General Music Chat

Even though I'm a pretty big fan of today's newer rock, I realize that it's only because 'new' music in the last 20+ years has sucked so bad that it could only get better.

I listened to the album "point of no return" (Kansas) earlier.

Listening to it reminded me that incredibly deep songwriting was once in high regard to both the public and the recording industry. Nothing like that exists today, in my opinion, simply because the current model will not support it. It's almost like idiocracy struck the major labels first- music itself has been slowly dumbed down to the lowest common denominator.

And now we get justin beiber and carly rae jepsen (and zillions of others)- equaling nothing more than "opposite sex eye candy" with catchy riffs posing as songs.

/sigh

Not to be the stick that stirs.
But honestly I believe this appraisal of the music situation is dead wrong.
Perhaps the lame assed crap that passes to the ignorant masses, for music on the radio (and other public media ) fits this description.

But I for one feel I have heard music just as brilliant if not better from people right on this board, not to mention other "private sources".

Music is alive and well . . .

Humor me guys, pretend you don't know who this is. Many of you may not know who this is. Tell me what you would think if you heard a kid play this solid and sing this well this young. You would call him a prodigy. Would you tell him to pursue it because he has the raw materials?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJWZSEkCrAM&sns=em

Am I a fan? No. I'm not familiar with any of his material. But the backlash alone is enough to make me at least be interested. Is it founded?

I believe that you being a multi talented performer is what gives rise to your appreciation here.
Myself being more of a consumer,( and a damn picky one at that ) am totally aghast that people actually listen to that non sense.

You, and many others I have met in my few years of moving in the indi music circles are much more the entertainer that that "child prodigy" could ever hope to attain.


P.S.
Please no one post a link to THE ENTERTAINER I hate that song!

The typical consumer of music these days is under 25. Mindless drivel is what they crave - easy to dance to and sing along with because the same words are repeated over and over, seldom anything truly meaningful.

There is some good music out there, but you've got to hunt for it.

It is easy for musicians to hate Gaga and Beiber, they seemed to come from nowhere and make millions of dollars. But obviously they have a product and know how to sell it so you can't deny them. Paul's video of a young Beiber demonstrates that the kid was a prodigy, maybe not Mozart-level prodigy but ahead of the game for his age.

Guys

THere is lots of cool sh*t going down. Check out Europe, expecially Finland, and South America.

EG from E
Subway to Sally
Nightwish
Eppica
Children of Bodom

And don't forget the Mexican maniacs - The Mars Volta.

Talbot

^^^ This

There is always better music (underground) happening outside of what's popular and this has always been the case in most music eras. You just have to take the time to find it. I think some eras have more educated listeners than others enabling better music to be appreciated. I can seriously say that today's music listeners are generally musically oblivious.

And don't forget the Mexican maniacs - The Mars Volta.

Talbot

Great band.
Very talented and creative ..... they have their own sound

a few good bands/artists active today:

Rock/Alt/Indie
The Black Keys http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpaPBCBjSVc
Murder by Death http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OPK5PfunNQ
Modest Mouse http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=penvn9VL32Y
Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHEOF_rcND8

Metal
The Agonist http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jud_SnKTlY
Dream Theater http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oasnbzEMV08
Mastodon http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6WGNd8QR-U

Rap
Jay-Z/Kanye West http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJt7gNi3Nr4
Frank Ocean http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F15IjgyHd60

Electronic
Skream http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc_YP_H3ZEc

Here's a couple I couldn't even categorize
Caravan Palace (Swing, combined with dubstep?): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7JOa3dISg0
Callisto (Ambient/Jazz/Metal?): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jbpZtE-Zm8

None of these artists are particularly obscure, except for maybe the last two (And Caravan Palace are huge in France).

I tried to preface my points with the statement that I'm liking music today. The black keys, lumineers, grouplove, mumford & sons, muse, etc...

It's all GOOD MUSIC, but .. It's all still low-common-denominator. Maybe I'm just referring to the progressive rock genre, but I don't think so- Go learn some of the pop rock from the 80's- Everything from MJ to duran duran, and countless others.. the music is just more complex and arguably MUCH better engineered and produced.

I don't want to slight today's musicians in the spotlight, because that ARE still good musicians, but caught in the net of dumbing down.. I believe the lumineers even said in an interview that they had to dumb down their music to get a record deal. I agree compression and poor production techniques are much to blame. Rolling stone did a lengthy article years ago about digital compression aka "loudness wars" used in recorded music, how, why, and what the end result is- I had posted it here years ago, but RS has since taken down the article.. dumb.. it was among few good articles from them.

Weve discussed this before on here Im sure, but to me the problem is all of the genres.

When I was growing up, you saw festivals that would have pop, rock, folk, funk, bluegrass, polka???? all at the same event. It gave all the different genres a chance to shine in the spotlight and an opportunity to hit a much broader market, where as today, most festivals are genre specific. So a folk person doesnt get to see the rock group that they might like, and vice versus.

Another thing that is overlooked is that the 70s were the era of FM album oriented rock, many many bands got a boost from it, songs longer than 3 minutes. If you go back to am radio in the 60s groups like Yes, Kansas, ELP, would have never been hits cause they wouldnt be played on AM stations. I dont think you can overlook FM radio and its impact on progressive oriented music. It put way more emphasis on the recording quality of records than mono in the 60s. Anyone remember quad recordings?

Plus during the 70s we didnt have the distractions that young listeners had today.

I can remember getting a new Zep album and playing it over and over trying to get an idea about the meaning of life, these days my kids have literally 100s of songs in thier ipods, they give a song about 5 seconds to grab them then shuttle to the next thing.

Time moves on guys, mixing music these days is almost back to the way they mixed mono am singles, in that most of it is heard thru ear buds.

But in the end, you just have to adapt and move forward with the times, the past is the past, we just have today to do whatever it is we want to do.

We are the musicians of this era. If the music is lame, we are mostly to blame. What are we doing today to make music from this era amazing?

Can't disagree with that John-

I'm hopeful that something better comes along. There's always really great stuff out there, but it's buried under a mountain of crap. I intend to go thru Dizzizz's links later (the ones I don't already know) today and see what's there. I do know modest mouse is pretty inventive and largely cited for the newer "sound" of today's modern rock (radio level, not hardcore).

I remember asking about any new prog rock on another forum, and the best thing people could offer was dragonforce.. /sigh.

I did find porcupine tree, a decent prog band, but the more I listen to them, the more I feel something is still missing from their stuff.. they do have a couple of very strong progressive songs though. A song called 'time flies' is probably my fav from them.

Droning now.. peace out.

i've been lamenting people's lack of investment ...not monetary, but time/ emotional/importance that they place upon music for some time now. and it seems to just continue to spiral down and down.

i hate the way so much music has been dumbed down for mass consumption. but the same can be said for movies, tv, etc. lowest common denominator. so...what old movie or tv show are they recreating THIS week. can't ANYONE come up w original ideas and not just piggyback on the latest big seller???

seems the consumers are all looking for minimum attention expanded in search of their "quick fix".

i've taken to bringing my minidisc walkman to the gym w me because hard as i've tried to stomach it....the mindless drivel they force us to listen drives me mad.

every song has the same tempo. little if nothing going on in the way of a melody or hook....and over and over it's whiny singsong melodies delivered by someone who no doubt is very photo/telegenic but has nothing interesting about their singing delivery.

a common bit now between my wife and i...whenever we hear another one of these faceless tunes one of us will usually say...."so, what happened to MUSIC???!!!!"

We are the musicians of this era. If the music is lame, we are mostly to blame. What are we doing today to make music from this era amazing?

YEAH!

Now, go sit in the corner until you've learned your lesson!

Humor me guys, pretend you don't know who this is. Many of you may not know who this is. Tell me what you would think if you heard a kid play this solid and sing this well this young. You would call him a prodigy. Would you tell him to pursue it because he has the raw materials?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJWZSEkCrAM&sns=em

Am I a fan? No. I'm not familiar with any of his material. But the backlash alone is enough to make me at least be interested. Is it founded?

I would not call him a prodigy. (He doesn't even fit that definition) but I definitely would tell him he has a great chance at success, if he keeps his energy into it.
He demonstrated his skills for learning and delivering a full song. At 12 that's impressive. Mozart was writing full sonatas and concertos at 8...That's a prodigy.

Yeah I already said that but thanks for paraphrasing.

What do you think of this band? he's a friend of mine - self produced.

I find it rather musical for the genre
http://repeaterpan.bandcamp.com/