Old Music vs New Music: Why It's Stupid
Posted 11th September 2007 at 11:29pm by M1ke, tagged as Music | Commenting Closed
In any group of friends there are likely to be differences in music taste, but none is more apparent than the split between those who prefer new music and those who prefer old music. The new music crowd is generally into the live scene, will describe bands with just one album as "legends" and have no idea that not all their songs are original genius. The old music fans will generally refer to their favourite bands as "classic", dislike anything from the past 10/20 years and maintain that all new music copies the old stuff. Both of these camps are full of fools.
The simple fact is that music, like most things related to our favourite squishy ape descendants, is progressive. If there's one thing we are good at it's trying to get as far from the ape ancestors as possible (though watching Big Brother...) and we do that through learning from successes as well as mistakes. However amongst people with opinions, learning from successes is often incorectly views as plagiarism. The simple point is that nothing we do is original, and no matter who you claim to have "started" something there will be someone behind them waving grumpily. However that doesn't mean that influences should be forgotten just because they are essential - anyone who thinks that Oasis forged ahead on their own are mistaken and deserve to be force-fed half the bands from the 1960s, 70s and 80s. What that doesn't mean is that we have to like the precursors to our favourite bands. Whilst we may be partial to some Foo Fighters it doesn't mean we must praise Nirvana. At the same time anyone who ever complains about new music copying old music should be made to sit through a few days worth of baroque music, or go watch as Chuck Berry and Elvis stole the blues from the American black community.
Music is music and everything draws influence from everything else. If you wish to hear originality, breed yourself a kid, stick them in a house without a computer, radios or a television and give them a guitar. Maybe you'll get lucky and hear something new, but there's more chance they'll just come up with the Status Quo chord progression and be done with it.
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Rebecca Johnson
12th September 2007 at 3:54pm
I agree with most of what you are saying, but these days I do not believe that music is progressive in fact it is most probably the opposite when u take a look at some at the pop music around at the moment. I do not dislike this kind of music in fact i enjoy listening to it but can it really be in the same class as the beatles?
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