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Todays Comic Strip - about ringtones...

LindaC781

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:cheeky:
 
yes, a musical generation of ADD ringtone-happy artists and audience.

Babyface:

"I need a love song about now.
Don't need no ringtone songs now.
Please tell the DJ, slow it down.
I wanna think about my baby now.
I want a old school tape, a slow jam.
You know the kind when they used to romance.
When Luther used to sing like baby
and Michael made the world go crazy. "
 
Isn't it just nutz out there arxter? We are becoming that with regards to music. I mean, fewer people are willing to pay the bucks for a live performance....more and more are relying on "canned" music. Just ask my parents, and my cousin Steve. They are having some trouble getting gigs lately...cause noone wants live music anymore! And they don't want to hear a song in it's entirety!! A ringtone will do!! I wonder if MJ himself is feeling this trend lately or not?

I mean, you go to a Britney Spears concert, and she's lipsynching. And she is not the only one. Christina A. has done this - I have seen it. Justin Timberlake does it too....along with a whole load of acts. And that's just not right. I think that if a concergoer pays that much money to see an act, the least they could see is someone performing live.. I don't care how much money it costs to ship all of the equipment they need to do it.
 
^^^^^That's because the younger audience hasn't been raised on musicianship, just cheap Casio keyboard & drum programming. In the old days acts performed in clubs and bars (including the Jacksons) for years before getting discovered, so by the time they started making records they really jelled together. Nowadays you can just get Reason software and don't have to learn how to sing or play an instrument. John Coltrane used to practice up to 12 hours a day. People today have a short attention span and consider something that's been out a month "old school", lol. Today's popular music has no shelf life.
 
That's because the younger audience hasn't been raised on musicianship, just cheap Casio keyboard & drum programming.
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Nowadays you can just get Reason software and don't have to learn how to sing or play an instrument.
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but what you're describing stretches back to the 80s pop (and we could replace "Reason" with "Linn"), even though nowadays i'm beginning to seriously question the meaning of the terms like 'shelf-life' and 'dated' etc.

but more importantly what we need to take into account is that these new digital tools have opened up the music-making process to many more people than before - specifically home consumers, many of whom would remain with no other talents than simple DJ techniques. but the musicianship core will always remain.

and for those musicians, digital tools can only enhance their ability (and quality) of making music - we have many cats who are talented and skilled enough to use the DAWs, the drum machines, MIDI, sequencers etc. to their advantage as opposed to allowing it to make you become a lazy musician...

.. which is what the mainstream seems to be full of..

however, it's not the case of a dumber generation, but the fault of the labels for not investing in what are obviously bigger talents than what we're seeing in pop. the talent is there, like a parallel generation working in the underground, and the divide has never been stronger imo.

and other less-obvious reasons could be that you are a great producer or artist signed to a major label, but it's the industry which demands of you the compensation in quality. these are the words of Jamaican producer and CEO Jeremy Harding in his RBMA lecture:


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I had a reaction recently, with a lot of records, they seem overly concerned with turning all their songs into ring tones. There’s a very big market for them. So you just finished your album, you take one year to do it, you spent all this money, you rented all these big studios, bought your ProTools, you agonised over it forever. Go home, take all the songs, chop them into 30 seconds each. Mp3 them to me, we’re going to make lots of money selling ringtones. So you kind of feel like you’re working in a manner contrary to the way the business is going. You’re working so hard, to try and make better quality recordings, whether using vintage gear or digital gear, you’re pushing the boundaries. You know, frequencies and sample rates. And all that stuff that you’re doing, seems to be dropping as to what the consumers want. You understand what I’m saying now? Like people are more excited about buying a 30 second ring tone on a phone for three bucks, and they’ll buy ten of them before they’ll buy a CD in the store.
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and the masses would buy into anything that's marketed to them - so i maintain it's the oligopolistic labels' fault.

so it's come to a ridiculous extent whereby the ringtone phenomena is almost more popular than the tunes, so the way they have not only written & produced but also engineered the tracks (Timbaland, Storch, Jerkins et al) is exactly for that purpose and for that EQ, doing it with the knowledge that it's going to be so reduced in bit rate (for the phone) that they're willing to compensate the CD/vinyl quality for that of the tinny, harsh and shitty sounding phone.
 
Wow. I never read that quote - how true!! It is almost the ADD generation. Gone is even the ability to listen and appreciate a whole song!! Now they just want 30 seconds of it!! What have we come to??
 
arXter said:
but what you're describing stretches back to the 80s pop (and we could replace "Reason" with "Linn"), even though nowadays i'm beginning to seriously question the meaning of the terms like 'shelf-life' and 'dated' etc.
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But Linn is some actual equipment. With Reason, you don't need anything but a computer and a mouse. It's easier if you hook up a keyboard to it, but it's not totally necessary. As far as 'shelf life' is concerned, I really doubt anyone is going to remember stuff like this a few years from now, let alone 20.
[youtube]nvFDjDLxwGg&fmt=18[/youtube]
 
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DuranDuran said:
But Linn is some actual equipment. With Reason, you don't need anything but a computer and a mouse. It's easier if you hook up a keyboard to it, but it's not totally necessary. As far as 'shelf life' is concerned, I really doubt anyone is going to remember stuff like this a few years from now, let alone 20.
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You're right DuranDuran. I hate to think what tomorrow's oldies are going to be 20 years from now...People remember the live music. They remember MJ, Chicago, Blood Sweat & Tears, Janis Joplin, etc. All of that great stuff. People remember Jimi Hendrix, the Who. The Greatful Dead, etc. Is this the legacy we are passing down to the next generation?? Computerized, digitized music with no feeling to it??

I remember seeing Sonny Stitt live in a jazz club...as well as Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughn. They were LIVE. Every performance was a slight modification from the last one. You can't beat the live music experience. It's electric. It's alive. It's not canned!!
I wonder what Suzie Sjeidis (sp) thinks of these trends, since she works in the music business??
 
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well a multi-faceted daw/synth/sampler/ sequencer like Reason is capable of all the processes that any Linn machine handled (sampling, sequencing, synthesis) but does it much better and gives you many options of how to go about it (you can even connect a Linn-like pad controller). the treasured MPC was also a Linn product. but my point is such equipment existed for decades.

as for why i'm questioning the 'shelf-life' argument, it's because of realising how infinitely subjective art is.

i mean yeah sure neither you nor i (nor many other people) would ever listen to a track like that but then again what's the criteria to judge on what art is? it's a really clichéd argument but for a long time i've been fighting a losing counter-argument, lol.
 
arXter said:
well a multi-faceted daw/synth/sampler/ sequencer like Reason is capable of all the processes that any Linn machine handled (sampling, sequencing, synthesis) but does it much better and gives you many options of how to go about it (you can even connect a Linn-like pad controller). the treasured MPC was also a Linn product. but my point is such equipment existed for decades.

as for why i'm questioning the 'shelf-life' argument, it's because of realising how infinitely subjective art is.

i mean yeah sure neither you nor i (nor many other people) would ever listen to a track like that but then again what's the criteria to judge on what art is? it's a really clichéd argument but for a long time i've been fighting a losing counter-argument, lol.
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It's popular with somebody, because if you walk down the street where I live, you'll hear people blasting that or songs that sound exactly like it in their "boomin' system" (that probably costs more than the car itself is worth) with so much bass that the car is rattling, lol. I'm thinking, they're gonna be deaf before they hit 30.
 
Oldies But Goodies?

LindaC781 said:
You're right DuranDuran. I hate to think what tomorrow's oldies are going to be 20 years from now...People remember the live music. They remember MJ, Chicago, Blood Sweat & Tears, Janis Joplin, etc. All of that great stuff. People remember Jimi Hendrix, the Who. The Greatful Dead, etc. Is this the legacy we are passing down to the next generation?? Computerized, digitized music with no feeling to it??

I remember seeing Sonny Stitt live in a jazz club...as well as Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughn. They were LIVE. Every performance was a slight modification from the last one. You can't beat the live music experience. It's electric. It's alive. It's not canned!!
I wonder what Suzie Sjeidis (sp) thinks of these trends, since she works in the music business??
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Either oldies radio will die out by then or they will continue to play the same "Freebird", "Stairway To Heaven", "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", Chuck Berry, Supremes, & Beach Boys stuff they're playing now, lol.
 
I think Stevie from Malcolm In The Middle should get some royalty payments, lol. I don't understand the stuff that become hit songs today.
[youtube]zZBUPFMAFDQ[/youtube]
 
Just when I think I've heard it all....... :hysterical::D
[youtube]WbcRniCcUZI[/youtube]
 
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