[jimdgoulding]

Art reflects its time! 

Art reflects its time!!

 

Amen to that.  Can't say I ever thought about it that way but it strikes as an "of course".  But, then, if you will indulge me, some art transcends time and culture.  It speaks to something inside of we humans, but not all of we humans.  Most, without supposing, are narrow minded, prejudiced and whatnot.  But, not you and me.  We love something that conflicts nothing and enjoins our humanity.  We may disagree over the path, is all.  I'm listening to Seal's first CD at the moment.  He's from a long ways away but he writes about things that are timeless and placeless and can spark something regrettably dismissed in us by the bullshit we accept.  Long live that spark from wherever in art it originates.         

[charmerci]

Golden age-ism.  It's a real thing, and it doesn't just apply to music.  "Back in my day..."  Whatever.

My formative musical years were the late 60's and 70's.

But until recently, I had been almost exclusively listening to jazz from the 50's and 60's for almost 20 years. Frankly, no one is doing jazz arrangements like Billy May, Oliver Nelson, Neil Hefti, etc. anymore. I can spend all day listening only to Nat King Cole as I have 100's and 100's of his songs. Incredible stuff.

(Mind you, I know that they were also putting out crap in their day....)

[jimdgoulding]

The fact that you love something tells me that you shouldn't be lonely.  Have mercy, Miss Percy, you are about to be onto an adventure!  Permit me to introduce you to Gil Evans and "The Individualism of . ." on the Verve label   Enter at your own risk cause yu may jes gittin started.

[Folsom]

What's the point of music? If someone likes it is it low quality to them? Is your judgment of quality the end all be all? I have seen a kit of shitty bands but I try not to ruin other people's enjoyment.
Do bigger names mean quality?1/60

You must be in a band; always defensive.

People specifically say things like they like low quality music. And there are some pretty consistent notations of what makes quality to some degree. You could mathmatize it, but lets get real different people have different equipment and different people have different playing ability.

Some bands do get big because they do have aspects of quality that people enjoy.

[simoon]

I've never really cared about pop music, or mainstream rock, so the poor state of modern music does not really effect me.

All the types of music I listen to are going strong, with a constant influx of new and creative artists.

As doorman already mentioned, Abstract Logix is a good source for modern fusion, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. The list of modern fusion artists is huge.

Spaced Out, Alex Machacek, Forgas Band Phenomena, Uncle Moe's Space Ranch, Panzerballett, Counter-World Experience, Lalle Larson (his Weaveworld project is a very unique combo of fusion, metal and modern classical), Octafish, Mörglbl just to name a few.

There is also an almost an endless supply of great modern prog, avant-garde, prog-metal, technical-metal and other creative genres. This post would get huge if I just listed some of the stuff off the top of my head.

Here are a few sources -

For prog and prog-metal - https://www.lasercd.com/
For avant-garde jazz and prog - http://www.cuneiformrecords.com/
For prog - http://synphonic.8m.com/catalogs-cds.htm
For prog-metal, technical-metal, avant-garde-metal reviews and samples - http://www.progmetalzone.com/
More prog of all genres - http://www.waysidemusic.com/


Whenever I hear people mourn the state of current music, I just shrug my shoulders and wonder how I am going to keep up with all the new, exciting stuff coming out.

[kevin360]

What happened to music? I'll let Frank Zappa answer that question.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP4wsURn3rw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgVUei2853A

Fortunately, advances in technology changed the landscape for the better.
Modern music is alive and well - outside of the mainstream.

[Rob Babcock]

I wonder if every generation thought "modern" music sucked?   There are some current/recent bands putting out music I really love!  These include:  Neko Case, Robin McKelle, The New Pornographers, Dead Cab for Cutie, Iron and Wine, Feist, British Sea Power, and Kaiser Chiefs.  If you like metal:  The Codex, Tony Harnell (and the dozen or so bands he records with!), Helloween, Gamma Ray, Micheal Kiske (and the dozen or so bands he records with!), Edguy, etc.

Sure there's a lot of shitty stuff out there (Beiber, et al) but there's always been more shitty music than great music!  It takes some sifting to find the gems among the trash that's out there but I'd say several of my favorite albums in my collection were released in the last 10 years, even the last 5.

[weitrhino]

For whom is music being made?  Is it for 8th grade girls?  Yep.  Is it for Octogenarians?  Yep.  The urban disenfranchised? Ex-hippies?  The answer is always 'yes.'  So it's easy to decry the 'state of modern music' especially if what you're being exposed to isn't really your bag.  There's an astonishing amount of music available today for anyone who seeks it made all the more available by today's self-produced artists who no longer need to rely on a record company contract to be heard.

The real question is, 'How do I go about mining the musical seas to yield the riches I seek?'  First, you must understand that you won't get to it all.  You just won't, there's too much out there.  I tend to explore within an artist family tree and see what the various members are doing outside of a particular band which leads to discovery into zones of which I was previously unaware but that tend to arc toward and through music I'm predisposed to like.

For example,  Many years ago I went to a Steve Vai concert with a friend of mine.  Opening for Vai was a guy I'd never heard of before but he was terrific.  He turned out to be Mike Keneally, formerly of Zappa's final touring band.  Keneally's bassist is Bryan Beller who has put out some terrific albums of his own, has played with Vai, Dethklok, and is now touring with Guthrie Govan and Marco Minnemann as The Aristocrats.  Minnemann has played with...........etc, etc.......

It's not hard to find a family of musicians doing interesting work.  Just look to see what else they're up to and you'll find the musical riches you seek.

Now that I've talked about it, here's the proof in the pudding.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXM7W7XGgn4

[ctviggen]

I think there are good old bands and good new bands. I like a lot of new bands, for instance, Mumford and Sons, The Civil Wars, Of Monsters and Men, Mando Diao (Swedish), Dwight Yoakam, Eric Bibb, Florence and the Machine, Adele, The Decemberists (my favorite band right now), The Blind Boys of Alabama, Elton John and Leon Russell, Ray LaMontagne, Robert Plant (with one of his new groups, not Led Zeppelin), etc.  Personally, I think the best music is being performed right now, but it is hard to "beat" Jimi Hendrix and the like, too.  If you're stuck in one genre, then maybe the "best" music for that genre was performed earlier.  For me, I listen to too much variety to get stuck in one genre.

[Diamond Dog]

Christopher Hitchens once said that "Everybody has a book in them...and that's where they should stay." Do you think that there are actually a lot of records being made right now that should never get made?
I do.
Much is made of how modern technology has "democratized" the music business but for all the music being made and released through all the available means, how much is quality? You can say there's always been crappy music getting made and that's true. That being said, I think we're absolutely inundated with mediocrity and it can drown out the stuff that should get more attention. I know this is all really subjective and that a post like this can be misconstrued as elitist but I just hear so much crap. Lots of good stuff too but so...much...crap...

D.D.

[charmerci]

I simply find that it's easier to discover good old music than it is to find good new music.

These are my criteria -

-Introductions. Too much new music goes right into the melody/chorus/refrain. I'm constantly amazed at listening to older songs long intros implying the melody - sometimes for minutes slowly adding and even subtracting instrument during the intro. I listen to new music and MAYBE there's a 15 second intro with a couple of instruments before it goes into the main melody - IF there is one.

-Drums and bass. Do they play the same 5-10 notes/beats over and over and over and over again right from the beginning to the
end?  BORING!!! Zzzzzz. Example listen to the drummers in Steely Dan pre-1980 and their 2000's albums - it drives me nuts to hear on their last two albums where the snare drum is repetitively hit every second in every song from beginning to end. Argh!

-Is there a decent melody? Can you actually hum it or sing it alone without sounding like a lunatic. Again, a short, highly repetitive melody/ beat is boring, boring, boring. No creativity or talent needed to repeat the same few notes over and over again.

-Changes - same thing as drums and bass. Are there transitions? Key changes? A melody with a chorus and refrains? The more, the better.

I just don't find new music very interesting. Yes, the technical talent is there and they generally play well together but really -something's missing with new music.

I would rather just blindly buy some old Motown music (for example - though too bad about their sound quality) and make amazing discoveries in songs and musicians rather than slog through hours of mediocrity to maybe find some decent new music that I might like.

[FullRangeMan]

I simply find that it's easier to discover good old music than it is to find good new music.

These are my criteria -...

Very nice analysis.
The structural defects of modern music are not important for me.
The current pop music problem that annoys me is that the musical material, the final result to listen is bad, it is literally inaudible waste created by an unbalanced mind as are usually the artists.

This is an example of repetitive music with hi quality musical material:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNPpXJi6nXk

[Bob2]

So..much..crap..
You stated that much better I would have.
I try to listen to much of the new music and find a rare nugget occasionally. Lindsey Stirling being just one...

For me I'm finding, with the help of some of the streaming sources, lots of older music that I have never heard before. I prefer blues and it seems that every day I find something new to me. Spent much money on this music. I just love it when I can pick up so much great music this way..

[FullRangeMan]

Art reflects its time! 

Art reflects its time!!

 

Sad true. So thanks whitney houston, Warhol and Picasso are no more.

[charmerci]

Very nice analysis.
The structural defects of modern music are not important for me.
The current pop music problem that annoys me is that the musical material, the final result to listen is bad, it is literally inaudible waste created by an unbalanced mind as are usually the artists.

This is an example of repetitive music with hi quality musical material:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNPpXJi6nXk

I don't know - I rather like it! 

I assume you've never gotten high/drunk and danced to this type of music all night in a club packed with people? Fun stuff!

[FullRangeMan]

I don't know - I rather like it! 

I assume you've never gotten high/drunk and danced to this type of music all night in a club packed with people? Fun stuff!

You assume right, Iam the Mr. boring indeed, I would like much to know dance to pickup some girls in my youth.
I would like put all these musicians of sub-pop, robo-pop and cash-pop inside a sealed room for one year listening to Schöenberg, Glass or Giacinto Scelsi:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vC5WGl-Tz3s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVz-eutzLkQ
May seems torture, but it is what they do to us since the 1970s.

[Rob Babcock]

This veers completely into the realm of personal opinion, but I have no problem with the "democratization of music" via technology.  It's great that anyone can create a recording, often as good sonically as anything you can buy, in their own project studio.  Where I part ways is the point where the person doing the recording doesn't have any musical talent, or at least no ability to play and instrument or sing.  Again, this isn't an attack on what *** you *** like, just a statement of what I like.  Creating a recording via Autotune with ability to sing, programming the accompaniment to be played by computer, or speaking in rhyme over a track created with the aforementioned system, well...that isn't music to me and doesn't appeal to me at all.  That's the main problem I have with "modern" music; it takes democratization too far.  Not only does it not require a record label, it also doesn't require any "music".

[Diamond Dog]

This veers completely into the realm of personal opinion, but I have no problem with the "democratization of music" via technology.  It's great that anyone can create a recording, often as good sonically as anything you can buy, in their own project studio.  Where I part ways is the point where the person doing the recording doesn't have any musical talent, or at least no ability to play and instrument or sing.  Again, this isn't an attack on what *** you *** like, just a statement of what I like.  Creating a recording via Autotune with ability to sing, programming the accompaniment to be played by computer, or speaking in rhyme over a track created with the aforementioned system, well...that isn't music to me and doesn't appeal to me at all.  That's the main problem I have with "modern" music; it takes democratization too far.  Not only does it not require a record label, it also doesn't require any "music".

That's what I was getting at. I wasn't attacking "modern music" but rather "bad" music. Hell, I don't even have a line-in-the-sand attitude towards Autotune if it's used with taste and creativity as an effect as opposed to a turd polish. And it can be done. But there's a lot of music getting made by a lot of people today and not everybody has something to say. That isn't to say that everybody has to be a virtuoso, either. As a child of the shredder era, nothing makes my eyes roll up into my head faster than somebody with supreme chops blowing non-stop without thinking about taste or service of the song. Or music, for that matter ( as opposed to musicianship - and they are not the same thing ). As they say: don't mistake energy for talent. In terms of the OP and the quest for art, there seems to be an oversupply of unskilled labour making records without any kind of filtration mechanism to tell some of them not to quit their day jobs...in all genres.

D.D.

[charmerci]

This veers completely into the realm of personal opinion, but I have no problem with the "democratization of music" via technology.  .

That's precisely why I said I liked it and it was "fun stuff". There's lots of music I will dance to in a party/club situation that I could  never sit down and listen to repeatedly on my system. Sometimes there's crossover. Occasionally, I'll admit to liking something that's not very good music! 

[kevin360]

In terms of the OP and the quest for art, there seems to be an oversupply of unskilled labour making records without any kind of filtration mechanism to tell some of them not to quit their day jobs...in all genres.

D.D.

Indeed, your point is unassailable, as usual. I'll return to Frank, who said, "If you celebrate mediocrity, you get mediocrity." When the Grammy Awards, etc, hand out those little statues for the truly mediocre, every schmuck watching thinks, "Hey, I could do that!" Of course, they are right - they could do that, but should they?

I agree with your assertion that the democratization of music via advances in technology has resulted in a sea of crap that should not have been made through which one must wade in order to find the jewels (technology helps with that process too). My point is that without the advances which gave a potential audience to those who (in my opinion) shouldn't have one, those who truly should have one probably wouldn't.