Are questions on pop music legit. for University Challenge?

[ardcarp]

Before you make fun of MrGG's attitudes, you might consider that it's only through the efforts of people like him that there's still hope for at least some people coming through that system with a lively appreciation of what music in all its shapes and forms has to offer.

Oops, sorry. All meant in good humour. And yes of course McGG does a great job.

[gradus]

Only Connect- another BBC quiz show m'lud - seems mostly to avoid questions that need a knowledge of classical music when a music question arises, whereas UC does ask classical music questions reasonably often. To me general knowledge seems by definition to include both music genres even if you are representing Balliol etc.
Incidentally I've never quite understood why Buddy Holly is held in such high esteem having been lukewarm about his records since they were first issued - The Everlys, now you're talking. It's just personal taste isn't it?

[MrGongGong]

Oops, sorry. All meant in good humour. And yes of course McGG does a great job.

No offence taken

[MrGongGong]

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/arts-entertainment/man-has-amazing-ability-to-know-all-new-music-is-shit-without-listening-to-it-20170221122494

[Bryn]

If we must have adaptations of Bolero:

[french frank]

But that's not really the subject of the discussion though, is it? Surely the point was not that Buddy Holly or whoever was "great", which as has been said is a matter of opinion, but the fact that his work is an example from the 1950s of transcending the "ephemeral" quality ascribed by some to pop music, to the extent that people are still listening to it half a century later

I was unaware that 'people' were still listening to him very much - by which I mean people of the later generations, not the ones who enjoyed his work at the time.

By "great" I merely meant it in the sense that people use the word loosely, and questioning whether, in your words, he did 'transcend the "ephemeral" ' . My memory of what I thought when I bought 'That'll be the day' is that I liked it, and could listen to it, if not 'over and over again', at least quite often in the space of the few weeks that it was in the charts. Here today and gone tomorrow.

Popular culture is of interest (even to me) as a sign of changing times, but I suspect that much of its 'longevity' (if such there be) is due to the mass of recorded material that survives which means that everything, potentially, has a long life.

[french frank]

Interestingly, or possibly not, and maybe even germanely - Donald Macleod, much revered in this parish, in his, IMVVHO, excellent week on Ravel seemed to ascribe to his R3 audience, not only a working knowledge of Led Zeppelin and Heigh Ho Silver Lining but also to the B side of the latter .... !!!!!

But then, as the man said, "I'm one of the world's great bluffers."

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2013-07-29/composer-of-the-week-host-donald-macleod-im-one-of-the-worlds-great-bluffers

It doesn't mean he knows anything about them.

[Bryn]

I was unaware that 'people' were still listening to him very much - by which I mean people of the later generations, not the ones who enjoyed his work at the time.

By "great" I merely meant it in the sense that people use the word loosely, and questioning whether, in your words, he did 'transcend the "ephemeral" ' . My memory of what I thought when I bought 'That'll be the day' is that I liked it, and could listen to it, if not 'over and over again', at least quite often in the space of the few weeks that it was in the charts. Here today and gone tomorrow.

Popular culture is of interest (even to me) as a sign of changing times, but I suspect that much of its 'longevity' (if such there be) is due to the mass of recorded material that survives which means that everything, potentially, has a long life.

Sorry Frenchie, but your not being familiar with a good many of today's young being enthusiastic about Buddy Holly's music and recordings only demonstrates the restricted breadth of your encounters with such fans. I have never been that taken with his muse but know several late teens and young adults (all girls, as it happens) who are heavily into Holly and his ilk. I have learned more about his life from them than from any other source. They are pretty taken with the Big Bopper too.

[french frank]

Sorry Frenchie, but your not being familiar with a good many of today's young being enthusiastic about Buddy Holly's music and recordings only demonstrates the restricted breadth of your encounters with such fans. I have never been that taken with his muse but know several late teens and young adults (all girls, as it happens) who are heavily into Holly and his ilk. I have learned more about his life from them than from any other source. They are pretty taken with the Big Bopper too.

Squelch What sort of place do you meet all these late teen and young adult girls who are enthusiastic about Buddy Holly? They would be interesting to talk to about their other musical interests. Interesting to me, I mean.

[teamsaint]

Squelch What sort of place do you meet all these late teen and young adult girls who are enthusiastic about Buddy Holly? They would be interesting to talk to about their other musical interests. Interesting to me, I mean.

Well I know for a fact that some course work for a module in the music degree at Southampton University involves listening to some Chuck Berry songs.
That is "work" in what must be its very loosest sense......

[Flay]

The young female bassist (Gal Wilkenfeld) is only 19 in this!!!

She looks about 14. But hi ho, what would I know?

[MrGongGong]

Shame R3 missed this

http://arts.brookes.ac.uk/events/items/280613-no-sir-i-wont.html

[french frank]

Well I know for a fact that some course work for a module in the music degree at Southampton University involves listening to some Chuck Berry songs.
That is "work" in what must be its very loosest sense......

But interesting because it raises a similar question to the OP - I mean a genuine question, not a criticism: Why (as in 'I'm posing a question in a thoughtful way') do university music courses now focus on popular music in a way that they wouldn't have in previous eras? Is the music studied as a cultural creation or a musical one? For example, much popular music is song where the words/subjects can be studied separately from the music.

[teamsaint]

But interesting because it raises a similar question to the OP - I mean a genuine question, not a criticism: Why (as in 'I'm posing a question in a thoughtful way') do university music courses now focus on popular music in a way that they wouldn't have in previous eras? Is the music studied as a cultural creation or a musical one? For example, much popular music is song where the words/subjects can be studied separately from the music.

I'm sure that there are experts out there to answer that, although it is certainly true that pop music, music video and presentation is studied and written about In its social and cultural context,but you would expect that.

More tellingly perhaps,I attended a music BA open day at Royal Holloway not so long ago. I think the course there is reasonably mainstream and traditional . What really stuck with me from that day though was the academic who led/ presented the day was at great pains to make the case for the course being one where students would have their individual abilities developed, with the very definite goal of finding each person the specific niche in the world of musical employment that they were uniquely suited to,something I didn't encounter so specifically at any other ( of many ! ) such days. So for them, future employment context might be part , but only part of the reason to include study of music outside the classical mainstream.

[EnemyoftheStoat]

If there's a reference above that my speed-reading has missed, please excuse, but to be anywhere near the level of difficulty of some other UC subjects, shouldn't questions be set on music theory?