Amy Winehouse (R.I.P.)

and Foo Fighters I believe surely will.

Considering that we haven't had a major style change in 20 years, it's obvious that a major style change is never going to come so the music of this generation's artists will definitely stand the test of time because standards have been lowered and aren't going to be raised again.

daPrettyman said:

To be honest, I think it's too early to tell for a lot of them. If I had to pick, I would say Alicia Keys, Usher, Adele and Bruno Mars all have "timeless" songs in their catalog.

Usher's "Yeah" will forever be a dancefloor staple, "You Make Me Wanna," "U Reminde Me," and "Nice and Slow" will forever be r&b staples.

Alicia Keys' "Fallin," "Diary," and "Unthinkable" will never die.

Bruno Mars' "Just The Way You Are" will be sang FOREVER.

I think enough time has passed to predict how their music will be seen in the future. Adult contemporary and slow to midtempo shit hop has dominated for 20 years and still dominates today (at least on the R&B side of the fence).

It's obvious that nothing is going to change any time soon in the near future so if it still dominates in the future, naturally the music of today's artists will still be considered "timeless" because their genres never went out of style like most genres do around every five years. For that reason, I really don't see their music standing the test of time as being such a big accomplishment. I see people like James Brown whose music is still loved long after funk has died and Donna Summer whose music is still well loved long after disco has died as achieving a major accomplishment. It's not really an accomplishment if your genre still dominates in the future because naturally your music is going to still be loved.

vainandy said:

I think enough time has passed to predict how their music will be seen in the future.

Yeah, music that came out two weeks ago is "old school" to today's audience.

MickyDolenz said:

vainandy said:

I think enough time has passed to predict how their music will be seen in the future.

Yeah, music that came out two weeks ago is "old school" to today's audience.

I don't consider anything mainstream after 1990 as old school because it has to have a completely different sound to be considered old school. And as for slow songs, I only consider very few of them after 1985 as old school. Stuff like Shitney Houston and Anita Faker is still on the radio today but just recorded by different artists. You sure as hell won't hear something that sounds like "Sparkle" by Cameo or "There'll Never Be" by Switch being recorded by today's artists.

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[Edited 9/11/11 16:40pm]

vainandy said:

MickyDolenz said:

Yeah, music that came out two weeks ago is "old school" to today's audience.

I don't consider anything mainstream after 1990 as old school because it has to have a completely different sound to be considered old school. And as for slow songs, I only consider very few of them after 1985 as old school. Stuff like Shitney Houston and Anita Faker is still on the radio today but just recorded by different artists. You sure as hell won't hear something that sounds like "Sparkle" by Cameo or "There'll Never Be" by Switch being recorded by today's artists.

El did a Switch influenced song on his album from last year.

mjscarousal said:

Gunsnhalen said:

This is a very interetsing question cause you can never be sure, whether you like them or not artists like Rihanna will be remmebered in the 00's years when people think of music. The chick has gotten over 30 top 40 hits and while she is just a robot for her company she still has a ton of hits. And has collaborated quite a bit to. The White Stripes to me will be the rock heroes of the 00's generation along with possibly Queens Of The Stone Age & others who made great track's. I despise Nickelback to death, but Huey is right as much hate as they get they had hits.... and for all we know U Remind Me could grow to be the Don't Stop Believing of 2025. It gives me chills to think that but you never know!

Also i think artists like Pink, Lupe Fiasco & i'm putting Kanye in here to who offer more personal songs in there category and experimentation. Will be played years from now guarantee like them or not, I also don't care much for GaGa but denying her impact is silly there is no doubt some of her hits will get play years to come.

But i also wonder what hits will stay from which artists and which will become the lesser played? Elton John has 56 top 40 hits yet Rocket Man, Crocodile Rock, Candle In The Wind, Your Song, Tiny Dancer, I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues & Don't Let The Sun Go Down on me get the most play. When is the last time someone played club at the end of the street or border song?
Stevie Wonder has 33 top 10 hits but i only ever hear Superstition, My Cherie Amor, Sir Duke, I Just Called To Say I Love You, Uptight, For Once In My Life & occasionally Part Time Lover. When is the last time you heard Living For The City or Master Blaster on radio?

Now i am just speaking from personal experience of radio-play in my hometown in Texas to mu current home in Hollywood. Those are the only songs i hear from those artists...
So to me the biggest question is more of which hits will get the most play years to come?

Being remembered and calling something a song that will stand the test of time are TWO DIFFERENT things. Marvin Gayes Got to give it up is a classic that has stood the test of time and forever will.... there is NO artist well at least popular artist so far that has an entire catalogue of classics that has a run for it. Of course when people look back they will remember so and so was popular but that doesnt necessarily mean PEOPLE as in the PUBLIC will still be playing their music. Most pop music is only fads and dont stand the test of time unless your a pop artist like Michael Jackson who has generations of music.

Oh gosh another MJ comparison he is not the only pop star who ever lived and he wasn't the best. So i don't hold my hats high to him and say oh so & so will be remembered like MJ that is just silly.

Somebody across the street was playing a God awful song by Rihanna and it just made me sick to hear it. This chick CANNOT sing, I mean seriously---different talents of past generations could at least SING but this broad has the most flat, nasally sounding voice I have ever heard. She's just ridiculous and irritating and is an international star because she messes around with Jay-Z? Man, life ain't fair huh?

BobGeorge72 said:

Amy Winehouse (R.I.P.)

and Foo Fighters I believe surely will.

Hell yeah! plus Foo Fighters are the only really big hard rock band still killing it right now that i can think of....

Hopefully most of these artists will make it to 45 and beyond, will they still be willing to their songs when they're that age?

MickyDolenz said:

vainandy said:

I don't consider anything mainstream after 1990 as old school because it has to have a completely different sound to be considered old school. And as for slow songs, I only consider very few of them after 1985 as old school. Stuff like Shitney Houston and Anita Faker is still on the radio today but just recorded by different artists. You sure as hell won't hear something that sounds like "Sparkle" by Cameo or "There'll Never Be" by Switch being recorded by today's artists.

El did a Switch influenced song on his album from last year.

Yeah, stripped of all instruments except cheap fake sounding ones. I don't think I even heard the first drum or bass on the song and it's sung in that God awful style they sing in these days that sounds like a cross between rapping and singing with a thousand words in one verse.

It sounded like more of the same stuff that people are doing these days. In other words, it sounds like it was recorded in this day and age which is a sound that I can't stand. I want a 100% complete style change that doesn't have even a hint of the current sound. This is a depressing sounding era that is a result and influence of what has been released in the last 20 years that I wish would just change altogether and move on to a new era and completely forget about the sound of the last 20 years as if they didn't exist.

vainandy said:

sounds like a cross between rapping and singing with a thousand words in one verse.

That's not new.

[Edited 9/11/11 20:06pm]

MickyDolenz said:

vainandy said:

sounds like a cross between rapping and singing with a thousand words in one verse.

That's not new.

[Edited 9/11/11 20:06pm]

And was almost the entire music scene doing the same thing these guys were doing during that time and running it in the ground like people do today? No, they weren't. Most of today's artists can't do something on their own, they have to do what everyone else does and milk it for everything it is worth. I mean hell, not having a complete style change in 20 years is proof of that. 20 years is a long time. Just look back at the decades of the past. The 1970s sounded completely different from the 1950s. The 1980s sounded completely different from the 1960s. The 1990s sounded completely different from the 1970s. The 2010s sound only slightly different from the 1990s. These are not normal musical times these days. Music hasn't moved on and progressed in the last 20 years. It has just remained the same.

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[Edited 9/11/11 20:18pm]

TOOL

vainandy said:

Most of today's artists can't do something on their own, they have to do what everyone else does and milk it for everything it is worth.

That's how showbiz always worked. When vaudville was popular, many people performed a blackface act. When ragtime & jazz became popular, the labels started signing a lot of big bands. When Bing Crosby was popular, a bunch of other crooners came along. Then there were Doris Day style pop singers, blues, hillbilly, teen idols (Frankie Avalon & Fabian), Doo Wop, dance craze records, girl groups, Jan & Dean/Beach Boys surf rock, Beatle clones, psychedelia, bubblegum, singer-songwriter, prog, heavy metal, arena rock, disco, soft rock, hair rock, electrofunk, etc. A style becomes popular all of a sudden, the companies wear it out, then it goes on to the next thing.

MickyDolenz said:

vainandy said:

Most of today's artists can't do something on their own, they have to do what everyone else does and milk it for everything it is worth.

That's how showbiz always worked. When vaudville was popular, many people performed a blackface act. When ragtime & jazz became popular, the labels started signing a lot of big bands. When Bing Crosby was popular, a bunch of other crooners came along. Then there were Doris Day style pop singers, blues, hillbilly, teen idols (Frankie Avalon & Fabian), Doo Wop, dance craze records, girl groups, Jan & Dean/Beach Boys surf rock, Beatle clones, psychedelia, bubblegum, singer-songwriter, prog, heavy metal, arena rock, disco, soft rock, hair rock, electrofunk, etc. A style becomes popular all of a sudden, the companies wear it out, then it goes on to the next thing.

And when they were done to death, they moved on to other things. When is this generation going to move on? It's been 20 years. That's longer than any style dominating in my lifetime. Everything else changed within 5 or 10 years tops. This bullshit has dominated for 20 years and it's not like it's because it's something that's just so great that it won't go out of style. Hell, it's stripped of damn near all it's instruments and is the dullest form of music in music history. Seems to me that it's being kept alive because it's cheaper to make and because monopolies control things more nowadays. Nothing else can even get any airplay unless it fits their format so how can anything else come in and change things? It's impossible.

This isn't simply "business as usual" like in the past. Prince didn't fit R&B radio's format and he was allowed to come in and change things for the better for a little while. Shitney didn't fit R&B radio's format either when she first came out and she was able to change things for the worst. Shit hop didn't fit the format either and was allowed to come in and change things even more for the worst and they haven't changed in 20 years since. Well, when is something else going to be allowed to come in that doesn't fit their format. It was able to in the past so why not now?

vainandy said:

MickyDolenz said:

That's how showbiz always worked. When vaudville was popular, many people performed a blackface act. When ragtime & jazz became popular, the labels started signing a lot of big bands. When Bing Crosby was popular, a bunch of other crooners came along. Then there were Doris Day style pop singers, blues, hillbilly, teen idols (Frankie Avalon & Fabian), Doo Wop, dance craze records, girl groups, Jan & Dean/Beach Boys surf rock, Beatle clones, psychedelia, bubblegum, singer-songwriter, prog, heavy metal, arena rock, disco, soft rock, hair rock, electrofunk, etc. A style becomes popular all of a sudden, the companies wear it out, then it goes on to the next thing.

And when they were done to death, they moved on to other things. When is this generation going to move on? It's been 20 years. That's longer than any style dominating in my lifetime. Everything else changed within 5 or 10 years tops. This bullshit has dominated for 20 years and it's not like it's because it's something that's just so great that it won't go out of style. Hell, it's stripped of damn near all it's instruments and is the dullest form of music in music history. Seems to me that it's being kept alive because it's cheaper to make and because monopolies control things more nowadays. Nothing else can even get any airplay unless it fits their format so how can anything else come in and change things? It's impossible.

This isn't simply "business as usual" like in the past. Prince didn't fit R&B radio's format and he was allowed to come in and change things for the better for a little while. Shitney didn't fit R&B radio's format either when she first came out and she was able to change things for the worst. Shit hop didn't fit the format either and was allowed to come in and change things even more for the worst and they haven't changed in 20 years since. Well, when is something else going to be allowed to come in that doesn't fit their format. It was able to in the past so why not now?

Totally agree with you Vain---it's like they've put the same tired beats out there with just different "artists". Sometimes I hear people driving down the street playing certain "songs" and I honestly cannot tell the difference between the artists because they use the same tired techniques and programmed beats. There are no melodies or anything, it's just hooks about how "ghetto rich" everyone in their crew is....Vain's right, there hasn't been that evolution of sound in a very long time and it's gettin old...

vainandy said:

And when they were done to death, they moved on to other things. When is this generation going to move on? It's been 20 years. That's longer than any style dominating in my lifetime. Everything else changed within 5 or 10 years tops. This bullshit has dominated for 20 years and it's not like it's because it's something that's just so great that it won't go out of style. Hell, it's stripped of damn near all it's instruments and is the dullest form of music in music history. Seems to me that it's being kept alive because it's cheaper to make and because monopolies control things more nowadays. Nothing else can even get any airplay unless it fits their format so how can anything else come in and change things? It's impossible.

This isn't simply "business as usual" like in the past. Prince didn't fit R&B radio's format and he was allowed to come in and change things for the better for a little while. Shitney didn't fit R&B radio's format either when she first came out and she was able to change things for the worst. Shit hop didn't fit the format either and was allowed to come in and change things even more for the worst and they haven't changed in 20 years since. Well, when is something else going to be allowed to come in that doesn't fit their format. It was able to in the past so why not now?

Technology is one of the factors that killed music. Decades ago, young people didn't really have anything to do. There were no video games, texting, cell phones, DVD, internet, computers, etc. There were no sampling machines, drum machines, keyboards with sounds of other instruments in them, and so on. Some teens would learn to play an instrument and other would sing on the street corners. Some families had a piano, guitar, or other instrument in the house for entertainment, which is not as common today. What's the incentive for learning an instrument today, when it's easy to get some software like Reason which requires no actual instrument and make music. When I was going to school, they had music class, many schools don't have that today. Kids today also have way more extra curricular activities than kids decades ago. Many performers before the 1970's didn't even finish high school (which is part of the reason they got ripped off so bad by the record companies), so didn't have much else they could do as far as getting a job, especially for non-whites in the US. When Bobby Bland first started performing, he didn't know how to read. There was also a social difference. Look at The Beatles, Billie Holiday, The Jackson 5, and other acts. They started out as teens and pre-teens performing in bars and strip joints. That won't fly today. The clubs are more policed now and the parents would probably get their children taken away by CPS. Most acts played in bars or the chitlin circuit for years before getting "discovered", often doing 2-6 shows a day for 6-7 days a week. So they got their playing/singing up by default and this also helped them to develop their sound. Some old singers got their start singing in the church, blues singers started singing and/or playing while they were picking cotton in the fields. James Brown & B.B. King sang on the street corners for change. Many of these things are different today. The media back then was also different, news programs rarely if ever mentioned celebrities and gossip like now. The average act wasn't written about, so no one knew anything about them, or cared for that matter. In some cases not many people knew what the acts looked like, unless they happened to be on Ed Sullivan or something. So most of the audience only heard the music on the radio, and what they looked like wasn't as important.

[Edited 9/11/11 22:38pm]

They will keep Britney, Christina and Justin alive. Rihanna has 9 #1's they will use that to continue promoting her. Beyonce anfd Jay Z aren't going anywhere, neither are songs from Bruno, Alicia, Usher, Amy

MickyDolenz said:

vainandy said:

And when they were done to death, they moved on to other things. When is this generation going to move on? It's been 20 years. That's longer than any style dominating in my lifetime. Everything else changed within 5 or 10 years tops. This bullshit has dominated for 20 years and it's not like it's because it's something that's just so great that it won't go out of style. Hell, it's stripped of damn near all it's instruments and is the dullest form of music in music history. Seems to me that it's being kept alive because it's cheaper to make and because monopolies control things more nowadays. Nothing else can even get any airplay unless it fits their format so how can anything else come in and change things? It's impossible.

This isn't simply "business as usual" like in the past. Prince didn't fit R&B radio's format and he was allowed to come in and change things for the better for a little while. Shitney didn't fit R&B radio's format either when she first came out and she was able to change things for the worst. Shit hop didn't fit the format either and was allowed to come in and change things even more for the worst and they haven't changed in 20 years since. Well, when is something else going to be allowed to come in that doesn't fit their format. It was able to in the past so why not now?

Technology is one of the factors that killed music. Decades ago, young people didn't really have anything to do. There were no video games, texting, cell phones, DVD, internet, computers, etc. There were no sampling machines, drum machines, keyboards with sounds of other instruments in them, and so on. Some teens would learn to play an instrument and other would sing on the street corners. Some families had a piano, guitar, or other instrument in the house for entertainment, which is not as common today. What's the incentive for learning an instrument today, when it's easy to get some software like Reason which requires no actual instrument and make music. When I was going to school, they had music class, many schools don't have that today. Kids today also have way more extra curricular activities than kids decades ago. Many performers before the 1970's didn't even finish high school (which is part of the reason they got ripped off so bad by the record companies), so didn't have much else they could do as far as getting a job, especially for non-whites in the US. When Bobby Bland first started performing, he didn't know how to read. There was also a social difference. Look at The Beatles, Billie Holiday, The Jackson 5, and other acts. They started out as teens and pre-teens performing in bars and strip joints. That won't fly today. The clubs are more policed now and the parents would probably get their children taken away by CPS. Most acts played in bars or the chitlin circuit for years before getting "discovered", often doing 2-6 shows a day for 6-7 days a week. So they got their playing/singing up by default and this also helped them to develop their sound. Some old singers got their start singing in the church, blues singers started singing and/or playing while they were picking cotton in the fields. James Brown & B.B. King sang on the street corners for change. Many of these things are different today. The media back then was also different, news programs rarely if ever mentioned celebrities and gossip like now. The average act wasn't written about, so no one knew anything about them, or cared for that matter. In some cases not many people knew what the acts looked like, unless they happened to be on Ed Sullivan or something. So most of the audience only heard the music on the radio, and what they looked like wasn't as important.

[Edited 9/11/11 22:38pm]

That's so weird to hear, cause I was a kid of the 80's and 90's and we had musical instruments at home and a keyboard or two. But I do agree that in comparison to most pre-generation X born performers if not all, this generation is lazy with music.

MickyDolenz said:

vainandy said:

And when they were done to death, they moved on to other things. When is this generation going to move on? It's been 20 years. That's longer than any style dominating in my lifetime. Everything else changed within 5 or 10 years tops. This bullshit has dominated for 20 years and it's not like it's because it's something that's just so great that it won't go out of style. Hell, it's stripped of damn near all it's instruments and is the dullest form of music in music history. Seems to me that it's being kept alive because it's cheaper to make and because monopolies control things more nowadays. Nothing else can even get any airplay unless it fits their format so how can anything else come in and change things? It's impossible.

This isn't simply "business as usual" like in the past. Prince didn't fit R&B radio's format and he was allowed to come in and change things for the better for a little while. Shitney didn't fit R&B radio's format either when she first came out and she was able to change things for the worst. Shit hop didn't fit the format either and was allowed to come in and change things even more for the worst and they haven't changed in 20 years since. Well, when is something else going to be allowed to come in that doesn't fit their format. It was able to in the past so why not now?

Technology is one of the factors that killed music. Decades ago, young people didn't really have anything to do. There were no video games, texting, cell phones, DVD, internet, computers, etc. There were no sampling machines, drum machines, keyboards with sounds of other instruments in them, and so on. Some teens would learn to play an instrument and other would sing on the street corners. Some families had a piano, guitar, or other instrument in the house for entertainment, which is not as common today. What's the incentive for learning an instrument today, when it's easy to get some software like Reason which requires no actual instrument and make music. When I was going to school, they had music class, many schools don't have that today. Kids today also have way more extra curricular activities than kids decades ago. Many performers before the 1970's didn't even finish high school (which is part of the reason they got ripped off so bad by the record companies), so didn't have much else they could do as far as getting a job, especially for non-whites in the US. When Bobby Bland first started performing, he didn't know how to read. There was also a social difference. Look at The Beatles, Billie Holiday, The Jackson 5, and other acts. They started out as teens and pre-teens performing in bars and strip joints. That won't fly today. The clubs are more policed now and the parents would probably get their children taken away by CPS. Most acts played in bars or the chitlin circuit for years before getting "discovered", often doing 2-6 shows a day for 6-7 days a week. So they got their playing/singing up by default and this also helped them to develop their sound. Some old singers got their start singing in the church, blues singers started singing and/or playing while they were picking cotton in the fields. James Brown & B.B. King sang on the street corners for change. Many of these things are different today. The media back then was also different, news programs rarely if ever mentioned celebrities and gossip like now. The average act wasn't written about, so no one knew anything about them, or cared for that matter. In some cases not many people knew what the acts looked like, unless they happened to be on Ed Sullivan or something. So most of the audience only heard the music on the radio, and what they looked like wasn't as important.

[Edited 9/11/11 22:38pm]

So monopolized radio and labels had absolutely nothing to do with it? When acts that had been around since the 1960s such as Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, The Isley Brothers, The Chi-Lites, The Temptations, The Four Tops, etc. had new releases in the 1980s, R&B radio welcomed them with open arms and gave them massive airplay just like the new artists at that time and many of them went on to continue to have big hits during the 1980s. R&B radio was also open to the different styles that were evolving such as artists like Newcleus, The Jonzun Crew, who had a more futuristic outer space type sound, Shannon, who had a sound like nothing else at the time, folks like Trouble Funk with a Go-Go sound, etc.

When the 1990s got settled in and adult contemporary and shit hop had completely taken over, all that ended. Cameo, The Barkays, and War all had a funk album in the 1990s and received little or no airplay whatsoever. Prince was still around but once the 1990s got fully kicked off, the only songs of his they would play would be the ballads such as "I Hate U" or "The Most Beautiful Girl In The World". You could forget about hearing a funk jam such as "319" or a dance track "The Human Body". And there were tons of black house/dance acts in the underground scene of the mid 1990s that R&B stations of the past would have embraced but not R&B stations of the 1990s. By around 1994 or so, damn near all black dance acts were practically banned from R&B radio and there were still plenty of them out there at the time. I think that may be why a lot of blacks abandoned the dance/house scene altogether and let it get taken over by whites who turned it into acid or trance because the only place they could get any recognition at all was in clubs, and by this time, strictly gay clubs only, and there's not much money to be made there at all. R&B radio by that time had only two forms of music they would play and nothing else got in. It was either adult contemporary type ballads, or slow to midtempo stripped down shit hop. It has been that way ever since and hasn't changed at all. I have tons and tons of black dance jams from the mid 1990s that should have been on the radio but never was. When the 2000s came along, I finally just gave up, said "fuck it", and took all current stations off my dial because it was apparent they weren't going to let anything change. Actually, I took current R&B stations off my dial in 1997 and took current pop stations off my dial three years later in 2000 when the shit hop seemed to be taking over pop radio also.

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[Edited 9/11/11 23:07pm]

Maybe this was just in Canada, but acts like Corona, Crystal Waters and La Bouche WERE on the radio...but it was pop radio, not r&b. Others I recall were Culture Shock, Captain Hollywood and Max A Million

[Edited 9/11/11 23:38pm]

alphastreet said:

Maybe this was just in Canada, but acts like Corona, Crystal Waters and La Bouche WERE on the radio...but it was pop radio, not r&b. Others I recall were Culture Shock, Captain Hollywood and Max A Million

[Edited 9/11/11 23:38pm]

Some of those were on pop radio. Crystal Waters earlier songs such as "Gypsy Woman" and "Makin' Happy" was on pop radio also. Crystal Waters "100% Pure Love" was one of the last dance songs played on R&B radio. Actually, I can practically list all the dance songs that were played on R&B radio....

Crystal Waters - 100% Pure Love

Jomanda - Got A Love For You

Cee Cee Peniston - Finally

M People - Movin' On Up (A few rare times that I can count on one hand)

Black Box - Everybody Everybody and Strike It Up

C & C Music Factory - Everybody Dance Now

That's about it and that was during the early 1990s, when the 1990s got fully kicked in, all that stopped. The funny thing is, pop radio played tons of black dance stuff, especially on Saturday nights. It was kinda like role reversal there for a little while. White stations had gotten more rhythm than they ever had before and black stations were losing every bit of their rhythm.

Dance music on Fri and Sat nights in the mid 90's on pop radio was awesome when they mixed that with freestyle, remixes of current hits and medleys, those were fun times! What you're saying does sound weird of them cause you would never guess that (I'm certain of it though I wasn't alive) in the second half of the 70's, disco/dance songs by black artists must have been all over black/urban formats then, and not in the 90's. The most that happened in the 90's was that those 70's and 80's hits were slowed down to mid tempo and sampled by hip hop/rap artists and r&b artists having beats similar to those times but slowed down.

[Edited 9/11/11 23:59pm]

MickyDolenz said:

vainandy said:

I think enough time has passed to predict how their music will be seen in the future.

Yeah, music that came out two weeks ago is "old school" to today's audience.

I thought it was "throwback" music?

MickyDolenz said:

vainandy said:

And when they were done to death, they moved on to other things. When is this generation going to move on? It's been 20 years. That's longer than any style dominating in my lifetime. Everything else changed within 5 or 10 years tops. This bullshit has dominated for 20 years and it's not like it's because it's something that's just so great that it won't go out of style. Hell, it's stripped of damn near all it's instruments and is the dullest form of music in music history. Seems to me that it's being kept alive because it's cheaper to make and because monopolies control things more nowadays. Nothing else can even get any airplay unless it fits their format so how can anything else come in and change things? It's impossible.

This isn't simply "business as usual" like in the past. Prince didn't fit R&B radio's format and he was allowed to come in and change things for the better for a little while. Shitney didn't fit R&B radio's format either when she first came out and she was able to change things for the worst. Shit hop didn't fit the format either and was allowed to come in and change things even more for the worst and they haven't changed in 20 years since. Well, when is something else going to be allowed to come in that doesn't fit their format. It was able to in the past so why not now?

Technology is one of the factors that killed music. Decades ago, young people didn't really have anything to do. There were no video games, texting, cell phones, DVD, internet, computers, etc. There were no sampling machines, drum machines, keyboards with sounds of other instruments in them, and so on. Some teens would learn to play an instrument and other would sing on the street corners. Some families had a piano, guitar, or other instrument in the house for entertainment, which is not as common today. What's the incentive for learning an instrument today, when it's easy to get some software like Reason which requires no actual instrument and make music. When I was going to school, they had music class, many schools don't have that today. Kids today also have way more extra curricular activities than kids decades ago. Many performers before the 1970's didn't even finish high school (which is part of the reason they got ripped off so bad by the record companies), so didn't have much else they could do as far as getting a job, especially for non-whites in the US. When Bobby Bland first started performing, he didn't know how to read. There was also a social difference. Look at The Beatles, Billie Holiday, The Jackson 5, and other acts. They started out as teens and pre-teens performing in bars and strip joints. That won't fly today. The clubs are more policed now and the parents would probably get their children taken away by CPS. Most acts played in bars or the chitlin circuit for years before getting "discovered", often doing 2-6 shows a day for 6-7 days a week. So they got their playing/singing up by default and this also helped them to develop their sound. Some old singers got their start singing in the church, blues singers started singing and/or playing while they were picking cotton in the fields. James Brown & B.B. King sang on the street corners for change. Many of these things are different today. The media back then was also different, news programs rarely if ever mentioned celebrities and gossip like now. The average act wasn't written about, so no one knew anything about them, or cared for that matter. In some cases not many people knew what the acts looked like, unless they happened to be on Ed Sullivan or something. So most of the audience only heard the music on the radio, and what they looked like wasn't as important.

[Edited 9/11/11 22:38pm]

Very good point, Mick---seems like technology is making people lazier by the minute. It seems like if everything isn't instant than people get annoyed and feel like the world is coming to an end because they have to wait a few extra minutes at the grocery store before being checked out or wait a few minutes at a traffic light (rather than risking your life and the lives of others running red lights) because you're too impatient. It seems like things are too easy and convenient to get (except jobs of course) and when things don't require much effort there's just zero appreciation for it. I'm not totally against the use of synthesizers but it seems like they are just programming the same crap over and over again and it sounds terrible. To add insult to injury, people like Rihanna who have zero vocal ability and can't dance her way out of a paper bag will have her "music" played a long time from now but she's is one of the most untalented pop artists that has been on the scene that I can recall...I think her story epitomizes everything wrong with music today.

In a word..........kNOw.

The ONLY one's I'll be paying any attention 2:

D'Angelo

Maxwell

Badu

Jill Scott

Monae

India Arie

Rahsaan Patterson

Tonex/B. Slade

OutKast

Darien Brockington

Its so funny how simple minded people think. They think just because something is popular now its going to still be popular or playing 50 years later..... CLASSICS get played years to come not fast food music idiots...

Graycap23 said:

In a word..........kNOw.

The ONLY one's I'll be paying any attention 2:

D'Angelo

Maxwell

Badu

Jill Scott

Monae

India Arie

Rahsaan Patterson

Tonex/B. Slade

OutKast

Darien Brockington

I can see all of the people on your list except India.Arie. She is one of those artists that I like, but hardly feel the need to listen to her music.

daPrettyman said:

Graycap23 said:

In a word..........kNOw.

The ONLY one's I'll be paying any attention 2:

D'Angelo

Maxwell

Badu

Jill Scott

Monae

India Arie

Rahsaan Patterson

Tonex/B. Slade

OutKast

Darien Brockington

I can see all of the people on your list except India.Arie. She is one of those artists that I like, but hardly feel the need to listen to her music.

Good point on India......