![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Hey there, pop-pickers
Monday, August 20th, 2007 11:28 amOh dear, I think I’m getting old.
The Athenaeum Club sat down en masse to watch Cold Mountain last night on DVD and I put away a litre and a half of fruit cider. I don’t drink much these days, so the result was I slept like a baby (when I finally went to bed) and woke up not with a hangover (I’m not so far out of it for that), but certainly with the need for a few more hours sleep and more than a single mug of coffee. I have a slight ache behind my right eye and despite then fact that I can see the screen perfectly well I have elected to wear my glasses to take the strain off me poor old peepers.
Overall we enjoyed the movie, though quite why the director felt the need to kill Inman at the end is beyond me. The characters were all well-drawn and acted and the cinematography was excellent. That said, it’s not a barrel of laughs, so if you are looking to be cheered up, it’s probably not the movie for you, despite some genuinely funny moments. I mentioned it to my boss this morning and you know you have a divergence of views when you hear the words, “I respect your opinion, but…”
My three Beatles’ CDs arrived this morning, so I flung the packets in my rucksack and brought them into work with me. It is the first time in many, many years since I bothered actually to read the sleeve notes and they are quite wonderful. 1963-1964 really was a different world. The phrase ‘pop-picking’ was used without irony or self-consciousness and the fact that the group (not a band in those days1) produced sounds that could all be replicated on stage is something to note2, as is the fancy changes of instrument from time to time, like George playing bongos instead of just lead guitar on one track.
My particular favourite is the quote from the group’s press agent, Derek Taylor, in the sleeve notes for Beatles for Sale: “Many hours and hard day’s nights (sic) of devoted industry went into the production of this album. It isn’t a potboiling quick-sale any-old-thing-will-do-for-Christmas mixture.”
Actually, that’s precisely what it was. The fact that despite that there is a fair selection of good stuff on it is by the by. “The best album so far” it trumpets. Well, no, actually. Their third album, the soundtrack to “A Hard Day’s Night” was far superior, but it is still well worth having.
1Strange, really, how usage has changed. Throughout the 60s and the 70s, they were pop or rock groups. It was only somewhat later that the word ‘band’ took over. Now it’s used inaccurately for vocal groups as well as groups who play instruments. So the world can now inaccurately and without irony call The Spice Girls, or Boyzone etc a band despite the complete lack of instruments. They are a vocal/dance group (or troupe) with a backing band. But I’m being a pedant.
2Given the technological level of recording studios in the early 60s – particularly the (at that point) notoriously badly equipped Abbey Road studios, it does make you wonder what other pop acts of the time were doing if they couldn’t reproduce their not entirely complicated pop songs on stage. Clearly the golden age of the session musician; who said acts who can’t play their instruments are a new phenomenon?
The Athenaeum Club sat down en masse to watch Cold Mountain last night on DVD and I put away a litre and a half of fruit cider. I don’t drink much these days, so the result was I slept like a baby (when I finally went to bed) and woke up not with a hangover (I’m not so far out of it for that), but certainly with the need for a few more hours sleep and more than a single mug of coffee. I have a slight ache behind my right eye and despite then fact that I can see the screen perfectly well I have elected to wear my glasses to take the strain off me poor old peepers.
Overall we enjoyed the movie, though quite why the director felt the need to kill Inman at the end is beyond me. The characters were all well-drawn and acted and the cinematography was excellent. That said, it’s not a barrel of laughs, so if you are looking to be cheered up, it’s probably not the movie for you, despite some genuinely funny moments. I mentioned it to my boss this morning and you know you have a divergence of views when you hear the words, “I respect your opinion, but…”
My three Beatles’ CDs arrived this morning, so I flung the packets in my rucksack and brought them into work with me. It is the first time in many, many years since I bothered actually to read the sleeve notes and they are quite wonderful. 1963-1964 really was a different world. The phrase ‘pop-picking’ was used without irony or self-consciousness and the fact that the group (not a band in those days1) produced sounds that could all be replicated on stage is something to note2, as is the fancy changes of instrument from time to time, like George playing bongos instead of just lead guitar on one track.
My particular favourite is the quote from the group’s press agent, Derek Taylor, in the sleeve notes for Beatles for Sale: “Many hours and hard day’s nights (sic) of devoted industry went into the production of this album. It isn’t a potboiling quick-sale any-old-thing-will-do-for-Christmas mixture.”
Actually, that’s precisely what it was. The fact that despite that there is a fair selection of good stuff on it is by the by. “The best album so far” it trumpets. Well, no, actually. Their third album, the soundtrack to “A Hard Day’s Night” was far superior, but it is still well worth having.
1Strange, really, how usage has changed. Throughout the 60s and the 70s, they were pop or rock groups. It was only somewhat later that the word ‘band’ took over. Now it’s used inaccurately for vocal groups as well as groups who play instruments. So the world can now inaccurately and without irony call The Spice Girls, or Boyzone etc a band despite the complete lack of instruments. They are a vocal/dance group (or troupe) with a backing band. But I’m being a pedant.
2Given the technological level of recording studios in the early 60s – particularly the (at that point) notoriously badly equipped Abbey Road studios, it does make you wonder what other pop acts of the time were doing if they couldn’t reproduce their not entirely complicated pop songs on stage. Clearly the golden age of the session musician; who said acts who can’t play their instruments are a new phenomenon?
