Are we actually making better music?

[GaryTracks]

what I'M hearing in the original posters' statement is a lack of any SINGERS penetrating our bodyminds. it's a strange subject. i noticed that when ALT ROCK (nirvana) hit back in the 90's, the underground scene was instantly co-opted by the mainstream, with radio stations full of watered-down versions, creating a new POP style for the kids. it seemed to happen within months.

he shot his brains out. (lovely, kurt).

i don't think there will ever be a SUPERSTAR SINGER ever again. certain not like the 60's had.. and Kurt was the last. Why?

Two possible reasons

1) there is no longer one mass market for everyone to identify into. it's all micro-markets now, and no ONE singer can be a symbol for all the youth.

2) perhaps there is a consciouss design by those with the power and money to keep anyone with the FIRE out of the superstar markets. thus no one is sayin' shit.

and the psychology of the times is different. it's harder to channel the big anthems, because there is no longer ONE big youth-culture identity.

[djadonis206]

Chris Cornell is still in my book one of the best singers out there

[dj superflat]

this is waaaaaaaaaay oversimplified. but i think that, with the aging of the boomers, rock has died, and with it singers with the importance of someone like cobain. that is, rock and it's offshoots (or country and its offshoots, however you want to put) pretty much dominated for over 30 years. just like jazz died to give way to fusion (ouch), the swing era gave way to rock, etc., rock is moving out for electronic stuff. eventually, someone electronic like bjork should just explode the way bands like nirvana did, but the disruptions in the music industry arising from digital distribution may preclude that sort of near universal prominence. i also wouldn't be surprised if the torch passes to other countries (there's little reason the anglo world should keep producing the acts selling a bajillion albums).

[dj superflat]

not that i'm dissing abba's anomalous late 70s dominance . . . .

[glitchrock-buddha]

music is great these days. So much is mixing together to form cool hybrids. Sometimes you do have to sift through a lot of crap to see it, but that's because there's more of everything- good and bad music.

The only thing I would change is that today's music really needs more cowbell on the tracks....

I'm telling you. fellas. gonna want that cowbell. on the track.

grb

[Angstrom]

the thing which makes it hard to have an "oh my fucking god!!!" experience is the speed of communication.

Consider the "golden age" the 1960s when people started to really make some money out of shipping plastic disks with music on them

Communication was just slow enough to be able to get an act together and gig it before anyone said - "wait a minute - I've heard this a million times before" . We can't really do that now, everything is near instant - the shock of the new is resigned to the past. The shock of the "very slightly different" doesn't feel so amazing.

Consider the Beatles - they pick up on American Blues from 10, 20 and 30 years earlier, they fart around in Hamburg for a while, come back ... "wow - they've really got something new here! " Hardly anyone in England has heard blues, yet it's hardly new! They can take it to America - "wow - we've not heard anything like this".
Combining the 'undiscovered music' of 100 million people with some "yeah!" screams in a skillful way over an amount of time to practice. That's enough to make people go crazy. They were standing on the shoulders of giants - but the majority of the population were unaware of tehm because the lines of communication were a lot more primitive.

But now the barriers are broken down, we know a lot more, so something has to come right out of the blue to produce the shock value.

The shock of the new, Alvin Toffler, etc.
blah blah blah.
more tired opinion continues here

[mikemc]

The shock of the new, Alvin Toffler, etc.
blah blah blah.
more tired opinion continues here

yeh yeh heard it all before