Since we're on this particular tangent, this is great: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83xz20H-hAs

John T.  It no longer shocks me that many of the artists that create what seems like lesat common denominator music often have amazing musical chops.  i have seen people who have went to Juliard crank out simple "boom bap" hip hop beats because that is what was needed for the project. i have even encountered techno artsists that can play note for note with anyone in the world.  Even many of the maligned artists are surprisingly good from a technical standpoint.  Kenny g is a world class a-hole in person and I loathe his music, but people in the know are aware that he is incredibly skilled .

John T


Since we're on this particular tangent, this is great: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83xz20H-hAs

 Wow, thanks for that. Hard not to hear a brilliant performer in that for sure.

Wow, this thread continues to prove that the most common form of communiations on the planet is misunderstanding. I don't see how you guys are getting any of this stuff from what I said. I don't want everyone on the planet to sound like Steely Dan. I don't even listen to them because I find it too refined, though I respect the talent.

I'm talking about HONESTY. What's so hard to get about that? Just put out there what you are and can honestly do. I love roughly made music. In fact when anyone asks me these days what's something out there I think is interesting I point them at a band like CocoRosie, a lot of which is incredibly primitive. But it has an amazing vibe because it is real.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6bInhOhUYs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51K4cUTuvc0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDb7dAnm79I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBWxjAiO_KQ

Check all of the above out. Don't listen to one and think you know what they are because the range of stuf in there is pretty vast. Some of it is incredibly primitive but it gives me the chills.

And of course I'm a huge fan of Yes, Rush, Pink Floyd, and so forth, which is much more produced and some of it vastly more technically oriented. And though those bands are very much into experimentation, they don't misrpresent what they can actually do. They can all bring it live.

I don't care how you express yourself, I just wish you'd be honest about it, and not put out songs that are inhumanly perfected by extensive use of editing and corrective tools, and just pretend like you did it. I don't respect that any more than I respect anyone in any other profession misrepresenting their accomplishments.
And I don't think that Lady Gaga is a bad musician. She clearly is someone, like Madonna, who sees a market and goes after it with a vengeance, and makes herself more about image than music. I have no problem with that either, per se. But if anyone here is trying to claim that there isn't hugely more *performance* enhancement going on today than there was up until the advent of widespread digital tools in the mid-90s, then I have to laugh. And I mean not of the sort where it's an obvious effect, which is always just a matter of taste. And I certainly don't think it's improved music at all. It's cheapened it ultimately.
 

I think everyone gets that you're talking about honesty. I think what's happening is that more or less nobody in the thread so far agrees with your definition of honesty, nor agrees that its particularly relevant whatever the definition.

Grant: Yeah, killer, isn't it? I don't like her records much, and I wish she'd put more of that kind of thing out properly. Paparazzi, Bad Romance and Videophone (not Telephone) with Beyonce are great pop records, though.

I like the little thing where she clicks her fingers but also makes a click sound down the mic. Showbiz instincts combined with knowing how to make it work sonically. Anyone who can't see how smart she is is flat wrong.

On Pink Floyd: they were pretty lame live, under their own steam. Bolstered on stage by a half dozen session players since the early 70s. I'll give them that live8 show, they were pretty good on that as a four piece, but that's not been their MO since as far back as the Dark Side tour.

In the Gilmour-led years, they had *two* drummers backing Mason up.

" I think everyone gets that you're talking about honesty. I think what's happening is that more or less nobody in the thread so far agrees with your definition of honesty, nor agrees that its particularly relevant whatever the definition."


Todays audiences actually have more knowledge of what goes on behind the scenes than ever before.  They are well aware there is lots of performance enhancing technology and really don't care.  They are certainly not being deceived