Nearly 100% of Hodge’s list is worth listening to, also.
gex gex, sorry, but in this thread I have to ask: How old are you?
Because you’ll find when you get older that you have no idea where to find the good new songs that are coming out that aren’t easily accessible. You are no longer part of the culture that even discusses current music.
So, really, what’s your age?
Exapno - gex is a buddy - he’s certainly younger than you or I (I know his age, but is not my place to state it in public). However, I am 40 and the good new songs are findable for our generation. And through reasonably mainstream means, too - Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, etc. Heck, even an occasional post here at the ol’ SDMB - just post what you like and ask what you should listen to. Then listen to a clip or two at Amazon or some other site.
I don’t spend much time doing it, but I keep up okay.
Sigh. The first time I subscribed to Rolling Stone, it was five dollars for a year’s sub - and I got a free copy of Jefferson Airplane’s Volunteers album along with it.
But I probably stopped reading it regularly two decades ago. Or more.
The point is that mainstream radio used to be all the best stuff; now we’re being told to go out and hunt for anything good. That’s a real problem.
Just on a side note: I’ve noticed here on the Dope that virtually the same - usually young - group who jumps up and down and proclaims that all the best music is made in a closet in southern Alaska by three polar bears with a CD burner and that mainstream music sucks are never around when the talk turns to independent movies. But the threads on sheer garbage like The Matrix or Star Trek are dozens of pages long. I’ve no idea where gex gex stands on this issue, so this is not a personal attack. But I often shake my head whenever the independent music buffs get on their high horses about taste.
Exapno - a few points:
- “Mainstream radio used to be all the best stuff” - no, it wasn’t. Mainstream = AM radio back when you and I were kids and it featured popular crapola. FM was a new delivery channel that hadn’t been taken over yet. Indie radio stations, through experimentation, arrived at a format long since referred to as AOR and featured great music. It just so happened that rock had fully embraced entire albums as the basis of artistic statement and the pioneering FM dj’s took to playing whole albums, etc.
Well - now the corporations, as of about 15 - 20 years ago or more - have completely taken over FM radio. And, no surprise, that means of music access seems (with some exceptions like college radio) to only play the same type of crap that we heard on AM. So - the question is: What access is now the equivalent of FM back in our day? We all clearly know the answer: the Internet. It’s just that the internet requires more up front investment to find what you like, compared to paying $10 in 1972 for a Panasonic AM/FM. But if you invest, like, a few hours or less of time, you can find message boards, music sites (try Musicplasma.com and enter in some of your favorite bands - you will see what other bands, new and old, are considered similar - it’s a great way to explore what is out there), and you’re set. After that, check those sources when you have a chance.
True - with song downloading, etc, we are back in an era where the single is more important than the album, but that is just the way it is. There is still great music to be heard out there.
2) As for the mild rant at the end of your post, frankly, you sound like an old fogey :D. Let’s face it - based on two cliches that I have found to be true, “95% of what is out there is crap,” and “No one every lost money underestimating the taste of the American public.” So people pile on when popolar pap is commented on - so? Back in the '60’s, do you think more people talked about good blues or The Ballad of the Green Berets and that Singing Nun? Sure, everybody knew about the blues as a re-discovered genre, but who really piled on about it? It’s the same now - there are styles on the cutting edge that are popular in music and film - but most folks simply have heard about them and not invested time to really know them - but are all too willing to talk about the latest reality crap. And so it goes.
And the whole “Southern Alaska and three polar bears bit” - “well back in my day, we had to walk 6 miles to school up hill both ways. In the snow.” Okay, so the kids today find out about music through other means, but that doesn’t make it obscure - that makes it obscure to you. Again, invest a little time and find sources that work for you - they won’t be what you used to use, but times have changed. I am not Mr. Tech nor interested in being a Gadget Geek - I happen to love music and in the course of talking to people, drifted into checking a few places that keep me informed. Frankly, I am as surprised as anybody that I ended up being net conversant - I just wanted to know what was out there.
You can find out, too.
I don’t mind hunting for music. You find some great stuff sometimes.
A couple of years ago, I listened to whatever was on the radio. Occasionally bought an album. Now, I’m buying albums left and right. I can’t seem to get all the albums I want.
Why do I spend this kind of money? Because the bands that I find fit my tastes are usually on tiny little record labels. I feel that it’s my duty to help their career along in any way I can.
Here’s a short list of some of the stuff I’ve been listening to lately (in no particular order):
Winds - Reflections of the I
Virgin Black - Elegant and Dying
Katatonia - Viva Emptiness
Opeth - Still Life/Blackwater Park
Amorphis - Far From the Sun
Vanishing Point - Tangled in Dream
Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me
Tool - Lateralus
Symphony X - The Odyssey
Saturnus - Martyre
Samael - Eternal
Porcupine Tree - In Absentia
Lacuna Coil - Comalies
Iced Earth - The Glorious Burden
Green Carnation - Light of Day, Day of Darkness
Evergrey - Recreation Day
Dream Theater - Train of Thought
Blind Guardian - A Night at the Opera
Antimatter - Lights Out
Out of this list, I think Tool is the only band that has had any radio play at all. I find these albums by talking to people at concerts, Yahoo Groups that are all about a band or two that I like, and downloading (if I like the band, I try and find their album, if not I delete it).
Basically, it comes down to how much time you’re willing to spend to find good music. I’m willing to spend a great deal of time, so I find all kinds of good stuff.
Loopydude, based on your eclectic-retro tastes, I recommend the following above everything else I can think of:
Welcome Black (2002) – The Negro Problem (yes, the name’s ironic). Kind of like what you’d get by cobbling together a mad pastiche of Beach Boy Brian Wilson, Jimmy Webb, XTC, Burt Bacharach, Sly & the Family Stone, Stevie Wonder, and any number of others (from The Delfonics to The Dream Warriors), but in a singular eclectic style of their own. The band’s crazy-like-a-fox leader, Stew, has just released another solo LP (The Naked Dutch Painter), which isn’t bad, but I think that so far, at least, almost anyone’d prefer the band’s output.
And yes, a ditto to many of the previous recs – and, given your liking for country, the whole alt country movement previously namechecked (Uncle Tupelo, Son Volt, Whiskeytown, Wilco). To which I’d add, if you haven’t heard it before, a mid-80’s album by the ever-mutating Golden Palominos, Blast of Silence (1987) and the albums of Amy Rigby (esp. her Diary of a Mod Housewife from 1996) and those of her ex-husband Will Rigby’s early-80’s, postpunk/pop North Carolina band, The dB’s (a band led by Chris Stamey and later by Peter Holsapple). The dB’s’ first two LPs were re-released a couple of years ago in a discounted 2-for-1 disc and is a sterling buy, but you’d also love their 1987 country-influenced rock LP The Sound of Music, which is practically a song cycle for the disenfranchised working stiff. Another really accessible country-influenced southern band is Southern Culture On the Skids (SCOTS); their must-buy is Dirt Track Date (1995) – a crazy melange of musical styles and one heckuva party album.
If you combine the articulated political disaffection of the British punks to rootsy Americana influences (Dylan & The Band, with the requisite harmonica and Hammond organ fills) and stir, and you get The The’s seminal 1993 LP Dusk. Can’t recommend that one too highly; I keep returning to it again and again…
If I had to recommend an initial purchase from this list, I’d say go with either The Negro Problem or The The, and flip a coin (or better yet, buy both!). Please let me know, even via private email, if you get any of these and if you liked them.
[hijack]Lacuna Coil has actually had some radio play, although it’s pretty limited at this point. Here’s a list of the stations that play them.[/hijack]
As far as the OP goes…this message board is one of the greatest resources for finding new music. Just tell us what you want to listen to, and we can point you in the right direction.
WordMan, we must have had very different experiences growing up.
Pre-Beatles it certainly was very difficult to get good music on mainstream AM radio. (I have no idea what might have been playing on college or independent stations.) But during the Beatles 60s every major group was played on AM. Yes, much pap was as well, but I still have some Top 100 charts from those days and you can find great music on it from top to bottom. A tremendous amount of that music still lives today, and it’s not just nostalgia that makes it so.
FM radio was the mainstream everywhere from the early 70s on – earlier in San Francisco or NYC. You did not need to go any farther than your local radio to hear all the top bands, although I’ll admit you wouldn’t hear The Velvet Underground or Television outside of the bigger cities.
MTV defined the new mainstream in the early 80s, and it was truly great for the first several years. Because music videos had been pioneered in Europe, a whole new generation that would not otherwise have been heard became enormous stars.
Again, all through every period there were cult bands and genres that did not receive much airplay at the time. (The best of it normally becomes known over the years.) That will always be true. But what I’m hearing today is that there is not any mainstream outlet that allows for easy access to important bands of lasting status. What I hear on the Dope is that you have to go hunt them out yourself and that the best bands have no name recognition. That is an enormous problem for the average older fan.
In an earlier post you wrote:
This is the kind of half-truth that obscures the truth. Throughout almost all of the rock era, the best bands have been popular, and usually wildly popular. Of course there have been some popular music that was not good and some great music that never became popular. But it would be next to impossible to put together a comprehensive consensus list of the best rock music without also noticing the enormous sales, airplay, and fan and critical acclaim of this music.
Maybe we’re returning to the 50s, when a whole great new artform was emerging under the radar of the mainstream. We won’t know that until the 2010s roll around.
And I’ll be real curious to see how much of today’s music is still played then.
The White Album marked the death of non-shitty pop.
Coming from a 20 year old guy.
Let me guess… you read Pitchfork right? I kinda hate how it has suddenly become cool amongst indie rock fans to embrace pop music. The idea that the quality of mainstream pop music has suddenly skyrocketed in 2003 is quite frankly ludicrous. Not that much has changed. It just gets more space in “credible” music magazines such as the previously mentioned Pitchfork, which for some reason has an enormous influence, not just over regular fans of music, but other sites and printed magazines as well. The backlash will start in a couple of months. Hopefully.
I’m not saying everything that gets mainstream airplay is shit though. But this fawning over every Neptunes single like it’s the second coming is ridiculous. The keyboards on ‘Milkshake’ give me a hard on, but still, it has virtually no staying power, and there is no way I would ever put it on a mix tape, because a month from now I probably don’t want to hear that stupid song ever again.
There is no way a Justin Timberlake song is going to appeal to a 34 year old 'Mats fan just because it has great production. It’s still disposable pop music, which is going to age horribly.
2003 was a disappointing year in music for me. I finished my list of my favorite 100 albums of all time a couple of days ago (hey, we should totally make a thread about our 100 favorite albums of all time or something), and only one release from this year made it. And I listened to over 50 records from 2003. This year holds real promise though.
Still I probably listened to about 300 older records this year, which was far more rewarding. I mean there’s always something you missed. That’s my advice. Seek out older stuff, which you have overlooked. Try to get into that weird band you always wanted to, but somehow never found the time or patience to do.
Records I’ve bought (used) this month:
Wire - 154 (not as good as ‘Pink Flag’ but might knock ‘Chairs Missing’ down a peg)
Talking Heads - More Songs About Buildings And Food
Stiff Little Fingers - Inflammable Material
Shellac - At Action Park
The Fall - Hex Enducation Hour
The Fall – Perverted By Language
The Stone Roses – Second Coming (biggest letdown ever, this band really blew it)
Brian Eno - Taking Tiger Mountain By Force
There’s still great rock music being made today though. Gex Gex has a couple of good choices, such as Interpol (all the bearded music geeks down at the used record store circle jerked over that record in 2002), Trail of Dead, Wilco, The Books and a couple others.
Hey Loopydude, recommend me a Police album.
Clearly this is a case of YMMV. In the '60’s and 70’s, a new art form was maturing and there was a new channel to hear it on. Now, pop music is exploding in diversity and the new channel to hear it is broader than any communications device ever before. I strongly suspect that some “stations” (i.e., websites, web radio, whatever) will end up getting very popular and become the source of much influence but for now, the jury is still out.
As for your assertion that music was just better then, or that the Top 100’s back in the day had better stuff, again, YMMV. I simply don’t remember it that way - for every Led Zep, Beatles, Stones, Hendrix or whomever, there was the Archies, the 1910 Fruitgum Company, the Singing Nun and Perry flippin’ Como. Time filters out the crap and the good stuff looms larger in one’s memory than it did at the time, with obvious exceptions like the Beatles and Stones.
And the good stuff back then was often unpopular. In the '50’s, Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent - two of the most influential rockabilly artists - were not particularly popular in the U.S. (they were huge in the UK). In the '60, the Velvet Underground were far more notorious than popular - the Ulysses of rock (“the most famous book no one has ever read”). In the 70’s, the Ramones were not all that popular, nor were Television, the New York Dolls or most of the punk bands that really started it all. Sure, Blondie, the Talking Heads, the Sex Pistols and the Clash broke out, but a lot of the music looked back at as quality was simply not popular. And so it goes.
Again, YMMV - You say there are no easy-access ways to hear good music that everybody can tap into. I say we have moved from “broadcasting” on TV and radio to “narrowcasting” on the web and cable, but the good stuff is still readily findable. So be it. For me, the glass is half full.
There is evidence that the complaint in the OP is a real phenomenon, and not just the continual dissing of new music by old farts.
The record industry itself has recognized this problem. The ‘back catalog’ from the 60’s and 70’s still sells strongly. Even many 50’s albums still sell well. But starting in the 80’s, it seems that bands have no staying power. As a result, the record industry is noticing a ‘hole’ in its back catalog. Their new stuff sells, and the stuff from a few decades ago, but the records made in between vanish after the hype wears off. This suggests to me that music since then is more marketing and packaging than substance (with the odd outstanding exception).
This doesn’t mean that there is a lack of great music. There isn’t. What’s missing is a lack of great music being put out by the major labels, and they are the ones with the marketing clout to make monster albums.
I think there’s a good reason for this: MTV. Today, making a hit album requires an enormous investment, largely due to the high cost of making the music videos needed to support the album. In short, music is going the way of the movies. There are still small, independent movies, but the major studios tend to focus on highly focused and packaged blockbusters.
Think about this: The Grateful Dead made something like 14 albums before their first top 40 hit (“A Touch of Grey”). Back then, because album production was a relatively low overhead affair, record companies could afford to nurture bands, and even carry those artists who could reliably sell 200,000 albums but little more.
In contrast, Mariah Carey was given a 28 million dollar contract, and after she had ONE flop album the studio bailed on her contract. Or Wilco, who came up with an excellent, although somewhat experimental album called Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, were abandoned by their record company because it wasn’t commercial enough.
Great artists like Warren Zevon and John Prine lost their major label contracts years ago. In the MTV era, these artists just can’t put together multi-platinum albums, and that’s all the major labels are interested in any more.
In short, there’s just as much great music being made as there ever was, but it’s much harder to find. It’s down in the indie record industry, where ad budgets are low and bands survive by touring in mid-level venues and by word of mouth.
As an aside, it’s this latter group of indie artists who have the most to gain from file sharing and internet distribution of music in general, and the major labels, represented by the RIAA who have the most to lose. Their tightly controlled marketing schemes can’t survive in the internet era, and they know it. That’s why the RIAA has been so militant about not just file sharers, but internet radio and other ways of getting music out to the people that bypass the massive marketing machines of the major labels.
I’m merely 18 and I already hate this crap being played on the radio. :mad:
It either all sounds the same, or is disturbingly offensive.
I know good music when I hear it, however.
I appreciate what you are saying - that may be it. An alternate explanation might be that Baby Boomers, who are the largest cohort of the US population, bought albums back then in a way unrivaled before or since. Now, the next couple of generations get their music through other means.
And as for your illustration of the Grateful Dead, what about Phish? No radio play, almost no record sales, and yet a huge phenomenon. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
No, that’s not it, because the ‘back catalog’ from the 60’s and 70’s is STILL selling well. Take “The Eagles Greatest Hits” for example. It is now the best selling CD of all time, and yet it wasn’t a monster seller at the time. But it has been selling consistently for over 25 years. It just doesn’t fade away. Or Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon”, which stayed in the top 200 for something like 20 years.
These bands didn’t just sell to boomers - every time a new generation comes of age they rediscover them, and the sales keep on going. How many Pink Floyd fans are there today who are under 30? Tons. Same with The Beatles, The Stones, Dylan, The Eagles, The Police, The Clash, you name it. Even second-tier bands like Boston and Kansas still sell. Dozens and dozens of bands from that era who’s music still sells consistently.
But how many people still go out and buy Culture Club albums? Or Echo and the Bunnymen? Or Debbie Gibson? Or Tiffany? Or Rick Astley? Or Menudo? Flock of Seagulls? Culture Club? Thompson Twins? Wham? Once the hype machine stopped, these artists just faded away.
Another possibility that I forgot to mention is that a lot of this music really doesn’t come across well without the video supporting it. So once people stopped seeing the videos, the music was no longer compelling. Perhaps there will be a big future in 80’s era DVD video collections or something.
Sam - I am with you and willing to acknowledge that you are right. But, by the same token, my wife has bed-duty for the kids tonight and I get a little free time on the computer, so I will respond in order to push this forward a little.
Okay - who were the big sellers in the early 80’s? How about U2? Madonna? Michael Jackson? Prince’s 1999 and Purple Rain? Duran Duran? Dire Straits? I have not checked but I bet they still do reasonably well and have got fans from more recent generations. Again, my point is that a few bands - a small percentage of the overall total at the time - endure. We are all more poignantly aware of all the bands that aren’t appearing to have made the cut from the '80’s.
But even by the '80’s the emphasis was moving, as you said, away from the album towards the single - in the earliest cases, the video.
I am still not convinced that the more things change the more they stay the same…
But weren’t those groups kind of the last of the era I’m talking about? They date from the early 1980’s, just like the Police and a few others.
But sure, there will always be a few bands that break through the system and become big in spite of it. It’s just that the ratio of packaged music to solid quality is lower now.
There are no doubt other forces at work here. For instance, Clearchannel. Radio has become extremely formula and niche-driven. Remember in the 1970’s and 80’s when FM radio was ‘album rock’, with the DJs having incredible lattitude in what they played? I can remember stations that would play albums in their entirety, and play all kinds of obscure groups. You can still hear that kind of stuff on college radio, but commercial radio is very tightly focused, with very narrow playlists. Artists like Beck or Wilco can’t get airplay, because they don’t fit into any of the niches these stations cater to.
Here in Edmonton, you’ve got a couple of ‘classic rock’ stations, an ‘easy listening’ station, and a ‘youth’ station that plays MTV hits basically. There are a couple of flavors of country stations. Each has its playlist of mainstream artists within that genre, and that’s all they play. Anyone even remotely experimental cannot find a spot on these stations.
We could be saved by technology here. Satellite radio, internet radio, file sharing, and low-power FM could give us back access to a wider range of music. But the major labels are fighting this trend tooth and nail.
Sam - Okay, they are from the era you were talking about. How about the next era, then? Turns out the new style being touted for FM radio is “classic alternative” - yep, grunge. In other words, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, even Stone Temple Pilots. They will be played and listened to for the next 15 years, just like Zep and the Who were for us. Same as it ever was…
As to the rest of your post - again, I agree. Definitely feels like we are on the same page here…
The notion that albums are dead and gone has a few holes in it.
This site has the press release from the RIAA for the top-selling albums of 2003, both new and backlist making it to gold, platinum or multi-platinum status.
How many of each do you think there were?
You can be certified gold, then platinum, then multi-platinum all in the same year so these numbers are somewhat inflated. But albums sure aren’t dead yet.
You can also poke around in the RAII.org site to see the individual certifications, certifications by year, and highest sellers.
Here’s another site that gave the biggest sellers ever as of Jan. 1, 2001. I count 20 of the 43 from the 1990s.