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On 25/07/2011 12:44, Chris Dale wrote:
I never got into her music. Her drug / alcohol abuse ruins her credibility for me. (Hendix had a strong record of enormous talent before he became a junkie).
I find this incredible. I can guarantee that most of the music you know and love was made by people who were out of their flaming boxes when they dreamed it up. Absolutely off their kites. Stoned out of their gourds. baked. Roasted. Six kinds of Wednesday. Smashed. Toked. Why apply one set of rules to the people whose music you happen to like and not to others? Frankly I don't care one iota if someone is a junkie or not if I like their music. All three members of Cream were blasted out of their little red wagons when they wrote and made their music. Is it any good? Of course it is. If you don't like it then it's a matter of taste, but to say it's bad because they used drugs is little short of idiotic.
Notice - you said that 'her drug / alcohol abuse ruins her credibility for me'. I mean...where to start? None of (say) Amy Winehouse's music sounds like she was tottering about the studio in a state of intoxication; barely any marketable label (like...oh I dunno...Island) would tolerate that fiscal waste these days. So what you are actually saying is that because she used drugs her music is no good. If you meanrt something else then maybe you could articulate it a bit better, but that is what your words say.
I don't much care for drugs. I didn't much care for Amy Winehouse's music either. But this kind of
I'll stick with music made by musicians who indisputably make, write and perform their own music and don't need gaudy and tacky stage shows, secret songwriting teams, and alarmist political tactics and causes to draw attention to themselves.
I think you will find without any doubt that Winehouse, Madonna and Lady Gaga write/wrote and performed their own material. Certainly the latter two are two women very much in command of what they do.
Secret songwriting teams? Really? Like who? I think you'll find that most songwriters (or secret teams) are probably quite motivated not to be secret because being secret means less money. The days of Tin Pan Alley writers churning out song after song on the odd chance that one will hit paydirt are long behind us.
I don't know who you are referring to about 'alarmist political tactics', but it sounds weird. Bear in mind that one Elvis Presley was possibly the most alarming thing that the sheltered bits of the USA had ever seen at one point. Mostly because he reminded people how babies are made. That was something terrifying. And it sold records. And it was still terrifying enough to ban bits of him from the screens of the nation's TV sets. Deeply alarming. Well, maybe not. Perhaps that was a mantle better reserved for Little Richard. He must have seemed like a thermonuclear device.
And....gaudy and tacky stage shows? This from someone who like prog rock? This one hit me like a brick in the face! Can you possibly be serious???
EXHIBIT 1: http://cdn.crooksandliars.com/files/uploads/2010/04/genesis_petergabriel_live_2954b.jpg
EXHIBIT 2: http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Millennium/General/1999/02/25/codpiece.jpg
EXHIBIT 3: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/94/240935102_c05b4e74ac.jpg
EXHIBIT 4: http://www.keyboardmag.com/uploadedimages/keyboardmag/articles/emerson_opener_web.jpg
EXHIBIT 5: http://yesmuseum.org/images/RickOnIce.JPG
I can stop any time you like.
That's why I like prog - not a Labatts or McDonalds ad or association in sight.
Given the above I'm not surprised. It wouldn't pay.-- Mike Dickson, Edinburgh