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Eric Clapton’s music “mediocre”?


Baxlin

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3 minutes ago, yorks5stringer said:

Just before this thread descends into Anarchy, we have got all this way into it with 'ner a mention of Jack Bruce, Dave Bronze and Nathan East who all have 'contributed' to EC's mediocrity....

I don't think so - for his songs, the 'voice' of the song is the guitar work. You can have the best drum and bass backing on a blues song but if the guitar isn't reaching you, the song isn't going to either.

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Whilst I wouldn’t particularly credit racists with great intelligence Eric Clapton would need to be a spectacularly stupid one, given the music that influenced him.

And re Tears in Heaven, beautifully sad song and given the subject matter I always wonder how he manages to perform it live without breaking down.

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28 minutes ago, ClassicVibes said:

...do the mods like their constant power trip?

I've spoken to you a few times now about your conduct on the forum, but it doesn't seem to be sinking in. You have your opinion, and I think those you are challenging have clearly and eloquently set out their stall by way of reply. You don't need to keep prodding for some sort of vindication or apology - and when it's clear none is forthcoming you revert to type by throwing remarks like this around.

To be clear, the mods:

Are unpaid

Considered friends

Are all Interested in this forum being well balanced and open

Are not moderating for fun or power

Don't deserve to be spoken to like that

and finally, they're human. Well I think. Mostly.

Any thoughts on that?

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28 minutes ago, ClassicVibes said:

So 50 years ago it was okay to dislike non white people? Regardless of whether you are 1 years old or 100 years old, it will always be wrong.

You sound like someone who was caught out and then very quickly back peddled. 

50 years ago words were used out of ignorance. In some areas and some areas of society almost everybody used those words. In our house they were never used, but as a 5yrs old kid we picked them up in the playground. When at home I was told off for such language; and quite rightly too.

You ask if it was okay to dislike non white. No it's never been okay to show a dislike for anyone for irrational reasons. Those words were often not used out of any dislike or hate. People were called a "N" or similar because you'd learnt from others that was a label for them, the same as a flat piece of wood with 4 legs is called "a table". In this case it was never "right" or "okay". We were ignorant. It wasn't that we disliked anyone for their background of ethnicity, they were simply words. Probably fed into the dictionary of the society by people who did hate for unknown reasons.

I look back at my time in school and really feel for the 2 or 3 black kids in the school. They were largely ignored and must have felt cold and isolated. They didn't get bulllied or anything, as far as I know. But it can't have been easy. They lived in a poor areas in a level of poverty. Looking about today, as a society, we have come a long way. Black people in the UK do have a better life than the one I recall. We still have a way to go to get to the point where we have true equality.

In an equal world we wouldn't even be having this conversation and for me to refer to a friend as being "black" would mean no more than to say "he's wearing a green shirt".

No, I'm not back peddaling. No, I'm not racist. My Mum was. No she didn't tollerate the words, but her attitude was one of superiority and self-righteousness that was always wrong. That's a more invisible form of predjudice. No laws will stop that. It will only stop through keeping on changing our society and teaching the way.

As @Dad3353 says, we Brits are a cruel lot. In the past couple of centuries we raped and pilleged other countries and told ourselves we did them a favour by taking "civilisation" to them. We shoved our own children up chimneys and under machines in cotton mills where they would be injured or killed. We forced 5 yrs old kids to work in dangerous damp coal mines where they would manually work the air pump in the dark; because you don't need a light to do that job. What we have done to others and our own was bad. Most is bad because of the rich forcing our poor into bad situations. But to call this "civilisation" was a gross misuse of the word.

@ClassicVibes, if you can get to 75 years old, or however old Clapton is, with no regrets in life then you've done nothing in life. When you get to 75 you too will have regrets. I hope they're small ones.

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If it helps calm things down, I’ll apologise for starting the thread, although I did say ‘maybe better if we didn’t mention comments about his racism’, naively expecting comments about his music.

I’m happy if the thread is closed/locked, to prevent (further) unpleasantness.

Malcolm

Edited by Baxlin
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24 minutes ago, Baxlin said:

If it helps calm things down, I’ll apologise for starting the thread, although I did say ‘maybe better if we didn’t mention comments about his racism’, naively expecting comments about his music.

I’m happy if the thread is closed/locked, to prevent (further) unpleasantness.

Malcolm

I hope nothing I've said has come across as angry or unpleasent. Nothing has been meant that way. I have no bad feelings towards @ClassicVibes He simply has a different experiance of life to my own and is entitled to express his worries and concerns.

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47 minutes ago, Baxlin said:

If it helps calm things down, I’ll apologise for starting the thread, although I did say ‘maybe better if we didn’t mention comments about his racism’, naively expecting comments about his music.

To be fair, there is very little to discuss on his music. Like him or loath him you would have to be very positive on his achievements to think that he had done anything actually interesting since the 70s.

I always wondered, when people say things like 'if hendrix hadn't died just think what amazing things he would be doing now' and the answer is, you really don't know do you? I would think that he would have continued to innovate, but maybe he would have just stayed stuck doing the same thing. Or he could have gone all synth pop in the 80s and ended up playing vegas. Maybe some memories are better the way they are!

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1 hour ago, Grangur said:

I hope nothing I've said has come across as angry or unpleasent. Nothing has been meant that way. I have no bad feelings towards @ClassicVibes He simply has a different experiance of life to my own and is entitled to express his worries and concerns.

It was just the gravitation to racism in general that I felt was unpleasant, not any one member’s postings, and not what I started the thread for..

Malcolm.

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2 minutes ago, Baxlin said:

 not what I started the thread for..

Threads are like children, you start them off all well intentioned, then they get their own ideas and throw parties when you are out and get god-knows-what in the carpet and eventually move out to shack up with someone you don't approve of.

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I don’t think his music is more than mediocre, personally and his better years ended at least 20 years ago. 

Im not sure I would have released Tears In Heaven in his position, I would have kept it back for myself rather than make even a penny out of it

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7 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

Threads are like children, you start them off all well intentioned, then they get their own ideas and throw parties when you are out and get god-knows-what in the carpet and eventually move out to shack up with someone you don't approve of.

No, you can’t beat threads, or lock them in the coal shed when they’re naughty or take their pocket money away to spend down at the pub ... 

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It always amuses me how musicians seem to be held to higher standards that other folks. So Eric Clapton hasn't produced anything decent in the last 30 years. So he's a mediocre musician is he? Let's apply the same rationale to some others. What about Steve Cram? As far as I can see, he hasn't produced any decent athletic performances since the 1980's. I saw him jogging round the park the other day. Looked a bit slow, if truth be told. Nothing inspirational in that. And what about Bill Gates? Hasn't produced a decent operating system since DOS 6.22. Windows 3.11, at a push. Totally mediocre if you ask me. 

Seriously, do we understand what mediocre really means? I'm right slap bang in the middle of being a mediocre Musician so I should know what I'm talking about. And Eric Clapton has nothing on me!

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16 minutes ago, AdrianP said:

It always amuses me how musicians seem to be held to higher standards that other folks. So Eric Clapton hasn't produced anything decent in the last 30 years. So he's a mediocre musician is he? Let's apply the same rationale to some others. What about Steve Cram? As far as I can see, he hasn't produced any decent athletic performances since the 1980's. I saw him jogging round the park the other day. Looked a bit slow, if truth be told. Nothing inspirational in that. And what about Bill Gates? Hasn't produced a decent operating system since DOS 6.22. Windows 3.11, at a push. Totally mediocre if you ask me.

Steve Cram stopped running, so cant be judged by what he is doing now as he stopped doing it. Arguably Bill Gates best work is what he is doing now, so I would say he is getting better as  his earlier work which is frankly quite poor.

EC carried on making music well past the time we were talking about so he can be judged by what he was doing both up to the 70s and way into the 00s.

I am not sure that any of this is not self evident though

Edited by Woodinblack
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Isn't this true for so many musicians? They have an era when they create some amazing material, then spend the rest  of their lives giging til they drop playing the same old stuff?
Look at any artist including the "Gods" of Rock or whatever genre. They all end up being tied to the post that was their youth. Very few carry on with plusatingly earth shattering genius into their dotage.
In fact, can anyone name 1?  (Genuinely would like to know them all)

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Love cream, anything after is very meh, as a kid in the late 70s early 80s he was just another irrelevant ‘old man’ (that makes me laugh now in my late 40s) singing stuff that didn’t connect with me. 

Look back, I think not dying was his worst career move.

Edit - the last bit is tongue in cheek in case anyone thinks otherwise, death always seems a good career booster for musicians 

Edited by T-Bay
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