So as I was watching them sing the “standards” on Idol last night, I began to realize how cool it must have been to be alive in the 40s, 50s and 60s. Granted, there would have been only a few channels on television, no cel phones, no internet or computers or anything, but the style of music seems to have been pretty cool. Just seeing and hearing that full horn section there on stage along with all of their usual musicians made me wish that people would put that much effort into making music today. There’s nothing like a stage full of talented musicians performing together on a song. Songwriters back then apparently even seemed to put a little more effort into their lyrics than a lot of today’s songwriters, who write song after song dealing with pretty much, well, sex. I’m not sure if very many of today’s rappers are aware of the fact that it is possible to rap about any other topic. But I shouldn’t pick on just them, because a lot of pop music is following their lead pretty closely as well. Plus, with the advent of digital recording software, just about anybody with a computer and the right programs can now fully produce a song. And a growing percentage of today’s music is produced this way. Why hire a few musicians to actually play instruments on a song when you can re-create it all yourself for much less cost? In other words, it takes less “musical talent” in the old-fashioned sense of the phrase, to make music these days, and I believe that is kind of sad. Now I’m not trying to completely rip on today’s music, because of course we love it, but last night really made me notice the difference between how music was made and how it is currently being made.
As far as the singing, like I mentioned on the radio today, last night was the first time I thought it was possible for someone other than Adam to win. Danny really shined last night, and Adam was still his usual over-the-top self, but for the first time didn’t really impress me. Allison and Kris were both good, and I was a little surprised that Matt didn’t do better, considering this is more his style of music. I’m thinking Matt will be on his way home here in a few hours. Leave me some comments if you agree or disagree!
