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Poll: On average, is current music just flat out terrible?

F

flxnimprtmscl

Diamond Member
This was inspired by the Soundgarden thread but I've been pondering this for a while lately.

I feel like I'm in some kind of musical wasteland these days. Most of what I listen to consists of stuff from the mid 90's and older. Old Pantera, Metallica, AIC, Mad Season, Temple of the Dog, Soundgarden, Nirvana, Sublime, etc.. Lately, I've just been wearing this stuff out and instead of looking at what's current for new tunes I'm going backwards. Stones, Floyd, Tull, The Who, and so on. I like a few of the more current bands. Godsmack is alright. Linkin Park I can get with once in a while. Slipknot and Mudvayne I dig. They're good for lifting and running if nothing else. Other than that though... blah.

It's starting to make me feel old even though I'm only 23 (in roughly two weeks). All the good stuff is gone and most of what's here now is a flaming pile of crap. So, who's with me here? Am I just stuck in the past and failing to adapt musically or is today's music just garbage for the most part?

Vote away 🙂
 
At any single point in time there will always be sh!tty music, and there will always be great music.

However, sometimes what's "popular" might coincide with what you like. Sometimes it doens't.

Just the way it goes...



FYI most of what I unintentionally hear is complete crap. However, I have found lots of fantastic music...it's just not something you'd hear on most radio stations.
 
agreed. I can count the number of contemporary bands that I like on one hand. I tend to listen to the more extreme end of things (all sorts of metal), but also a lot of classic rock, oldies, classical... Modern rock bands all seem so similar and unoriginal. "Oh gee, what's this song? Never heard it before. Sounds like Creed. No wait, it might be Defaultl No no no, has to be Puddle of Mud. Well, on second thought, it might be Three Doors Down." There are a few bands with original sounds that I can pick out a mile away (Fuel, Godsmack, System of a Down( but for the most part it's all cookie-cutter crap.
 
Very little good music today, especially popular music.

On the radio you have oldies, 80's, classic rock, etc.

Can anyone ever imagine in 15-20 years there being a demand for and oldies station that plays Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, Britney, etc?

I can't.
 
Originally posted by: mpitts
There is good music out there.. You just won't find much of it on the radio.
Click to expand...

Therein lies the problem. Most radio stations just play the same crapola over and over again. Britney, Beyonce, or whatever other bubble gum pop crap is popular with the 12 year olds at the time.
 
Current music isn't really going anywhere. There is nothing 'revolutionary' that has happened in the post-grunge days. Most of the new, interesting stuff is going on in hiphop, and its really not that interesting in the larger picture.

Theres some good stuff out there, for sure, but since the market isn't there for it you're not going to find it unless you go looking for it.

The reason music of the past always seems 'better' is because its from your youth, which most people look fondly upon, and because you've already separated the good from the bad, so you know what you're looking for. New music takes more initiative, and most people just grow lazy/jaded.
 
Its harder to find, and I agree, on average new music has less imagination.

System of a Down I can handle. But in the mid 90s and before, there was so much experimentation, rock was going in so many different directions (Rage and Korn, grunge/post-grunge, Industrial, electronica, brit-rock, the beginnings of pop-punk, etc etc).

Everything now is a continuation of all those trends. Nothing new. Hell, for my kicks I need to listen to retro-sounding stuff like Andrew WK or The Darkness.

Don't get me wrong, I listen to AFI, Linkin Park, System of a Down, and others, but there seemed to be more goodness back a few years ago.
 
Originally posted by: nan0bug
Current music isn't really going anywhere. There is nothing 'revolutionary' that has happened in the post-grunge days. Most of the new, interesting stuff is going on in hiphop, and its really not that interesting in the larger picture.

Theres some good stuff out there, for sure, but since the market isn't there for it you're not going to find it unless you go looking for it.

The reason music of the past always seems 'better' is because its from your youth, which most people look fondly upon, and because you've already separated the good from the bad, so you know what you're looking for. New music takes more initiative, and most people just grow lazy/jaded.
Click to expand...

Bah, I rarely listen to the music I listened to when I was a youth. I really like some of the newer music from the early 90s through today. But there is quite a bit of crap and most of the stations are playing it over and over again. There is one station here that I really listen to more than anything else and that's 94.9 in San Diego.
 
popular music is indeed horrible, but not music in general. There is so much great stuff, its often overwhelming. If you like metal, you need to check out some scandinavian metal (dark tranquility, children of bodom), for instrumental check out Apocalyptica (doubt you've heard anything like it) or Bond, for some prog metal, check out Nightwish.

Anyway, just head over to allmusic.com and explore.
 
Originally posted by: nan0bug
New music takes more initiative, and most people just grow lazy/jaded.
Click to expand...

I know what you mean. Before I started looking farther back I searched for new stuff and mostly what I found is this; People will recommend non-mainstream crap just because it's non-mainstream. Which unfortunately doesn't change the fact that it's still crap. That's most of what I ran into while searching. "Hey man, check this out. It's totally different and awesome". *I listen*. "Uh, actually that's terrible garbage". "But it's totally different man!". "Yes it is. It's still garbage though". And so on. My musical interest spans just about everything except country so I'm always listening with an open mind for new quality music but I just can't get with 99.9% of what's out there. All the musical tallent seems to have just dried up.

*sigh* Who is John Galt.
 
Originally posted by: MartyTheManiak
popular music is indeed horrible, but not music in general. There is so much great stuff, its often overwhelming. If you like metal, you need to check out some scandinavian metal (dark tranquility, children of bodom), for instrumental check out Apocalyptica (doubt you've heard anything like it) or Bond, for some prog metal, check out Nightwish.

Anyway, just head over to allmusic.com and explore.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've been browsing allmusic.com quite a bit lately in my search for good older stuff. I guess I might as well give a it a shot for newer stuff as well. I'd searched for new stuff quite a bit before I found that site and had pretty much decided all was lost by that point. I might as well give it another shot.
 
Ocasionaly I'll hear a new song on the radio that I like. I wouldn't say it's terrible there are a few fairly good bands but nothing really stands out, no today's Pink Floyd, Metallica, Soundgarden, AiC and others, for me. None of the innovation experimentation of past, unless you dig deep. 7 (past decades) to 1 (this one) in terms of time I listen.
 
Originally posted by: mpitts
There is good music out there.. You just won't find much of it on the radio.
Click to expand...

Yep, mainstream for the most part blows..... Go underground......
 
Well, I just thought I was getting old (32). 😉
I am glad that I am not the only one that feels like the past few year have been a musical wasteland. The only descent album out last year was Audioslave IMO. I also have found myself going back in time to find something decent, but New(to me). Eg., Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, Tom Petty, and even some old NIN. 😎
 
There is still life in rock / "adult alternative" / singer-songwriter / whatever, it's just that much of the good stuff doesn't get played on corporate radio.

I only found out about Grant-Lee Phillips, for example, because he provided the singing voice of a character on the Witchblade TV show. And I might never have heard Teddy Thompson's first CD if I wasn't a fan of his parents (Richard & Linda).

I just force myself to gamble on new people now and then. I listen to a semi-decent radio station, read about new releases and artists, and pay attention to soundtracks. I also swap loans of (original not burned) CDs with friends I trust to give them back.

It's sad though that p2p isn't being adopted by artists and small labels as a force for distributing legal preview tracks. Imagine running Legalzaaa and getting 20-30 new songs a day to try listening to. At least some artists like Aimee Mann, Peter Himmelmann and Jonatha Brooke are streaming tracks from their CDs on their websites so I can tell people to go listen for themselves.
 
The fact is, you are getting old. Everyone in our demographic is feeling the same way, we all think the music is getting worse and worse, but in all honesty, that's irrelevant. We're not gonna like any new music that comes out with the same fervor we had 7-10 years ago. This is life, this is media outdating us. We don't want to accept that fact, but it's true. And yes, RIAA knows this. That's why greatest hits CDs come out and DVDs and that's why there are so many reminders of our favored hip past being re-released.
 
You just have to look harder for the good stuff... too much copy-cat, unoriginal, no talent, no passion crap these days.
 
Will there always be music, art, movies, etc produced I do not like?
Yes

Do I think my tastes in music, art, movies, etc are universal?
No
 
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