That's fair comment. Don't you think that art with mass appeal is almost always pretty poor and overrated though?Music Where has all the music gone?
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That's fair comment. Don't you think that art with mass appeal is almost always pretty poor and overrated though?Nope, sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't.
Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles and the like shifted roughly twelvety gazillion records
Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles and the like shifted roughly twelvety gazillion records
So you don't like any mainstream music, Mike?
No, I do. I love Radiohead for example and they are about as mainstream as alternate rock gets.
I do think that most stuff that gets extremely popular is often in some way sanitised though (obviously there are exceptions). Even a band like Zeppelin, amazing as they were, are in my opinion overrated to some degree.
I've been listening to Dream Theater a lot lately. Great band if you're into progressive Rock/Metal (also if you aren't
)They have some great 20-min or longer epic songs, like Octavarium or A Change of Seasons. Some people like to call it elitist or 'music for musicians', but I like it and I know feck all about composing music or playing instruments
The potential audience for a work of art with mass appeal will usually have a proportion of casual observors who hugely outnumber the proportion of people who have a deeper, and therefore more discerning or sophisticated understanding of the medium.
So yes, in that sense, it's usually unavoidable that the work of art will have to be somehow dumbed down, compromised or sanitised to hold mass appeal.
Depends on the medium though. A popular film is far less likely to be gash than a popular song or book.
Obviously big-budget action flicks and comedies that do well at the box office tend to be rubbish, but dramas that do well generally tend to be quite good, and a drama being challening or a bit high-brow hasn't neccessarily proved to be a barrier to commercial success.
To be fair, this is going to go to five pages.
Don't get me wrong I love Zeppelin as much as the next person, but their stealing of other musicians' music without crediting them taints their legacy somewhat in my eyes. Especially as they're so blahsay about it when questioned, imagine if you were Willie Dixon... Amazing musicians though; Bonham is probably my favourite drummer.
Nope, I thought Is This It was a good album, and the White Stripes were decent when they were still raw and bluesy but neither are massive favourites of mine. I will say that Oasis released 2 decent albums and then spent a decade making sub-par copies of those same songs, and if Oasis is the apex of musical quality for you then I can see why you might have difficulties finding any "good" music.
I won't list bands I think are awesome here, as there's already a thread of "Best of the Naughties" but anyone trying to claim any decade is shit is clearly either set in their taste or not looking. I'm not claiming the 00s are the best decade ever, I think every decade has a lot of good music, but the sweeping statements you're making just make you sound like you're a grumpy old man complaining about how "modern music is just noise! ...it's not a patch on the old days! ...now that Noel Gallagher, there was a musician!"
blazé
blasé
I was talking about firé
The real music has been the heavy metal in the 80's, thread closed
The Top 100 Heavy Metal Albums Of The '80s, As Picked by The Metal Fans Of The World - Rate Your Music
The Top 100 Heavy Metal Albums Of The '80s, As Picked by The Metal Fans Of The World - Rate Your Music
This. Can't fecking stand Oasis, and before somebody says it, no I wasn't a Blur fan (though I did like Monkey and bits of Gorillaz).
I should also say (in the interest of full disclosure) that I never listen to music on the radio, and ignore music magazines/reviews etc. so honestly I have no clue if what I'm listening to week to week is popular, cool or hipster (if you're being American).
I tend to find new music through recommendations and a lot of music blogs, I probably listen to around 5 or 6 new albums a week, some of which will be brand new, others will be stuff I've not heard before that came out years or decades ago - for example this week I've been listening to Charlotte Gainsbourg's new album with Beck, a best of Guided By Voices, most of Busdriver's back catalogue and new albums by Uninhabitable Mansions, Surfer Blood, Sole and Rain Machine.
So it really annoys me when people try and dismiss an entire decade's musical output, literally tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of albums, based on the contents of Now88, a couple of copies of NME and a few hours of listening to annoying twats on Radio1.
I cringe whenever I think that nowadays' most representative artists are the likes of 50 cent, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Pussycat dolls, pure rubbish
I totally agree with this. I honestly feel sorry for the people whose entire musical scope is those artists.
This is bollocks. The reason there isn't any global super-groups as such is due to there being some much music around. Music is easier to produce, easier to sell and more accessible then ever before. Back in the 60's-80's you could afford one vinyl and would listen to it over and over again. These days, you download an album every few days, listen to it for a short period and throw it away. This isn't because the standard is less, its just because there is so much stuff out there.
Everyone is comfortable with saying that music isn't of the standard it once was. Well working on the basis that this is correct, something which i don't agree with at all, what would be the reason for this drop in standard?
Say what you like about Blur, but their musical output was a lot more credible than Oasis'....In fact if anyone deserved a spurious and ridiculously knee-jerk association with The Beatles it was them and not Oasis. Blur at least experimented with different styles, instruments and genres...giving their 'Best of' a very diverse feel to it, as opposed to Oasis' C, D, F, G collection. I really don't think any British band of the last 50 years have been as overrated by the British press as Oasis were.
Aye. Amazing how there's thousands more albums being released than there was before, and yet all of it's complete rubbish.
Thank you Mockers, too few people I know are willing to even consider that although neither are perfect, Blur>Oasis by along way.
I actually preferred Oasis at the time, but looking back, and listening to their back catalogues 10 + years on, I can't really fathom why.....Blur were far superior musically. Must have been the swagger
Lets clarify; that's opinion not fact.
Let's clarify, I was being sarcastic
What a shocking thread.
Lets clarify; that's ok then.
That might explain the last few years but no one was downloading music a decade ago. Back in the early 80s I had over 400 albums, my best M8 had 1000, and his brother had 3000. It really wasn't that expensive to buy vinyl if you knew where and when to look. Incidentally, now I have 3,000 tracks, my M8 has 20,000, and his brother has 30,000, so we don't really have significantly more music now.
These days there are lots of good artist but very few great artists. That might be partially explained by the volume and accessibility plus peoples short attention spans but I also think the very best of today don't match up too well with the best of the 60-70s.
Theres plenty of good music about still, you've just got to find it. I do find myself listening to a lot of music from the 60's though.
There's always been good music about, what pisses me off is when people just whine about how things these days are never as good as they were way back when. It's down to personal preference, how the feck can you not see that? If you think that a certain genre/song/artist is rubbish, then that's your point of view. Nobody here casts a deciding vote in the world of music critique, so stop fecking acting like it.
See here is the interesting thing: I grew up in a era with everyone raving about the Human League and Sex Pistol. I told most of my M8s it was shit back then and low and fecking behold they don't listen to that garbage anymore.
Bands come and go each decade, and over time people stop listening to their music BUT the really good stuff is fairly timeless. I wasn't a huge Bowie fan when I was 18 because I had my favorite bands and concentrated on them. Now when I listen to his stuff I really appreciate just how good he was/is.
The top 50 bands of all time probably include 30+ artists that started in the late 60s, and possibly 5 a decade since. That is a measure of the real quality of the 60s-70s era.
Ahh well there you go. You're limiting music to guitar playing bands.
Not really, I have all sorts on my iPod. I have seen (and like) Jeane Michelle Jarre and Mike Oldfield, and they are not really guitar centric.
Ok, I'll rephrase that. You're looking at the whole landscape music from a very narrow minded viewpoint.
What top 50??? Your top 50 might, mine probably wouldn't. You don't seem to be grasping that music isn't some sort of quantitative medium that can produce definitive lists and assertions. Some people love Oasis, I hate them. I think Astronautalis is one of the most exciting artists around right now, most people have either never heard of him or think he's shit. There is no Top 50 unless you base it on sales, and sales are meaningless as the common denominator is usually rubbish.
bollox. There are very few people I know with a more diverse taste in music than me. Plus I have never really liked much chart/popular music TBH.
I will give most genres a go but many of the modern popular genres sound utter garbage on Hifi quality equipment.
It's simply a case of Sturgeon's Law:
"Nothing is always absolutely so"
*brushes crud from shoulder
"Nothing is always absolutely so"
*brushes crud from shoulder
I think that is the musical equivalent of saying 'Im not racist because I have a black mate'
Its not even that. Its more 'im not racist because i've got a mate from Plymouth'.
Smart playlists. "Year / is greater than" etc.
I have a black M8 from Plymouth.
This post contradicts itself. ....straight away