I agree see below

[Edited 9/2/10 14:31pm]

I agree theres nothing innovative in pop music. Music stopped evolving around 1996 especially with Hip Hop every rapper sounds like watered down G Funk, Warren G or Tupac. All the ballad singers and Country music sounds like Faith Hill, Celine Dion, Shania Twain type music of 1995/96. Nu Metal sounds like post grunge type music of 1995/96. R and B sounds like mid 90s stuff too. And Pop music sounds like its mid 90s as well. Jonas Brothers are merely Hanson, Miley is like Tiffany with less oestrogen and even Prince's music still sounds 90s. Lady Gaga and other electronic style singers borow directly from the 1980s.

All those Idol/ X factor type singers also have that machine pumped beat sound of the 1997 model of Nsync and Backdoor boys..

Chart Music has definitely stagnated, 1996 was the last freah year, because the latest great period music to me is the New Jack Swing early Funky Fresh style rap era of 1989 - 1992.

But 1997 gave us this one:

bobzilla77 said:

But anyway, I think you would have to admit that most of the bands who rose on the tail of their accomplishment, that are not called Pearl Jam, were pretty much finished by 1996. That's fourteen years ago.

That's not true, bands under the "grunge" umbrella, like Alice In Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden, Hole, and Smashing Pumpkins, are all still doing the rounds today. Erase Nirvana and you still would've had grunge, and the likes of Bush and Silverchair would still have later emerged. Nevermind did some to call attention to Sonic Youth, Meat Puppets, The Vaselines etc, so claiming it had a pernicious influence, albeit indirectly, means you can understand the mechanism of how one piece of art influences others, how it influences society, and you can predict alternate courses of events if Nevermind hadn't existed. But yeah, grunge played some part in the emergence of these emo pop-punk shit-rock bands no doubt.

As for Vedder's voice, I haven't the words to do justice to his oh-so-masculine termolo.

crazydoctor said:

grunge is the last interesting thing that happened.

I think that's because the emergence of grunge signified a change in culture and a backlash of the 80s, at least in the US.

After grunge the biggest phenomenon in music was the internet.

SquirrelMeat said:

You old farts.

New music is just as good and original as it always was, it just a little harder to find. Dig a little.

But we are tired!

Throw us a bone and tell where its buried.

lastdecember said:

the stagnation is caused by the mainstream, that is what has drastically changed, the "downsizing" of what is pushed and promoted is about 200% smaller than it was 15-20 years ago, music has lost its "air time" with people, even though everyone is walking around with some sort of mp3 player, most of what they have wasnt bought, which right off the bat, affects the mainstream, since there is no money coming in like it was, they have narrowed who gets the PROMO $$, nowadays, u cannot fail, before they could lose a million trying to push a few artists, today that million will be used at a sure thing that will sell at the moment, like Kesha or whomever, the artistic growth is not even in play at this point

I think you are right. The indusrty was once able to pump a lot money at the business. Now it is just happy to make whatever they can off their catalogs, and by putting as little money as possible.

pfjoeh, totally disagree:

Sufjan Stevens

The Flaming Lips

Animal Collective

MGMT

Sananda Maitreya

Vive La Fete

Antony & The Johnsons

Amadou & Mariam

Fiona Apple

Bilal

Iron & Wine
Sigur Rós

M.I.A.

TV On The Radio

Johnny Cash' late 90s and 00s work

Dylan's late 90's and 00s work
Prince' creative masterpiece The Rainbow Children is also relatively recent

Outkast to me is an exception in the field of hip hop/R&B

Radiohead also emerged in the 90s..

I do agree that the 'hits' these days aren't very impressive.

The internet is a good example. We're constantly stimulated this day and age. Sadly, that translates to the music industry and that's why image sells. We need that stimulation. Heck, I still scratch my head when I think about the late 90s and early 2000s during the whole teenage pop music phase. Anything can be hyped up, substance doesn't matter.

When you talk about how radios don't play this and that anymore - the radio is dead and has been for a long time. The radio is not a medium of selling good talent anymore. After the radio, the music video was a way of selling/promoting. Again, no one gives a heck about that either. If it wasn't for youtube, music videos would be dead (if they aren't already).

The way I see the evolution... video killed the radio star... reality TV killed the video star. That's an area that scares me the most.

If you wanna hear good music, you can always go on Last.fm or just see what indie artist or even the older artists are doing, like I said a million years ago, if you're looking to find it on the radio, you're out of luck lol

Timmy84 said:

If you wanna hear good music, you can always go on Last.fm or just see what indie artist or even the older artists are doing, like I said a million years ago, if you're looking to find it on the radio, you're out of luck lol

that is very true, you cannot look to sources that are part of the demise. this would be like talking to Kim Kardashian about what good TV shows are coming out, (sorry to pick on her, actually dig her). But i tend to often find people being caught in a double standard, if they are looking for good music they will say "Tell what good new stuff you bought" and then if you tell them say an older artist that just released a great new cd, they respond "oh they still record, why bother" , so i mean if thats your attitude an approach, you almost deserve to wallow in the shit.

I think alot of it depends on what sort of music you are into.

If we're going back over the last 20 years (back to 1990) perhaps the only genre of music that has shown real development (more so in Europe and the UK perhaps?) is dance music.

Kicking off with the second summer of love in 1989, dance music has gone through all sorts of changes and permutations in the last 20 years, including sub-genres such as acid house, happy hardcore, speed garage, ambient, trance, chillout, jungle, drum 'n' bass to name just a few. You have the early rave days, the warehouse and field gatherings, right up to the explosion in the late nineties when dance music and related paraphernalia got right into the mainstream, the opening of the "super club" (remember Home in London?).

I guess it all depends on whether you're into dance music and I know alot of people can't stand it...but if you were part of the dance scene in the past 20 years you really were spoilt. That having been said its hit a bit of a rut in the last two or three years

^Agreed, it's definitely on dance music that can change at this point, otherwise other genres like rock and rap will always have the same basis and will continue to feel "it's all been done before".

About dance music stagnating, I guess that's due to risks not paying off these days, people have to tap into 80s/90s nostalgia to get the hits and attention and a lot of times that doesn't pay off either (see Goldfrapp's ABBA-esque album earlier this year that was as commercial as it could get, yet it went completely unnoticed).