Re: OT: The Police on Tour

["Tom Ritchford" <tom@swirly.com>]

On 2/15/07, Charles Zwicky <cazwicky@earthlink.net> wrote:
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> Tell me -- aside from dinosaur acts, what current top 10 musician/pop
> star is famous for their musicianship?
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>http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/charts/chart_display.jsp?g=Singles&f=The+Billboard+Hot+100
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> The question is rhetorical, and I assume that you really meant 
>'virtuosity',
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> but the reality is that NOBODY CARES except other musos!!!

There was a time when that wasn't true.


> If you can convey a song with meaning, that is true musicianship.

Looking at this top 100 list, I don't see too many examples of that --
though there are quite a few I don't know.

Anyway, my point wasn't to slag specific musicians -- the point is
that the record industry concentrates almost all its money on monster
acts these days (and ever since "Thriller") and spends far less on A&R
and actually "developing" acts than it ever used to -- which means
less concentration of musical quality.

Something like Sting's tour IS bad for lesser musicians as it consumes
an awful lot of people's live music budget.

-- 
     /t

http://ax.to ......... extreme NY arts and music calendar
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