I just discovered an ancient music group in the Washington DC area named "The Suspicious Cheese Lords" who primarily focus on early music.

I *must* attend one of their concerts.

They claim they arrived at this name from a piece of music titled in Latin "Suspice Quaeso Domine" for reasons that might seem obvious. They also claim they've never actually performed this piece of music (by Thomas Tallis).

The local classical music station played Bolero on my way back to work from lunch.

I regard that as one of the funniest pieces of music people take seriously.

Where is Dudley Moore when you need him??? And Bo Derek too.

Dudly Moore... that man was a genius cut down by medical malady.

Accomplished pianist, yet damned funny guy, too. I think he did this bit where he ends this piece of music, but endlessly. Which is to say, he dragged out the ending so long you weren't sure when he was actually going to end it.

And I don't think I'll ever forget the bit in Arthur where he's playing "If you knew Suzie, like I knew Suzie" (Suzie being the lady his character was the marry soon), when the lady he actually loves enters the room, causing him to forget his place at the piano, ending with, "I... need a drink." Hard to explain in text, but it always stood out in my mind as an especially funny scene.

Unrelated to that, though, I've had to work out in a gym for a while now, and I don't much care for the music.

I get that most people probably do want to listen to this terrible doon, ssht doon-doon-dun-doon stuff with the insipid and uninspired love-song lyrics ham-handedly bleated through the meat-like lips of the talentless hacks croaking them.

(Well, I say 'croak', which suggests an attempt at singing... these aren't 'croaked' as much as semi-uttered in a vaguely rhythmic fashion, like some kind of nightmarish gregorian chant from hell).

But I think one morning, I heard a new low in what I assume is a wildly popular tune where the teenage singer repeats this refrain endlessly:

Somebody come get her,
She's dancing like a stripper.

On the one hand, it's kind of nice that there's at least a sort of standard here, implying that this behavior isn't acceptable.
It suggests decent morals, I think.

But... why on the face of this planet do we need a piece of music like this?
Is this a familiar enough problem now that your average person listening to this can say, "Oh, yes, I need my niece, Mary, to give this a listen so maybe she'll moderate that behavior."?

Yet, watching these letters spill into this forum, I can't help but wonder if this is a Get Off My Lawn moment.

On the one hand, it's kind of nice that there's at least a sort of
standard here, implying that this behavior isn't acceptable.
It suggests decent morals, I think.

I think you should read the lyrics.

Don't suggest that Ragnar.. He had postive thoughts for a moment. Don't ruin them.

AAsto the get off my lawn moment.. I think wwe can find a cane to ship him.

I might choose to maintain some blissful ignorance for a little while yet, where that song is concerned. I don't know if I really want to know its full awful nature.

(Particularly when I never wanted to hear something like that in my life to start).

Hey, I *did* have a cane at some point. I should see if it managed to find its way back to the condominium after our flood. That's something I'm certain to miss, particularly as I get older.

Is this a familiar enough problem now that your average person
listening to this can say, "Oh, yes, I need my niece, Mary, to give
this a listen so maybe she'll moderate that behavior."?

I haven't listened to the song, and I'm not going to, but the answer to your question is Yes.

I have a friend who owns a dance studio, who frequently laments that other studios are teaching what she calls "stripper moves" to little girls.

Our brave new slutty world.

Hah.. I went to put on Rush the other morning (old Rush too...) and the 25 year olds on the call with me gave me all sorts of crap.

Boy am I getting old.

Country does not count as music.

Well, without having a clear idea of your tastes, I'll risk making a few recommendations:

https://www.youtube.com/user/PomplamooseMusic

Pomplamoose combines the talents of Jack Conte and Nataly Dawn, both of whom perform interesting works of popular styles of music. Unfortunately, Jack Conte has been handling Patreon (I think he's the CEO), so he hasn't been doing as much music, and this has slowed down some of Pomplamoose's progress, but they still do some relatively quick covers regularly.

https://www.youtube.com/user/natalydawn

Nataly Dawn performs quality original works and some creative covers of her own. She also performs with other good musicians on occasion. She has a distinctive singing style that you might like, although not everyone enjoys it.

https://www.youtube.com/user/jackcontemusic

Jack Conte writes amazing music, but isn't active anymore, since he's been focused on Patreon for the last several years. Still, he has a good backlog of stuff you might like.

https://www.youtube.com/user/ryanlerman

Ryan Lerman writes music that always seems to have a bit of a twist to it.
His music generally seems kind of relaxed in style.

https://www.youtube.com/user/MyTerribleFriend

My Terrible Friend combines the talents of Nataly Dawn and Lauren O'Connell to provide some impressive performances and compositions.

https://www.youtube.com/user/LaurenOC12

Lauren O'Connell herself writes and performs some pretty decent music you might like. Her vocal style isn't as distinctive as Nataly, but it's still very good... if you don't care for Nataly's style, perhaps you'll like Lauren.

https://www.youtube.com/user/ScottBradleeLovesYa

If you haven't heard Postmodern Jukebox, you should give them a try. They take a lot of the really crappy modern songs and redo them to make them decent.
The musicians seem to be a collective of decent musicians that seem to wander in and out of the group over time an inclination, such that they rarely ever get stale. They redo songs into quite a lot of different styles and mimic many different decades. Really brilliant stuff.


You can probably follow the channels featured by these guys to find others that provide quality music, but these are the ones I've followed myself. Music hasn't entirely died with the rise of Clear Channel and monopolistic corporatism... but it has found other outlets.

"Country does not count as much" is kind of a closed minded statement. Since living in Texas I have discovered tehre are a ton of varieties of country music, and some of them are rather enjoyable.

"Country does not count as much" is kind of a closed minded statement.

You do realize that the whole point of that statement was to garner a reaction. Mostly because I'm a bad person. It's well documented. This comes from someone who spends a great amount of time listening to folk music.

I agree; now, country death-metal rap, on the other hand, now *that* is music.