Post your "Why Today's Music Sucks" theories here...

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by claudia camberos vaca on July 25, 2010 at 5:54pm

I think what today´s music lack is soul. There´s so much pain and hatred in the world today, and instead of fighting it, today´s musicians are actually playing along with it. As John lennon prophecized--this is an I, me, mine word.
Rock has to do with a counter revolution--a we´re not gonna take it -- kind of attitude , or a make love not war feeling. Nobody´s doing that anymore. Not only that, but thanks to the status quo all that was once a sign of rebellion...sex...drugs...and rock and roll..is now what is bringing down our society.
Sadly, kids actually want to go to war. Either that or their so immersed in their video games ( or drugs) that they don´t care about actually having a real life with their buddies.
There´s plenty to do, but no one´s doing it. I think that´s the beaty of U2. They seem to be the last great warriors both inside and outside the music scene. Other than that...we have to put up with to Lady Gaga and company.The world is numb, and so is our music.
It´s time for a new music revolution. All those in favor, say I.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Marty Dickinson on July 26, 2010 at 9:43pm

And yet, RUSH sold out not one but TWO shows here in Denver for August (2010), a band most people never hear about. A band most people who aren't RUSH lifer-addicts like me thought faded out more than 25 years ago after Tom Sawyer hit the airways; as if they had accomplished all they could in the eyes of many mainstreamers after that song (sheesh!).

RUSH doesn't need to be in the public eye or political eye (like U2) to sell tickets or social media even to build its fan base. And, they never needed airplay to get their records or concert tickets sold. Bands like that including Iron Maiden, Joe Satriani, and even older Ozzi were never played on the radio where I grew up. And, yet, they were the talk of the school. We just heard them on peoples' stereos at parties and would say, "woe...what the hell band is that?!"

I think that's what's missing the most in new music I've heard over the past 10 years. Not that it's so "bad," it just doesn't capture me enough to really dig in and say "woe...what band is that?!"

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by KK Bacon on July 27, 2010 at 6:06am

Today's music doesn't suck any more than yesterday's. It's easy to look back and remember only the good parts of the past. There has always been plenty of crappy music around, it's nothing new. In the seventies, I proudly wore my "Disco Sucks" t-shirt...because disco sucks. The eighties had an abundance of new wave wuss bands and Madonna and her clones. The nineties brought us the bad poetry set to stolen music that is rap.

I like a lot of the different genres of rock, but I am primarily a headbanger. With the exception of a brief period in the early nineties when ZRock stations were popping up around the country, the radio has never played my kind of music. Bands like Motorhead, Megadeth, Slayer, and even Metallica did fine without any significant radio exposure. We relied on word of mouth to find bands we liked or, as Marty said, heard them at parties, and that still works. There are good bands out there...find them and share them with your friends.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Mr. In Between on July 27, 2010 at 8:47am

I thought the original intent of the question was why today's mainstream music sucks and not necessarily music in general.
I find alot of great bands via Not Lame and wish I could hear those groups on my radio stations. But I never will hear them on radio or in any mainstream venue because - I don't know why - money - I guess?

KK Bacon said:

Today's music doesn't suck any more than yesterday's. It's easy to look back and remember only the good parts of the past. There has always been plenty of crappy music around, it's nothing new. In the seventies, I proudly wore my "Disco Sucks" t-shirt...because disco sucks. The eighties had an abundance of new wave wuss bands and Madonna and her clones. The nineties brought us the bad poetry set to stolen music that is rap.

I like a lot of the different genres of rock, but I am primarily a headbanger. With the exception of a brief period in the early nineties when ZRock stations were popping up around the country, the radio has never played my kind of music. Bands like Motorhead, Megadeth, Slayer, and even Metallica did fine without any significant radio exposure. We relied on word of mouth to find bands we liked or, as Marty said, heard them at parties, and that still works. There are good bands out there...find them and share them with your friends.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Tom Hespos on July 27, 2010 at 9:19am

Donald Hains said:

My first post here,
I contend music doesn't suck today, there are more great bands out there now than ever before.
The embarrasment of niches concept is where the problem lies. You can find thousands of bands worthy of attention on Not Lame's site, for instance, but you basically have to know what you're interested in to find the site and those bands in the first place. For the most part you're not going to get any mainstream exposure to those bands, which means you've got to be deliberate in what you're searching for online etc.
Jason and the Scorchers, Cheap Trick, Tal Bachman, Pugwash, Duckworth Lewis Method, The Michael Schenker Group, The Shazam and a thousand other artists have released stellar music in the last few years (in the case of JATS Halcyon Days or Cheap Trick's The Latest or the new MSG lineup with Gary Barden back on vocals IMHO being perhaps their best work in decades) but where are you gonna hear them unless you're already a fan?
There is no mainstream exposure for these projects barring a few cuts on satellite radio and programs like Little Steven's Underground garage...in which case, you still basically need to know your niche to find the stuff.
As an aside,I thought for a while that Satellite radio would be the saviour of new music, but it's been in large part another big disappointment. A casual scan of the Sirious dial will yield the same Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Carrie Underwood and Pink Floyd stuff you can hear on your local radio station for free. Nothing against most of those bands, but do you really need to hear Black Dog or Dream On again and pay a monthly fee for the privilege? The few specialized channels, like Outlaw Country or LSUG have limited playlists which often repeat the same few songs with virtually nothing new. LSUG does play the Shazam and new Cheap Trick stuff, but it's the exception.
As long as the major players, American Idol along with the corporate enities like Clearchannel etc. have control over radio and major tours, you're just gonna get bombarded with manufactured crap 24/7.
Casual listeners seem to be pretty satisfied with that whitewashed, manufatured corporate stuff, and the rest of us are simply stuck, with few exceptions, with our niche genre's and that's fine with me. 99% of my online time is spent searching out bands and new music to experience, I think we all know how to find what interests us or search for something new and unexpected to enjoy... I don't see it changing any time soon so why fight it ?

I like the color you've added here. My biggest frustration is that there is so much out there that will never see the light of day. Meanwhile, the old machine is getting more powerful, even in this fragmented landscape, and takes precisely no risk with what it promotes.

The way we find new music is broken. That's a great irony in the digital age.

Used to be that I discovered new music in a few different ways - The radio was one way. MTV was another. The big thing, though, was these tape-trading parties we used to have with friends where a bunch of us would bring whatever we were listening to and a bunch of blank cassettes.

Radio is broken. No risk-taking there means no new music there.

MTV doesn't even run music videos anymore, does it? Broken.

Why hasn't the interactive world figured out how to conduct the digital version of a tape-trading party? Not just file-sharing like the P2Ps - I mean "let me pop this in and play it for 20,000 of you. You'll want a copy immediately." I find many fewer music influencers (in terms of influencing what you're listening to, as opposed to the creation of music) than there should be. What gives?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Julie Jurrjens on September 14, 2010 at 1:19pm

>>Why hasn't the interactive world figured out how to conduct the digital version of a tape-trading party?

Unfortunately, Tom, it seems to be because the RIAA says 'nope'.

I was on a mail art-swapping site, www.swap-bot.com, which boasted a fairly large mix disc swapping community. People proposed themes for mixes, and interested parties volunteered to trade... it was cool, and I believe it sold records, because it exposed the participants to a lot of new music, not just chart hits.
Once the RIAA got wind of it, they went after the site owners and demanded they discontinue all music swaps. They threatened legal action against the site owners, even though they were just providing a means for people to exchange ideas. The only exceptions the RIAA allowed would be music users made themselves and lists of titles - you could trade a 'mix' of a list of song titles and artist names. This, of course, was extremely frustrating to the music lovers of Swap-bot - kind of like having to kiss a loved one through a pane of glass: you can see the music, but you can't feel it.

The RIAA took similar action against a variety of sites where people share mixes, in an effort to reduce piracy. While well-intentioned -- there's no question that artists are entitled to their royalties --it's wrong-headed to punish the people who want to share music they love with friends in hopes that they will love it, too. They have the potential to be the best promoters of new music.

As Tom mentioned, radio and video music channels are 'broken': you're unlikely to hear something new, risktaking and wonderful anymore because it's all thoroughly homogenized, broadcast on multistate channels that play the same 20 songs to every market. So the only way of hearing something new is to:

1.) seek it out yourself, by wading through millions of 20 second samples on the internet, and judge if it feeds your soul on that basis.

2.) hope you have a decent public or college channel in your neighborhood that's not completely playlisted and bent on playing the same chart pop every other station does.

3.) have generous friends who are willing to lend you stuff from their collection

4.) trade mixes under the table with your groovy friends far afield, and hope the RIAA doesn't catch you. And don't involve RRT in it... they don't need the aggravation.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Mr. In Between on September 14, 2010 at 1:31pm

...also these trades of mix discs and or torrent sites need to be inhabited by communities of people who know each other and which are not accessible by the public (people nobody knows).

If it's a message board it has to be kept private and no google bots there because messages are readable via a google search and content is publicly viewable.

Same with torrent sites - they have to be by invite only, private funded and everyone knows everyone. That's a good way I think to keep that kinda stuff under the radar.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Tom Hespos on September 24, 2010 at 8:59am

I'd love to see some idle billionaire set his sights on the RIAA. My personal belief (unpopular) is that the very concept of copyright in the USA needs to be re-thought. Simply put, the RIAA and the MPAA have way too much power, and IMHO are obsolete organizations that need to see their influence severely diminished.

It's embarrassing what the RIAA have managed to accomplish in this country of ours. Really.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Mr. In Between on July 27, 2010 at 11:22am

(In reply to Tom's post above) - we as members of the tribe can add a music player with mp3 tracks to our posts here for others to hear and/or enjoy what we've found.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Tom Hespos on September 24, 2010 at 8:59am

Marvelous idea.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Sloopjohnc on August 2, 2010 at 8:32pm

Part of me, wishes kids were listening to "good stuff," but the other part of me says if my 14 year-old isn't listening to music I don't like, then she isn't doing her job.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Julie Jurrjens on September 14, 2010 at 12:29pm

Assuming you mean popular/chart music... In a word? Autotune.

Music itself does not suck. How business influences the enjoyment of music by the public, however, does sucks.

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next ›
• Page