Moderators Lee Knight Posted April 19, 2011 Moderators Share Posted April 19, 2011 Neil Finn. He wrote I Got You as teen and performed it with his brother Tim Finn in Split Enz. It came out in 1980. It's freakin' great. It's charged with electricity. Edible Flowers. He wrote a couple years ago. That's 30 years later. And he performed it with his brother Tim. Is it better? No. Does it touch a part of me that the Finns were unable to touch back in 1980? Yes. Did I even have that part of me back then? No... did they? I don't think so. I know which one my daughter would like more today. And I know which one I like better today... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Cliftonb Posted April 19, 2011 Members Share Posted April 19, 2011 I can't really answer the question as I don't see what age has to do with art. But I will say that I would very much like to hear an artist that made music with enough classic elements to keep people coming back to it for generations to come but was also so mind-warpingly innovative as to be light-years ahead of what anyone else is doing. I'm talking decades on down the like and it still sounds like it came out next year. I don't hear anyone*, old or young, doing that right now. *Except maybe that one guy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Oswlek Posted April 19, 2011 Members Share Posted April 19, 2011 Seeing as I'm not a big fan of "Edible Flowers", I'll take my own path down the Finn Bros theme:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHfU48ARFmEand more recently...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJM2wqlELhgAs for age and its relevence, I can say unequivacably that I am a better songwriter at 36 than I was at 25. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted April 19, 2011 Members Share Posted April 19, 2011 I can't really answer the question as I don't see what age has to do with art. But I will say that I would very much like to hear an artist that made music with enough classic elements to keep people coming back to it for generations to come but was also so mind-warpingly innovative as to be light-years ahead of what anyone else is doing. I'm talking decades on down the like and it still sounds like it came out next year. I don't hear anyone*, old or young, doing that right now.*Except maybe that one guyHarry Partch? Here's my favorite Finn Bros song... but it's an oldie... when they were new... kind of a Kiwi Sparks... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AKQ2H4QW9M Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted April 19, 2011 Members Share Posted April 19, 2011 BTW, has anyone else wondered why the OP posed his topic question as he did? I mean... focusing on male songwriters? Are the issues different for men and women? It may be quite tempting for some to play armchair psychologist, pondering the interpretive implications of that sexual contextualization. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members LeonardScaper Posted April 19, 2011 Members Share Posted April 19, 2011 Yo, Dukie......Great thread, man. You are fast becoming the new pillar of the community.I'll be sixty next year. I have a hundred or so songs up on SC, most of which were written in the last fifteen years. Can't even tell you how many I have lurking in my hazy past.I honestly think that it takes a lot of practice to learn how to put together a song that has legs.That said, music history will show that sometimes a song with raw young emotion will strike a major chord. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DukeOfBoom Posted April 19, 2011 Author Members Share Posted April 19, 2011 BTW, has anyone else wondered why the OP posed his topic question as he did? I mean... focusing on male songwriters? Are the issues different for men and women? It may be quite tempting for some to play armchair psychologist, pondering the interpretive implications of that sexual contextualization. blue2blue, I have thought a lot about female songwriters as well. But I felt that they are distinctly different from male songwriters. I have found that young females cannot write for anything. There is one possible exception: if they are seriously f'd up on drugs and have battled addictions and other demons. With young "songwriter" females, it's their producers/backup musicians who really write the songs. Think Amy Winehouse - she IS basically the product of Mark Ronson. Cat Power's original material is rather boring and insipid but her cover album is great due to the formidable force of her backup musicians/session cats (Great cover of Sinatra's New York - look for it on youtube). Same with Adele, who is popular now: I forced myself to listen to an interview with her on NPR where she essentially admitted she can play 3 chords on guitar and that's it. She depends on her producers to shape her lyrics into something good. On the other hand, look at Lucinda Williams' latest album. Her early stuff is terrible pop. However, in her last album she seems to have come to terms with her confidence and aging femininity, and was successfully able to capture those emotions into music. But it took her 30-40 years to do this. Compare this to men, where they're in their peak younger and decline with age. Almost exact inverse correlations IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DukeOfBoom Posted April 19, 2011 Author Members Share Posted April 19, 2011 Yo, Dukie...... Great thread, man. You are fast becoming the new pillar of the community. Yes, thanks. I enjoy contributing, but blue2blue likes to swing the mighty ban hammer of Thor, which sometimes limits my presence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members LCK Posted April 19, 2011 Members Share Posted April 19, 2011 blue2blue, I have thought a lot about female songwriters as well. But I felt that they are distinctly different from male songwriters.I have found that young females cannot write for anything. It's not that cut and dried. Most of the females you're talking about are working in a very different system than what existed in the past. And for all we know there are some really, really great female songwriters out there who can't get a break for whatever reason. Carole King wrote great tunes when she was just a kid. Great, great tunes. Taylor Swift doesn't do half bad today, considering she can't sing very well. Janis Ian wrote "Society's Child" at 16. And nothing can explain Joni Mitchell's talent, which was clear right from the start, though she did get better as she got older. LCK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DukeOfBoom Posted April 19, 2011 Author Members Share Posted April 19, 2011 It's not that cut and dried. Most of the females you're talking about are working in a very different system than what existed in the past. And for all we know there are some really, really great female songwriters out there who can't get a break for whatever reason. I'm not so sure it was different. I don't listen to much female-fronted music, especially the older stuff, but I do like the old black R&B women. Every R&B hit sung by a woman was written by Smokey Robinson or some other cat, and not by the girl herself. So I just don't really see how stuff has changed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Chicken Monkey Posted April 19, 2011 Members Share Posted April 19, 2011 I'm not so sure it was different. I don't listen to much female-fronted music, especially the older stuff, but I do like the old black R&B women. Every R&B hit sung by a woman was written by Smokey Robinson or some other cat, and not by the girl herself. So I just don't really see how stuff has changed. Hey, Nineteen, that's 'Retha FranklinYou don't know the queen of soul? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Oswlek Posted April 19, 2011 Members Share Posted April 19, 2011 Julian Lennon's work past 40 blows his early work out of the water. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DukeOfBoom Posted April 19, 2011 Author Members Share Posted April 19, 2011 Hey, Nineteen, that's 'Retha FranklinYou don't know the queen of soul? Yeah, who wrote her biggest hit RESPECT (the only song that 99% of the general population knows A.R.E.T.H.R.A for)? Otis Redding when he was 24 years old. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Chicken Monkey Posted April 19, 2011 Members Share Posted April 19, 2011 Yeah, who wrote her biggest hit RESPECT (the only song that 99% of the general population knows A.R.E.T.H.R.A for)? You're not very good at arguing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DukeOfBoom Posted April 19, 2011 Author Members Share Posted April 19, 2011 You're not very good at arguing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members LeonardScaper Posted April 20, 2011 Members Share Posted April 20, 2011 Oh no.....here we go again......... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Chicken Monkey Posted April 20, 2011 Members Share Posted April 20, 2011 Yeah, who wrote her biggest hit RESPECT (the only song that 99% of the general population knows A.R.E.T.H.R.A for)? Wasn't it you who was flogging the old horse of "commercial success does not equal creative success"? Aretha wrote some seriously devastating music, in addition to being a masterful interpreter of others' material. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DukeOfBoom Posted April 20, 2011 Author Members Share Posted April 20, 2011 Wasn't it you who was flogging the old horse of "commercial success does not equal creative success"? not as far as i can remember. i think ur putting words in my mouth to satisfy your own reality of the Duke of BOOM! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Chicken Monkey Posted April 20, 2011 Members Share Posted April 20, 2011 not as far as i can remember. i think ur putting words in my mouth to satisfy your own reality of the Duke of BOOM! So you think that we can measure a songwriter's success by their biggest hit? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DukeOfBoom Posted April 20, 2011 Author Members Share Posted April 20, 2011 So you think that we can measure a songwriter's success by their biggest hit? Given that music in today's day and age is democraticized and purely capitalistic, i.e. that consumers vote with their wallet, then yes, absolutely. What you as an individual musician geek (or me for that matter) care about is inherently at odds with the globalized world. Put it this way, you can't make a difference by playing a few songs in a club attended by 20 people. You can make a difference by being influential to many 1000s. In this regards I'm looking at songwriting success as a quantitative measure, which is the only absolute metric that can be used. Qualitative assessment, as it's name suggests, is too subjective. If qualitative assessment bore any relevance to the real world, Yngwie Malmsteen (yikes!) would have been more popular than Devo in the 80s. But that's a COMPLETELY SEPARATE topic from what's on hand right now, which is that in the plurality of cases old women are better songwriters than girls, and young men are better than old men. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Chicken Monkey Posted April 20, 2011 Members Share Posted April 20, 2011 But that's a COMPLETELY SEPARATE topic from what's on hand right now, which is that in the plurality of cases old women are better songwriters than girls, and young men are better than old men. Ah. I thought we had utterly dismissed that, and were moving on to more interesting topics. My mistake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DukeOfBoom Posted April 20, 2011 Author Members Share Posted April 20, 2011 Ah. I thought we had utterly dismissed that, and were moving on to more interesting topics. My mistake. SOMEONE happens to be in a persnickety mood today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Chicken Monkey Posted April 20, 2011 Members Share Posted April 20, 2011 SOMEONE happens to be in a persnickety mood today. Somebody comes through the songwriting forum every 18 months or so and starts a bunch of threads more or less exactly like the ones you've been posting. I'm not persnickety; I'm well rehearsed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DukeOfBoom Posted April 20, 2011 Author Members Share Posted April 20, 2011 Somebody comes through the songwriting forum every 18 months or so and starts a bunch of threads more or less exactly like the ones you've been posting. I'm not persnickety; I'm well rehearsed. i see the masochism is strong in you, young jedi. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Chicken Monkey Posted April 20, 2011 Members Share Posted April 20, 2011 i see the masochism is strong in you, young jedi. Just going through my lines until you give up or give in. You might stick around long enough to see it happen to the next guy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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