Am I getting old? or the music scene just sucks...

General Forums Off-topic Chat
1

I’ll make a short followup in the music scene these last years, starting with the Pixies, REM, The Cure and Depeche Mode who ruled the late 80’s and early 90’s, then Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Green Day, Oasis and Smashing Pumpkins Rage Against the Machine in the mid 90’s. Then later I got hooked up into Beck, Massive Attack, Tricky, Bjork.
And suddenly I feel like an outsider, I came to the US and here it looks like most people listen to Hip-Hop, which I don’t have anything against it if it is original like Outkast and Busta Rhimes, But mostly I see guys throwing cash at the camera and super curved girls shaking it. A lot of backstreet boys, britney and n’stink, for metal bands is Linkin Park, Blink182, Korn which are not more than bad immitations of Rage, Green Day and NIN.
Lately I’m getting into the White Stripes, The Hives, The Vines, The Strokes and Weezer. I just want to know why these bands are not getting more promotion. When I came to the US I though that the music scene just died for me, but digging in the underground scene I found endless number of talented bands, some of them with album contracts in Europe only. I don’t know, I guess I’m just old…

PS. These are just a portion of bands, there are lot other bands that I didn’t mentioned and I love, like spanish speaking bands but I’ll mention them anyway so I can go to sleep well.
Soda Stereo, Caifanes, Jaguares, La Lupita, Fabulosos Cadillacs, Aterciopelados, Babasonicos, Cafe Tacuva, La castañeda, Heroes del Silencio, Molotov, Santa Sabina, Cuca, Mecano, Fobia, Alaska y Dinarama, Charly Garcia, Los Tres, Lucy Bell, Desaramador, Rata Blanca, Plasitilina Mosh, Titan, Brujeria, Control Machete. Julieta Venegas, Aurora y la Academia, Fratta, IK and the Valderramas, Todos tus muertos, Seguridad Social, Bon y los enemigos del silencio, Prisioneros etc etc etc…

2

Well you are getting old :wink:
But yes mainstream music does suck, but it really always has to an extent.
The only good music now is the smaller underground groups.
Cheers from an aging boy to an old man :wink:

3

tlaloc… think of who they’re trying to sell records to… I mean the music business has always been a business.

But now younger and younger people are the ones that have the money to spend and are gullable enough to buy anything that gets enough promotion.

Basicly… if you’re not a 14 yr old girl… you’re not the target audience… so yeah… we’re getting old.

However, forgetting the “singers” who get all the attention and the way that people are shown in video clips, the music isn’t really that bad. I personally really like some of the producers out there now.
Funny thing is… in the 40s/50s and such… it was the writers/producers that were the creative ones… the singers just sung… then with the beatles and such came the band era (when we grew up… I assume) in which the musicians wrote their own stuff.
Now we’re back with the producers again. I mean… the music of britney spears for isntance is extremely well produced, the last couple of tracks were done by the N.E.R.D fellers, and they’re coughing up brilliant mixes like it’s nothing.

Music changes… but errr… so do we… I dunno… there’s good music out there, but it seems like you indeed have to leave the beaten track to find it. I’m completely nuts about 16 horsepower right now.

5

Old? Who said that I’m old, I’m 29 and I still have pimples, so lets classify my age as a perpetual teen. Or as Tolkien would say, I’m in my Tweens… :stuck_out_tongue: :stuck_out_tongue: :stuck_out_tongue:

6

refer back to the :wink: , I was just kidding you angry old man :wink: :wink: :wink:
imgranpaboy:
Your right about modern music sucking, its all because their isnt anything new/inovative.
Only thing now that is anywhere near good is the techno/house/whatever stuff.
Should I also have a disclaimer?
DISCLAIMER: This is the opinion of a grumpy old man, that likes to argue. :stuck_out_tongue: :stuck_out_tongue: :wink:
Time to go listen to some real music

7

Even bluegrass is going down hill. A cousin of mine wrote a song the other day, and it sounded like Shitney Spears with banjos and fiddles. He tried calling it bluegrass. What happened to the Stanley Brothers or the Cox family?

8

i dont mind the music as much as i mind the fact that people are getting rich off of their looks, like spears. take hers for example, she has a horrible vocal range, cant read music, cant write music, doesnt play an instrument, and doesnt even “make” her own music. yet she is one of the number one pop stars. i heard a pop song the other day that had NO CHORD PROGRESSIONS! the song stayed on c7 for three minutes! it was on the radio, so i dont know the name, but it was horrible. bleh.

9

Just because someone may be 14 doesn’t mean they like to listen to “today’s” horrible music!..or maybe I’m the only 14 year old who listens
to Ani Difranco or Morrissey instead of that Hip-Hop, Pop garbage…it’s not ALL garbage just most of it…
Back to “Hairdresser On Fire”! 8)

10

Personally, I rarely listen to music radio… if I do, it’s a decent 70’s-80’s rock station. I’ve been this way since I left high school, and being 24, I guess that makes me “uncool”… but then, that’s not why I listen to music.

I’m very happy looking off the beaten trail, picking a few things from that trail I like, and then looking back and exploring older music. My interests fall all over the place… I could go into a store and buy AC/DC, Mozart, and the Ka’au Crater Boys in the same sitting. (If you don’t recognize any, that’s rock, classical, Hawaiian).

My favorite from on the beaten track - Cake, my favorite from off the beaten track - Tears for Beers (German band that plays Irish Folk in the rock style, found them on mp3.com), and my favorite older artist - Duane Allman.

And the last time I bought CD’s was from Amazon about a month ago, I got the Duane Allman Anthology Volumes 1 and 2, and Rockapella, Live in Concert.

Imp

11

Zepp. Floyd. Rachmaninov. Yidcore.

Which of these things is not like the others.

I’m a freak

12

What about the classics? Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Bach, Liszt, Satchmo (that’d be Armstrong, the trumpet player ;)) and a ton of others. They haven’t changed a bit. :stuck_out_tongue: Okay, so I’m going to be exiled for mentioning these guys but oh well. :stuck_out_tongue:
And yes, I do agree that today’s mainstream music sucks.

13

i used to feel that way. here in the uk we seem to be moving slightly away from the us musically. personally i’ve never liked rock, preferring the beats (hehe). there seems to be a massive gap now between what the mainstream media is pushing and what non teeny boppers are buying. one clue is a fact that one particular spod (Bonobo) has had practically every tune hes touched used for a mobile phone related advert, and no one has a clue who he is, but they all like it. in fact most decent stuff gets poached for adverts (lamb for audi and good year, portishead for saab, lemon jelly for motorola, mr scruff for mastercard etc.) for me when mr scruffs album sold so well that was cool (even if its not actually too good!!) and having ms dynamite win the mercury music prize this week gives me hope.

i say all that and one of my favourite albums of the moment is Dixie Chicks - Home. i really shouldn’t like it at all (and am embarrassed to lsten to it in my house in case the neighbours find out). personally though that is nothing compared to the embarrassment caused by the false “must be musically credible” nonsense that perpetuates mainstream (especially) america which means any sort of modern music which cant be made live is viewed as bad and soulless. rubbish.

alicia keys for example, sells an album on one song - but she wrote them all herself! (so they must all be good yes?)

of course this doesnt explain why people like manufactured pop tat (pop idol etc.)

sorry for the rant - its something i feel quite strongly about :slight_smile:

14

Have you considered that times are changing???

I don’t suggest that you are aging, but it is a fact that things like music styles and fashion do change over the years…

I was raised with the music of 70’s and 80’s. That time my father thought that I was listening to crap!!!

In some degree I used to share some similar thoughts about the music that modern teenagers are listening to…

But when I realised that I was just acting like my old man, I decided that we have to be more openminded…

There is some quality, in modern music scene… You just have to be openminded to and find it…

skontar.

15

Just some tips that are somewhat well known. But not over played.

Mercury Rev
Tool
Hoobastank (warning, teeny-pop)
Manic Street Preachers
Nick Cave

Anyways. The pop thing is fading away and being replaced with… basicly the same thing but with less quality of production. (avril lavigne, michelle branch… etc…)
The whole thing started with the uk boy-bands I think. (take-that and east 17). Imo the music was of great quality in that they live longer then a whats around now, but it was still really silly.

Then offcourse came… the spice girls, they really cemented the whole thing for a while.

You can blame the swedish pop producers for things like Ace Of Base, Backstreet boys, nsync, britney, christina augilera(to some extent), robyn(remember her?), the revival of bon jovi, 3T, Rednex(remember them? they were a bit pre-pop though), 5ive… the list can be made long… but im running out of names

16

Of course those are the most popular. Especially among those that know nothing about music. No offense to anyone here I hope. Playing trumpet and piano myself, I kinda like it when the chords aren’t the same the whole way through . . . But hey, what do I know? I’ve just been playing trumpet for 6 years and taught myself the piano for the most part . . . :wink:
Vitamin C used Canon in D Major for her Graduation Song. It was a big hit. Just goes to show you that Classical Music is quite popular. :wink: Okay, I’ll stop plugging classical music. :smiley: Seriously though, original songs are all but gone. And personally, I think Spears is ugly.

17

rap is the worst, they talk about raping and beating then killing women.

hmm…not somthing you would think many women would want to listen too, funny alot do.

I thick rap is an insult to women making them out to be just objects of desire, which they are not.

18

NO NO NO!!! i love classical music. hrm…star wars sound track!!! :wink:

19

I like music that has (or at least seems to have) a genuine message or some sort of artistic purpose behind it. Mainstream music is about making money, and thus it is not made for the purpose of communicating, or expressing ones emotions.
As far as technical sophistication goes, mainstream music is actually quite good. The problem is that there’s no meaning (whether emotional or intellectual) behind it.

Todays mainstream music is like those annoying people who talk and talk and talk seemingly for no reason other than just to hear thier own voice. It’s not that their voice is annoying, it’s just that their talking is pointless. The same is true of mainstream music: it’s not that the music is bad (which it often isn’t), it’s that it’s pointless. It’s the pointlessness that makes it annoying.

20

NO NO NO!!! i love classical music. hrm…star wars sound track!!! ;)[/quote]

It’s good to hear I’m not the only one. :stuck_out_tongue: Yes, I despise rap music. It’s guys like that that give the rest of us a bad name.

21

I’m not the #1 rap follower, but I don’t think all rap is bad, I think there are some good talent, like Massive Attack, Tricky and all the trip-hop Bristol scene, Beasty Boys, Beck whenever he does it, Outkast, Busta Rhimes before, when he used to wear dress. And personally, I’m not against a rapper who writes violent music if it is in the context of his or her personal experience (Like 2Pac), but when this became the trend, you have a lot of kids who went to college, live with their parents and they start talking about the “hood” and they feel harassed by “Da police”, and for me that’s when rap’s become some sort of formula, available to any moron that can rhyme. And I’m not going to even talk about Eminem, whom personally I feel sorry for him, because he really believes it when the likes of Elton John calls him “genius”, the only person who hasn’t got the joke still is Eminem himself.

Rap is good when is original and is not inspired by watching The Jerry Springer Show…