On a somewhat related note, I just want to point out that it's not a bad thing to enjoy random popular music for what it is, even if you won't ever think about it again. So what if you listen to an ostensibly "shitty" top 10 song for a few weeks or months?

 

Hindsight is 20/20 - Its harder to find the great music of today, but give it 10 years, and what sticks around will be just as good as anything from previous decades.

Lulz at the idea of Rammstein being widely accepted - maybe they are in Germany, but here nothing close to their style would be widely accepted. Certainly popular among certain groups, but not in a general sense. The difference in pop culture is kinda funny.

 

Modern mainstream music sucks. There's plenty of great modern music, music that may or may not eclipse the cherished music from the 60s-80s. It's simply not in the Top 40.

Also, there's been an explosion in the number of bands/artists since the 60s-80s. More artists = more crap. Unfortunately, the more crap side of things makes it to the mainstream.

Personally, I can't listen to music from before 1990. I have no idea why. I'm a product of my generation, probably. Same applies for movies, and oftentimes books.

 

What can I say? I was stoned last night, and that song was just the right kind of weird and it blew my mind. I probably could have linked a better song, but in all honesty, at least for me, that obscure and random song from nearly 40 years ago was more enjoyable than any of the chart topping top-40 so called 'hits' (read: crap) the music industry has continued to churn out the last decade.

Fuck it, I still think that song rocks and none of you clowns can convince me otherwise.

 

[Rambling]

Yeah. I notice that a lot with some of the bands I listen to.

I'll catch flack for admitting I listen to, and like, Nickelback. One of the higher names on the "Bands who make over nine thousand variations of the same songs" list, but like was mentioned in another thread, they're actually pretty fucking epic people.

But I think that's where I put a lot of value in what's "good music" vs tripe. I'm a huge fan of Breaking Benjamin, and they can get kind of repetitive at times, but are awesome. Ditto Sevendust. Won some random radio schitck local station did when they where here with Nonpoint on the Budwieser True Music shit. Got to meet them before the show. Met the drummer of Smile Empty Soul first time I saw them and Breaking Benjamin waaay back when.

That kind of shit used to be reaaally common from what I remember back in the day, and really helps me getting into niggers like that. Bet you'd be hard pressed to do the same with Psycho Spears or Cyrus... >_>

[/Rambling]

 

Ugh...

In all due honesty, my music tastes are probably as random as they come, and they stretch back as far as Elvis and early Dylan to Cee Lo Green. And the stuff I like is everything from lo-fi 70s punk to overproduced early 00s pop/boy bands.

Here's the thing - there was a lot of shit back in the early days too - we just never here about it anymore, because the bands are long gone. Have any of you gone back and listened to 70s punk or disco for any period of time? Sure, there was some great stuff, but there's a reason we forgot about a lot of it.

Or take the eighties. I love most eighties music, but for every Whitesnake or Michael Jackson or Starship, there were a dozen Chicago variants that make me want to shove an ice pick in my head.

Or take the nineties. For every Tupac or Biggie Smalls or Jay-Z or Dre or NWA, there were dozens of other rappers who were forgotten along with the rest of the hardline gangster rap era. Hell, even with boy bands, for every Backstreet Boys and N'Sync, there were bands like Hanson or fucking 98 Degrees.

And now today... well, for me, today's music is a little different, but I realize much of that is my own taste. I tend to like singers with powerful voices with emotional gravitas, and instrumentation to back it up - there's a big reason Meat Loaf is probably one of my favourite artists of all time. That's why I tolerate Kings of Leon and I put up with the tepid protest of Green Day (or on really, really bad days, Billy Talent) - at least they sound a bit better than the soulless autotuned shells of songs we get today. I'm sorry, but I've never been 'stirred' by an Akon or Kanye song, no matter how much effort they put in. The only reason why I tolerate Lady Gaga is because she at least shows superficial signs of weirdness on her albums and mixtapes that I find intriguing.

And to be completely honest, the closest any recent 'club' song I've found to be memorable and powerful was Usher's 'DJ's Got Us Falling In Love', and that's only because the instrumentation is fucking powerful.

So yeah, while I'll admit that I tend to judge songs more on emotional, gut-force impact rather than complex instrumentation or groundbreaking lyrics (once again, my favourite artists include Meat Loaf, Josh Groban, Eminem, and the Backstreet Boys - all artists that at least have some fucking passion and charisma when they sing), I will also note that despite reaching a new height of music-producing and recording technology, the songs seem to be getting sloppier and less creative (we can showcase the careers of Ke$ha, 3H03, Justin Bieber, and Jason Derulo for proof of that). Come on, with some of the talent that we have today, the music industry could be doing a lot better than this.

Maybe it's just because I'm Canadian and I've heard a lot of Nickelback, but I'm going to come down with Vash on this. The strangest thing is that Nickelback is actually getting better at writing distinctive songs (at least instrumentally - they really did a fair bit of experimentation with Dark Horse), albeit quite a bit trashier and geared towards a frat audience. But if anything, they're growing significantly more tolerable, at least compared to junk like Theory of A Deadman or Queens of the Stone Age or Alexisonfire.

Besides, you really can't bitch at Canada for Nickelback when they haven't put out an album in a few years, and we've both introduced the world to Justin Bieber and the shocking return of Avril Lavigne (yes, she's making music - and yes, it's AWFUL).

 

Nickelback I can give props to for having some decent lyrics and guitar work, but the lead singer sounds identical in every single song, to the point of having to listen to it for a bit to figure out wtf song it is. Then I think he went and made another bad he sings for too, because I heard his voice singing on a totally different guitar/beat combo and was surprised, thinking Nickelback learned some new chords, lol.

 

Dead. You are dead to me. I like Queens of the Stone Age and Alexisonfire, faggot. A hell of a lot more than Nickelback. :<

 

It's just opinion, bro, but I can't stand either Queens of the Stone Age or Alexisonfire. Alexisonfire just becomes homogeneous to me after a few songs - nothing to really differentiate their songs from each other, and they aren't doing anything really special with their instrumentation to set themselves apart (they also tend to overuse distortion with very bland, forgettable riffs). And as I've already said, vocal talent is really important to me with songs, and I just find them bland and lacking in range.

As for Queens of the Stone Age... well, I've got many of the same problems with them as well. Overuse of distortion, lacking vocals, and no particular melodies or backtracks that I find remotely memorable. I just find their music boring, without the flair, vocal talent, and interesting instrumentation of Poets of the Fall, or the musical hooks of Bad Religion or Our Lady Peace, or the sheer weirdness of RHCP.

And Theory of a Deadman is just a bad Nickelback ripoff with less compelling and more depressing lyrics.

 

Say what you will about Hanson, but they wrote their own songs (lyrics and music) and played their own instruments. In pop music, that is nearly unheard of.

I agree that Dylan's lyrics are beyond wonderful. However, seeing him live has all but ruined him for me; it was a travesty in every aspect.

 

Huh. Just looked them up and was surprised to find that several of their songs were indeed not sung by Nickelback. Which would explain my futile efforts over the years in finding some of those songs on youtube.

 

There was a recent cracked article (or it may have been from several years ago and just showed up the other day) on this topic. In a decade or two, all the shitty music will have been forgotten for the most part, leaving only the good stuff in our collective memory.

That said, my favourite genres have been on a downward spiral for a while now, to the point that they're slowly fusing together with emo bullshit creating things like 'screamo' and 'metalcore.' Everytime I hear someone say they like metal and that Slipknot are their favourite band in the same sentence I die a little inside.