Americana UK

I've had a couple of articles posted on this august portal recently.

In the "What Is This Americana Thing Anyway…?" thread I got my turn to reminisce, so pretty much what I do here then. 

Then I had a go at the A-Z of Americana, and picked Alison Krauss. 

And in a last plug the Americana UK awards are open for voting. I can't join in, but you can...

A Physical Presence

For a blog that is meant to be about my iPod I do seem to spend a lot of time talking about physical media. As everything physical ends up on the iPod at one time or another I make no apology for this.

I follow Cloudland Blue Quartet on Twitter, and listen to his podcast, which you should also do. He ran a poll recently and out of 98 votes 58% went to CD 41% to vinyl. The interesting part though was the comments. The main vinyl supporters' arguments were based around sampling rates and kilohertz. That or have a valve preamp etc etc. The CD advocates talked about convenience.

Back in the mists of time, 1983, I worked with my Dad selling 78 records, valve radios and wind up gramophones. Every so often some high quality vintage hi fi kit would come along which would get snapped up by collectors. They would spend a lot of time telling me that it was far batter than anything you could buy new. Then the 78 collectors would come along and tell me that an HMV model 194 was the gramophone to have. In fairness a decent condition disc played on one of these things did sound ok. They weighed about the same as a small car however.

What this all says to me is that the hobbyist will always find a way of adding complication to the simple matter of sitting down and listening to the music. Their choice of music seems to be usually dictated by the "quality" of the recording rather than their connection to the music or words. I love The Nightfly (one of the audiophile gold standard albums) but it doesn't have the incendiary quality of the first Clash album with its cardboard box drums and
patchy (at best) mixing. Oh and my vinyl copy of Donald Fagen's album had pops and clicks and muffled sound. My CD has lasted since about 1990 and still plays perfectly.

I know 'each to their own', and 'live and let live' may be unfashionable views these days but let's embrace them. You play your vinyl, and I will carry on with CDs. Just please don't try and convince me that something that reproduces music by dragging a piece of diamond across a bit of plastic has some mystical "better sound".

The other thing that makes CDs the way to go is that they are cheap. There are some great second hand shops spread around the country, some of which I've mentioned here before, but also charity shops. I love charity shops, the thrill of the chase as you can never tell what you are going to find, and the chance that you will happen upon a collection having been deposited there by someone's ex spouse or whatever. I could tell you about some finds, jazz, prog rock, obscurities of all sorts. The only disappointment is when a shop, usually a books and media outlet has been rooting around on Ebay and massively overpriced something otherwise desirable. Yes I'm talking about you, Oxfam record shop Byres Road Glasgow.

So until the world notices I will carry on picking up CD bargains, and experimenting with new music, including after a bit more study of Mr Quartet's twitter, the undiscovered country... Classical Music.

It wasn't like this in my day...

My daughter came home from working in Scotland last week and we were talking on the way about some of the music she is listening to. She seems to be more aware of music and to have more decided opinions than many of her generation. She consumes it via Apple Music and You Tube and Instagram in about equal measure. For the record she is 20.

Comment 1 - There aren't many distinctive singers.

She isn't a fan of singers powered by AutoTune. Having had singing lessons herself and sung in choirs and all sorts of social settings she seems to have some disdain for those singers whose careers she feels are built on image more than actual vocal talent. Cheryl (Cole or whatever) comes up for question here. Score one for good old fashioned talent.

Comment 2 - Rappers are more important than singers as conveyors of messages

This I suppose is a matter of the particular flavour of "pop" music that you consume. Where to earlier generations, Dylan, Rotten, Weller, Sly Stone, Gil Scott Heron or whoever would have been the social commentators of choice, now it is Drake, Stormzy and Kanye who are the influencing factor, although seldom about politics.

Comment 3 - DJs are the taste makers and main influencing factor

She uses the term "DJ" interchangeably with "record producer", assuming that anyone who makes records will also present them in a "live" environment as a mix set.

So, who does she like? 

Current favourites are singer/songwriters Mabel and Billie Eilish. Both of these come from entertainment industry backgrounds, Mabel is the daughter of Neneh Cherry and producer Cameron McVey for instance.They are both seen as having distinctive voices in a sea of bland. Dua Lipa gets an honourable mention in this category. Another thumbs up here, as I think she is broadly right about the bland thing, and I could listen to any of these three on the radio.

Producer/DJs that are on the radar include David Guetta, Tiesto and Martin Garrix. These do have "signature" sounds making them more producer than DJ in my book. Calvin Harris was OK but a bit mainstream.

Rappers, she has always been a fan of Eminem, despite  some parental disapproval of his language in earlier years (help, I've turned into my Dad!). Current fav is Cardi B. This is where I turn middle aged and say I cannot understand Ms B or her peers. the music which seems to mostly comprise high speed drum machine beats, that I imagine are meant to sound like automatic gunfire, and nursery rhyme tunes in between raps that spend most of their time explaining that she can afford two pairs of expensive trainers at a time. Allegedly "Cardi B identifies as a feminist" in which case my definition of that term needs some updating. Cardi (if I can be that familar) seems to spend her life in a social media driven whirl which seems to drive everything from her clothes to her relationship choices, up to and including her child who may well want to change her name from Kulture Kiari Cephus at the earliest opportunity.

Back to my daughter's music choices. She does also like Queen, Green Day, Abba (the Mamma Mia films helped here), and has also had a moment with of the music from the film Rock of Ages. at that point I had a nano second of coolness, but don't worry it didn't last.

What does this mean in terms of my life on the iPod? To paraphrase Nick Hornby's book 33 Songs, nothing I like is "pop music" anymore. I'm quite comfortable with this and didn't honestly think it was, but the fact is that when said daughter read this blog a few minutes ago her reaction to my comments about Cardi B was to tell me about her wealth and her 5 cars that she can't drive. And that is the real difference between then and now, it's all about the celebrity, not the music.