Ha ha, everything has its place Adey. Let's be fair, who needs 'challenging' music when you're supposed to be concentrating on the driving?

It's both; but, like a very high proportion of the things in life, the better music often takes some time, experience, perhaps education, perhaps even study, to appreciate. And then it is still subjective, certainly; you can certainly appreciate a particular piece of music without especially liking it.

But again like a lot of things in life, they're often dismissed by many folk, and it's their loss, because they don't make the effort and so don't know what they're missing.

Kids don't begin music appreciation with nursery tunes for nothing. They need to learn the basics. Bands aimed at pre-teens and young teens often come up with simple, repetitive, formula pop but it's a level or two up from nursery rhymes, and it's often as much about the artist/s as the music. But I think as people mature most people's musical tastes do too, although the process then usually grinds to a halt somewhere in mid-life, and then they settle for whatever they settled for as "the best" and nothing that follows is as good.


Screw any complaining neighbours, if you want peace and quiet, don't live next to giant stadiums. (I doubt the Council quite look at it that way though)

In general, the top thirty is 'dummed down' to the lowest common denominator to be honest, the 'three chord wonders' I mention, so selling a lot of records doesn't equate to 'great', or difficult music as such. There is certainly a knack, maybe even a science, in producing the sounds and riffs which become popular though and not everyone has it, that is a fact. It certainly isn't usually the 'clever' or hard to learn stuff which makes the no. one spot.

Got to admit I find it hard to accept much of the really simplistic stuff as being 'great' though. Obviously that's just me and other have a different opinion and all opinions are equally valid at the end of the day. We like what we like - so back to my Tommy Emmanuel, Martin Taylor and Django CDs.....

But sometimes the beauty and greatness is in the simplicity; I call your simplistic and raise you McCartney's "Yesterday"

The Wombles trumps that...

I thought the Wombles were absolutely marvelous...though I doubt it will ever replace music..

I don't really know about that; I have great admiration for virtuoso musicians, whether it's a genius guitarist like Hendrix, or a pianist like Barenboim, and what is certainly true for me is that watching these performers 'in the flesh' is an awesome thing, and infinitely better than listening to a recording. But I think you'd need to 'get' the music first to really get the effect; certainly the natural universal human trait is to want stuff that's familiar. People prefer to listen to new stuff, even by their favourite performers, in their own time, and come to terms with it, but they prefer not to hear it at THIS concert, thank you very much, just play the STUFF WE KNOW. A classic example was Dylan coming out and playing an electric set.

It's certainly true that the better you get to know a piece, the more you appreciate it.

But OTOH when trying to assess the "greatness" of an old song, what's hard is to divest it of the personal emotional or sentimental baggage it may well have. For just one example, you happen to know that Dylan is a legend but if you'd never heard of him, how good would you rate him? More to the point, does it make a difference if you lived through those times, protest songs, Woodstock, the Dylans and the Baezs, and understand the context from which certain songs emerged? Can The Times They Are A-Changin" [iever[/i have the same resonance in the ears of someone born in 2000 as it does with "children of the sixties"? (In my opinion, the answer to that is a qualified "yes", it might, but not if they don't take the trouble to learn about the song, and put it, and the artist, in context).

It would be great, because when I tried for tickets yesterday afternoon they had sold out in the morning. I saw the Feelgoods last year & though it was a cracking night it was a bit like watching a tribute band.

It's totally subjective. You can be objective & appreciate someone's talent without actually liking the 20 minute drum solo.

Some songs take years to grow on you & fully appreciate, but most great pop songs hit you immediately. I will never forget hearing Peely playing 'Teenage Kicks' for the first time on the little radio in my bedroom, I'm with him, still the best 2.5 minutes of pure pop ever made. he then played it again straight after it was that good.

From 72-76 Quo were almost incomparable as a pop rock band, one of the best concerts I have seen at that time. Sadly they have deteriorated gradually since then IMO, with some real dirge. A mate, doing his own farewell tour in 1992, got tickets for Sheffield Arena. It was awful, lots of middle aged couples in matching Arran sweaters, with none of the power of the early 70s. Still, as someone said recently, they play as many chords as the Ramones ever did.

Which basically shows there is only so much mileage to be got from the three chord trick and the sixteen bar pop format is just too formulaic to be interesting for long if done the same way. Good driving beat though, but of course, so were many bands.

Also, don't forget that pretty much all musos change over the years as they pick up influences from other people and styles, just as the individual listener changes as the years go by. There were many things I thought were the dog's proverbials when I was younger which I'm not [iquite[/i so enamoured with today, so you are far from the first to lose touch with an 'old flame', musically speaking.

It must be difficult to maintain relevance as an artist over 40-50 years. Rod Stewart, with the Faces, were brilliant, now I cannot abide his style. People like Richard Thompson, Bowie, Neil Young, Ian Hunter - I still run over to the radio & turn it up when a new song comes out.

Agreed to a large extent about the Quo, but then they were only ever a goodtime band, they weren't after changing the face of music, and I suppose they got into a permanent groove of doing what they had always done in front of audiences who wanted to see just that. Nowt wrong with earning a living, and some of those early classics make up for everything.

Ramones were something else completely. America never "got" them really, well not until after the event when they started giving them awards, and but the whole point of what they did was to dare to go out and put on power performances thrashing and screaming out what you wanted to do, and stuff the fact you couldn't actually play as such. A sort of "screw you" music, probably responsible in large part for what became the UK punk movement. A reaction against every other kind of music, and rejection. I really love some of the punk stuff, although was never a punk, but isn't that a bit weird, as if it was supposed to appeal to anyone, it wouldn't be the likes of me, and it wasn't ever supposed to even be commercial, more anti-commercial if you like (though Malcolm McLaren would no doubt privately laugh and disagree!)

That's very true mate. To keep 'relevant' over three or four years is a real achievement, to do so over twenty or thirty and more is outstanding in itself - you can't really knock those who manage it.