NationStates Jolt Archive

I've never been able to figure this out. Recently, it seems like everyone hates the wall. On music sites, review sites, and even my friends and fellow Floyd fans don't like it. Is it just me? I love it. It has so many classic tunes on it, how can you not love it? Discuss.

Because Pink Floyd sucks the big oneoneone.

I loathe all their music.

Because the Wall achieved popularity via other successes of Pink Floyd, notably DSOTM and WYWH. Anyone who wishes to be a face on a forum, or who merely wishes to be part of the in crowd, would rather die than admit they like a popular album that has no true cult status. I'll admit, I much prefer other albums, but The Wall is still damn good.

Because Pink Floyd sucks the big oneoneone.

I loathe all their music.

You have a reason though. A lot of Floyd fans recently, at least that I have noticed, have started to dislike it.

i think the "all in all you're just another brick in the wall" is hurting their self esteem. When someone tells you you dont realy matter, in this time where probably most people are living in a pricate universe and are not given to much introspection, it hurts, and people won't like it

oh, and i like that song, but actualy, i usualy dont know titles or artists... just not my thing

You have a reason though. A lot of Floyd fans recently, at least that I have noticed, have started to dislike it.
But not me.

The Wall is widely disliked because much of it does not follow the proper format for a song:
Verse
Chorus
Verse
Chorus
Bridge
Chorus a few more times.

There is a lot of weird instrumental and synth stuff on there, and we Americans just don't have the attention span for listening to anything without words (I can't vouch for the English, but I imagine there's a similar trend).

The Wall is far from Floyd's best piece (unless you're high, perhaps). A Momentary Lapse of Reason, Dark Side of the Moon, and Wish You Were Here are all better in my opinion. But nevertheless, you cannot simply dismiss as worthless an album as good as The Wall. Those who do so are simply ignorant.

or have a different taste

But not me.

The Wall is widely disliked because much of it does not follow the proper format for a song:
Verse
Chorus
Verse
Chorus
Bridge
Chorus a few more times.

There is a lot of weird instrumental and synth stuff on there, and we Americans just don't have the attention span for listening to anything without words (I can't vouch for the English, but I imagine there's a similar trend).

The Wall is far from Floyd's best piece (unless you're high, perhaps). A Momentary Lapse of Reason, Dark Side of the Moon, and Wish You Were Here are all better in my opinion. But nevertheless, you cannot simply dismiss as worthless an album as good as The Wall. Those who do so are simply ignorant.
Ditto. It's still a good album despite its unorthodox nature, which is in keeping with many of Floyd's material. Floyd has better, but it can't be dismissed.

the radio killed pink floyd for me.

the radio killed pink floyd for me.

And then video killed the radio star. :p

What? People don't like the Wall?

The Wall rules. As others have said, other stuff is probably better, but the Wall definitely rules. What people forget about pink floyd is that you're supposed to listen to the whole albumm and things fit.

When I first saw this topic, I thought you might be complaining about Roger Waters protesting the Israeli Wall. :eek:

But not me.

The Wall is widely disliked because much of it does not follow the proper format for a song:
Verse
Chorus
Verse
Chorus
Bridge
Chorus a few more times.

There is a lot of weird instrumental and synth stuff on there, and we Americans just don't have the attention span for listening to anything without words (I can't vouch for the English, but I imagine there's a similar trend).

Well, that certainly explains why nobody likes Radiohead anymore, and why they aren't at all revered for Kid A...

I've noticed that a fair number of guys like it, but most women hate Floyd no matter what.

If you consider how misogynistic The Wall is as a movie, it's not surprising.

I've noticed that a fair number of guys like it, but most women hate Floyd no matter what.

If you consider how misogynistic The Wall is as a movie, it's not surprising.
I have not seen that trend really the few girls I know that like that sort of music love it (and they have watched the wall)

But I know more guys into that genre of music maybe there are just more of us that like that type of music

dark side of the moon is my personal favorite but the wall is good stuff too. What the wall doesn't do though is sync up with the Wizard of Oz :p

But not me.

The Wall is widely disliked because much of it does not follow the proper format for a song:
Verse
Chorus
Verse
Chorus
Bridge
Chorus a few more times.

There is a lot of weird instrumental and synth stuff on there, and we Americans just don't have the attention span for listening to anything without words (I can't vouch for the English, but I imagine there's a similar trend).

Same here

The big question is more, how the Wall became such a commercial succes without any true "radio" song. Its a kind of "underground" masterpiece that got overhyped, and most people could'nt remember why they liked it after the drugs when out.

I love it!

The Album? I love it. Dark Side of the Moon is undeniably better, but the Wall is still an amazing album. It has Comfortably Numb on it, thereby automatically extending it the rank of awesome.

You want my honest, no holds-barred opinion? Okay, here goes.


It fucking sucks. It's pretentious, it's cocky, and it's a wankfest. Other bands have done much better attacks on authority (Sex Pistols and The Clash, hey?) without the musical rod-pulling.

"We don't need no education" --- Maybe not, but you need to kill that huge ego, guys. Wo-ow.

You want my honest, no holds-barred opinion? Okay, here goes.


It fucking sucks. It's pretentious, it's cocky, and it's a wankfest. Other bands have done much better attacks on authority (Sex Pistols and The Clash, hey?) without the musical rod-pulling.

"We don't need no education" --- Maybe not, but you need to kill that huge ego, guys. Wo-ow.

Exactly.

And to those who have said that it is just too musically challenging for a lot of people: having an album be 75% superflous noise does not make it challenging, it makes it bad.

Exactly.

And to those who have said that it is just too musically challenging for a lot of people: having an album be 75% superflous noise does not make it challenging, it makes it bad.

Right fucking on, man.

You want something challenging? Listen to Public Image Ltd. That stuff is challenging (labyrinthine lyrics, subliminal messages, and some crazy-ass music). Check out Metal Box and Flowers of Romance.

And if you want complexity, you should listen to Rush. Their songs are tight, up-front, and listenable, all without being pretentious piles of dog shit.

I think 'The Wall' is great!!! I've seen it with and without LSD and it's awesome either way!!!

The Wall pwns.
I happen to like “superfluous” noises, so there.

I dont hate The Wall...its just that there are better albums by that group.

Just the same as I dont hate the Metallica Black Album. Puppets is just that much better.

Personally, I liked it.

Right fucking on, man.

You want something challenging? Listen to Public Image Ltd. That stuff is challenging (labyrinthine lyrics, subliminal messages, and some crazy-ass music). Check out Metal Box and Flowers of Romance.

And if you want complexity, you should listen to Rush. Their songs are tight, up-front, and listenable, all without being pretentious piles of dog shit.

Bullshit!

All you rock and pop fans are a bunch of wankers, IMO. You blather on about how ONE group of standardized guitar/vocals/drums/song format nonsense is 'complex' or 'challenging' and then advocate another one more or less exactly the same.

You want complexity? Listen to Stravinsky or Shostakovich. But you don't want complexity. You want "tight" (popular and trendy), "up-front" (fitting neatly into tonal paradigms that are familiar) and "listenable" (not too straining on your attention span).

That's why 90% of kids today like 100% crap music these days. Yall get uber-pretentious about WHICH variant rock band is good and which variant isn't, but then you lump hundreds of years of music into one big category and call it "classical." So you get crap sayings like, "Oh, I have eclectic music tastes. I like Pink Floyd, Rush, NIN, and Classical."

Blah!

I'm just more partial to their early psychadellic/space rock phase (Beginning - WYWH), I like the longer pieces with lots of different themes. The Wall and the later albums just kinda lost me.

But that's just me.

All you rock and pop fans are a bunch of wankers, IMO. You blather on about how ONE group of standardized guitar/vocals/drums/song format nonsense is 'complex' or 'challenging' and then advocate another one more or less exactly the same.

You want complexity? Listen to Stravinsky or Shostakovich. But you don't want complexity. You want "tight" (popular and trendy), "up-front" (fitting neatly into tonal paradigms that are familiar) and "listenable" (not too straining on your attention span).

That's why 90% of kids today like 100% crap music these days. Yall get uber-pretentious about WHICH variant rock band is good and which variant isn't, but then you lump hundreds of years of music into one big category and call it "classical." So you get crap sayings like, "Oh, I have eclectic music tastes. I like Pink Floyd, Rush, NIN, and Classical."
1. I know quite a bit about classical music, and I detest when people lump it all under the lable "Classical". It's more varied than rock and pop will ever be.
2. You really havn't listened to progressive rock. You should check it out. I think you might like it. Some good bands: Rush, Yes, Pink Floyd, Marillion, Gentle Giant, Van der Graff Generator. Oh, and the majority of the output of those bands probably fit into none of those categories you list. Just a thought.
3. Rush is quite complex, for a rock band. (BTW, they're my favourite band.)

And to the poster you quoted, please don't lump Rush together with all that other crap. Rush will beat their ass anyday, and I think they are quite "pretentious", which I see as a complement: they're willing to learn more than 3 chords or how to write a song longer than 3 minutes.

1. I know quite a bit about classical music, and I detest when people lump it all under the lable "Classical". It's more varied than rock and pop will ever be.

Yep yep.

2. You really havn't listened to progressive rock. You should check it out. I think you might like it. Some good bands: Rush, Yes, Pink Floyd, Marillion, Gentle Giant, Van der Graff Generator. Oh, and the majority of the output of those bands probably fit into none of those categories you list. Just a thought.

I've listend to Rush and Pink Floyd thankyouverymuch.

But I didn't actually list any categories as far as I can see...

I'm not certain why, it has their good song on it.

You want "tight" (popular and trendy), "up-front" (fitting neatly into tonal paradigms that are familiar) and "listenable" (not too straining on your attention span).
I'm not trying to start a fight (you're clearly a fan of the same music as me), but just pointing out what you said.

I'm not trying to start a fight (you're clearly a fan of the same music as me), but just pointing out what you said.

I said that, but I don't consider those 'categories' in the context of music which I take to mean, genres or sub-genres. Just my off-the-wall* description.



*GET IT LOLZ.

If you watch the interview excerpts from 'Live In Pompeii' filmed in 1972, listen to what David Gilmour says about their relationship with their equipment, their special effects and film rig and gear. He talks about having to remain in control of it, and not to let it control them - and to avoid the pitfalls of micromanagement. If the band hadn't clearly plunged into micromanagement while also ceding control to their special effects and equipment by the time they first toured The Wall in the seventies, then 25+ years of serial overplay on FM radio annihilated any vestige of liveliness, of spontaneity, or any creative aspect whatsoever.

They'd already been programmed by their own machines by then.

BECAUSE IT IS A RACIST OBJECT OF ZIONIST OPPRESSION!!! THE WALL MUST GO!!! oh...not THAT wall, lolol, crack myself up

I said that, but I don't consider those 'categories' in the context of music which I take to mean, genres or sub-genres. Just my off-the-wall* description.



*GET IT LOLZ.
Alright.

BTW, bad pun :p

Never heard The Wall, so I can't give an opinion (I only like Pink Floyd in certain moods, so I haven't gone out of my way to listen to the stuff). I like instrumentals though, often better than songs-with-lyrics.

Maybe it's all the classical stuff I listen to. Though I don't see why classical fans and rock fans can't all just get along. I listen to both. Popular music never made the claim to be high culture or, well, anything than popular, like fashion. And as far as I can tell, rock is a pop style of music, in that sense.

But not me.

The Wall is widely disliked because much of it does not follow the proper format for a song:
Verse
Chorus
Verse
Chorus
Bridge
Chorus a few more times.

There is a lot of weird instrumental and synth stuff on there, and we Americans just don't have the attention span for listening to anything without words (I can't vouch for the English, but I imagine there's a similar trend).

The Wall is far from Floyd's best piece (unless you're high, perhaps). A Momentary Lapse of Reason, Dark Side of the Moon, and Wish You Were Here are all better in my opinion. But nevertheless, you cannot simply dismiss as worthless an album as good as The Wall. Those who do so are simply ignorant.
There is no proper format for a song. that one is simply the most common.

Bullshit!

All you rock and pop fans are a bunch of wankers, IMO. You blather on about how ONE group of standardized guitar/vocals/drums/song format nonsense is 'complex' or 'challenging' and then advocate another one more or less exactly the same.

You want complexity? Listen to Stravinsky or Shostakovich. But you don't want complexity. You want "tight" (popular and trendy), "up-front" (fitting neatly into tonal paradigms that are familiar) and "listenable" (not too straining on your attention span).

That's why 90% of kids today like 100% crap music these days. Yall get uber-pretentious about WHICH variant rock band is good and which variant isn't, but then you lump hundreds of years of music into one big category and call it "classical." So you get crap sayings like, "Oh, I have eclectic music tastes. I like Pink Floyd, Rush, NIN, and Classical."

Blah!

He wants music too!

Stavinsky and Shostakovich just strung together random notes and called it "chromatic" (that was a snark brought on from preparing for an audition where I have to have a couple sections of "Firebird" ready in hopes of getting it for a sight-reading segment, don't take me too seriously).

Frankly, the only classical music I like has a neo- strung out in front of it, but I think that PiL, while it was lead by a pretentious, arrogant bastard, deserves some credit for not being 100% crap, because it was an attempt to establish some kind of artistic credibility for rock.

Classical music's great credit is that it has the collective ability to put 90% of the population to sleep. Other than that, it hasn't got all that much more to claim than rock and roll music (remember, for every "famous" composer you remember from those eras, there are 40 small ducal composers who were absolutely dreadful and still managed some level of popularity). For better or for worse, even the forms of music we claim are "marginally art" had artistic backgrounds before they broke into the mainstream. It is mainstreaming, and not being modern, that ruins art.

Classical music's great credit is that it has the collective ability to put 90% of the population to sleep.

Yeah right. I've never seen anyone sleeping at a performance of the Rite of Spring. Once again, you seem to believe Classical-era Chamber Music is all that "classical" has to offer.

Plus, whether 90% of the population is put to sleep by something doesn't mean much. 90% of the population is put to sleep by global warming and US elections... I daresay they're still asleep.

Other than that, it hasn't got all that much more to claim than rock and roll music

Its performers bathe. :fluffle:

Yeah right. I've never seen anyone sleeping at a performance of the Rite of Spring. Once again, you seem to believe Classical-era Chamber Music is all that "classical" has to offer.

TBH Rite of Spring made a better Emocore band than it did a song. Rite varies between nauseatingly and painfully Chromatic and blindingly dull. Volume alone may rule out sleep, but I am afraid that I find the peice uterly uninspiring.

If anything, I much prefer the classical-era chamber groups (although Baroque chamber-orchestras are far more entertaining for me) to the... unique nature of "Modern-era" composers. Modern stuff manages to alternate between dull (and it shares that trait with most of the other eras) and excrutiating. Holst (arguably not really a Modernist) gets the pass on this one, though.

You know what I utterly despise though? The most difficult Classical-era Violin Concertos. They always seemed to be a total cheat of what could have been amazing, but was ruined by sounding much akin to their Modern descendants.

Plus, whether 90% of the population is put to sleep by something doesn't mean much. 90% of the population is put to sleep by global warming and US elections... I daresay they're still asleep.

Music, however, should be an invigorating, inspiring, and moving thing. When it fails to do that... Well, I'd like to blame the audience (hey, some of my older friends depend on the audience for their paycheck) for this, the fact of the matter is that Classical music doesn't have the reaching capacity that modern music does, and it's musicians gladly retain their dour nature. Until Classical musicians can make a real effort to engage their crowds again, Classical will be a high-browed event for elitists or musical purists.

Now before you get mad, a couple years ago I had to decide whether I planned to try to chase a career as a music major (and therfore start practicing to apply to a conservatory of some sort) or whether I wanted to try my hand elsewhere. In the long run, the lack of money to be had in the feild drove me away (if this were a thread on classical music, I'd post up the stats that I get quoted from the pros, but it shouldn't get too off track) from trying my hand at making a living playing the Viola. If anything, I have a large reason to be resentful of the lack of respect classical music now faces. However, I see that the nature that it has taken on will be it's downfall.

Its performers bathe. :fluffle:

I'd like to argue this, but as I'm sitting around and kicking myself for getting distracted by a segment on in-studio recording tactics and forgetting to shower, I'd be a hypocrite. :p

That said, I've met my fair share of poorly bathed classical musicians. Unsuprisingly, the vast majority were percussionists. ;)

I like The Wall because very rarely has rock musicians have ever been able to come up with a coherent narrative thread within any of the so called concept albums. The Wall did that in spades. Even before the movie provided the visual backdrop you could follow the storyline easily. More than a little bit dark, though. Though I don't consider it Pink Floyd's greatest work, it's still pretty damned good. After that album, they quickly fell victim to their own excesses and Roger Waters gargantuan ego. Things unraveled quickly from there, and the overall quality of the albums that followed fell like a stone. I myself like Wish You Were Here best.

But if you all like concept albums here are some you might want to look into......

Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
The Who - Quadrophenia
Klaatu - Hope
The Tubes - Remote Control

Music, however, should be an invigorating, inspiring, and moving thing.

Fuck that. Music should be whatever the musicians want it to be. And by musicians, I mean the composers and performers. You want invigorating, take some viagra and a double shot of espresso.

When it fails to do that... Well, I'd like to blame the audience (hey, some of my older friends depend on the audience for their paycheck) for this, the fact of the matter is that Classical music doesn't have the reaching capacity that modern music does, and it's musicians gladly retain their dour nature. Until Classical musicians can make a real effort to engage their crowds again, Classical will be a high-browed event for elitists or musical purists.

Ah so its either popular crowdpleasers, or its "elitist." Guess I'll take the eltism.

The reason "Classical" music doesn't have the reaching capacity to a modern audience is just because of that - the audience is different. Yall want 1, 2 minute songs or soundbytes. The Cliff's Notes version. No one can be bothered to sit down for the length of a real symphony anymore, not without the required Ritalin for the universal ADD.

Just because modern audiences are generally impotent and overstimulated through technology and the increasing pace of daily life doesn't mean 'classical' ain't sexy.

If anything, I have a large reason to be resentful of the lack of respect classical music now faces. However, I see that the nature that it has taken on will be it's downfall.

Hogwash. The music's 'nature' been the same. It's culture that changes.

Fuck that. Music should be whatever the musicians want it to be. And by musicians, I mean the composers and performers. You want invigorating, take some viagra and a double shot of espresso.

Music with no value other than complexity and high-brow elitism has no value. Don't bitch about people not liking classical while doing nothing to attract new crowds. Sorry, your product has to sell itself. :eek:



Ah so its either popular crowdpleasers, or its "elitist." Guess I'll take the eltism.

The reason "Classical" music doesn't have the reaching capacity to a modern audience is just because of that - the audience is different. Yall want 1, 2 minute songs or soundbytes. The Cliff's Notes version. No one can be bothered to sit down for the length of a real symphony anymore, not without the required Ritalin for the universal ADD.

Just because modern audiences are generally impotent and overstimulated through technology and the increasing pace of daily life doesn't mean 'classical' ain't sexy.

That would make sense, if I didn't listen to music that was as long, and at times longer, than classical music. Yes, there will never be a large Youth Culture around classical because kids have short attention spans. Lemme tell you, the turn off for me is knowing that the musicians on stage don't mean it any more. They're playing the same damn man's song today that they'll play tommorrow. They had no say about what they'd play, they don't get to express message. They have no energy, no driving force. They just want to be done and go home for the day. They no longer have the attachment to their music that is critical for music to be attractive .


Hogwash. The music's 'nature' been the same. It's culture that changes.

Well... Yes. If Classical music wants to survive, it needs to keep up with the times. It's not the time's fault, it's the unflexibility that modern orchestras have. They go on stage with their grim faces on, fake a smile, and play music full of "dignity", "Class", and "Culture". No, the major audience for them doesn't want dignity, class, and culture. It wants vibrancy, it wants to be involved with the preformance, not bored out of it's mind.

Until classical can do that, the industry will continue to shrink, and more and more crap music will be poured out by major label morons. They have the marketing, and they have the adaptibility.

Music with no value other than complexity and high-brow elitism has no value.

You are again with the absolutes like it's either "it invigorates" or "it has no value other than complexity." And it's a tautology to state that "music with no value..... has no value," not much of an argument you're making.

Don't bitch about people not liking classical while doing nothing to attract new crowds.

True art doesn't need to fight for a "market share." People will either appreciate it or not. And I'm not "bitching" about people not appreciating "classical," in fact, I was criticizing someone for bitching because one simplistic band was not as "complex" as some other simplistic band.


That would make sense, if I didn't listen to music that was as long, and at times longer, than classical music. Yes, there will never be a large Youth Culture around classical because kids have short attention spans.

You may be exceptional, most are not, regarding how long they'll sit and listen to music, and more relevantly to how long a piece of music will be.

And who said anything about Youth Culture? PEOPLE today have shorter attention spans. Not just young ones.

Lemme tell you, the turn off for me is knowing that the musicians on stage don't mean it any more.

And you know this because of... telepathy?

They're playing the same damn man's song today that they'll play tommorrow.

Ah, so you are an elitist... but instead, an elitism of the novel.

They had no say about what they'd play, they don't get to express message. They have no energy, no driving force. They just want to be done and go home for the day. They no longer have the attachment to their music that is critical for music to be attractive .

Yes it's true they don't generally have a say in what to play at concerts... symphonic performers in a public symphony generally don't. And never have, so nothing is changed.

As for no energy, driving force, just wanna go home for the day - sounds like you're describing a rehearsal, or perhaps again just your own telepathic assumptions. Implying that *classical* musicians just do it for what, the money? Ha!

Well... Yes. If Classical music wants to survive, it needs to keep up with the times.

Uh, the music is THERE. It's been written, its composers are dead. You may as well say, "If Beatles music wants to survive, it needs to keep up with the times." You mean the performances have to change? That's kinda different. That's more like, Brittney should do Beatles covers, otherwise the Beatles music will die, no longer being hip enough.


It's not the time's fault, it's the unflexibility that modern orchestras have. They go on stage with their grim faces on, fake a smile, and play music full of "dignity", "Class", and "Culture". No, the major audience for them doesn't want dignity, class, and culture. It wants vibrancy, it wants to be involved with the preformance, not bored out of it's mind.

Yes, I know the general audience doesn't want class or culture. It wants "new" and "vibrant" and "zesty" and other marketing terms that mean only trendy shit designed to appeal to the dumbest person in an attempt to coerce people into entertainment. Might as well give free blowjobs to anyone who attends a concert. I mean, more people will attend, no? It won't change the music one bit.

Until classical can do that, the industry will continue to shrink, and more and more crap music will be poured out by major label morons. They have the marketing, and they have the adaptibility.

Now you actually are talking industry. Album sales. Money. Capitalist though I am, I think you're confusing artistic merit with financial reward.

You are again with the absolutes like it's either "it invigorates" or "it has no value other than complexity." And it's a tautology to state that "music with no value..... has no value," not much of an argument you're making.

How disengenuous of you. Ignore the part in the dots, and it all looks very good. I'm saying that the values that you appear to beleive make art are no values at all.


True art doesn't need to fight for a "market share." People will either appreciate it or not. And I'm not "bitching" about people not appreciating "classical," in fact, I was criticizing someone for bitching because one simplistic band was not as "complex" as some other simplistic band.

You certainly came across as the heavy-handed "You damn kids and your modern music" argument and I had intended to demonstrate from the top up that Classical had lost it's popularity because it no longer worked to hold it. If that's not what you meant, I don't feel the need to argue, because you're entirely right (although I certainly dislike what happens to the musicians when there is no market share for them. They get payed little enough as it is).


And who said anything about Youth Culture? PEOPLE today have shorter attention spans. Not just young ones.

Kids are who you sell music to. They make up a disproportionately large portion of the music industry. That's a fact of life.



And you know this because of... telepathy?

Been there. Done that. A typical concert is hell to play. It's hot, you're under more tension than usual, you're in uncomfortable clothing, you often play for much longer than you would without breaks during a rehearsal. The list goes on and on. By halfway through the program you just want to go home.


Ah, so you are an elitist... but instead, an elitism of the novel.

Oh no. Don't get me wrong. I think old music is important as well, but I think that musicians shouldn't make due with someone else's work alone. I mean, Brahms, Beethoven, Bach, and all are great, but it's not really art if you're only reapeating the same thing. You aren't creating otherwise, you're just staying static. We need the older music, but that doesn't mean we should slaughter the newer music.


As for no energy, driving force, just wanna go home for the day - sounds like you're describing a rehearsal, or perhaps again just your own telepathic assumptions. Implying that *classical* musicians just do it for what, the money? Ha!

What money? They get payed a pittance.

I'm implying that they do it out of love. That doesn't make the act of actually playing a concert any less unpleasant. By the time you get up to the concert you've seen the music so much that you're dead sick of it. The conductor harped on somebody's section during the dress, and so they're even more stressed. The concert itself is hell on earth. It's the 1 or 2 that go right every year that more than make up for that. When they do go right, everything is beyond simply wonderful. Most of the time they aren't "great". They're good, because these are professionals, but with the exception of a very few, simply wonderful, symphony orchestras great shows are rare.


Uh, the music is THERE. It's been written, its composers are dead. You may as well say, "If Beatles music wants to survive, it needs to keep up with the times." You mean the performances have to change? That's kinda different. That's more like, Brittney should do Beatles covers, otherwise the Beatles music will die, no longer being hip enough.

No. I mean that it needs to sell to the times, and not to times that no longer exist. It needs to make concerts shows, and not parades of people in black clothing with expressionless faces and so much dignity that they look to have a board up their asses. That doesn't sell to people.

Yes, I know the general audience doesn't want class or culture. It wants "new" and "vibrant" and "zesty" and other marketing terms that mean only trendy shit designed to appeal to the dumbest person in an attempt to coerce people into entertainment. Might as well give free blowjobs to anyone who attends a concert. I mean, more people will attend, no? It won't change the music one bit.

My god... Are you purposefully being thick, or is it that difficult to understand. The problem is not just the stale nature of modern orchestral music, it's the inability to cope with the loss of an era that is now gone. I'm not saying that they should give up the music, or the instruments they use. I'm saying that shows need to not be as stilted, and that as long as shows are stilted and unenergetic, sales will remain low. It's about having the conducter psyching the audience up, and not merely bowing after a song and moving into the next one. It's about having the musicians actually express that the music is fun, and not merely monotony (even if it really is monotony). It's about reaching into the audience and bringing them into music. Otherwise, why would they even show up? A CD would be just as good.

Now you actually are talking industry. Album sales. Money. Capitalist though I am, I think you're confusing artistic merit with financial reward.

Artistic merit is all fine and right, until the artist starves and art dies without them. That's what happens when music makes no money at all. It becomes something that shrinks away until it is unimportant and then dies with no sound at all. I'm not saying that they should make a point of turning it into a three-ring circus, I'm just saying that they should realize that they aren't even bothering to reach out. Artistic merit means playing art, and not simply repeating the same 40 song repertoire over 3 or 4 years, with 5 or 6 new songs thrown in from a music library of people who have been dead for a century. It's not just being the repeater, it's about playing the new stuff, about inventing, and not just re-inventing. It's about producing your music to inspire, to touch, or to bring an audience to the preformer. Otherwise, we may as well all become studio artists, because there's no reason to give a show at all.

Bullshit!

All you rock and pop fans are a bunch of wankers, IMO. You blather on about how ONE group of standardized guitar/vocals/drums/song format nonsense is 'complex' or 'challenging' and then advocate another one more or less exactly the same.

You want complexity? Listen to Stravinsky or Shostakovich. But you don't want complexity. You want "tight" (popular and trendy), "up-front" (fitting neatly into tonal paradigms that are familiar) and "listenable" (not too straining on your attention span).

That's why 90% of kids today like 100% crap music these days. Yall get uber-pretentious about WHICH variant rock band is good and which variant isn't, but then you lump hundreds of years of music into one big category and call it "classical." So you get crap sayings like, "Oh, I have eclectic music tastes. I like Pink Floyd, Rush, NIN, and Classical."

Blah!

Jesus Christ. I knew I'd have to deal with something like this...

1: First of all, you're putting me in a rather generalised group. I dislike the majority of Pop songs (though they're not all bad), and most Rock songs are very generic and boring. But, since you're going by standarised format, why do you like Classical, hm? Pathetic.

2: Dear god. Don't even get me started... I love Public Image Ltd., and they're anything but "tight". Rush are tight, yes, but they're also very musically complex, and they use many different instruments and vocal styles.

3: I find it funny that you decided exactly where to place me just because of one post. Either you're a total Floyd fanatic that got really pissed off (which would make my post all the better), or you're just a music wanker like Letila... Perhaps both, though I'm not entirely sure here.

Look at it this way: Just because something is simple doesn't mean it's shit. I like any form of music as long as it's good, and The Wall is shit. I'll never change my opinion on the song (or the album) for as long as I live.

Dammit, I thought you meant The wall in Israel...jeez bands and their idiot names.

I've noticed that a fair number of guys like it, but most women hate Floyd no matter what.

If you consider how misogynistic The Wall is as a movie, it's not surprising.

Eh, the movie was about a dude going completely bonkers because he couldn't cope with the way the world worked, bringing catastrophe on himself and blaming it on the women in his life...

If anything, that's a sad comment on men, not women (like the Wife, who is shown trying to make him talk to her, which Waters said is what kept him sane).

Besides, I was introduced to the Wall by a woman, who watches it compulsively.

Personally, I think The Wall Live compilation is better than the original Wall album. But that's just my 2c

Jesus Christ. I knew I'd have to deal with something like this...

I imagine that's why you posted it.

1: First of all, you're putting me in a rather generalised group. I dislike the majority of Pop songs (though they're not all bad), and most Rock songs are very generic and boring. But, since you're going by standarised format, why do you like Classical, hm? Pathetic.

Mm hmm. Very full of pathos.


3: I find it funny that you decided exactly where to place me just because of one post. Either you're a total Floyd fanatic that got really pissed off (which would make my post all the better), or you're just a music wanker like Letila... Perhaps both, though I'm not entirely sure here.

I'm not a "fanatic" and if by "wanker" you mean "musician," I stand as accused.

Look at it this way: Just because something is simple doesn't mean it's shit.

I could have sworn it was you complaining about how the Wall was not complex. I'd check the quote but I'm too lazy.

I like any form of music as long as it's good, and The Wall is shit. I'll never change my opinion on the song (or the album) for as long as I live.

That's okay, I like any opinion as long as it's good, and yours is shit. :)

How disengenuous of you. Ignore the part in the dots, and it all looks very good. I'm saying that the values that you appear to beleive make art are no values at all.

If they're "no values," how come you just referred to them as "values?" Come on.

You certainly came across as the heavy-handed "You damn kids and your modern music" argument and I had intended to demonstrate from the top up that Classical had lost it's popularity because it no longer worked to hold it. If that's not what you meant, I don't feel the need to argue, because you're entirely right (although I certainly dislike what happens to the musicians when there is no market share for them. They get payed little enough as it is).

Of course, I began into this thread because people were getting heavy-handed about which sub-genre, which particular band was "complex" or "good" or "shit" and I figured the thread needed some balance from an elitist like me. Perspective, you see.

But my point in our little digression would be that 'classical' is not popular because the 'populous' is changing (for the worse, of course, but that's just my opinion.) A form of music that is no longer produced (by definition, unless you count the modern composers and then you're talking about something else) can't change, any more than the Mona Lisa will. She's gonna have that same weird smile, and if people don't like it, there's nothing Mona can do about it (nor should she).

Kids are who you sell music to. They make up a disproportionately large portion of the music industry. That's a fact of life.


I wasn't talking about selling music in that instance. And really, only in certain Western nations are children priveledged enough to buy so much music, and generally for purposes of playing in the car, at parties and when dancing. It's hardly the same category as 'art' music which we seem now to be discussing, is it?

Been there. Done that. A typical concert is hell to play. It's hot, you're under more tension than usual, you're in uncomfortable clothing, you often play for much longer than you would without breaks during a rehearsal. The list goes on and on. By halfway through the program you just want to go home.

Ah, I see. So you extrapolate your own experience to the entire body of everyone who's performed. You assume they are all as jaded and apathetic as you are. Well, I've been there and done that too, and I came to the opposite conclusion. Apparently, generalizations about how all classical musicians are this or that are inappropriate, wouldn't you say?

Oh no. Don't get me wrong. I think old music is important as well, but I think that musicians shouldn't make due with someone else's work alone. I mean, Brahms, Beethoven, Bach, and all are great, but it's not really art if you're only reapeating the same thing. You aren't creating otherwise, you're just staying static. We need the older music, but that doesn't mean we should slaughter the newer music.


Of course it's art! Look, no one claimed that performing Wagner was itself musical composition. It's art, it's just not the performer's art.

My god... Are you purposefully being thick, or is it that difficult to understand. The problem is not just the stale nature of modern orchestral music, it's the inability to cope with the loss of an era that is now gone. I'm not saying that they should give up the music, or the instruments they use. I'm saying that shows need to not be as stilted, and that as long as shows are stilted and unenergetic, sales will remain low. It's about having the conducter psyching the audience up, and not merely bowing after a song and moving into the next one. It's about having the musicians actually express that the music is fun, and not merely monotony (even if it really is monotony). It's about reaching into the audience and bringing them into music. Otherwise, why would they even show up? A CD would be just as good.

Right. Performers should tear the heads off live animals with their teeth. YA ART! Fuck that. If sales are low, so what? Do you really think I'm complaining because performing classical music isn't as profitable as performing other types?

Artistic merit is all fine and right, until the artist starves and art dies without them.

Well, assuming the 'artist' is entirely dependent on his 'art' financially. I don't judge art by how financially successful it is. If I did, I'm sure I'd be into Chinese pop music or something.

I'm not saying that they should make a point of turning it into a three-ring circus, I'm just saying that they should realize that they aren't even bothering to reach out.

"Reaching out" is for namby pamby new age 12 step programs and therapy sessions!

Artistic merit means playing art

...and apparently, 'psyching people up.' It's about showmanship for you.

, Otherwise, we may as well all become studio artists, because there's no reason to give a show at all.

Eh. I guess this is just where your opinions as to what is a "reason" differ than mine and that's that, just as your opinion of the state of modern classical performers differs from mine.

If they're "no values," how come you just referred to them as "values?" Come on.

It was an attempt at making my writing not only logical, but pretty. I could put one in quotes or change the structure if it makes you feel better.

Of course, I began into this thread because people were getting heavy-handed about which sub-genre, which particular band was "complex" or "good" or "shit" and I figured the thread needed some balance from an elitist like me. Perspective, you see.

But my point in our little digression would be that 'classical' is not popular because the 'populous' is changing (for the worse, of course, but that's just my opinion.) A form of music that is no longer produced (by definition, unless you count the modern composers and then you're talking about something else) can't change, any more than the Mona Lisa will. She's gonna have that same weird smile, and if people don't like it, there's nothing Mona can do about it (nor should she).


So was it wrong when the different sub-genres of orchestral classical changed as well? Was it a bad thing when orchestras played Bach beside, say, Brahms? Of course not. They need to do the same thing now.

I wasn't talking about selling music in that instance. And really, only in certain Western nations are children priveledged enough to buy so much music, and generally for purposes of playing in the car, at parties and when dancing. It's hardly the same category as 'art' music which we seem now to be discussing, is it?

'art' music is just music that doesn't have the backbone necessary to make something of itself.

Ah, I see. So you extrapolate your own experience to the entire body of everyone who's performed. You assume they are all as jaded and apathetic as you are. Well, I've been there and done that too, and I came to the opposite conclusion. Apparently, generalizations about how all classical musicians are this or that are inappropriate, wouldn't you say?

Jaded and apathetic though I am (after all, anyone who is not has taken leave of their senses), it is entirely unfair to forget that I've dealt with a number of people who, for the most part agree with me. A job is like any job. You learn to hate it and love it at the same time.


Of course it's art! Look, no one claimed that performing Wagner was itself musical composition. It's art, it's just not the performer's art.

Art is repetition? I have yet to truly see a performance that is true art on it's own. How is this art at all? They use the same phrasing. They use the same tempos. It may as well be being played by a machice. Where is the expression?

Right. Performers should tear the heads off live animals with their teeth. YA ART! Fuck that. If sales are low, so what? Do you really think I'm complaining because performing classical music isn't as profitable as performing other types?

Oh, so you are being purposefully thick. k, whatever. I'll restate it in really simple terms. The shows need exitement. They need to bring audience and preformer together. That doesn't mean biting the fucking heads off of fucking live animals. It means making an effort to have showmanship.


Well, assuming the 'artist' is entirely dependent on his 'art' financially. I don't judge art by how financially successful it is. If I did, I'm sure I'd be into Chinese pop music or something.

I don't judge art by financial success either. Financial success is a symptom of a larger success. The ability to reach an audience and touch it with your music. Classical is failing to do that, and it's increasing financial troubles are a symptom of that.



"Reaching out" is for namby pamby new age 12 step programs and therapy sessions!

Reaching out is for artists trying to actually produce art. Art is meaning things, and not just repeating things. Art is making the things you repeat yours and not someone elses. Reaching out is about showing people the magic you find in that art. If you can't do that, you may as well get the fuck off the stage, because all you're doing is making noise.


...and apparently, 'psyching people up.' It's about showmanship for you.

It's about breaking the fourth wall. It's about brining the music to the people, and not putting a wall between them and it. It's about making the audience feel what you feel.


Eh. I guess this is just where your opinions as to what is a "reason" differ than mine and that's that, just as your opinion of the state of modern classical performers differs from mine.

Why give a live performance? Studio performances are cleaner, cheaper, you don't dress up for them, they reach a larger audience, and you don't have to repeat them every 3 weeks. A live performance has to be more than just another studio performance. What reason could there be to perform for a live audience, except to build that connection?

It was an attempt at making my writing not only logical, but pretty. I could put one in quotes or change the structure if it makes you feel better.

You know, I'm not convinced it was pretty, just illogical. You'll have to "reach out" to me and "show" me the "art that you find" in your own flawed arguments.

And if you don't succeed, it's a failing of your beauty and your art. Sound good? :)


So was it wrong when the different sub-genres of orchestral classical changed as well? Was it a bad thing when orchestras played Bach beside, say, Brahms? Of course not. They need to do the same thing now.

Ah, so you say they 'need' to play Bach alongside, say, Britney Spears. Otherwise people just won't get it.

It wasn't a "bad thing," but it's not NEEDED. Unless of course you're a Ritalin-chomping, 2-minute attention span brat who absolutely must be guided when taking a leak lest they be unable to open the zipper.

'art' music is just music that doesn't have the backbone necessary to make something of itself.

Oh is this the part where we can just make idiotic statements. Okay, I say YOU are just a musician who got tired of performance and didn't have the backbone necessary to even enjoy it. Sounds like you had some asshole conductor and you've been bitter ever since. Yay!

Jaded and apathetic though I am (after all, anyone who is not has taken leave of their senses), it is entirely unfair to forget that I've dealt with a number of people who, for the most part agree with me. A job is like any job. You learn to hate it and love it at the same time.

If that's the case then it doesn't matter what job it is, and your statements are irrelevant commentaries on working for money in daily life, not about the merit of art.


Art is repetition? I have yet to truly see a performance that is true art on it's own. How is this art at all? They use the same phrasing. They use the same tempos. It may as well be being played by a machice. Where is the expression?

So you're saying Wagner isn't art, because the phrasing hasn't changed? Or because people, ya know, play it with the phrasing he wrote? Interesting.

Oh, so you are being purposefully thick. k, whatever. I'll restate it in really simple terms. The shows need exitement. They need to bring audience and preformer together. That doesn't mean biting the fucking heads off of fucking live animals. It means making an effort to have showmanship.

Are you saying biting the heads off animals isn't exciting? That it wouldn't bring an audience? It seems you can start down the 3-ring circus road, but you can't cope with where it leads.

I don't judge art by financial success either. Financial success is a symptom of a larger success. The ability to reach an audience and touch it with your music.

Mm, no. Financial success is a symptom of marketing and sound business strategy. No one needs to be "touched" by music to buy it.


Reaching out is for artists trying to actually produce art. Art is meaning things, and not just repeating things. Art is making the things you repeat yours and not someone elses. Reaching out is about showing people the magic you find in that art. If you can't do that, you may as well get the fuck off the stage, because all you're doing is making noise.

So you believe no classical performance is "showing people the magic" the performers found in it? Because it's not hip enough to draw in financial success? Har.

It's about breaking the fourth wall. It's about brining the music to the people, and not putting a wall between them and it. It's about making the audience feel what you feel.

Nonsense. Art isn't a drug. The audience should be allowed to feel whatever the hell they want to feel. That's not a wall, that's interpretation and not being a control freak.


Why give a live performance? Studio performances are cleaner, cheaper, you don't dress up for them, they reach a larger audience, and you don't have to repeat them every 3 weeks. A live performance has to be more than just another studio performance. What reason could there be to perform for a live audience, except to build that connection?

It sounds quite different to listen to something live than on a CD. If you don't know that there is really no further point in any discussion. Truth be known, I don't think there is anyway, since you'll just insist I'm "purposefully thick" or "elitist" or any of the other bitter labels you'll pull out of your ass. :)

You know, I'm not convinced it was pretty, just illogical. You'll have to "reach out" to me and "show" me the "art that you find" in your own flawed arguments.

And if you don't succeed, it's a failing of your beauty and your art. Sound good? :)

Or perhaps simply your innability to understand a basic argument. I reasoned that the things you seemed to beleive were values were not. That isn't complicated at all. Inserting pretty laungage into your rhetoric is intended to draw an audience in, see.

Ah, so you say they 'need' to play Bach alongside, say, Britney Spears. Otherwise people just won't get it.

It wasn't a "bad thing," but it's not NEEDED. Unless of course you're a Ritalin-chomping, 2-minute attention span brat who absolutely must be guided when taking a leak lest they be unable to open the zipper.

What has Britney Spears got to do with classical music? For that matter, what has she got to do with music? I'm saying encourage new compositions and don't kill them the moment they appear simply because they are new.


Oh is this the part where we can just make idiotic statements. Okay, I say YOU are just a musician who got tired of performance and didn't have the backbone necessary to even enjoy it. Sounds like you had some asshole conductor and you've been bitter ever since. Yay!

No. I'm a lazy bastard who never really saw a reason to go through the indignity of being payed less than a janitor for a job which took a 4 year degree to get in the first place. Besides which, I write my own music.


If that's the case then it doesn't matter what job it is, and your statements are irrelevant commentaries on working for money in daily life, not about the merit of art.

Welcome to the new world. People need to eat. Professional musicians basically have to get a 4 year degreee to even get jobs they will be payed for. That means that they do depend on their music for a job (and often a poorly paying one).

So you're saying Wagner isn't art, because the phrasing hasn't changed? Or because people, ya know, play it with the phrasing he wrote? Interesting.

Wagner is art. Preforming Wagner is not art. I'm saying that one preformance is now the clone of another. That shows a distinct lack of imagination.

Are you saying biting the heads off animals isn't exciting? That it wouldn't bring an audience? It seems you can start down the 3-ring circus road, but you can't cope with where it leads.

What has a 3-ring circus got to do with bring audience and performer together? The purpose of showmanship is the show, and not irrelevent but exciting moments. It's not that complex. You need to get people exited about the music. Hopefully that is simple enough for you that you don't choose to interpret it to mean the opposite of what I said.

Mm, no. Financial success is a symptom of marketing and sound business strategy. No one needs to be "touched" by music to buy it.

People buy music that they want to have. No matter how much marketing you do, something that has no merit won't sell many copies (White noise would not sell an album). The difference between merely releasing an album and releasing an album that touches people is that the album sticks around. That's why we remember the album. Who remembers the Chicago Symphony recording from 1960 conducted by Schulte? I do, but that's only because I used it as a template for learning the symphony.

So you believe no classical performance is "showing people the magic" the performers found in it? Because it's not hip enough to draw in financial success? Har.

No, I beleive that they are failing to bring people in. Financial sucess just is a symptom of the larger problem. It isn't just about "hip" it's about having any draw at all. It doesn't mean putting preformers in revealing clothing. It means getting the audience psyched about the music (something Hollywood crap-pop doesn't do either).

Nonsense. Art isn't a drug. The audience should be allowed to feel whatever the hell they want to feel. That's not a wall, that's interpretation and not being a control freak.

Do you know what the 4th wall is? I assume not, given your apparent innability to understand what I meant. The fourth wall is the "invisible" wall that sets stage apart from audience in theater. Breaking the fourth wall is about bringing the audience into the magic that is created in art.

Musical preformance at it's best is a conversation between the performer and the audience. The two interact and share. The attitude of the audience affects the performer and vice-versa.

It sounds quite different to listen to something live than on a CD. If you don't know that there is really no further point in any discussion. Truth be known, I don't think there is anyway, since you'll just insist I'm "purposefully thick" or "elitist" or any of the other bitter labels you'll pull out of your ass. :)

Not really. In fact, basically not at all. The music is basically identical. Tones get changed when someone is out of tune. The accoustics change. But none of those really make a difference in what the music's core ideas are. No, performance is about atmosphere, communication, and expression.

As far as I can tell you are an elitist, because I can't even imagine a world in which music had lost it's magic so much that I relelgated it to something purely mechanical. I assume therefore, that you either simply have no care for the performance at all, or that you have created an argument to purposefully hide the fact that your opinion was based on when music was written and not on the actual music.

I've never been able to figure this out. Recently, it seems like everyone hates the wall. On music sites, review sites, and even my friends and fellow Floyd fans don't like it. Is it just me? I love it. It has so many classic tunes on it, how can you not love it? Discuss.
It's those damn revisionist rock historians!

Or perhaps simply your innability to understand a basic argument. I reasoned that the things you seemed to beleive were values were not. That isn't complicated at all.

The things you assumed were my values weren't, so your argument was flawed on more than one level.


I'm saying encourage new compositions and don't kill them the moment they appear simply because they are new.

Well, I don't disagree with that, but I fail to see how it's relevant.


No. I'm a lazy bastard who never really saw a reason to go through the indignity of being payed less than a janitor for a job which took a 4 year degree to get in the first place. Besides which, I write my own music.

Sounds like sour grapes to me.

Welcome to the new world. People need to eat. Professional musicians basically have to get a 4 year degreee to even get jobs they will be payed for.

Welcome to the new world. Professionals of any kind have to go to school to get certain positions. OHNOES!

That means that they do depend on their music for a job (and often a poorly paying one).

For a job, not necessarily for sole income.

Wagner is art. Preforming Wagner is not art. I'm saying that one preformance is now the clone of another. That shows a distinct lack of imagination.

There's only so many ways you can perform a single piece. Musically, that is.

What has a 3-ring circus got to do with bring audience and performer together? The purpose of showmanship is the show, and not irrelevent but exciting moments. It's not that complex. You need to get people exited about the music. Hopefully that is simple enough for you that you don't choose to interpret it to mean the opposite of what I said.

...and the 3-ring circus gets people excited. It's not that complex. You just don't like the implications that your quibbly arguments about what kind of costume performers wear lead to conclusions you find as distasteful as I do, when taken to the logical extreme.

People buy music that they want to have. No matter how much marketing you do, something that has no merit won't sell many copies (White noise would not sell an album).

I bet it would if it was marketted correctly.

Know how much traffic EON8 got? That was just an internet phenomenon, but it was a brilliant exercise in marketing. It showed that you can get people to buy (or pay attention to) practically anything.

Financial sucess just is a symptom of the larger problem. It isn't just about "hip" it's about having any draw at all. It doesn't mean putting preformers in revealing clothing. It means getting the audience psyched about the music (something Hollywood crap-pop doesn't do either).

And yet, Hollywood crap-pop has much more financial success. I guess that means the audience "connects" and "loves" that music, and therefore that music is more successful since, in your view, the purpose of music is to achieve a huge audience (as measured by industrial terms).

The fourth wall is the "invisible" wall that sets stage apart from audience in theater. Breaking the fourth wall is about bringing the audience into the magic that is created in art.

Blowjobs would break that nasty nasty evil '4th wall' down pretty well, I'd say. But again, you don't like the implications of your own arguments.


Not really. In fact, basically not at all. The music is basically identical. Tones get changed when someone is out of tune. The accoustics change. But none of those really make a difference in what the music's core ideas are.

Wearing a different costume doesn't make a difference in what the music's core ideas are, either. Performing it with the audience "on the stage" doesn't change it either. And why exactly do you want to change the core ideas of Mozart? They're somehow not good enough? Oh yeah, they aren't, because they're not making enough money these days.

As far as I can tell you are an elitist, because I can't even imagine a world in which music had lost it's magic so much that I relelgated it to something purely mechanical. I assume

Yeah, you assume things like I like "purely mechanical" music. Or that one performance doesn't differ from another. (Or that acoustics are irrelevant!) Frankly, you're an elitist, but you're one of those new-agey elitists and that's even worse.

therefore, that you either simply have no care for the performance at all, or that you have created an argument to purposefully hide the fact that your opinion was based on when music was written and not on the actual music.

Well, your assumptions are based on assumptions. I guess that's what you get when you keep probing with your already-disproven telepathic abilities. :)

"We don't need no education! No dark sarcasm in the classroom."

-snip-

Yeah. Come back when you gain basic reading comprehension levels. When I repeat something 3 or 4 times it should be clear to you what I mean. If it isn't (given how plainly I said things), that's no fault of mine.

I'm not gonna play if you are going to put words into my mouth.

Enjoy your emotionless, empty music.

The last band I was in was technically a Pink Floyd cover band.
We learned and performed ever song on "The Wall".
It wasnt my idea, I'll say that.

Whoever says that the music "is shit", or "is too simple", is an idiot, who doesnt know anything about music.
Pink Floyd have been making names for themselves by being completely original, and different that most other bands, since the early sixties.

All this being said, its not the music with the album that I have negative things to say, but rather the over-all mood the album inspires.
Its fucking depressing.

Anyone who is familiar with the music of Pink Floyd knows that Roger Waters had a serious infatuation with a few topics, one of wich, was not growing up with his father, who died in WW2.
He references this fact for the first time in the song "Free Four", from "Obscured by Clouds", and continues the trend in "The Wall", and the last PF album with Waters, "The Final Cut".

He stayed on this depressive trip well into his solo career, as well.

Its not that the album is bad,
Its not that there arent great songs on it....there are.
Its basically that the overall theme is so depressing that the album as a whole cant always be enjoyed, becuase its SO mood-evoking.
Its a VERY moving piece as a whole, its just that it one for not all occasions.
Consequently, it cant be enjoyed all the time.

After the time playing those songs, it was a long while before I could even listen to them again.

The last band I was in was technically a Pink Floyd cover band.
We learned and performed ever song on "The Wall".
It wasnt my idea, I'll say that.

Whoever says that the music "is shit", or "is too simple", is an idiot, who doesnt know anything about music.
Pink Floyd have been making names for themselves by being completely original, and different that most other bands, since the early sixties.

All this being said, its not the music with the album that I have negative things to say, but rather the over-all mood the album inspires.
Its fucking depressing.

Anyone who is familiar with the music of Pink Floyd knows that Roger Waters had a serious infatuation with a few topics, one of wich, was not growing up with his father, who died in WW2.
He references this fact for the first time in the song "Free Four", from "Obscured by Clouds", and continues the trend in "The Wall", and the last PF album with Waters, "The Final Cut".

He stayed on this depressive trip well into his solo career, as well.

Its not that the album is bad,
Its not that there arent great songs on it....there are.
Its basically that the overall theme is so depressing that the album as a whole cant always be enjoyed, becuase its SO mood-evoking.
Its a VERY moving piece as a whole, its just that it one for not all occasions.
Consequently, it cant be enjoyed all the time.

After the time playing those songs, it was a long while before I could even listen to them again.
True... I think Pink Floyd's music is some of the more emotionally evocative out there. The nostalgia of High Hopes, the despair of Hey You... all in all, it's pretty heavy, man. I sound sarcastic, but I'm not.

I just got a DVD of the Earls Court concerts... People can say all they want about machinery overriding the creativity, but the lights show was stunning and added greatly to the performance. It was a multisensory thing, really.

True... I think Pink Floyd's music is some of the more emotionally evocative out there. The nostalgia of High Hopes, the despair of Hey You... all in all, it's pretty heavy, man. I sound sarcastic, but I'm not.

I just got a DVD of the Earls Court concerts... People can say all they want about machinery overriding the creativity, but the lights show was stunning and added greatly to the performance. It was a multisensory thing, really.

Thats what makes Pink Floyd so cool.
You didnt just go and listen to thier music at one of their shows, you went to experience an event with something for all senses.
The lights and video screens, the music, the stage props with giant inflatables, planes crashing...

SOOOO much more than just the muisic, that was just a centerpeice.

Thats what makes Pink Floyd so cool.
You didnt just go and listen to thier music at one of their shows, you went to experience an event with something for all senses.
The lights and video screens, the music, the stage props with giant inflatables, planes crashing...

SOOOO much more than just the muisic, that was just a centerpeice.
I wouldn't exactly call it a centerpiece, but... I can't think of a preferable term at the moment (it's 2:20 AM), so I'll let it go. Yeah, they had the plane crashing. It looked pretty realistic, too (the explosion, not the plane. Some of that stuff would be pretty freaky on acid)

I've noticed that a fair number of guys like it, but most women hate Floyd no matter what.

If you consider how misogynistic The Wall is as a movie, it's not surprising.
You really should elaborate on that. I haven't seen it in a long time, so perhaps my memory needs refreshing. At any rate, you're probably missing the point of something, or thinking that just because it's portrayed means it's approved of.

I've never been able to figure this out. Recently, it seems like everyone hates the wall. On music sites, review sites, and even my friends and fellow Floyd fans don't like it. Is it just me? I love it. It has so many classic tunes on it, how can you not love it? Discuss.

I like it. But.
My sister hates it, because she knew only "Brick in the wall" before seeing the movie, and hated the movie.
So I went to see the movie, and I agree with her that it's damn close to being misogynist. Every problem of the rockstar protagonist seems to be sheeted home to his mother or girlfriends. And that's not in the album, at all.

The movie. That's the problem.

I don't hate it. It's just okay.

I like it. But.
My sister hates it, because she knew only "Brick in the wall" before seeing the movie, and hated the movie.
So I went to see the movie, and I agree with her that it's damn close to being misogynist. Every problem of the rockstar protagonist seems to be sheeted home to his mother or girlfriends. And that's not in the album, at all.

The movie. That's the problem.

Im afraid you didnt "get it".

The character of "Pink" (portrayed by Bob Geldof) is having a mental breakdown.
He no longer sees people as people, but faceless entities to be avoided, manipulated, or ignored.
It isnt that be objectifies women, per se, but people in general.
Essentially, he puts up "a wall" between himself, and everyone else.

As for the hate and resentment towards mother and wife, thats very much in the album.
"Mother" is a direct line of that thinking.
So is "Nobody Home".
Those are directly about Pink's mother and wife.

Im afraid you didnt "get it".
I was very likely biased against the movie before I even went to the cinema to see it, yeah.
The character of "Pink" (portrayed by Bob Geldof) is having a mental breakdown.
He no longer sees people as people, but faceless entities to be avoided, manipulated, or ignored.
It isnt that be objectifies women, per se, but people in general.
Essentially, he puts up "a wall" between himself, and everyone else.
Mmm. I got it.
As for the hate and resentment towards mother and wife, thats very much in the album.
"Mother" is a direct line of that thinking.
So is "Nobody Home".
Those are directly about Pink's mother and wife.Yep, I got it.

I just think their film-making effort was naive and hamfisted. Crap film, basically.

I agree completely with your earlier post about the album being depressing. That's not for everyone, though I enjoy being taken on a trip, even if it's someone's bad trip.

I just think their film-making effort was naive and hamfisted. Crap film, basically.

You'll get no arguement from me on that point.

I personally think "crap" is a bit scathing, but i cant say your opinion isnt valid.
Its not a great movie.
For pink floyd fans, its great to see once in a while, and the animations are pretty cool, its just not a fabulous film.

I wouldnt expect anyone who isnt a fan of the music to enjoy the film.
..and even some who are.

The Wall is far from Floyd's best piece (unless you're high, perhaps). A Momentary Lapse of Reason, Dark Side of the Moon, and Wish You Were Here are all better in my opinion. But nevertheless, you cannot simply dismiss as worthless an album as good as The Wall. Those who do so are simply ignorant.
You were going strong until you suggested that a Pink Floyd album without Roger Waters was anything even approaching better than The Wall. Sorry, but David Gilmour is great, but all by himself, he's all melancholy and no passion. Which is fine if you like to wallow, and who doesn't every so often -- but all the time? No. Floyd without Waters is repetitive, though beautiful and well crafted, musical meandering.

I'm not intending to insult anyone with that opinion, and opinion is all it is.

Bullshit!

All you rock and pop fans are a bunch of wankers, IMO. You blather on about how ONE group of standardized guitar/vocals/drums/song format nonsense is 'complex' or 'challenging' and then advocate another one more or less exactly the same.

You want complexity? Listen to Stravinsky or Shostakovich. But you don't want complexity. You want "tight" (popular and trendy), "up-front" (fitting neatly into tonal paradigms that are familiar) and "listenable" (not too straining on your attention span).

That's why 90% of kids today like 100% crap music these days. Yall get uber-pretentious about WHICH variant rock band is good and which variant isn't, but then you lump hundreds of years of music into one big category and call it "classical." So you get crap sayings like, "Oh, I have eclectic music tastes. I like Pink Floyd, Rush, NIN, and Classical."

Blah!
A bit generalized, but mostly accurate.

Seconded.

Why do people hate "The Wall?"
They hate it because of the film (insert 'movie' for film, below).

Here's my case:

It was a bold film. IIRC, mainstream was still disaster movies at the time.

It used animation (those terrific marching hammers and the caricature school-teacher,) it used dramatic changes of pace and lighting. There was almost terrifying synchrony between sound and vision. It was like a two-hour long filmclip, and it was a bold piece of film-making. The gradual building of the wall was good.

It certainly wasn't crap for want of trying.

But it was a crap film because the message it conveyed was different for everyone who saw it. I've never had such arguments about "which bit" was most significant, when we sat down to coffee after the film. It was ... cinematically illiterate.

Like a book which has good ideas, but you stop reading it on page twenty because you just can't stand the use of exclamation marks and the repeated use of the phrase "for some unknown reason."

As a visual enhancement for an album you know allready (a feature-length filmclip, if you will) it's fine. But it was actually quite a hit, and it made enemies for the band that no album could ever have made, because people who didn't know the music, (perhaps had never even heard DSOTM right through,) thought they were going to see a movie, and followed the pictures rather than the soundtrack to build a story.

It's not a crap film the way "Saving Private Ryan" was a crap film, deliberately exploiting hackneyed themes and aiming to be just controversial enough. It's crap the way 'promising' film-makers films are, going in hard and missing with two out of three punches. It created a negative view of Pink Floyd as whiney and self-obsessed, bloated egos trying to make us all feel their pain.

I'd venture to say that Pink Floyd committed career suicide with that film.

Okay, after reading, scratch that, dragging my eyeballs through the argument between Trostia and KSP, I feel obliged to point out a few things.

Comparing any genre to any other genre, and even to some degree performers within a genre is like comparing apples to Agent Orange. There is simply no such thing as any type or kind of music being "better" than another. Human variety is too wide for comparisons like that.

As for the commercial appeal of symphonic music (I refuse to use "Classical" as a label for all symphonic music when the stratification covers history from roughly 1100AD to the present), there is such a sheer volume of it that it is possibly more accurate to think of a concert of such music as a sonic art gallery show or museum tour -- it's that old, or that important, or that key to the development of the artform in general. And just because you may have seen "soulless" performers of symphonic or chamber music when you last attended a concert, doesn't mean performers as a whole are without passion. Chamber music has been "sexed up" recently with groups like Bond and like ensembles, but it isn't music that needs a publicist. It's not entertainment, it's art -- if you don't know the difference, I pity you. For the latter can also be the former, but the former is rarely the latter, and never if entertainment was the sole purpose...time judges what graduates from entertainment to art, not the opinions of contemporary fans.

As for Pink Floyd itself, mood has been the band's primary medium within music from Umma Gumma onward, if not even earlier. Floyd's influence is undeniable, and The Wall is part of that legacy whether you like it or not. Musically, it's got much in common with symphonic music: recurring themes, motivic melodies which represent different characters or emotions (listen to the instrumental bridge to "Hey You" and you'll hear the "Another Brick" melody used in a minor blues progression just before the recapitulation), and a narrative/story element or "program".
The mood is decidedly melancholy with outbursts of psychosis, anger and abject depression. As such, it's not something you're gonna listen to and drive along the coast with the top down in your convertible on a nice sunny day...unless you're like that...and you know who you are.

To the guy who spouted the "75% of it is noise" horseshit, I say you're completely and utterly wrong. Period. If you seriously hear it that way, you need auditory assistance.

Finally, the folly of even attempting a debate about genres with regard to relative value is just plain stupid. I define stupid as ingorance + apathy. Ignorant because nobody can have listened to every example of every genre, and artists routinely straddle two or more in any case. Genres are largely marketing tools for segmenting consumers in the first place. Apathy because the argument presupposes a point of superiority of one's own favorites without so much as caring about what other people may or may not enjoy. I suggest leaving that kind of arrogance to the politicians and the marketing people and the lawyers and keep it out of music. But I tend to be quixotic about this subject, and realize that this particular veil is difficult to budge.

Like what you like, try new stuff when you can, and give it all a chance. In the end, you're going to like what you like. Life's too short to argue which band is better or which genre is worth more.

One more thing -- I notice that when people mention symphonic/chamber music versus pop or rock or what have you, nobody ever mentions the one thing lending the most weight -- unfairly, I might add -- to pop/rock. Lyrics. If anyone did, I wonder why nobody ever talks about choral music? It's my specialty, and when you put an orchestra and a choir together, well, it's a whole different beast with all kinds of new avenues to one's soul. Just a thought.

Whatever you like. Like it.

One more thing -- I notice that when people mention symphonic/chamber music versus pop or rock or what have you, nobody ever mentions the one thing lending the most weight -- unfairly, I might add -- to pop/rock. Lyrics. If anyone did, I wonder why nobody ever talks about choral music? It's my specialty, and when you put an orchestra and a choir together, well, it's a whole different beast with all kinds of new avenues to one's soul. Just a thought.Isn't choral music usually religious in theme?

Why do people hate "The Wall?"
They hate it because of the film (insert 'movie' for film, below).

Here's my case:

It was a bold film. IIRC, mainstream was still disaster movies at the time.

It used animation (those terrific marching hammers and the caricature school-teacher,) it used dramatic changes of pace and lighting. There was almost terrifying synchrony between sound and vision. It was like a two-hour long filmclip, and it was a bold piece of film-making. The gradual building of the wall was good.

It certainly wasn't crap for want of trying.

But it was a crap film because the message it conveyed was different for everyone who saw it. I've never had such arguments about "which bit" was most significant, when we sat down to coffee after the film. It was ... cinematically illiterate.

Like a book which has good ideas, but you stop reading it on page twenty because you just can't stand the use of exclamation marks and the repeated use of the phrase "for some unknown reason."

As a visual enhancement for an album you know allready (a feature-length filmclip, if you will) it's fine. But it was actually quite a hit, and it made enemies for the band that no album could ever have made, because people who didn't know the music, (perhaps had never even heard DSOTM right through,) thought they were going to see a movie, and followed the pictures rather than the soundtrack to build a story.

It's not a crap film the way "Saving Private Ryan" was a crap film, deliberately exploiting hackneyed themes and aiming to be just controversial enough. It's crap the way 'promising' film-makers films are, going in hard and missing with two out of three punches. It created a negative view of Pink Floyd as whiney and self-obsessed, bloated egos trying to make us all feel their pain.

I'd venture to say that Pink Floyd committed career suicide with that film.
Swing and a miss.

It's not crap at all, first off. You hit it on the head by saying is was merely a different kind of film. It was no more difficult to follow than anything David Lynch makes. It's images linked to and descriptive of the music. If people didn't know that going into it, how is that the film's fault?

If you want to have an arbitrary opinion based on your own experiences, that's perfectly legitimate and here's to it. But you lose any sense of legitimacy as a "reviewer" when you try to project your own reaction onto anyone other than yourself.

As to The Wall's popularity or esteem, here in the Pacific Northwest, it's got a saolid reputation, as far as everyone I've ever talked to about it. But just like you, I've not talked to everyone. If they like it or hate it, there it is.

Isn't choral music usually religious in theme?
Well, I'll attribute that widely sweeping generalization to what you've heard and where you've heard it. If you're seeing groups in a cathedral, chances are, you're gonna hear a lot about God. And there's a reason: the history and control of the idiom.

Most early choral music was composed by churchmen for the church, as music was seen as a connection to God (which has a deeper history than even Christianity, as many religions believe the world was "sung into being"), and therefore not something for the laity to know about beyond being inspired by it at mass. However, secular vocal music developed right along with sacred -- the difference being that which got written down was that composed and sung where someone had the means to transcribe it -- and that, from roughly 1100AD until printing became widespread and common, was the church.

Secular choral music really got a boost when opera was standardized by a bunch of folks in Florence in 1600 calling themselves the Florentine Camerata. Texts for operas began shifting from the passion plays (which continued on as oratorios, the most famous of which is Handel's Messiah) to myths and legends -- the earliest of which is agreed by scholars to be Claudio Monteverdi's Orfeo ed Euridice (the myth of Orpheus) in 1601. Secular poetry had already been creeping into religious motets as a way of using the local language (aka "vernacular") to embellish and explain the Biblical texts and stories to non-Latin-speaking parishoners. It was no big leap to pull the secular into its own specific, non-operatic idiom, called the madrigal.

You might recognize madrigals as the renaissance-era choral pieces which usually contain a lot of "fa-la-las" in them. The most famous example is probably the Christmas carol "Deck the Hall" (only one hall...the "s" got added when "hall" was demoted from "large meeting room" to "length of corridor connecting small rooms").

From then on, sacred and secular choral music evolved side by side. Seclar texts didn't start getting the full orchestra compositional treatment for quite some time, though. Most secular stuff remained a cappella and largely unrecorded/improvised in what were called "camerata" or chambers, named for the Latin meaning of the word, a room. Hence the term "chamber music" meaning stuff for household use as opposed to concert music or symphonic music.

So the chances are, if you're listening to full orchestra and choir, it is indeed religious in at least some aspect -- even Carl Orff's Carmina Burana is religious in that the monks who wrote the words were indeed religious people...what they wrote however, was quite secular in nature. It's basically about how much it sucks to be a monk and what they do to pass the time or fantasize.

For secular choral music, the 20th century to now is the heyday. Benjamin Britten, Eric Whitacre, Vijay Singh, Stephen Chatman, and dozens more have taken secular poetry and turned it into glorious, beautiful, humorous and very effective choral music.

I recommend attending concerts at local universities if they've got any kind of decent choral program. If they're doing anything from the last 100 years, it will be largely (though never completely) secular in text. IT all depends on who your hearing and where.

Before I start spouting, I'll say where I am coming from. I am old Pink Floyd fan from 1973 - they are my favourite group, and my favourite album is Wish You Were Here which I believe to be a masterpiece combining music and vision: a sophisticated elegy that sold millions.

I also love Shostakovich's and Stranvinsky's music.

I cannot abide The Wall. I cringe whenever I hear the abominable "Another Brick in the Wall" and wonder, "How could they have stooped so low?" The one great song on the album (almost universally acknowledged), "Comfortably Numb", has just about the only music not written by Roger Waters.

There are three reasons why the album repels me.

1. Roger Waters has a vision, is an ideas person and has a great sense of the dramatic. He is not a musician. Musically, he is dull. By the time he came to making The Wall he had so alienated the rest of the band they effectively contributed nix. So the album has vision (albeit incoherent), ideas and drama but little music of any value.

2. The point of view, or voice, of the album is incoherent. Roger Waters's lyrics have always been shoddy in this regard. In this album it is often impossible to tell, when he uses "I" in a lyric, whether it is an authorial "I" or a character's "I". The same when he uses "You". Is an authorial voice talking to himself, a character, an accused third party, or the listener? Or is it a character talking to itself, or another character, etc. etc.? There is nothing wrong, per se, in presenting music from different points of view but The Wall is a kind of morality tale and some pretty dreadful notions are being presented here ("Mother" is a good example). Because the point of view is so incoherent who do I, the listener, attribute these awful notions to? In the end I tend to find myself taking them on face value without attributing them to anybody. "Mother" ends up becoming a misogynistic rant. To me this is an irredeemable failure in Roger Water's vision in this album.

3. The message is very adolescent.

Roger Waters says, in the film Pink Floyd Live in Pompeii, that the only thing that matters in the end is whether the music moves you. Wish You Were Here still moves me in a mysterious way. The Wall never did. Rick Wright said that Wish You Were Here is the only Pink Floyd album that he still listens to for pleasure. I understand why.

why do so many people dislike brussell sprouts??

They just do.

It's about taste.

Errinundera']Before I start spouting, I'll say where I am coming from. I am old Pink Floyd fan from 1973 - they are my favourite group, and my favourite album is Wish You Were Here which I believe to be a masterpiece combining music and vision: a sophisticated elegy that sold millions.

I also love Shostakovich's and Stranvinsky's music.

I cannot abide The Wall. I cringe whenever I hear the abominable "Another Brick in the Wall" and wonder, "How could they have stooped so low?" The one great song on the album (almost universally acknowledged), "Comfortably Numb", has just about the only music not written by Roger Waters.

There are three reasons why the album repels me.

1. Roger Waters has a vision, is an ideas person and has a great sense of the dramatic. He is not a musician. Musically, he is dull. By the time he came to making The Wall he had so alienated the rest of the band they effectively contributed nix. So the album has vision (albeit incoherent), ideas and drama but little music of any value.

2. The point of view, or voice, of the album is incoherent. Roger Waters's lyrics have always been shoddy in this regard. In this album it is often impossible to tell, when he uses "I" in a lyric, whether it is an authorial "I" or a character's "I". The same when he uses "You". Is an authorial voice talking to himself, a character, an accused third party, or the listener? Or is it a character talking to itself, or another character, etc. etc.? There is nothing wrong, per se, in presenting music from different points of view but The Wall is a kind of morality tale and some pretty dreadful notions are being presented here ("Mother" is a good example). Because the point of view is so incoherent who do I, the listener, attribute these awful notions to? In the end I tend to find myself taking them on face value without attributing them to anybody. "Mother" ends up becoming a misogynistic rant. To me this is an irredeemable failure in Roger Water's vision in this album.

3. The message is very adolescent.

Roger Waters says, in the film Pink Floyd Live in Pompeii, that the only thing that matters in the end is whether the music moves you. Wish You Were Here still moves me in a mysterious way. The Wall never did. Rick Wright said that Wish You Were Here is the only Pink Floyd album that he still listens to for pleasure. I understand why.

I can see where you are coming from. You make good points. I have to disagree with you though. What you feel for The Wall, I feel for (in a much lesser degree) for Wish You Were Here. I love the album, but it never really had the same effect on my as other Floyd albums.

I can see where you are coming from. You make good points. I have to disagree with you though. What you feel for The Wall, I feel for (in a much lesser degree) for Wish You Were Here. I love the album, but it never really had the same effect on my as other Floyd albums.

Like the brussel sprouts post below and the Roger Waters quote about being moved - it does end up being a matter of taste.

This is just a +1. I've said all I want to say, but want to read more of this. You're all making a lot of sense.

It's not just a matter of taste. No-one would be the wiser if that had been the second post, and we'd dropped it there.

I've never been able to figure this out. Recently, it seems like everyone hates the wall. On music sites, review sites, and even my friends and fellow Floyd fans don't like it. Is it just me? I love it. It has so many classic tunes on it, how can you not love it? Discuss.


I've always loved the album, but I was kinda disappointed in the movie... it cut songs out that I loved, and ruined my mental image of the album.

Well, I'll attribute that widely sweeping generalization to what you've heard and where you've heard it. If you're seeing groups in a cathedral, chances are, you're gonna hear a lot about God. And there's a reason: the history and control of the idiom.

Most early choral music was composed by churchmen for the church, as music was seen as a connection to God (which has a deeper history than even Christianity, as many religions believe the world was "sung into being"), and therefore not something for the laity to know about beyond being inspired by it at mass. However, secular vocal music developed right along with sacred -- the difference being that which got written down was that composed and sung where someone had the means to transcribe it -- and that, from roughly 1100AD until printing became widespread and common, was the church.

Secular choral music really got a boost when opera was standardized by a bunch of folks in Florence in 1600 calling themselves the Florentine Camerata. Texts for operas began shifting from the passion plays (which continued on as oratorios, the most famous of which is Handel's Messiah) to myths and legends -- the earliest of which is agreed by scholars to be Claudio Monteverdi's Orfeo ed Euridice (the myth of Orpheus) in 1601. Secular poetry had already been creeping into religious motets as a way of using the local language (aka "vernacular") to embellish and explain the Biblical texts and stories to non-Latin-speaking parishoners. It was no big leap to pull the secular into its own specific, non-operatic idiom, called the madrigal.

You might recognize madrigals as the renaissance-era choral pieces which usually contain a lot of "fa-la-las" in them. The most famous example is probably the Christmas carol "Deck the Hall" (only one hall...the "s" got added when "hall" was demoted from "large meeting room" to "length of corridor connecting small rooms").

From then on, sacred and secular choral music evolved side by side. Seclar texts didn't start getting the full orchestra compositional treatment for quite some time, though. Most secular stuff remained a cappella and largely unrecorded/improvised in what were called "camerata" or chambers, named for the Latin meaning of the word, a room. Hence the term "chamber music" meaning stuff for household use as opposed to concert music or symphonic music.

So the chances are, if you're listening to full orchestra and choir, it is indeed religious in at least some aspect -- even Carl Orff's Carmina Burana is religious in that the monks who wrote the words were indeed religious people...what they wrote however, was quite secular in nature. It's basically about how much it sucks to be a monk and what they do to pass the time or fantasize.

For secular choral music, the 20th century to now is the heyday. Benjamin Britten, Eric Whitacre, Vijay Singh, Stephen Chatman, and dozens more have taken secular poetry and turned it into glorious, beautiful, humorous and very effective choral music.

I recommend attending concerts at local universities if they've got any kind of decent choral program. If they're doing anything from the last 100 years, it will be largely (though never completely) secular in text. IT all depends on who your hearing and where.Ah, thank you. I also forgot about Opera, which isn't choral music, but is classical with vocals.

I do not dislike it i think it is some of pink floyd's best music.

Musically, it's a crap version of Quadrophenia or Tommy.
Lyrically, it's Roger Waters moaning on about his terrible rockstar life.
The best song on the album is Comfortably Numb, but even that's wrecked by Gilmour masturbating...
Get any previous Pink Floyd album. Get no subsequent album.

Musically, it's a crap version of Quadrophenia or Tommy.
Lyrically, it's Roger Waters moaning on about his terrible rockstar life.
The best song on the album is Comfortably Numb, but even that's wrecked by Gilmour masturbating...
Get any previous Pink Floyd album. Get no subsequent album.


I was really gonna flame you just now, and go all wacky, but I'll just mention a few things instead.

The Who, and Floyd are pretty equal in my eyes, the only comparison between the two that I can see, is they have an album or two that could be considered "Rock Opera".
However, as The Wall has clearly outsold the Whos effort, its hard to say what is a crap version of what.
Having spent several months playing that album with a band, I can say its nothing like crap.

More importantly, if you think that the album is really Waters whining about his rock star life, you really dont have much understanding about the actual lyrics.
Its a PART of it....but not the whole of the content.
The character of "Pink" happens to be a rock star, and is partly a representation of Syd Barret,

As for Gilmour "masturbating"

I cant say anything nice, really.

Gilmour is one of the best, ever, and youre clearly a wanker.
*shrug*

People are gay!
The Wall is awesome!

This is just a +1. I've said all I want to say, but want to read more of this. You're all making a lot of sense.

It's not just a matter of taste. No-one would be the wiser if that had been the second post, and we'd dropped it there.
Fuck, i re-created a monster!

People are gay!
The Wall is awesome!

If by "gay" you mean uncool, inexplicable to you, and not to be taken seriously, and \
By "The Wall is awesome" you mean that your own personal wall inspires awe in you \

I agree.
You "get it."
You really shouldn't have taken acid that time.
:D

I was really gonna flame you just now, and go all wacky, but I'll just mention a few things instead.

The Who, and Floyd are pretty equal in my eyes, the only comparison between the two that I can see, is they have an album or two that could be considered "Rock Opera".
However, as The Wall has clearly outsold the Whos effort, its hard to say what is a crap version of what.
Having spent several months playing that album with a band, I can say its nothing like crap.

More importantly, if you think that the album is really Waters whining about his rock star life, you really dont have much understanding about the actual lyrics.
Its a PART of it....but not the whole of the content.
The character of "Pink" happens to be a rock star, and is partly a representation of Syd Barret,

As for Gilmour "masturbating"

I cant say anything nice, really.

Gilmour is one of the best, ever, and youre clearly a wanker.
*shrug*

I've been posting on these forums sporadically, and have advanced all sorts of outlandish and offensive political opinions, and never once been called a 'wanker', or insulted in any fashion. Insulting a bunch of millionaire rock stars who couldn't care less, though, seems to make me instantly unpopular. I don't know, rock fans...
Of course Gilmour's one of the best ever. The Floyd are one of my favourite bands of all time. In fact, his FIRST solo on Comfortably Numb is a thing of beauty, short, sweet and one of the finest in the band's catalogue. It's just that the second is him bumming around the B blues scale for three minutes and not really coming up with much. It's a minor criticism really; compared to the rest of the album Comfortably Numb's great.
The reason it's a crap version of Quadrophenia and Tommy is that those albums were released six and ten years earlier, and in my opinion both are more musically complex and satisfying than The Wall.
As for the Syd stuff, I was aware that supposedly the Pink character is a composite of Syd and Roger and various other doomed rock stars. However, the album itself was written as a response to a personal crisis of confidence that Roger Waters was having about his place in the world as a rock star and how he was relating to the rest of society etc etc. In my opinion, it's a problem he was lucky to have.

For what its worth, I quite like the wall. I'm no great music lover, and its the only Pink Floyd I have, but I like it.

I've been posting on these forums sporadically, ...
In my opinion, it's a problem he was lucky to have.

I was OK with what you said. I was OK with your opinion being answered at such length, with the "wanker" bit thrown in at the end. Don't take it too seriously.

Anyone who's heard the album through at least a couple of times has a right to an opinion, I'd say.

Radio Airplay. Hearing "Another Brick in the Wall" about 100 times a week will absolutely slay any worth the song has. Let's be fair; What else do they play from Floyd? "Money", and "Dark side of the Moon" occasionally. That'd be it.

I've hated the album since I first heard it. I don't care about the concept, don't think it's tragic the character is dying, don't really give a crap about the entire thing.

Edit:[NS]Errinundera has some good points I'd agree with as well.

Your loss, Druidville. Your loss.

It's an album from the age of Hi-Fi. Folks sat down and listened to an hour of music, without pictures. Pink Floyd didn't exactly invent the "concept album," which told a story like a movie, and demanded your full attention, but they were certainly big in that genre.

Radio Airplay. Hearing "Another Brick in the Wall" about 100 times a week will absolutely slay any worth the song has. Let's be fair; What else do they play from Floyd? "Money", and "Dark side of the Moon" occasionally. That'd be it.I hear those songs plus "Comfortably Numb", "Hey You", and "Wish You Were Here" on the radio here. Perhaps one or two others, too.

If by "gay" you mean uncool, inexplicable to you, and not to be taken seriously, and \
By "The Wall is awesome" you mean that your own personal wall inspires awe in you \

I agree.
You "get it."
You really shouldn't have taken acid that time.
:D
Well actually no, i didn't mean that...

Radio Airplay. Hearing "Another Brick in the Wall" about 100 times a week will absolutely slay any worth the song has. Let's be fair; What else do they play from Floyd? "Money", and "Dark side of the Moon" occasionally. That'd be it.
Perhaps you are listening to the wrong Radio Station if you don't like them...
Perhaps Pink Floyd FM even!

Mother, Is There Anybody Out There?, Run Like Hell, Brain Damage, Have a Cigar(All songs of theirs i hear often yet love) and how could you forget Time?:eek:
Time
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.

Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I'd something more to say.

As for the commercial appeal of symphonic music (I refuse to use "Classical" as a label for all symphonic music when the stratification covers history from roughly 1100AD to the present), there is such a sheer volume of it that it is possibly more accurate to think of a concert of such music as a sonic art gallery show or museum tour -- it's that old, or that important, or that key to the development of the artform in general. And just because you may have seen "soulless" performers of symphonic or chamber music when you last attended a concert, doesn't mean performers as a whole are without passion. Chamber music has been "sexed up" recently with groups like Bond and like ensembles, but it isn't music that needs a publicist. It's not entertainment, it's art -- if you don't know the difference, I pity you. For the latter can also be the former, but the former is rarely the latter, and never if entertainment was the sole purpose...time judges what graduates from entertainment to art, not the opinions of contemporary fans.

Not exactly. I mean art and entertainment do differ (although I have yet to see a performance of music that was in fact art in and of itself. The music may be art, but performance in the modern era appears to be purely mechanical). The thing is, art is created to be viewed. Composers don't write music so that it can be set on a shelf somewhere and left to rot (Well... Ok... MOST composers don't). We write to see our music published. Just like writers, painters, and artists of all stripes. In that regard, the number of people you bring in to see your performance is a measure of sucess. The point is to create a draw that brings people in to hear the music again. That doesn't mean just bringing people in to do something else while the music is playing, though.

Art exists to be seen, and not merely ignored.

One more thing -- I notice that when people mention symphonic/chamber music versus pop or rock or what have you, nobody ever mentions the one thing lending the most weight -- unfairly, I might add -- to pop/rock. Lyrics. If anyone did, I wonder why nobody ever talks about choral music? It's my specialty, and when you put an orchestra and a choir together, well, it's a whole different beast with all kinds of new avenues to one's soul. Just a thought.

What's always impressed me is just how difficult it is to find secular choral music in this day and age. You walk into a record shop and they have Opera (I don't have much of a taste for the drama aspect of Opera, but that's just me), church choirs, and maybe some Jazz choirs, but a lot of stuff is hard to find.

What's always impressed me is just how difficult it is to find secular choral music in this day and age. You walk into a record shop and they have Opera (I don't have much of a taste for the drama aspect of Opera, but that's just me), church choirs, and maybe some Jazz choirs, but a lot of stuff is hard to find.

Have you heard much music by Giya Kancheli? A few years ago the composer visited Melbourne for a festival of his music. Styx in particular was a revelation.

Radio Airplay. Hearing "Another Brick in the Wall" about 100 times a week will absolutely slay any worth the song has. Let's be fair; What else do they play from Floyd? "Money", and "Dark side of the Moon" occasionally. That'd be it.

All I ever hear on the radio is "Money" (very often), "ABitW" (often), "Wish You Were Here" (the song, less often) and "Us and Them" (occasionally).

Does it matter?

All in all, they're just another brick in The Wall :p

Errinundera']Have you heard much music by Giya Kancheli? A few years ago the composer visited Melbourne for a festival of his music. Styx in particular was a revelation.

Can't say that I have. I'll look into it.