There are myriad ways to classify the blues, just as there are for rock and jazz. Everything from Bessie Smith to Bonnie Raitt. From Mississippi John Hurt to Mississippi Heat. Some want to throw the Rolling Stones, Allman Brothers and Eric Clapton in there, and I think you could easily make a case for some songs.
You can also make a viable claim that early country music is just the blues with a name change to make it palatable for white folk. Given that jazz, rock, country and American folk were born from the blues I think it would be hard to find someone who doesn’t have a fondness for some form of them.
I know the blues from Louis Armstrong up through Asie Payton. I don’t love all of it, but I think there are enough niches that most white, middle class, insecure, self-hating dorks can find one that they love.
IMO, restricting the blues to some narrow definition is a form of hipster-ism akin to boomers saying that no good music has been recorded since 1975.
I’m 48 and I’m very excited to have just discovered (last week) a band called “The Heavy”, I’m loving them and it is very rare these days that I find new music.
But over the years there have a been a few bands I’ve liked such as Black Keys, Muse, The Kills, Florence and the Machine, Adele. But overall I find today’s music way over produced and unoriginal.
That may be why I don’t like it. With a few exceptions, I’ve never much cared about the lyrics in songs I like; it’s all about the music. There are exceptions, but there are literally hundreds of songs that I grew up with and liked, without knowing any of the lyrics except maybe the chorus.
Similarly, I love classical music, but I don’t care for poetry. So yeah, that’s probably it.
This is a really silly argument to enter into, but: Robert Johnson was a pop performer, too. Your point is?
And the Eagles weren’t even good enough to land a T.V. show.
Well, I like Ron Mueck. He’s a sculptor that uses unusually large and unusually small combined with hyper realism; to sometimes touching and sometimes disturbing effect.
Jim Shaw is a modern surrealist, with plenty of art historical jokes.
I’m in my 40s and my problem isn’t so much liking (or not) new bands–it’s finding them. There are so many damned avenues that it’s almost paralysing.
This weekend was good, though. We live near the local showground (fairground, I guess, for USians), and there was a big show on, and we got to listen in. It was pretty good: one band wasn’t my type (speed metal), but I could still appreciate the fire–they were determined to leave it all on stage. But I found a couple of new bands to like, or at least investigate further: Alpine, Frightened Rabbit, Seth Sentry, Tame Impala and Urthboy.
It happened again. I had never heard of the Icelandic group that was on SNL last night, “Of Monsters and Men.” I liked them, especially the adorable female lead singer.
What I think is really clever about that song is that, at least as I interpret it, about halfway through the narrator pauses what seems like a frank and honest account of his own trust issues and the difficulties of making a relationship work, and says “Y’all don’t wanna hear this, you just wanna dance.” The catchy, bouncy “Shake it like a Polaroid picture” stuff is what comes after he apparently decides that no one cares about his problems and that what the people want is another fun pop hit.
I’ll have to check them out. I’m a sucker for adorable female lead singers
Speaking for myself, I don’t love it. At least I don’t like “modern white blues”. I can admire the musicianship (I’m a musician myself), and I can listen to a bit of it, but please don’t ask me to sit through a full performance. To my ears, by the middle of the second set the songs are all running together and I find myself asking, “Didn’t they play this one already?” I’ve listened to some very good local and regional blues guitarists, and I always come away with the same definition of a blues song: A long guitar solo bookended by some lyrics.
The only blues I’ve ever truly enjoyed listening to was Robert Cray’s stuff.
That link incited several reactions from me but I don’t want to hijack the thread. I can’t let the most prominent though slip though. Most prominent is that there is just one black artists among the 25 listed. I find that site’s definition of the blues to be racist. Somewhere along the way, the blues have been co-opted to give the appearance of being a genre solely by and for white people.
I’m not familiar with Aynsley Lister but I’ll give him a listen. I’m put off a bit by his influences but am open to new music. If you do a search for Hookit’s posts, you’ll find that he’s a purist when it comes to music and thus hates everything and everyone that has name recognition. Music criticism seems to be his favorite topic for posting.
I’m a snob when it comes to music as well but I try to be less restrictive. The Eagles do suck but I like 9/10ths of Greatest Hits 1971-1975. Seeing as how it’s the best selling album of all time, it would be ludicrous to say that it isn’t good music. The “art” of music is balancing your creativity with what the public is seeking.
I’m 48, and I like a number of current rock, pop and country stars. Off the top of my head I can think of Usher, Pitbull, Christina Aguilera, Pink, Christina Perri, Britney Spears (some of her stuff, anyway), Cobra Starship, Fun., Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood, Jake Owen, Rhett Akins, etc.
Oh, one place I forgot to mention where I find stuff: Adult Swim, who has a new album available for free download. This one is garage rock, so it’s got a retro flavor to it. But, as observed upthread, no one is that original, anyway. (Besides, the Gories RULE!)
