‘Pop belongs to the last century. Classical music is more relevant to the future'

[Radio64]

Gruniad article by Paul Morley here.

Views?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Discussion underway here:

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?11372-Controller-BBC-Radio-3/page12

... from #113 on.

[Radio64]

Thanks .. slightly OT over there though perhaps?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

i read the piece and was deeply ambivalent; many people i knew [and myself] had the listening habits he described [and wider perhaps] when he was in short trousers and school blazer .... in fact it was inconceivable that one did not listen to music as widely .... the lock-in to rock and genre was seen as narrow minded teen style and lack of curiosity [he might have mentioned Indian Classical music amongst others eg early electronics] far more quotidian than his headline and assertion is the new Asian market for classical music that Petroc T has been on about ...

on the other hand it does need restating, as someone once observed on the Third Programme, every so often the new generations must be shown the Schubert Octet ..... that the obvious is not the obvious without re-statement

[MrGongGong]

"Music journalist realises that music has more than one function"

No Sh*t Sherlock

(some good things on his list though )

[teamsaint]

Things move on times change.

He may well have a point , in that , as people may have thought for some time, that some high water mark for white British/ american pop/ rock, was passed some time ago.
That said, my suspicion is that what he is saying is that for him personally,pop belongs to the last century.

" Gotta move on sometime", as Joe Crow said.

[Blotto]

Gruniad article by Paul Morley here.

Views?

Middle-aged man disparages youth culture, declares "Not like it was in my day."

He's a good guy, our Paul, but he's nearly 60 and all he's telling us is that he's middle-aged.

Pop is frivolous and linked intimately to the freshness of the times it's made in, to the previous weeks and months. Intense appreciation of it surely requires a young brain that's being formed by the immediately surrounding cult and culture of youth? It's another of the mirrors of the young. When an old boy like Morley looks into it, he's not going to see the same things. That pop doesn't matter to him any more doesn't mean it doesn't still matter. It'll still matter greatly to the young, I'd think.

The disheartening thing is to read that he believes he's predicting the future when all he's doing is interpreting a culture which he hasn't any means of connecting to. At best, predicting the future is no more than describing to other people who haven't noticed it, something that's already going on. When they start to notice what you drew their attention to, it seems to have appeared out of thin air.

[muzzer]

Yes, an echo of "every generation thinks it's discovered sex". Come on in PM, the water's fine, nobody bites etc. Equally, I'd like to read a proper analysis of quite why and how pop/rock has eaten itself.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Good points, Blotto. And what you say highlights the wrong-headedness of R3's attempts to woo a wider and younger audience at the expense of its traditionally older listeners: the Musics of the Western Classical traditions, Jazz and other non-commercial art forms can be adored by young people (as many of us here can testify) but it does so on its own terms, not through presentation that strikes those young people as patronizing. It more often seems (and the Beeb might benefit from some definite research into this) for the larger audience, these Musics are something that comes into their lives (if at all) later, when the commercial charts seem to offer nothing, and they're more open to exploring other things and more receptive to what these other things have to say to them.

[french frank]

Yes to Blotto and Yes to ferney. A useful trick for Radio 3/the BBC would be to work out whether there are ways to develop the interest of those, less numerous, 'young people' most LIKELY to be attracted, not use a blunderbuss technique aimed at 'Young People'.

In this sense, the Morley suggestions seem good - just how, and in what contexts, do you get them heard?

[Quarky]

Yes to Blotto and Yes to ferney. A useful trick for Radio 3/the BBC would be to work out whether there are ways to develop the interest of those, less numerous, 'young people' most LIKELY to be attracted, not use a blunderbuss technique aimed at 'Young People'.

In this sense, the Morley suggestions seem good - just how, and in what contexts, do you get them heard?

You might lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. Just play it straight, put the goods on the market stall, and some may partake. It's such an intensely personal experience to convert.

ferney referred to the classical charts offering nothing. A few years back, pop videos seemed to offer soft porn with absolutely no musical content. This seemed to me an excellent way to repel anyone with musical taste. [ I don't know whether matters have improved - black music from East End / inner London may have role to play].

[french frank]

You might lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. Just play it straight, put the goods on the table, and some may partake. It's such an intensely personal experience to convert.

I think I was saying that. But you have to provide REAL opportunities for the music to be heard. Just providing Radio 3 doing its thing doesn't provide much of an opportunity.

Surely, it's the opportunity that should be more widely available?

[gurnemanz]

I read that in the Observer last week and was slightly confused as to what he was getting at. It is easy to agree that that pop is by definition essentially that music which is candy floss and ephemeral and not meant to last. For me this definition is undermined by the fact that I still enjoy listening to many of those classic 60s hits of my youth (Beatles, Kinks, Who and the rest) just as much as Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Wolf, Zemlinsky etc. Sometimes he refers to pop and sometimes to "pop and rock". It's hard to be quite sure where pop ends and rock begins. Is rock somehow the serious end of pop? Where do people like Dylan fit in? I do not know that much contemporary rock, but that which I do know and appreciate means just as much to me as contemporary classical music. Can't wait for the new Lucinda Williams. Out tomorrow. Exciting!

[Richard Barrett]

We often read how the average age of the population is increasing, as a result of greater longevity (though I suppose this might change once the NHS is completely dismantled).

Which makes you wonder what the suits at Radio 3 think is the advantage of attempting (embarrassingly for the most part) to appeal to a younger audience.

[french frank]

We often read how the average age of the population is increasing, as a result of greater longevity (though I suppose this might change once the NHS is completely dismantled).

Which makes you wonder what the suits at Radio 3 think is the advantage of attempting (embarrassingly for the most part) to appeal to a younger audience.

I think this is the pan-BBC policy. With all the competition of commercial radio (hundreds of stations) and other sources of musical entertainment accessed by the younger audiences, the BBC is terrified that their future audience will be slashed - and then where will the licence fee be?

To me, that explains why they have (apparently) still been stuffing millions into Radio 1 (plus providing 1Xtra, 6 Music (av. age 40), Asian Network - all for the young-to-early middle aged audiences) while cutting back at Radio 3. The strategies are ridiculously contradictory.