We're due a BIG band....

[MrBen]

With The Stone Roses reforming and Noel Gallagher's Flying Birds released last week I can't help but think we've been stuck in a period of stale musical rehash that comes along every decade or so.

I can't recall it being this bad since the days of Jazzy Jeff, Alannah Myles and Madonna in.... 1990.

Are we not due for a massive band to break that would form the soundtracks to our lives? A modern day Stones, a recessionary slap in the face from a Pistols equivalent, a new New Order....hell...even a new Blur would be great.

All the ingredients are here...economic gloom, world strife, and a mass market neutered by X Factor. Can a BIG, IMPORTANT FOR ITS TIME rock band ever emerge again?

Or is it just how we all feel getting older? (I hope not)

[*Bob*]

'An important for its time rock band'?

Welcome to middle age, Mr Ben.

[StraferJack]

doubt it will happen anyway - it's not a generational thing to look at the music business in 2011 and see that it's highly unlikely an artist can have the same impact again.

[Jah Lush]

Sadly, you're all right Jack. I can't see it happening.

[*Bob*]

The Scene: a pub, 1944

Man A: Do you think there's ever going to be another proppa big band?

Man B: Wot, like Glenn Miller..?

Man A: Yeah.

Man B: Nah, can't see it it happening.

[Jah Lush]

Arf! It'd just be history repeating itself. The last time we had similar circumstances (recession, lack of jobs, no money) the punk scene exploded but that was 35 years ago. More musical rehashing if does. There's always room for expressing the times though.

[*Bob*]

The Scene: a tavern, Italy, 1632.

Man A: Do you think-a there will-a ever be music which is as innovative as that-a of Monteverdi?

Man B: Na. I don't-a think it will-a happen.

[Jah Lush]

Heard you right first time *Bob*.

[MrBen]

...so that's view from the jaded and begrizzled at the bar (or from behind the Roland synth).

anyone else have more optimism? Is rock music now a revivalist movement like trad jazz was in the late 50's?

[Otta]

There are BIG bands, but just nt ones that I like. Coldplay are huge, worldwide, what more can they do?

[MrBen]

But remember how you felt when you heard "Appetite" for the first time Otta.

Do you believe a band could make you feel like that again past 35 years old?

[*Bob*]

I'd expect a technology-based innovation to unexpectedly bring about something genuinely new and different.

As it happens, if you've got a spare $6000, you can buy it already.

[Otta]

I don't know. I wouldn't look up to them, and think they were so cool now, probably because I'm older than most of them. The Arctic Monkeys for example, my main problem with them was the fact that I thought they were annoying little scrotes, rather than any problem with their music.

Hot Fuss by The Killers was huge for me, but I guess that was a while ago now, so I was only mid 20s.

Anyway, I'm still 2 years off 35, so I'm like, way cooler than you B)

[MrBen]

Almost everyone is way cooler than me Otta, and you certainly are.

My main issue with the Artic Monkeys was that they sounded shite live. The BIG bands that I'm talking about (and craving) all nailed it live. The Stones still do, even if watching them at the O2, in a padded armchair and eating free hot dogs is a world away from a rough arsed south london club circa 1964.

[Jah Lush]

*Bob* Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I'd expect a technology-based innovation to

> unexpectedly bring about something genuinely new

> and different.

>

> As it happens, if you've got a spare $6000, you

> can buy it already.

But that's 24 years old *Bob*

[*Bob*]

Not everyone is as swift to embrace the future as they ought to be, Jah. But give it another fifty years or so and mark my words - magical musical instruments which instantly open a dimensional portal to anywhere in the galaxy - will be two a penny.

And all this business about these polar monkeys and their silly guitars will be soon forgotten.

Keith Richards will have one, of course - because The Stones will still be playing (the O3)

[Jeremy]

StraferJack Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> doubt it will happen anyway - it's not a

> generational thing to look at the music business

> in 2011 and see that it's highly unlikely an

> artist can have the same impact again.

Not sure I would agree... I don't think the state of the industry would be a barrier to a band breaking through and capturing the imagination of the public. I don't remember Nirvana getting a huge marketing push.

[StraferJack]

Well Nirvana signed to Geffen for that record, so you may or may not remember a push but it was there. And it was (as we can't escape) 20 years ago anyway

But comparing Glenn Miller to, say, the 1990s is false. Advances like cassettes and cds changed little of the landscape. Since mid 90s and even mid 2000s, after decades of pretty much a few tv channels and radio and music albums, the landscape is significantly more fractured and varied

I don't thing that makes me gloomy or cynical btw - whatver the next "big thing" is it just won't involve keyboards or guitars. "young people's music" as a vehicle for "something big" lasted a few decades. Not bad but the world changed before it and it'll change after it

[Jeremy]

Sure, Nirvana went major, and there was a budget for promotion, music videos, etc... but it wasn't huge. Geffen never expected Nirvana to become household names. There was a $30K-$50K budget for the Teen Spirit video - a tiny fraction of the money spent on Lady Gaga and Rihanna videos these days. But the thing proved popular on MTV, and it just took off... it was the 90s equivalent of "going viral".

[StraferJack]

all true Jeremy - but back then MTV played music videos and people were looking for stuff

10 years later a video goes ballistic - say Hey Ya by Outkast - but does it lead to them becoming huge? Not really.

to take the Pistols argument from the OP - that was surely only possible because of the rules in place at the time. these days pretty much anything goes - if not on TV then on a billion internet sites.

Something in the shape of the pistols would be laughed out of town now

(or at the very least they would have lots of forumites solemnly asking them "what their point was" or "im sorry but if you can't articulate your message better than that then I'm afraid I don't have to listen")

[Brendan]

You're all fucking idiots!

[Brendan]

Ill articulated for the purpose of nostalgia.

[Jah Lush]

The shock value's gone Brendan. Even nostalgia ain't what it used to be.

[*Bob*]

True.. once you've been to a gig where mass brawling breaks-out, the police are called, the venue gets smashed-up and the artist has to scarper through the rear door for his own protection, well.. where do you go from there?

Of course that was opening of The Rite of Spring - back in 1913.

[StraferJack]

well a few decades later you could wiggle your hips in a TV studio and REALLY upset people