Ringo Walks Off Regis and Kelly Show--- I say Good for him!!!

Ringo wanted to perform a new song from his album, a song that was 4 minutes and 15 seconds long and the producers couldn't give the Ex-Beatle the time!!! They needed the time to talk about the size of Kelly's butt!!! So, Ringo walked and I say good for him!!!


I am reminded of a scene from the movie "Amadeus"
when the Emperor told Mozart to cut a few notes off his piece of music and it would be perfect.

I am greatly dismayed by the devaluation of music in our culture. I observe Ipod fantatics with thousands of songs on their machine but not a minute of patience to listen to a whole song as they thumb and skip to the next song. I recently asked a friend of mine when was the last time you put in a CD and sat down and listened to the whole thing? He couldn't answer that question.


There seems to be a general lack of patience for art. I remember going to the Circus not long ago and as the wonderful cast was doing a fantastic finale, people started filing out of the place more worried about not getting stuck in traffic than seeing the entire show! How rude to these performers!!!

And how rude to Ringo who was told that he must chop up a song he created to fit in with the mindlesss drivel of Regis and Kelly!!!

Ringo is no Mozart but it seems to me another minute or so could have been found so he could perform the song as written. The era of the soundbite, Ipod, instant gratification and free downloads is here , and has it helped music???

I don't think so.

Is this any different than not wanting to play a 2hr game vs the 45 min crappy euro.

I think the current wave of social tolerance for time has fallen through the floor. I remember hearing a story on the radio a few years back about the difference in how long people of the last generation and the youth of today would let a phone ring before deciding someone was not at home. I think the older generation was close to 6 or 7 rings. The younger ones get impatient after the 2nd.



-M

Steve, I think the lack of patience listening to CDs is due to the music industry cranking out too many albums with only 1-2 decent songs per album. That started showing up in the late 80's with some of the hair metal and pop bands, and came on strong in the mid-90's. Think of how the industry promoted the hair bands: release the hard driving single first, then the power ballad. That formula guarranteed the hair band at least one decent hit. The big exception to this programmability seemed to be the Grunge bands, but even at the tail end of Grunge the 1-2 decent songs per album began to creep in.

All these shenanigans plus two extra items -the artificially high price of CDs and the lure of getting individual songs over the net- meant that people didn't have to feel captive to an entire CD anymore.

I guess I'm an old luddite in that I prefer the CDs (and LPs) to getting an individual song off the net.

--Mike L.

Its true, most "Albums" suck. When pop artists / bands make an album they normally buy 2 - 3 "A" songs at top dollar which will be the singles, then fill the rest of the album with cheaper B and C material.

So why are you listening to crap albums then? Enough out there that doesn't suck all the way. And nothing beats live music!

Bashing Ipods and MP3s is kind of silly at this point...sorry, but that's where music is and is going. I'm about ready to sell off all 2000+ of my CDs. Not selling the vinyl though- that actually means something to me that crates of CDs do not.

I chafed at first, thinking that nothing could beat having an actual CD with liner notes and album artwork. But then, when I got an Ipod and started putting music on it I realized that I could walk around with the complete David Bowie catalog on there along with a huge sampling of 1979-1980 era postpunk, everything ever recorded by Echo and the Bunnymen, a bunch of old time country, the complete audio book of THE LORD OF THE RINGS, and more...all in my pocket.

Ipods and MP3s for me have enabled me to listen to more music and with more frequency. Because of MP3s and the accessibility an ipod provides I can experience much, much more music overall- I even listen to complete albums more than I used to. I find that the technology helps me to appreciate music more and on a deeper level- the ability to access such a huge amount of musical history across all genres at the touch of a button is one of the greatest things to happen to music.

But I get where you guys are coming from...not everybody uses it for good...many use it for evil.

Some artists are album artists, others are singles artists...Blondie is a good example, the singles are phenomenal, the albums not so much. The Fall is a great album band, the Stones are a great album band, and the Talking Heads are a great album bands. And the Beatles might very well be _the_ album band.

"album bands" are a dying breed. I used to love arguing with my buddies over which album side was better. It actually made sense then. The 80's were cruel to performers that put out quality albums. Sooner than later everyone latched onto the idea that you only needed one or two decent songs, at least one crazy video and you could pimp a $20 cd for a year.

Not long after that in the 90's shitty bands started pretending they were artists and began releasing double albums and worse, a shit album part one followed a few months later by part two.

I certainly have no problem with mp3's. I can get what I want to hear without all the filler. I'll still give an album a go in the hopes of finding something solid but these days the only music by and large that is solid for a whole 90 mins are bootleg live sets of underground tech-house etc...

The thing with Ringo was they asked him to cut approx one minute off and he agreed. Then they asked him to cut it down to 2 mins which in my opinion is reprehensible. Ok it's Ringo but he's still a fucking Beattle! I play Sgt Pepper's from beginning to end.

I would have respected Ringo more if he had declined an invitation to go on the show.

Then again, we're talking about Ringo Starr, one of the luckiest guys to ever walk the face of the earth. A homely guy of modest musical talent, he joined the greatest band of all time (not my favorite, but I respect what they have accomplished) before they got famous, and also got married to a Bond girl while she was still hot.

And he got to hang out with tomas the tank engne!

Although I'm relatively young I never got used to iPods and MP3s.

I think most CDs are cheaper nowadays then they used to be. Most 2 year old albums can be bought new for less than 10 Euros.

I don't get the crappy album argument. If a band only comes up with one or two good song per album, I'd say screw that band, but somehow people use that fact to justify downloading only the one good song from the internet.

I understand Michael's argument that the new technology allows people too access more music in general, and I also experienced that people who didn't have many CDs before the MP3 revolution now own an awesome lot of music. However what good does that do if most of it is stolen...

(Of course, Michael, you own most of the music on your iPod also in CD format, but I don't think this is the trend.)

I'm not Christian enough to have a problem with this, but I tend to see that this means that less good music will be produced in the future, especially the work of independent bands who are maybe ironically more dependent on album sales.

What I also don't get is people using the shuffle/random option to listen to their music. Especially if the same people are also advocates of the crappy album argument. In reality this means that the player skips from bad track on album from crappy band A to bad track on album from crappy band B. Which of course leads to poeple manually skipping songs all the time.

I also have the impression that people who carry plugs in their ears in public somehow shut themselves off from any human interaction.

Album bands will not make a comeback, I guess. Bands these days make most of their money from touring. In the end, this is a good thing, because it rewards the bands with real live talent, rather than those with good producers.

However, this has come at a cost, with ticket prices rising fast in the last decade (both in US and Netherlands). That is mostly because Clearchannel (and its Dutch subsidiary) have cornered the market.

You can still see brilliant bands for $15/€10, like the Noisettes, Patrick Watson and the National. Solid artists like Wilco can still be seen for €25. It's just that the ROlling Stones (decrepit), Neil Young and U2 are now selling at ridiculous prices.

A few recent album bands:

Franz Ferdinand: two great albums
Gorillaz: A lil older yet, two good albums
Wolfmother: great first album
Beastie Boys: perfect newest album, though I'd like myself some lyrics

As I said, listen to what you like and screw the rest. However saying that you'd rather download everything from of charge from the net because there's so much crap out there, is like stealing from your FLGS because they sell so many lame euros.

I used to listen to walkmans everyday during my travels until about 7 years ago. Now I can't listen to music at all when I'm out in public. I love seeing bands and live shows and will get out whenever I can to do so. What has pissed me off about all of this IP rights etc.. is that the record company has sold me an LP of "Paranoid" let's say. I then bought the cassette of this album to fit in my walkman. Then the recording industry discontinued production of LP's and cassettes in favor of CD's. So the music nut I was I started buying up 100's of CD's to replace and build upon my already hefty collection. Well CD's get scratched at parties, stolen broken or otherwise become unusable. I have now purchased the rights to this piece of recording three times. $10 for the LP in 1980, $12 for the cassette in 1983 and $20 for the CD in 1990. I'm not about to buy this shit again and Lars can go fuck himself 'cause I'll never buy any of their shit again.

Most of the music I listen to now is purposely leaked to the internets by the artists in order to build a fanbase for touring. This is quite common as the record companies steal every dollar you throw at them with the artsists getting squat. This is true.

The exceptions might be the Stones and other uber acts because at this point they are a record company unto themselves.

The musicians need to get paid for their efforts, or else we will only get new music from amateurs. It would be great if there was a more direct method of distribution that wasn't vulnerable to piracy.

All of this "protect the artist" stuff is two-edged...I'm totally for supporting artists, buying their products, and encouraging them to pursue their craft as a viable career. I don't think it's good that so much music changes hands these days without the artists or responsible parties being rewarded financially.

HOWEVER, a lot of the counterinformation/fearmongering/guilt-tripping
that's going on from folks like Lars Ulrich and the RIAA is

CORPORATE PROPAGANDA[/ul][/color] that is in the interest of big-business profit margins and financial bottom lines, not in supporting artists.

I think that anything that takes the control of music distribution and promotion out of the hands of gigantic corporations is a good thing. The days of the record label, particularly the big corporate record label, are numbered. Radiohead released their unbelievably boring record on their website, Trent Reznor has vowed to never work with a record label again, and soon such artists will be legion.