A look back at how Bob Dylan and other Western folk rockers influenced Japanese singer-songwriters.
The Japanese language, Mr. Endo said, was essential to capture the details of domestic life — like the kotatsu, a small heated table and blanket where families or lovers huddle.
“There’s absolutely no kotatsu in Dylan’s songs,” he said. “A girl in a miniskirt is not putting her legs inside the kotatsu. And most importantly,” Mr. Endo added, growing agitated, “cats are not sleeping inside the kotatsu in Dylan songs.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/27/arts/music/japan-archival-series-folk-rock.html?mwrsm=GooglePlus
Saturday, October 28, 2017
Friday, October 27, 2017
The Guardian discussing the lasting impact of Yacht Rock, the enigmatic but cloying soft rock genre that dominated...
The Guardian discussing the lasting impact of Yacht Rock, the enigmatic but cloying soft rock genre that dominated airwaves in the late 1970's and early 1980s in between Punk and New Wave.
Still, something about the rebranding of the music that inspired it as yacht rock – an evocative name that posited the music as a soundtrack to a mythic life of sunkissed luxury – seemed to chime with people, bringing it to a new audience. “I think Yacht Rock [the web series] was the beginning of this whole Hall & Oates resurrection,” Oates later remarked. “They were the first ones to start to parody us, and put us out there again..
Inspiring DJs and collectors to dig in the crates is one thing, but exerting an influence on the sound of mainstream pop is another entirely. On the most prosaic level, soft rock appeals to latterday producers because it is, as Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter has said, “the pinnacle of audio fidelity”. There’s also a feeling that the sound acts as a kind of shorthand for musical sophistication: if you’re a former boyband member like One Direction’s Niall Horan, one way of signifying that you have grown is to break out the soft rock influences. As McDonald points out, Steely Dan set a new standard for music that could happily function as pop – they were “all over the radio for years” – without sacrificing its jazz-inspired complexity. “They cast a spell over American pop culture that’s very enigmatic to me, because the music is so sophisticated that I didn’t think it met the criteria of what people thought pop music should be.”
Kirby, meanwhile, has a theory that yacht rock was the sound of rock music entering its 30s. “What I found when researching the artists on Seafaring Strangers was that this was not their first foray into recorded music,” he says. “They had started out playing folk or studying jazz; they had been in R&B bands or soul groups. They forged their songs with a certain maturity, saying: I haven’t made it yet, and I’m still playing music and I’ve got a family and I’m a more mature, potentially complicated person. What music can I create that reflects where I am in my journey?”
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/oct/27/michael-mcdonald-doobie-brothers-hall-oates-toto-soft-rock-got-cool
Still, something about the rebranding of the music that inspired it as yacht rock – an evocative name that posited the music as a soundtrack to a mythic life of sunkissed luxury – seemed to chime with people, bringing it to a new audience. “I think Yacht Rock [the web series] was the beginning of this whole Hall & Oates resurrection,” Oates later remarked. “They were the first ones to start to parody us, and put us out there again..
Inspiring DJs and collectors to dig in the crates is one thing, but exerting an influence on the sound of mainstream pop is another entirely. On the most prosaic level, soft rock appeals to latterday producers because it is, as Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter has said, “the pinnacle of audio fidelity”. There’s also a feeling that the sound acts as a kind of shorthand for musical sophistication: if you’re a former boyband member like One Direction’s Niall Horan, one way of signifying that you have grown is to break out the soft rock influences. As McDonald points out, Steely Dan set a new standard for music that could happily function as pop – they were “all over the radio for years” – without sacrificing its jazz-inspired complexity. “They cast a spell over American pop culture that’s very enigmatic to me, because the music is so sophisticated that I didn’t think it met the criteria of what people thought pop music should be.”
Kirby, meanwhile, has a theory that yacht rock was the sound of rock music entering its 30s. “What I found when researching the artists on Seafaring Strangers was that this was not their first foray into recorded music,” he says. “They had started out playing folk or studying jazz; they had been in R&B bands or soul groups. They forged their songs with a certain maturity, saying: I haven’t made it yet, and I’m still playing music and I’ve got a family and I’m a more mature, potentially complicated person. What music can I create that reflects where I am in my journey?”
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/oct/27/michael-mcdonald-doobie-brothers-hall-oates-toto-soft-rock-got-cool
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
This is the birth of rock 'n roll.
This is the birth of rock 'n roll.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHunRdJnrWs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHunRdJnrWs
Sunday, October 22, 2017
Thursday, October 19, 2017
H/t Mari Christian
H/t Mari Christian
Originally shared by Ken Hannaford
What makes music 'new'? There is one aspect of Wyschnegradsky's work that lies outside the listening expectations of this time while everything else remains as a familiar landscape. Perhaps I should request a vote on those who consider this new and those who consider it different.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9WPfkXQa_Y
Originally shared by Ken Hannaford
What makes music 'new'? There is one aspect of Wyschnegradsky's work that lies outside the listening expectations of this time while everything else remains as a familiar landscape. Perhaps I should request a vote on those who consider this new and those who consider it different.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9WPfkXQa_Y
Sunday, October 1, 2017
Update: new version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Sfi9gaFwM0
Update: new version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Sfi9gaFwM0
This is sublime balladry, part of a series of place-specific performances by Tuvan folk artists collected by YouTube user cribnebulla2012 (a friend IRL).
Observation: the range and depth of the traditional Tuvan repertoire at least equals that of Irish folk music.
https://youtu.be/gK1aIt-ee2s
This is sublime balladry, part of a series of place-specific performances by Tuvan folk artists collected by YouTube user cribnebulla2012 (a friend IRL).
Observation: the range and depth of the traditional Tuvan repertoire at least equals that of Irish folk music.
https://youtu.be/gK1aIt-ee2s
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