My First Pop/Popular Single and LP

[Radio64]

us lot on 'ere talking baout trivial pop music and such like.

[Beef Oven!]

us lot on 'ere talking baout trivial pop music and such like.

Speaking for myself, I've always liked classical, and it really took hold in about 1988.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Speaking for myself, I've always liked classical, and it really took hold in about 1988.

Yes - thanks to my Primary School Headmaster, I was always aware of and enjoyed 18th & 19th Century Music from the Western Classical Traditions, but Pop Music was so much more ubiquitous at that age. The break-up of the Beatles, my change to Secondary School, my feeling that the Pop of the early '70s was much drearier than it had been in the '60s and a certain coffee advert got me investigating the Classics almost exclusively between 1971 - 77. I find it very difficult to listen to Popular Musics (from all eras - it's the same with the Strauss family et al) for much longer than, say, 45 mins; whereas, say, the five hours of Gotterdammerung or For Philip Guston hold me captivated throughout - so, I suppose, that's what I'm really about.

[Beef Oven!]

Yes - thanks to my Primary School Headmaster, I was always aware of and enjoyed 18th & 19th Century Music from the Western Classical Traditions, but Pop Music was so much more ubiquitous at that age. The break-up of the Beatles, my change to Secondary School, my feeling that the Pop of the early '70s was much drearier than it had been in the '60s and a certain coffee advert got me investigating the Classics almost exclusively between 1971 - 77. I find it very difficult to listen to Popular Musics (from all eras - it's the same with the Strauss family et al) for much longer than, say, 45 mins; whereas, say, the five hours of Gotterdammerung or For Philip Guston hold me captivated throughout - so, I suppose, that's what I'm really about.

I had a secondary school teacher who used to play about 5 minutes of classical music (including that coffee advert piece!) at the beginning of assembly every morning, just before we used to pray, sing hymns and hear stories about Jesus Christ, his disciples et al. That helped my interest.

My mum used to have the radio on all the time in the 60s, and I really remember it only being classical music that was being played. Not just mainstream classical, but stuff that must've been avant gardeish, a la Boulez (at least that's my memory).

My older brother used to play loads of music in the house (on instruments and the record player) and the two main artists were Captain Beefheart and Bartok (our pet tortoise's name was Bartok!). I can remember very clearly being confused that my classmates didn't know who Bela and Don were!!! They were quite literally household names and noises for me.

My dad used to play lots of musicals LPs (MFLady, SoMusic, S.Pacific, WSStory etc) and Mantovani, Mancini, Ted Heath and Breakthrough stuff, and I think that kept the classical on the boil in a kind of related way.

I enjoyed the 70s with all the avant garde and underground rock and positively revelled in punk.

It wasn't until I felt that there was no longer any decent rock to listen to, by the early mid 80s and feeling jazz was just a load of noodling to get back to where you started (of course I'm wrong in that) that I started to give classical music the attention it deserved.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I enjoyed the 70s with all the avant garde and underground rock and positively revelled in punk.

I only discovered "alternative" rock late in the decade - and Punk was what got me interested again in mainstream (of a sort) Pop - I had a mate who loved those Musics as much as I loved "Classical"; we'd swap records, so Zappa and Captain Beefheart and the Moody Blues did turntable exchanges with Brahms, Stockhausen and Bach. (I never did "get" why others made such a fuss of Rumours and/or Tapestry, though). I've just remembered, too, that Tubular Bells, Ommadawn and (especially) Hergest Ridge were great favourites from my "Pop Wilderness" years.

[silvestrione]

So when did we all go "classical" ?

As a boy I loved Friday Night is Music Night, adored Semprini. When my mother eventually hinted that he was not all there could be in a pianist, I became thoughtful. (Though Rob Cowan played some Semprini a few years back in one of his 'blind' listen slots...I was much moved.)

We had a music teacher who did Music Appreciation in the Lower 6th. He talked us through each movement of the 'Italian Symphony, over a number of weeks, and then played the whole thing. I can still remember the pleasure with which I anticipated and settled down to enjoy that final play-through.

Three boys in our household, and for some reason you could not like what the others liked! The eldest had Elvis, the next the Beatles, and I...went for classical (or Sibelius and Elgar, rather).

[vinteuil]

Three boys in our household, and for some reason you could not like what the others liked! The eldest had Elvis, the next the Beatles, and I...went for classical ).

... very similar here : three boys, the eldest was into pop/rock (the Stones, the Kinks), the second into jazz (MJQ) , and I ... went for classical (or baroque, rather... )



.

[gurnemanz]

My conversion to classical music occurred around 1967, the year I went to university, and coincided strangely with Auntie Beeb's somewhat belated conversion to pop with the creation of Radio One. Up till then we had been almost entirely dependent on Radio Luxembourg and the pirate ships, Radio London and Caroline, for our pop music needs. I still listened to rock but never really tuned to Radio One, just keeping up with artists I already knew (eg Dylan) and attending discos etc. I completely missed out 70s glam and punk.

[Serial_Apologist]

My only pop single ever was "Rock around the Clock", bought at age 11 - the only interesting part of which was the first of the two guitar breaks, and it led me ineluctably to jazz; once in through one of the tiny entry doors one found oneself in a Tardis-like palace of many rooms and furnishings, which I've been exploring ever since.

[teamsaint]

Interesting question from Rads about peoples musical journeys.

I always had some classical music around me, mostly choral and church music.

I had to go out and discover pop and rock on my own, as I am an oldest, and my parents had no interest.
Partly as a result,and after an apprenticeship from Alex Harvey, I rather joined the "if anybody except John Peel and me know about this , the band must have sold out"school of neo elitism.
Also got more than a gutful of choral and o level type music by the age of 15, and so abandoned most classical(but not all) for about 25 years, and dedicated my time to the search for pop and rock that fitted some very exacting criteria, (political, social, musical etc, yawn yawn).

At a certain point, perhaps around my 40 th birthday, I decided that this was all wrong, and that the search could be conducted via other peoples expertise, that time is short, and why on earth would you hunt high and low for increasingly rare decent pop/rock, when there is so much of genius just sitting there waiting for me to put it on the turntable.

Or something like that.

Incidentally, not sure how Ferney's "new " theory applies to "wave".

[MrBear]

Purple Rain lp by Prince and the revolution
I really want to listen to it can it really be as good as remember I would advise everyone to give it a listen ok you might not like it but I hope it would be interesting
Might see how cheap I can find a cd on t'net I use to think that much of it I want to know what I would think of it now

[Beef Oven!]

Purple Rain lp by Prince and the revolution
I really want to listen to it can it really be as good as remember I would advise everyone to give it a listen ok you might not like it but I hope it would be interesting
Might see how cheap I can find a cd on t'net I use to think that much of it I want to know what I would think of it now

Great album. I never replaced my vinyl copy until last year. Got the CD for about £4.00 on Amazon.

[antongould]

Or, possibly, the New's similarly titled You won't find another fool like me?

Isn't it remarkable how, whenever you put "new" in front of something, you immediately ruin it.

I would agree to Labour the point for instance.......

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I would agree to Labour the point for instance.......

Thinking about ts's "New Wave" - I think that if the first title of something already includes the word "New" then it doesn't fall into the general rule. "New Wave" is ok, because there wasn't a "Wave" movement before (unless you count the Vortexists); "New Complexity" similarly - there never was a "Complexity"; "Newcastle".

"New Romantics" on the other hand ...

[vinteuil]

...oh, not always so bad. New Model Army. New York. New Testament .Neue Bachgesellschaft. New Hebrides. Lobster Newburg...