ya know, i started a thread with a title almost identical to this a while back, and i'm glad to see the topic get resurrected every now and then.

my theory about music right now is that we're in a space not unlike the mid-70s, which was a very conservative and uninspired time in terms of mainstream pop - think bubblegum music and lite FM (sound familiar?) - but there was also TONS of fantastic music thriving under the surface of what the major record labels and mainstream radio was trying to forcefeed us. there was great stuff being played in clubs, there was the birth of punk in london and a parallel craze going on in america, in NYC and LA, and there was all kinds of experimental music quietly getting released and gobbled up by small communities of music geeks and college kids.

thirty years later, we remember roxy music and david bowie and kraftwerk. we don't really laud the albums of david cassidy, leif garrett or gerry rafferty.

the point is, the shit sinks and the good stuff rises, surfaces, and gets remembered.

i dunno if that's a consolation or not, but i can see that happening with the really excellent music that's been released over the past few years - meanwhile, clay aiken's first album is gonna be so much dog-eared garage sale fodder.

ya know, i started a thread with a title almost identical to this a while back, and i'm glad to see the topic get resurrected every now and then.

my theory about music right now is that we're in a space not unlike the mid-70s, which was a very conservative and uninspired time in terms of mainstream pop - think bubblegum music and lite FM (sound familiar?) - but there was also TONS of fantastic music thriving under the surface of what the major record labels and mainstream radio was trying to forcefeed us. there was great stuff being played in clubs, there was the birth of punk in london and a parallel craze going on in america, in NYC and LA, and there was all kinds of experimental music quietly getting released and gobbled up by small communities of music geeks and college kids.

thirty years later, we remember roxy music and david bowie and kraftwerk. we don't really laud the albums of david cassidy, leif garrett or gerry rafferty.

the point is, the shit sinks and the good stuff rises, surfaces, and gets remembered.

i dunno if that's a consolation or not, but i can see that happening with the really excellent music that's been released over the past few years - meanwhile, clay aiken's first album is gonna be so much dog-eared garage sale fodder.

I love Gerry Rafferty! In fact, I've been listeneing to him all week. Don't put him in with David Cassidy!

minneapolisgenius said:

i've been really wanting to get the 'baker street' album for quite a while now, i will admit.

but you gotta admit, it was some classic lite-rock AM radio fodder.

nothin' wrong with some musical empty calories every now and again...

I'm a child of the mid-to-late 70's. I loved me some "Baker Street." I liked Pablo Cruise, Ambrosia, America, as well as Parliament, Isaac Hayes, Donna Summer, Rick James, etc.

minneapolisgenius said:

i've been really wanting to get the 'baker street' album for quite a while now, i will admit.

but you gotta admit, it was some classic lite-rock AM radio fodder.

nothin' wrong with some musical empty calories every now and again...

Anxiety said:

I wouldn't call it empty calories though. At least back then you had some pretty amazing musicians as backing bands as well. Unlike most popular songs of today, which seem to be all programmed beats with no thought whatsoever put into them. Like the guitar solo in "Baker Street" always puts a big grin on my face. Love it. And "Right Down the Line" and "Get it Right Next Time" are also great songs.
[Edited 6/24/05 14:41pm]

minneapolisgenius said:

dammit, you're gonna get me ordering stuff on amazon.com tonight.

my mom had the gerry rafferty album and she played it to death...it wasn't my favorite music as a kid, but i remember always liking it when she played it. i'll admit i'm being a little harsh on some of the '70s lite-rock...especially since a lot of indie rock bands from the '90s up to now have copped the '70s lite rock sound and recycled it as something artsy.

Anxiety said:

I wouldn't call it empty calories though. At least back then you had some pretty amazing musicians as backing bands as well. Unlike most popular songs of today, which seem to be all programmed beats with no thought whatsoever put into them. Like the guitar solo in "Baker Street" always puts a big grin on my face. Love it. And "Right Down the Line" and "Get it Right Next Time" are also great songs.
[Edited 6/24/05 14:41pm]

minneapolisgenius said:

Val, I think I do love u!

I get sad when I listen to the radio today. Nothing but the same garbage day in and day out. I used to feel old thinking like this since I'm 26 so it's nice to see that I'm not the only one around my age group and younger who can't stand where music is either. I miss being able to jam to the latest song. Maybe change is on the way but as far as I'm concerned, it's late in getting here.

All I ever hear from younger people when they try to defend their music is, "My mother says the same thing and her mother said the same thing to her. It's part of getting older". Well, I am 37 so I could have a child that is age 20 if I had chosen to have had one. Considering this, it's very likely that some of these younger people could have parents my age. I can see them downing today's music because they are my age.

As for my generation, my mother, and everyone else's mother that I knew, never hated the current music of the 1980s like a lot of people my age hate today's music. In the 1980s, skating was the way teenagers that were too young to go to clubs could party. My mother used to drop me off at the skating rink around 7:00 or 8:00 p.m. and she would head to a club. She would pick me up when the skating rink closed at 1:00 a.m.

Many nights after she picked me up, she would swing by the club and tell her friends that she would be back as soon as she dropped me off at home. While I would be sitting in the car waiting, I could hear the music coming from the club. The majority of the music played was all current 1980s music and these club goers were all in their 30s and 40s. My mother, and so many other people's parents were listening to their 1960s Motown and other types of music they had growing up, but for the most part, they were listening to the current music scene.

Even the radio stations back then, there weren't all these oldies stations like there are now. Most of the stations in my area were current music stations but they would throw in an old song every now and then. I think if there had been such a big demand for oldies stations back then, they would have had them. There was a 1950s station but my mother would have been a small child in the 1950s so she never listened to that station.

So my answer to this question is, I think today's music really is a bunch of shit and the arguement that everyone's parents have said the same thing is a cop out. What do you think?
[Edited 6/23/05 23:50pm]

purplecam said:

part of what's so sucky is the songs that get played on radio now, and the other part of what's so sucky is HOW the songs are played on radio these days - the same six or seven songs are played over and over and over again - SHAMELESSLY - until songs we start out hating are drilled into our heads, and half the people who started out hating fiddy or britney or whatever are going out and buying their albums because they've been broken down in some kind of creepy pavlovian conditioning process. it's scary, man.

vainandy said:

Today's music is shit. If I even listen to radio, its more than likely tuned to a oldies station or Jazz b/c I am not going to listen rehashed payolla radio. Once I get tired of that bullshit then, I have to throw in one of my zillions of CD's. Format and payolla has over fucked radio in the ass and this is what Clear Channel represents corrupt big businness.

MsLegs said:

Once I gotten tired of C.R.A.P., I brought a computer (PC), some music studio software (FL Studio, Audition), some software instruments, and started making some electronic jams all by my damn self!!!

F*** the RIAA!!! I don't need them to tell me anything about music.
[Edited 6/24/05 16:02pm]

namepeace said:

did you grow up in my house?

Anxiety said:

who do you think ate all your Sugar Smacks before the Superfriends came on?

minneapolisgenius said:

Val, I think I do love u!

I'm 26 and guess what ya'll I don't listen to any of the music radio formats here in Philly. The three hip-hop stations play the same twenty songs all day, the jazz station plays the same cuts day after day and the pop/rock stations are all on the same repeat program that the other ones are.


Now that brings me to my favorite music, that old school Soul, R&B, and FUNK!!. The two stations we have here in Philly play the same FUNK, Soul and R&B all day long with a sometimes new song added to the rotation and I think that SUCKS!!! They got all these great songs to choose from but yet they play the same ones over and over again, I can't listen to it. Instead of playing "Reasons" by EWF every fuckin day why not play another bad EWF cut like "SUNSHINE", damn they only got over twenty albums of material to choose from. They do that with all of the old school artists and it's just plain wrong IMHO, and then there's my favorite old school artist RICK JAMES!!!


Most of Rick's solo work barely get's played, the only Rick James solo work you'll hear on the radio if you come to Philly is:

Ebony Eyes
Fire And Desire
You And I
Give It To Me Baby
Super Freak(only about once every three months do they play this)

Tell me that ain't some BULLSHIT!!!

I'm 26 and guess what ya'll I don't listen to any of the music radio formats here in Philly. The three hip-hop stations play the same twenty songs all day, the jazz station plays the same cuts day after day and the pop/rock stations are all on the same repeat program that the other ones are.


Now that brings me to my favorite music, that old school Soul, R&B, and FUNK!!. The two stations we have here in Philly play the same FUNK, Soul and R&B all day long with a sometimes new song added to the rotation and I think that SUCKS!!! They got all these great songs to choose from but yet they play the same ones over and over again, I can't listen to it. Instead of playing "Reasons" by EWF every fuckin day why not play another bad EWF cut like "SUNSHINE", damn they only got over twenty albums of material to choose from. They do that with all of the old school artists and it's just plain wrong IMHO, and then there's my favorite old school artist RICK JAMES!!!


Most of Rick's solo work barely get's played, the only Rick James solo work you'll hear on the radio if you come to Philly is:

Ebony Eyes
Fire And Desire
You And I
Give It To Me Baby
Super Freak(only about once every three months do they play this)

Tell me that ain't some BULLSHIT!!!