"These people don't understand that they're seeing some of the greatest musicians on Earth."

-One among a crowd of obnoxious twenty-somethings who sat behind me at Bridge School Benefit, while talking about the Dave Matthews Band. "These people" referring to everyone else besides this little group of airheads, who seem to think that they're the only ones who have heard of Dave Matthews Band. We tried to make it painfully obvious when we were walking out during their set.

I think the point is that at least Dave Matthews sings and writes his own songs, rather than having a computer and 'composer' doing it for him.

Man, what's wrong with Badu?

I guess. Lots of people write their own songs.

I agree with Dude, I think what matters in the context of the movie is that Dave Matthews, whether you like him or not, is basically what you'd call a "real musician." Whether he's good, cliched, annoying, whatever, doesn't matter, because at least he stands behind writing and performing music in a way that at least isn't just created in a laboratory.

I think that it's important to have people like Dave Matthews in the movie, because as much as the "masters", as Zola puts it, are more valuable interviewees, a lot of them are people whom the current generation can't connect with, or likely haven't even heard of. Dave Matthews and people like him are combining the two worlds which are necessary to the message of this movie hitting home: being an honest, real musician, while also being fairly well-known and popular among the younger generation.

I'm fairly interested in finding out what's going to happen after the music dies.

Or, should we say, the so called "music industry?" 'Cause the only alternative to commercial music is total nihilism, right?

Who will tell me how to think then?

Who will pay for Dragonforce's light show and hair products?

What possible cultural black hole awaits us after the music dies?

I am. So scared.

It's a movie that tells people to be more sophisticated when shopping for mayonaise.

Didn't Don McLean already go over this.

My point was more along the lines of why weren't ANY of the Old Timers included at all? Yes, I don't prefer Matthews's music, but the fact that he's in the film isn't my beef. Matthews says himself in the film, "We have to teach the children." Agreed - but where are the masters in the film that we are supposed to teach the children about?

Scorsese's seven-film series, even though almost entirly about Blues, was far more important than this film. About teaching children, Scorsese and his crew created a FREE lesson program about Blues history, musical stylings, literature, etc that could be incorporated into a current school program. They went the distance to at least try to 'teach the children'. The materials were offered. This film falls short in its own ambition to spread the word. So again, my beef is not that Matthews is in it, but that the film doesn't make good on its promise.

Yeah, but what I was trying to say earlier about features like Scorsese's Blues series is that kids can't just connect with something like that. Before the Music Dies is, I believe, making an attempt to reach kids who have never bought a blues CD in their lives. Kids who would change the station from Scorsese's program without even thinking about it, because they don't even know what the Blues are, and don't care. Why should they (from their point of view; I know perfectly well why they should)? What this movie does is gently introduce them to the reality that there is better music out there, and it does it by giving them a face (Dave Matthews, Erykah Badu, etc.) who they know and will want to listen to, but who also know a thing or two about what they're talking about.
If they did it in a polarized, cold-turkey manner (which is what trying to get a bunch of random teenagers to watch a seven-episode series that's all about blues would be), the fact is, kids just wouldn't give a shit, and absolutely no progress would be made. You can't get a fire going without a spark. So I guess what I'm saying is that Before the Music Dies is like a necessary step between going from watching daily doses of TRL to going in depth with a seven-episode blues series.

We even have examples of this process working on this very board. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume a few things about panbient, but here goes. In a thread from a while ago about how everyone got into jazz, he talked about how he first came to it by reading an interview with Flea where he talked about how great Eric Dolphy and Jaco Pastorius were. Without the Flea influence, would our friend and moderator ever have gotten into jazz at all? Most likely, but I'm willing to bet that reading that interview, from a guy who certainly isn't a jazz master (I suspect that Flea actually knows a good deal about playing jazz, but my point is, he definitely hasn't made a career out of it or anything), brought panbient to jazz much faster than he would've by himself. Thanks to panbient for giving me an example to use here, hope you don't mind.

All very valid. Yet, still I feel an interview with, say, BB King would have only increased the validity of the film. If the film is giving a warning of sorts and supposed to be showing that there is much, much more out there AND gave examples of what's out there, then we would have had the entire package. Panbient read about Flea uplifting (the great) Pastorius and got into it. If Badu was on there singing the praises of Etta James and then some footage/interview (even just a little bit) was shown in the film of Ms James, then the kids would see the praises of someone they know, and possibly dig, and then the object of praise itself. Seems like a neater deal to me.