Get With The Jive, Daddy-o!

[poliphilo]

Ailz was listening to the Seekers yesterday. I was mildly scornful. "Oh, yes," she replied, "And who's the youngest artist in your CD collection- Paul McCartney?" 

That shut me up.

At the very time she was playing the Seekers I was downstairs listening to the Velvet Underground.

And my last three CD purchases were compilations of Edith Piaf, Charles Trenet and George Brassens- all now members of the choir invisible.

There's not much music from the past thirty years I really like. Oh, I'll listen to contemporary stuff, but it wouldn't occur to me to buy it. Ailz is much more savvy. She just bought Katie Melua and Snow Patrol. Her tastes may be middle of the road, but at least they're up to date.

It's rather the same with cinema. Yesterday, belatedly, I bought a copy of Teh Big Gay Cowboy Movie ( a snip at £4.99)  but, if I'm honest, my heart is elsewhere. I try to keep up with the movies, but the things I usually buy- the things I want in my collection- are from thirty, forty, fifty years back. 

In the good old days people like me used to be known as squares. I don't know if there's a modern equivalent.

Comments

[ibid.livejournal.com]

I sympathise. I cannot stand most modern popular music and on the whole I like older films. I have a nasty feeling I'll end up like my Dad who refuses to admit anything modern is good. What's the opposite of a neophiliac?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm inclined to think that most contemporary music is just recycling the past. Same with contemporary films.

[bodhibird.livejournal.com]

In the good old days people like me used to be known as squares. I don't know if there's a modern equivalent.

I think of people like you as "people with taste". *g*

The closest I get to current pop music is Sting, or an occasional fit of Tori Amos (though I am way behind on her albums). Otherwise, who cares? And at this point I am more interested in defunct tv shows than in film. Babylon 5 is a five-year labor of love, really a novel for television, a coherent story arc from beginning to end; most films pale beside that for me.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

TV is the one area where I keep up to date. Sort of. I love Dr Who and the new generation of British comics.

British tv

[bodhibird.livejournal.com]

I'm still happily watching re-runs of weary old warhorses like Are You Being Served? on Saturday nights. I'd be watching Doctor #4, too, if it didn't come on at midnight--that's past my bedtime.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

Retrokids.

(I'm genuinely uncertain as to whether I really heard that or made it up on the spot.)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Whatever- it's a damn good word. I shall be looking for opportunities to slip it into the conversation.

[cybersofa.livejournal.com]

Well, I got The Pipettes' album for Xmas. *Is down with the kids*

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I've never even heard of them.

They sound like a Motown girl group- but I'll take your word for it that they're "happening".

[cybersofa.livejournal.com]

They are indeed girls and sound Motowny, though the backing's a bit lightweight. Nearer Casiotone than Wall Of Sound, but the harmonies are lovely.

And they are definitely happening - why, they were interviewed on Woman's Hour last week. Er, so I heard, anyway.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Woman's Hour, eh- the cutting edge of cool...:)

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

Gosh...I feel the same way about movies. I'd rather watch some classy old b&w than almost anything released today.

Music is a different story, since I tend toward folk type music.

yes, People with Taste. That's us.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I listen to folk too. The youngest person in my CD collection is probably Eliza Carthy.

[cataptromancer.livejournal.com]

Well, pop music hasn't been very good at all for a while, but there's a lot of not-always-played-on-the-radio stuff that's good. And of course, it does recycle the past, but I think that's what good art does by default anyway.

Have you tried the band 'The Magnetic Fields'? Particularly their triple-album '69 Love Songs' - articulate, witty, and genre-playful, hopping from tin-pan alley mockups to modern pop. And for a more music-y and dance-y kind of listenable pop (which is definitely guilty of recyclying the past), have you tried 'Belle and Sebastian'? (Although B&S may be bigger in the UK than in the US, so perhaps you think of them as a well-known band that gets airplay). Far less well-known is 'Ad Frank and the Fast, Easy Women', a pop songwriter out of Boston, Massachusetts. And speaking of Boston, there are the acerbic, self-proclaimed "brechtian punk cabaret" duo 'The Dresden Dolls.' And for weird, Joanna Newsome, kind of Narnia-nonlinear-folk.

If none of those work, let me keep trying to convince. I'm rather fond of the music that's been produced since I've been a-breathing this air, and so I'll defend it to the best of my ability.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the recommendations.

I really need to get out more.

So much to listen to, so little time....

[manfalling.livejournal.com]

yo dad- back in japan, just about dealt with the jet-lag by now. thought i'd comment on some TV stuff i saw on the plane that you might want to check out if you haven't already, since you say you like modern comics.

mitchell and webb. did you ever see them? they've got a show called peepshow and a few series of 'that mitchell and webb something' which is a sketch show.

they had me in hysterics over siberia.

mike.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Mitchell and Webb are the new young comics I like best. I think I watched every episode of their sketch show (it was on after Ricky Gervais's Extras which was- of course- unmissable)

I have four words for you (four words and a hyphen): Sir Digby Chicken-Caesar!