No offense, but this is elitist propaganda. To mention John Cage, in reference to an article on narrative is like mentioning like mentioning Thomas Aquinas in a discussion about Science. Its not bad enough that he's terrible at it, but that his work has moved against its progress.

As for your second paragraph, this solidifies the elitist completely. To suggest John Cage or Phil Sector is good is something I can believe, but to back both while simultaneously assaulting ALL of the bands I listed its complete non-sense. At least 3 of the acts listed are closer to either specter or cage than cage is to specter. If this were a sailing trip you'd have left England for New York by going around the Cape of Good Hope - in other words, roundabout for the sake of it and for nothing more.

And again, classical ought to have very little to do with this. Its about narrative, which classical may have, but it should never be the measuring stick. A genre without lyrics is inherently hamstrung when it comes to narrative. Yes I'm speaking about music, or more accurately sound, but its sound pitched against lyrics than can, when angled certain ways, reflect sound like light through a prism and give us a kaleidoscope of options, a blinding attack on the pupils, or illuminate that prism wholly.

Imagine the whole thing like a Theremin. Waves emanates out, objects (hands) alter those waves to create sound. Each object on a completely independent axis and trajectory, with all three dimensions in play.

Classical couldn't possibly enter the discussion.

I'm not at all elitist, I listen to all kinds of music. If I was elitist I wouldn't be on this board lol. And Cage has done theatrical work with his music as well. If you don't want to broaden it out into other areas of music then that is up to you. I'll just add that the background sound can be seen not necessarily as being in opposition to the singer but as reflecting their emotions as well, it obviously depends on the piece which interpretation is useful.

[Eric Turner]
Oh written in the stars
A million miles away
A message to the main
Ooooh
Seasons come and go
But I will never change
And I’m on my way

People say an awful lot by some of the stupid **** they do. As it relates to music, lyrics tell me too much.

Take the above example for instance. This is the refrain of some terrible ass rap song who’s verses are so terrible it defies description. But those are seemingly deliberate (as I imagine everything is when you talk about yourself). This refrain I’ve posted above is just filler, and it drives me ****ing nuts.

Let’s start from the start: In anything you do you can give 100%. Its used a lot in sports though I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a professional athlete give that much. In most things, doing 60% puts you well above the pack. Imagine for a second, if you would, putting countless hours into a song. Do you think, if you did that, you’d come up with something better than the refrain at the top? So do I.

Whats most disconcerting about this “effort” is that it doesn’t make any ****ing sense. First off, wtf is a Main? And why would you send messages to it? This sounds like ridiculous nit picking. “Come on man, its like, you know, a general sense of the word…like he’s sending this to everyone.” Is he? If that’s honestly what he was saying, that was the best phrase he could come up with? It doesn’t even ****ing rhyme with anything? Why would you say that?

Paul Simon once said “syllables matter.” He said that when he was asked why he used Joe DiMaggio in “Mrs. Robinson” as opposed to his favorite Yankee, Mickey Mantle. So, alright, syllables do matter…but I can’t imagine Simon backing up Mr. Turner. 6 syllables were all he needed. One starts to imagine that he’d have made more sense if Main was “Maine” or “Mane.” All three are crazy illogical, but there might have been some misconstrued inference in the latter 2.

And I feel like the time invested in these lyrics are now coming up on nearly 3 times the amount by the original author, but if you take nothing else from this, let it at least be that

1. Someone is going to look this closely at what you do and…
2. Great artists (great anythings really) will put this much effort into everything.

The “plot” of this refrain also start to make you wonder if they didn’t just do a melody recording with words thrown in for the hell of it and decided after one take that, yeah this will do. So theres some message written in stars a million miles away. First of all, unless its God, who the **** is writing this message? And who’s the message for? Who reads stars? The Mayans? Either this artist “Tinih Tempah” (which, for the record, is a TERRIBLE NAME) is some sort of super hero, or this is supposed to be metaphorical. If that’s the case, you wouldn’t see stars a million miles away, so what’s that say about you? Even when you try and salvage it by factoring in the speed of light, which is well over a million miles per second (299, 792, 458 to be exact, almost 3 times), then why even mention that the stars are that far away?

I’ll tell you why, you lazy ****, because you didn’t do a ****ing lick of research and it smacks me in the face everytime Kiss 108 plays your half-hit wonder on the ****ing radio. You’re a throw-away artist just like every other R&B infused, synthed to death, pop song that’s come out since Boy Bands died a horrible, horrible death in 2003.

Folks, lyrics matter. You can’t say “well this song is ****ing killer, so lets just rush through the refrain and sell it on the body. You know why, because not everyone likes the body, and if you really want to make a classic song, or convey emotions accurately, then you don’t rush through anything. Michael Stipe once said if it were up to hi they’d still be remixing murmur. I don’t think that’s necessary, but do something. It’s a sad day when you can’t even be bothered to work at your day job, let alone hide the fact that you’re a studio musician showing up for a paycheck.

I don't know the song you are quoting but I do consider the musicality of words important, it normally works better if it fits the music. And you seem to be taking some of the phrases in those lyrics too literally as well. Some imaginative license is allowed perhaps. If the music is good I normally find that the lyrics are at least ok, there isn't normally some repetitive or really simple idea throughout the lyrics that sets back the music. And for most people the music is certainly the main thing. Great lyrics to bad music won't be listened to by many people.

No thats fair, but I don't think theres a level of success or failure to be judged/measured here. I think it should be on a sliding scale of "effort" and it probably should be binary; Yes there was, no there wasn't. But you judge for yourself here...

You know....I always thought he was saying "A message to the maaaaaan oh.

not main.

Maybe you think he's saying main but he's really just stretching out man. The same man that keeps everyone down.

You know like hippies talk about the government and call it the man. Uncle Sam all that jazz.

Now that we understand that he is really saying man in a ****ed up way because of his singing.

Why would he be sending a message to the government? or maybe The Man is just a term to describe opposition, those that oppose him to represent a system.

Yeah well I got those from a site. And it sounds like main to me.

Okay, so I did a quick google research and main means people because we are the dominant race.

A message to the main is basically a message from God to the main(people)

It seems to make sense but that's just one persons interpretation.

For Paloma
 

Lie to Me



Goin' out West



16 shells from a Thirty ought Six

Thanks for trying Brennan. 16 Shells From a Thirty ought Six was probably the closest thing to listenable that a Tom Waits song has ever been to me. The two other ones were utter crap though. Especially Lie to Me, it sounds like something someone's embarrassing dad does with his friends on weekends off from his desk job