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Friday Satire

Time for some more satire . . .

Man Appalled at the Abundance of Bum Notes in Oldies Music

It had been a few years since Marc Griggs listened to an oldies radio station. A regular listener of hot talk, modern rock and classic rock, he was shocked to hear a number of songs on 97.4 the Drive with bum notes, botched drum fills and some off-key vocals.

“I could’t believe it,” Griggs, 47, said Tuesday after his twelve-year-old daughter turned the radio dial to the Drive. “Music is supposed to entertain me without making any mistakes.”

A number of songs Griggs heard, like the Byrds’ “Mr. Tambourine Man,” Sonny & Cher’s “The Beat Goes On” and Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence,” infuriated him. “There’s a really noticeable guitar hiccup at the end of the ‘Mr. Tambourine Man,’ Cher sings most of ‘The Beat Goes On’ in a different key and the drummer isn’t perfectly in sync when the third verse of ‘Sound of Silence’ starts.”

Compared to the modern music Griggs enjoys, from Nickelback to Rascal Flatts, he says those artists don’t make mistakes on their recordings. “Every note is perfectly in tune, there are no mangled drum fills and they rock,” Griggs said. “Why in the world would someone want to hear otherwise?”

Comments

Kev said…
"Every note is perfectly in tune, there are no mangled drum fills and they rock,” Griggs said.

Two words (or one compound one, perhaps): ProTools.

"Why in the world would someone want to hear otherwise?”"

Umm...maybe becaue they want to hear actual music recorded by human beings and not machines?

Just a thought...
You probably know this already......but the electric instruments on 'TSOS' were overdubbed onto the acoustic take found on 'Wednesday Morning 3 A.M. by producer Tom Wilson, nearly a year after that album had come out. It was Columbia's effort to make more 'folk-rock' in the wake of 'Tambourine Man's success---and it caught both S & G by surprise, as Simon was living in London at that point. And the rest is history, of course. :)

The interesting thing about Mr. Tambourine Man is that Roger McGuinn is the only Byrd playing on it....the rest is made up of session musicians! [i.e. Leon Russell on keyboards, for instance.]

[For another mistake on the 'MTM' album....Chris Hillman misses a bass note going just before the third line in the last verse. I smile everytime I hear it. :) ]

I'll take honest mistakes over sterile perfection anyday.

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