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Post by Kapitan on Jun 28, 2019 21:54:09 GMT
Actually I do agree that part of the problem is the pool getting smaller over time. Same thing happens in sports halls of fame in many cases, and all of a sudden there are mediocre bands (or athletes) getting in. Like, "oh, they were pretty good ... to the Hall!"
To sustain the energy around it, maybe they should have had one or two large initial classes back in the 80s, and then capped it at a much, much smaller number of inductees. On the down-side, some of the older ones might have died before going in. However, that happens anyway. The benefit would be consistently more deserving inductees.
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Post by kds on Jul 1, 2019 12:15:18 GMT
I'm sure Jann Wenner has influence, but I'm not sure how much. I think he might have more say in people getting in than people not getting in.
I used to be pretty passionate about the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, especially when it started in the late 1980's. That was probably because of all the greats who were being inducted, most of whom were my personal favorites. At the same time, obviously, the list starting out was full of deserving artists who weren't in - yet - and that bothered me. But you know what? Over time many of my favorites did get in, and the list of snubs has gotten progressively smaller. There is a down side to that, though. Like most halls, things eventually get "watered down". They let in too many people to be frank. And I don't mean they were or weren't my personal favorites, they just didn't have the credentials, in my not so humble opinion. To me, a hall of fame denotes greatness, and if somebody isn't great, not just very good but great, well...
Like I said, the list of deserving artists is dwindling, thankfully. But there's still a few artists that I do wish would be recognized, and I'll name them:
- Three Dog Night - The Guess Who - The Monkees - Tommy James & The Shondells
- Jan & Dean - Blue Oyster Cult - Slade
Don't underestimate the power of the single! My list would actually be a bit longer..... Grand Funk Railroad The Doobie Brothers Thin Lizzy Uriah Heep Judas Priest Styx Boston Foreigner Bad Company Motorhead Jimmy Buffett Iron Maiden Rainbow Motley Crue Soundgarden My list actually used to be considerably longer before the fan vote.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Jul 1, 2019 12:29:48 GMT
I think most of your list ^ will get in. I forgot about The Doobie Brothers and Bad Company. Is Paul Rodgers in at all? And, I ask because I don't know - Uriah Heep? I'm embarrassed because I forgot to mention one of my favorite bands - Sparks.
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Post by kds on Jul 1, 2019 12:38:27 GMT
I think most of your list ^ will get in. I forgot about The Doobie Brothers and Bad Company. Is Paul Rodgers in at all? And, I ask because I don't know - Uriah Heep? I'm embarrassed because I forgot to mention one of my favorite bands - Sparks.
Paul Rodgers isn't it at all. Free never got the attention in the States that they did in the UK, so I think his best bet is with Bad Co. Heep might be a stretch, but for about a six or seven year run in the 70s, they were releasing material as strong as the stuff Purple were releasing. I doubt Rainbow will ever make it just because they had so many different lineups. Buffett won't make it because I think he's considered more of a novelty than an actual musician.
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 25, 2019 15:45:54 GMT
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Post by kds on Sept 25, 2019 15:49:46 GMT
Oh boy. Now, the President of iHeartMedia. Are they going to waive the 25 year rule to induct Taylor Swift now?
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 25, 2019 15:52:21 GMT
Lifetime achievement awards to Billie Eilish and Cardi B.
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Post by kds on Sept 25, 2019 15:57:28 GMT
Lifetime achievement awards to Billie Eilish and Cardi B. Ugh. I actually just heard a song called "Bad Guy" by Billie Eilish at the Ravens Home Opener. Is modern pop consciously trying to see how terrible it can be and still sell? As I've gotten older, I can kinda see the appeal of pop music through maybe the early 2000s, even if it's not my cup of tea. But, I can't do that with modern pop. I mean, who is actually listening to this stuff? And why? What's the appeal of listening to a woman whisper over an EDM style beat? And, here, I thought we'd never sink any lower than Hollaback Girl.
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 25, 2019 17:12:04 GMT
I think Hollaback Girl must still be in the running! (My Humps can’t be forgotten either.) sometimes the classics (of trash) truly stand the test of time.
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Post by kds on Sept 25, 2019 18:05:44 GMT
I think Hollaback Girl must still be in the running! (My Humps can’t be forgotten either.) sometimes the classics (of trash) truly stand the test of time. Hollaback Girl and My Humps are up there, but honestly, they pale in comparison to some of the more recent stuff polluting Top 40 radio today.
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 26, 2019 0:11:53 GMT
For the heck of it and in the spirit of this old-manning, here are my impressions of the songs currently listed on iTunes' top 10.
"Memories," Maroon 5. Pretty boring, but not as bad as a lot of what I hear. There are instruments being played. There are melodies being sung, though I hear some autotune (which is weird considering it isn't being used as a heavy effect, and this guy is supposed to be able to sing). But this is #1? OK, good to know: in 2019, "not terrible" means #1.
"Truth Hurts," Lizzo. ...and terrible means #2. I have a little special hometown hate for Lizzo, someone whose fame seems (as far as I can tell) bragging about being really fat. And I'm not mocking fat people. I'm saying that's not something that warrants pride or fame. The music isn't good.
"Someone You Loved," Lewis Capaldi. I've never heard this song or heard of this person. It's the sort of cheesy piano ballad I guess I'd expect from anything that isn't a hip hop act.
"Senorita," Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello. Paint by numbers pop circa 2000 "Latin explosion." Totally forgettable despite being scientifically designed to be memorable. I'm guessing these people are heart-throbs, though I don't know who they are.
"Circles," Post Malone. I've seen this guy's name a lot, but I think this is the first time I've heard him. I've never been more bored in my life.
"Good As Hell," Lizzo. I know this one. I hate it. So, so, so much. That people seem to love it infuriates me, actually.
"Old Town Road," Lil Nas X feat. Billy Ray Cyrus. I've heard this. It's not good. Never was, never will be. Country charts, pop charts, whatever. Not good. I don't get it. Yet it was #1 for a long, long time.
"One Thing Right," Marshmello and Kane Brown. Is country-tinged hip hop a thing? I mean, I guess obviously. This is terrible. I hate life.
"The Git Up," Blanco Brown. See above. (What is happening?)
"Even Though I'm Leaving," Luke Combs. Good, old-fashioned shitty bro-country. Which makes it probably the second-best thing on this terrible, terrible list of hits.
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Post by kds on Sept 26, 2019 12:13:16 GMT
Wow, in the words of Mr. Ian Malcolm in the Jurassic Park movie, "that is a huge pile of shit."
I know I'm a bit of a curmudgeon when it comes to music of the last quarter century, but for the love of God, how can anybody listen to this? My sister tends to be a fan of modern Top 40, and whenever I pose the ask of why she likes a particular song, the answer is almost always "it's catchy." "Catchy" and "good" are not the same thing and that backs up my theory that these are merely earworms that people can't get out of their heads, so they think the songs are good.
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 26, 2019 12:22:24 GMT
I’m a sucker for tuneful (catchy) music, but I don’t even hear that most of the time. The only songs I can recall in the slightest from last night’s exercise in masochism are the two I already knew, Good As Hell and Old Town Road.
I think often they get “catchy” not by being memorable, but by being simple and repetitive. Not exactly the same thing.
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Post by kds on Sept 26, 2019 12:33:28 GMT
I’m a sucker for tuneful (catchy) music, but I don’t even hear that most of the time. The only songs I can recall in the slightest from last night’s exercise in masochism are the two I already knew, Good As Hell and Old Town Road. I think often they get “catchy” not by being memorable, but by being simple and repetitive. Not exactly the same thing. Right, and again I think people are confusing simple and repetitive with good. I heard one of Taylor Swift's ramblings from a 15 year old's dairy at Dunkin Donuts the other day, and the thing was stuck in my head for the rest of the morning. I don't know what the song was called but it was something like "it is cool that I said that, it is cool you are in my head," but I just simply can't imagine somebody choosing to listen to that song for pleasure.
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Post by Kapitan on Jan 14, 2020 14:19:48 GMT
I had to revive the thread, not just because I love when KDS is in Grumpy Old Man mode, but because of something relevant ... and startling! I heard a story on NPR this morning that actually made me feel sympathetic toward the Hall of Fame. The story was (this being NPR) primarily about the "gender inequity" (to use the parlance of the moment) that exists in the Hall's membership (with a little about racial inequity thrown in because, hey, why not?). First of all, it's getting extremely tiresome to keep reading and hearing "yeah, but you're a white man" as if it were an actual, substantive response. Truly, it's annoying. It isn't going to kill me to keep hearing it, but it's hard to respect anyone whose argument doesn't go further. Second, to discuss the goal of a gender- and race-neutral selection criteria. I have to ask, what's wrong with that? If the Hall is supposed to be about the best rock and roll music, shouldn't the criteria be based on the question of "what is the best rock and roll music?" If 92% of the Hall were female, should we be fighting to get more men into it? If 75% of the Hall were black, should we be fighting to get more whites into it? Or should we be focused on the actual substance of the Hall?
There is a difference between "we want to recognize music in a demographically proportionate representation of American people" and "we want to recognize the best rock and roll." And that leads to... Third, rock and roll has been overwhelmingly white and male. I'm not saying that is good or bad, I'm just saying that it is. You can debate the reasons for it--I'd personally guess that it's a combination of America, especially in rock's heyday, being overwhelmingly white and rock and roll appealing more to aggressive boys/men than to girls/women combined with the obvious social and professional restrictions that were on girls and women during its first decades--but it's true regardless of the reasons. So if we're looking at the Hall, the first decades of it were bound to represent the first decades of the form (25 years prior). Those artists were going to be wildly disproportionately white and male. As time went on, the industry opened up and more great female or nonwhite artists were more able to enter the fray. But it doesn't mean it became demographically representative, and we shouldn't assume that the best of it is, either. But it doesn't help to extend the stupidity of the argument into absurdist territory: "Last year, [McDonnell] did an analysis of gender representation in the hall of fame and found a problem. For every female bandleader inducted, her male band mates also go into the hall of fame. McDonnell discovered that, over the course of 34 years, that process has yielded 69 women out of 888 inductees — or less than 8%."
So the fact that backup musicians were more often men than women, even in woman-led bands, is also sexist? Does she want only bandleaders to be inducted? Should bands be required to be demographically representative? Should female-led bands only include female background musicians? It's nonsense. 9.1% of nurses in America are male, meaning presumably 90.9% of them are female. This isn't necessarily a reflection of sexism any more than the RnR HoF being about 92% male is a reflection of sexism. The NBA is 75% black. I'd guess its HoF is roughly 75% black, and we shouldn't be going out of our way to force it into the national demographic that would repress its black membership to 13%.
The HoF is awful for a lot of reasons. It's irrelevant for a lot of reasons. Its judgment is terrible. But let's cut the crap: it doesn't deserve to be attacked for sexism or racism in its inductees. If we were looking at a HoF without Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, Tina Turner, or Janis Joplin, or a HoF without Chuck Berry, Little Richard, or Fats Domino, we could be having this conversation more seriously. But we're not.
We're looking at a majority male, majority white genre and complaining that its best practitioners appear to be majority male, majority white.
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