You never need an excuse to post Station to Station. You've posted my favourite version, but sticking with my own rule, here's another Station to Station (with the wonderful Gail Ann Dorsey on bass).
And the brilliant pair of Earl Slick on lead guitar and Mike Garson on keyboards. Have to watch the whole Glasto show again now.
You should have a listen to a band called Killerstar. They formed last year with Garson, Slick, Dorsey etc playing - it’s like Bowie without Bowie, which is both as good and as bad as that sounds!
Spiderman's Superstition thread has put me in the mood for some classic Stevie. His run of albums in the early to mid 70s must be up there with the all time greats...
This is brilliantly well done and judging by the comments it fooled quite a few people!... Check out some of his other videos, his impressions are pretty funny.
Stevie Wonder's music in the 1970s is brilliant. However i am not convinced that it would succeed if marketed as pop music today. Too good for today's youngsters ! The more I listen , the closer it seems to jazz. 'Songs in the key of life' is as good as a pop disc could be.
I agree with this apart from the bold bit. I know (and have taught) many youngsters who would (and do) 100% appreciate this album and plenty of others like it. Another example is Fleetwood Mac's Rumours which had the highest streaming figures on Spotify in 2024 for 1970s music. I think there is a lot of appreciation out there for good music regardless of its age. I happen to think that the pop music industry has become homogenised over the last couple of decades which is possibly one reason older music is being explored and appreciated. I really do think that if a "Songs In The Key Of Life' type album was realeased tomorrow it would be like a breath of fresh air and as such would be very successful. Totally agree about Stevie Wonder - have been lucky enough to see him live 3 times. One of the greats of the 20th Century for me.
My wife does not share my musical tastes so we listen to alot of FM stations in the car. It surprises me just how bad alot of pop music is yet stuff by Motown or Stax is really musical. Black popular music was amways superior to their white counterparts and i have always had a suspicion that the links to Jazz and gospel gave it an advantage. For me the issue is often that technology democracised music so that so much music is now made by non musicians. This accounts for why it is not intetesting. I really admire musicians like Prince , Hendrix, Nile Rodgers, E W & F and Wonder who knew what they were doing musically. The musical set up in 1970s just strikes me as being a continuation of the song writing tradition of the previous 50 years. Things started to go wrong in the 1980s but the rot set in by 1990s. I feel 1970s was a great song writing decade and the styles were really wind ranging. As with Hendrix , i think Wonder has been adopted by the jazz community
That is so true! An awful lot of music is composed ‘in the box’ and as such is done so “vertically” rather than linearly. By that I mean that it’s mainly loop-based and does not modulate or develop in any way. It satisfies a certain demand but past that it doesn’t have too much longevity. Having said that, time will tell and may prove me wrong! With AI music already here I have a new respect for any artist that can actually compose and sing (or play), whether I like their music or not.
It's as much (if not more) a problem with the industry/labels/streaming etc though. It's not "young people don't have talent any more" - the likes of Bowie and Prince would never have broken through in this environment as they'd have been dropped by their labels long since (Bowie's debut album did nothing, Prince's first three albums did nothing). Development deals at labels just don't exist any more, so artists don't get a chance to become 'something' over any time. Yes, you can make a record at home, but unless you have a rich mum n' dad, you won't be able to afford the pluggers/distributors/marketing etc you need to break through with any real impact. On top of which, the way music is consumed now, with the dominance of the streamers and algorithms, is awful. There are any number of Princes, Bowies, Wonders, Gilmours etc that will end up being accountants, nurses, recruiters and lawyers now, sadly.
This is what really worries me about music. I get the threat of AI but it is only a threat to pop music as that is where the profit is. I would be surprised if there is an AI generated Beethoven's 10th or Charlie Parker with strings volume 2. I do think the problem is with music consumption. There is over 120 years of recorded music to choose from as a bank of repertoire and if something becomes jaded or old fashioned, it can be remixed. There seems to be alot of staleness with all sorts of contemporary music and not just pop. So much contemporary jazz is too comfortable and classical composers no longer capture the public imagination. Can only think of a handful who get media attention such as Caroline Shaw. Even Steve Reich is nearly 90 ! For me , the issue is with the consumer always wanting something new regardless of how poor it is. I think that there has always been a market for rubbish music but it increasingly performs better and better. This is not a new thing.
Just caught up with the excellent BBC drama about the Lockerbie bombing and found out that the moving soundtrack was provided by Scottish Post Rock band Mogwai...
Reminds me a bit of the supergroup Powr Pools from mid 1980s with Bill Frisell, Melvin Gibbs and Ronald Shannon Jackson. Forgotten about him !
One of the early Indie bands on the legendary Creation Records label, The Loft, who showed a lot of promise with a few cracking singles then acrimoniously split 40 years ago, have finally released their debut album! This is their story...
