When did it become acceptible for pop music to sound so uninspired?

Cafe Society
21

Here, I can make some recommendations right away. I recently have been getting a lot of stuff from what they’re calling Alt-Country, which is ironic because it’s more like REAL country than anything you hear on country radio these days. Here are some artists I’d recommend:

Laura Cantrell. She’s a longtime DJ on freeform radio station, and recently put out a terrific album called “Not The Tremblin’ Kind” that reminds me a lot of early Tammy Wynette or Patsy Cline.

Geraldine Fibbers. Carla Bozulich, who used to be in the art-rock band Ethyl Meatplow, started this group, which is somewhere between punk and country.

Stacey Earle. Sister of author/singer/songwriter Steve Earle. She can sing some country, let me tell ya.

Neko Case and her Boyfriends. Kinda reminiscent of Loretta Lynn, but with a cow-punk feel.

If you want copies of any of this stuff, let me know and I can meet you for lunch or something.

22

80s music has been shat on for years…all until recently. Perhaps the nostalgia is precipitated by the massive success of outfits like, well, you all know who they are. Many of us would take Phil Collins or Guns ‘n’ Roses over certain music that appeals to kids today.

Unfortunately the music of my youth was late 80s, which I maintain is every bit as bad is it was then. My formative years were filled with New Kids On The Block and Nirvana, which filled me with no small amount of distaste. Now I am going back and listening to early 80s music, and am enjoying it immensely. Blondie. Soft Cell. Talking Heads. Every form of early 80s punk.

I wish I had actually grown up with this stuff.

23

(Lucifer’s eyes glow red)
Slowly I turned…

This is one of my greatest pet peeves-the lumping together of everything from the 80’s. Some of the best music of the 20th century was made in the 80’s!

I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, though.
I’m sure you meant the awful (mostly) POP music from the 80’s (Cyndi Lauper, Lionel Ritchie, etc), not ALL music from the 80’s.

Surely you didn’t mean Husker Du, The Replacements, Camper Van Beethoven, Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians, Prefab Sprout, The Cramps, Stiff Little Fingers, Black Flag, Lloyd Cole & The Commotions, The Minutemen, They Might Be Giants,etc.?

Not all of us were listening to Madonna and wearing parachute pants!

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swoons Will you marry me? Or at least lend me your CDs?

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Question#1: Yes.
Question#2: No. :wink:

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… sometime in 1994. Well, the early 90’s wasn’t kind to music … what, with talent like Freddie Mercury, Kurt Cobain and Frank Zappa passing away and all.

Although, music had been going gradually downhill for at least 3 or 4 years prior to this.

Nowadays, there are just a handful of musical formulae:

(1) The ‘Techno For Dummies’ Formula. Get some incessantly catchy break beat, put some appalling vocals to it, get anywhere between 1 and 5 blondes with big boobies to mime in the video and hey presto, instant Euro Top 40 Dance Hit! I am sure there are just one or two really dodgy guys living in the South of France that have 90% of this market cornered.

(2) The ‘Brown Sugar’ Formula. Take three or four very attractive women (with at least two members of the band being of a group being black), get them to use their usually not too bad voices, and mangle their angelic singing by putting it in a textbook R&B tune and make them use the word ‘booty’ at least 20 times in a song.

(3) The Manufactured Pop Band. Ah, too easy. Don’t need to describe how one of these are made.

(4) The ‘I’m A F…king Brit and If You Don’t F…king Like It You Can Go F…k Yourself’ Formula (a.k.a. BritPop). Oasis started this vile, evil trend. The label “Brit Pop” and/or “Indie” used to mean good quality music that was really different (e.g. The Smiths, The Cure etc). Now it just means some weedy little tosser whining about how he doesn’t get enough groupies and when he does get groupies he ends up with a new range of STDs to take on the road with him. If I ever meet one of the Gallagher brothers I will personally kick the shite out of them …

(5) The Teenage Angst Formula. Lots of piss and vinegar to heavy guitars. Korn. Limp Bizkit Etc.

Well, now i’ve deconstructed music, i’m going to try setting up a chain of acts that are heavily reliant on the Techno Teen Angst R&B Manufactured Brit Pop formula, and then sell the whole shebang to Sony for a shitload of cash! Hee hee hee!

27

In response to the OP… For the USA, 1996. That’s when the FCC deregulated radio. Previously a company was limited to 2 stations in any market, 1 FM and 1 AM. Now the majority of American commercial stations are owned by ClearChannel, Infinity, or Disney. Regional hits are a thing of the past.
Hell, even NPR is acting more and more like a corporation, jettisoning locally produced shows for syndicated stuff.

Add the fact the ClearChannel also owns a large number of concert venues and promoters (they own SFX) and you’ve got one nasty stranglehold on the music business. Too bad Pearl Jam lost their suit against Ticketmaster. Everyone will be too scared to challenge this monopoly.

Legomancer said:

I gotta STRONGLY disagree with the word never. Substitute for the past 10-15 years and I’d agree, but never? No way. Top 40 hasn’t always been synonymous with lowest common denominator. 1960s Top 40 was legendary for being all over the map (or so my older sister says). Even as late as the late 70s, it was pretty eclectic. I can remember hearing Van Halen, Cheap Trick, Donna Summer, Aerosmith, Styx, Foreigner, The Cars, Barry Manilow, Led Zeppelin, The Village People, The Eagles, Alabama, and the Bee Gees all on the same station while in Junior High (1977-79). I can’t picture any commercial station mixing country, disco, and rock today.

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PsychoGumby! That was too funny. I think I love you. :wink: You could probably add modern country in there and New Age then it will be almost a full circle.

Where are the Beatles of our generation?

HUGS!
Sqrl