Listening to MmmmmmmmmmmBop after a very good birthday lunch where I finally reconnected with my mother.
It is the most joyful song.
It is the best popsong ever written. Along with the Complete Works of Busted
It is. My little sister who I adore was obsessed with them at the time and I still sing joyfully along with it reminiscing about me driving her to teenage parties.
Now trying to decide which out of the waterboys “whole of the moon” and “moonlight shadow” by Mike oldfield is the better song to moon to…..
The latter falls down significantly with the line "4am in the morning"...
How about Van Morrison's 'Moondance', which you could cheerfully wave your bare arse around to?
No, it’s “Nightshift” by the Commodores now. One of my funeral choices! Don’t know why but one of the best songs ever.
Best couplet ever
It's 4 in the morning and I'm walking along Beside the ghost of every drinker here who's ever done wrong
Just moved onto Tanita Tikaram - good tradition and laughing at my best friend telling me it was his parents music - guess you had to be there.
That first album was mind blowing - good trad, cathedral song, world outside your window, it felt like this was the new Dylan. Then nothing.
Bought her second album on one of those old fashioned cassette tapes and it was quite good but classic case of putting out an amazing first album that couldn’t be matched or repeated.
I have a weird desire to arrange a concert with her and Lloyd Cole and the commotions but you are only allowed to attend in black polo necks and pretend to be very disinterested.
I forgot, twist in my sobriety. That album, was as perfect as the first stone roses. Immaculate.
2nd album had little sister leaving town which was ok, otherwise tosh.
I thought The Cappuccino Songs was a return to form.
OK thanks had given up by then, will have a listen
A harrowing wildlife encounter. This is a big bull elephant seal that really took against me on some island off the Antarctic Peninsula. Here he is. This is him coming after me
They weigh about three tons, mature male elephant seals, so it could be potentially scary, but he was such a fat twat it took him about an hour to go a metre. I had three days in which to make my escape. After the first hour, when he had advanced a metre, he just gave up, and stared at me. Tosser
Maybe it was love at first sight?
Does this look like love, Sunil?
No, he wanted a ruck. He wanted me off his island. Unfortunately for him, he was so fat he could only move seven millimetres every thirty minutes, so I was able to flee by virtue of shuffling slightly to the left while yawning
Possibly the most pathetic attack in the history of the animal kingdom
Speaking from a non manager point of view, just a man in the street who does normal man in the street things, basically no one has noticed anything different since we left the eu....food is slighty dearer but that is as much the increase in fuel prices and the ukraine war....some people have to queue a little longer to holiday in france...who gives a shit frankly. That is the average worker stance not rochdale pioneers we are all doomed stance and frankly there are a lot of workers and not many rochdales so tough shit really
But. We were told Brexit would solve our problems and make us better off. If no one has noticed what was the bloody point of the last six years?
Brexit has made me better off and most of those I know as for the first time many are actually not earning minimum wage. If you are poorer because you did well off being in the eu well tough. Its what people like I and my friends were told...you arent getting payrises but better for the country to be in the eu so deal with it.
So it's I'm all right Jack, then? The vast majority aren't better off. And a heck of a lot of them are low paid. I should know.
Why is I am alright Jack no longer alright...for the last 40 years its been those benefitting from the eu saying its I am alright jack.....dont like it because now you aren't so alright tough titties.
This is what a lot of people on this board dont seem to get. Since 1997 they have been doing just fine.....a huge number of people in this country however have seen their wages fall in real terms year after year while bosses did ok and lets face it their are a lot of senior managers and boss types here whinging about brexit, Rochdale is a prime example.....now that huge number of people see their wages actually going up and yes we are pleased about that and really dont care about you just as you didnt about us.
And the average wage is rising way below the rate of inflation. This may or may not be a result of Brexit. But we aren't getting better off.
And if we were still in the eu it may well be that the average wage was even further below the rate of inflation as people like me and friends wouldn't have had inflation busting payrises. Indeed I suspect if we hadnt voted out then my pay would still be the same as it was in 2003 as it didnt start to rise till 2018. Can I prove it no obviously not its a counter factual however you also by that light can't claim average wage would be better compared to inflation now if we had stayed in
Well no. But the average wage rise is well below inflation. That may or may not be as a result of Brexit. But that isn't eidence of a shining success.
And if we had been in the eu still and average wages had been even less competitive against inflation you would have merely shrugged and said well they need to up their skills or something
While my predictions, as the Stodge Saturday Patent has demonstrated, aren't worth any attention, I'll offer a thought based on recent experience.
In 50-75 years time, London will empty at the beginning of June as those who can seek solace from the 45c temperatures and humidity associated with the late 21st century British summer between the spring and autumn monsoon seasons.
The newly-refurbished London Euston station will host the regular 30-minute Maglev summer service to the Lake District having passengers disembarking at Oxenholme in little more than a hour. From there, families will decamp to their summer chalets near the lakes (or as near as is affordable). The ability to work independently from location, first established during the 2020 pandemic, will allow tens of thousands of Londoners to continue working far from the overheating capital.
For those without the means to escape the heat, the annual ordeal that is summer in London is the very definition of purgatory. On the hottest days, with temperatures nearing 50c, many head to vast "cool centres" where they can enjoy air conditioned relief before heading home in the later evening.
While the Lakes are one popular "retreat from the heat", the Pennines and Cheviots have also seen summer housing and the major development of the north Scottish coast around Torrisdale and the islands of Harris and Lewis have seen an explosion of summer homes for those from southern and eastern Britain desperate to seek cooler summer weather.
I think you understate the case. The way we're going it will be a runaway climate change. Although some, especially reputable researchers, know what we need to do to counter this, most of us are too gormless to act accordingly. For instance, getting an electric car does not justify an otherwise wanton life style.
That's my fear. That we are now in an accelerating loop of increasing warmth and volatility, which will feed off itself like a chain reaction. And perhaps it is already too late to stop this
Our presence in this universe appears to be the result of a long series of lucky circumstances.
These include: The fortuitous value of the fine structure constant, which, if it were a little difference would not allow stellar fusion to produce carbon. The existence of a rocky planet at just the right distance from a stable and long-lived star. The presence of just enough water on said planet to make a complex environment of coasts and shallows that would drive evolution along. The presence of an unusually large moon orbiting said planet to slosh all that water about and further drive evolution. A complex geology that, combined with the effects of life, has managed to remove CO2 from the Earth's atmosphere at a rate that has just about compensated for the gradual increase in the luminosity of the sun, this keeping the temperature of the Earth in a range compatible with life over the aeons.
And we are just about to screw it all up.
Not at all. Whilst you are right about the serendipity element of our existence, you vastly overestimate the significance of our current civilisation and the nature of the changes we are facing. Presenting these current very minor adjustments in our environment with the vast changes that have occurred over the last few million years (one of which probably reduced the human population to less than 10,000 individuals) really shows a fundamental disconnect with the reality of our existence on planet earth.
The changes of a few degrees - whilst undoubtedly bad for our current comfortable civilisation - are bugger all in both scale and rate of change compared to the natural changes that have occurred even in fairly recent times.
This is not to say we shouldn't try to mitigate such changes, nor that they won't be very bad for our current lifestyles but your hyperbolic comment shows a stunning lack of historical and prehistorical perspective.
Not really, as your parenthesis "(one of which probably reduced the human population to less than 10,000 individuals)" accidentally reveals. What is the point of saying This is nothing, we've had snowball earth and ice free earth and oxygen levels of 31%, this is a mere pin prick, when any one of those three sets of conditions would leave mankind wholly or mainly, stone dead? What has the long view got to do with us, when we have only been in the picture for a couple of minutes relatively speaking?
It's like warning a population of tadpoles in an April puddle that if it doesn't rain in the next week their puddle will dry out and they will all die: not much consolation for them to know that rainfall usually averages out in the course of a year and their puddle was virtually a pond back in January.
Nah. The point is that the changes we are seeing now are pinpricks compared to what nature can and has done in the past. We will and as we always have and this idea that this is the end of humanity or even civilisation which is expressed in FE's posting really is baseless. Indeed civilisations of the past have thrived under exactly the conditions which are being predicted now. It is uncomfortable for individuals and is probably something to be avoided if we can since it will make life miserable for a lot of people. But it is simply rubbish to consider anything we re predicting at the moment as the end of humanity.
Of course if we decided to nuke each other that is another matter. But I grew up in the 70s and 80s when threat was a permanent imminent threat so even that I find a bit of a yawn.
The world is a wonderful place and will continue to be so pretty much regardless of what we do.
The world is a wonderful place here and now for well heeled UK property owning PBers with money in the bank and drink in the fridge, sure. Our current predicament is such that either hundreds of millions of people who are mainly poor and fucked up anyway are going to be wiped out, or all of us are. I can't pretend to be terribly fussed at either possibility, but that's because I am a selfish twat. How about you?
The poor in the rest of the world are always being fucked up by those of us in the first world. But in fact their lot has being getting better rather than worse over the last century and continues to do so. So yes I continue to say the world is a wonderful place - and a lot better place to live in than it has been for almost all of human history for the vast majority of its population whether rich or poor.
But there's more of them. Lots more of them. So in absolute terms there's more human misery now, than in all previous history combined. Not claiming I lose sleep over this, but celebrations seem out of order.
And yet by all the measures - income, life expectancy, HALE, access to education and technology - the whole world is getting better.
Global average life expectancy increased by more than 6 years between 2000 and 2019 (WHO).
The same goes for Healthy Life expectancy (WHO). Almost all of this was as a result of increase in Third World Life expectancy.
Infant mortality has dropped from 9% in 1990 to 2.6% today. (WHO)
By 2015 the number of people living in absolute poverty globally had dropped less than half of its 1990 levels - from 1.9 billion to 736 million (World Bank). And that in spite of there being far more people in the world than there were in 1990.
In the same period illiteracy dropped from 24% of the world's population to less than 14%. (UNESCO)
Irrespective of how many people there are in the world today, they are better off overall than they were only 30 years ago and vastly better off than they were a century ago.
This is not a call to do nothing more. But it is a fight back against the idea that the world is becoming a worse place to live in whether rich or poor. It is not.
Listening to MmmmmmmmmmmBop after a very good birthday lunch where I finally reconnected with my mother.
It is the most joyful song.
It is the best popsong ever written. Along with the Complete Works of Busted
It is. My little sister who I adore was obsessed with them at the time and I still sing joyfully along with it reminiscing about me driving her to teenage parties.
Now trying to decide which out of the waterboys “whole of the moon” and “moonlight shadow” by Mike oldfield is the better song to moon to…..
The latter falls down significantly with the line "4am in the morning"...
How about Van Morrison's 'Moondance', which you could cheerfully wave your bare arse around to?
No, it’s “Nightshift” by the Commodores now. One of my funeral choices! Don’t know why but one of the best songs ever.
Best couplet ever
It's 4 in the morning and I'm walking along Beside the ghost of every drinker here who's ever done wrong
Just moved onto Tanita Tikaram - good tradition and laughing at my best friend telling me it was his parents music - guess you had to be there.
That first album was mind blowing - good trad, cathedral song, world outside your window, it felt like this was the new Dylan. Then nothing.
Bought her second album on one of those old fashioned cassette tapes and it was quite good but classic case of putting out an amazing first album that couldn’t be matched or repeated.
I have a weird desire to arrange a concert with her and Lloyd Cole and the commotions but you are only allowed to attend in black polo necks and pretend to be very disinterested.
I forgot, twist in my sobriety. That album, was as perfect as the first stone roses. Immaculate.
2nd album had little sister leaving town which was ok, otherwise tosh.
“He likes the sun” was also great. White girl London blues (it’s not a thing) The whole album was great and would be lost now as another set of songs but back in the day when you bought an album and listened to it it was perfect.
A harrowing wildlife encounter. This is a big bull elephant seal that really took against me on some island off the Antarctic Peninsula. Here he is. This is him coming after me
They weigh about three tons, mature male elephant seals, so it could be potentially scary, but he was such a fat twat it took him about an hour to go a metre. I had three days in which to make my escape. After the first hour, when he had advanced a metre, he just gave up, and stared at me. Tosser
Maybe it was love at first sight?
Does this look like love, Sunil?
No, he wanted a ruck. He wanted me off his island. Unfortunately for him, he was so fat he could only move seven millimetres every thirty minutes, so I was able to flee by virtue of shuffling slightly to the left while yawning
Possibly the most pathetic attack in the history of the animal kingdom
Listening to MmmmmmmmmmmBop after a very good birthday lunch where I finally reconnected with my mother.
It is the most joyful song.
It is the best popsong ever written. Along with the Complete Works of Busted
It is. My little sister who I adore was obsessed with them at the time and I still sing joyfully along with it reminiscing about me driving her to teenage parties.
Now trying to decide which out of the waterboys “whole of the moon” and “moonlight shadow” by Mike oldfield is the better song to moon to…..
The latter falls down significantly with the line "4am in the morning"...
How about Van Morrison's 'Moondance', which you could cheerfully wave your bare arse around to?
No, it’s “Nightshift” by the Commodores now. One of my funeral choices! Don’t know why but one of the best songs ever.
Listening to MmmmmmmmmmmBop after a very good birthday lunch where I finally reconnected with my mother.
It is the most joyful song.
It is the best popsong ever written. Along with the Complete Works of Busted
It is. My little sister who I adore was obsessed with them at the time and I still sing joyfully along with it reminiscing about me driving her to teenage parties.
Now trying to decide which out of the waterboys “whole of the moon” and “moonlight shadow” by Mike oldfield is the better song to moon to…..
The latter falls down significantly with the line "4am in the morning"...
How about Van Morrison's 'Moondance', which you could cheerfully wave your bare arse around to?
No, it’s “Nightshift” by the Commodores now. One of my funeral choices! Don’t know why but one of the best songs ever.
Didn't know it, do now. Fantastic.
I fell in love with that song on childhood flights to South Africa when the airline still was proudly racist and that song kept playing - one of the finest black singing groups singing praise to the finest black singers who were their friends. The irony wasn’t lost on a ten year old white boi.
Listening to MmmmmmmmmmmBop after a very good birthday lunch where I finally reconnected with my mother.
It is the most joyful song.
It is the best popsong ever written. Along with the Complete Works of Busted
It is. My little sister who I adore was obsessed with them at the time and I still sing joyfully along with it reminiscing about me driving her to teenage parties.
Now trying to decide which out of the waterboys “whole of the moon” and “moonlight shadow” by Mike oldfield is the better song to moon to…..
The latter falls down significantly with the line "4am in the morning"...
How about Van Morrison's 'Moondance', which you could cheerfully wave your bare arse around to?
No, it’s “Nightshift” by the Commodores now. One of my funeral choices! Don’t know why but one of the best songs ever.
Didn't know it, do now. Fantastic.
I fell in love with that song on childhood flights to South Africa when the airline still was proudly racist and that song kept playing - one of the finest black singing groups singing praise to the finest black singers who were their friends. The irony wasn’t lost on a ten year old white boi.
Marvin!
I'd quite forgotten that song. It is lovely. Thanks
Listening to MmmmmmmmmmmBop after a very good birthday lunch where I finally reconnected with my mother.
It is the most joyful song.
It is the best popsong ever written. Along with the Complete Works of Busted
It is. My little sister who I adore was obsessed with them at the time and I still sing joyfully along with it reminiscing about me driving her to teenage parties.
Now trying to decide which out of the waterboys “whole of the moon” and “moonlight shadow” by Mike oldfield is the better song to moon to…..
The latter falls down significantly with the line "4am in the morning"...
How about Van Morrison's 'Moondance', which you could cheerfully wave your bare arse around to?
No, it’s “Nightshift” by the Commodores now. One of my funeral choices! Don’t know why but one of the best songs ever.
Best couplet ever
It's 4 in the morning and I'm walking along Beside the ghost of every drinker here who's ever done wrong
Just moved onto Tanita Tikaram - good tradition and laughing at my best friend telling me it was his parents music - guess you had to be there.
That first album was mind blowing - good trad, cathedral song, world outside your window, it felt like this was the new Dylan. Then nothing.
Bought her second album on one of those old fashioned cassette tapes and it was quite good but classic case of putting out an amazing first album that couldn’t be matched or repeated.
I have a weird desire to arrange a concert with her and Lloyd Cole and the commotions but you are only allowed to attend in black polo necks and pretend to be very disinterested.
I forgot, twist in my sobriety. That album, was as perfect as the first stone roses. Immaculate.
2nd album had little sister leaving town which was ok, otherwise tosh.
“He likes the sun” was also great. White girl London blues (it’s not a thing) The whole album was great and would be lost now as another set of songs but back in the day when you bought an album and listened to it it was perfect.
And valentine heart. And every track. except poor cow.
Listening to MmmmmmmmmmmBop after a very good birthday lunch where I finally reconnected with my mother.
It is the most joyful song.
It is the best popsong ever written. Along with the Complete Works of Busted
It is. My little sister who I adore was obsessed with them at the time and I still sing joyfully along with it reminiscing about me driving her to teenage parties.
Now trying to decide which out of the waterboys “whole of the moon” and “moonlight shadow” by Mike oldfield is the better song to moon to…..
The latter falls down significantly with the line "4am in the morning"...
How about Van Morrison's 'Moondance', which you could cheerfully wave your bare arse around to?
No, it’s “Nightshift” by the Commodores now. One of my funeral choices! Don’t know why but one of the best songs ever.
Didn't know it, do now. Fantastic.
I fell in love with that song on childhood flights to South Africa when the airline still was proudly racist and that song kept playing - one of the finest black singing groups singing praise to the finest black singers who were their friends. The irony wasn’t lost on a ten year old white boi.
Marvin!
I'd quite forgotten that song. It is lovely.
Thanks
And of course “Jakie”. I don’t think there has ever been a better musical tribute but not only that - an amazing tune.
Is anyone in 2047 going to look back fondly on a music video from 2022, with some gangsta rap or some drill and some guy going on about fucking his motherfucking hoes and doing drugs with his niggaz?
Is anyone going to look back at this nihilistic dreck - and sigh and say Oh what a lovely song that was?
No, they are not. This is one small aspect of the decline of the West
Is anyone in 2047 going to look back fondly on a music video from 2022, with some gangsta rap or some drill and some guy going on about fucking his motherfucking hoes and doing drugs with his niggaz?
Is anyone going to look back at this nihilistic dreck - and sigh and say Oh what a lovely song that was?
No, they are not. This is one small aspect of the decline of the West
Yes.
Of course.
The adults of 2047 are the teenagers of 2022. People look back fondly on the music of their youth.
Is anyone in 2047 going to look back fondly on a music video from 2022, with some gangsta rap or some drill and some guy going on about fucking his motherfucking hoes and doing drugs with his niggaz?
Is anyone going to look back at this nihilistic dreck - and sigh and say Oh what a lovely song that was?
No, they are not. This is one small aspect of the decline of the West
To be fair, listen to “Now 6” edit or “Now 5” and there are classics and a load of crap. Time edits music. Nothing beats Tarzan Boy, by Baltimora IMHO but each to their own.
Listening to MmmmmmmmmmmBop after a very good birthday lunch where I finally reconnected with my mother.
It is the most joyful song.
It is the best popsong ever written. Along with the Complete Works of Busted
It is. My little sister who I adore was obsessed with them at the time and I still sing joyfully along with it reminiscing about me driving her to teenage parties.
Now trying to decide which out of the waterboys “whole of the moon” and “moonlight shadow” by Mike oldfield is the better song to moon to…..
The latter falls down significantly with the line "4am in the morning"...
How about Van Morrison's 'Moondance', which you could cheerfully wave your bare arse around to?
No, it’s “Nightshift” by the Commodores now. One of my funeral choices! Don’t know why but one of the best songs ever.
Didn't know it, do now. Fantastic.
I fell in love with that song on childhood flights to South Africa when the airline still was proudly racist and that song kept playing - one of the finest black singing groups singing praise to the finest black singers who were their friends. The irony wasn’t lost on a ten year old white boi.
Marvin!
I'd quite forgotten that song. It is lovely.
Thanks
And of course “Jakie”. I don’t think there has ever been a better musical tribute but not only that - an amazing tune.
It's not just a beautiful song beautifully sung and perfectly produced, it is CELEBRATORY. It is warm, positive, sweet natured, reverent, lush. It says Whoah we made some great music. It makes you smile twice over.
Contrast with black music today which is either terrible commercialised autotune pap or awful, grim, bleak, morally vacuous rubbish celebrating death, whores and guns, and not amusingly
The decline of black popular music is of course just a tiny piece of the wider puzzle, of western decay
Is anyone in 2047 going to look back fondly on a music video from 2022, with some gangsta rap or some drill and some guy going on about fucking his motherfucking hoes and doing drugs with his niggaz?
Is anyone going to look back at this nihilistic dreck - and sigh and say Oh what a lovely song that was?
No, they are not. This is one small aspect of the decline of the West
Yes.
Of course.
The adults of 2047 are the teenagers of 2022. People look back fondly on the music of their youth.
The difference between now and then is the fragmentation, the end of the monoculture. There are so many different rabbit holes you can fall into.
Both this summer's key trends, for example. But I would assume with completely different musical tastes.
Leon is making the mistake of assuming whatever is on MTV today is what the yoof are listening to. Chances are it's not, and most people's experience of their teens/early 20s will be vastly different from whatever some 40 year old hack writing in dazed and confused thinks it is.
Listening to MmmmmmmmmmmBop after a very good birthday lunch where I finally reconnected with my mother.
It is the most joyful song.
It is the best popsong ever written. Along with the Complete Works of Busted
It is. My little sister who I adore was obsessed with them at the time and I still sing joyfully along with it reminiscing about me driving her to teenage parties.
Now trying to decide which out of the waterboys “whole of the moon” and “moonlight shadow” by Mike oldfield is the better song to moon to…..
The latter falls down significantly with the line "4am in the morning"...
How about Van Morrison's 'Moondance', which you could cheerfully wave your bare arse around to?
No, it’s “Nightshift” by the Commodores now. One of my funeral choices! Don’t know why but one of the best songs ever.
Didn't know it, do now. Fantastic.
I fell in love with that song on childhood flights to South Africa when the airline still was proudly racist and that song kept playing - one of the finest black singing groups singing praise to the finest black singers who were their friends. The irony wasn’t lost on a ten year old white boi.
Marvin!
I'd quite forgotten that song. It is lovely.
Thanks
And of course “Jakie”. I don’t think there has ever been a better musical tribute but not only that - an amazing tune.
It's not just a beautiful song beautifully sung and perfectly produced, it is CELEBRATORY. It is warm, positive, sweet natured, reverent, lush. It says Whoah we made some great music. It makes you smile twice over.
Contrast with black music today which is either terrible commercialised autotune pap or awful, grim, bleak, morally vacuous rubbish celebrating death, whores and guns, and not amusingly
The decline of black popular music is of course just a tiny piece of the wider puzzle, of western decay
It’s just an amazing tune, by amazing artists, produced amazingly, when they were amazing friends, from an amazing era.
Is anyone in 2047 going to look back fondly on a music video from 2022, with some gangsta rap or some drill and some guy going on about fucking his motherfucking hoes and doing drugs with his niggaz?
Is anyone going to look back at this nihilistic dreck - and sigh and say Oh what a lovely song that was?
No, they are not. This is one small aspect of the decline of the West
Is anyone in 2047 going to look back fondly on a music video from 2022, with some gangsta rap or some drill and some guy going on about fucking his motherfucking hoes and doing drugs with his niggaz?
Is anyone going to look back at this nihilistic dreck - and sigh and say Oh what a lovely song that was?
No, they are not. This is one small aspect of the decline of the West
Yes.
Of course.
The adults of 2047 are the teenagers of 2022. People look back fondly on the music of their youth.
No, they won't. You're not thinking straight or deep
Artforms do and will decline. Italian art declined from the great Masters of the Renaissance - Michelangelo, Raphael, Da Vinci - to Bronzino and Mannerism
Classical music is almost inert these days, after 300 years of Bach. Beethoven, Mozart, Wagner
Popular music had a golden era - its own High Renaissance - of about 50 years, from 1955 to 2005. Now it enters Mannerism. It is just not as good, no one remembers Bronzino.
And all that would be fine, the cycles of life and art go on, if it weren't for the fact that - to my mind - this betrays a deeper malaise in western society, maybe all human society. Optimism has run out (which is particularly bad for youthful artforms). We live in a new, crabbed, anxious age, pregnant with fears and doubt
Speaking from a non manager point of view, just a man in the street who does normal man in the street things, basically no one has noticed anything different since we left the eu....food is slighty dearer but that is as much the increase in fuel prices and the ukraine war....some people have to queue a little longer to holiday in france...who gives a shit frankly. That is the average worker stance not rochdale pioneers we are all doomed stance and frankly there are a lot of workers and not many rochdales so tough shit really
Sure - we're boiling frogs. But people voted for the moon on a stick they were promised. As it becomes clearer there is no moon coming to them, they will get angry. As Tories are starting to notice in the red wall.
Well I am certainly getting angry with actually getting a decent payrise as are many of those I know who finally find they have being incentivised to stay in their jobs and are no longer earning minimum wage and have a bit more in their pocket.
Complaints that you have more paper work or that it takes you longer to get past french border control fall on deaf ears because frankly they dont give a shit about you just like you didnt give a toss about their problems when we were in the eu. Shoe is on the other foot deal with it
Great! You got a 5% pay rise! But inflation is double that and rising, and your government is saying "no more pay rises for you".
If you are genuinely saying people are going into this winter and will feel better off, its a unique perspective.
I didnt say I had a 5% payrise I got 16% as it happens. A lot of my friends have had similar because companies have had to pay it rather than have no staff
The big question - of course - is whether British firms have been making out like banditos, and earning super normal margins.
If they have, then there will be a natural move from the owners of capital (i.e. businesses) to labour (i.e. workers).
If they have not, then they will demand less labour - either because they will outsource work to other countries, or because they will invest in capital to replace labour.
Of course, right now things are clouded by Covid, and Ukraine/energy/food. But it will be interesting to see what happens next.
Yes but the point I was trying to make is
some people made out very well from us being in the eu, mainly companies and senior managers. Some people ( a majority of the country) just saw their living standards decline year on year since maastricht.
Now the people doing well out of brexit are some of the people who weren't doing so well under the eu and the people complaining about us leaving are the people who were doing well when we were in the EU so its a bit rich for them to use phrases such as "so its I'm alright Jack" when they were quite content when they were the Jack in question.
How will things be in the future, frankly no idea. I am pretty sure though if we hadn't voted to leave the prospect for millions in this country was continued slow decline with more and more jobs being swept up as minimum wage. At least now some of those have had a boost to their take home pay even if it turns out to be temporary.
To be honest, I think you're trying to create a grand narrative structure.
Many senior managers prospered from the UK being in the EU. Many senior managers prospered in Switzerland despite them not being in the EU. And many senior managers in Greece lost their jobs when they were in the EU.
There are massive factors at play that totally overwhelm the EU in importance. Take China: how much of the UK's manufacturing left to go to Germany? And how much left to go to China or the Philippines or Vietnam?
How many jobs for the relatively low skilled were lost with the rise of computers and automation? Across the developed world, the pay for semi skilled labour has collapsed - that's true in Japan, in the US and in the UK.
And then there's demographics: in our ageing society, an ever greater share of workers' paychecks is being spent on the health and pensions of the retired.
Personally, I think we stand a better chance of us overcoming these challenges outside the EU, but it is absurd to claim that the pressure on wages is not something that has been seen across the developed world.
Is anyone in 2047 going to look back fondly on a music video from 2022, with some gangsta rap or some drill and some guy going on about fucking his motherfucking hoes and doing drugs with his niggaz?
Is anyone going to look back at this nihilistic dreck - and sigh and say Oh what a lovely song that was?
No, they are not. This is one small aspect of the decline of the West
Is anyone in 2047 going to look back fondly on a music video from 2022, with some gangsta rap or some drill and some guy going on about fucking his motherfucking hoes and doing drugs with his niggaz?
Is anyone going to look back at this nihilistic dreck - and sigh and say Oh what a lovely song that was?
No, they are not. This is one small aspect of the decline of the West
Yes.
Of course.
The adults of 2047 are the teenagers of 2022. People look back fondly on the music of their youth.
The difference between now and then is the fragmentation, the end of the monoculture. There are so many different rabbit holes you can fall into.
Both this summer's key trends, for example. But I would assume with completely different musical tastes.
Leon is making the mistake of assuming whatever is on MTV today is what the yoof are listening to. Chances are it's not, and most people's experience of their teens/early 20s will be vastly different from whatever some 40 year old hack writing in dazed and confused thinks it is.
You what? MTV? Does that even exist any more?
I have teenage kids. They play me their music. It is fairly awful, with a few rare exceptions
Sometimes, for fun, I play them an amazing track from the past. Their jaws drop open, like: what is this? Why is it so much better?
Is anyone in 2047 going to look back fondly on a music video from 2022, with some gangsta rap or some drill and some guy going on about fucking his motherfucking hoes and doing drugs with his niggaz?
Is anyone going to look back at this nihilistic dreck - and sigh and say Oh what a lovely song that was?
No, they are not. This is one small aspect of the decline of the West
Is anyone in 2047 going to look back fondly on a music video from 2022, with some gangsta rap or some drill and some guy going on about fucking his motherfucking hoes and doing drugs with his niggaz?
Is anyone going to look back at this nihilistic dreck - and sigh and say Oh what a lovely song that was?
No, they are not. This is one small aspect of the decline of the West
Is anyone in 2047 going to look back fondly on a music video from 2022, with some gangsta rap or some drill and some guy going on about fucking his motherfucking hoes and doing drugs with his niggaz?
Is anyone going to look back at this nihilistic dreck - and sigh and say Oh what a lovely song that was?
No, they are not. This is one small aspect of the decline of the West
Yes.
Of course.
The adults of 2047 are the teenagers of 2022. People look back fondly on the music of their youth.
The difference between now and then is the fragmentation, the end of the monoculture. There are so many different rabbit holes you can fall into.
Both this summer's key trends, for example. But I would assume with completely different musical tastes.
Leon is making the mistake of assuming whatever is on MTV today is what the yoof are listening to. Chances are it's not, and most people's experience of their teens/early 20s will be vastly different from whatever some 40 year old hack writing in dazed and confused thinks it is.
You what? MTV? Does that even exist any more?
I have teenage kids. They play me their music. It is fairly awful, with a few rare exceptions
Sometimes, for fun, I play them an amazing track from the past. Their jaws drop open, like: what is this? Why is it so much better?
South Park were literally making this exact joke about parents not being able to get their kids music a decade ago.
Is anyone in 2047 going to look back fondly on a music video from 2022, with some gangsta rap or some drill and some guy going on about fucking his motherfucking hoes and doing drugs with his niggaz?
Is anyone going to look back at this nihilistic dreck - and sigh and say Oh what a lovely song that was?
No, they are not. This is one small aspect of the decline of the West
Yes.
Of course.
The adults of 2047 are the teenagers of 2022. People look back fondly on the music of their youth.
The difference between now and then is the fragmentation, the end of the monoculture. There are so many different rabbit holes you can fall into.
Both this summer's key trends, for example. But I would assume with completely different musical tastes.
Leon is making the mistake of assuming whatever is on MTV today is what the yoof are listening to. Chances are it's not, and most people's experience of their teens/early 20s will be vastly different from whatever some 40 year old hack writing in dazed and confused thinks it is.
You what? MTV? Does that even exist any more?
I have teenage kids. They play me their music. It is fairly awful, with a few rare exceptions
Sometimes, for fun, I play them an amazing track from the past. Their jaws drop open, like: what is this? Why is it so much better?
Is anyone in 2047 going to look back fondly on a music video from 2022, with some gangsta rap or some drill and some guy going on about fucking his motherfucking hoes and doing drugs with his niggaz?
Is anyone going to look back at this nihilistic dreck - and sigh and say Oh what a lovely song that was?
No, they are not. This is one small aspect of the decline of the West
Yes.
Of course.
The adults of 2047 are the teenagers of 2022. People look back fondly on the music of their youth.
The difference between now and then is the fragmentation, the end of the monoculture. There are so many different rabbit holes you can fall into.
Both this summer's key trends, for example. But I would assume with completely different musical tastes.
Leon is making the mistake of assuming whatever is on MTV today is what the yoof are listening to. Chances are it's not, and most people's experience of their teens/early 20s will be vastly different from whatever some 40 year old hack writing in dazed and confused thinks it is.
You what? MTV? Does that even exist any more?
I have teenage kids. They play me their music. It is fairly awful, with a few rare exceptions
Sometimes, for fun, I play them an amazing track from the past. Their jaws drop open, like: what is this? Why is it so much better?
Is anyone in 2047 going to look back fondly on a music video from 2022, with some gangsta rap or some drill and some guy going on about fucking his motherfucking hoes and doing drugs with his niggaz?
Is anyone going to look back at this nihilistic dreck - and sigh and say Oh what a lovely song that was?
No, they are not. This is one small aspect of the decline of the West
Yes.
Of course.
The adults of 2047 are the teenagers of 2022. People look back fondly on the music of their youth.
The difference between now and then is the fragmentation, the end of the monoculture. There are so many different rabbit holes you can fall into.
Both this summer's key trends, for example. But I would assume with completely different musical tastes.
Leon is making the mistake of assuming whatever is on MTV today is what the yoof are listening to. Chances are it's not, and most people's experience of their teens/early 20s will be vastly different from whatever some 40 year old hack writing in dazed and confused thinks it is.
You what? MTV? Does that even exist any more?
I have teenage kids. They play me their music. It is fairly awful, with a few rare exceptions
Sometimes, for fun, I play them an amazing track from the past. Their jaws drop open, like: what is this? Why is it so much better?
South Park were literally making this exact joke about parents not being able to get their kids music a decade ago.
I don't want to overstrain your apparently tiny brain, but I am -amazingly - aware there is a trope about older people not getting the music of their kids
And then there are times when an artform goes into actual decline, as happened to classical music, jazz and poetry beforehand, when for various reasons the creativity dries up, the motifs are exhausted, and the energy goes elsewhere. I am suggesting we are there with popular music as we have known it, in the west. It is done. A once-rich seam is played out
Is anyone in 2047 going to look back fondly on a music video from 2022, with some gangsta rap or some drill and some guy going on about fucking his motherfucking hoes and doing drugs with his niggaz?
Is anyone going to look back at this nihilistic dreck - and sigh and say Oh what a lovely song that was?
No, they are not. This is one small aspect of the decline of the West
Music also matters a lot less than it did. Video games and internet memes are where the intellectual action is, for a lot of teens
Music matters in different ways to different generations maybe. - but our generation still loves music whether rock or dance because it take us to places that maybe their online worlds take them to.
If you have great speakers or headphones listen to this and dance alone because it’s better than being a backing track to a computer game.
Is anyone in 2047 going to look back fondly on a music video from 2022, with some gangsta rap or some drill and some guy going on about fucking his motherfucking hoes and doing drugs with his niggaz?
Is anyone going to look back at this nihilistic dreck - and sigh and say Oh what a lovely song that was?
No, they are not. This is one small aspect of the decline of the West
Yes.
Of course.
The adults of 2047 are the teenagers of 2022. People look back fondly on the music of their youth.
The difference between now and then is the fragmentation, the end of the monoculture. There are so many different rabbit holes you can fall into.
Both this summer's key trends, for example. But I would assume with completely different musical tastes.
Leon is making the mistake of assuming whatever is on MTV today is what the yoof are listening to. Chances are it's not, and most people's experience of their teens/early 20s will be vastly different from whatever some 40 year old hack writing in dazed and confused thinks it is.
You what? MTV? Does that even exist any more?
I have teenage kids. They play me their music. It is fairly awful, with a few rare exceptions
Sometimes, for fun, I play them an amazing track from the past. Their jaws drop open, like: what is this? Why is it so much better?
South Park were literally making this exact joke about parents not being able to get their kids music a decade ago.
I don't want to overstrain your apparently tiny brain, but I am -amazingly - aware there is a trope about older people not getting the music of their kids
And then there are times when an artform goes into actual decline, as happened to classical music, jazz and poetry beforehand, when for various reasons the creativity dries up, the motifs are exhausted, and the energy goes elsewhere. I am suggesting we are there with popular music as we have known it, in the west. It is done. A once-rich seam is played out
So what do you think is more likely?
That music is done, done, done as an artform, we are witnessing an epochal shift and only music from the good old days is any good... or alternatively, that you are experiencing an age related shift in perception, i.e. literally every generation since time began thinks their music is good and the next generation's music is shit?
Is anyone in 2047 going to look back fondly on a music video from 2022, with some gangsta rap or some drill and some guy going on about fucking his motherfucking hoes and doing drugs with his niggaz?
Is anyone going to look back at this nihilistic dreck - and sigh and say Oh what a lovely song that was?
No, they are not. This is one small aspect of the decline of the West
Yes.
Of course.
The adults of 2047 are the teenagers of 2022. People look back fondly on the music of their youth.
The difference between now and then is the fragmentation, the end of the monoculture. There are so many different rabbit holes you can fall into.
Both this summer's key trends, for example. But I would assume with completely different musical tastes.
Leon is making the mistake of assuming whatever is on MTV today is what the yoof are listening to. Chances are it's not, and most people's experience of their teens/early 20s will be vastly different from whatever some 40 year old hack writing in dazed and confused thinks it is.
You what? MTV? Does that even exist any more?
I have teenage kids. They play me their music. It is fairly awful, with a few rare exceptions
Sometimes, for fun, I play them an amazing track from the past. Their jaws drop open, like: what is this? Why is it so much better?
South Park were literally making this exact joke about parents not being able to get their kids music a decade ago.
I don't want to overstrain your apparently tiny brain, but I am -amazingly - aware there is a trope about older people not getting the music of their kids
And then there are times when an artform goes into actual decline, as happened to classical music, jazz and poetry beforehand, when for various reasons the creativity dries up, the motifs are exhausted, and the energy goes elsewhere. I am suggesting we are there with popular music as we have known it, in the west. It is done. A once-rich seam is played out
So what do you think is more likely?
That music is done, done, done as an artform, we are witnessing an epochal shift and only music from the good old days is any good... or alternatively, that you are experiencing an age related shift in perception, i.e. literally every generation since time began thinks their music is good and the next generation's music is shit?
Sadly, the former is closer to the truth (tho not entirely true, there is still some good music)
It ties in with the decline of IQs across the West. Young people are literally stupider, thus their music is worse. This intellectual decline is not disputed. It is a measured fall. I also think the fall in testosterone levels - smaller penises and lower sperm counts - is an issue. Young men are less ballsy and up for it, and young men with attitude made so much of the great music
Is anyone in 2047 going to look back fondly on a music video from 2022, with some gangsta rap or some drill and some guy going on about fucking his motherfucking hoes and doing drugs with his niggaz?
Is anyone going to look back at this nihilistic dreck - and sigh and say Oh what a lovely song that was?
No, they are not. This is one small aspect of the decline of the West
Yes.
Of course.
The adults of 2047 are the teenagers of 2022. People look back fondly on the music of their youth.
The difference between now and then is the fragmentation, the end of the monoculture. There are so many different rabbit holes you can fall into.
Both this summer's key trends, for example. But I would assume with completely different musical tastes.
Leon is making the mistake of assuming whatever is on MTV today is what the yoof are listening to. Chances are it's not, and most people's experience of their teens/early 20s will be vastly different from whatever some 40 year old hack writing in dazed and confused thinks it is.
You what? MTV? Does that even exist any more?
I have teenage kids. They play me their music. It is fairly awful, with a few rare exceptions
Sometimes, for fun, I play them an amazing track from the past. Their jaws drop open, like: what is this? Why is it so much better?
South Park were literally making this exact joke about parents not being able to get their kids music a decade ago.
I don't want to overstrain your apparently tiny brain, but I am -amazingly - aware there is a trope about older people not getting the music of their kids
And then there are times when an artform goes into actual decline, as happened to classical music, jazz and poetry beforehand, when for various reasons the creativity dries up, the motifs are exhausted, and the energy goes elsewhere. I am suggesting we are there with popular music as we have known it, in the west. It is done. A once-rich seam is played out
So what do you think is more likely?
That music is done, done, done as an artform, we are witnessing an epochal shift and only music from the good old days is any good... or alternatively, that you are experiencing an age related shift in perception, i.e. literally every generation since time began thinks their music is good and the next generation's music is shit?
Sadly, the former is closer to the truth (tho not entirely true, there is still some good music)
It ties in with the decline of IQs across the West. Young people are literally stupider, thus their music is worse. This intellectual decline is not disputed. It is a measured fall. I also think the fall in testosterone levels - smaller penises and lower sperm counts - is an issue. Young men are less ballsy and up for it, and young men with attitude made so much of the great music
I'm inclined to disagree - music as an old fart just doesn't have the same raw, angry impetus in adulthood it has in youth.
At 20, my three favourite albums defined me. Now, my three favourite albums are something I might stick on a playlist for the car.
Back in the 90s, my dad used to listen to the same old phil collins tapes, some gloria estefan tapes, a few others etc, in his car, and he declared "that is music, son".
Meanwhile teenagers were getting their rocks off dancing to rave and dropping mdma.
Music, crossed with identity, is for the young. Even if the music is shit (as we would define it), it's a part of growing up.
Is anyone in 2047 going to look back fondly on a music video from 2022, with some gangsta rap or some drill and some guy going on about fucking his motherfucking hoes and doing drugs with his niggaz?
Is anyone going to look back at this nihilistic dreck - and sigh and say Oh what a lovely song that was?
No, they are not. This is one small aspect of the decline of the West
Yes.
Of course.
The adults of 2047 are the teenagers of 2022. People look back fondly on the music of their youth.
The difference between now and then is the fragmentation, the end of the monoculture. There are so many different rabbit holes you can fall into.
Both this summer's key trends, for example. But I would assume with completely different musical tastes.
Leon is making the mistake of assuming whatever is on MTV today is what the yoof are listening to. Chances are it's not, and most people's experience of their teens/early 20s will be vastly different from whatever some 40 year old hack writing in dazed and confused thinks it is.
You what? MTV? Does that even exist any more?
I have teenage kids. They play me their music. It is fairly awful, with a few rare exceptions
Sometimes, for fun, I play them an amazing track from the past. Their jaws drop open, like: what is this? Why is it so much better?
South Park were literally making this exact joke about parents not being able to get their kids music a decade ago.
(1) For the first time in human history, modern music really is crap, and in twenty years, today's teenagers will be discovering Peter, Paul and Mary and beseeching themselves "how could we have been so stupid?"
Is anyone in 2047 going to look back fondly on a music video from 2022, with some gangsta rap or some drill and some guy going on about fucking his motherfucking hoes and doing drugs with his niggaz?
Is anyone going to look back at this nihilistic dreck - and sigh and say Oh what a lovely song that was?
No, they are not. This is one small aspect of the decline of the West
Yes.
Of course.
The adults of 2047 are the teenagers of 2022. People look back fondly on the music of their youth.
The difference between now and then is the fragmentation, the end of the monoculture. There are so many different rabbit holes you can fall into.
Both this summer's key trends, for example. But I would assume with completely different musical tastes.
Leon is making the mistake of assuming whatever is on MTV today is what the yoof are listening to. Chances are it's not, and most people's experience of their teens/early 20s will be vastly different from whatever some 40 year old hack writing in dazed and confused thinks it is.
You what? MTV? Does that even exist any more?
I have teenage kids. They play me their music. It is fairly awful, with a few rare exceptions
Sometimes, for fun, I play them an amazing track from the past. Their jaws drop open, like: what is this? Why is it so much better?
South Park were literally making this exact joke about parents not being able to get their kids music a decade ago.
I don't want to overstrain your apparently tiny brain, but I am -amazingly - aware there is a trope about older people not getting the music of their kids
And then there are times when an artform goes into actual decline, as happened to classical music, jazz and poetry beforehand, when for various reasons the creativity dries up, the motifs are exhausted, and the energy goes elsewhere. I am suggesting we are there with popular music as we have known it, in the west. It is done. A once-rich seam is played out
So what do you think is more likely?
That music is done, done, done as an artform, we are witnessing an epochal shift and only music from the good old days is any good... or alternatively, that you are experiencing an age related shift in perception, i.e. literally every generation since time began thinks their music is good and the next generation's music is shit?
Sadly, the former is closer to the truth (tho not entirely true, there is still some good music)
It ties in with the decline of IQs across the West. Young people are literally stupider, thus their music is worse. This intellectual decline is not disputed. It is a measured fall. I also think the fall in testosterone levels - smaller penises and lower sperm counts - is an issue. Young men are less ballsy and up for it, and young men with attitude made so much of the great music
I'm inclined to disagree - music as an old fart just doesn't have the same raw, angry impetus in adulthood it has in youth.
At 20, my three favourite albums defined me. Now, my three favourite albums are something I might stick on a playlist for the car.
Back in the 90s, my dad used to listen to the same old phil collins tapes, some gloria estefan tapes, a few others etc, in his car, and he declared "that is music, son".
Meanwhile teenagers were getting their rocks off dancing to rave and dropping mdma.
Music, crossed with identity, is for the young. Even if the music is shit (as we would define it), it's a part of growing up.
I’ve given you the evidence, the thesis, and also given you the mechanism why this is happening. Falling IQ and falling testosterone, which are both undisputed facts
You have merely vented angry opinions. I suggest that you are the old man shaking his fist at a cloud
Is anyone in 2047 going to look back fondly on a music video from 2022, with some gangsta rap or some drill and some guy going on about fucking his motherfucking hoes and doing drugs with his niggaz?
Is anyone going to look back at this nihilistic dreck - and sigh and say Oh what a lovely song that was?
No, they are not. This is one small aspect of the decline of the West
Yes.
Of course.
The adults of 2047 are the teenagers of 2022. People look back fondly on the music of their youth.
The difference between now and then is the fragmentation, the end of the monoculture. There are so many different rabbit holes you can fall into.
Both this summer's key trends, for example. But I would assume with completely different musical tastes.
Leon is making the mistake of assuming whatever is on MTV today is what the yoof are listening to. Chances are it's not, and most people's experience of their teens/early 20s will be vastly different from whatever some 40 year old hack writing in dazed and confused thinks it is.
You what? MTV? Does that even exist any more?
I have teenage kids. They play me their music. It is fairly awful, with a few rare exceptions
Sometimes, for fun, I play them an amazing track from the past. Their jaws drop open, like: what is this? Why is it so much better?
South Park were literally making this exact joke about parents not being able to get their kids music a decade ago.
I don't want to overstrain your apparently tiny brain, but I am -amazingly - aware there is a trope about older people not getting the music of their kids
And then there are times when an artform goes into actual decline, as happened to classical music, jazz and poetry beforehand, when for various reasons the creativity dries up, the motifs are exhausted, and the energy goes elsewhere. I am suggesting we are there with popular music as we have known it, in the west. It is done. A once-rich seam is played out
So what do you think is more likely?
That music is done, done, done as an artform, we are witnessing an epochal shift and only music from the good old days is any good... or alternatively, that you are experiencing an age related shift in perception, i.e. literally every generation since time began thinks their music is good and the next generation's music is shit?
Sadly, the former is closer to the truth (tho not entirely true, there is still some good music)
It ties in with the decline of IQs across the West. Young people are literally stupider, thus their music is worse. This intellectual decline is not disputed. It is a measured fall. I also think the fall in testosterone levels - smaller penises and lower sperm counts - is an issue. Young men are less ballsy and up for it, and young men with attitude made so much of the great music
I'm inclined to disagree - music as an old fart just doesn't have the same raw, angry impetus in adulthood it has in youth.
At 20, my three favourite albums defined me. Now, my three favourite albums are something I might stick on a playlist for the car.
Back in the 90s, my dad used to listen to the same old phil collins tapes, some gloria estefan tapes, a few others etc, in his car, and he declared "that is music, son".
Meanwhile teenagers were getting their rocks off dancing to rave and dropping mdma.
Music, crossed with identity, is for the young. Even if the music is shit (as we would define it), it's a part of growing up.
I’ve given you the evidence, the thesis, and also given you the mechanism why this is happening. Falling IQ and falling testosterone, which are both undisputed facts
You have merely vented angry opinions. I suggest that you are the old man shaking his fist at a cloud
Yet IQs for today are still well above the 1960s, and that produced the Beatles.
Is anyone in 2047 going to look back fondly on a music video from 2022, with some gangsta rap or some drill and some guy going on about fucking his motherfucking hoes and doing drugs with his niggaz?
Is anyone going to look back at this nihilistic dreck - and sigh and say Oh what a lovely song that was?
No, they are not. This is one small aspect of the decline of the West
Yes.
Of course.
The adults of 2047 are the teenagers of 2022. People look back fondly on the music of their youth.
The difference between now and then is the fragmentation, the end of the monoculture. There are so many different rabbit holes you can fall into.
Both this summer's key trends, for example. But I would assume with completely different musical tastes.
Leon is making the mistake of assuming whatever is on MTV today is what the yoof are listening to. Chances are it's not, and most people's experience of their teens/early 20s will be vastly different from whatever some 40 year old hack writing in dazed and confused thinks it is.
You what? MTV? Does that even exist any more?
I have teenage kids. They play me their music. It is fairly awful, with a few rare exceptions
Sometimes, for fun, I play them an amazing track from the past. Their jaws drop open, like: what is this? Why is it so much better?
South Park were literally making this exact joke about parents not being able to get their kids music a decade ago.
I don't want to overstrain your apparently tiny brain, but I am -amazingly - aware there is a trope about older people not getting the music of their kids
And then there are times when an artform goes into actual decline, as happened to classical music, jazz and poetry beforehand, when for various reasons the creativity dries up, the motifs are exhausted, and the energy goes elsewhere. I am suggesting we are there with popular music as we have known it, in the west. It is done. A once-rich seam is played out
So what do you think is more likely?
That music is done, done, done as an artform, we are witnessing an epochal shift and only music from the good old days is any good... or alternatively, that you are experiencing an age related shift in perception, i.e. literally every generation since time began thinks their music is good and the next generation's music is shit?
Sadly, the former is closer to the truth (tho not entirely true, there is still some good music)
It ties in with the decline of IQs across the West. Young people are literally stupider, thus their music is worse. This intellectual decline is not disputed. It is a measured fall. I also think the fall in testosterone levels - smaller penises and lower sperm counts - is an issue. Young men are less ballsy and up for it, and young men with attitude made so much of the great music
I'm inclined to disagree - music as an old fart just doesn't have the same raw, angry impetus in adulthood it has in youth.
At 20, my three favourite albums defined me. Now, my three favourite albums are something I might stick on a playlist for the car.
Back in the 90s, my dad used to listen to the same old phil collins tapes, some gloria estefan tapes, a few others etc, in his car, and he declared "that is music, son".
Meanwhile teenagers were getting their rocks off dancing to rave and dropping mdma.
Music, crossed with identity, is for the young. Even if the music is shit (as we would define it), it's a part of growing up.
I’ve given you the evidence, the thesis, and also given you the mechanism why this is happening. Falling IQ and falling testosterone, which are both undisputed facts
You have merely vented angry opinions. I suggest that you are the old man shaking his fist at a cloud
I suggest we continue this conversation somewhere where there is a rave exclusively populated by teenagers and ketamine.
IQs seem to have been in decline since the late 90s or early noughties. Which is roughly when music fell off a cliff.
How long has testosterone been in decline? That’s less obvious, but I always remember a brilliant factoid told me by a music label CEO: the age at which a young man is most likely to have a hit single is exactly the same age at which he is most likely to commit murder
Brown on front page of Mirror calling for action on CoL crisis.
Something is afoot. He's been everywhere media-wise this week.
Because Gordon Brown is the only senior politician saying anything of note about the looming crises, having just published a report. The government is silent, with both Prime Minister and Chancellor on holiday. The Opposition too. And the two leadership candidates are stuck in a parallel universe.
IQs seem to have been in decline since the late 90s or early noughties. Which is roughly when music fell off a cliff.
How long has testosterone been in decline? That’s less obvious, but I always remember a brilliant factoid told me by a music label CEO: the age at which a young man is most likely to have a hit single is exactly the same age at which he is most likely to commit murder
Correlation vs causation.
I find the reason most music past the early 2000s sucks is because it's all made using software rather than hardware and the sound as a result is inauthentic and hollow - programmed. Whereas before the analog nature of recording (even recording digital instruments) meant that you had a warm and authentic sound.
IQs seem to have been in decline since the late 90s or early noughties. Which is roughly when music fell off a cliff.
How long has testosterone been in decline? That’s less obvious, but I always remember a brilliant factoid told me by a music label CEO: the age at which a young man is most likely to have a hit single is exactly the same age at which he is most likely to commit murder
Correlation vs causation.
I find the reason most music past the early 2000s sucks is because it's all made using software rather than hardware and the sound as a result is inauthentic and hollow - programmed. Whereas before the analog nature of recording (even recording digital instruments) meant that you had a warm and authentic sound.
Lol. Ok. Anyway yes you’re right of course. Autotune and digitised music has delivered a pasteurised product. It’s all acceptably professional but so much character has gone
And there are so many other reasons. Smart phones. Less money. Less ambition. Fewer people even trying. Talent shows. Blandness. Fragmented markets. And so much more
But the decline is stark and only a fool denies it. Better to accept it and enjoy what we have
On the other hand we now have tv drama which is of a standard our grandparents could only dream. It’s superb
Art forms rise and fall. Twas ever thus. Goodnight pb
IQs seem to have been in decline since the late 90s or early noughties. Which is roughly when music fell off a cliff.
How long has testosterone been in decline? That’s less obvious, but I always remember a brilliant factoid told me by a music label CEO: the age at which a young man is most likely to have a hit single is exactly the same age at which he is most likely to commit murder
Correlation vs causation.
I find the reason most music past the early 2000s sucks is because it's all made using software rather than hardware and the sound as a result is inauthentic and hollow - programmed. Whereas before the analog nature of recording (even recording digital instruments) meant that you had a warm and authentic sound.
Lol. Ok. Anyway yes you’re right of course. Autotune and digitised music has delivered a pasteurised product. It’s all acceptably professional but so much character has gone
And there are so many other reasons. Smart phones. Less money. Less ambition. Fewer people even trying. Talent shows. Blandness. Fragmented markets. And so much more
But the decline is stark and only a fool denies it. Better to accept it and enjoy what we have
On the other hand we now have tv drama which is of a standard our grandparents could only dream. It’s superb
Art forms rise and fall. Twas ever thus. Goodnight pb
I find that sitting in a faux San-Francisco style coffee shop with modern music, styles, decor, shows me exactly why Philip K Dick believed that reality was a holographic projection and that the truth lies multiple layers below it. What a shitshow.
Most of the best music is from the period 1963 to 1998 IMO. [I particularly like 1975 to 1984 and 1991 to 1996].
Almost all the music I love most is post-1998. The first half the of the 90s - with the exception of Nirvana and some of Pulp - just doesn't speak to me at all. There's too much dirge from U2 and Guns and Roses in there.
Which is ironic, because at that time I spent a fortune on stereo kit, mostly from Richer Sounds. It's just that I was listening to Pink Floyd at the time.
From the mid 1990s, I began to listen to a lot of decent stuff. Britpop had its moments. But really, it was the 1998 release of OK Computer that changed my relationship with music. And it's extraordinary that they topped that with Kid A a few years later, and then with In Rainbows in 2007/8.
That post 1998 period also includes The National, The Vaccines, The Streets, The Strokes, LCD Soundsystem and a host of other great bands.
And I'm sure there's a tonne of great stuff being generated now that I don't know about.
Most of the best music is from the period 1963 to 1998 IMO. [I particularly like 1975 to 1984 and 1991 to 1996].
Almost all the music I love most is post-1998. The first half the of the 90s - with the exception of Nirvana and some of Pulp - just doesn't speak to me at all. There's too much dirge from U2 and Guns and Roses in there.
Which is ironic, because at that time I spent a fortune on stereo kit, mostly from Richer Sounds. It's just that I was listening to Pink Floyd at the time.
From the mid 1990s, I began to listen to a lot of decent stuff. Britpop had its moments. But really, it was the 1998 release of OK Computer that changed my relationship with music. And it's extraordinary that they topped that with Kid A a few years later, and then with In Rainbows in 2007/8.
That post 1998 period also includes The National, The Vaccines, The Streets, The Strokes, LCD Soundsystem and a host of other great bands.
And I'm sure there's a tonne of great stuff being generated now that I don't know about.
Man, I've forgotten so many great bands: Paramore, Arctic Monkeys, etc.
How can anyone sentient think that music reached an apogee in 1998?
Is anyone in 2047 going to look back fondly on a music video from 2022, with some gangsta rap or some drill and some guy going on about fucking his motherfucking hoes and doing drugs with his niggaz?
Is anyone going to look back at this nihilistic dreck - and sigh and say Oh what a lovely song that was?
No, they are not. This is one small aspect of the decline of the West
Yes.
Of course.
The adults of 2047 are the teenagers of 2022. People look back fondly on the music of their youth.
The difference between now and then is the fragmentation, the end of the monoculture. There are so many different rabbit holes you can fall into.
Both this summer's key trends, for example. But I would assume with completely different musical tastes.
Leon is making the mistake of assuming whatever is on MTV today is what the yoof are listening to. Chances are it's not, and most people's experience of their teens/early 20s will be vastly different from whatever some 40 year old hack writing in dazed and confused thinks it is.
You what? MTV? Does that even exist any more?
I have teenage kids. They play me their music. It is fairly awful, with a few rare exceptions
Sometimes, for fun, I play them an amazing track from the past. Their jaws drop open, like: what is this? Why is it so much better?
South Park were literally making this exact joke about parents not being able to get their kids music a decade ago.
I don't want to overstrain your apparently tiny brain, but I am -amazingly - aware there is a trope about older people not getting the music of their kids
And then there are times when an artform goes into actual decline, as happened to classical music, jazz and poetry beforehand, when for various reasons the creativity dries up, the motifs are exhausted, and the energy goes elsewhere. I am suggesting we are there with popular music as we have known it, in the west. It is done. A once-rich seam is played out
So what do you think is more likely?
That music is done, done, done as an artform, we are witnessing an epochal shift and only music from the good old days is any good... or alternatively, that you are experiencing an age related shift in perception, i.e. literally every generation since time began thinks their music is good and the next generation's music is shit?
Sadly, the former is closer to the truth (tho not entirely true, there is still some good music)
It ties in with the decline of IQs across the West. Young people are literally stupider, thus their music is worse. This intellectual decline is not disputed. It is a measured fall. I also think the fall in testosterone levels - smaller penises and lower sperm counts - is an issue. Young men are less ballsy and up for it, and young men with attitude made so much of the great music
I'm inclined to disagree - music as an old fart just doesn't have the same raw, angry impetus in adulthood it has in youth.
At 20, my three favourite albums defined me. Now, my three favourite albums are something I might stick on a playlist for the car.
Back in the 90s, my dad used to listen to the same old phil collins tapes, some gloria estefan tapes, a few others etc, in his car, and he declared "that is music, son".
Meanwhile teenagers were getting their rocks off dancing to rave and dropping mdma.
Music, crossed with identity, is for the young. Even if the music is shit (as we would define it), it's a part of growing up.
I’ve given you the evidence, the thesis, and also given you the mechanism why this is happening. Falling IQ and falling testosterone, which are both undisputed facts
You have merely vented angry opinions. I suggest that you are the old man shaking his fist at a cloud
I am pleased to see that I have missed another ‘daily drivel from Leon’ show.
Which is ironic, because at that time I spent a fortune on stereo kit, mostly from Richer Sounds. It's just that I was listening to Pink Floyd at the time.
Now it all makes sense.
Your terrible taste in music derives from trying to listen to it on terrible gear.
Which is ironic, because at that time I spent a fortune on stereo kit, mostly from Richer Sounds. It's just that I was listening to Pink Floyd at the time.
Now it all makes sense.
Your terrible taste in music derives from trying to listen to it on terrible gear.
My wife and I are paying nearly £2,000 pa. more tax since April due to the NI rise, and now any reversal of this is considered a "hand-out to the well-off".
Um, no. It's reversing a hand-grab from those on good professional salaries working long hours. It's why I was such an opponent of the levy - it will go up from 1.25% to 3% within a few years of Labour taking office.
Followed to its natural conclusion, this argument could be used to defend any NI/income tax increase on higher earners to any level, and against reversal.
Richer Sounds always did decent kit, and it lasts well. My Marantz amp from there
The second clause contradicts the first...
I had a Nagamichi Amp from Richer that served me well for 25 years, until a few years ago when I upgraded my whole system - I was pleasantly surprised to sell the Nagamichi on eBay for over £100, so there is clearly a healthy market for decent old kit
Most of the best music is from the period 1963 to 1998 IMO. [I particularly like 1975 to 1984 and 1991 to 1996].
Almost all the music I love most is post-1998. The first half the of the 90s - with the exception of Nirvana and some of Pulp - just doesn't speak to me at all. There's too much dirge from U2 and Guns and Roses in there.
Which is ironic, because at that time I spent a fortune on stereo kit, mostly from Richer Sounds. It's just that I was listening to Pink Floyd at the time.
From the mid 1990s, I began to listen to a lot of decent stuff. Britpop had its moments. But really, it was the 1998 release of OK Computer that changed my relationship with music. And it's extraordinary that they topped that with Kid A a few years later, and then with In Rainbows in 2007/8.
That post 1998 period also includes The National, The Vaccines, The Streets, The Strokes, LCD Soundsystem and a host of other great bands.
And I'm sure there's a tonne of great stuff being generated now that I don't know about.
Man, I've forgotten so many great bands: Paramore, Arctic Monkeys, etc.
How can anyone sentient think that music reached an apogee in 1998?
Was OK Computer really released in 1998? Wikipedia says 1997, but for some reason it felt to me at the time that it was a classic that had been released for some years that I was only belatedly discovering.
Some of my favourite music is by the band Clare and the Reasons, who released their albums between 2007 and 2012.
FWIW, my understanding is that Gordon Brown is working quite closely with Rachel Reeves at the moment. I think we may see a big Labour move on energy and the broader cost of living crisis shortly.
Weird story this morning about record cash withdrawals. YoY increase of 20%.
A portent of doom? I'm going to dig into the data/economics literature on this if I get time today.
I've been back in the UK for more than a month now, after some time in Ireland, and I still haven't got around to swapping the currency in my wallet. It's still Euros, so I guess I was using cash a bit in Ireland, but I've not used it at all since returning to Scotland.
And I used to love using cash before the pandemic. I used it as a budgeting tool, I liked the tactile nature of it, and I have the world's best receptacle for coins - a crocheted dragon's egg - which still also contains Euros.
The increase must be a post-pandemic effect, but I'd guess still well down on pre-pandemic, and in terminal decline.
Incidentally, in more important news, Richard Thompson has been made the new Chairman of the ECB.
That is interesting because he was the only county chairman to openly oppose the Hundred, to the extent that that idiot Harrison threatened to cut off supplies to Surrey and exclude them from hosting any matches in it.
Although the Hundred has signed a new deal for three years with divers broadcasters, if it makes a loss again this year I wonder if that will be renegotiated and the concept abandoned.
Another night last night of cock teasing about the Finland and still no follow through from anyone supposedly in the know. Is there not some combo of words we can Google that is free from defamation risk?
If you look really really hard - like, say, a hungry eagle spying a marmot on a crag - you can find it all online. But remember. Mum’s the word
@moonshine - Johnson announced on 7 July that he was going. Just look at all front page stuff (in the mainstream British media - you don't have to learn Finnish) published about him in the fortnight leading up to that, and also look at stuff published in the same period about one of the persons with whom he was at loggerheads. The penny will then drop.
"Cash has been in decline for well over a decade, the pandemic accelerated this, but now it's going back up, and that's absolutely because of the cost of living crisis," she said.
Sigh. People read into things what they want to. I'd have thought it's more a case of things going back to normal after the pandemic.
Mr. Ping, flailing is forgivable when her position changes so rapidly.
While this happened with the incumbent, and cased his downfall, that was down to entirely accidentally not telling the whole truth. Flopping from one position to another continually is not fantastic either.
Not that Sunak has been consistent, moving from financial realist to cutting 4p off tax to insisting we deal with inflation ahead of tax cuts.
"Cash has been in decline for well over a decade, the pandemic accelerated this, but now it's going back up, and that's absolutely because of the cost of living crisis," she said.
Sigh. People read into things what they want to. I'd have thought it's more a case of things going back to normal after the pandemic.
Of course it is. Real footfall versus online. Bit difficult to spend cash online.
Most commenters think in buzzphrases, "cost of living crisis" being the latest one. Once upon a time it was "credit crunch". Printers in China used to keep a stack of ready-assembled print blocks saying after the smashing of the Gang of Four, because that phrase was used so much.
There's hardly a mass-consumption press article in contemporary Britain that doesn't report that "experts" have said this, that, or the other. Hacks and commenters don't need much of a connection between active brain and typing fingers. They're herd members. Question anything, even something really obvious, and you'll get awfully funny looks. Stuff such as why not distinguish between SARSCoV2 and Covid-19 (one gets caught, the other doesn't), or what the f*** "queen's consent" is about.
Best simply not to use phrases such as "cost of living crisis".
Listening to MmmmmmmmmmmBop after a very good birthday lunch where I finally reconnected with my mother.
It is the most joyful song.
It is the best popsong ever written. Along with the Complete Works of Busted
It is. My little sister who I adore was obsessed with them at the time and I still sing joyfully along with it reminiscing about me driving her to teenage parties.
Now trying to decide which out of the waterboys “whole of the moon” and “moonlight shadow” by Mike oldfield is the better song to moon to…..
The latter falls down significantly with the line "4am in the morning"...
How about Van Morrison's 'Moondance', which you could cheerfully wave your bare arse around to?
No, it’s “Nightshift” by the Commodores now. One of my funeral choices! Don’t know why but one of the best songs ever.
Best couplet ever
It's 4 in the morning and I'm walking along Beside the ghost of every drinker here who's ever done wrong
Just moved onto Tanita Tikaram - good tradition and laughing at my best friend telling me it was his parents music - guess you had to be there.
That first album was mind blowing - good trad, cathedral song, world outside your window, it felt like this was the new Dylan. Then nothing.
Bought her second album on one of those old fashioned cassette tapes and it was quite good but classic case of putting out an amazing first album that couldn’t be matched or repeated.
I have a weird desire to arrange a concert with her and Lloyd Cole and the commotions but you are only allowed to attend in black polo necks and pretend to be very disinterested.
I forgot, twist in my sobriety. That album, was as perfect as the first stone roses. Immaculate.
2nd album had little sister leaving town which was ok, otherwise tosh.
“He likes the sun” was also great. White girl London blues (it’s not a thing) The whole album was great and would be lost now as another set of songs but back in the day when you bought an album and listened to it it was perfect.
Really surprised neither of you mentioned Preyed Upon. My favourite from the same album. I have time to complicate you To make you hate the things you might have done Just brilliant.
In the Scotland border issue, remember that its al theoretical. Even if there was a referendum next year (and there won't be) and it voted Yes (and it won't), its way off into the 2nd half of the decade before they even have discussions about separation, never mind an agreement to instigate.
As the UK's current Brexit settlement is unworkable, it will be reformed. And the reformation will be closer and looser alignment with the EEA and CU. Which makes alignment between an EU Scotland and a post-Brext rUK much easier than it would be now.
Even if we could bounce the EU into mutual recognition of standards (which we probably can't) or the EU can bounce us into dynamic alignment (which they probably can't) that still leaves us outside the CU, which still means border infrastructure.
Unless, of course, away-from-the-border Unicorns really do exist...
Scottish nationalists really should be pushing their friends in Brussles, to agree the electronic and frictionless goods border between UK and Ireland - because they will be wanting something very similar between Scotland and England.
While my predictions, as the Stodge Saturday Patent has demonstrated, aren't worth any attention, I'll offer a thought based on recent experience.
In 50-75 years time, London will empty at the beginning of June as those who can seek solace from the 45c temperatures and humidity associated with the late 21st century British summer between the spring and autumn monsoon seasons.
The newly-refurbished London Euston station will host the regular 30-minute Maglev summer service to the Lake District having passengers disembarking at Oxenholme in little more than a hour. From there, families will decamp to their summer chalets near the lakes (or as near as is affordable). The ability to work independently from location, first established during the 2020 pandemic, will allow tens of thousands of Londoners to continue working far from the overheating capital.
For those without the means to escape the heat, the annual ordeal that is summer in London is the very definition of purgatory. On the hottest days, with temperatures nearing 50c, many head to vast "cool centres" where they can enjoy air conditioned relief before heading home in the later evening.
While the Lakes are one popular "retreat from the heat", the Pennines and Cheviots have also seen summer housing and the major development of the north Scottish coast around Torrisdale and the islands of Harris and Lewis have seen an explosion of summer homes for those from southern and eastern Britain desperate to seek cooler summer weather.
I think you understate the case. The way we're going it will be a runaway climate change. Although some, especially reputable researchers, know what we need to do to counter this, most of us are too gormless to act accordingly. For instance, getting an electric car does not justify an otherwise wanton life style.
That's my fear. That we are now in an accelerating loop of increasing warmth and volatility, which will feed off itself like a chain reaction. And perhaps it is already too late to stop this
Our presence in this universe appears to be the result of a long series of lucky circumstances.
These include: The fortuitous value of the fine structure constant, which, if it were a little difference would not allow stellar fusion to produce carbon. The existence of a rocky planet at just the right distance from a stable and long-lived star. The presence of just enough water on said planet to make a complex environment of coasts and shallows that would drive evolution along. The presence of an unusually large moon orbiting said planet to slosh all that water about and further drive evolution. A complex geology that, combined with the effects of life, has managed to remove CO2 from the Earth's atmosphere at a rate that has just about compensated for the gradual increase in the luminosity of the sun, this keeping the temperature of the Earth in a range compatible with life over the aeons.
And we are just about to screw it all up.
Not at all. Whilst you are right about the serendipity element of our existence, you vastly overestimate the significance of our current civilisation and the nature of the changes we are facing. Presenting these current very minor adjustments in our environment with the vast changes that have occurred over the last few million years (one of which probably reduced the human population to less than 10,000 individuals) really shows a fundamental disconnect with the reality of our existence on planet earth.
The changes of a few degrees - whilst undoubtedly bad for our current comfortable civilisation - are bugger all in both scale and rate of change compared to the natural changes that have occurred even in fairly recent times.
This is not to say we shouldn't try to mitigate such changes, nor that they won't be very bad for our current lifestyles but your hyperbolic comment shows a stunning lack of historical and prehistorical perspective.
Not really, as your parenthesis "(one of which probably reduced the human population to less than 10,000 individuals)" accidentally reveals. What is the point of saying This is nothing, we've had snowball earth and ice free earth and oxygen levels of 31%, this is a mere pin prick, when any one of those three sets of conditions would leave mankind wholly or mainly, stone dead? What has the long view got to do with us, when we have only been in the picture for a couple of minutes relatively speaking?
It's like warning a population of tadpoles in an April puddle that if it doesn't rain in the next week their puddle will dry out and they will all die: not much consolation for them to know that rainfall usually averages out in the course of a year and their puddle was virtually a pond back in January.
Nah. The point is that the changes we are seeing now are pinpricks compared to what nature can and has done in the past. We will and as we always have and this idea that this is the end of humanity or even civilisation which is expressed in FE's posting really is baseless. Indeed civilisations of the past have thrived under exactly the conditions which are being predicted now. It is uncomfortable for individuals and is probably something to be avoided if we can since it will make life miserable for a lot of people. But it is simply rubbish to consider anything we re predicting at the moment as the end of humanity.
Of course if we decided to nuke each other that is another matter. But I grew up in the 70s and 80s when threat was a permanent imminent threat so even that I find a bit of a yawn.
The world is a wonderful place and will continue to be so pretty much regardless of what we do.
The world is a wonderful place here and now for well heeled UK property owning PBers with money in the bank and drink in the fridge, sure. Our current predicament is such that either hundreds of millions of people who are mainly poor and fucked up anyway are going to be wiped out, or all of us are. I can't pretend to be terribly fussed at either possibility, but that's because I am a selfish twat. How about you?
The poor in the rest of the world are always being fucked up by those of us in the first world. But in fact their lot has being getting better rather than worse over the last century and continues to do so. So yes I continue to say the world is a wonderful place - and a lot better place to live in than it has been for almost all of human history for the vast majority of its population whether rich or poor.
But there's more of them. Lots more of them. So in absolute terms there's more human misery now, than in all previous history combined. Not claiming I lose sleep over this, but celebrations seem out of order.
And yet by all the measures - income, life expectancy, HALE, access to education and technology - the whole world is getting better.
Global average life expectancy increased by more than 6 years between 2000 and 2019 (WHO).
The same goes for Healthy Life expectancy (WHO). Almost all of this was as a result of increase in Third World Life expectancy.
Infant mortality has dropped from 9% in 1990 to 2.6% today. (WHO)
By 2015 the number of people living in absolute poverty globally had dropped less than half of its 1990 levels - from 1.9 billion to 736 million (World Bank). And that in spite of there being far more people in the world than there were in 1990.
In the same period illiteracy dropped from 24% of the world's population to less than 14%. (UNESCO)
Irrespective of how many people there are in the world today, they are better off overall than they were only 30 years ago and vastly better off than they were a century ago.
This is not a call to do nothing more. But it is a fight back against the idea that the world is becoming a worse place to live in whether rich or poor. It is not.
So not only is the infestation becoming more severe but individual units are becoming more persistent.
I’m not just emotionally and artistically correct, I can scientifically prove I’m correct. Music is decreasing in complexity and variety, songs are more formulaic, lyrics are more repetitive and mundane. Music is getting worse
All in all looks like an even more right-wing and ERG heavy Cabinet than Boris' was if Truss wins
Sacking Gove would be a very acceptable move, and I can imagine Kwarteng would actually be quite a good Chancellor.
But Braverman at the Home Office? While that would at least remove an Attorney General who has utter contempt for the law, the mere thought of what she might do while controlling the state security apparatus given her highly authoritarian tendencies is enough to bring anyone out in a cold sweat.
I’m not just emotionally and artistically correct, I can scientifically prove I’m correct. Music is decreasing in complexity and variety, songs are more formulaic, lyrics are more repetitive and mundane. Music is getting worse
It's true - and it is a shame because there are some very talented, smart musicians out there who are putting their output through the music company meat grinder.
That said, the Spotify algorithm is very good at finding off-the-beaten-track artists who *are* producing good music outside of that system.
Brandon Lewis flailing around on times radio, trying to defend Liz Truss.
He was a car crash on the Today programme as well. It does look like a Liz PM is going to be a disaster. They really need to pick Rishi.
The target is 157.
That being the lowest number of seats the Tories have ever won at a general election since the current party machine first emerged in 1783.
I reckon Truss could maybe manage 155.
Edit - actually I suppose the Tories technically won 132 seats in 1906, the balance being Liberal Unionists. But since they would have won quite a few of those seats had they contested them, the target can stand.
All in all looks like an even more right-wing and ERG heavy Cabinet than Boris' was if Truss wins
Which opens up a different question of which group of Tory seats / voters is she targeting. Down South they want low spending but fairly socially liberal (which is why the seats tend Lib Dem) up North they are going to like the right wing social viewpoint but still want levelling up...
By going for low tax but right wing policies she's very likely to be targeting absolutely no one...
What is fascinating about this music-getting-worse debate is not the question - I’m simply right, it’s a fact - it’s how people fiercely object to the notion. Because you have to be a fucking moron not to realise it is getting worse - uglier, brasher, more simplistic and formulaic
So why do so many PB-ears resist this? Why are they happy to look like a fucking moron?
It’s because they are even more scared of looking like some grumpy old git who hates modern music. Given that so many of us are of advanced years, I imagine this notion plagues quite a few people on the site
And so you get the insane spectacle of intelligent people trying to claim that drill music is just as good as Aretha Franklin
All in all looks like an even more right-wing and ERG heavy Cabinet than Boris' was if Truss wins
Which opens up a different question of which group of Tory seats / voters is she targeting. Down South they want low spending but fairly socially liberal (which is why the seats tend Lib Dem) up North they are going to like the right wing social viewpoint but still want levelling up...
By going for low tax but right wing policies she's very likely to be targeting absolutely no one...
Certainly the Blue wall is at risk under Truss, hence Raab backed Sunak.
She will try and use Braverman to push a hardline law and order policy and continue with hard Brexit to try and keep much of the redwall
I’m not just emotionally and artistically correct, I can scientifically prove I’m correct. Music is decreasing in complexity and variety, songs are more formulaic, lyrics are more repetitive and mundane. Music is getting worse
It's true - and it is a shame because there are some very talented, smart musicians out there who are putting their output through the music company meat grinder.
That said, the Spotify algorithm is very good at finding off-the-beaten-track artists who *are* producing good music outside of that system.
Yes, the system now works against the quirky, talented musician, whereas before it worked for them
i read “White Bicycles” recently, an excellent memoir written by the legendary producer of Pink Floyd, Dylan, Syd Barrett, and many more - Joe Boyd (who i have met). He goes into great detail as to how he coaxed the incredibly shy, nervous but talented Nick Drake into the studio, to make immortal music, which is now revered around the world. Drake killed himself soon after, but those early songs were laid down
These days a Nick Drake character would look at the music world, and not even bother. The money isn’t good enough for all the crap you have to do, unless you make it big, and few do that. There are no dedicated A&R men and loyal producers willing to go those extra miles. Formulaic stars prevail, chosen by computer
While my predictions, as the Stodge Saturday Patent has demonstrated, aren't worth any attention, I'll offer a thought based on recent experience.
In 50-75 years time, London will empty at the beginning of June as those who can seek solace from the 45c temperatures and humidity associated with the late 21st century British summer between the spring and autumn monsoon seasons.
The newly-refurbished London Euston station will host the regular 30-minute Maglev summer service to the Lake District having passengers disembarking at Oxenholme in little more than a hour. From there, families will decamp to their summer chalets near the lakes (or as near as is affordable). The ability to work independently from location, first established during the 2020 pandemic, will allow tens of thousands of Londoners to continue working far from the overheating capital.
For those without the means to escape the heat, the annual ordeal that is summer in London is the very definition of purgatory. On the hottest days, with temperatures nearing 50c, many head to vast "cool centres" where they can enjoy air conditioned relief before heading home in the later evening.
While the Lakes are one popular "retreat from the heat", the Pennines and Cheviots have also seen summer housing and the major development of the north Scottish coast around Torrisdale and the islands of Harris and Lewis have seen an explosion of summer homes for those from southern and eastern Britain desperate to seek cooler summer weather.
I think you understate the case. The way we're going it will be a runaway climate change. Although some, especially reputable researchers, know what we need to do to counter this, most of us are too gormless to act accordingly. For instance, getting an electric car does not justify an otherwise wanton life style.
That's my fear. That we are now in an accelerating loop of increasing warmth and volatility, which will feed off itself like a chain reaction. And perhaps it is already too late to stop this
Our presence in this universe appears to be the result of a long series of lucky circumstances.
These include: The fortuitous value of the fine structure constant, which, if it were a little difference would not allow stellar fusion to produce carbon. The existence of a rocky planet at just the right distance from a stable and long-lived star. The presence of just enough water on said planet to make a complex environment of coasts and shallows that would drive evolution along. The presence of an unusually large moon orbiting said planet to slosh all that water about and further drive evolution. A complex geology that, combined with the effects of life, has managed to remove CO2 from the Earth's atmosphere at a rate that has just about compensated for the gradual increase in the luminosity of the sun, this keeping the temperature of the Earth in a range compatible with life over the aeons.
And we are just about to screw it all up.
Not at all. Whilst you are right about the serendipity element of our existence, you vastly overestimate the significance of our current civilisation and the nature of the changes we are facing. Presenting these current very minor adjustments in our environment with the vast changes that have occurred over the last few million years (one of which probably reduced the human population to less than 10,000 individuals) really shows a fundamental disconnect with the reality of our existence on planet earth.
The changes of a few degrees - whilst undoubtedly bad for our current comfortable civilisation - are bugger all in both scale and rate of change compared to the natural changes that have occurred even in fairly recent times.
This is not to say we shouldn't try to mitigate such changes, nor that they won't be very bad for our current lifestyles but your hyperbolic comment shows a stunning lack of historical and prehistorical perspective.
Not really, as your parenthesis "(one of which probably reduced the human population to less than 10,000 individuals)" accidentally reveals. What is the point of saying This is nothing, we've had snowball earth and ice free earth and oxygen levels of 31%, this is a mere pin prick, when any one of those three sets of conditions would leave mankind wholly or mainly, stone dead? What has the long view got to do with us, when we have only been in the picture for a couple of minutes relatively speaking?
It's like warning a population of tadpoles in an April puddle that if it doesn't rain in the next week their puddle will dry out and they will all die: not much consolation for them to know that rainfall usually averages out in the course of a year and their puddle was virtually a pond back in January.
Nah. The point is that the changes we are seeing now are pinpricks compared to what nature can and has done in the past. We will and as we always have and this idea that this is the end of humanity or even civilisation which is expressed in FE's posting really is baseless. Indeed civilisations of the past have thrived under exactly the conditions which are being predicted now. It is uncomfortable for individuals and is probably something to be avoided if we can since it will make life miserable for a lot of people. But it is simply rubbish to consider anything we re predicting at the moment as the end of humanity.
Of course if we decided to nuke each other that is another matter. But I grew up in the 70s and 80s when threat was a permanent imminent threat so even that I find a bit of a yawn.
The world is a wonderful place and will continue to be so pretty much regardless of what we do.
The world is a wonderful place here and now for well heeled UK property owning PBers with money in the bank and drink in the fridge, sure. Our current predicament is such that either hundreds of millions of people who are mainly poor and fucked up anyway are going to be wiped out, or all of us are. I can't pretend to be terribly fussed at either possibility, but that's because I am a selfish twat. How about you?
The poor in the rest of the world are always being fucked up by those of us in the first world. But in fact their lot has being getting better rather than worse over the last century and continues to do so. So yes I continue to say the world is a wonderful place - and a lot better place to live in than it has been for almost all of human history for the vast majority of its population whether rich or poor.
But there's more of them. Lots more of them. So in absolute terms there's more human misery now, than in all previous history combined. Not claiming I lose sleep over this, but celebrations seem out of order.
And yet by all the measures - income, life expectancy, HALE, access to education and technology - the whole world is getting better.
Global average life expectancy increased by more than 6 years between 2000 and 2019 (WHO).
The same goes for Healthy Life expectancy (WHO). Almost all of this was as a result of increase in Third World Life expectancy.
Infant mortality has dropped from 9% in 1990 to 2.6% today. (WHO)
By 2015 the number of people living in absolute poverty globally had dropped less than half of its 1990 levels - from 1.9 billion to 736 million (World Bank). And that in spite of there being far more people in the world than there were in 1990.
In the same period illiteracy dropped from 24% of the world's population to less than 14%. (UNESCO)
Irrespective of how many people there are in the world today, they are better off overall than they were only 30 years ago and vastly better off than they were a century ago.
This is not a call to do nothing more. But it is a fight back against the idea that the world is becoming a worse place to live in whether rich or poor. It is not.
100x this.
Despite all that we see going on, the world has never been a better place in which to live. There is less poverty, fewer wars, higher life expectancy, more democracy, more education, less disease…
Well at least the weather, round here anyway, looks good! That we should perhaps be looking forward to a time when Patel was Home Secretary as a relatively liberal time is amazing!
While my predictions, as the Stodge Saturday Patent has demonstrated, aren't worth any attention, I'll offer a thought based on recent experience.
In 50-75 years time, London will empty at the beginning of June as those who can seek solace from the 45c temperatures and humidity associated with the late 21st century British summer between the spring and autumn monsoon seasons.
The newly-refurbished London Euston station will host the regular 30-minute Maglev summer service to the Lake District having passengers disembarking at Oxenholme in little more than a hour. From there, families will decamp to their summer chalets near the lakes (or as near as is affordable). The ability to work independently from location, first established during the 2020 pandemic, will allow tens of thousands of Londoners to continue working far from the overheating capital.
For those without the means to escape the heat, the annual ordeal that is summer in London is the very definition of purgatory. On the hottest days, with temperatures nearing 50c, many head to vast "cool centres" where they can enjoy air conditioned relief before heading home in the later evening.
While the Lakes are one popular "retreat from the heat", the Pennines and Cheviots have also seen summer housing and the major development of the north Scottish coast around Torrisdale and the islands of Harris and Lewis have seen an explosion of summer homes for those from southern and eastern Britain desperate to seek cooler summer weather.
I think you understate the case. The way we're going it will be a runaway climate change. Although some, especially reputable researchers, know what we need to do to counter this, most of us are too gormless to act accordingly. For instance, getting an electric car does not justify an otherwise wanton life style.
That's my fear. That we are now in an accelerating loop of increasing warmth and volatility, which will feed off itself like a chain reaction. And perhaps it is already too late to stop this
Our presence in this universe appears to be the result of a long series of lucky circumstances.
These include: The fortuitous value of the fine structure constant, which, if it were a little difference would not allow stellar fusion to produce carbon. The existence of a rocky planet at just the right distance from a stable and long-lived star. The presence of just enough water on said planet to make a complex environment of coasts and shallows that would drive evolution along. The presence of an unusually large moon orbiting said planet to slosh all that water about and further drive evolution. A complex geology that, combined with the effects of life, has managed to remove CO2 from the Earth's atmosphere at a rate that has just about compensated for the gradual increase in the luminosity of the sun, this keeping the temperature of the Earth in a range compatible with life over the aeons.
And we are just about to screw it all up.
Not at all. Whilst you are right about the serendipity element of our existence, you vastly overestimate the significance of our current civilisation and the nature of the changes we are facing. Presenting these current very minor adjustments in our environment with the vast changes that have occurred over the last few million years (one of which probably reduced the human population to less than 10,000 individuals) really shows a fundamental disconnect with the reality of our existence on planet earth.
The changes of a few degrees - whilst undoubtedly bad for our current comfortable civilisation - are bugger all in both scale and rate of change compared to the natural changes that have occurred even in fairly recent times.
This is not to say we shouldn't try to mitigate such changes, nor that they won't be very bad for our current lifestyles but your hyperbolic comment shows a stunning lack of historical and prehistorical perspective.
Not really, as your parenthesis "(one of which probably reduced the human population to less than 10,000 individuals)" accidentally reveals. What is the point of saying This is nothing, we've had snowball earth and ice free earth and oxygen levels of 31%, this is a mere pin prick, when any one of those three sets of conditions would leave mankind wholly or mainly, stone dead? What has the long view got to do with us, when we have only been in the picture for a couple of minutes relatively speaking?
It's like warning a population of tadpoles in an April puddle that if it doesn't rain in the next week their puddle will dry out and they will all die: not much consolation for them to know that rainfall usually averages out in the course of a year and their puddle was virtually a pond back in January.
Nah. The point is that the changes we are seeing now are pinpricks compared to what nature can and has done in the past. We will and as we always have and this idea that this is the end of humanity or even civilisation which is expressed in FE's posting really is baseless. Indeed civilisations of the past have thrived under exactly the conditions which are being predicted now. It is uncomfortable for individuals and is probably something to be avoided if we can since it will make life miserable for a lot of people. But it is simply rubbish to consider anything we re predicting at the moment as the end of humanity.
Of course if we decided to nuke each other that is another matter. But I grew up in the 70s and 80s when threat was a permanent imminent threat so even that I find a bit of a yawn.
The world is a wonderful place and will continue to be so pretty much regardless of what we do.
The world is a wonderful place here and now for well heeled UK property owning PBers with money in the bank and drink in the fridge, sure. Our current predicament is such that either hundreds of millions of people who are mainly poor and fucked up anyway are going to be wiped out, or all of us are. I can't pretend to be terribly fussed at either possibility, but that's because I am a selfish twat. How about you?
The poor in the rest of the world are always being fucked up by those of us in the first world. But in fact their lot has being getting better rather than worse over the last century and continues to do so. So yes I continue to say the world is a wonderful place - and a lot better place to live in than it has been for almost all of human history for the vast majority of its population whether rich or poor.
But there's more of them. Lots more of them. So in absolute terms there's more human misery now, than in all previous history combined. Not claiming I lose sleep over this, but celebrations seem out of order.
And yet by all the measures - income, life expectancy, HALE, access to education and technology - the whole world is getting better.
Global average life expectancy increased by more than 6 years between 2000 and 2019 (WHO).
The same goes for Healthy Life expectancy (WHO). Almost all of this was as a result of increase in Third World Life expectancy.
Infant mortality has dropped from 9% in 1990 to 2.6% today. (WHO)
By 2015 the number of people living in absolute poverty globally had dropped less than half of its 1990 levels - from 1.9 billion to 736 million (World Bank). And that in spite of there being far more people in the world than there were in 1990.
In the same period illiteracy dropped from 24% of the world's population to less than 14%. (UNESCO)
Irrespective of how many people there are in the world today, they are better off overall than they were only 30 years ago and vastly better off than they were a century ago.
This is not a call to do nothing more. But it is a fight back against the idea that the world is becoming a worse place to live in whether rich or poor. It is not.
100x this.
Despite all that we see going on, the world has never been a better place in which to live. There is less poverty, fewer wars, higher life expectancy, more democracy, more education, less disease…
I wish that was all true, but it ain’t
For instance, democracy is in retreat. And has been for many years. Do you get out much?
“In 2018, Freedom in the World recorded the 13th consecutive year of decline in global freedom. The reversal has spanned a variety of countries in every region, from long-standing democracies like the United States to consolidated authoritarian regimes like China and Russia. The overall losses are still shallow compared with the gains of the late 20th century, but the pattern is consistent and ominous. Democracy is in retreat.”
I’m not just emotionally and artistically correct, I can scientifically prove I’m correct. Music is decreasing in complexity and variety, songs are more formulaic, lyrics are more repetitive and mundane. Music is getting worse
It's true - and it is a shame because there are some very talented, smart musicians out there who are putting their output through the music company meat grinder.
That said, the Spotify algorithm is very good at finding off-the-beaten-track artists who *are* producing good music outside of that system.
Yes, the system now works against the quirky, talented musician, whereas before it worked for them
i read “White Bicycles” recently, an excellent memoir written by the legendary producer of Pink Floyd, Dylan, Syd Barrett, and many more - Joe Boyd (who i have met). He goes into great detail as to how he coaxed the incredibly shy, nervous but talented Nick Drake into the studio, to make immortal music, which is now revered around the world. Drake killed himself soon after, but those early songs were laid down
These days a Nick Drake character would look at the music world, and not even bother. The money isn’t good enough for all the crap you have to do, unless you make it big, and few do that. There are no dedicated A&R men and loyal producers willing to go those extra miles. Formulaic stars prevail, chosen by computer
I sense a new piece fermenting for Dildo Whittiers’ Monthly.
Comments
Edit why are photos sideways?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2839233/The-shocking-photographs-revealed-seals-having-sex-penguins-sparked-international-furore.html
Global average life expectancy increased by more than 6 years between 2000 and 2019 (WHO).
The same goes for Healthy Life expectancy (WHO). Almost all of this was as a result of increase in Third World Life expectancy.
Infant mortality has dropped from 9% in 1990 to 2.6% today. (WHO)
By 2015 the number of people living in absolute poverty globally had dropped less than half of its 1990 levels - from 1.9 billion to 736 million (World Bank). And that in spite of there being far more people in the world than there were in 1990.
In the same period illiteracy dropped from 24% of the world's population to less than 14%. (UNESCO)
Irrespective of how many people there are in the world today, they are better off overall than they were only 30 years ago and vastly better off than they were a century ago.
This is not a call to do nothing more. But it is a fight back against the idea that the world is becoming a worse place to live in whether rich or poor. It is not.
I'd quite forgotten that song. It is lovely. Thanks
Is anyone going to look back at this nihilistic dreck - and sigh and say Oh what a lovely song that was?
No, they are not. This is one small aspect of the decline of the West
Of course.
The adults of 2047 are the teenagers of 2022. People look back fondly on the music of their youth.
Contrast with black music today which is either terrible commercialised autotune pap or awful, grim, bleak, morally vacuous rubbish celebrating death, whores and guns, and not amusingly
The decline of black popular music is of course just a tiny piece of the wider puzzle, of western decay
Try ketamine chic https://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/gallery/31157/8/ketamine-chic
or Barbiecore https://www.vogue.co.uk/fashion/article/barbie-fashion-trend
Both this summer's key trends, for example. But I would assume with completely different musical tastes.
Leon is making the mistake of assuming whatever is on MTV today is what the yoof are listening to. Chances are it's not, and most people's experience of their teens/early 20s will be vastly different from whatever some 40 year old hack writing in dazed and confused thinks it is.
https://youtu.be/yLCUhL11fLI
Artforms do and will decline. Italian art declined from the great Masters of the Renaissance - Michelangelo, Raphael, Da Vinci - to Bronzino and Mannerism
Classical music is almost inert these days, after 300 years of Bach. Beethoven, Mozart, Wagner
Popular music had a golden era - its own High Renaissance - of about 50 years, from 1955 to 2005. Now it enters Mannerism. It is just not as good, no one remembers Bronzino.
And all that would be fine, the cycles of life and art go on, if it weren't for the fact that - to my mind - this betrays a deeper malaise in western society, maybe all human society. Optimism has run out (which is particularly bad for youthful artforms). We live in a new, crabbed, anxious age, pregnant with fears and doubt
Many senior managers prospered from the UK being in the EU. Many senior managers prospered in Switzerland despite them not being in the EU. And many senior managers in Greece lost their jobs when they were in the EU.
There are massive factors at play that totally overwhelm the EU in importance. Take China: how much of the UK's manufacturing left to go to Germany? And how much left to go to China or the Philippines or Vietnam?
How many jobs for the relatively low skilled were lost with the rise of computers and automation? Across the developed world, the pay for semi skilled labour has collapsed - that's true in Japan, in the US and in the UK.
And then there's demographics: in our ageing society, an ever greater share of workers' paychecks is being spent on the health and pensions of the retired.
Personally, I think we stand a better chance of us overcoming these challenges outside the EU, but it is absurd to claim that the pressure on wages is not something that has been seen across the developed world.
Of course there IS some amazing music out there, kinda, but the overwhelming glut of great music has ended. We were extremely lucky to live through it
You what? MTV? Does that even exist any more?
I have teenage kids. They play me their music. It is fairly awful, with a few rare exceptions
Sometimes, for fun, I play them an amazing track from the past. Their jaws drop open, like: what is this? Why is it so much better?
True - but it’s never been easier to find music and play music for whatever mood you are in and find new music but then find old classics.
https://youtu.be/pAyIs-eOjKI
https://www.southparkstudios.co.uk/video-clips/9imzrm/south-park-it-sounds-like-poo
And then there are times when an artform goes into actual decline, as happened to classical music, jazz and poetry beforehand, when for various reasons the creativity dries up, the motifs are exhausted, and the energy goes elsewhere. I am suggesting we are there with popular music as we have known it, in the west. It is done. A once-rich seam is played out
If you have great speakers or headphones listen to this and dance alone because it’s better than being a backing track to a computer game.
https://youtu.be/deqUWwL92vg
That music is done, done, done as an artform, we are witnessing an epochal shift and only music from the good old days is any good... or alternatively, that you are experiencing an age related shift in perception, i.e. literally every generation since time began thinks their music is good and the next generation's music is shit?
It ties in with the decline of IQs across the West. Young people are literally stupider, thus their music is worse. This intellectual decline is not disputed. It is a measured fall. I also think the fall in testosterone levels - smaller penises and lower sperm counts - is an issue. Young men are less ballsy and up for it, and young men with attitude made so much of the great music
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/iq-rates-are-dropping-many-developed-countries-doesn-t-bode-ncna1008576
"Plummeting sperm counts, shrinking penises: toxic chemicals threaten humanity"
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/18/toxic-chemicals-health-humanity-erin-brokovich
At 20, my three favourite albums defined me. Now, my three favourite albums are something I might stick on a playlist for the car.
Back in the 90s, my dad used to listen to the same old phil collins tapes, some gloria estefan tapes, a few others etc, in his car, and he declared "that is music, son".
Meanwhile teenagers were getting their rocks off dancing to rave and dropping mdma.
Music, crossed with identity, is for the young. Even if the music is shit (as we would define it), it's a part of growing up.
(1) For the first time in human history, modern music really is crap, and in twenty years, today's teenagers will be discovering Peter, Paul and Mary and beseeching themselves "how could we have been so stupid?"
or
(2) Leon has been on the sauce.
You have merely vented angry opinions. I suggest that you are the old man shaking his fist at a cloud
So, your IQ argument is trivially bullshit.
How long has testosterone been in decline? That’s less obvious, but I always remember a brilliant factoid told me by a music label CEO: the age at which a young man is most likely to have a hit single is exactly the same age at which he is most likely to commit murder
I find the reason most music past the early 2000s sucks is because it's all made using software rather than hardware and the sound as a result is inauthentic and hollow - programmed. Whereas before the analog nature of recording (even recording digital instruments) meant that you had a warm and authentic sound.
Edit: Again, South Park got here first. https://youtu.be/O_8S_7P7abM?t=107
Lol. Ok. Anyway yes you’re right of course. Autotune and digitised music has delivered a pasteurised product. It’s all acceptably professional but so much character has gone
And there are so many other reasons. Smart phones. Less money. Less ambition. Fewer people even trying. Talent shows. Blandness. Fragmented markets. And so much more
But the decline is stark and only a fool denies it. Better to accept it and enjoy what we have
On the other hand we now have tv drama which is of a standard our grandparents could only dream. It’s superb
Art forms rise and fall. Twas ever thus. Goodnight pb
Vila Planinka is a five-star boutique hotel which promises guests they will ‘slow down, harmonising your rhythm with your inner balance’
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/08/07/boris-carrie-johnson-honeymoon-slovenian-eco-resort-soothing/ (£££)
ETA they left Sunday night btw.
Which is ironic, because at that time I spent a fortune on stereo kit, mostly from Richer Sounds. It's just that I was listening to Pink Floyd at the time.
From the mid 1990s, I began to listen to a lot of decent stuff. Britpop had its moments. But really, it was the 1998 release of OK Computer that changed my relationship with music. And it's extraordinary that they topped that with Kid A a few years later, and then with In Rainbows in 2007/8.
That post 1998 period also includes The National, The Vaccines, The Streets, The Strokes, LCD Soundsystem and a host of other great bands.
And I'm sure there's a tonne of great stuff being generated now that I don't know about.
How can anyone sentient think that music reached an apogee in 1998?
Your terrible taste in music derives from trying to listen to it on terrible gear.
Commiserations.
How much of the kit you bought in the 90's would still be part of your system today (notwithstanding the voltage issues) ?
He argues Liz Truss tax plans are "a big bung to large businesses and the well-off" but "leave those who most need help out in the cold"
Sunak accusing Truss of "starry-eyed boosterism"
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/19445238/liz-truss-plan-brits-bills/
A portent of doom? I'm going to dig into the data/economics literature on this if I get time today.
If inflation is up cash withdrawals may follow naturally?
There is good new music now, despite what grandpa Leon was saying last night while showing his slides. I am a fan of Molchat Doma for example.
https://youtu.be/s1ATTIQrmIQ
https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1556443501113626627?t=QAepxBF2Uq8sUFIz4EVeRQ&s=19
My wife and I are paying nearly £2,000 pa. more tax since April due to the NI rise, and now any reversal of this is considered a "hand-out to the well-off".
Um, no. It's reversing a hand-grab from those on good professional salaries working long hours. It's why I was such an opponent of the levy - it will go up from 1.25% to 3% within a few years of Labour taking office.
Followed to its natural conclusion, this argument could be used to defend any NI/income tax increase on higher earners to any level, and against reversal.
Some of my favourite music is by the band Clare and the Reasons, who released their albums between 2007 and 2012.
And I used to love using cash before the pandemic. I used it as a budgeting tool, I liked the tactile nature of it, and I have the world's best receptacle for coins - a crocheted dragon's egg - which still also contains Euros.
The increase must be a post-pandemic effect, but I'd guess still well down on pre-pandemic, and in terminal decline.
I mostly play music streamed to wireless speaker now, or headphones.
That is interesting because he was the only county chairman to openly oppose the Hundred, to the extent that that idiot Harrison threatened to cut off supplies to Surrey and exclude them from hosting any matches in it.
Although the Hundred has signed a new deal for three years with divers broadcasters, if it makes a loss again this year I wonder if that will be renegotiated and the concept abandoned.
"Cash has been in decline for well over a decade, the pandemic accelerated this, but now it's going back up, and that's absolutely because of the cost of living crisis," she said.
Sigh. People read into things what they want to. I'd have thought it's more a case of things going back to normal after the pandemic.
Mr. 86, hmm, I could've sworn I read during 2020 more people were (perhaps surprisingly) using cash that year.
No bad thing.
Past two years: spent most of the time, perhaps all of it without a penny in my pocket, no cash whatsoever and it was fine, don't need it.
Last month or three: take £100 out at a cashpoint because sometimes it's just fine to hand over the cash instead of using contactless.
While this happened with the incumbent, and cased his downfall, that was down to entirely accidentally not telling the whole truth. Flopping from one position to another continually is not fantastic either.
Not that Sunak has been consistent, moving from financial realist to cutting 4p off tax to insisting we deal with inflation ahead of tax cuts.
Most commenters think in buzzphrases, "cost of living crisis" being the latest one. Once upon a time it was "credit crunch". Printers in China used to keep a stack of ready-assembled print blocks saying after the smashing of the Gang of Four, because that phrase was used so much.
There's hardly a mass-consumption press article in contemporary Britain that doesn't report that "experts" have said this, that, or the other. Hacks and commenters don't need much of a connection between active brain and typing fingers. They're herd members. Question anything, even something really obvious, and you'll get awfully funny looks. Stuff such as why not distinguish between SARSCoV2 and Covid-19 (one gets caught, the other doesn't), or what the f*** "queen's consent" is about.
Best simply not to use phrases such as "cost of living crisis".
I have time to complicate you
To make you hate the things you might have done
Just brilliant.
Tugendhat might have been offered Foreign Secretary if he had backed Truss before the final MPs rounds, less likely now
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11088255/amp/GLEN-OWEN-Liz-Truss-banish-plotter-Michael-Gove-political-Siberia.html
All in all looks like an even more right-wing and ERG heavy Cabinet than Boris' was if Truss wins
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/is-pop-music-evolving-or-is-it-just-getting-louder/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/science-proves-pop-music-has-actually-gotten-worse-8173368/
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1907.04292.pdf
https://www.mic.com/articles/107896/scientists-finally-prove-why-pop-music-all-sounds-the-same
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0115255
But Braverman at the Home Office? While that would at least remove an Attorney General who has utter contempt for the law, the mere thought of what she might do while controlling the state security apparatus given her highly authoritarian tendencies is enough to bring anyone out in a cold sweat.
That said, the Spotify algorithm is very good at finding off-the-beaten-track artists who *are* producing good music outside of that system.
That being the lowest number of seats the Tories have ever won at a general election since the current party machine first emerged in 1783.
I reckon Truss could maybe manage 155.
Edit - actually I suppose the Tories technically won 132 seats in 1906, the balance being Liberal Unionists. But since they would have won quite a few of those seats had they contested them, the target can stand.
By going for low tax but right wing policies she's very likely to be targeting absolutely no one...
So why do so many PB-ears resist this? Why are they happy to look like a fucking moron?
It’s because they are even more scared of looking like some grumpy old git who hates modern music. Given that so many of us are of advanced years, I imagine this notion plagues quite a few people on the site
And so you get the insane spectacle of intelligent people trying to claim that drill music is just as good as Aretha Franklin
She will try and use Braverman to push a hardline law and order policy and continue with hard Brexit to try and keep much of the redwall
i read “White Bicycles” recently, an excellent memoir written by the legendary producer of Pink Floyd, Dylan, Syd Barrett, and many more - Joe Boyd (who i have met). He goes into great detail as to how he coaxed the incredibly shy, nervous but talented Nick Drake into the studio, to make immortal music, which is now revered around the world. Drake killed himself soon after, but those early songs were laid down
These days a Nick Drake character would look at the music world, and not even bother. The money isn’t good enough for all the crap you have to do, unless you make it big, and few do that. There are no dedicated A&R men and loyal producers willing to go those extra miles. Formulaic stars prevail, chosen by computer
Despite all that we see going on, the world has never been a better place in which to live. There is less poverty, fewer wars, higher life expectancy, more democracy, more education, less disease…
That we should perhaps be looking forward to a time when Patel was Home Secretary as a relatively liberal time is amazing!
For instance, democracy is in retreat. And has been for many years. Do you get out much?
“In 2018, Freedom in the World recorded the 13th consecutive year of decline in global freedom. The reversal has spanned a variety of countries in every region, from long-standing democracies like the United States to consolidated authoritarian regimes like China and Russia. The overall losses are still shallow compared with the gains of the late 20th century, but the pattern is consistent and ominous. Democracy is in retreat.”
https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2019/democracy-retreat
That was in 2019. Do you think it’s got better since then? No, neither do I