[NewMusic] Sting is bored with today's rock music

[Phillip Greenlief]

-----Original Message-----
From: newmusic-bounces at music.mills.edu
[mailto:newmusic-bounces at music.mills.edu] On Behalf Of Matt Davignon

Well, it's true by even Sting's standards! (Well, at least the new
stuff that's on rock stations these days.)

I was thinking about this the other day. Even though a lot of people
knock 80's pop music, there was still a craft to making a good
memorable pop song, and part of that craft involved coming up with new
studio tricks and the attempt to create a memorable "sound" for each
recording artist.

PG:
I was in Lanesplitter the other day and "Fear of Music" came on the
speakers and most of the disc was played. That record still sounds
pretty good. There are a lot of things that came out in the 80's that I
couldn't bear the first time around, so I don't know how they would hold
up.

MD:
For the last 15 years or so, it's seemed like a rock band is destined
for success if they sound like the last rock band that was successful.

PG:
That's an illusion, of course. Anyone piggy-backing on someone else's
sound is up for a short ride on that piggy...most of the bands you're
talking about are one-hit wonders.

MD:
Saw a special on PBS on the corporatization of the music industry that
happened in the 80's. Now the people making decisions on what gets
released & promoted are driven by market formulas, rather than an
interest and understanding of the music.

PG:
That was not unique to the 1980's...that's been happening since the dawn
of the record industry, if I'm not mistaken. Or at least since the late
1920's. Someone makes a big hit and a record label sells a lot of units,
and the other record labels say, "wow, we gots to capitalize on that
shit..." - Case in point: the british invasion...that, of course, was
not the 1920's, but the 1960's. It was the same though in the 40's (from
what my dad told me), the swing bands were all trying to emulate the
"big boys" - or big sellers...white swing bands tried to catch the
Dorsey sound, black bands tried to catch Ellington's sound, The Hot 5
sounds, etc. etc. etc. Numerous singers tried to emulate Bessie Smith's
sound (who was the highest record seller of the 1930's apparently...at
least according to the liner notes in those Complete Columbia
Recordings.

MD:
What I still can't figure out is what drives artists like Sting and
Phil Collins to make lame music as they grow older. 

PG:
You really can't figure that out?
It's called: chi-ching!
And ego - those guys both are convinced they're "important", on some
level. They've won lots of awards...they have a career and quite a good
deal of bank, depending on keeping whatever illusions alive they need to
resuscitate in order to keep the labels flirting with them. 

MD:
When I was younger
I thought it was a function of aging. (Once you're over 40, things
like Michael Bolton and Kenny G start sounding damn good.) 

PG:
That's true, if you live by the status quo...but you're a musician. Your
ears are always open to new things...new things scare most people. That
means they have to think about something new. Who wants to do that? 

MD:
Now I know
more people doing amazing things who are 10 years older than me than
10 years younger. 

PG:
That's because "some" of those older people have been paying
attention...and have something to say about the ongoing parade of
information that has passed them by all these years. 

MD:
In a way I'm getting philcolonized in that loud
explosive noises by themselves don't excite me as much as when I was
younger, but in another way I'm not because the music I'm listening to
has much more going on.

PG:
Loud music is an easy sell when you're younger, because you live in your
body when you're younger. We tend to like more "complicated" stuff (more
stuff going on), when we're older because we live more in our heads...


MD:
Odd trivia I found out the other day - Mickey Dolenz from the Monkees
was the voice of Arthur (the sidekick) in the Tick cartoon.

PG:
Everybody's got to pay the rent...