Skip to main content

The Waterboys - Saints & Angels

Across the pond, the music landscape in Britain changed radically. From the ‘60s onwards, we were graced with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, then Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Who, Queen, The Smiths, and eventually Oasis in the ‘90s. Manchester and London were bouncing.

The music had a gritty emotional resonance that elevated people from humdrum life, glorifying the struggle against unemployment and rising inequality with reactionary lyrics and illuminating rhythms.

Noel Gallagher claimed that Oasis was the last true rock ’n roll band. They were pre YouTube, he said. He meant that the actual experience is now lost, because everything is available at the touch of a screen. No need to make the effort to be somewhere anymore.

Well, the leading genre in Britain today is processed pop. Maybe that’s because there’s less need for profound lyrics and original musicians, people just want to hear catchy songs. One view is that music plays a supportive role to teenagers now, rather than a liberating one. Everyone has access to everything on their phones, so there’s less need to make the effort.

Some might say technology has made us passive. And music now is less about the art and more about the money making... many recent pop songs have been written behind the scenes, not by the artists themselves, but by talented writer producers.


The Waterboys - Saints & Angels
  • Released in: 2009
  • Genre: Folk, World, & Country
  • Released on: Saints & Scoundrels album

"The Waterboys and its members' solo careers have received much praise from both rock and folk music critics, but The Waterboys as a band has never received the commercial success that some of its members have had independently."

See previous Song of the Day 

Labels:
Location: United States

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jackson Browne - Kisses Sweeter than Wine

Europe has a rich history of embracing blues and jazz music. In the early 20th century, American jazz musicians began touring Europe, introducing the continent to a new sound that was unlike anything they had ever heard before. Jazz became an instant hit among European audiences, and many European musicians began incorporating jazz elements into their music. Today, jazz festivals are held all over Europe, attracting thousands of fans from all over the world. In addition, many European cities have thriving blues scenes, with local bands and musicians performing regularly. Blues and jazz have also made their way to Asia, where they have found a devoted fan base. Japan, in particular, has a thriving jazz scene, with many Japanese musicians achieving international recognition. In addition, China has also seen a rise in the popularity of jazz music in recent years. Jazz festivals are now held in major Asian cities such as Tokyo, Shanghai, and Hong Kong, attracting jazz lovers from all over ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Veronica Swift - A Little Taste

There has always been an uncomfortable tension between rhythm and blues and rock and roll, a cyclical influence that vacillates between inspiration, appropriation and separation. Popular music has broken off into categories of rock, pop, country, and R&B, each with their own origin stories. But R&B and rock, usually codified as vastly different, Black and white styles, have long been intertwined in ways our historical memory may have us forget.  Despite the innovation that comes from separation, rock and R&B always find their way back to each other. In recent years, rock veterans have turned to the genre’s classics for inspiration. Queens of the Stone Age veered from their typical hard rock with 2017’s Villains, a dance y album inspired by frontman Josh Homme’s love of 1920s jazz and swing, other Black genres that laid the groundwork for the popular music of today. The whitewashing of rock’s history has oversimplified music’s malleability and silenced the voices of Amer...
Post a Comment
Read more

Cannonball Adderley - Willow Weep for Me

The positivity and uplifting effect of the musical product is more likely to mean the musician is cheering themselves and everybody up rather than that the musician is telling us they are happy. This can largely be applied to attitudes to the performance of jazz and other Black cultures in the Western world. Whilst some of the aforementioned jazz pioneers, like Ella Fitzgerald, stayed clean, several had a history of drug abuse... which often resulted in premature deaths. Louis Armstrong, who used the infinitely safer drug marijuana throughout his 69 years... Whilst drug use was not uncommon among musicians in general, this pattern that many of the greats of jazz died young due to addictions speaks of a consistent level of turmoil, and alludes to their common experience of racism as a depressive factor in 20th Century America. Source: A Soft Reminder of Where Jazz Came From by Tom Platts Cannonball Adderley - Willow Weep for Me Released in: September 1955 Genre: Jazz Label: Savoy "...
Post a Comment
Read more