General Music Chat

Hi - I prefer covers because in this way I can always choose beautiful songs to play.

In my experience, the vast majority of originals are boring and mediocre. So I don't even take the time to listen to thewm anymore.

Hi - I prefer covers because in this way I can always choose beautiful songs to play.

In my experience, the vast majority of originals are boring and mediocre. So I don't even take the time to listen to thewm anymore.

Original artist all over thank you for your support. The flip side to this is that most (not all) cover artsist suck...They cant do any justice whatsoever to a published song...why the f**k do they try?

In my experience, the vast majority of originals are boring and mediocre. .

Every single song you've ever played was an original.


Are you saying that your originals are boring? Every band you played in is mediocre?

Yod

Thank you. I guess he reckoned that the 'covers' he plays were magically created and just sort of got of there in some mystical way.

Talbot

To Mike and Yod --

Mike, I've little doubt that you and others have written very good songs. I'm 60 years old and have listened to a great many boring originals - they're usually just less fun to play and at this age I just can't put in the hours it would take to find a really great new one. I will say I haven't found anything exceptional since KT Tunstall's Suddenly I See and Sting's Fields of Gold.

I know name groups have written bad stuff, but to get there they've written at least one wonderful song - but I carefully pick my songs. Few guys writing now have written things of the caliber of A Whiter Shade of Pale, Alone Again Or, Message in a Bottle, Pretty Ballerina, Roxanne, Running On Faith or Fortress Around Your Heart, all of which I play and sing.

But I just play for fun. If I was very serious about getting somewhere I'm sure I'd be forced to write originals too.

Dave

To Mike and Yod --

Mike, I've little doubt that you and others have written very good songs. I'm 60 years old and have listened to a great many boring originals - they're usually just less fun to play and at this age I just can't put in the hours it would take to find a really great new one. I will say I haven't found anything exceptional since KT Tunstall's Suddenly I See and Sting's Fields of Gold.

I know name groups have written bad stuff, but to get there they've written at least one wonderful song - but I carefully pick my songs. Few guys writing now have written things of the caliber of A Whiter Shade of Pale, Alone Again Or, Message in a Bottle, Pretty Ballerina, Roxanne, Running On Faith or Fortress Around Your Heart, all of which I play and sing.

But I just play for fun. If I was very serious about getting somewhere I'm sure I'd be forced to write originals too.

Dave

I'm not actually very serious, but I still write originals... Please Forgive me for being F# in that last posting... Just gotta realize, while some of us will prolly never amount to squat in the biz of music, we still prize the craft of song-writing.. And that's really what its about...

If you have any experience in the studio, you would know immediately just how 'boring' Sting's Fields of Gold actually was, until music biz experts came along and packaged it.

So, to say originals are boring...Perhaps they do bore some folks..., but I believe that in your pervious statements, you had grossly underestimated the real value of original songs (from the perspective of the 'craft' ). SOngs in their rawest form are a thing of beauty... From there, we pay the jewelers to polish them up..

PaperDog,

Can you elaborate on your statement on Fields of Gold? I'm sure the original melody and chords were Sting's and that's all I'm talking about. You could embellish it a million different ways, but I'm speaking of the raw song.

Also I have total respect for those who love to create new songs. They're not normally my cup of tea - unless somone could show me one of extraordinary beauty. Then I'd probably want to play it.

Dave

PaperDog,

Can you elaborate on your statement on Fields of Gold? I'm sure the original melody and chords were Sting's and that's all I'm talking about. You could embellish it a million different ways, but I'm speaking of the raw song.

Also I have total respect for those who love to create new songs. They're not normally my cup of tea - unless somone could show me one of extraordinary beauty. Then I'd probably want to play it.

Dave

Dov, To answer your question in complete and whole concept, do a look up on Arnold Schoenberg. He is the man responsible for the "Emancipation of Dissonance". Basically, his experience with the consumers of music reflect a salient point about that 'raw egg', which an artist produces, only to be crucified because it did not show up with the hollandaise sauce. Therein lies the point I made about Sting's "Field Of Gold. That song , by itself could have been easily hammered out with an acoustic (Which I suspect it was, given its structure) . If left alone, It might have passed muster, no more than through a coffee house or two. This says nothing at all about the artist and the artist's work...It says everything about consumer's of music.
When you listen to the 'raw egg' aka an original, you should not expect it to be delivered in the final dish of "Eggs Hollandaise".
To be fair though, one normally would not concern themselves with the Kitchen, when they set out for the aforementioned meal at the fancy tables.
So, if raw eggs aren't appealing, its understandble, but at least, lets realize the actual reasons why that would be the case.. .

Dov,
lets face it it all a matter of taste.
just cause you make money doesn't mean that your an artist.
I don't want to name names but even some of the stuff you cite as being great, really suck ass.
but you like it, so there you have it.
if I rattled off what i think of as a great piece of art
most people would yawn,
worship is really kind of mass hysteria.
and people are very devoted to their idols.
but most of the time they developed these affections when they were young and impressionable, and now you are old and you can't make a dent in your tastes no matter what.
but wise king Solomon said.

Ecclesiastes 7:10
Do not say, "Why were the old days better than these?" For it is not wise to ask
such questions.

PaperDog and jcpJCP61:

Yes you're right -- it's all a matter of taste and I was just expressing my own.

But then question: Could there exist an objective beautiful melody?

Dave

PaperDog, you make an interesting point, but I'm confused. Is it that the artist only produces the raw material, which is then subjected to "consumer friendly treatments" by the industry?
I guess my question is about the product itself...personally I believe that production is part of the artistic process, rather than something that follows afterwards. "Fields of Gold" may have indeed been a simple acoustic song-I agree that it probably started out that way-but I doubt seriously that Sting had nothing to do with the instrumentation, arrangements, mix, final production. I guess what I'm saying is that he would have been attempting to "deliver the Eggs Hollandaise"-as opposed to supplying just the eggs.
My approach is about the entire package-so much so that I refuse to do one man acoustic shows-I don't feel that my work is properly represented in that situation.

Maybe I'm not getting what you are saying.

PaperDog and jcpJCP61:

Yes you're right -- it's all a matter of taste and I was just expressing my own.

But then question: Could there exist an objective beautiful melody?

Dave

beauty is in the eye of the beholder (or ear in this case)
someone once said..

or maybe the question really is,
if you were 12 or 13 right now, all other things being equal
what would you call good music
probably not what what you think.

or maybe the question really is,
if you were 12 or 13 right now, all other things being equal
what would you call good music
probably not what what you think.

JC the problem with that notion..(Its not a bad one) is that there were beutiful songs out there before we were even born.

PaperDog, you make an interesting point, but I'm confused. Is it that the artist only produces the raw material, which is then subjected to "consumer friendly treatments" by the industry?
I guess my question is about the product itself...personally I believe that production is part of the artistic process, rather than something that follows afterwards. "Fields of Gold" may have indeed been a simple acoustic song-I agree that it probably started out that way-but I doubt seriously that Sting had nothing to do with the instrumentation, arrangements, mix, final production. I guess what I'm saying is that he would have been attempting to "deliver the Eggs Hollandaise"-as opposed to supplying just the eggs.
My approach is about the entire package-so much so that I refuse to do one man acoustic shows-I don't feel that my work is properly represented in that situation.

Maybe I'm not getting what you are saying.

Joeseph, You are correct on all points... Part of the art ...actually 'Is" the framing and packaging. However, remember that a rotton egg can spoil the whole dish... So, one way to look at it is to consider the very first (But certainly not the last ) priority in a song's development. It would seem to me, the artist's first priority is to ensure that the song is edible ( healthy in structure, form and presence.) Sting did that for sure... But ,was it ready for delivery at that stage of the development..? Not necessarily.... Then he started looking at the sauces, etc... As lovely as Sting's original song is, very few markets would serve an uncooked, unseasoned, yet edible egg.

My point in the thread was simply to bring to attention, the value of the egg itself.. Sometimes we get caught up in the vision of what the composition 'should' look like, before we've even identified or recognized where that end result came from.. So the other poster might simply have meant that uncooked, unseasoned, yet edible eggs are boring to him (recognizing that it does not constitute a bad song)