Sneaking highbrow into pop entertainment

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Quaco
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Re: Sneaking highbrow into pop entertainment

Postby Quaco » 08 Dec 2018, 20:40

It's worth noting that we have gone mostly down the road of people dropping classical bits into songs. Maybe this is indicative of the age of popular music? The first couple examples I gave were of composers going far beyond what was required in order to add real innovation and musical interest to their pieces, and elevated the popular music of the day in the process. A lot of rock music with classical quotes is little more than a parlor trick. Few people, I think, would say that "Rhapsody in Blue" or "West Side Story" was a parlor trick.
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Quaco
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Re: Sneaking highbrow into pop entertainment

Postby Quaco » 08 Dec 2018, 20:41

LeBaron wrote:Only Joe Walsh is allowed to do this kind of stupid shit.


Ha - both Ravel's and Beck's boleros!
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Quaco
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Re: Sneaking highbrow into pop entertainment

Postby Quaco » 08 Dec 2018, 20:42

Darkness_Fish wrote:Revolution no 9.

Completely agree, even if it may have been intended more as an experiment than as high art per se.
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Darkness_Fish
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Re: Sneaking highbrow into pop entertainment

Postby Darkness_Fish » 08 Dec 2018, 21:13

Quaco wrote:It's worth noting that we have gone mostly down the road of people dropping classical bits into songs. Maybe this is indicative of the age of popular music? The first couple examples I gave were of composers going far beyond what was required in order to add real innovation and musical interest to their pieces, and elevated the popular music of the day in the process. A lot of rock music with classical quotes is little more than a parlor trick. Few people, I think, would say that "Rhapsody in Blue" or "West Side Story" was a parlor trick.

Well, I'm not really a fan of trying to divide up high-art and popular art, it seems an arbitrary distinction based on elitism and a lack of understanding of what the purpose of art is (i.e., it's not the mechanism, so much as the end result which matters, although the two can be related). The dropping of classical quotations into rock songs is kind of self-defeating in that regard, it seems to add to that separation, rather than bridge the divide. One of the reasons I mentioned Revolution No 9, despite my dislike of The Beatles (and that particular album), is that it drops it in amidst a barrage of "pop", and is asked to be judged on its own merits, I don't think it was a parlor trick.

How far do you have to go outside pop to be judged as sneaking highbrow into pop? I'm currently listening to SPK, and they were part of the artier industrial scene, but would have been regarded as pop culture. Then when they tried being pop, they sucked. But they also did the Zamia Lehmanni: Songs of Byzantine Flowers album, which led to main-man Graeme Revell's career into film soundtrack composing, and modern classical/ambient things like this:

Like fast-moving clouds casting shadows against a hillside, the melody-loop shuddered with a sense of the sublime, the awful unknowable majesty of the world.

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Re: Sneaking highbrow into pop entertainment

Postby NowhereMan » 11 Dec 2018, 16:50

Cherry Blossom Clinic Revisited by The Move features 'Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring' at just gone 3 minutes in.


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Quaco
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Re: Sneaking highbrow into pop entertainment

Postby Quaco » 11 Dec 2018, 17:51

Darkness_Fish wrote:
Quaco wrote:It's worth noting that we have gone mostly down the road of people dropping classical bits into songs. Maybe this is indicative of the age of popular music? The first couple examples I gave were of composers going far beyond what was required in order to add real innovation and musical interest to their pieces, and elevated the popular music of the day in the process. A lot of rock music with classical quotes is little more than a parlor trick. Few people, I think, would say that "Rhapsody in Blue" or "West Side Story" was a parlor trick.

Well, I'm not really a fan of trying to divide up high-art and popular art, it seems an arbitrary distinction based on elitism and a lack of understanding of what the purpose of art is (i.e., it's not the mechanism, so much as the end result which matters, although the two can be related). The dropping of classical quotations into rock songs is kind of self-defeating in that regard, it seems to add to that separation, rather than bridge the divide. One of the reasons I mentioned Revolution No 9, despite my dislike of The Beatles (and that particular album), is that it drops it in amidst a barrage of "pop", and is asked to be judged on its own merits, I don't think it was a parlor trick.

Don't get hung up on my use of the term "high art". All I meant is that "Revolution 9" may not have been entered into as a serious art piece per se -- as much avant-garde music is entered into -- rather I think it was an experiment that turned out really well, due to various factors (sense of humor, JL's pop instincts, choice of source material), and became even more incredible when forced onto a Beatles album. I certainly don't think it was a parlor trick -- I used that term to describe bands dropping classical quotations into their songs!
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pcqgod
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Re: Sneaking highbrow into pop entertainment

Postby pcqgod » 14 Dec 2018, 19:21

Where would rock 'n' roll be without feedback?

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Re: Sneaking highbrow into pop entertainment

Postby Brickyard Jack » 14 Dec 2018, 19:41

Billy joel - This night - lifts from Beethoven.

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Re: Sneaking highbrow into pop entertainment

Postby NMB » 15 Dec 2018, 00:04

Purgatory Brite wrote:

Landfill indie meets ballet. One for the pseuds I reckon.


I saw that at Sadler’s Wells, my first “ballet”. I’ve been to quite a few since so that highbrow snuck in quite successfully.
turn on, tune in, nod off


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