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I'm Officially Out of Touch


sventvkg

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I'm on vacation in Destin this week with the family and yesterday I went to see my buddy play place on the beach. To my amazement I only knew about 25% of what he played. Granted he's the type of guy who does things that fit his style and his original music and a lot of the cover songs that he played sounded like his original music but I still didn't know most of them. A couple of them were by the lumineers I think, and some other current artists. I found this out upon asking because I was so unfamiliar with his repertoire. Now he does covers so radically different than the original artists they literally also like his own material but she mixed in which works for him, but I was still taken at how out if touch with seemingly mainstream music I am! I'm only 42 and look 32 so it's kind a wild to be here!

 

I'm sure I'm going to sound like an old curmudgeon I have to say the majority of the new material sucked ass it's just bad bad inferior dumbed down simple crappy songwriting. I'm glad I don't know it and I don't listen to it for a reason. It doesn't surprise me that it's mainstream and that break the people listen to it. I'll never play it though. There were a few good songs in there such as one by Bruno Mars that I heard... Either way I'm really glad I'm not doing the type of gigs or I'm forced to play mainstream, current material because I would just be miserable and lost!

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sventvkg wrote:

 

I'm on vacation in Destin this week with the family and yesterday I went to see my buddy play place on the beach. To my amazement I only knew about 25% of what he played. Granted he's the type of guy who does things that fit his style and his original music and a lot of the cover songs that he played sounded like his original music but I still didn't know most of them. A couple of them were by the lumineers I think, and some other current artists. I found this out upon asking because I was so unfamiliar with his repertoire. Now he does covers so radically different than the original artists they literally also like his own material but she mixed in which works for him, but I was still taken at how out if touch with seemingly mainstream music I am! I'm only 42 and look 32 so it's kind a wild to be here!

 

 

 

I'm sure I'm going to sound like an old curmudgeon I have to say the majority of the new material sucked ass it's just bad bad inferior dumbed down simple crappy songwriting. I'm glad I don't know it and I don't listen to it for a reason. It doesn't surprise me that it's mainstream and that break the people listen to it. I'll never play it though. There were a few good songs in there such as one by Bruno Mars that I heard... Either way I'm really glad I'm not doing the type of gigs or I'm forced to play mainstream, current material because I would just be miserable and lost!

 

do you know for a fact that the covers were mainstream and current?  Much of what I cover, or the duo or the band, are not mainstream at all or current.

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I'm up with current music to a point because I'm also a wedding DJ. The Lumineers are pretty new (2012) and seem to be getting popular for folky alternative music. "Ho Hey" and "Stubborn Love" are both worth looking into for new material.

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sventvkg wrote:

 

 Either way I'm really glad I'm not doing the type of gigs or I'm forced to play mainstream, current material because I would just be miserable and lost!

 

 

The trick is to make the stuff your own.   Dumbed-down-crappy-songwriting isn't exclusive to newer material, for certain.   Find a connection-point with the material or create one.   The fact that the audience likes a song should be just a starting point.   Use the familiarity of the song to hook them into the performance and then take it from there.

 

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Last night I was playing in front of some friends who are younger. One is 42, the others 35 and 23, all female. I stated playing "Yesterday" by the Beatles and the 42 year old exclaimed "what a pretty song! Is that new? " None of them had ever heard it. The 23 year old loved it as well. Which makes me wonder how much old stuff I can pull out and have it sound new to the younger crowd. :smileythumbsupsmall:

Spoiler
 
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BlueStrat wrote:

Last night I was playing in front of some friends who are younger. One is 42, the others 35 and 23, all female. I stated playing "Yesterday" by the Beatles and the 42 year old exclaimed "what a pretty song! Is that new? " None of them had ever heard it. The 23 year old loved it as well. Which makes me wonder how much old stuff I can pull out and have it sound new to the younger crowd. 
:smileythumbsupsmall:
Spoiler
 

I'll check back with you on this. My duo will be holding pretty hard to 20s/30s stuff for now--it's what we do best. But people who were teens etc. in the 20s and 30s are almost all dead. So the songs we play are brand new to a lot of folks.

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BlueStrat wrote:

Last night I was playing in front of some friends who are younger. One is 42, the others 35 and 23, all female. I stated playing "Yesterday" by the Beatles and the 42 year old exclaimed "what a pretty song! Is that new? " None of them had ever heard it. The 23 year old loved it as well. Which makes me wonder how much old stuff I can pull out and have it sound new to the younger crowd. 
:smileythumbsupsmall:
Spoiler
 

you shoulda done that Pearl Jam song-HIDE YOUR LOVE AWAY.

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I have sort of the reverse, I like a lot of newer stuff ie Lumineers Bruno Mars etc and would to give them a go live. However my average audience is so out of touch that pretty much anything past the early seventies freaks them out. So I limit myself to just a couple of "trendy" songs per set, even then I watch the crowd turn off. So it's back to oldies which I love but still, I would like a change.

Cheers Steve

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sventvkg wrote:

 

I'm on vacation in Destin this week with the family and yesterday I went to see my buddy play place on the beach. To my amazement I only knew about 25% of what he played. Granted he's the type of guy who does things that fit his style and his original music and a lot of the cover songs that he played sounded like his original music but I still didn't know most of them. A couple of them were by the lumineers I think, and some other current artists. I found this out upon asking because I was so unfamiliar with his repertoire. Now he does covers so radically different than the original artists they literally also like his own material but she mixed in which works for him, but I was still taken at how out if touch with seemingly mainstream music I am! I'm only 42 and look 32 so it's kind a wild to be here!

 

 

 

I'm sure I'm going to sound like an old curmudgeon I have to say the majority of the new material sucked ass it's just bad bad inferior dumbed down simple crappy songwriting. I'm glad I don't know it and I don't listen to it for a reason. It doesn't surprise me that it's mainstream and that break the people listen to it. I'll never play it though. There were a few good songs in there such as one by Bruno Mars that I heard... Either way I'm really glad I'm not doing the type of gigs or I'm forced to play mainstream, current material because I would just be miserable and lost!

 

Did you lean against the wall with your arms crossed?  

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I really want to know what songs are crap. I do Ho Hey and Stubborn love because I think they are good songs. Same with Avett Brothers and Frank Turner. If we're talking straight pop... I agree that songwriting has taken a backseat to production, so most of it doesn't translate well. But I don't know that folk-pop-rock songwriting is any worse than pop and rock songwriting of any other period.

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SLScott86 wrote:

 

 If we're talking straight pop... I agree that songwriting has taken a backseat to production,

 

 

I think there's probably some truth to that, but I think it's mostly that arrangment has taken a backseat to production.   Most straight pop tunes have always been fairly simplistic and vapid from a songwriting standpoint.   What's changed is that instead of trying to make a good record from a simple song by musicians adding different musical and vocal parts, it's now being done mostly by the producers and their computers. 

But I don't know that, from a strict songwriting standpoint, that the latest Katy Perry hit is significantly lesser than what Madonna was doing or Motown before that or Chuck Berry or whatever.   Look at all the "one chord" songs being mentioned in the other thread.   A song like "Shotgun" is a POS from a songwriting standpointing.   The main difference between it and most modern pop tunes is they made that song work with musicians, not producers.

So it's musicians that are feeling left out of the process more than anything, I think.

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When I'm performing, I'm pretty much genre specific. I do oldies/classic rock, polka, classic country, or Celtic tunes, depending on what I was hired to do. I don't usually do any current stuff because a) it's weird to watch a fat, bald man singing "We're Still in This Bitch" and b) I haven't heard much of anything that I would voluntarily choose to listen to, much less perform.

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TIMKEYS wrote:

 


sventvkg wrote:

 

I'm on vacation in Destin this week with the family and yesterday I went to see my buddy play place on the beach. To my amazement I only knew about 25% of what he played. Granted he's the type of guy who does things that fit his style and his original music and a lot of the cover songs that he played sounded like his original music but I still didn't know most of them. A couple of them were by the lumineers I think, and some other current artists. I found this out upon asking because I was so unfamiliar with his repertoire. Now he does covers so radically different than the original artists they literally also like his own material but she mixed in which works for him, but I was still taken at how out if touch with seemingly mainstream music I am! I'm only 42 and look 32 so it's kind a wild to be here!

 

 

 

I'm sure I'm going to sound like an old curmudgeon I have to say the majority of the new material sucked ass it's just bad bad inferior dumbed down simple crappy songwriting. I'm glad I don't know it and I don't listen to it for a reason. It doesn't surprise me that it's mainstream and that break the people listen to it. I'll never play it though. There were a few good songs in there such as one by Bruno Mars that I heard... Either way I'm really glad I'm not doing the type of gigs or I'm forced to play mainstream, current material because I would just be miserable and lost!

 

 

Did you lean against the wall with your arms crossed?  

No but I kept asking everyone if it was an original or cover...

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