I’m a 70-something geek and amateur musician … meh …
This blog ? To showcase some (once) popular music that I continue to enjoy. YRMV.
IMHO, the music featured here exhibits the critical artistic qualities that actually put the ‘pop’ into popular music: Talent, Passion and Perserverance. Talent embodies creativity and skill. Passion speaks to human emotions. Perseverance confirms that the artist believes in their own work. Music created with high levels of these ingredients, (in some combination), outlasts short term fads and trends. This kind of music must remain freely available – not only as homage to those who crafted it - but as a resource, continuing to entertain, inform, and inspire anyone who cares to listen.
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We are now in the middle of the ‘Codecs vs Quality’ era. Digitization remains a double-edged sword. CD’s gave us a taste of high resolution, (so-called lossless), audio reproduction, but have been completely overshadowed by MP3 and other lossy, (compressed), formats which produce much smaller files that are transferred/streamed with greater efficiency. The problem with this is that the original audio signal, (analog OR digital), can never be recovered after lossy compression.
If master tapes or other original media are lost, destroyed or simply left on a shelf somewhere, without being digitized at high, (i.e. lossless), resolution, the ‘real’ music is gone forever, (see The Great 78 Project). That’s why I continue to collect CD’s - derived from master material. Vinyl is a fallback, (but susceptible to mechanical imperfections all the way from mastering to playback and storage of the final disc). Digitization directly from the original analog source, (at high resolution), is the gold standard.
Lossless compression CODECS exist, (though not as efficient in shrinking file size). Patented software from several companies can compress (digitized) music, then reverse the process to regenerate the original (digital) file exactly. Fortunately for music lovers, the Open Source software community developed the non-proprietary Free Lossless Audio Coder (FLAC) CODEC, which also provides this functionality. All music on this site is in FLAC format at ‘CD quality’, (16 bit resolution @ 44.1 kHz). Modern browsers, (and finally, even IOS), support FLAC.
With modern digital tools, (drum machines, samplers, vocoders, pitch correction tools, etc. etc.), virtually anyone can generate MUSICK, (with a minimum, or even none, of the 3 critical ingredients above), and easily distribute it to the world via the internet. As the (global) audience, we have a responsibility to ‘listen wisely’ – to distinguish beautiful from banal in deciding what today's popular music really should be.
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An observation that no one, (not even the original artist), can really own music. The legal concept of 'intellectual property' is no less a fabrication than the tooth fairy, and is eroding rapidly with advances in technology. Still, we need to find robust means to encourage and equitably compensate innovators and artists around the world.
Ownership and value are often confused. This has beggared artists and enriched countless others ever since the business of music was launched with automated production of printed music in the 19th century. The advent of the recording industry in the early 20th century muddied the water even further. The intrinsic value of any music, (if indeed it has any), derives entirely from the listening audience, (perhaps only an individual in a room by themself). The value of any music is the response it evokes in the listener. Our appreciation of music is as distinctive as our DNA, so it is quite impossible to assign a singular value to any music. It is both invaluable and priceless.
I hope you will appreciate some of the music presented here. Please support your favorite artists generously, in as direct a manner as possible.