I would like to apologize if I came across to strong in my post yesterday. My wife tells me that I frequently do. After looking at some of your other posts I see that my original assumption was incorrect. I felt you were saying, and I have frequently heard this, that the Beatles sprang from a vacuum. Obviously they had people that influenced them just as they have influenced people that came after them.

I take full blame / credit whichever for stating that Lennon and McCartney are the greatest songwriters of the century. I understand it is just my opinion but that is what it is. The songs, ‘Yesterday’ and ‘Imagine’ are, in my opinion, two songs crafted as close to perfection as humans can get. There are other songwriters that are very, very, good but none I can think of that have two such fine songs and such high quality in the rest of their work.

I have been listening to the Beatles since they were first released and in those 45 years the originals have started to wear thin with me so I listen more to covers now. I misspoke when I said it was Waylon & Willie that covered ‘Yesterday’ it was Merle Haggard and Willie on the “Seashores of Old Mexico’ album.

I am really sorry if I offended you in any way. If you have not heard any Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five I think you might like it.

posted by TLCrawford at 3:20 pm (EST) on May 1, 2008

I agree that there is almost NO pop music worth listening to since the 80s (I'd say the 70s). At least none that gets airplay. There is a lot of good music out there played by small groups that work at mostly local venues and record and distribute their own music, but they usually have fan bases in the hundreds, if that.

I like your choices. You mightalso be interested in listening to some music from the pre-Big Band era, as it has, for me, the same kind of vitality that characterized rock before it became mainstream, big dollar, and over-produced. The earliest recorded jazz from Armstrong (the Hot Five and Hot Seven material), Bix Beiderbecke, Sid Bechet, and Duke Ellington (before the Ellington band forgot music should be danceable) is wonderful stuff I used to hear on my parents' 78s, and rediscovered in the mid 70s when the original recordings were being remastered and reissued.

From the same period or slightly earlier is a lot of great Tin Pan Alley. The original recordings are hard to find, but there are some great performers who recreate the sounds in a respectful way, rather than camping it up the way Tiny Tim did when he covered Nick Lucas' original "Tiptoe through the Tulips." My favorite of the groups that play this music is Janet Klein and Her Parlor Boys, featuring that peerless musicologist and ex-British invasion rocker, Ian Whitcomb. Here's a link to her site--watch her videos because you really need to see Janet performing, rather than just hearing the CDs.

http://www.janetklein.com/web/main.htm

There is still a need for modern singers to cover the real Gold Standards of American music--the songs of Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Hoagy Carmichael, Rodgers & Hart, etc., from the 1900--1940. It is unfortunate that much of this music is now being performed by singers and musicians who don't respect the purity of the original song, but use it as an excuse for tonsil-torturing vocals and/ or instrumental riffs that completely destroy the melodic line, and only serve as a vehicle for showing off their own "virtuosity." There are some singers who pay respect to the material, but it's not easy to find them. At one point, Linda Ronstadt seemed to be moving into that niche, but I haven't heard much from her of late, and her last forays seemed to be in mostly hispanic music.

Hope I haven't rambled on too much, but it's a pleasure discovering someone who shares my disdain for the stuff that is being performed today that I prefer to characterize as Noise Pollution, rather than Music.

posted by Django6924 at 1:02 pm (EST) on Jan 6, 2008

What is everyone's taste im Music? Me I still listen to the Classic Rock Stations
and can't stand any Music past the 80s. I still love the Music from the British Invasion I grew up on as well as Folk, old school R & B not today's R & B crap.
I positively HATE Rap, Hip-Hop and all the other Bloody Noise out there today.
In fact I still have an awful lot of LP's and 45's in my Record Collection and I still love to listen to them and Sing along with all the Songs too. Personally I
listen to the 50s to 80s Rock which is the best period in Rock 'n Roll history as far as I'm concerned and I also like the Music from the World War II era as well.

Librarianwannabe

posted by beatles1964 at 7:54 am (EST) on Jan 2, 2008

Hello and welcome to 40 Something Library Thingers!

posted by MDLady at 7:41 am (EST) on Jan 2, 2008