Has musicianship left modern popular music? (pt 1)

[Blake]

Dave Grohl has done some of the drumming for FF albums though too.

[G-spotter]

 

You guys ever hear Roland Eightoeight drum? That guy's a MACHINE!

 

 

[Dechristo]

Also, from his keynote address to the 1984 American Society of University Composers:

 

Today, just as in the glorious past, the composer has to accomodate the specific taste (no matter how BAD) of THE KING--reincarnated as a movie or TV producer, the head of the opera company, the lady with frightening hair on the "special committee" [the PMRC] or her niece, Debbie.

 

Some of you don't know about Debbie, since you don't have to deal with radio stations and record companies the way the people from The Real World do, but you ought to find out about her, just in case you decide to visit later.

 

Debbie is thirteen years old. Her parents like to think of themselves as Average, God-Fearing American White Folk. Her dad belongs to a corrupt union of some sort and is, as we might suspect, a lazy, incompetent, over-paid, ignorant son-of-a-bitch.

 

Her mother is a sexually maladjusted mercenary shrew who LIVES to spend her husband's paycheck on ridiculous clothes--to make her look "younger".

 

Debbie is incredibly stupid. She has been raised to respect the values and traditions which her parents hold sacred. Sometimes she dreams about being kissed by a lifeguard.

 

When the people in the Secret Office Where They Run Everything From found out about Debbie, they were thrilled. She was PERFECT. She was HOPELESS. She was their kind of girl. She was immediately chosen to become the Archetypical Imaginary Pop Music Consumer & Ultimate Arbiter of Musical Taste for the Entire Nation--from that moment on, everything musical in this country would have to be modified to conform to what they computed to be her needs and desires.

 

Debbie's "taste" determined the size, shape and color of all music broadcast and sold in the United States during the latter part of the twentieth century. Eventually she grew up to be just like her mother, and married a guy just like her dad. She has somehow managed to reproduce herself. The people in The Secret Office have their eye on her daughter at this very moment.

 

Now, as a serious American composer, should Debbie REALLY concern you? I think so.

 

Since Debbie prefers only short songs with lyrics about boy-girl relationships, sung by persons of indeterminate sex, wearing S&M clothing, and because there is Large Money involved, the major record companies (which a few years ago occasionally risked investment in recordings of new works) have all but shut down their classical divisions, seldom recording new music.

 

 

like that quote

[olyclimber]

indeed, i believe i've met debbie a number of times

[Maestro]

I think Debbie may have lost a little of her clout since FZ wrote that. She has some aunts, uncles, and cousins who have a modicum of musical taste. Too bad more of the cigar-chompers haven't discovered them, but music for them is out there if you know where to look--it's just harder to find.

[fenderfour]

Igor Cavalera - Tribal/metal badassedness

Beauford Carter - You may hate DMB, but this guy can drum

Jimmy Chamberlin - I hate Smashing Pumpkins, but this guy can drum

Dave Lombardo - THE metal drummer

Pete Sandoval - The fastest double bass pedal in the world

Roy Mayorga - More cool modern/tribal fusions