Home Rocky Road

From Classic Rock to Progessive to hip hop to today's hot new tunes!

[ Follow Ups ] Thread: [ Display  All  Email ] [ Rocky Road ]
[ Alert Moderator ]

Re: Well, that's typical...

>No need for petulance, dear boy. It does not become you.

Look in yr own mirror, pal.

>And since when does voicing one's opinion amount to snobbery?

Let's see. How about when it reads like this:

"I find that to be the case with *all* rock lyrics. The lyrics of Dylan, The Beatles, Stones, The Who, et al., ring dated and shallow, likewise their music. To paraphrase Gertrude Stein, when it comes to musical sophistication, there's no there, there. That's why a hundred years hence people will still be listening to Ellington, Miles Davis, Bach and Beethoven but not Led Zep. Sophisticated rock music is an oxymoron. It can dazzle a seventeen-year-old but most of us grow up to cultivate a more demanding musical palate, if you will."

Yeah, you're right. That's not snobbery. It's ignorance.

>Dreadfully sorry if I’ve trampled on your dogma, but it hardly makes me a snob. I should think that obvious to all but the most obtuse among us.

Oh, brother. Yeah. My dogma. Sheesh. You're a piece of work.

>What, precisely, is your point?

I've tried, but you don't seem to get it.

>That all musical genres are qualitatively equal?

No.

>Relativism run amok?

No.

>Does that about sum up your zeitgeist?

No, though all this would boost yr argument, now, wouldn't it? How convenient.

>In your world does Dylan equal Bach in terms of musical genius?

No. Is that okay with you, or must you cling to inaccurate presumptions?

>Shall we declare Santana the equal of Schubert in terms of compositional sophistication?

No. I happen to loathe his work, but that's besides the point. Funny that you bring up Shubert, though. It was more than 40 years ago that someone named William Mann declared John Lennon & Paul McCartney to be the greatest songwriters since Schubert. It probably won't impress you that he was the "serious," classical music critic of the London Times.

>your analogy is weak inasmuch as Dylan doesn’t fit the mold of the typical rocker

Oh, so now you get to define what is & isn't "rock." I see. A guy who's spent decades playing electrically amplified, loud music, based around relatively simple blues (read: "rock"-like) structures, with multiple electric guitars, now can't be classified in a way that's going to refute yr argument. Hey, this is fun. So, I suppose that means that Leonard Cohen cannot be rock, either. Or Lou Reed...

>He might best be described as a folk singer who wrote some country/rock tunes once upon a time before falling into a bottle of scotch.

Gee, I thought that was Tom Waits. I guess he can't be "rock," either. No fair.

What about Nick Cave? I'm sure you've heard volumes of his work, since you're so brave about labeling all 'rock' music as being made for 'children.' That's exactly what I thought about the 'Murder Ballads' album. Definitely juvenile. Particularly the...Dylan cover.

>But to my original point, when it comes to musical sophistication Dylan’s work is embarrassingly simplistic compared to, say, Beethoven's chamber music.

Yeah...and? Hey, that's a GREAT comparison! Can I do one? Let's see...what would be a suitable comparison? I got it. How about...that George Blanda, he was no Minnie Minoso. Oh...what? They did completely different things? But wait! They were both athletes that played into advanced ages relative to their sport! Oh...wait...different sports. Hmmm.

I suppose I have to actually declare that it's lost on you that what Dylan did, and what Beethoven did, were completely different. A 747 can fly at a faster speed than the Spirit Of St. Louis could, and that is just as invalid a comparison even though they're both airplanes.

Meanwhile, I've been listening to music based around blues structures for most of my life. That Tampa Red or Skip James' music is 'embarrassingly simplistic' compared to Beethoven does not inhibit my enjoyment of it. My musical palate does not require the level of sophistication that yrs apparently does at all times. Furry Lewis may not have been as eloquent as Cole Porter. So what? Neither of them did the same thing that Van Dyke Parks did with words. But since Parks worked in "rock," that makes his work, based on yr comment above, work designed for children.

What child exactly will grasp the concept behind a lyric such as "Cabinessence?"

>Moreover, his early work sounds painfully dated. Not so Beethoven’s string quartets. Why do you suppose that is?

So, I'm supposed to agree with yr conclusion here in order to answer this question. Gee, that's funny. It sure doesn't sound dated to me. I've never heard anything in the realm of experimentation with blues structures that I hear in Dylan's mid-60s work, by anyone else, ever, that sounds as good to me as what he did to expand a form limited by definition. Yet I'm somehow supposed to find a way to reconcile a direct comparison with work that is, in fact, more complex, and which bears little resemblance to Dylan's work, except for the fact that...both bodies of work involve music. That's not enough to render this question valid enough to bother answering.

Meanwhile, you don't impress me any more than anyone who offers blanket condemnations of things they don't know nearly as much about as they think they do. If there's anything more ridiculous than trying to make a point by offering a direct comparison between two things that have nothing in common anymore than Citizen Kane has with Behind The Green Door, it's driving it home with a challenge that one must defend their preferences. I'm not terribly interested. But while the more sophisticated, 'prog' rock is not my cup of tea--in fact, I loathe the stuff--I believe that there are names out there who have produced works that put the lie to yr nonsense quite effectively with regards to yr complaints about rock's alleged lack of sophistication, yr tired cliches about how it's all about teenage lust, yr ridiculous comparisons to Beethoven. Overwrought schlockmeisters like Emerson, Lake, & Palmer. (If you're reading this, Phatty, I invite you to let this guy know more about the abilities of Keith Emerson than I can) Oh, and then there's a band that called themselves Yes. I seem to remember something they did that was devoted to some obscure passage from a highbrow Eastern philosophy text?

Yeah, that was it. Tales Of Topographic Oceans, right? Supreme testimony to yr blunt declaration of what 'rock' is all about--teenage lust. The insight gained from from reading a lengthy footnote on page 83 of Paramhansa Yoganda's 'Autobiography Of A Yogi' surely contributed greatly to the homogenous nature of rock-as-teenage-lust-music.

Anything else, Mitch?

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  Parts Connexion  

Follow Ups Full Thread
Follow Ups
You can not post to an archived thread.

[ Top Top of Page ] [ Contact Us ] [ Support/Wish List ] [ Copyright © 2025, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
[ General ] [ Speakers ] [ Tubes ] [ Vinyl ] [ Digital ] [ Hi-Rez ] [ Video Asylum ] [ Cables ] [ Tweaks/DIY ] [ Music ] [ Films ]