C.Freeman asked a great question in the thread concerning the plane crash: [the caliber of the three lost in 1959 to this day is unmatched] .....who today in rock and roll (R&B;, country, what have you) will be remembered even a decade from now? I mean, not even a decade has passed and all those stars from the boy bands and pop bands have faded into oblivion. Mention their name and of course people will remember them, but they're not in ordinary conversations like legendary musicians are. So, of today's music, is there anyone that has a chance at being remembered or deserves to be remembered?

This is for you,buddy_blue.


A close friend of mine had this to say upon losing a "star" - "I hate it he died that way,but the music industry will not miss him."
-Kurt Cobain's suicide.

Does the 1977 crash mean as much to the world?We all loved Vanzant and Mr.&Mrs.; Gaines,they had so much originality,but how many carbon copies were out there?

And just to be honest,I had never heard of Aaliyah until her plane went down.

As bright as Phil Spector is,for what deed will he be most remembered?

Michael Jackson,anyone?

Chuck Berry?(Bathroom Cams!)

Jerry Lee Lewis -Hey,isn't that the guy that married his 13 year old cousin?

Elvis?People are too busy trying to find him.

How will Ashlee Simpson be best remembered 10 days from now?

Exactly what is the best part of Britney Spears?

Eddie Cochran wrote the first tribute.

Don Mclean -American WHAT?

Madonna-Need I say more?

There are some good artists listed here.There are some that can only prove that anyone can make it.We know what our trio did.The burning question-the thing that goes through my mind everytime I hear one of their songs-What more,on God's green earth,were they capable of?The sky was the limit for all three!

This is just to prove your point:
I have no idea who Vanzant, and Mr& Mrs. Gaines are, have no idea what the plane crash of 1977 is, nor do I have the faintest clue of who Phil Spector is.
To add to your list.......
How will Hilary Duff and Linsey Lohan be remembered 10 days from now?
Backstreet Boys? weren't they the ones that kept claiming they weren't a boy band? (I used to listen to their songs all the time. I still do sometimes, just because. Old memories, you know? But the drummer keeps the same rhythm, the string orchastration never changes. If anything, the only thing that changed was their voices over the 8 years they recorded together.)
N'Sync? They were the ones the media always pitted against the BSB.
98 degrees? That's hot, but no one's going to remember that there was a group by that name
Briteny Spears? From school girl to almost married to maybe married.......was a great example of how long celebrity marriages last anyway.
Eddie Cochran has faded into oblivion a bit, but next to Buddy, Ritchie and the Bopper, he needs to be remembered too. His vocal range? Not too shabby.

In October(I Think) of 1977, a plane crashed carrying Ronnie VanZant,Steve,and Cassie Gaines.All members of the popular group Lynard Skynard.Phil Spector was a renowned producer in the 60's(River Deep,Mountain High-Tina Turner),who is now on trial for murder.

I like Elvis alot,but if Holly had lived,Elvis would have faded into oblivion.

First off, in a society with a 5-minute attention span, I can't think of even one musical innovator on the pop scene, nevermind somebody who will be remembered in 10 years.

Frankly, I can't even believe where pop music is headed today---spin through your FM dial, and a good 65% of the stations are playing some sort of hip-hop percussion chant with no melody and no real musical talent required.

To my ear, hip hop is just a laundry list of complaints and violent threats set to a rhythm synthesizer. Where in the world did these "artists" get the idea that their words are of any musical value? Is it poetry? It is not, unless outhouse graffiti is poetry, too. Take away the malcontent lyrics, and hip-hop has about as much musical value as a Casio sampling keybord in a "demo mode" loop...

Before anybody charges me with being "too old" to appreciate modern music, I'll put this forward---I listen to some really innovative modern music, I think, from Melora Craeger's cello-rock band Rasputina to California's screaming-ass Chinese Fighting Muffins to, geez, you name it. But I avoid the Top 40 pop chart like it is poison.

Why? To me, modern pop music is ponderously slow, with no musical depth, and filled with embarrassingly trite sentiments that betray the singer/songwriter's utter lack of life experience and sincerity. It's simply not very credible music, and I just don't respect it.

I can find something honest and good and truly worthwhile in any number of artists and bands performing out there today... Just not on the pop chart and definitely not in hip hop. To me, hip hop is as worthless as disco---and disco sucks, as we used to say in the 70s.

But, worthwhile as many artists may be at the moment, I don't see them as versatile enough to make it for an entire decade (Rasputina, however, has been around since the mid 1990s, and they just keep getting weirder, doing their own thing and making up the rules as they go). But it seems like there are no more Beatles, no Rolling Stones, no mega-bands that can hold the pop chart for more than a year anymore.

What happens when musical innovators come along these days? Right out of the gate, they make a sweep at the Grammies, and you never hear of them again. As if they were banished from the industry (which is probably damned close to the truth).

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Charles Austin,

For Charles Austin:

I don't know your age,but I am in my late 20's.Let me assure you something,you are ABSOLUTELY right in what you had to say of today's "music".There is no originality anywhere,not in any genre today.Age has nothing to do with how accurate you are.

But it's not only hip-hop:How similar does all your country & R&B; artists sound today?There are no good singers anywhere,just drum machines and synthesizers.I feel like I am the last of a dying breed - the total freak of music - because I want to give it something very strange in "today's world"- intellect,and maybe a little thought.

But what bothers me most is this:how these "stars" are so caught up in themselves,and how the people who listen to this TOTAL GARBAGE idolize these people.Please, name me someone in the industry today,no one "old school",who has ONE IOTA of talent?That will keep you busy for hours!

Rap?WHO LET THIS DOG OUT?This is not an art form.It's a sick joke.To quote Andrew Dice Clay,"Ive heard cats f@#$ with more harmony than this!"

Forgive the language,but [edited by request].

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jim,

When I introduced myself to the board (was it a month ago?), I admitted that I was born in 1959 in Texas and was raised on a diet of Buddy Holly and many other Texas artists that are required listening for native Texans... I mean, I'm all into Buddy's Tex-Mex style (most pronounced in "Heartbeat"), but you can't come from Texas without getting into tejano, zydeco, rockabilly, hard rock, etc---and, man, if you ever get to attend the Kerrville Music Festival out in central Texas, you'll find out what makes it all so hot. Listening to recordings is one thing, but when you hear it live---Mexican bands following rockabilly bands following Cajun bands following Texas blues, all day and night---man, there's just no way to describe it. You can't help but sing and dance right along with them until you're exhausted or drunk or both.

Anyway, with that kind of background, I realized early on how ridiculously limiting it is to say "I only like one kind of music"---because, if it's good music, it transcends genres and categories and ethnicities and borderlines. Good music is where you find it, and I learned to always stay open and receptive to it, no matter where it came from.

So, over the decades, I've gotten into everything from the Classical Masters to the Vienna waltzes to George M. Cohen and Scott Joplin to Gershwin and the Big Bands to dirty Blues and progressive Jazz to 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s Rock & Roll and Alternative and Indie music like it was nobody's business. And I always try on my shoes for a while before I decide they don't fit me---so far, only Disco and Hip Hop have really hurt my feet so bad that I can't wear them.

But I've noticed that there are always these awful dry periods in music, lasting years sometimes, when it's the same old formulaic crap recycled and regurgitated time and time again. Right now Pop music sucks worse than ever, because it's the same old formula, the same studios cranking out the same crap with more and more polish on it, like McDonald's Fast-Food Music, if you know what I mean. McDonald's mass-produced food substitutes have little or no nutritional value, are scarcely better than Soylent Green, and actually give eating a bad name---so, too, does the music industry pump out these Happy Meal artists and albums with no redeeming musical value whatsoever, but with a million bucks worth of hype behind it. And somebody out there has been brainwashed to eat this garbage up.

Then, suddenly, a new crop of...something...is harvested and the musical drought is broken for a time. For a while in the late 80s and early 90s, following what seemed like an interminable stretch of Huey Lewis and New Kids on the Block, we started getting Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden (which could be pretty depressing but at least it was new), followed by the stylings of Green Day, Stone Temple Pilots, Collective Soul, etc. And, after the mid-90s, it seemed like the dry spell was on again with Happy Meal artists hogging the Pop charts.

And, yes, I include today's so-called Country Music when I talk about Pop. Most of it is crossover for a reason---more money---and is so polished and formulaic that it resembles nothing so much as a Happy Meal with barbecue sauce. I get the feeling that most "country" artists today couldn't find their way around real country music if they had a map.

But I don't want to come across as completely pessimistic...I know that, if I'm patient and fill in the dry spells with independent/alternative music and my own music collection, something fresh will eventually crop up on the Pop scene. I'm waiting for the Revolution, you know, when the present music industry just collapses under its own bloated weight of bad music and "pirate" litigation, and people start seeking really good music once again, whether it's a banging three-piece band in somebody's garage or an unknown artist singing his own stuff in a coffee shop.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Charles Austin,

I also hate to be pessimistic,but sometimes it's hard to be optimistic.It seems that the days of good music are over(as far as the "industry" is concerned).Fortunately,I live in a smaller town that has some fairly hot locations.A local artist bought a hole-in-the-wall building downtown,and opened up a blues hall.There,he features some of the best music around here.

You will always have the classical,romantic,and baroque period masters.I can't say enough great things about them.I believe these masters are all in a category to themselves,never to be duplicated.

There is a lot of alternative stuff out there, little known bands that make an all right noise together. The problem is, they're so unknown in the market saturated with well known artists, that it often costs an arm and a leg to buy the CD after you spend three hours looking for it.
I do have some friends that are into rap, but I try and over look that transgracion and we get along fine. However, my friends who are into rock, punk, alternative, that sort of music, are surprisingly not listening to the most recent music of that genre. They don't go as far back into music history as me, but instead of listening to a band that recorded in say 2003 or 2004, they're listening to Led Zepplin, Pink Floyd, Nirvana, all those older groups.

LOL... Buddy blue, it just sounds so strange to hear Nirvana grouped with Led Zepplin as an "older group"... Kurt is probably turning over in his grave.

But I think I strayed way off topic, and didn't even say what I intended to say 5 posts ago, regarding Jiles P. Richardson... Honestly, I still don't understand how "The Big Bopper" came to be immortalized, aside from the fact that he died with Buddy Holly.

J.P. Richardson was a disc jockey, a spinner of vinyl, who did basically the same thing that every other disc jockey was doing in America in the late 50s---riding the wave of rock & roll and doing outlandish stunts to promote this teeny-bopper music.

Not a lot of people know that "Chantilly Lace" was a gag song, it was supposed to be a satire that mocked 50s rock & roll. Disc jockeys are still doing this sort of thing today, performing goofy satire songs with full studio polish.

The only difference was, the 1950s teeny-bopper audience thought it was for real and turned "Chantilly Lace" into a chart buster. I can imagine that J.P. was stunned, because this guy was not a rock & roll star... You can see it on his face when he was on tour with the song---J.P. was still hamming it up, riding the wave as far as he could, but it was still just a big joke to him.

I'm not trying to darken J.P.'s name, so don't get me wrong---he was a damned good DJ, and the kids loved him, although it was largely unintentional on his part... But the guy wasn't a musician and was just barely a songwriter. He had, what, "Chantilly Lace" and the regrettable "Big Bopper's Wedding" and he wrote another goofy satire song called "Running Bear" that somehow became a hit for Johnny Preston.

But this guy wasn't spearheading any sort of musical revolution---J.P. was just a big, goofy DJ with a couple of joke songs under his belt. I don't see why somebody should be immortalized for climbing into a plane with a rock star and dying along with him when the plane crashes, you know?

I could say something similar about Ritchie Valens, but that's getting me onto thin ice.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Charles Austin,

To Charles Austin:

You left one of the Bopper's songs out.The Purple People Eater Meets The Witcdoctor!(LOL)

Basically,we think the same way.The Bopper made no great contribution to music.He is known as one of the guys that died in the crash.Hopefully,I've offended no one by this statement.

But I also think Ritchie Valens was on his way to greatness,and was cut short.

Well, I didn't necessarily want to dig up Jape's entire recording career (such as it was), although I should have mentioned The Purple People Eater Meets the Witch Doctor, because it was the A-side of "Chantilly Lace"... The Purple People Eater Meets the Witch Doctor was supposed to be a goofy take-off on two other goofy novelty songs of the day, and J.P. was sure it was going to be a hit---unfortunately, aside from being an awful goofy song with high-speed vocal effects, it was also rejected by the big labels because they feared it infringed on the rights of the two original songs upon which it was based.

Anyway, the song that became known as "Chantilly Lace" was thrown together during an hour ride between Liberty and Houston, Texas, on the way to the recording studio. They needed a B-side for The Purple People Eater Meets the Witch Doctor, and Chantilly Lace became the B-side. Originally titled "That's What I Like," Chantilly Lace was nothing more than a studio boogie woogie with J.P. ad-libbing all the lyrics.

Later, when called upon to perform the song or lip-sync it, J.P. had a lot of trouble doing it the same way twice. Took him a long time to learn the lyrics and timing of his own ad-libs. LOL... No, this guy wasn't ushering in a new wave of rock & roll, by any means.

When you talk about the Purple People Eater meets the Witch Docter, are you talking about the song that goes along the lines (can't remember it all now, but....) There was a green eyed, purple faced people eater... I know there's a song like that, but I really can't remember! All I remember is some kids doing a lip sync to it in the third grade.
Ritchie Valens was on his way to greatness, although I agree the "greatness" of the Bopper was questionable, as I have said in previous posts.
When I grouped Nirvana and Led Zepplin together, the point I meant to make was that kids today aren't listening to the hottest thing off the presses. Well, the rap crowd is, but the rock kids aren't, with the exception of some newer bands like Tool, some Sum 41, some Good Charlotte, and plenty of little known alternative bands. And I think that goes to say something about today's music, the music that is more widely available, such as country and pop.

Around 1958, a new cutesy gimmick arrived on the pop music scene---high speed vocal effects. By high-speed, I mean recording voices/lyrics at half-speed, then playing them back at normal speed, producing voices that sound like squirrels or chipmunks...Got that?

A guy named Ross Bagdasarian (wisely recording under the name "David Seville"), started the ball rolling with a ridiculous song called "Witch Doctor," featuring the high-speed chorus Ooo-eee-oo-ah-ah, ting tang, walla-walla bing bang... Sheer genius, eh? Inexplicably, the damned record stampeded to No.1 on the pop charts.

Shortly afterwards, and inspired by Witch Doctor, Sheb Wooley released his "Purple People Eater," which devoured the charts with the high-speed chorus One-eyed, one-horned, flyin' purple people eater... More genius. Of course, I'm being sarcastic, but this song stayed at No.1 on the charts for 6 weeks, and went gold just 3 weeks after release---meaning it sold 3 million copies in 3 weeks. I don't pretend to understand it, but I gotta respect it.

So, feeling excited and inspired, J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson and his radio pals down in Beaumont, Texas decided to capitalize on this craze with their own high-speed gimmick song, brilliantly entitled "The Purple People Eater Meets the Witch Doctor." HOW, I ask, could they possibly go wrong?

Well, it was awful. I just listened to it again, and, believe me, it's bad... So bad that's it's embarrassingly bad. So bad that it makes the original songs sound good.

As mentioned earlier, this...thing...met with some resistance from the big labels who were concerned about the legal implications of infringing on previous works by other artists. So J.P. and his gang had the record privately pressed down in Houston and released it themselves.

The funniest thing about this story is that a station in Louisville, Kentucky decided to play The Purple People Eater Meets the Witch Doctor non-stop, like 20 times an hour, until it received some sort of recognition----people in Louisville called the police because they thought the DJ had died at the board or something. LOL

Anyway, while The Purple People Eater Meets the Witch Doctor sucked big-time, a few DJs started flipping the horrible record over to see what was on the B-side... and there was Chantilly Lace. As they say, the rest is pop music history.

I'm kind of getting off topic back to the original topic, but I think Stevie Wonder has thrived for several decades now, and I think he will continue to be appreciated for several decades to come. His music is timeless, and he's the closest thing to a musical genius that is around today in my opinion.

While I have to acknowledge that Stevie Wonder has positively changed the course of R&B; arrangement and production over the last 40 years, I still tend to think of him in his heyday in the 1970s, when nobody could touch him. His biggest 70s albums (Talking Book, Innervisions, and Songs in the Key of Life) turned everything else on its head, no doubt...

But since then he's gone a little sappy and sentimental, only popping up with something fresh once or twice a decade. I don't mean to detract from his ongoing contributions to R&B; and jazz and contemporary music in general---but, as far as I'm concerned, he's already been a memory for some 30 years, and I don't see him coming back to dominate another decade the way he did the 1970s.

The only tragedy coming close to being as well remembered as the Holly crash was the similar country music tragedy, March 5 1963 when Hawkshaw Hawkins, Cowboy Copas, and Patsy Cline (the "Buddy Holly", that is, the most famous and most remembered, of the trio), went down. Other than the John Lennon tradgedy,(only bedause he was murdered), will be as well remembered 20, 30 or 40 years from now.

Yes, the Bopper was not nearly as well remembered as Holly or Valens. But he wrote songs like "Running Bear, sung by Johnny Preston, and the country classic "White Lightning" a hit for George Jones. Writers are never as famous as the singers, unless they become famous as singers in their own right.

That's a good point about John Lennon being murdered-that's one tragedy that comes close to the crash of 1959, and that will be remembered because of his fame and lasting influence that he gained both through the Beatles and by himself. However, I have to disagree with you on the point that the "similar country music tragedy on March 5, 1963" had the same effect that claimed the lives of four young men in 1959. This is why: Kids my age (say 14-18) do know about the 1959 crash, though they know very little about it, they do recognize (especially) the names of Buddy Holly and Richie Valens as names associated with this particular crash. If I metionned the name Buddy Holly, about the only thing that people will say about him is "that's the guy that died in the plane crash, right?"
Now, I have heard of Patsy Cline, though until reading your post, had no idea that she had lost her life in a plane crash or even that she was dead. Sorry, but I can't see it being the same magnitude as the crash of 1959, for the simple reason that kids today don't really associate the name to the crash.

We all know that the vast majority of modern music is meaningless and is 'performed' by usually talentless, so-called 'musicians'.

The true legends are gone forever, our Buddy, John Lennon, Janis Joplin, Cass Elliot, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain... Too many to list.

We will not see any artist worthy of mentioning alongside those listed above ever again.

while no other tragedy will be remembered with quite the sorrow and loss that buddy's was and is, i do think that lynyrd skynrd's plane crash and that of patsy cline were huge losses to the world of music, not to mention the crash that took the life of the great jim croce. to this day, patsy cline is still considered the best singer that country music ever produced - in fact, many consider her the greatest singer period. she was that good. and time has shown us that ronnie van zant's lyrics and vocals were as memorable and significant in the southern rock realm as it gets.

that said, 'the day the music died' (thanks in no small part to don mclean's memorable and timeless song), will always be the greatest tragedy in music. because don ever so eloquently nicknamed buddy 'the music', giving him literally the highest honor that could be bestowed on any musician. and all the other artists that came after him were indebted to buddy in one way or another, and still are today, whether they'd admit it or not. because he was THE trailblazer in so many ways, not the least of which were in the areas of innovation and originality.

on a lesser note, the plane crash which took buddy's life (also immortalized in don mclean's song "american pie") was in many ways, the end of an age - the end of innocence, and the genuine fun that was early rock n' roll. after buddy's death, rock floundered around for awhile without real direction, and then eventually became a vehicle for a lot of anti-social and drug-induced rebellion.

so the crash was significant socially as well as musically.

but as for today's artists, i agree that with very few exceptions, they are turned out in cookie-cutter fashion, and have very little to say or offer.

as far as the notion that kurt cobain belongs in the same category as john lennon, buddy holly, and other true greats......please. the man could barely carry a tune and is largely forgettable. sorry if that offends anyone, but to be in same category as buddy holly requires true greatness, and cobain doesn't even come close to measuring up to that standard.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jerry,

(Im sure some of you have already read this book )

p18 Quote From "Rave On" by Philip Norman (which Im currently 60 pages into and loving it!!)

----Desperately sad, of course, to think of such a talent extinguished at 22, when it might have gone on to achieve so much more. But how satisfying to have a hero who can never be made otherwise. For Buddy, unlike Elvis, there has been no grisly unmasking. For him, unlike the Beatles, there has been no bitter, disillusioning anticlimax. For him, unlike Dylan and the Stones, there has been no grotesque, undignified senescence...Buddy Holly, in short, is the perfect myth.----

That was so well written. How would we regard James Dean had he managed to live till 70? Or Elvis had he died when he was 26? How would we react if Brad Pitt died today?

I dont have any solid answers as to why things have changed. Mtv generation perhaps, corporate overhaul of the arts (and subsequently our self worth/identity). Nothing is new anymore perhaps. Apathy, ignorance, general lack of compassion etc. this depressing list could go on forever. I think it is very irrelivant however because to me what makes people like Buddy Holly special is their innocents and the fact that it is nonexistant today. If everyone today was regarded as hero's then Buddy Holly wouldnt stand out very much. The fact that he (and rock and roll's first true disaster) are immortalized as symbolizing so much more than the sum of their parts to me is priceless, unique and I feel priviledged that I can recognize it for that. I think if more people took the time to fall in love with something other than boy-bands they too would be enlightened by the experience.

~ DDK

Sorry Im double posting here but I wanted to address something that was said earlier in this thread.

It was mentioned that music today is garbage. There is a HUGE amount of music today that is amazing. Avoid anything on MTV or popular radio though. It was also said that nothing is new anymore. I think that is a rather unfair comment to make. Of course music will progress to the point where being truely original is next to impossible. It would be like saying all paintings are alike and therefore garbage simply because all the colors of the rainbow can be had in pantone paints. I love punk rock. A thousand songs use the exact same chord progression (c-g-a-f...the ramones only really wrote 1 song but modified with 120 times...hehe). Take doo wop... same chord progression but amazing songs. Blues, rock.., all the same stuff really. As far as hip hop is concerned. I dont care too much for the gangsta stuff nor the misogynistic boastful rap (which seems to get the most airtime on MtV and MucH ... where ARE our tender morals ??). I love public enemy however and various other hip hop groups. I think when you start questioning the simplicity of musics creation and judging it based solely on this then you really are missing the whole point of music. And to be more accurate.. a lot of synth type music is actually quite complicated to create (Ministry comes to mind.. they have very complex arrangements...or NiN). Music today is still very amazing (Belle and Sebastien are a great band to check out for folk, The Independents for punk, System of a Down for metal, Eminem for rap etc), however you have to shut off the TV and Radio to really find the good stuff.

Im done..... thanks for reading!! hehe

~ DDK

2007 will mark fifty years since 'that'll be the day' was released, and it still sounds fresh, new, and exciting in this, the 48th year since it came out.

with all due respect ddk, there isn't a single artist you mentioned that will even be a blip on the radar screen fifty years from now.

while i would agree that not all of today's music is garbage, the lion's share of it is entirely forgettable. when a song by any of the artists you mentioned is over, does the melody linger in your mind? do you find yourself singing the choruses later, because of their memorable quality? do you even know what the song was about when it ends?

in my view, most of today's music is the equivalent of cotton candy - it tastes good for a moment, but it totally lacks nutritional value. lasting, timeless music is more like a seven course meal - it tastes wonderful, stays with you, and feeds not only your body, but your soul as well.

none of the artists you mentioned are even in the category of someone like buddy holly, though you're certainly free to enjoy whatever music you like, obviously. i'm just speaking in a comparative sense, since this thread is about who will be remembered. also, some of the artists you mentioned, if they are remembered, will be remembered, in my opinion, for the aggresive, in-your-face, offensive nature of what they did, rather than for the timeless quality of their work.

i remember sharing some buddy holly music with a couple of my friends' children, who were only five and seven at the time, and they LOVED it.
buddy's music (and much of the music of that era) is timeless, and appeals generationally to new fans. one of the reasons is that it's totally real and basically, live. records were made back then by essentially sticking a mic in the middle of the room and recording the song completely live. nowadays, of course, multitracking, editing, pitch adjustment, drum machines, etc.... are standard and so you rarely have the kind of transparent originality that was present in early rock music. instead, you have canned sounds with layered guitars and vocals and a lot of over-production. and don't get me started on the songwriting of today's music, which is another subject altogether......

ah being this is my generation...The bands that will be remembered...Some i really hate to mention but here we go

Nirvana
Blink 182
Green Day
Coldplay

ah that's all i can think of now...I'll add to the list later

Can you back it up though, as to why they'll be remembered? If those are just your favorite bands, it doesn't count, cause they'll be remembered by you and your friends.
Nirvana I might be able to agree on...but the others...all of them need a bit more explanation.

Something else I have to say...I haven't replied to this post, the original question, in so long, and in going over the old posts, I realize that we're missing one huge genre of music: jazz. It goes without saying that rap is no big deal, there could be some country stars (Waylon Jennings anyone? But he was affliated with Buddy, so I could be bias ) rock and roll (Eddie Cochran?) But jazz? There's Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong and the guy that did Birdland (was that one of the afore mentionned?lol) and King Curtis (more bias possibly cause he recorded with Buddy and I'm a tenor.)

well Nirvana changed the face of music, and they'll always be remembered...That band didn't even have many hits and look what they did?
i'm not a big fan...Actually i'm not a big fan of any of those bands except Coldplay...Coldplay are very unique and shaping up to be a huge band...Everywhere i hear they're the best band in the world, best album of the year, etc.

Greenday and blink 182...I don't like but they kind of made the punk/pop-punk mainstream that we see today....Which i'm very tired of

It's interesting that you mention Greenday becasue I don't think they've ever mentionned Buddy as one of their influences, but listen to Good Riddance (Time of Your Life). They've mixed strings with rock and roll. Does this remind anyone of someone?

nirvana changed the face of music?

now that is a statement without factual support, if i've ever heard one. no offense, but please. this is a site about buddy holly, and the bands you mentioned aren't even in the same league, on any level whatsoever.

as to whether they'll be remembered, i guess it depends on the qualifications 'by who' and 'for what'. buddy's popularity has only grown through the years - that is, more and more fans of different ages, races, countries, and musical backgrounds - and that is true of literally every great artist. i can't see any of the bands you mentioned ever being more than a footnote in rock history, comparatively speaking. the appeal of a truly great artist is universal.

in every generation, you have bands and artists that seem "great", because in the time frame you're living in, they become huge, compared to what else is going on and the particular tastes of radio, the industry, and the public. but those tastes are ever-changing, and the only way to truly judge the lasting quality of an artist is over time.

my guess is that nirvana and the others you mention will not hold up over time, universally, as music that people treasure twenty or thirty years from now.

as to the point about green day mixing strings with rock, well.....when buddy did it, it was original and unique and had never been done. but it's been done thousands upon thousands of times since, by everyone from the beatles to the moody blues to led zeppelin, long before the guys in green day had learned to walk.

by the way, the one who did 'birdland' was charlie parker.

quote:

no offense, but please. this is a site about buddy holly, and the bands you mentioned aren't even in the same league, on any level whatsoever.

umm the question was "WHO WILL BE REMEMBERED" not "Who will be remembered...(only Buddy Holly posts please). It's somewhat of a biased and narrow questions anyways, I will remember lots of great metal/punk bands but someone else wont. A lot of people dont remember Buddy Holly but that doesnt mean his music was horrible. Mainly, its a personal response question that when answered with a personal response the given answer gets attacked which is unfair. A LOT of younger people will definitly remember Nirvana. I was never into Nirvana so I wont however I will remember The Misfits (who have influenced a LOT of bands). Sure Buddy was amazing, after all , this is why we are all here but I dont think it does anyone any good to be rather elitist about him or his music.

btw - the appeal of a truly great artist is universal.

????? based on what? youre saying that to qualify as being "truely great" you have to have universal appeal?? What a very narrow way of thinking...., that is a shame..

[please be careful to avoid attacking other posters who have differing opinions than your own, personal attacks will not be tolerated]

~ DDK

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jim,

DDK

your post is somewhat humorous. because with the limited perspective you have on music, it seems a bit strange to call someone with extraordinarily broad taste in music "narrow-minded".

the fact is that those bands you mentioned will never be held in anything close to the same universal esteem as any of the rock greats that were the foundation for everything that is today. the best they can do is to try and be grungier, more offensive, etc...., and hope to be remembered for that. because their music is largely forgettable. it's just simply a fact, DDK. in regards to the accusation you make about my being narrow minded, remember that when you point a finger at someone, there are three more pointing back at you. in my view, your views lack historical perspective. i have studied music from most of the time periods of history, and i think i know a little about it - not just rock, but many, many artists and styles from many generations.

'who will be remembered' is NOT a personal question, really. the yardstick we are using is the legendary status of people such as Buddy Holly. and nirvana, though YOU personally may like their music, will never be truly legendary or universally (that is; different ages, races, countries, generations) loved. sorry.

yes, i am saying that to be truly great, you must have universal appeal. for instance, van gogh is a painter with universal appeal. he's loved by people all over the world. but during his lifetime, that was not true. it took time for people to recognize his greatness. and the same is true with music. though in the case of the bands you like, i think the reverse is true. rather than becoming more loved and treasured with broader appeal over time, they will diminish over time. because by definition, their music was specifically directed towards a certain type audience, with a certain rebellious attitude and worldview.

in other words, Buddy and others of his era
appeal to everyone - from children, to the elderly, to teens, to young parents, to middle aged people - people of all races, countries, and musical backgrounds and tastes. no matter how you try, you cannot possibly say that about any of the bands you mentioned. to say that the 'misfits' influenced bands is irrelevant. because all of them must build on the foundations that Buddy and others laid. rock cannot be re-invented - it can only be tweaked and altered to one degree or another. any path taken by the groups you mention has already been trod before, to some extent.

there really is no need to use self-congratulatory language like "what a very narrow way of thinking". this is a site dedicated to Buddy Holly, and you may expect that each of us WILL be elitist when it comes to Buddy, by definition. if that bothers you, then i'm sorry. perhaps nirvana or the misfits will have websites thirty or forty years from now and you may expect that they will be elitist, favoring each band's music. and that is fine.

my main point is that time will tell, and not enough time has elapsed to determine if any of your favorite bands will be remembered. my guess (a very educated one, i might add) is that they will not, at least not anywhere close to the degree that Buddy and others are.

How can you say that? I agree partially with DDK on this one. The question that I asked that started this topic is a bit of a personal one, but in the same breath it's not. There were others mentionned on here beforehand that mentionned people like Patsy Cline and Vanzant, and Mr& Mrs. Gaines. For all I knew, I thought Patsy Cline was still alive and I had never heard of the others. But people thought they were important. Their generation knew about them, mine didn't. The same is true for Buddy.
Buddy Holly has universal appeal, but he is not worldly known. We've seen how hard it to get his music, CDs, performances. Not everyone recognizes the name Buddy Holly sadly enough, and if they do it's 'only that guy with glasses'.
Don't get me wrong. I play Buddy almost 24/7, I can sing his lyrics backwards or forwards, and have tried to understand them in about 3 different languages. I respect what he did for the music industry. But there are others. Maybe it's time, as the one who started this whole topic, to ask a new question. Who is pushing music in a good direction?
Anyone who can write their own songs, transfer what they feel into lyrics, play some sort of instrument and share it with the world, and do it well, deserves to be recognized.

quote:

to call someone with extraordinarily broad taste in music "narrow-minded".

And yet you have yet to enlighten us with your views on who really should be remembered. And "Buddy and the others"? You have yet to mention others.
In the 1950s, they didn't copy each other, but they certainly borrowed ideas. Doing their own versions of covers, taking one idea and adding it onto something completely different. (Such as Party Doll and Not Fade Away.) Exactly what is happening now. Taking an idea and applying it to your own music.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: buddy_blue,

yah man, Nirvana will be rememberd. I'm not a fan but they DID change music into what we see today...So maybe not a good thing, if you listen to bands from the 80's and than bands from the 90's...You'll notice a huge difference, Nirvana started grungemania. The 90's was the last music generation where i can identify a band by their name, vocalist and music. Blink and Greenday were the ones most responsible in making todays music so similar, repetitive and boring. ANyways,
I'm sorry i thought the question was which bands will be remembered in this generation? if it is than yah i stick with these bands...Maybe Blink or Greenday might not be remembered...but they did change music.
So some more bands to the list dating further back:
U2, Metallica, Led Zeppelin, Sex Pistols, Rolling Stones, the Beatles...Of course the Stones and Beatles trace back to our man Buddy Holly ;-)

quote:

Originally posted by buddy_blue:
.....who today in rock and roll (R&B;, country, what have you) will be remembered even a decade from now?

I had to dig this out of the top of the thread, because I'd forgotten what the original question was ...

I think people are guaranteed to disagree when they're answering different questions

I think Jerry was answering as though you were trying to say Nirvana has the same stature and contribution as Buddy Holly, when clearly they don't. Not even close.

Will Nirvana be remembered 10 years from now? I think they will, by their fans to a degree, but also mostly because Kurt Cobain died so young, and under tragic circumstances, and the media made such a big fuss over him.

But what value will there be to their memory? Will a generation of musicians be influenced by them? I sure hope not, because that's a lot of destroyed families, and a lot of sticky living room walls. Will Nirvana be remembered for their music? How many of you even know who the other members of Nirvana are? It hasn't been that long, but I bet most people just remembered Kurt Cobain because he killed himself.

My favourite Nirvana tracks are from the MTV Unplugged recordings, my absolute favourites on there are covers -- The Man Who Fell to Earth (Bowie), and I forget the name of the one by Leadbelly ... there's also a good Meat Puppets cover on there I think.

Anyway, I guess my answer to the question posed above is that Nirvana will be remembered in 10 years, for sure, but sadly not for any good reason.

Buddy is remembered partly because of his tragic death, but mostly at least to those who know, because of the huge impact he made on the music of a generation and beyond.

I think that C Freeman was trying to make the point that a lot of our new music is quite forgettable, and I definitely agree with that.

I also think that music isn't dead yet, there's a lot of great new stuff by artists who may last long enough to be great. Those who don't get chewed up and spit out by the media, or die from getting too popular, too soon.

I think David Bowie will be remembered, bands like the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, The Clash, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, even U2 have made cultural impact, influenced millions of fans, and have their place -- but will they be remembered like Buddy, no, I think not.

quote:

Originally posted by buddy_blue:
Buddy Holly has universal appeal, but he is not worldly known

Finally, I don't want to be insulting to buddy_blue, but when you say something like this, I just stop listening to you, it just seems to me that you'll say anything to further your argument, whether it's true or not. Buddy's music and his story is very well known to the English-speaking world, and beyond. Of course he's never had the marketing machine of Elvis behind him, but the Musical alone has played in dozens of countries. His CDs are in distribution all over the world. If people actually bought the CDs instead of bootlegging them, I bet their distribution would be even better.

I've seen the Musical myself in two different countries, and neither time was in North America. I've seen his records for sale in every city I've been in, and yeah, I've checked. It's just a thing I do, I shop for music while on vacation ...

Perhaps I'm just sounding like an old fogey, but I've been around a bit longer than you, and I have (I assume) travelled a bit more than you, and I assure you, I've yet to meet anyone who is even slightly aware of Rock'n'Roll, who hasn't heard of Buddy Holly.

Sorry, started to rant there a bit. Okay, just reread that, I started to rant a LOT.

From what I've gathered here. Those who have a more open mind to this topic are a lot younger than those who seem to have a rather rigid way of thinking. Im gunna drop out of this topic seeing as how most of the arguements that are being "made" are rather weak and annoying ones yet to contend with them would be like saying "Buddy Holly wasnt as good as you think he is" which I dont want to do. It's a bit of a catch...., Yes most bands dont even come close to doing that which Buddy did., however a lot of bands are still amazing and will be "remembered" by many adoring fans...Ill bring it back to my painting reference.... just because Dali painted amazing surreal paintings does not mean that Mr.Smith down the road cannot paint amazing ones that will be rememebered also... what a shame life would be if only 1 person ever got total glory. I just dont buy into that regardless of how much I love Buddy Holly's music or Dali's art (actually, I prefer Magritte but who's counting)..,

so anyways.., rock on!

[again, please refrain from indulging in personal attacks against those with different opinions than your own]

~ DDK

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jim,

quote:

Originally posted by JohnDaker:

Finally, I don't want to be insulting to buddy_blue, but when you say something like this, I just stop listening to you, it just seems to me that you'll say anything to further your argument, whether it's true or not. Buddy's music and his story is very well known to the English-speaking world, and beyond. Of course he's never had the marketing machine of Elvis behind him, but the Musical alone has played in dozens of countries. His CDs are in distribution all over the world. If people actually bought the CDs instead of bootlegging them, I bet their distribution would be even better.

Okay, so maybe I didn't explain myself clear enough. I can understand that. Listening to my friends talk, they don't know who Buddy Holly is. If you ask the right people in any country, of course they'll know who Buddy Holly is. I guess what I meant to say is that he has, sadly, gotten old. I don't want to see him get buried in that cornfield, as young as I am, that's why I listen to him. Cause he was universal....knew what was going on in our hearts. But yet so many people now don't realize that it's been done before. You just gotta ask the right people who's done it before...and they'll know it was Buddy.

buddy blue

the beginning of your last post originally said "you can't say that", though it now reads 'how can you say that?'. with all due respect, this being america, i can say whatever i want.

i have extensive experience in and around the music business and am knowledgeable about music of many different styles and from many different eras. a little basic respect for your elders is in order here, ms. blue. better yet, how about one buddy holly fan to another, with something to offer in the way of opinion, tempered with simple respect?

now, as far as what i have NOT offered, i don't consider it necessary to offer up ideas on who will be remembered. as i stated in my last post, time will tell. it's a question without end and there are 100's upon 100's of answers to it. but as i also stated in my last post, using buddy as the yardstick makes pretty good sense, since this is a site for and about him. and in that regard, he has no equal.

as to the original question about 'who will be remembered', no one said that nirvana and others will NOT be remembered. there are bands and artists from all eras that are remembered BY SOMEONE. so yes, people will remember all those groups. but i was simply pointing out that what they have done is but a small pebble on the sand of the beach that is music. Buddy represents much more than that, since every rock or pop song since can literally be traced to something he did or wrote. of course, buddy had influences too, and drew from what he heard and liked. that is normal. but when someone combines all the elements of music into something new and different, and that appeals to people forty or fifty years later in new and fresh ways, i think we can call that "universal". i will state once again that
MOST of the music of today will not be remembered that way, because for one thing, in Buddy's day, music was not a lucrative field. people did it because they loved it, and didn't make a ton of money on it. but nowadays, there are many people who have talent and are pursuing music, but not with the love that Buddy and those of his era had for what they did. that's what mclean was trying to say in American Pie - the innocence of what buddy and his contemporaries did was lost, only to be replaced with a hedonistic, rebellious, anti-social, anti-establishment, disillusionment,
i'm-stoned-out-of-my-head-and-here's-my-song mentality. that kind of sentiment and philosophical outlook won't last, because there is nothing of depth there. we all go through that period, where we think that way, to one extent or another, but then we grow up. nirvana and that kind of music is something you grow out of - buddy's is something you never grow out of.

additionally, artists of today cannot reinvent rock n' roll, as i previously pointed out. it's already been done. all they can do is be more obnoxious, more rebellious, more offensive, grungier, etc.... and those aren't really claims to greatness, no matter what you or anyone else may say. greatness comes when you make art that will last and appeal to people who live on after you're gone, decades and even centuries later. Buddy qualifies, nirvana does not.

(i'm repeating myself here, buddy blue - in using a phrase such as 'Buddy and those of his era' i think i'm being very clear. i'm referring the the architects of what became rock n' roll, but was at the time called 'bop' or 'western bop' or any one of a number of names. yet you say i'm not specific. do i need to be? we know who i'm referring to....chuck berry, fats domino, etc....).

as far as your subsequent post, DDK, i see that humility is not one of your strong points. because you seem to want to come on here and claim that being younger, you're "open-minded" and that those who are older and know more than you are "narrow-minded". all i can say to that is that it's possible to be so open minded that your brains fall out.

one additional minor point - steve and cassie gaines were not man and wife, they were brother and sister. and while they were talented, in truth, neither one is considered to be truly significant in the world of music. steve joined lynyrd skynyrd about a year before the crash as a second guitarist, and his sister was a back-up singer. the real loss from that plane crash was lead singer ronnie van zant, the genius of skynyrd.

[again, this thread has lots of good discussion so I don't want to remove it, but personal attacks will not be tolerated, this is not yet a personal attack, but it comes uncomfortably close]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jerry,

"You turn on the radio, and in a brand new release, you hear Buddy Holly. How much, that's a different story....not bad for a guy from Lubbock, huh?"-Keith Richards.
Teachers ask the class what they believe in. I answer music. Not the answer I believe in Buddy Holly, but that I believe in music. Thanks to Buddy, we have good music. Some try and carry on the tradition, and they fail. Others, those that feel the real emotion in their songs, maybe they're getting to heart of what Buddy was born knowing.

"old", "weak", "annoying", and "rigid"

Well, I've been called worse

We all have the right to express our opinions, but I don't think that insults are necessary -- also they seem really out of place here.

[post removed by request as it is unsuitable for these boards]

~DDK

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jim,