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Is One Direction a band?

Bob_LukenBob_Luken Posts: 10,004 ✭✭✭✭✭
Irrelevant Rant Time.

Just watched my Tivoed recording of Saturday Night Live. One Direction was musical guest. I listened to about 5 seconds in the middle of one of their two songs. Fast forwarded to the comedy sketches. But later, I saw an ad for a One Direction TV Special and they referred to them as a "band" (Insert record scratching to a halt sound effect here.) Band? WTF? Boy Band? Yes. Band? Hell no. On SNL I saw only one of those skinny legged boys playing a guitar. That's one musician per five singers. Now, I admit to knowing very little about these boys so, unless they are hiding the full extent of their musicianship from us,.........That ain't what I call a band.

What's wrong with calling them singers, or artists or Vocal Group? Nothing. But to call the five of them a band implies that a majority of them play instruments, right? Wikipedia has them listed among a large group of acts under the definition for Vocal Groups. (Wikipedia- A vocal group is a group of singers who sing and harmonize together with a backing band.) To call them a Vocal Group seems fair. Calling them a band sounds dishonest.

I would define a band as a group of musicians capable of playing instruments. And I don't mean the tambourine either. I do not consider singers to be on the same level of musicianship as musicians who play instruments. I enjoy great singers but, come on, anybody can open their mouth and make noise. And, if God gave you a great voice you are already 80% complete as a vocalist. But, in order to learn to play an instrument, you pretty much start at 0%.

Comments

  • youngryan216youngryan216 Posts: 1,127 ✭✭✭
    That's what a band is today.

    Everyone steals the music they want from the internet and it leaves record companies with no incentive to develop real bands -- which is partially why they don't exist anymore. The other reason: a lot of lazy kids don't care about musicianship anymore because there's a computer program that can make you sound like you know what you're doing. It's called ProTools.

    It is impossible to be a band in the traditional sense now, but it's because consumers of music chose that. Consumers of music are young girls and those 45+. Both demographics like pretty young faces.

    Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, One Direction.
    ISO Ramrod and Ron Mexico
  • youngryan216youngryan216 Posts: 1,127 ✭✭✭
    Thank you for posting this. I'm going to the studio tomorrow and I'm so pumped to just set that place on fire now. Mediocrity should not be accepted, let alone lauded.
    ISO Ramrod and Ron Mexico
  • Amos_UmwhatAmos_Umwhat Posts: 8,405 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I feel your pain. For me, a band should be, well, self sufficient so to speak. Making their own music, whether it be of their own creation or written and scored by someone else.

    I know nothing of One Direction, except that some of my nieces seem entranced.

    I think every generation goes through this. I remember when the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan, people saying "That's not music". I remember wondering why Elvis Presley usually had someone else playing the guitar, after all, he could play, not just sing, and people said "Yeah, but anybody can play the guitar, very few people can sing like Elvis."

    Of course, we do seem to have a tendency to elevate mediocrity, how else could we have all the gossip columns about all the "stars" out there today?
    WARNING:  The above post may contain thoughts or ideas known to the State of Caliphornia to cause seething rage, confusion, distemper, nausea, perspiration, sphincter release, or cranial implosion to persons who implicitly trust only one news source, or find themselves at either the left or right political extreme.  Proceed at your own risk.  

    "If you do not read the newspapers you're uninformed.  If you do read the newspapers, you're misinformed." --  Mark Twain
  • raisindotraisindot Posts: 1,294 ✭✭✭
    Oh, Jeez, are we all getting to the age where we're becoming fuddie-duddies like our hopelessly square parents?

    Every time I tell my son, "All that rap and autotuned Top 40 crap you listen to--it's just junk. Now, in myyyyyy day we had the Beatles and Stones and Zeppelin..." and he looks at me like I'm the guy holding the pitchfork in American Gothic.

    And then I realize that my dad used to say the exact same thing to me when I was younger. "How can you listen to that rock and roll crap? Why, in our day we had real musicians who could play and sing and songs had real arrangements and none of these "Yeah, yeah, Yeah," lyrics." To which I would just look him in the eye and start singing the classic 40's lyrics, "Dink. A-dink a dink. A dink a doo...."

    Ya think back in the 1700s Viennese fathers said to their sons, "How can you go to concerts featuring that Mozart and Haydn crap? Why, in our day we had Bach and Telemann and Handel. Real, manly Teutonic music with lots of counterpoint. None of this limp-wristed Italian and French sonata, scherzo and minuet crap."
  • youngryan216youngryan216 Posts: 1,127 ✭✭✭
    There are still good artists. They are just harder to find now because of all the trash you have to sift through to find them. I disagree that it's 100% an age issue. I have always enjoyed music as an all-genre-encompassing entity. There are really only two types of music imo: good and bad.

    One Direction is definitely a dog rocket though.

    +1 raisindot for referencing 1700's Viennese fathers.
    ISO Ramrod and Ron Mexico
  • Ken_LightKen_Light Posts: 3,537 ✭✭✭
    We call The Beatles a band. They're nun' but a boy band either.
    ^Troll: DO NOT FEED.
  • brianetz1brianetz1 Posts: 4,134 ✭✭✭
    as others have said, we are old....well at least you all are. Pop music = popular music. Anyone hitting their formative years in the 70s pop = what is called classic rock, 80s pop = madonna/MJ/1 hit wonders, 90s pop = grunge and Rap, 2000s pop = brittany spears and boy bands, 2010s pop = computer generated/corporate sponsored pretty faces.

    Get over it. The next generation could completely flip and bring back "real" music....you just never know. My dad hated my music, hated Grunge rock and hated Rap because to him "real music" was what he grew up on. To me music changes, hell if you played something Led Zeppelin to someone who grew up in the 1950s they would have thought you were trying to kill them. Enjoy the things you can from this current era because just like 75% of what you grew up on you end up forgetting most of the acts until they play it on the classics radio station or have a way back weekend its the same now. In 5 years no one will remember or care about One Direction. Unfortunately for you old fogies they will still care about and remember Drake though.
  • youngryan216youngryan216 Posts: 1,127 ✭✭✭
    Drake is a decent songwriter and he can sing though. . .
    ISO Ramrod and Ron Mexico
  • brianetz1brianetz1 Posts: 4,134 ✭✭✭
    youngryan216:
    Drake is a decent songwriter and he can sing though. . .
    agreed, but i am sure that Drake is lumped into the "this music sucks"

    that's kinda my point, the ones with a real talent other than looking pretty will win out in the end. There are a ton of pretty faces throughout the years that hit is big for a year or 3 but didn't stick around long term.
  • Ken_LightKen_Light Posts: 3,537 ✭✭✭
    brianetz1:
    if you played something Led Zeppelin to someone who grew up in the 1950s they would have thought you were trying to kill them.
    Doubt it, but you might have to explain to them what a 'cover band' is and why they barely recognize the songs...
    ^Troll: DO NOT FEED.
  • Amos_UmwhatAmos_Umwhat Posts: 8,405 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Ken Light:
    brianetz1:
    if you played something Led Zeppelin to someone who grew up in the 1950s they would have thought you were trying to kill them.
    Doubt it, but you might have to explain to them what a 'cover band' is and why they barely recognize the songs...
    point
    WARNING:  The above post may contain thoughts or ideas known to the State of Caliphornia to cause seething rage, confusion, distemper, nausea, perspiration, sphincter release, or cranial implosion to persons who implicitly trust only one news source, or find themselves at either the left or right political extreme.  Proceed at your own risk.  

    "If you do not read the newspapers you're uninformed.  If you do read the newspapers, you're misinformed." --  Mark Twain
  • Ken_LightKen_Light Posts: 3,537 ✭✭✭
    Amos Umwhat:
    Ken Light:
    brianetz1:
    if you played something Led Zeppelin to someone who grew up in the 1950s they would have thought you were trying to kill them.
    Doubt it, but you might have to explain to them what a 'cover band' is and why they barely recognize the songs...
    point
    Don't get me wrong, I love Led Zep. Best band of all time.
    ^Troll: DO NOT FEED.
  • Bob_LukenBob_Luken Posts: 10,004 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Wow, now we're debating what's good music and what sucks? That's an awful deep rabbit hole. My only point was to declare that a band should play instruments. The Beatles were definitely a band. Whether anybody liked them or hated them is irrelevant to the definition of band. But, if five singers sing in front of a unnamed and virtually unseen "backing band" then, IMHO you are not supposed to call those five vocalists a band. They may be the big stars of their big stage act but they are not a band.
  • Ken_LightKen_Light Posts: 3,537 ✭✭✭
    Bob Luken:
    Wow, now we're debating what's good music and what sucks? That's an awful deep rabbit hole. My only point was to declare that a band should play instruments. The Beatles were definitely a band. Whether anybody liked them or hated them is irrelevant to the definition of band. But, if five singers sing in front of a unnamed and virtually unseen "backing band" then, IMHO you are not supposed to call those five vocalists a band. They may be the big stars of their big stage act but they are not a band.
    You distinguished boy band from band. So I said The Beatles were a boy band. Implying, but most anyone would call them a band. So can we distinguish boy band and band?
    ^Troll: DO NOT FEED.
  • Bob_LukenBob_Luken Posts: 10,004 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Ken Light:
    Bob Luken:
    Wow, now we're debating what's good music and what sucks? That's an awful deep rabbit hole. My only point was to declare that a band should play instruments. The Beatles were definitely a band. Whether anybody liked them or hated them is irrelevant to the definition of band. But, if five singers sing in front of a unnamed and virtually unseen "backing band" then, IMHO you are not supposed to call those five vocalists a band. They may be the big stars of their big stage act but they are not a band.
    You distinguished boy band from band. So I said The Beatles were a boy band. Implying, but most anyone would call them a band. So can we distinguish boy band and band?
    I believe the general understanding of "boy band" would be star vocalists out front in the spotlight, unnamed musicians in the shadows providing musical accompaniment. There may be some room for the Beatles to be called both in that they drove the teenage girls crazy in the beginning but I'd call them a band.
  • youngryan216youngryan216 Posts: 1,127 ✭✭✭
    Ken Light:
    Bob Luken:
    Wow, now we're debating what's good music and what sucks? That's an awful deep rabbit hole. My only point was to declare that a band should play instruments. The Beatles were definitely a band. Whether anybody liked them or hated them is irrelevant to the definition of band. But, if five singers sing in front of a unnamed and virtually unseen "backing band" then, IMHO you are not supposed to call those five vocalists a band. They may be the big stars of their big stage act but they are not a band.
    You distinguished boy band from band. So I said The Beatles were a boy band. Implying, but most anyone would call them a band. So can we distinguish boy band and band?
    Stones > Beatles. All day looong!
    ISO Ramrod and Ron Mexico
  • Bob_LukenBob_Luken Posts: 10,004 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Bob Luken:
    Ken Light:
    Bob Luken:
    Wow, now we're debating what's good music and what sucks? That's an awful deep rabbit hole. My only point was to declare that a band should play instruments. The Beatles were definitely a band. Whether anybody liked them or hated them is irrelevant to the definition of band. But, if five singers sing in front of a unnamed and virtually unseen "backing band" then, IMHO you are not supposed to call those five vocalists a band. They may be the big stars of their big stage act but they are not a band.
    You distinguished boy band from band. So I said The Beatles were a boy band. Implying, but most anyone would call them a band. So can we distinguish boy band and band?
    I believe the general understanding of "boy band" would be star vocalists out front in the spotlight, unnamed musicians in the shadows providing musical accompaniment. There may be some room for the Beatles to be called both in that they drove the teenage girls crazy in the beginning but I'd call them a band.


    I guess my position on the matter is just my not so humble opinion. I've found the Beatles listed at the top of a few boy band lists on the net and quite a few dictionaries include vocal acts in their definition of a band. But, I tend to disagree :)
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