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a feeling : no really new music can be recorded any more.
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IanB
IanB
6761 posts

Edited Aug 31, 2008, 18:42
Re: a feeling : no really new music can be recorded any more.
Aug 31, 2008, 17:50
keith a wrote:
Yeah, I know what you’re saying, Ian, but just want to make a few points.

*Not* everyone has great ideas. Or certainly, not enough of them to make a career out of it.

The work ethic is something entirely different, and your U2/E&TB example is the one I would use, too.

But that doesn’t make U2 any better for that, or the Bunnymen any worse.

Just poorer! ; )

(Interestingly in view of your comments re Englishness, the successful act here are Irish. The others are English!)

Anyway, The Day The World Turned Dayglo has brought me far more pleasure than Sgt Peppers ever has. And I like The Beatles…

PS Not sure Magazine are the best example here. Surely – as great as those first 3 Magazine LP’s are (and they really, really are!) – Howie could be classed as one of the great under-achievers of our time!



The funny thing is that I think everyone really is capable of having great ideas they just don't act on them or they let other factors get in the way - fear, laziness, poverty, embarassment and, yes, even technique will stop you from going all the way with those flashes of insipration.

My choice of U2 was deliberate for the very fact that they are not English. It was that which meant that they had no shame at working the hardest. Especially in America. And thus they out-sold and out-lasted all other competitors. It could have been the Bunnymen. They just didn't have what it takes beyond the musical realm.

I think we semi-agree on the single. I love a three minute blast of genius as much as anyone but I want to hear it followed up, englarged, explored where ever possible. That's just me. Probably because I grew up more on albums than singles. Before Punk came along going to football always seemed better value than a single (especially as the b sides were nearly always album cuts in the pre Punk 1970s).

As for Howard Devoto I think Magazine produced a pretty fine body of work. Possibly the best of the era. I don't expect more than five good years out of anyone working in rock and roll. There are just too many things that mitigate against longevity. The fact that he couldn't get his solo career off the blocks is one of those great unknowns but the 80s weren't a good time for men like him.
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