The state of music today

you don't hear it because you aren't "some young rock fan" anymore. again, i'm not out to hate, but...it's the truth.

 

FWIW, drum's not dead kept me up all night for a week. my wife and i made a track off last year's thermals record our song. ghostface killah is my get-pumped-up-for-football soundtrack. i've debated the relative merits of deerhoof and james murphy for months and months with friends.

there is great, exciting music out there- music worth the soundtrack to your life, music worth debating over and debating over until you pass out drunk or fall asleep, music worth making the calendar not turn fast enough.

so it isn't the same exact stuff from 30 years ago. the effect is just the same, as long as you know where to look.

 

I know I'm no young rock fan, but there's a reason many of the fans I saw at Springsteen's show in Toronto in October were toddlers when Born In The USA was out. Same would be true of a Floyd show, U2 and Zeppelin if they got back out.

There's some good stuff happening today but will these bands have the talent or the patience to carve out a long career?

 

Sounds a lot like me, KingCreole. I never listened to Johnny Cash until recently. Ray Charles was another one that I started listening to when the movie Ray came out a few years back. Now I can't get enough of his music.

I think the older we get, the more we start to appreciate greatness. Our taste matures and it's not just about a beat you can dance to, it's lyrics, it's the rhythm, the passion of the music.

I don't get today's music. I've tried to listen to the Top 20 channel, but I find myself drifting back to the 70s and 80s channel. I think it's because today's music, with a few rare exceptions, just don't send out a message I feel like hearing. Maybe the musicians in my younger days were sending out the same message, but I don't remember it being nearly as obvious.

 

Just to answer the earlier question, yes I still buy CD's, mostly because I like the idea of buying an album.

I don't have an Ipod or mp3 player, so CD's are still the way forward to me.

By the way SURS on Fuse is showing Radiohead's new video right now for "Jigsaw" off In Rainbows. Man, this is so cool.

 

well, radiohead has been around for over a decade. same for spoon. same for deerhoof. james murphy has been doing stuff for a decade, though not always with LCD soundsystem.

as for carving out a long career, well- people pack shows for the boss, U2, floyd, led zep, the stones, etc. because of the hits. (which is why the youngins were there, as you mentioned.) because the songs have been played on rock radio forever and ever and ever. aside from the fact that many of the top acts right now simply don't conform to 4-minute rawk nuggets, radio consolidation and the rise of the internet mean that a lot of these acts are surviving without major play. which is fine if you want to build a rabid-but-small fanbase, but bad if deerhoof wants audiences to be singing along with "wrong time capsule" at a jam-packed ford field in 2030.

so if it doesn't happen, i think you have to blame the game, not necessarily the playas.

 

and your boys don't make hits because they simply suck.

unless there's a worldwide conspiracy at work here, i think the simple laws of supply and demand kick the shit out of what you're attempting to preach on this thread.

 

As dreadful as commercial radio is today, it was no more enlightened in the late 70s and early 80s. Radio didn't embrace Elvis Costello, the Clash and plenty of other new wave bands and it did Metallica no favours.

 

I'm thinking that the original question goes to the demographic of this board more than it does the quality of music. And believe me, I didn't think that way until recently.

Here's an example, and I'm going to take it that this gentleman is an average 25-year-old listener.

I know of Arcade Fire. Don't try to make me pick out any of their songs.

I have never heard of the other four.

Of course, I use capitalization, too.

That's on me. That's on me being 49 years old, and maybe it's time to face that music is still a generational thing. I sure didn't like what my parents liked in music. And as hard as we fight it, history may be repeating itself.

Or maybe I DO like it, and just haven't taken the time to listen to it.

Last night, I tripped upon VH1's top 40 videos of the year on late-night. And some of those videos looked pretty damn good; maybe I just have never spent enough time watching to know it. I looked some of them up on YouTube, and I was right ... they WERE good.

 

That is wack!

 

I am watching VHI's Top 40 videos of 2007, and I have heard about 10 percent of these songs. I'm also pretty sure that in five years 90 percent of these will never be heard on the radio again.

Oh, just a segway here, but I called my local classic rock station to request "Uneasy Rider" by the CDB, and they did not have it. Try calling a classic rock station to see what they have of a certain artist. I'm guessing they will have only one Warren Zevon in their playlist.

Sad.

 

I never listen to music on the radio except for specialized jazz, blues, new music, etc. shows that are on in Boston due to our fine college radio stations.
CDs are how I listen because I don't like the impedimenta of iPods, etc. and because my PC is not the one hooked into our home's sound system.
Most music today sucks. Most music of yesterday sucked, too. I am sure there is plenty of good stuff out there,the problem is the distribution of music has become so fragmented, unless one follows music full time as an avocation, you're likely to miss it.
My avocation/former vocation is sports, so I'm SOL. No problem, as there is an infinite amount of old music, more than my music budget can handle.