Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Date:         Sun, 8 Nov 1992 21:50:52 -0500
From:         mjferzig@MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU
Subject:      Re: ROCK AND ROLL

>        Musicians today don't play with the same enthusiasm as they once
>did.  With innovations in instruments you would think that they would be
>better, but no guitarist plays like Jimmi Hendrix or Jimmy Page ever did.
>Do you think that there will ever be a four man band as great as Led Zeppelin
>?  Also bands seem to be playing for the money rather than for their fans.
>TAke Guns-n-Roses for example.  APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION was one of the
>best albums I've ever heard and then USE YOUR ILLUSION 1&2 come out and they
>have a totally different sound to them.  Why do you think that is?  I think
>the only true band still playing today is THE GRATEFUL DEAD.  Don't you
>agree that if more bands were like them the world of music would be so much
>better today?

Please don't think I'm being impolite by not addressing you proplerly. You
didn't leave your name, so I can't refer to you by it. I beg to differ with
the above opinion (I'm trying not to be rude here..is it working?) Seeing
as I'm not a G&R fan, a big Zeppelin fan, or a Dead fan, I do not feel, as
you do, that the music world has declined. My point is that the phrases
"good music", "true band", "best albums" and the like are extremely
subjective. In my opinion, _Turnstiles_ (Billy Joel), _Dream Into Action_
(Howard Jones), _Four On The Floor_ (The Nylons), _Caught in the Act_
(Styx) _Good Morning Vietnam_ (soundtrack) and _Future Fossils_ (Christine
Lavin) are among the best albums of all time. That only means that they are
MY favorites, and that when I DJ, I play them. We can only rate them as
"good" according to certain flawed objective standards - concert
attendance, airplay, albums sold....notice we're dealing with economics.
Charles Ives is an incredibly famous and, some think, talented composer,
and he is part of most music history classes, but in real life the man was
an insurance salesman, and attained little recognition for his music until
he was dead. The only reason we have some decent objective standards to
rate older classical music is that all the composers are dead, their trends
and development can be noticed, we understand the conditions they worked
under much more fully than we understand today's society, and everyone we
can compare them to is dead too! Only time shows brilliance, through
durability. I believe that music is alive and well and getting better all
the time. The world is omly starting to recognize the a cappella music that
I love so much with compilation albums, and therefore commercial success,
but a cappella music existed before any other kind...The history spans
thousands of years, yet by today's standars of economics, isn't a "success"
yet, and therefore isn't any good. I say "good music" is what YOU like to
listen to, until history can step back and take an objective look at it
hundreds of years from now. And even then, if you like it, it's good. I've
never liked troubador songs...but I learned about them in music class 600
years or so after they'd been composed. Even though I gritted my teeth all
the way through the record, I have a healthy respect for music that can
endure that long.

Enjoy your music, whatever it may be. And if it's the older albums from a
group you really prefer, then listen to your heart's content.

I've said more than I intended to, but being a woman of slightly unusal
tastes, I have often had the arguments about "good music."  Usually it's
when someone calls my favorite stuff "crap." They are entitled to their
opinion, and I'm entitled to mine....but that doesn't mean that any of this
music will be around 500 years from now...and if it is, that anyone will
like it!

Marsha "I had some doozies for music profs in college" Ferziger

P.S. DId any of you take music history in college? If so, did any of you
use Edith Borroff's book? I had her for a class....that explains a lot
about me....
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic