Re: [ARSCLIST] When you die...

[Don Cox <doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> 
> We know what current "pop music fans" prefer...endless inane lyrics,
> sung or spoken, laid down over a computer-generated version (badly
> done...!) of the "funk" rhythm first laid down in late-fifties R&B and
> then effectively brought to perfection by "James Brown and the Famous
> Flames!" It goes without saying that ANY music not fitting into that
> category may as well not (or never have) exist(ed?!). The main
> function of to-day's "pop music" is to validate the listener's(s'?)
> existence through being played through a gazillion-watt "system"
> running at deafness-inducing levels in one's impressive motar car...?!
> 
> Now, imagine fifty years down the road...! All of these musically-
> intentionally-illiterate individuals will have become "Old F...
> ogies," wanting nothing more than a nostalgia-inspired relisten to the
> music they recall from a Viagra-free youth...!? 

Not necessarily. Many people gradually broaden the range of music they
appreciate, so that somebody who at age 17 likes only recordings made in
the previous three years, may by age fifty enjoy music from the previous
three centuries.

Don't assume that ignorance is a permanent condition.

> In odda woids, our
> descendants of 2057 (If Dubya hasn't successfully turned the planet
> into a highly-radioactive cinder inhabitable only by mutant
> cockroaches...?!) will be paying $400-500 to attend nostalgia-based
> musical events such as "Once Again!
> Puff-whomever triumphantly returns to the stage (complete with a
> walker and his own oxygen line...?!).
> 
> Can we assume that any interest will still exist in older songs with
> more complicated melody lines and chord structures?!
> 
Well, think of the revival of interest in pre-Bach music in recent
decades - repertoire that was completely unknown and forgotten in the
1940s, except perhaps to a handful of musicologists.

Even Mozart was known only from a dozen or so works to most listeners in
1900.


> ASIDE from the fact that as 78-ophiles die off of old age, it will
> eventually become unprofitable to offer players therefor (as well, in
> fact, for ANY analog format...?!)
> 
> So...if you own not only 78rpm PHONORECORDS, but also an apparatus to
> obtain audible sound therefrom...it is YOUR job to keep this
> increasingly-obscure audio format ALIVE...!
> 
> (My great-grandfather just died, and left me a whole bunch of records
> of some sort...but nobody I asked knew howinell how to PLAY the
> sumbitches...?!)
> 
> Steven C. Barr
Regards
-- 
Don Cox
doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx