DO you think it´s possible to be original nowadays? I mean, genious like Prince, Beck, and Mike Patton are heating old things, tomahawk(mike patton band) is like faith no more meets nine inch nails, the last beck CD is not innovative, and Prince is doing james brown again with musicology, i think he should go on with in the news vein and put some vocal. Even Trent Reznor is not beeing daring anymore, maybe, besides The Mars Volta and Radiohead, all my favorite bands are copying the past or themselves, is the music dying?

Just compare the new rock bands, everybody sounds almost exactaly like some band we heard before, what happened with Red hot chille peppers? they were great now they sucks, the same with aerosmith, lenny kravitz, billy corgan is not a shadow of smashing pumpkins, and who are the new artists? beyonce? justin?

What happened with guys like hendrix, prince, jimmy Page, stevie wonder, paul mccartney, hell even the old michael jackson or van halen? Why the world is lacking new musical genious? who were the last trully rock idols? Kurt Cobain and Axl Rose, and they were in their peak what? 10 years ago. I wouldn´t call them genious but they have a incredible charisma, it´s over too, even the guys that teens used to post posters on the wall. i should have born on the 70´s or 80´s, now everything is boring. All the bands that makes sucess are boring, all the new albums of my favorite artists are boring, the videos are boring, bla bla bla
the 00´s are boring times.
[This message was edited Sat Feb 28 5:59:03 2004 by 7salles]

I almost want to think that technology drives innovators.

Trent was a part of a new trend of sampler-drum machine-heavy guitar bands - Ministry, Nitzer Ebb, etc. He was in no way the innovator of his style, he was the most popular.

Hendrix was part of a trend of musicians who started turning their stuff up to 11, and he used all sorts of new toys. His playing was awesome, and what he wrote was awesome, but I wonder if he'd come out 5 years earlier or later, would his contribution have had the same impact? (5 yrs earlier and he'd be playing less distorted guitars with very few effects. 5 yrs later and he'd be just another guy playing with effects and loud distortion.)

So that's my take. The real innovators are long forgotten because they started the trend - and influenced those who then took it on into the mainstream. Mainstream music has very few innovators. Will there be any more innovations? Definitely. Have you checked out college radio? It's full of innovators. Most of them are too painful to listen to, but, in 5 years, someone from college radio will be driving the new trend wagon.

That's my opinion.

Just like the question, who's the greatest guitar player in the world? It's some 19 yr old kid you'll never hear, because his stuff is so out there that nobody is listening right now. And in 10 years he'll be in a bar telling everyone that he was the first person to play a guitar with a skunk, and now EVERYBODY'S doing it.