Re: [ARSCLIST] A Holiday vision

[Bob Olhsson <olh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
>From Ethan Clauset: "...I have no doubt that you could time-shift this
statement backwards  
about 100 years and someone in 1907 would have said the same thing  
about the perilously declining quality of popular music in their  
day..."

I believed this for the first ten or fifteen years I found myself
disappointed by the music that seemed to be receiving the most exposure.

Then I realized that while fashion and nostalgia components have always been
an integral part of popular music, there is something far more substantial
and compelling that had led me to put up with the roller coaster life that
is any professional career in the music business. This has been the effect
good music has on my body, i.e. how it feels to sing along or even just
breathe with what I hear, the goose bumps on my arm when a large string
section swells. I've frequently experienced this kind of a physical response
to music from other cultures that I had no previous experience with. Old
recordings have reminded me of it but the physical acoustical experience of
the Count Basie band was profound and undeniable despite my never having
heard that kind of music live up to that point in my life. I'd go so far as
to question whether any recording has been fully capable of capturing and
reproducing the experience of listening to the music of any genre or era.
Certainly there has always been manufactured pop music that lacked substance
but at the same time there was also popular music that was profoundly moving
by any measure. This second stream, the one that cut across cultural
identity and language is what has been missing in action for some years. I
have no reason not to believe that the decline in substantial popular music
is the reason why a lot of the younger generation is yawning at the whole
idea of music other than as merely a fashion statement.

I don't think there's any getting around it being a fact that music has not
been doing very well in our culture for more than a decade. Hopefully at
least some of us can do something about that problem.

Bob Olhsson Audio Mastery, Nashville TN
Mastering, Audio for Picture, Mix Evaluation and Quality Control
Over 40 years making people sound better than they ever imagined!
615.385.8051 http://www.hyperback.com