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From: nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (Doug Alan)
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Yes, Peter Gabriel, Bach, Madonna, Tom Tom Club, B52s, Talking Heads
Message-ID: <4632@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 9-Jul-85 06:31:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.4632
Posted: Tue Jul  9 06:31:51 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 11-Jul-85 04:59:10 EDT
Distribution: net.music
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 49

> From: bruns@wanginst.UUCP (Glenn Bruns)

> A year ago I tried listening to "Tales from Topographic 
> Oceans" followed by the Genesis album "The Lamb Lies ..." and it seemed 
> that Yes's sound (at least on Tales) was obsolete but that Genesis still 
> sounded fresh.  Maybe that's because Peter Gabriel sounded close to the 
> edge (clever gag) like a lot of 80's music, while Yes was mushy.

Precisely so!  (But every now and then I'm in the mood for a little
mushiness -- you just gotta take it in very limtted doses.  How come
every time I listen to Yes, I feel like I'm suffering from a glucose
overdose?)

> I have to respond to Doug Alan's statement that Bach wrote music for
> musicians.  Sorry, but I don't think that can be backed up.  As I
> understand it, Bach primarily wrote for the church, and churchgoers
> were his audience.

I didn't say that Bach wrote music for musicians.  His music has a lot
of merit even for the layperson, but almost everybody that I know that
is ECSTATIC about Bach is a musician.  To me, Bach music just sounds
sort of pleasant.  I enjoy listening to it, it just doesn't drive me
into fits of uncontrollable passion, the way a lot of other music does,
and the way Bach's music does to some musicians.

> I don't like the kind of argument that implies that those who enjoy
> commercial music are harming themselves.... Sometimes music just makes
> me tap my feet; I don't feel particularly compelled to perform some
> humane or inspired act afterwards.

Good music can make you tap your feet.  But it should do it because your
feet have just been introduced to something new, neat, and original, not
just because some record company executive has figured out the formula
on how to push your buttons.  Why waste any time being a machine in our
pathetically short lives, when you can be incorporating something new
and interesting into your mind.  If you want to tap your feet listen to
The B52s, The Tom Tom Club, or The Talking Heads!  Not Madonna.

> I mean, posting flames to the group that include obscenities is pretty
> bad.

"Gnats fuck my nostrils" says Captain Beefheart, and I agree with him!

				Doug Alan
				 nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (or ARPA)


P.S.  My goodness, they're palying "Hocus Pocus" by Focus on the radio!
I haven't heard that since ... 1972?