Why is modern pop so terrible?

[walpurgis]

Agreed! I don't subscribe to the drug and alcohol fuelled creativity theory myself!

Geoff

Never tried it then?

[Sherwood]

Never tried it then?

I speak from experience, both as a consumer and producer!

Geoff

[Barry]

Well I quite like some of the early stuff though he made a couple of albums with his then wife early on which are really good when her flute isn't noodling in the background. To be fair she was a serious artist in her own right and worked with Paul Simon before getting together with JM.

My favourites: London Conversations, a solo (mono only) album, possibly my favourite after Solid Air (the proper album with no added bits, if you can find it - I quite rate the Abbey Road vinyl reissue though I have a couple of earlier pressings including one I bought when I was still at school).

The Juggler and Stormbringer (barring those flutey-bits), these predate Solid Air which is his masterpiece, no question.

One World and Grace and Danger are good as well.

Most of the 80s and 90s are a dead loss and late in life he started fiddling with the back catalogue, bonus tracks and remix CDs and random compiliations - mostly a waste of time.

I've got pretty much everything up till the early 80s on vinyl.

I'm afraid for me you can see his abilities slip the more wasted he got. The voice, so expressive at the beginning, is an incoherent growl from surprisingly early

I like 'Stormbringer' and 'Road to Ruin', but then I like all his albums up to and including 'Grace and Danger'. After that I lost interest in his dabbling with AOR, but I did listen to one of his last recordings: 'Glasgow Walker' which wasn't too bad, but not a patch on his earlier work.


I used to excuse his 'slurring' as Martyn wanting to use his voice as an instrument, rather like 'scat' singing in jazz, but it could of course just be that he was drunk half the time. He and Danny Thompson could put it away!

By the way do you mean 'The Tumbler'?

[Macca]

For real effect shouldn't that be a Watneys Party Seven?

It certainly should. But try buying one in 2018. Maybe that will change with Brexit.

[montesquieu]

I like 'Stormbringer' and 'Road to Ruin', but then I like all his albums up to and including 'Grace and Danger'. After that I lost interest in his dabbling with AOR, but I did listen to one of his last recordings: 'Glasgow Walker' which wasn't too bad, but not a patch on his earlier work.


I used to excuse his 'slurring' as Martyn wanting to use his voice as an instrument, rather like 'scat' singing in jazz, but it could of course just be that he was drunk half the time. He and Danny Thompson could put it away!

By the way do you mean 'The Tumbler'?

Yes Tumbler sorry.

[Sherwood]

It certainly should. But try buying one in 2018. Maybe that will change with Brexit.

Let's hope this is not one of the unforeseen consequences of Brexit. One positive aspect of the EU era is that while the big multinationals have bought up our big brewers and homogenised their output, it is now possible to buy good quality beers from a plethora of small producers.

Geoff

[Macca]

Let's hope this is not one of the unforeseen consequences of Brexit

Something of a redundancy there. All the consequences of Brexit are unforeseen.

Although I would be happy to see the return of the party seven on purely nostalgic grounds, I'd be unlikely to buy one. I should get a new copy of Solid Air though. Got it on tape but no tape deck anymore. Must be 25 years since I heard it last.

[Pigmy Pony]

I speak from experience, both as a consumer and producer!

Geoff

What do you mean, a still in your shed, or a farm in your attic?

[Pigmy Pony]

Perhaps Party Seven was stopped because it messed with continental Europe's metric mindset, or maybe because it was crap.

[Sherwood]

Perhaps Party Seven was stopped because it messed with continental Europe's metric mindset, or maybe because it was crap.

Party 7 is still decimal. It was always dire!

Geoff