We didn’t need the third, for that matter.
You ain’t gonna hear any argument from me. 
Second wave/2 tone, though, that was pretty hip.
I was very pleased with the late ‘90s revival of Swing Music (Cherry Poppin’ Daddies, Royal Crown Revue, etc), but sadly, that’s petered out…
I’m quite a big fan of the band Madness… House of Fun, One Step Beyond, and Night Boat to Cairo are all classics, IMO.
We’re overdue for a return to music with some smooth guitar sounds- something in the vein of J.J Cale’s Cocaine, anything by The Eagles, or Scooby Snacks, as performed by the Fun Lovin’ Criminals.
Probably the best “new” song I’ve heard in years is Crazy, by Gnarls Barkley. I first heard it one night on an episode of the NPR show “All Things Considered”, which was being rebroadcast by the ABC here in Australia, along with most of the rest of the BBC World Service, and it was like a breath of fresh air… it actually felt like the artist had put some feeling into the song.
Are you writing this from 1994? Yes, there was a time when every record executive thought raprock was the future of music, but that is long gone. Korn is gone. Limp Bizkit and the Deftones are gone. 311 is back underground aside from the occasional pop single. Rage Against the Machine is gone, Faith No More is gone, , all of those bands got replaced with Nu Metal at least 5 years ago and a lot of them are laughed at now. Where have you been?
IMO music has gotten way too commercial for another instant revolution. You can say it was commercial 50 years ago but it gets worse every year and it’s worse than ever right now and will probably never get better. If there’s another “revolution” it will take place gradually in a calculated and controlled manner and - serendipity! - all of the major labels will have at least one band that performs this fresh and new style of music.
I’m just glad it’s not emo. Trust me, it’s not.
The “sprawliness” of the internet certainly hurts any attempt by me to find new stuff that I
would like. Seems you have to lock yourself away for a week sampling every (non-virus-infested)
MP3 file you can find to dig up some good stuff. I just don’t see it happening-I would LIKE to
see it, specifically a move away from beat-oriented stuff to songwriting-oriented stuff, but it’s
all been done already as far as the major themes and memes are concerned.
Everytime I promise myself I’ll quit recommending music on the Dope, a post like this comes along and I’m like Pavlov’s fucking dog.
Streaming audio
Downloads and info
Arf.
Ooops, wait, I forgot I haven’t put up the streaming audio on the web site yet. Here you go.
I agree that it is time for something new. I listen to the local modern rock station and have found myself extremely bored with what they play recently. I have dug out some of my old CDs to help me through the times, but I’ve also found myself trying new genres on internet radio. I guess as I’m getting older my tastes have mellowed, because the latest band that I noticed on internet radio is “The Decemberists” I’m not saying they are the next big thing, but younger me would not have picked them out.
The future excites me, but I wish it were here now!
Perhaps the biggest reason there won’t be this kind of revolution is that music is more
background noise for a lot of people than anything else. Perhaps it has always been that
way I guess but things don’t tend to change unless people are fanatical about the artists
and genres they prefer.
Tell me about it. I was stunned a few years ago by the people in their early 20s coming up to the stage and asking my band to “turn it down”, because they couldn’t hear themselves talking. You never would have seen that back when I was in my 20s.
I’m having trouble disagreeing with you. “self-parody” might be a little hard, but it’s become essentially “party music”. It’s not music that speaks to you or tells a story. It’s music white kids play in the basement of their fraternity houses or while driving their dad’s BMW. To paraphrase Chris Rock - you used to be able to defend the political message of groups like Public Enemy. I can’t defend “move bitch…get out da’ way! Get out da’ way bitch!”.
The change has been going on for some time now.
It’s called New Age. What a concept - it’s music played and sung by people who have talent and capability.
Count me among the ones who think that rap and hip-hop are an abomination.
There’s no way anybody’s going to take your criticism of hip hop seriously when you come in to praise New Age music, man. Just a friendly tip.
Anyway, there are always interesting new musical movements/hybrids going on in pop, and, as has been true for the last 30 years or so, most of them are underground right now. In another 10 years or so, they’ll all be used in Target ads.
What kind of music do you think gets played at raves?
I don’t know what “We” the OP is referring to.
Camera Obscura. M. Ward. Calexico. Broken Social Scene. Grandaddy. Damien Rice. Jens Lekman. Kings of Convenience. Amon Tobin. Sound Tribe Sector Nine. Telefon Tel Aviv. Shpongle. Silversun Pickups. Thievery Corporation.
These are some of the bands that I, and all my friends, listen to. But you won’t find them on the radio unless you’re listening to a low-power college radio station like WIUX. You can listen to their live stream online, and if you spend five minutes doing so, you’ll have a whole new opinion of “new music.” At the very least, you’ll know that there are people, NOW, who are putting out music that doesn’t sound like Nickelback or Kanye West, and it is being appreciated by hordes of young people, who are in turn being influenced by it and forming bands of their own and developing their own music.
There is a new musical culture being created and it has gone far beyond “indie rock.” Ask any college hipster. Walk into any of the hip coffee shops or music stores in a place like Bloomington, Indiana, and listen to what music is playing. It’s not about one specific sound, it’s about having a wide variety of styles to listen to, and fresh new ideas from all over America and Europe and beyond.
I for one, as a musician and music fan, am very optimistic about the direction that new music is going in. Sure, it’s not going to be on corporate radio. But it’s all on iTunes, right there for anyone to download. Or better yet, just find a local band you like and buy their CD.
I love how pretty much everything that gets wide exposure these days sucks, but you never hear people complaining about the revolving door of pop starlets. You never hear people say “emo isn’t music”, you never hear people say what a bunch of talentless, minimalistic hacks that the rash of "The ______ " bands are.
You hear people complain about rap.
Usually by some wildly original means like trying to argue that it takes no skill to make a rap song (a laughably ridiculous notion if I ever heard one), or - even better - quipping that it’s more like crap!
Listen closely. ALL OF THE MUSIC THAT IS BEING FORCE FED TO US RIGHT NOW SUCKS. This includes rap. Conversely, every genre has redeemable qualities, and this also includes rap.
If you want good music, it’s up to you to go find it. Don’t say rap sucks because you’ve never looked for it.
I hear this all the time. Maybe you don’t, but not a single person even remotely part of my social sphere likes the shit that you’re talking about. Real musicians and music fans know it’s fraud just like the corporate radio rap.
But the rest of your point is still quite true.
This makes me giggle. New Age is some of the most boring, unoriginal, unchallenging crap I have ever heard. Granted, my exposure to it is mostly via Yanni and John Tesh. Vangelis, though, was good. But if the future of music is New Age, please, take me out of my misery.
Like I said, the “future of music” isn’t one specific thing. There has already been a major shift in music and it happened around 2004, with widespread use of filesharing and then eventually iTunes (which has more obscure music than Limewire could ever hope to.)
The internet is to indie rock music as the tape recorder was to punk. It gave more people access to more music. And, like I always say, “indie” music basically just means anything outside of the mainstream nowadays, so there’s a huge variety of new musical styles appearing that wouldn’t have widespread listeners if it weren’t for the internet.
Add this to the already established and also fragmenting genres of hip-hop, jazz, and electronica, and we’re left with more music than anyone else has had access to. The world of music is very rich and varied right now. Like Cisco said, it’s up to YOU to find the good music! You could start by finding some songs you like and then just clicking “Listeners also bought” in iTunes. Or just going to some local shows and buying their CDs.
New Age doesn’t do anything for me but if that’s what you like then there’s tons of it available for you and anyone else who likes it. Nobody’s forcing you to listen to music you don’t like.
Don’t like the music they play at McDonalds? Don’t go to McDonalds. It’s bad for you anyway.
Interesting. I guess this may be partly a question of taste. I like minimalism in music. For instance, I prefer '20s-'30s Delta blues to later Chicago blues because I much rather the sparse rhythmic nature of that music than the excessively embroidered noodling of the artists that came after. Robert Johnson and Son House speak to me because they didn’t mess around with augmentation they didn’t need, whereas later artists piled on pianos and guitar solos in the pursuit of, to my ears, music that was far less interesting. That’s similar to the way I quite like early '70s punk, or power pop, or indie-folk.
But what do you think of more ornate rap, like, say, the production work of Kanye West, Cool & Dre or Just Blaze, who tend to favor warm, soulful arrangements rather than the beat and synth-derived melody technique you identify? I guess it is difficult for me to understand why you say you wish rap would die, when it such an extensive, varied form. That’s like saying rock or jazz or country should die! I mean, I understood someone disliking a subgenre, such as Metal or Fusion or West Coast Country, but loathing the entire thing? That’s just bizarre.
And even accepting your excessively restricted view of rap music lyrics, I still feel I’m missing something. A life of urban poverty is without doubt dismal, so why should the music created by those who have experienced it not communicate hardship? Describing such music as excessively serious or, worse, pretentious, strikes me simply as callous. And the other category of rap you identify is concerned with good ol’ sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. How is that any different to any other music created over the centuries?
Even more bizarre is msmith537’s complaint. I don’t know whether to start with his minstrel show lampooning of Ludacris’ lyrics (Luda quite clearly says “Move bitch, get out “the” way,” not “da”) or his accusation of the music being “only” party music. msmith537, that is pretty much the entire reason music has been created for centuries. Apart from praising God and relating folklore, partying has been the raison d’être for music since the beginning of human history. Why victimise rap for doing what every other societies have done since the beginning of time? (I’m not even going to bother identifying the multitude of contemporary narrative or rhetorical popular rap songs that counter your assertion that “it’s not music that speaks to you or tells a story.”)
Further confusing is your accusation that “It’s music white kids play in the basement of their fraternity houses or while driving their dad’s BMW.” Does the socio-economic status of the listener degrade the music somehow? Indeed, are there forms of music that wealthy caucasian children do not listen to? And what are these unfortunate individuals’ diametric opposites, the poor African-American teenagers, listening to? What’s banging out of cars in Harlem, Bankhead and the South Side of Chicago? I don’t think it’s the Decemberists. Or Yanni.
And why should music be better because wealthy 30 and 40 year old males listen to it? They sell Bruce Springsteen’s new CD in Starbucks; are white collar coffee drinkers superior arbiters of taste than ghetto kids or frat boys? Or how about I stop guessing and you tell me exactly which listeners are special enough to grant acceptability upon a form of music?
And finally, why should it matter if you can defend the political message of Public Enemy? I don’t want Chuck D to be responsible. I’m not looking for Flavor Flav to be my accountant. I want them to entertain me. How dull a world it is when entertainers are supposed to polite, well behaved and moral! And how interesting that responsibility is not a quality required of older, white performers. Mick Jagger’s misogynistic exploits are celebrated, Rod Stewart’s womanzing is lauded, Johnny Cash is beloved for being violent and anti-social, while Bob Dylan has attained legend status for his poetic misanthropy. And you want to criticize Ludacris because he writes clever, wildy careening party tracks?