Oh for a return ...

[Sukerkin]

... to the days in music when just being good-looking was not enough and you had to have talent too:

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[Sukerkin]

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[Sukerkin]

Similar to my thread on Heart, here's Pat Benatar still kicking it out twenty years on:

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[Sukerkin]

I don't know if Belinda carried on performing after her huge burst into the spotlight with the album this is from but it is still great listening ... and if a rocker like me owns a copy of it then anyone can

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[Sukerkin]

Even for me this is a trip back into my teenage years . I remember buying Denis on single and saving up for the Parallel Lines LP .

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[Sukerkin]

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It is hard to over-estimate the impact Blondie had on young Britishers searching for a direction in their music. Blondie, the Buzzcocks, Sham69, the Adverts, the Boomtown Rats ... all had a role to play in channeling music away from disco and forging another path somewhere between pop, rock and progressive music. The Sex Pistols get all the glory from the punk era but really they were just the shock troops, akin to the Forlorn Hope, that went in first to kick the doors in to wider exposure for 'grass roots' music making.

 

[Jenna]

These are all iconic musicians and deserve their place in the halls of fame and yes, McTalent shows are the most ironically named genre I could imagine and but Mark I wonder does not every era have its talent and its talentless? From the 80s that your songs are taken I think we also had New Kids on the Block etc lol.. so it is not the era itself maybe?

From up to date I know you would appreciate Anette from Nightwish, is this not a super song and she is not super pretty with those beautiful Finnish cheekbones?

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Cristina from Lacuna Coil, she is very remarkable I think

, and Amy from Evanescence. I know you know there are lots more.

I would only want to say gently that we associate perhaps times in our lives with certain good things which we have been unable to surpass and but that outlook can perhaps darken our view over other times? I do not know if that makes sense. I love Blondie. I also love Brody

Which is better. Only one way to find out..

 

[elder999]

Pat Benatar went to SUNY@ Stonybrook, and used to go back there to play fairly regularly-at the height of her career, I saw her play, in the gym, three times, in two years, for about $10 a ticket.

 

[Sukerkin]

You do have a point, Jenna and it is one that I have made myself more than once i.e. that only the 'great' (or at least 'greater') examples of art endure beyond the period of their creation. However, I would stand my ground on the issue of the Music Industry having lost it's way - that is not to say that there is not great music being made or no artists of note any more :nods:.

However, I have to say when it comes to Lacuna Coil, I can't stand to listen to much of them for the lady in question sings far too thinly in too high a register all the time (Bat Singing I call it :lol. Compare her to my friend Gemma who sings for No Redemption and Thornleaf - now she is a real singer. I have seen Evanescence in concert at the NEC in Birmningham and confess I felt ripped off to the extent of wanting my money back . Not because the performance was bad but because they got too much fame too early and so had no material to play other than their one album - they had to have two support bands (who were terrible) to try to pad out the time. As to Nightwish, I haven't heard them enough to have a solid opinion either way. Some bits seem good, some bad - Curates Egg time there :lol:.

 

[Jenna]

You do have a point, Jenna and it is one that I have made myself more than once i.e. that only the 'great' (or at least 'greater') examples of art endure beyond the period of their creation. However, I would stand my ground on the issue of the Music Industry having lost it's way - that is not to say that there is not great music being made or no artists of note any more :nods:.

However, I have to say when it comes to Lacuna Coil, I can't stand to listen to much of them for the lady in question sings far too thinly in too high a register all the time (Bat Singing I call it :lol. Compare her to my friend Gemma who sings for No Redemption and Thornleaf - now she is a real singer. I have seen Evanescence in concert at the NEC in Birmningham and confess I felt ripped off to the extent of wanting my money back . Not because the performance was bad but because they got too much fame too early and so had no material to play other than their one album - they had to have two support bands (who were terrible) to try to pad out the time. As to Nightwish, I haven't heard them enough to have a solid opinion either way. Some bits seem good, some bad - Curates Egg time there :lol:.

Yes I could not argue with your opinions and I know you have a soft spot for those ladies you posted there! And I have given you examples that are not at all to your taste and but I do not think the music industry is the artiber of quality or ever was. Was it?

I think it was a testament to the artists you mentioned from the 80s that their skill and sound matched that which was commercially viable and so record companies take them on.

Still now there are sooooo many music outlets from Soundcloud to ReverbNation and Bandcamp and the veritable Youtube, iTunes and Myspace which is all music now that it has created for all of us a great buffet of musicality that you can be certain to find EXACTLY what you want and which is a great step away from the old autocracy of the record label giants and few radio channels controlling and censoring what we can listen to.

It is a choice to lament the passing to history of these greats. It is also a choice to celebrate their greatness and to see who else is following behind, just as they followed behind artists that came before. I worry over comments I read on older videos and songs that are angry that no bands of today are far from as good as Zeppelin or Sabbath. I think that may or may not be true and but opinion is subjective. The problem is not the subjectivity of the opinion, I think the problem is to allow one's own sense of musical discovery to be suppressed by an idealising of an artist.

Can I ask when you listen to newer music do you allow yourself to be objective and receptive? I have a friend who will not let go of Led Zeppelin even though he was not born at the time of their heroics. I love Zepp and but I give him lots of new things and he listens and but I know he listens with his ears closed. Ah yes, he will say, he sings ok and but he has not the range of Robert Plant or the playing presence of Jimmy. And I think that is for the individual to set their stopping point on their journey of discovery and to pitch their tent at a nice place. I think there is nothing wrong with that. Only I like to see what is over the next hill

So while there will never be another Benetar, Heart, Zeppelin, Sabbath, Rush or whomever, still there are hundreds of absolutely WONDERFUL new bands that are doing what those artists did before: taking that sound legacy and moulding from it their own unique sounds.

Ah, I mean to elaborate and end up rambling and ranting. I am sorry. I like very much your musical choices and you have put your points succinctly and with your passion behind it. I appreciate that. Thank you. I have never liked giant record labels. They are driven by big commerce and not music. I think in art matters generally the two are scarcely intersecting and where they do yes, often we get production-line inanity.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Sukerkin

For the record Pat Benatar, prior to getting into rock as a singer her musical voice traininig was classical and theatrical... not Rock

And I agree, good looking and talented too

 

[Big Don]

There is something to be said for skill over appearance, but, as good as Rush is, they have faces made for radio...

 

[Sukerkin]

Jenna, that Nightwish song was very good - I couldn't listen to it before as works Net Nannie blocks YouTube.

Also, the 'bat singing' I was talking about earlier is Within Temptation, not Lacuna Coil - my bad .

 

[Sukerkin]

Nightwish doing a cover of Phantom:

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[Sukerkin]

And a shameless link to some of my friends music ... one of which is a cover of Phantom of the Opera ... but one that is, sadly, not as good as the version I have tucked away on CD (something seems amiss with Gemma's voice on it I am afraid and the general composition is not one of James' best):

http://www.myspace.com/jamesandgemma/music/songs?filter=featured

 

[Dirty Dog]

I had the opportunity to meet Ms Benatar once. It still amazes me that such a voice comes from a woman who might be able to reach my knee, if someone gave her a boost.

 

[Gemini]

I had the opportunity to meet Ms Benatar once. It still amazes me that such a voice comes from a woman who might be able to reach my knee, if someone gave her a boost.

Lol. "Petite" is an understatement.

My first favorites were Linda Ronstadt and Grace Slick. Linda had the better voice, but something about Grace was mesmerizing to me.

The first band I ever remember hearing were a true studio band and had absolutely no ability to perform live was Boston. The first band I ever remember hearing using "canned" back up was BTO at the Chicago Amphitheater in the mid 70's. They got booed off the stage. How times have changed.

 

[Carol]

I don't know if Belinda carried on performing after her huge burst into the spotlight with the album this is from but it is still great listening ... and if a rocker like me owns a copy of it then anyone can

Suke, if you're open to slightly gentler music like Belinda Carlisle, check this out:

http://mpe.berklee.edu/media/projects/mtcd/mtcd91/mp3player.swf

Play the 6th song "I miss the words of love".

This is Berklee College of Music's 1991 CD. Unfortunately none of my productions ever made the annual CD, but some of my friends' productions did. The song is, in my opinion, absolutely stunning.

 

[Big Don]

 

[Sukerkin]

:chuckles: Whilst there is no doubt that performance music has always had an element of sexuality to it, I still reckon that these days appearance has overtaken substance by a considerable margin. The worst part is that the eejuts buying the 'music' buy into the illusion too.

You only have to read some of the comments on, for example, Heart videos on YouTube to realise that. The number that harp on about Ann Wilson being fat :faints:. Excuse me! Did you listen at all?! Plus, thirty years back you would have been dripping drool off your chin about her - close your eyes and open your ears! I often feel that the music video has done more harm than good I have to confess.