Queue on 13/2/2009 at 18:27
Kudos for Peter!
(
http://news.yahoo.com/s/eonline/20090213/en_celeb_eo/99949) http://news.yahoo.com/s/eonline/20090213/en_celeb_eo/99949
It's horseshit to trim down songs into a some banal collage, when they allow "off-the-cuff-funny-hijinks" from the likes of Owen Wilson to drone on and on.
(....felt a need for something other than fiery death threads)
fett on 13/2/2009 at 18:50
Agreed. The microwave mentality of this stuff is what gives birth to things like Britney Agulopez and Nickelback. There's this mentality that a song isn't worth much if it's not under 3 minutes. At the same time, folks in the music industry pine for the days of huge record sales. Pink Floyd, Queen, the Beatles, etc. - many, many songs that were 5+ minutes. During the boom of the 70's you had bands like Yes and Rush that got away with all kinds of long songs, both in the single and album format because humans still took time to listen.
On a related note, my wife went to Best Buy (the only music outlet around here) to get me the new Thornley CD (Ian Thornley of Big Wreck). She counted *literally* 7 different single CD versions of some Carrie Underwood song, but the music guy had never heard of Thornley or Big Wreck. Now I know Big Wreck wasn't huge, but no one remembers 'That Song' or 'The Oaf'? It's not underground stuff folks. I've realized that unless an artist has big tits, has recently served a prison sentence, or gets regular airplay on radio Disney, I'm unlikely to find them in a mainstream music outlet.
Yeah - hooray for Peter. His audience knows what's up and don't give a shit about the Oscars anyway.
Queue on 13/2/2009 at 18:53
Well...
Big tits does help, fett.
fett on 13/2/2009 at 18:56
...never worked for me.:mad:
Matthew on 13/2/2009 at 18:58
I'll subscribe to your website, fett.
demagogue on 13/2/2009 at 19:41
Not quite as dramatic as Sartre declining the Nobel Prize for literature, but still pretty cool in its own way.
We all know how it's going to go down, though ... 90% of the public being slightly annoyed (if they notice at all) -- why is it such a big deal; long ceremonies are boring -- and the other 10% caring so little about the Oscars that they wonder why Peter bothers making a "protest" out of it at all.
I still dig it. Little stands keep the world going round, or we'd be sucked dry by the culture vampires for sure.
Fingernail on 13/2/2009 at 19:42
There are a lot of bands that do long shit, like Sigur Ros or The Mars Volta, and there are several recent albums that have long tracks on them that I can think of.
What it really takes as a songwriter or composer is the understanding to know when you're done with whatever material you're working with. I can't remember who said it, but there's a quote to the effect of "the greatest musical geniuses were the ones who knew where the end was".
There are a lot of tediously turgid arrangements that meander on through repetative refrains, verse after verse, solos, and other ridiculous structural embellishments. And on the other end of the extreme, there are very short songs that effectively and movingly say what they have to say (something like Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want by the Smiths) in just over 2 minutes or less.
As usual, there's no hard or fast rule, and obviously it's just silly to expect a condensed form of anything to make any sense out of context at the Oscars, it's just musical wallpaper. Like whenever you hear "Ride of the Valkyries" by Wagner, or "Nessun Dorma" from Turandot. I wonder how many people actually realise that they belong in operas.
fett on 13/2/2009 at 22:20
Quote Posted by Fingernail
There are a lot of bands that do long shit, like Sigur Ros or The Mars Volta, and there are several recent albums that have long tracks on them that I can think of.
Ah, right! In fact I'm listening to a Mars Volta track on a clear channel station right now.
No wait. Actually I'm not. :(
Fingernail on 13/2/2009 at 22:46
Ah, right! I'm reading that point in your original post, rather than one about bands making long singles and albums.
No wait. Actually I'm not.
But actually, I don't know what the situation is over there, but radio stations here often play lengthier stuff if you listen to the right shows. I've heard Sigur Ros on the radio, and Paranoid Android and others. Bohemian Rhapsody is still one of the most played songs on UK radio every week.
fett on 14/2/2009 at 00:12
Here, where clear channel owns the airwaves, it's pretty much a rotation of Nickleback, Hinder, Nickleback, some band that sounds like Nickleback, then some more Nickelback. When we go to commercial it's usually a Nickleback song in the background.
You can listen to a 'classic rock' station which might throw in an ancient Rush tune between all the Lynyrd Skynyrd and AC/DC. And by 'tune' I mean Limelight. Every single fucking time.
Web radio is the only way to go anymore.
