What music from today will stand the test of time?

Good call on Norah Jones, whom some really, really hate, but I find her music pleasing in that background-as-I-read-the-paper kind of way.

Need to start a sister thread on movies. I was with some friends on Friday and that was one of the topics, what current movies will be people talking about years from now.

 

Right -- the band whose "Pet Sounds" inspired "Sgt. Pepper."

 

I'm not saying that Jay-Z doing nonsense duets with Beyonce lessens his impact, or that Dr. Dre getting paid to sip shitty light beer means that The Chronic isn't a sweet album. I don't begrudge Jay-Z or Dre for shilling for beer companies one bit, because it's obvious that Tupac would have done the same had Suge Knight not had him killed. The argument against selling out or "going legit" isn't one I'm interested in making. I'm saying Jay-Z helped real hip hop lose its way by doing several stupid duets with the hot chick he was/is banging. That makes it okay for the Ja Rules and Nellys of the world to do the same, and it keeps getting shittier and shittier. Black Eye Peas basically cut out the middle man, and just asked Fergie to join their group, and you see enough of it, and suddenly "My Humps" gets nominated for a Grammy. If Jay-Z wants to produce Beyonce's album, great. If he wants to drop in an do a verse on hers, well, I guess I can live with it. Mick Jagger did sing backup on "You're So Vain" after all, although Carly Simon had a hell of a lot more credibility than Beyonce.

But putting Beyonce on your own album? Have some dignity, man. If Jeff Tweedy could bang Jessica Simpson, I would think it was weird, but I could, on some level, understand. But if he started writing music for her and letting her sing on his albums, I'd claw my eyes out with a guitar pick.

That's essentially what Jay-Z has done. And as the undisputed king of cool in his genre of music, he's made it acceptable for an entire generation of rappers to make garbage in an attempt to grab mainstream success.

 

Great post Double. I agree totally, and I miss the Pac/Biggie/Snoop days of the 90s. There's rarely a good, classic rap single that comes out that isn't drenched in pop these days. Too much money in Top 40.

 

Don't feel like wading through 7 pages, but the correct answer is "The White Stripes."

 

Guess we'll have to agree to disagree on the relative quality of the Beach Boys. We certainly won't be the first!

 

Radiohead certainly belongs in the conversation (well, if no one else brought them up...I'm not reading seven pages ).

 

That's an interesting subject, dools ... because Badfinger should have been huge. Absolutely huge. They had more bad luck than any band ever, including the hanging suicides of TWO lead singers, and getting finagled out of much of their money by a crooked manager.

Had they been able to hold up, they would have been a hit machine.

 

Agree on Badfinger. No Dice was a tremendous album, featuring No Matter What and Without You, a much better version, by the way, than the cover that Harry Nilsson did a year or so later that rose to No. 1.

 

It depends on how long McCartney would have actively stayed behind them. Make no mistake: their other hits don't happen without Come and Get It, which was all McCartney except for plugging the lead vocalist's effort in.

 

His last CD, sans Timberland, sold more than 5 million copies in the states and 7 million worldwide. But yeah, without Timberland, he's nothing.

And BBAM, as for J-Timberlake being the next Michael Jackson, I was thinking more like the next Prince. The sexual overtunes, the controversy (wardrobe malfunction), the falsetto voice, etc.

 

Like I said before, I think Timberlake has his best shot at being a crossover artist. He can act a little bit. Hey, not everyone can pull off "Dick In A Box."