OMG ... I'm listening too much to me.

[kcearl]

ive never seen you post so much

interesting stuff guys...and prolly very true within your genres

 

[arcadeko]

I've never been influenced by popular music. I've never been surrounded by good popular music. Pop music during my formative years was awful. The 80's were awful. Truly awful. Top-40 radio in the late 80's was shit. You had The Beatles and the Stones. I had shit like Debbie Gibson, MC Hammer, and whatever the fuck else was trendy at the time. Madonna? New Kids on the Block? I don't even know. I haven't tuned in an FM radio station since like 1984-1985. I was 11-12 years old and got my first punk records. I haven't listened to mainstream radio since. If it weren't for the internet I'd have no idea who Katy Perry or Lady Gaga is nowadays. The only musical movement that's happened in my time that might have been interesting was grunge, but I never saw grunge as anything more than watered down corporate glossy re-packaged punk made accessible to preppies and jocks. By that time I had already realized that mass appeal can't be good. If my high school football team listened to Soundgarden, then that's pretty much all I needed to know about it. And I played football with those guys. Lol. I mean seriously, Nirvana and Pearl Jam had NOTHING on bands like Black Flag and the Dead Kennedys. And even before all that, as a younger kid, I was my dad's shadow. I liked what he liked. He liked New Orleans doo-wop and southern soul music (it's simply called the NOLA sound down there). When we went places, we listened to oldies. So in a way, I'm influenced by the same stuff you are. I just wasn't there as it was happening. While my friends were listening to new Guns and Roses and Metallica albums, I listening to The Ventures, Ramones, and The Stooges. If my stuff sounds anything like that, it's fine with me. I wouldn't wanna sound any other way.

I bailed from popular music around the same time, in fact it was 10th grade so that was 1984 - I don't remember what got into me but I came home from school and was like I can't stand these f**king people so I shaved off the sides of my hair with a bic razor and shreded all my close. It's weird cause there were no punks in my high school... I just wanted to communicate my disdain for everyone and their superficial bullshit, I figured destroying the totems of their social measurements (eg clothes and hair) I could get the message across...

Then I got into the Ramones, Black Flag, GBH, The Misfits, Minor Threat, etc. Saw some incredible shows in Detroit 1984 ~ 1987

It made high school very interesting. But the varsity football team used to hunt me down and try and torture me (I was a hulking 5'7" - 120 lbs. ) anyway - I wore steel toed combat boots so I usually got away

But nowdays I just listen to whatever the hell I want to - I like some current stuff, not much though - I dig the White Stripes, Silversun Pickups, Middleclass Rut...

I'm pretty sure top 40 causes brain cancer and obesity...

 

[K-dub]

I was driving this morning in the spare car with the crappy radio and the only thing that was coming in was the local Top 40 station. I got to the window of Dunkin' Donuts and ordered a breakfast sandwich, but I had to turn off the radio before I could eat it ... as I didn't want to mix my fast food meal with insipid and get really obese. Insipid fatty oils are the worst as they also rot brain cells.

There is so much better out there than what is played on the radio. The program directors should be dragged out into the streets and beaten with vinyl for their sins.

Name 'em over the years: Andrew Bird, The Decemberists, Fleet Foxes, Megafaun, Ben Folds, The Shins, New Pornographers ... just to name a few off the top of my head ... are so much better than what bubbles up on popular radio. Good music didn't disappear, it just went fractured on the net --- made tougher to find -- and in the void, left behind on radio, remained Lady Poo Poo ... who is actually quite talented, but you'd never know it through all the pandering.

I suppose it could be dismissed as just acting all "old fartish" ... but I tend to be very forgiving when it comes to art -- and I just don't find merit in crap.

All that being said, I suppose what I was trying to say in this thread is that perhaps I should accordingly shake up me a bit -- do things differently, and push my discomfort zone into new areas that will force me to rethink how and why I do things the way I do ... broadening boundaries in such a fashion so that if someone listening to me before knew me, they'd not recognize me as such later.

I've gotten into habits of doing things a certain way that I like ... a way that crafts a certain sound I like -- but a sound that I even recognize as falling into easy frame -- like a picture from the 70s. Maybe next time, I should change my approach so that I'm not so concerned with me so much, as stepping outside of me while paying more attention to the outside surroundings than the internal inclinations -- and by doing so, change the timeline of my sound.

 

[joeym]

Wise words, Kev.....
But then we are free from all those fashionable labels, because we do what we love. Being basically a metal guy, I have to say thatthe sound production which started in the 80's hasn't change dmuch in my genre, but even so, I wouldn't give a hoot to what anyone thinks. I do my music the way I imagine it should be and not the way that the "fashion" of the times dictates. And you do too, so no worries. There are 2 kinds of music, good or bad....but even that is subjective.

 

[Supercreep]

I have no idea how to write a "modern" sounding song.

 

[JimmyS1969]

I have no idea how to write a "modern" sounding song.

I think you just did. Admitting that there is a problem, is the first step. lol. JK

 

[K-dub]

I have no idea how to write a "modern" sounding song.

The question then becomes: Does it really matter?

To you, C ... it doesn't. You've likely found another way of making a living, so your music reflects what you want it to be.

We learned outside of system so that we could represent ourselves and let our art live on its own. We knew we'd never be famous for our efforts, but tough artists we are ... and will remain. Who else learns all this shit just to create a professional presentation with our recordings that no one but us really listens to much anyways?