles were a mix of rock and 60s folk rock. Loved Yaz(oo), between Vince Clarke's synth sounds and Alison Moyet's blues voice. Too bad they had too great a difference in vision and went separate ways. MTV probably gave me a greater musical education than anything, thinks to discovering so many bands and singers, who pulled in influences from all over. Once I was pretty well done with contemporary music (with a few exceptions) I started to look back at the influences of the bands I loved and picked up that stuff: glam rock, punk, rockabilly revival, classic rockabilly roots rock, old school 50s rock, rhythm & blues, soul, funk, 60s surf, fuzz guitar, 50s and 60s jazz (first soundtracks, then others), swing and bluegrass (love bluegrass and hillbilly, not so much the straight on country; western too). Rhino (pre-Warner Bros) helped a lot, too, with compilations for guys like Dick Dale and Link Wray, Spy music collections, plus their Just Can't Get Enough: New Wave Hits of the 80s, which featured a lot of music I missed then, which took me down other rabbit holes.
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Post by berkley on Aug 10, 2020 12:49:47 GMT -5
I liked the Bangles and the Go-Gos when I heard them on the radio but not to the point of evr feeling any urge to buy an album of theirs. Then again, it was the 80s, so wasn't buying any albums, period, especially from around 1984 to 1988.
The Pandoras I have some mild interest in as Kim Shattuck of the Muffs used to play with them, so I might try to find some of their cds one of these days. But from the little I've heard she wasn't the moving force behind the Pandooras - I don't think she was writing songs back then or singing lead for them, so they don't soind much like the Muffs.
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Post by beccabear67 on Aug 10, 2020 20:37:09 GMT -5
Magazines: I hate those 'Top #___ Anything' lists... with one exception; Flashback's #___ Obscure Whatever lists, those I can learn a lot from. Actually Vintage Rock had lists of vintage Rockabilly and R&B sides I would then seek out to hear, so I guess they were another exception. But c'mon, '100 Albums I Must Hear'? And guess what, it's Dark Side, Pepper's, Exile and Pet Sounds as the top four yet again... yawn! Mojo seemed to dodge some of that with something they named 'How To Buy' guides, and usually to some lesser known artistes, or if someone major it might be someone I just never knew where I might start with them.
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Post by berkley on Aug 10, 2020 21:50:56 GMT -5
I assume a lot of those lists are aimed at younger audiences who haven't grown up listening to that music that we know so well - so much of what seems obvious and conventional to us could be a new discovery for some of them.
But yeah, lists of all kinds are kind of stupid - and yet, I admit that I like looking at them. I've been introduced to alot oof stuff that way, not only music but novels, films, etc.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2020 4:36:54 GMT -5
It’s the lack of originality with the lists that irks me. Not what is on the list (of course something like BLADE RUNNER should be on a Top 100 Films list...in my opinion). But when I see them advertised, I groan. They won’t tell me anything I didn’t know.
I’d just like something different, e.g. if a music magazine did something such as “Top 20 Influential Electronic Music Albums”. That’s a little different, right? True, you’d have to have an interest in electronic music, but if you do, or are intrigued by it, a list like that might tell you something new. If I was editing a movie magazine, I might commission a knowledgeable person and say, “Give me a list of the Top 50 Non-Hollywood films of the last 20 years.” Surely those would be interesting?
These lists are just becoming more and more frequent. I’m a huge wrestling fan, but the PWI 500 does not interest me. I appreciate the time/effort involved in it, but reading 500 bios of wrestlers, and the reasons for their inclusion, is not for me. Oh, look, another Top 100 Movies list, what a surprise that THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK is on it...not. And it’s the frequency that pisses me off. I was wrong to bring Covid into the discussion, this has been going on for years. I yawn when a magazine editor writes, “Welcome to our Top 100 Sci-Fi Films list issue.” I know one wrestling magazine editor, Mike O’Hara (NEW WAVE WRESTLING), dismissed lists in an editorial, I think he wanted the space in his magazine to be used for other things.
Why don’t these publishers just put out a special magazine devoted entirely to lists - and leave the regular magazines to something more insightful?
Sticking with the music thread here, I did buy the likes of MOJO and CLASSIC ROCK on occasion, but I feel there’s little left to say about defunct/deceased bands. Are there really any major revelations left to be discovered about the Beatles or Stones? Haven’t certain albums been dissected to death?
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 11, 2020 10:55:41 GMT -5
Lists come down to two things; need for content to fill pages and the fact that the audience won't sit still for long articles. If you look at most magazines these days, the ones that still exist, the articles are far shorter and far more visual than days of old. The sad fact is that the attention span of the audience is too short and magazines have come to reflect on-line blogs. Those top 100 lists allow for short pieces which will sustain the audience.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2020 11:06:46 GMT -5
Lists come down to two things; need for content to fill pages and the fact that the audience won't sit still for long articles. If you look at most magazines these days, the ones that still exist, the articles are far shorter and far more visual than days of old. The sad fact is that the attention span of the audience is too short and magazines have come to reflect on-line blogs. Those top 100 lists allow for short pieces which will sustain the audience. That’s really sad. Because I would rather read a 6-page article dissecting “Helter Skelter” and its influence on metal than read another Top 100 Rock Albums list that is yawn-inducing and predictable. Same with any magazine. I suppose some wrestling magazines would rather do a “Top 10 Tag Teams Of The Attitude Era” than, I don’t know, commission an article that examines the old territories or Japanese wrestling. If it is reflecting short attention spans, that is sad. I mean, there are some good music articles. About two years ago, one guitar magazine did a comprehensive article about misogyny in rock music. It did make me think, and it even covered the perception that when a woman enters a guitar store, some owners assume she is buying a guitar for a man. That is the kind of article I like to read, even if I don’t agree with all of its findings. But, no, let’s have another Top 10 Beatles Songs list.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2020 11:25:35 GMT -5
Lists come down to two things; need for content to fill pages and the fact that the audience won't sit still for long articles. If you look at most magazines these days, the ones that still exist, the articles are far shorter and far more visual than days of old. The sad fact is that the attention span of the audience is too short and magazines have come to reflect on-line blogs. Those top 100 lists allow for short pieces which will sustain the audience. Sadder, for me, is that I've become part of that short-attention-span demographic. I used to be much better at reading in-depth works. I don't know how much blame to assign to my diet of comic books, and how much to assign to the internet, and how much is just my nature. I really need to start reading novels again. Another thing is... oh, wait a minute, there's something interesting going on in another browser tab I have open...
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 11, 2020 11:48:33 GMT -5
Studies have shown that the internet is a big factor in how people process information. The average person will skim the first paragraph of a news article and little more. That has a chilling effect when you look at what passes for news stories and how much is outright false propaganda, especially in an election year. It has directly affected critical thinking skills and revealed how easily people can be manipulated by falsehood.
I come from a family of readers and have always been reading a novel or other long-form material; but, I have noticed that my tolerance for a slow start has diminished. I kind of had to learn to read a middle section of a book I was considering, to decide if I wanted to pick it up. I've read some great stories that didn't start well, but got quite good, once it was rolling.
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Post by impulse on Sept 5, 2020 16:52:28 GMT -5
On the off-chance adamwarlock2099 and @draketungsten aren't yet tired of me prattling on about White Zombie and Rob Zombie and to avoid totally derailing the "There I Said It" thread, I wanted to carry over a little about Rob Zombie. Specifically, how a lot of people who are only casually aware of him see him (quite fairly) as kind of a one-trick pony. His best known songs are definitely of a similar type with the simple driving beat and metal style guitars with a tiny bit of techno thrown in. He actually gets quite a bit different than that. First was White Zombie. I was never much aware of their pre-major label stuff. I listened on Spotify once or twice and largely thought it was incoherent art student noise with a bit of punk thrown in. A quick Wikiedia search supports that. They started off as a punk influenced noise rock band, and early band members included Rob's girlfriend and college roommate, so yeah, not far off. At some point they ended up with a more traditionally metal guitar player and started them becoming the band we know. They had a couple breakthrough songs as White Zombie. Most famously More Human than Human and Thunderkiss 65. Black Sunshine is also a good one and guest featured Iggy Pop. In my humble opinion, these pretty much sum up all most people need to know about Rob Zombie's music before he went solo. Advise not listening without headphones if coworkers or little ones are about. Thunderkiss 65 (don't judge them for the video bc yikes)
This is the one that got my attention. That riff is so catchy, and the slow driving groovy beat just carries you nodding along.
Black Sunshine (Featuring Iggy Pop) This has some metal guitar but also REALLY groovy and funky in the bass.
More Human Than Human Still swingier than his solo stuff, but you can really see the blueprints for where he would end up.
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