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There's a fantasy out there that auto-tune makes you into a great singer. There's way more too it than that! The difference between great and poor singers is a

• mattmaroon 18y ago
  Music is definitely in a rut and has been for years now. It's just part of the cycle. There is still good stuff being made, just as some companies prosper in a depression, but the overall industry is really stale. It never stays that way for long though.
  • tricky 18y ago
    You are completely wrong. Music isn't in a rut. You are. Find someone who is into new music, ask some questions, borrow some albums, and really give it a chance. You'll be shocked at what you are missing just because you believe there's nothing good out there.
    • wheels 18y ago
      This seems to usually happen when people keep staring at the same place and expecting something interesting to happen there. Historically, if you want to get a good idea of where music is going, see what black americans are producing. Virtually every new genre of western pop music in the last century has come from black americans. (Blues, jazz, soul, rock, funk, disco, house, techno, hip-hop) After new genres emerge then there's usually a couple decades that follow of infusing that with other genres and that's where some really creative stuff starts coming out of the woodwork.
      • unalone 18y ago
        That's not a fair method. Rock began with Elvis. Before then, it was blues. Yeah, Elvis was inspired by black Americans, but his music was all his own. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones, who both moved music forward, were both white. The indie music scene nowadays comes from Jeff Magnum of Neutral Milk Hotel. He's white. Techno was inspired by minimalist classical music. Steve Reich? Philip Glass? White. I agree with your first point: music changes. I disagree with your last point: genres are interesting from the start. They become interesting for fans of other genres after a few decades, but for people who comprehend the musical theory behind a genre it tends to become interesting from the beginning.
        • aston 18y ago
          I was this close to downmodding you for saying Elvis invented rock. Chuck Berry, dude.
          • unalone 18y ago
            ...They're both 1955. Neither knew the other when they began. They're completely, utterly different in style. Elvis's Sun sessions invented the basis of what I'd consider rock. Berry is riff-based. He's all about the guitar. He did incredible stuff, but for me rock was about the advent of the larger-than-life music personality, and about the attitude. Elvis had attitude. Berry didn't, not in the same way. Elvis was the first rock heartthrob. My point was that it's not a race game. White people do music too. To add to my above list: punk was Sex Pistols and the Ramones.
            • aston 18y ago
              I'll concede those points. If you really want to see where music is going, you should just pay attention to what white people are buying.
        • wheels 18y ago
          I didn't say white people haven't innovated in music. I said that virtually all new pop genres have come from black americans. Techno was influenced by 20th century minimalism, but it wasn't inspired by it. Minimalism started becoming a significant influence in the second wave of techno. From your later comment, punk and some other rock sub-genres are good examples of genres that have not stemmed directly from black american culture. Note -- I don't think this is something fundamentally having to do with race, but that there's something within black american culture that has driven a disproportionate amount of innovation in popular music. With the genre-mixing thing, I didn't mean that genres aren't interesting from the start, just that often the phase where they begin to cross-pollinate often produces results that are as if not more interesting than the advent of the genres themselves.
    • jfornear 18y ago
      The new Animal Collective album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, would be a good place to start.
    • mattmaroon 18y ago
      No, music is in a rut. I listen to plenty of new (or new to me) stuff via services like Pandora and Rhapsody. Most genres have gone completely stale. Hip hop is pretty much retreading the exact same territory once again. Rock's become largely cliche, with most of the good material being put out by bands that have been popular since I was in middle school. It's just a down cycle. It happens. Recorded sales and concert attendance, as well as just turning on your radio, seem to indicate this. 2008's concert attendance was slightly down, and the top 10 acts were all ancient. In order Bon Jovi, Springsteen, Madonna, The Police, Celine Dion, Kenny Chesney, Neil Diamond, Spice Girls, Eagles, and Rascall Flats. With one exception they're either country (which has been in a rut for 30 years) or older than me. That's a genuine rut my friend. The wheels are spinning but nobody's going anywhere.
      • GavinB 18y ago
        It might be more accurate to describe it as a rut for you. I don't mean that as an insult, it's okay if you just don't like what you hear. If you're looking for "the cool new things" that are happening, I definitely wouldn't look at the Top 10 in concert attendance. Given, we're not going to invent distorted electric guitar or precision audio editing again. But really, do we define great music as having a "sound" that's obviously jarring? Great music has been produced for centuries with the same old orchestral instruments--to the uninitiated, it all sounds pretty much the same.
        • mattmaroon 18y ago
          Given record sales and concert attendance, it would be more accurate to say that music isn't in a rut for you.
          • GavinB 18y ago
            Since we're talking about a subjective judgment, sure. We're in the midst of a major revolution in music distribution. While revenues are down, people are listening to more music than ever before, and getting more choice in what they can listen to. Thanks to a new generation raised on guitar hero and rock band, I predict that things are going to get even crazier very soon. If you define a rut as "not undergoing mainstream stylistic revolution" then sure, we're in a rut.
  • unalone 18y ago
    I just "discovered" Eminem. I've known he's existed for a long time, but I just realized how incredible his music is. That's 4 years old now, yeah, but it's an example of how you might be missing what's going on right now. This year, for instance, Chumbawamba's The Boy Bands Have Won was an incredible folk tune album. Atmosphere's hip-hop album If Life Gives You Lemons, Paint That Shit Gold. Of Montreal's Skeletal Lamping did stuff I've never heard in pop before, even if it was a pretty inconsistent album overall. Fleet Foxes blew my mind last winter. Last year, there was Streetlight Manifesto, half a good album by They Might Be Giants, Radiohead, Freezepop, Flight of the Conchords, Dr. Dog, Burial, Arcade Fire. I can't think of a single year in the last 40 that didn't see major pieces of music come out. Every maligned era has had some incredible gems.
    • shiranaihito 18y ago
      > I just "discovered" Eminem. I've known he's existed for a long time, but I just realized how incredible his music is. Back when he was new, no one could avoid hearing his stuff on the radio or MTV. I always hated it, with a moderately burning passion, I might add, but I don't remember the details anymore. It would be interesting to hear why his music is "incredible". For my definition of "incredible", buy yourself a copy of Prince's "The Hits - The B-Sides". It's got most of his best songs. He hasn't released anything particularly great since 1993, but that doesn't stop many of his older songs from being absolutely mind-blowingly awesome ("When You Were Mine", "Little Red Corvette", "Purple Rain", and so on)
      • unalone 18y ago
        My plan was to listen to Purple Rain tonight, actually. I don't listen to the radio or watch MTV, so I really did miss him entirely. Usually I'd write a long essay on just why I love Eminem, but now noprocrast is set incredibly restrictive, so I'll be fast. The guy has an incredible power behind his voice: he's got an energy that's rare even in rock, and he really channels that energy to create something neat. Lyrically he's impressive. I will never be entirely a fan of rap's lyrical style - I'll always yearn for the incredibly focused and taut language of poetry - but Eminem does it well. He has extremely inventive rhymes, he sets up incredible rhythms, and he manages to be surprisingly funny at times, other times incredibly creepy. I didn't like rap for a long time. Last week something clicked and I finally just understood what I was supposed to be listening for.
  • albertcardona 18y ago
    I suggest an on-site visit to the DNA Lounge. Music as lively and as good as ever. [The DNA Lounge also has web audio broadcasting]
  • mynameishere 18y ago
    It's been in a rut since ~1980. Obviously, arguing on the basis of opinion is tricky, unless people are willing to use a common metric, and have common overall tastes. People have a very, very bad habit of preferring music from their own youth. This is similar to the phenomena of almost always preferring the version of a song you hear first, even if there are lots of successful covers. So it's hard to be objective. But let the people downmodding the OP consider some active bands from a year long before my birth, 1969 (off the top of my head): The Beatles The Rolling Stones Led Zeppelin The Doors CCR Hendrix Pink Floyd [Clapton was somewhere between cream and dereck and the dominoes] ...those are the major acts. Leaving out clapton, I would posit that each one of those groups is better than any group from the past 20 years. Disagree, fine, but to say that the overall culture was comparable is to leave yourself open to ridicule. ADDENDUM: Here's a better list. The lineup for woodstock--ONE frickin' concert, which manages to leave out some of the best groups, like Zeppelin and the Doors and Bob Dylan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodstock_Festival#Performing_artists_and_sequence_of_events http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodstock_Festival#Performing_a... It's almost surreal how good that list is.
    • marvin 18y ago
      Music culture in the sixties/seventies isn't comparable to music culture today because the general culture of these two eras isn't comparable. There's a major chicken/egg problem here: society doesn't appreciate music in the same way, there is less openness among the general population, drugs aren't nearly as accepted, not nearly the same number of people go to music festivals etc. etc. etc. It is more of a cultural shift than the decline of music as an isolated phenomenon. If you start dragging out the "everything was better before" argument, remember that you'll get more than the music if you go back to 1970. War, the draft, unemployment, massive amounts of LSD... I haven't seen any commenter in this thread attempt a somewhat scientific assessment of the quality of music then and now. We can probably agree that the general culture is less friendly to good music today, but if you want to go deeper than that there is really no way to reach a consensus. I'm of the belief that you can find just as novel, inspired, creative and emotional music today as 30 years ago. There might be a bit less and it will certainly be more obscure, but artists still create. As a case in point, both Marilyn Manson, Dream Theater and The Cardigans have created large amounts of novel music the last 10 years. Even though these musicians aren't among the most obscure, I still think you're doomed to fail if you search the pop charts for good art.