what was and never again will be
I am going through an early Van Halen kick. Drop Dead Legs in heavy rotation.
You knew squat about bands in the 70s, early 80s. You got their album. If you hung around Tower Records, you might get an inkling of the release schedule. Maybe get some noise from the radio news wire. But I didn't know anyone that had enough free cash flow to subscribe to the likes of KERRANG or even Rolling Stone.
I only started getting inside scoops on musicians and songs when I bought the errant Guitar for the Practicing Musician after I'd started playing guitar.
You'd basically just have the album, sometimes the lyrics in the jacket, and the mystique of photos. And, of course, the music. The effect of all this non-information was that you paid attention to the music. Headphones were often required -- I learned early on that bands loved sonic theater. They'd jam stuff in the mix you really could only catch with phones on, listening in the dark of your room on one of the many free nights that you didn't have anything else to do.
Now, it's a diluge of information. If I want to know the story behind "Drop Dead Legs," I just have to type a search phrase. It's all very surfacey, and somehow very disposable.
Nowadays, some folks like or dislike something because we know the artist is a Republican, or because it's liked by some other prominent person.
Even the likes of Steely Dan has lost a bit of mystique -- with the abundance of secondary and available bootleg material. At least they don't go out of their way to explain their songs, though. Google a random Steely Dan song and you'll a bunch of what other folks think it is. It's still noise, but at least the mystery behind the meaning is still alive.
On the other hand, a lot of albums back in the day were rife with filler. Get those two hits, and then just write crap to fill up the remaining 30 minutes. Having much more access to music, we (or at least some of us) can be a lot more demanding in the quality of what we buy.
You knew squat about bands in the 70s, early 80s. You got their album. If you hung around Tower Records, you might get an inkling of the release schedule. Maybe get some noise from the radio news wire. But I didn't know anyone that had enough free cash flow to subscribe to the likes of KERRANG or even Rolling Stone.
I only started getting inside scoops on musicians and songs when I bought the errant Guitar for the Practicing Musician after I'd started playing guitar.
You'd basically just have the album, sometimes the lyrics in the jacket, and the mystique of photos. And, of course, the music. The effect of all this non-information was that you paid attention to the music. Headphones were often required -- I learned early on that bands loved sonic theater. They'd jam stuff in the mix you really could only catch with phones on, listening in the dark of your room on one of the many free nights that you didn't have anything else to do.
Now, it's a diluge of information. If I want to know the story behind "Drop Dead Legs," I just have to type a search phrase. It's all very surfacey, and somehow very disposable.
Nowadays, some folks like or dislike something because we know the artist is a Republican, or because it's liked by some other prominent person.
Even the likes of Steely Dan has lost a bit of mystique -- with the abundance of secondary and available bootleg material. At least they don't go out of their way to explain their songs, though. Google a random Steely Dan song and you'll a bunch of what other folks think it is. It's still noise, but at least the mystery behind the meaning is still alive.
On the other hand, a lot of albums back in the day were rife with filler. Get those two hits, and then just write crap to fill up the remaining 30 minutes. Having much more access to music, we (or at least some of us) can be a lot more demanding in the quality of what we buy.