Quote:
Originally Posted by tore
Pan Flute Cover Albums
I'll start off with pan flute covers. I recently found one of these CDs in my parents-in-law's car. They denied ownership of course. So what's the background here? It seems like some record labels, possibly exploiting poor pan-flute playing peoples living in the Andes, pump out these crappy cover albums. They're typically marketed as being particularly soothing for the soul, a stark contrast to the grating effect it has on mine. Judging by the insane amount there are of these albums, producing them must be cheap and artists are possibly payed for with marbles and mirrors. For reasons I can't fully understand, there seems to be a (large) market for these albums. In this country, much of that market seems to come from out of the way gas stations or possibly in stores selling incense and dream catchers to the gullible. I figure the target group are people with no taste who are simply immune to embarassment.
A typical song one might find on such a cover CD is Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On, although any 60s/70s/80s/90s hit could be covered (although usually http://www.musicbanter.com/newreply....treply&t=53273
Music Banter - Reply to Topicnot later than that since pan flute artists generally lag behind the mainstream in music), particularly the soppy ballads.
To the people who buy this sort of stuff, if you wanna listen to My Heart Will Go On .. Why don't you go get a Celine Dion album? 
|
You are assuming they don't already have a Celine Dion album. Maybe they do, but then again maybe they don't and yet they are still familiar with it, maybe from the radio.
If someone likes Celine Dion on pan flutes I feel you (
you - plural) can't judge that person, you can't demand they know what you know, like what you like. An analogy would be if a person graduates with a Master in Lit they shouldn't be going around teasing kinder gardeners how they read - it seems pretentious.
I see it as an amalgamation of different separate tastes, one is Celine Dion and the other is the sound of the pan instrument. Maybe the Pan Flute/Celine Dion as a poor example for this - they are better examples. I'm all for a listener to broaden their musical horizons, for that person experiencing an alternative version of a song they like, maybe they would hear something different they like and think maybe there is more to life than corporate music world that encapsulate Celine Dion. Musical taste is just like anything else, the music that's out there is like anything else there are Peugeots and and then there are Aston Martins - to each his or her own. You can't expect every automobile manufacturer to build only one type of car. It's good to test ride something else before you buy a car to weigh the pro's and con's.
I'm not anti-Pop
per se but it is the over commercialize acts that the real crime against music as an art form. Music began it's suffering of not being an art form when it became a commercialize product. When it went from a social event of a band with a live audience that interacted with each other to a recording of a band which one often listens to by oneself, which if one looks at it objectively seem like a lonely event - music should be shared.
I don't think the crime against music is some guy playing cover songs with a pan flute, maybe this is a way of him paying his dues maybe his dream won't pan out because the market is supersaturated with cover-song-pan flutist (most points you brought up are legitimate and very rarely if any will be a recognizable household, they get paid peanuts) and of course it has to be put into perspective, it's not the height of music as art, nor a true form of traditional music.