My impression is that Jones himself may have “gone there” once or twice, or at least had guilty knowledge.
Glad to see him giving Toots Thielemans some props - harmonica players have to stick together and all. His Ringo comment isn’t too surprising; a lot of good live drummers have trouble getting things right in the studio. That’s why Hal Blaine had a career.
Back in the bad old days before I got Sirius XM, I used to listen to the radio a lot, shuffling through stations until I found something worth listening to. Occasionally the pickings would be so slim that I’d just leave it on a Top 40 type station for a while. The last song I remember hearing over and over again and thinking “this blows” was Hozier’s Take Me To Church. “Overwrought, melodramatic, pretentious crap!”, I’d think.
But then later I heard his song Someone New and I thought, hey, this guy has it in him to create good music. Good drums, solid rhythm guitar parts, cool chord changes on the pre-chorus, a solid attempt at a string arrangement…the hook is a little repetitive, but overall, the song leans more towards “good” than “bad.” I don’t write off artists on the basis of one song that I don’t like. I’m willing to accept that they can improve.
Michaels treatment of the keyboard player as related by Quincy sounds Machiavellian to me.
Have the Beatles ever been considered “virtuosos”? They are praised for their creativity but never for their playing. Pete Townshend famously slagged their playing and even John Lennon said (perhaps jokingly) that Ringo wasn’t even the best drummer in the Beatles.
They are virtuosos as a band,. Individually they may not have been virtuosos. If any were, I think Paul would actually be the closest to it in terms of his technical proficiency at consistently playing really good parts that join rhythm with melody/harmony in the most optimal way for each song. That is a form of technical skill, which is equal to or just as important as what Geddy Lee can do. But regardless - the way the sound of the band fit together, was itself a form of musical “collective virtuosity”, such that writing it off as mediocre musicianship is no small error in judgment.
Q was talking about the first time he saw them. They sucked, to him. It’s a great story. I don’t think he was downplaying their talents as a band. The idea that they were not that great as technicians in 1964 is a great anecdote. I don’t see the controversy.
You’re not wrong, actually. I’ve been overlooking the “first impression” part. No, the Paul McCartney at 21 that Quincy met would not have been the same one a few years later, that’s true.
I disagree about the idea that there’s no good modern pop music, but I think that Quincy and I may be using different definitions of that term. I think he means “commercially successful pop that’s at the highest levels of the music business.” And I mean, “music that’s played in a style that overlaps with the past 40 odd years’ cumulative definition of what ‘pop’ is, even if it’s played by an obscure band.”
I.E. Quincy is not talking about songs like Nakamarra by Hiatus Kaiyote when he says there’s no “modern pop music that’s influenced by jazz”, even though I would describe that song as “modern pop music that’s influenced by jazz.”
Nobody’s ever been able to prove that Lennon (or any other Beatle) said that. It’s a myth.
I think that people who have been in the business that long in both the management and creative sides, speak well of success in the industry, because they are insiders and peers of those people. It’s polite, and it’s savvy about how much luck there is in the industry, and how hard it is to make it. They are the industry. They’re not fans, like we are, anymore and may never have been. At the same time as he is the great QJ, he is also a businessman and will not think like you do about music. He produces those people, he may be the parents of those people, etc.
I don’t even know what pop music is anymore. Nowadays pop is an industry to sell songs to kids. I haven’t heard any of it that is meaningul to me, yet. The Ed Sheeran was so sentimental I was shocked. He looks edgier than that.
drad dog @90:. “Nowadays pop is an industry to sell songs to kids.”
Uh, when WASN’T it?
Fifty years ago they were selling the kids “Hey Jude” on 45 rpm records. One hundred years ago they were selling the kids “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” on piano sheet music. The formats change, but pop music has always been profit-based.
The difference is that previously music was used to market pop to kids.
Or as Q himself might say in paraphrase of Salvador Dali, the only difference between me and today’s musicians is that I am a musician.
Quincy is perhaps a more educated person than most popular musicians today; besides spending some time at the infamous Berklee School of Music, he also ran off to Paris and studied composition and theory with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen. And when you look at all the artists where he’s been the “go-to” guy – Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, Count Basie, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, etc, etc. (And Lesley Gore!) That will tend to make you think you’re better than some folks.
Heck, Dave Frishberg reminds us all, “Better show this to Quincy!”
Are you talking about any fixed definition of “pop”?
I was referring to the specific “pop” of today’s industry that caters to that teenie audience, who are not a rock audience anymore, seemingly. (Yes, we have devolved from when kids of 11 were into Jimi Hendrix and Dylan). I haven’t heard a song worth hearing twice in the field though so I can’t imagine there are striking original melodies there that I missed. Someone would have to show me that.
The term “pop” is as short for popular, as you have it, but also it’s a mid 20th century vocal crooning style, and a way of modifying the word “rock” as a descriptor. It gets used in a lot of ways.
I suppose my terms include “pop” being music performed by professionals for a paying consumership. As opposed to
Folk Music: Music performed by and among “the people” for personal enjoyment: ballads, ribald songs, and dance music
Art Music: “Higher purpose” aesthetic stuff: The symphonies of Beethoven and Mahler, Wagnerian music drama, the songs of Schubert and Brahms
Pragmatic Music: There’s a better term for this, but I’ve had too much wine to remember it. Church music, royal reception music, military marches, film scores, etc.
Of course, there is a lot of crossover between these subsets.
This is meaningless. All of these categories got smashed up in the 60s or so. Blues, and rock and roll are folk music now for starters, (along with all the ribaldry, and balladry which I’ll admit are a ring a ding smash.) and rock is art.
But pop, folk, art, and pragmatism have coexisted, in the same songs, (usually seen as in the rock field) since then.
I am not sure I want to watch a debate unfold over the definition of Pop music. Careful Uke.
Back to the OP topic, it turns out T-Pain reluctantly corroborates the dish that Quincy shared about T-Pain’s vocals on an MJ cover: T-Pain Begrudgingly Confirms Quincy Jones’s Story About Him
Ha! I missed this one the first time. This is precisely true. All those attempts to reach kids in the 50’s 60’s and 70s resulted in some great art. But there is no reason to believe, listening to the radio, that today there might be the same unintended consequences in selling pop to kids. They do it without what used to be the prime function of making records: an original melody or idea to stand out in the market. To make a good original record, pop or rock, you have to be conscious of the pop and rock that has already been made. Otherwise you might infringe on another song, or just be out of touch as a writer. This is what the pop scene of today sounds like, at least to me. It sounds regressive, and not aware of music as it moved forward. Selling these records is more like selling marvel movies than music.
In any case why listen to pop records that don’t move music forward towards newness or originality? That was the reason I started listening in the beginning.
He also said that Elvis couldn’t sing. I lost a lot of respect for Q right there.
Well, to be honest I never felt Elvis had that great a voice either. If he hadn’t looked and moved the way he did I doubt he’d have ever had much of a career. So I was happy to see that opinion validated by no less an authority than Quincy Jones.