Fun Stuff > BAND
Signs of the apocalypse...
blanko blanco:
--- Quote from: onewheelwizzard ---It seems to me that the reason nobody's doing anything innovative anymore is that the scope of what ISN'T innovative has increased so much in the past 4-5 decades.
Think about it. Nobody would've thought of "psychedelic" music in 1962, but by 1970 it was basically most of the way to passé. Nobody would've thought of "metal" in 1965, and look at where that went. Nobody would've connected the term "indie" to music before, say, the mid-90's, if not later, but now it's used to define a third of the music being released in America. For every genre, there's a time before which it didn't exist.
Now there's so many different musical styles out there that it's virtually impossible to pick up a guitar, play a song, and not have it sound exactly like some song that someone else came up with in the past. Give current musicians a break. There's no way you can ask them all to be John Cage.
Me, I'm perfectly happy listening to retreads. Plenty of bands are awesome despite the fact that they sound like a band from [insert number] years ago. Music doesn't need to be innovative to be good.
--- End quote ---
Well said.
Rizzo:
--- Quote from: karl gambolputty... ---So in summary:
1)A lot of today's music is good
2)A lot of today's music is bad
3)The words 'good' and 'bad' are completely meaningless when talking about music.
--- End quote ---
I agree with this to some extent.
I'm simply happier listening to something original and genre busting.
jcknbl:
I mean ok, so I basically can't listen to the radio anymore. But I really think thats more a reflection of radio in my area just being absolutely clueless. Clueless as in "still playing Limp Bizkit" clueless. Kids start listening to Classic Rock because MTV doesn't play anything good (you should have seen how many 14-year-olds were at the Clapton show). The world is moving forward and Clear Channel has no idea whats goin on. So I find more and more people are either getting into good music or are desperate to find better music. Ok so there are still some bad emo bands and a lot of pretty mediocre singer-songwriter types but those acts have pretty much replaced the boy bands as usual shitty music for teen girls. Britney Spears keeps getting pregnant so we probably don't have to worry about an album from her for a while.
So I think Dave Matthews Band is a solid step up from the Backstreet Boys.
Meanwhile theres this thing called indie. Which is a fucking stupid name but happens to include a quite a few interesting acts. As far as I can tell the world of music is pretty much as its always been- Shitty, sometimes ok stuff on the surface and brilliant stuff if you dig deep enough.
--- Quote from: KharBevNor ---Innovation is at an all time low, post-modernism pervades the mainstream and sub-mainstream, and all the popular alternative 'heavy' music is complete, total, absolute shit, the only redeeming quality of which is they occasionally steal a riff from In Flames or Dark Tranquility. I have very few people I can talk to music about off the web, and even with them I can only discuss a certain range of bands. I cannot recruit anyone to be in a band with me because I do not want to start a shite metalcore or pop-punk band. No-one else likes my favourite artists, or my favourite songs. Everyone is either living in the mainstream (at this point in time, pure, undiluted shit), in the artless, funless, irredeemable shithole of emo, or in the putrid, pastel-shaded, oh-so-hip, oh-so-ironic, oh-aren't-we-so-devoid-of-any-will-to-challenge-or-experiment world of fucking indie.
--- End quote ---
I'm sort of confused by this post. Post-modernism? Unless you just mean derivative, post-modernism is something that I find completely absent from most mainstream music. The rock/pop I hear on the radio is nauseatingly earnest, simple, and unaware of itself. One of my major criticisms of mainstream music right now is that its completely clueless- I suppose post-modernism doesn't ask music to reflect anything our lives but the problem is right not mainstream music doesn't even try. I think thats why we're seeing a whole lot of people (at least here) starting to buy stuff off non-big 4 labels.
And maybe the British scene is just really lame but I definitely wouldn't describe indie music as unwilling to experiment. You don't have to like them but bands like the aformentioned Deerhoof, Animal Collective, Black Dice, the Fiery Furnaces etc. are all putting out really interesting stuff. I actually am really curious about whether or not this is a British thing. What bands are you refering to with the term indie? Certainly there ARE indie bands that are terribly derivative and boring- but doesn't that hold true for any genre (or in this case pseudo-genre)?
Bastardous Bassist:
--- Quote from: onewheelwizzard ---Give current musicians a break. There's no way you can ask them all to be John Cage.
--- End quote ---
AH! But my point is that people are clearly innovating (which is why I brought up the fact that even a few of the composition students at my college are innovating), but I'm just not hearing it, because people would rather hear another recording of Beethoven's symphonies. It's all about money. If you can't support it, financially, then it doesn't happen. I mean, nothing against Beethoven, he's one of my favorite composers, but are these new recordings really saying something different, or just rehashing the same way the other recordings are performed? I want to hear some of the truly new stuff out today, but the record companies don't care, because I reflect such a small percentage of the record buying public.
KharBevNor:
Pretty much everything that would be accepted by the average hipster. Of course 'indie' can refer to a very wide variety of things, but I don't mean Coil when I say indie, and most people would not argue with that. There are a few bands or releases in the indie canon that I appreciate, but normally only appreciate. I doubt I'd place any of them in my top 100 bands. These include Neutral Milk Hotel, some Red House Painters, Patrick Wolf, Tan-Hauser Gate, Cocteau Twins and British Sea Powers 'The Decline of British Sea Power'. The fact that my musical taste is so diverse, including the above, and a wide variety of other stuff from a wide range of genres and styles, is why I particularly represent the vocalised or unvocalised conceit that my love of metal and gothic music is either some sort of teenage infatuation, or something I deliberately impose on myself in order to fit into a certain cultural stereotype.
And what would you say was the dominant cultural norm? Rap is one of the most insanely post-modern genres ever (Many songs are extremely self-referential, they sample from other works, they reference other songs and artists, and so forth) and I would say its influence has pervaded mainstream pop almost utterly. Rock, meanwhile, especially 'indie' rock, is entirely self-knowing and often amounts to the musical equivalent of a smirk. I can count the number of rock bands doing something individual or original in anything approaching the mainstream on a legless persons toes. Certainly, I wouldn't call much in the mainstream modernist or absurdist, which are two of my personal faves.
Also, having pointless lyrics and spacky guitars and being insanely saccharine and annoying is not really what I call experimental or innovative.
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