Music is so much cheaper and easier to access now. When I was a kid I could only afford to belong to one musical tribe.
My mother’s uncle didn’t like Frank Sinatra because he thought he was too modern. He told me this around 1980.
And for Gen Zers, Glee.
My niece is Gen Z and she loves her Sinatra but that probably doesn’t disprove your “most”. There’s more than you think I’ll bet.
I am two years younger than you and I love both of them. Especially Les Paul.
And there’s the rub I think. Watch Les Paul play. His skill with the guitar is manifest and better than most anyone playing these days. He was a virtuoso. How many virtuoso guitar players are there today that are a mainstream success?
I’ll add another. A surprisingly good guitar player was Glen Campbell. Supposedly Eddie Van Halen wanted to take some lessons from Campbell.
We simply see nothing like this kind of skill these days in popular music. I have NO doubt there are people out there who are stunningly good musicians but that is no longer what makes you popular.
I don’t understand this. There are many excellent guitarists, and musicians on other instruments, in popular music today. I mean, John Mayer’s pretty damn famous. The guitar is not a long lost skill.
Actually, I kinda did like Kriss Kross back in the early 1990s (rip Chris Kelly), but I was referring to Christopher Cross, the Texan soft rock, pop singer between 1979 and 1983.
Great.
Name some successful (read: well known names) modern musicians (say last 20 years) who are known for being a virtuoso of guitar or piano or drums or whatever. Someone who, you think, people 20 years from now will be citing as a profound influence on themselves and music overall.
You can probably name some but I bet you could name loads more from the mid-70s - mid-90s.
Again, to be sure, there are great musicians around today. But popular music has become more like fast food. Tasty but not actually very good.
Glenn Campbell is a badass, as is Neil Young, and Willie Nelson (and the late Waylon Jennings)
LOL! I dig it. No shit, when I was around 18, me and some of my buds did actually show up at a bar with our pants on backwards - and yes, we looked like stupid fuckers. But…in our minds, we were cool (I guess).
Listening to some Earth, Wind, and Fire right now. Why can’t they make music like this now?!
Few bands evoke the 70s for me more than Earth, Wind & Fire.
Such great stuff.
I have a split opinion on E,W&F - when White is the lead, I love them. How can you not dance to September or Boogie Wonderland?
When Bailey is the lead, they make my ears bleed and set the dog to howling. “Reasons” being a prime example.
Aah, rockism, my old nemesis - I did not miss you.
This actually does speak to how music has changed. Today, you don’t really need to be a mechanical virtuoso on an instrument to be a musician. You can program a synth to do things you physically cannot. Heck, you can program one to do things a virtuoso cannot.
I don’t know if Dan Deacon qualifies as “well known”, but then again I think popularity is probably the stupidest metric to judge music or a musician by. Either way, I believe a virtuoso (or even several at the same time) simply could not play this piece. They built a player piano controlled by MIDI, and composed the piece on it.
As a musician who still spends a lot of time working on his skills using several different instruments, I’m fine with it. To fight it is to go the same way as John Henry. Being really good at an instrument was just a means to making music anyway. If someone can make really good music while skipping that tedious step, more power to them.
Oh, and he can play live with with it, provided he’s got the crew to move the piano.
As I mentioned before, I used to listen to a lot of classic rock with Clapton and Hendrix . I used to listen to a LOT of Pink Floyd and David Gilmour’s guitar.
The first time I listened to a guitar in a song and thought “Shit, lemme back that up and listen to that part again” was Marissa Paternoster from Screaming Females. I have no idea if she’s a “virtuoso” or people will be talking about her in 2055. I don’t know enough about guitar to make any qualified statements about her playing. I do know that she affected me more than Clapton’s playing ever did. So I guess I don’t give a shit where she lands on some Rolling Stone list of bestest guitarguys ever.
Yes, there are, and you are simply wrong. I take it you have never read the comments on Youtube under “classic rock” or “classic pop” songs with 200 000 000 views. With a casual look, you’d find masses of people who say things like: "I’m 16, and I just love this [insert 20 - 40 yo recording] over anything else ", or “I’m only 20, but I think the 80’s music is way better than today’s music”.
Yes, the majority of people most like the music that was current when they were teenagers. I know plenty such people. But to say that there aren’t easily millions and millions of people who do not fit the mould is just not true.
Show me a couple of guitarists this good these days:
Did you ever? The Beatles (just as an example) weren’t instrumental virtuosos, unless you’re using the word “virtuoso” very loosely.