Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.

[Florian]

Indeed. the curd is the heart of both its tastiness and it's non-tasty-sounding-name.

Language differences are a funny thing. I know "curd" as "quark", a byproduct of cheese-making and closely related to "fresh" cheese, so nothing to be prejudiced about.

[Vinyadan]

Language differences are a funny thing. I know "curd" as "quark", a byproduct of cheese-making and closely related to "fresh" cheese, so nothing to be prejudiced about.

Interrresting... I wonder if the words are related.

[2D8HP]

Interrresting... I wonder if the words are related.

Well,

Murray Gell-Mann

(who's son I worked with for about a year) who came up the the term "quark" for

that model of physics

father came from a. German speaking area, so maybe?

[Honest Tiefling]

Nonsense, 2D8HP. A real German would have combined at least three different words to make a new word.

[Florian]

Nonsense, 2D8HP. A real German would have combined at least three different words to make a new word.

Not really. The english language is very context dependent. Words have multiple meanings and you have to listen to the whole sentence and maybe additional explaining sentences to get what is meant.
The german language is very clear-cut with mostly only one meaning and interpretation per word and we use compound words to bridge/avoid going into the whole context dependency thing.
We only use that when it actually makes sense to use it and it describes a thing different from the compound ingredients.

[Knaight]

Yes, I remember the golden days of pop music being cutting edge and not being bland at all. Sugar Sugar was a risk taker, i tells ya. I Wanna Hold Your Hand just didn't care who it offended! Hold on to your knickers, ladies, Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head is about to blow them away!

Oh, wait...

It's almost like the entire purpose of pop is to produce easy songs for radio play that won't piss people off (or at least won't piss off the sort of people who like to start talking about censoring things and have the sort of clout that makes that worth taking at least somewhat seriously) - a pattern that becomes very obvious if you listen to rap in particular. Songs about going to clubs, or enjoying being rich? Totally fine. Upbeat songs about getting out of the ghetto? Excellent. Songs about the problems with police officers as an institution, or songs about why the ghetto exists in the first place? Suddenly, it's radio silence.

[Mr Blobby]

Problem is that 'pop music' is an inexact definition, and often used as a snarl-word by people who don't like the most artificial, clichéd and cheese/saccharine-loaded examples [which are relatively easy to take a shot at]. We've had for decades pop-rock, pop-rap, pop-punk... well, pop everything which leads to the situation where a person might try to hide that they'd been listening to say Blink-182 lest their friends found out and made fun of them for 'not being a proper punk'.

Pop music is not inherently bad. It's classic hallmarks in fact good; a short 3-5 minute song, good production values, lyrics that both make sense, aren't too hardcore to understand and a distinctive tune you can hum. Remember, the old definition of 'pop' - popular. While some musicians will state 'we don't care if I/we are not popular', nearly all of them would like to be popular. If anything else, it would allow them to quit [or at least cut down hours of] their 'normal' job.

We also need to remember that even now the music industry is still generally wedded to the concept of 'the album'; roughly defined as a CD's worth. Any label worth it's salt would pretty much demand a minimum of two tracks which were slated as 'the singles' - aka the ones they'd push to radio stations etc. Many musicians would cater for this unbidden, by 'polishing the rough edges' [aka following the things in the last paragraph] and if an 'edgy' act, trying to present a PG-13 image on those songs.

It was a trade-off; the label got marketable songs which hopefully would get lots of airplay and lead to stacks of albums being sold. The musician[s] would in return get to more 'be themselves' on the non-single songs to experiment, scream, sing about the futility of nihilism, muck around with synthesisers and a pipe-organ etc. It's why the format remains popular with musicians, the idea of 'every song is a single' brought about by the internet somewhat appalling.

The other problem is that 'hardcore radio listening' is dying fast [that is, music]. When I was ~15 I listened to it a lot. Now, before you say 'but now you're old' I'll point out a) I listen to more music now and b) I'm an 'old Millennial'. The reason is easy enough: choice/price. Back then, we did not have YouTube, Spotify, audio-CD ripping/burning, downloads, PC's filled with MP3 libraries, smartphones with music capabilities, small radios/headphones with good bass etc etc. The radio was one of the main ways I learned about new music; along with music TV, free CD's with magazines and from friends. It was also the auto-fallback to when I wanted to hear music but not the ~35 CD's or ~10 mix tapes I owned.

This world is no more. Music radio, in my opinion pretty much only survives on the 'involuntary' / 'semi-voluntary' segment - the ones where firing up your own MP3s or whatever is not an realistic option. Drivers needing to have the traffic updates. Taxis to have the music to subtly tell the passenger[s] that no, you don't want/need to have a conversation. Folk in communal areas; such as workplaces, cafés etc. Or you, when you're doing a difficult long job which you can't fiddle about with your music - say DIY, working on your car or cooking.

Radio managers know this - so they've adapted. To play the popular, the familiar and the inoffensive [depending on target segment, naturally - Prodigy's 'Smack My Bitch Up' is fine on an alt-rock station but not one aiming for the over 50's]. They know your 'annoyance limit' [aka how much music you don't like you'll put up with before changing the station] is now very low compared to traditionally. Naturally, they don't want that to happen.

It becomes a feedback loop; the only new music accepted into the hallowed playlist is one which pleases the most, offends the least and ideally sounds very like the other things you're playing. People buy such things for radio publicity still works, so it sends the message that 'more like X!' back to the record companies. And the cycle continues.

[Peelee]

Problem is that 'pop music' is an inexact definition, and often used as a snarl-word by people who don't like the most artificial, clichéd and cheese/saccharine-loaded examples [which are relatively easy to take a shot at]. We've had for decades pop-rock, pop-rap, pop-punk... well, pop everything which leads to the situation where a person might try to hide that they'd been listening to say Blink-182 lest their friends found out and made fun of them for 'not being a proper punk'.

Blink-182 was supposed to be punk? I always thought of them as alt rock (not my cup of tea, despite loving '90s alt rock, but still). Post-2000 Green Day I could see people not calling 'proper' punk. On an unrelated note, post-2000 Green Day is still awesome.

[2D8HP]

Blink-182 was supposed to be punk? I always thought of them as alt rock (not my cup of tea, despite loving '90s alt rock, but still). Post-2000 Green Day I could see people not calling 'proper' punk. On an unrelated note, post-2000 Green Day is still awesome.

Apropos of very little, long ago I was friends with Green Day's original drummer, from when he was in Isocracy, and I was friends with the songwriter of the Lookout which was their current drummers previous band.

I saw Green Day perform a few times when they were still called "Sweet Children", and I thought they were better than average, but I had no clue that they would achieve such fame.

[Mr Blobby]

While I could cite 182 being mentioned in the Pop-punk page on Wikipedia, your point illustrates my first point perfectly - definitions like this are real fuzzy. It's much easier to define what it isn't rather than what it is.

That and every band/group/artist draws from a myriad of sources; which means 'identifying genre' can be difficult. And a few names cast long shadows: what do Kraftwerk, Radiohead, NIN, the Pumpkins and U2 all have in common? All cited Pink Floyd as inspiration. Clearly, either they were all taking different bits or I've literally gone deaf. Or they were lying.

[Comrade]

I'm afraid it's not punk unless the drummer is thrashing away at 200bpm while the singer yells unmelodically about 'the system'. And if the production value exceeds 'recorded on a toaster oven', why, it's barely even artistically legitimate.

[2D8HP]

....if the production value exceeds 'recorded on a toaster oven', why, it's barely even artistically legitimate.

Seems convincing to me!

[Florian]

@Mr Blobby:

Maybe it´s apt to say that there can be pop as well as counter-pop?

It was treated as iron-clad knowledge that home-grown pop can´t fly unless it copies the current U.S. trends, being bland and in english, while it still was more profitable for major labels to simply import already existing U.S./UK pop.

Well, the market proved that iron-clad knowledge to be pretty wrong. some maybe 10 years back, bands started to go deliberately against that by choosing to sing in german, writing their lyrics and music themselves and focusing on more serious, political or socio-controversial matters instead of doing for "empty lalala" (Listening to music in a foreign language actually has one advantage: If you don't try to translate it, you'll never notice how much BS it is...). That should not be confused with singer/songwriter, because it´s still more pop-rock, pop-punk and so on.

[Peelee]

Apropos of very little, long ago I was friends with Green Day's original drummer, from when he was in Isocracy, and I was friends with the songwriter of the Lookout which was their current drummers previous band.

I saw Green Day perform a few times when they were still called "Sweet Children", and I thought they were better than average, but I had no clue that they would achieve such fame.

First off, that's awesome, and you're awesome.* Second off, I'm pretty sure luck is a huge factor in making it big for bands and actors. No slight to those who make it big, it's just there's a huge amount of people that are also very good at what they do but don't make it that big.

* Imean, you were awesome before, too.

[Mr Blobby]

Florian: that is a significant problem, and not just for music: the idea that to 'be successful' it needs to be in English to break into the hallowed Anglosphere - will admit that we're pretty lazy and resistant to non-English stuff. It's a worse issue for peoples with a 'smaller' language - if the ~90 million strong German-speaking world feels the encroachment of English, how do you think say the Dutch, Czechs and Hungarians feel?

[2D8HP]

First off, that's...

Aww thanks!

...how do you think say the Dutch, Czechs and Hungarians feel?

If there's no Scandinavia and the World comic about it I just don't know.


And here's: pretty much all I "know" about the Dutch (slightly NSFW language).

[Mr Blobby]

Heh. I was more referring to the fact with a ~90 million strong German-speaking area, artists can feel there's a significant market to sing in their native. Said market is also large and rich enough to support high-quality TV/film production too; many countries with a non-English tongue often find for the same budget for a 'ham acting, wobbly sets and string CGI' show they can import and dub a [usually US] import with excellent production values. Simple economies of scale: a Anglosphere show has a non-dubbed possible market of ~350 million, while the say Czech maker has only ~10 million.

It's why the manager of Abba decided at the start they'd sing in English, not Swedish.

[Aedilred]

While I could cite 182 being mentioned in the Pop-punk page on Wikipedia, your point illustrates my first point perfectly - definitions like this are real fuzzy. It's much easier to define what it isn't rather than what it is.

That and every band/group/artist draws from a myriad of sources; which means 'identifying genre' can be difficult. And a few names cast long shadows: what do Kraftwerk, Radiohead, NIN, the Pumpkins and U2 all have in common? All cited Pink Floyd as inspiration. Clearly, either they were all taking different bits or I've literally gone deaf. Or they were lying.

Well, Radiohead dramatically changed their sound during the 90s: starting as borderline-Brit indie pop which was remarkable only for its relatively high quality in the early 90s, and then by 2001 they were doing stuff like this.

In their earlier incarnations I think they can be mentioned in the same sentence as the Pumpkins with a straight face.

U2 in what I'd term their "creative" period* also sound somewhat similar to late (post-Waters) Pink Floyd. Some of their output in the mid-late 80s if anything seems to anticipate the sound of The Division Bell by several years.

Plus of course the Floyd went through a number of phases themselves. In their early days, especially immediately post-Syd, they were highly experimental. They started out with what was basically psychedelia, then went down a prog hole for a while. Some of the stuff they did in their first five years was truly bizarre. Most of the stuff that's recognisable now came after that, during the Waters-driven period from 73-83, but there are many who would say that they were at their most musically interesting early on.

*as opposed to their "repetitive, insufferably smug period"

[2D8HP]

Pink Floyd

From them, I prefer:

Interstellar Overdrive


and


Lucifer Sam


but some Psychedellia that I really like better than them are:


Amboy Dukes - Journey To The Center Of The Mind



The Creation - Making Time



The Renegades doing a Bill Haley and his Comets song


and


The Velvet Underground - What goes on

[Lemmy]

Heh. I was more referring to the fact with a ~90 million strong German-speaking area, artists can feel there's a significant market to sing in their native. Said market is also large and rich enough to support high-quality TV/film production too; many countries with a non-English tongue often find for the same budget for a 'ham acting, wobbly sets and string CGI' show they can import and dub a [usually US] import with excellent production values. Simple economies of scale: a Anglosphere show has a non-dubbed possible market of ~350 million, while the say Czech maker has only ~10 million.

It's why the manager of Abba decided at the start they'd sing in English, not Swedish.

TBF, sometimes the choice of Language is about aesthetics. I know many Brazilian rock/heavy metal bands that sing in English mostly because that's the language used in the rock/heavy metal songs they grew up listening. They are not worried about the market so much as they are trying to sound like Queen, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Deep Purple, etc.

Meanwhile, most other genres of Brazilian music are almost exclusively sung in Portuguese, including those that would be appropriately called "family-friendly pop rock".

That said... Brazil has over 200 million inhabitants, so "breaking into the anglosphere" is probably not as crucial as it might be for musicians from less populous countries.

[Florian]

That said... Brazil has over 200 million inhabitants, so "breaking into the anglosphere" is probably not as crucial as it might be for musicians from less populous countries.

It´s a bit more complex than that. Mainly, this is about the cost to benefit ratio and the expected revenue, often compared on an international level.

You can see it quite well in the RPG hobby: I can be cheaper and more risk free to simply grab a license to localize and publish an already existing mainstream RPG (like D&D or PF) because you only need a translator, editor and layout, instead of having a full team of authors, illustrators and such to try and bring your own product line to the market.

For example, I know a brewery owner who runs a top-notch facility, but only does contract brewing for either foreign companies who want to test the local market, or brewers who need extra capacity quick.
So he's basically shifted the whole workload of marketing, logistics and such to others.

Coming back to the RPG example, entering the "anglo-sphere" is seen as desirable because once you went international with your product, chances are better to go into a similar license and localization deals, which again allows you to buffer your costs with a second royalty revenue stream.

[brian 333]

I wonder if there is a lack of interest by artists to create modern music in their native languages?

It's easy to say 'commercialism' and blame the music industry. Or it was in my generation. Garage bands anywhere had to have a publisher back then. However, today there is cheap mixing software, cheap recording hardware, and it is as good as anything the big guys had in the '70s. Plus, publishing got a lot easier with You Tube and other such services.

My art work was never made with the intention of getting me noticed so I could become a big star. In fact, I don't care if anyone ever notices. I do what I do because it is a part of who I am. If I wanted the proverbial 'lifestyle' of the famous musician I might find it necessary to find a publisher, but if my goal is simply to make the best art I can because it makes me happy to do so I already have the tools I need.

And German, Macedonian, Ukranian, Latvian, or any other nation's artists have access to this arsenal of tools. This should have an explosive impact on music, from traditional cultural music, (see Mean Mary for an example,) to the most out there of experimental music. Artists of every nation and class can self publish and sites like You Tube will publish them.

So new music in many languages should be a thing now, no matter what the big companies do. And being big companies interested in making music, they will copy whatever sells, be it in English or Farsi.

[Florian]

@brian 333:

Ironically, all the stuff you mention has made the situation worse. While it´s good and necessary to have a critical stance on the (semi-) professional art industry, it´s all too easy to overlook that, like any scavenger, it also fulfills a marked beneficial role that should be understood and valued.

Money and connections aside, before self-publishing (in the widest sense) became available, the entry-level bar was markedly higher because you had convince someone of your talent first.... Ok, I leave it at that.

[Mr Blobby]

...Coming back to the RPG example, entering the "anglo-sphere" is seen as desirable because once you went international with your product, chances are better to go into a similar license and localization deals, which again allows you to buffer your costs with a second royalty revenue stream.

I remember reading once the business model of US TV show makers. I'll sum it up here...

- The production costs are covered by the sale to the 'home market' [the USA]. This means now they've effectively got a show to sell for free.
- The rest of the world is now divided up into 'regions'. Some are language based [non-US Anglophere, Spanish Americas] or geographically based [Europe].
- Producer then sells the block rights for these 'regions' to 'distributors' - aka a middleman. The 'value' is defined by possible market size, wealth level of and the costs of doing business. Example: Europe is wealthy and a large market, but there's a lot of leg-work selling to 30+ channels, dubbing/subtitling etc so will be a bit less than the rights for the non-US Anglosphere. I assume it's done by the various distributors doing 'blind auctions'.
- Said distributor then goes around selling the product. Naturally, at a price which is 'below cost' - but that does not matter, as the costs have already been recouped [the distributor only needs to cover their costs for buying the rights].
- If someone snaps at it, they'll then usually 'edit and localise' for the said buyer. Dubbing, subtitling, changing the commercial break[s] locations to fit local standards and editing for local broadcast laws [aka for violence, sex etc].

This is one reason why the non-Anglo world finds it harder to produce their own stuff: they are in effect being 'dumped' by Anglo producers selling their media products at a rate which would not cover the price of producing it locally.

[Florian]

@Mr Blobby:

It´s a bit more complex than that. Keep in mind that "continental EU" is vastly more socialistic than the "Anglo-sphere". That means that the "freedom of speech" is seen as needing the "freedom and neutrality of information" as a necessary foundation, which means that across the whole EU, each member state constituting a full country (ie. Bavaria as part of Germany, Catalonia as part of Spain, the Brits have their different BBCs...) will field a full public service broadcasting service on air, tv and the web as part of their civil duties.

While it is absolutely right what you wrote, it needs a crucial bit of information to make more sense.

The calculation you posted is basically correct, this is how things work: The Home market makes it a zero-sum game, the export is where the actually dividend for the investors comes from. Now the thing is, that model is only interesting for the privately-owned sector that doesn't have any real production quality on their own. This is where you'll find stuff like CSI or Criminal Intend. The public-owned part is actually four or five dimension beyond that in size, but also beholden to the public spending rules and laws.

In the end, it comes down to financing, debt and greed. Continental EU, being based on tax-payers money, has to act very conservative and could never, ever, build up something like the Marvel Studios.

[Lemmy]

It´s a bit more complex than that. Mainly, this is about the cost to benefit ratio and the expected revenue, often compared on an international level.

You can see it quite well in the RPG hobby: I can be cheaper and more risk free to simply grab a license to localize and publish an already existing mainstream RPG (like D&D or PF) because you only need a translator, editor and layout, instead of having a full team of authors, illustrators and such to try and bring your own product line to the market.

For example, I know a brewery owner who runs a top-notch facility, but only does contract brewing for either foreign companies who want to test the local market, or brewers who need extra capacity quick.
So he's basically shifted the whole workload of marketing, logistics and such to others.

Coming back to the RPG example, entering the "anglo-sphere" is seen as desirable because once you went international with your product, chances are better to go into a similar license and localization deals, which again allows you to buffer your costs with a second royalty revenue stream.

I was speaking more in the specific context of the music industry...

[Mr Blobby]

Well, I had to water it down a little to get it into one screen-page...

Naturally, the distributor[s] would have to play by the 'rules, customs and set-up' of each area; from the US-setup of each city having their own station[s], the 'regional networks' of some European nations and the centralised national outfit which is the UK. [We have 'different BBC's', but some 90% of TV output is the same across the land - only a few areas [mainly the non-English nations] have a few 'opt-out slots' where they show local-er programming. Usually news.].

Yes, state broadcasters are a partial exception to the rule; the BBC for example has a quota of 'British-made' shows it must air. But it is allowed to buy imports; merely means what stuff they do buy is 'the cream'. But that does not mean the other 'big boys' [ITV, C4, 5 etc] can't buy in imports by the wheelbarrow-load [Channel 5 is perhaps the worst in this respect].

The advent of digital television has made the 'US dumping' issue more obvious [at least in the UK]; a myriad of new[ish] channels showing nothing but cheaply-bought Anglosphere imports nobody's heard of.

[Tvtyrant]

I'm afraid it's not punk unless the drummer is thrashing away at 200bpm while the singer yells unmelodically about 'the system'. And if the production value exceeds 'recorded on a toaster oven', why, it's barely even artistically legitimate.

If you don't use a Fisher Price Microphone it isn't real Black Metal.

[2D8HP]

If you don't use a Fisher Price Microphone it isn't real Black Metal.

Seems convincing to me!

[Goaty14]

Why do people sometimes post links to TvTropes and then follow the hyperlink with "WARNING: TvTropes".

Its been bugging me for weeks and I can't wrap my head around it.