Hadn’t seen anyone use the term for a while (maybe this should be a rolling thread compiling people who talk about “real” records/bands/musc) as the great bunch of lads with good haircuts blowing the roof off of venues brigade have been quiet but I just saw this from Visconti
“In my generation, the 70s was such a golden decade, because people were making real records and real studios, with great musicians and we didn’t have auto-tune, and the only way you got into the recording studio is by being great,”
It’s whatever people were listening to/playing in their teens to mid twenties. I catch myself occasionally wishing people would still make “real hip hop” but that’s just because I’m past it and pining for the same stuff I was listening to twenty years ago. It’s bullshit, young people and new scenes are making just as real music as ever, us older people just need to shut up and let people enjoy what they enjoy.
Started writing something but it’s such a flimsy concept that it just falls to pieces instantly. Think it was quite a useful idea when I was 13 or whatever and distancing myself from ‘pop’ music.
I think by ‘real music’ he means music made by people who are keen to continue to provide Tony Visconti (and his ilk) with both money and cultural relevance
Apple Music has this thumbnail picture for a playlist that contains your John Denvers, Carole Kings, Willie Nelsons etc.
I think 'real music’ – whilst it means nothing to me per se – is personal, poignant, and immediate. For example, your regular guitarist in the church band aping Crosby, Stills & Nash.
Music made with the purpose of expressing something, rather than music made to appeal to a target market. It’s about intent - the difference between art and content. Entirely genre agnostic and reality is in the eye of the beholder.
I think really he’s lamenting the waning relevance of the traditional high-end recording studio and, to some extent, traditional musicianship.
If I were him, I’d be sad too — he’s an expert and it’s at the core of his identity — but obviously plenty of ‘real’ music is made on laptop or whatever, and music is all the better for it.
I think he’s right that the majority of interesting music has been made in spite of the big labels, but I can’t imagine his day rates would be drawing wayward geniuses into the studio if GarageBand/Protools/whatever hadn’t been invented
If you had asked me when I was an unbearable teenager it probably would have involved an ignorant rant about computers and sampling, shouted over the top of Heathen Chemistry. What a silly little boy I was.
When I was young I was hung up on this and places like this site helped it gradually fall away. I was raised on Dylan, Springsteen, Zevon, the Band, etc. Quote unquote real music, and I am grateful but…
It also locked me out of a lot of stuff. Electro when I was a teen, rap in my twenties, etc, and allowing those boundaries to fall away has brought me nothing but joy.
Now I know it’s just about how it makes you feel. Recently read that book rap capital for example all about the so called (but not really in the book) ‘mumble rappers’ of Atlanta. Fully appreciating the context of that music helped me really get into it and locate the same spark of young people MAKING SOMETHING with what the tools they’ve got in front of them as I did in eg the first Idlewild album. I’ve come to really love hearing music from people who have none of the same influences I do.
And I think young artists should have a kind of wilful disrespect to what came before. That’s why that music (or anything we might be unfamiliar with) sounds alien. That used to be a bad thing to me, now I love it.
Think it’s one of those things where the people who say it earnestly are outnumbered 100/1000 times by those who ridicule it, at least on DiS circles. Like the “industry plant” thing.
Yeah exactly! That’s a completely different point. Totally get why he would think it’s a better more satisfy way of doing things, don’t think it’s an unreasonable point of view at all
Whilst I totally get this, often the most powerful music with a purpose is for demographics who care about the same topics or should care.
It’s an interesting conundrum when you unpick it.
Like I just released a single by NXKXTA last week about the grim grooming of teenagers called Ephebophile and I know the people it is going to resonate most with are those who’ve experienced it and are activists to stop it. But also to people who’ve not questioned how normalised it is compared to pedophilia are who we really want to hear it. She’s written a really powerful piece about the track for The Big Issue which is running next week but is that appealing to a target market? It’s such a mind flip.
I think the bigger difference I have in my mind is music made for pure entertainment and music made as creative expression. Some truly great music can do both. But lots focussed on the commercial viability of entertainment and platability (all the inoffensive sub-Bastille music that the algorithms love to serve up), and others focus on creating art.
