Agree? I have all the music I want for the rest of my life. No need to hear anything new.

Look, I love The Beatles and I love the Allmans. Great bands with amazing musicianship, evolving paths and bla, bla. We are all a big family in this, really.

The Beatles, we shouldn't even mention them because they were something very unique. For some reason they managed to be the most massive *and* the most critically revered act of their era, or any era for that matter. This is very hard, I'd say impossible to replicate in the current climate, where the media named "music" is completely scattered and just understanding how successful is an album can be difficult.

Kanye West and all. They are today's pop music, and it's not by chance that Kanye wanted to work with Paul McCartney, right? I mean, it's like a message to his crowd, "I'm up there" and all that. Kids dig this stuff, they dig Beyoncé exactly like kids in 1963 were breaking their piggybanks to buy *that* album. Can I say Kanye West is as great as the Beatles? Not sure, especially because his career is not over while the Beatles are the most canonized band in history. But for sure he's one who's shaping the sound of today. And the "sound of today" is something that's also made by playlists more than albums, by countless underground acts that spend years and years just releasing singles or EPs before even getting their first albums. If ever. Saying it's worse or better than the past it's a matter of perception more than objectivity.

The landscape has changed, completely. Albums are less important and it's not easy to come up with comparisons. What is easy, too much for my taste, is to say that Chopin or Mozart or The Beach Boys are better than anything today. That stuff has been endlessly studied, dissected, analyzed. Current music has changed, it requires a different form of attention and it moves in different directions compared to, say, the 60s or the Baroque Era. Even the question of "musicianship" is a whole different concept today, in the era of songs made by teams of 30 people. Obviously, Beethoven could play an astonishing number of instruments and was a genius from head to toe but, are we sure DJ Shadow isn't? I don't think it's easy to create a entire album out of samples taken out of hundreds of rare vinyl grooves.

Having said that, yes, I think that To Pimp a Butterfly is as important as any rock album of the past, it's this era's Sgt. Pepper. Am I a fool? Only time will tell, the same that was needed to classicize and propel the greats to, well, their canon.

 

I disagree there's. Always new good music out there

 

I've heard To Pimp A Butterfly, and I can definitely say it's a work of immense talent and passion. And I'm not even a hip hop fan.

Definitely on par with many acclaimed albums of the past imo.

 

Great post.

 

I discovered Nick Drake via "Bryter Layter" which I bought at a pawn shop for a buck in 1999. One of my favourite albums now. I like Nick Drake very much.
His stuff is timeless.
Many of my points in this thread that I've tried to make intelligently, have gone misunderstood.
I'm not saying it's wrong for anyone to discover great music from the past and love it as much as anyone, any age.
I've done that with "hard bop" Jazz (and I wasn't around hearing it between 1954 and 1959...)
I just don't care for "younger" artists or bands anymore because I find for the most part, they play in a style I've already heard before and it's just not for me.

My apologies for offending just about everyone here; ...and please, enjoy whatever music you like from Tame Impala to Frank Zappa.

No more judgements from me; I'm secure in my position and I know what I like. However, anyone who thinks I'm stuck in the past musically, doesn't know me at all. I'm always discovering something "new to me" and enjoying it so I don't have to keep listening to the same old tired out classic rock that gets rammed down our throats here thanks to Q107 (the most unimaginative radio station on the planet)

What kills me here is that someone asks for a list of musicians as groundbreaking and important (and good) as past proven greats...and we get a list that includes Kendrick Lamar, Skrillex, Tuneyards, D'Angelo...and then the same person says they like songs by Justin Bieber and Meghan Trainor?; Sorry, in the words of Noel Gallagher "I'm not havin' it"...

Over and out y'all...

(and by the way, Purple Jim has made some of the most intelligent and sensible posts in this entire thread)

 

I've the urge to search for the "new" since 78. It's never stopped and I've always had to sift through a lot of dreck. I've rarely like much that got radio air play, or that my friends liked, so I always had to buy stuff to see if I liked it. Now days, weeding through the dreck is easy. Even 30 second samples will eliminate a lot of the worst, YouTube, Spotify, Bandcamp, Apple Music, Tidal, Hoopla, etc, can do it for most of the rest. If an album is not available to stream, or only one track, I hesitate buying it. There's plenty that I've checked out that I want to buy.

"New" does not only mean current for me, although that's a large part of it. I've always dabbled in jazz but over the past 10 years have more than dabbled. There's 90 years of jazz to explore and I have been. Reggae is another genre that I just skimmed the surface of in the past. Because of the Crucial Reggae thread, I've bought 50 plus albums over the past year and a half.

 

I can sort of agree with this but with a twist where I'm discovering "new" great music I have never heard by going back to 50's or even earlier rather than in current music (enough to spend the rest of my life exploring without getting bored).

 

Hi I'm back, for better or worse.

To answer the question you've asked, it's possible but I really doubt it. Since last night though, it has occurred to me that Martina McBride's output from 1992 through 2006 would certainly qualify her as one of the "True Greats", and not just in the Country Music category. Hardly an unknown artist, well established in both Pop and Country, and did not even begin her career with a recording contract until 1991.

It's only one example, and not intended to hold the lovely Ms. McBride up as the sole savior of contemporary music. But it does bring the timeline up to 2006 or even later if you appreciate her albums after "Timeless". It could (and probably will) be argued that her output during those years has not been that innovative, but hasn't it been? There's a lot of history behind her unconventional vocal style and choice of bandmates that may suggest otherwise.

Again, not meaning for this to be the sole counterpoint to what you've been writing, but it's a good counterpoint, I think, and one example to start with. And yes, I would place her work up there with the great artists you've mentioned.

 

That's exactly what I do.
Re-explore the work of Van Morrison, P J Harvey, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Uncle Tupelo, over-looked Dylan 'gems', older Jazz, older Folk, some Classical here and there.
Digging deep and discovering something new does not mean you have to listen to a current 22 year old to do it.

 

Thanks. I'll check her out!

 

Slick,well painted, Frank was more interesting.

 

Well, I agree with you there - one doesn't have to do that. One doesn't have to listen to new (for them) music at all, if they don't want to.

However, there's absolutely nothing wrong with listening to and enjoying a current 22 year old either. I wonder if you have to go into Wikipedia when you hear something you like, to find out the age of the artist in question first - I honestly have no idea of the age of some of the modern artists I love...as far as I know, they could be older than I am.

 

It is fun to learn about artist you love. I had no idea MF Doom had been active since the early 90s. Or that he was technically British.

 

The day I hear a young musician or artist that I think is as good as (or that I like as much as) Jack White or Josh Homme (Queens Of The Stone Age), I'll let everyone know. I keep listening but I'm not hearing it.
I don't care for Rap or Hip/Hop; I also don't care for radio friendly Pop music that is currently all over the airwaves. I don't like Dance music either. It's not for me and it's not my style.
No wonder I don't hear anything new by young artists that I don't like anymore...
Maybe all this explains a lot....
Anyway, To each their own (and honestly, I've never meant it more!)

 

Cool! If it's any help, I began delving into her body of work with just "Greatest Hits" and "Martina", and worked backwards from there. It's all I needed to make a great start.

 

No hip-hop? OK, that explains a few things then. What about the various forms of EDM?

 

Using "new" music in quotes is a great idea, because like you said, it's always new to the person hearing it for the first time.
Great music transcends time and place, and also represents a specific time and place. that's one of the things that makes it great.

 

I felt like a bit of a goober when I realized that Madlib was only a few years younger than I am, and has been active since the early 1990s.

 

Just two illustrators, take your pick.

 

Dali an "illustrator"? Yeah, like that Michelangelo geezer.

 

I know it might be lowbrow but I like Frank Frazetta. It helps to make the point about subjectivity, though, and a good analogy when discussing pop music and the sacred cows of the classic rock era.

 

I love Frank Frazetta's work but one can hardly compare his commercial art to the works of art's greatest painters. Ooops, I forgot, there are no "greats" are there. It's all down to personal choice isn't it. Everything is awesome!

 

It's a mind bending experience to read this thread. Being new to this forum (but being aware of it for years but incorrectly thinking it was almost exclusively geared to audio/sound/etc.) I have been exposed to many learned listeners interested in much more popular forms of music than what I've been most primarily interested in for the last 25 years. The exceptions being the music I grew up with, certain late 80's through now bands (Husker Du, Replacements through my passion for most Sonic Youth and lots of others in between), and The Grateful Dead.

But my passion is jazz/free jazz/free improvisation and related musics with my prevailing focus on the present and recent past.

So the recordings and musicians/bands that for me are the best - I often see live in audiences of 20 to up to a couple of hundred.

So the reality for me is audience factor and volume of listeners/popularity has no bearing on what is great or not.

I find the mind-set here fascinating and refreshing although it is anti-ethical to my perspective. For me to quote an album title from a very unknown (to these parts) band, the long standing group/band that has been playing, performing and recording for some 45 years, the Schlippenbach Trio's "Gold is Where You Find It"

FYI - Schlippenbach Trio is Alexander Von Schlippenbach on piano, Evan Parker on soprano and/or Tenor saxophone and Paul Lovens on drums (and assorted cymbals)


I discovered jazz @ 31, free jazz in my mid 30's and was all into ALL of It by 40. Saw the best concerts I've ever seen since 1998 or so - the best probably The Brotzmann Tentet twice maybe 1999 and 2002 - and a selection of 5 or 10 out of the 25-35 shows a year I've attended the last 6-7 years.

More exciting than YES twice late 70's, better than Crimson at Orpheum Discipline tour. Better than Genesis Duke tour

Granted - I missed Little Feat with Lowell, just missed late Zeppelin, Floyd and never saw Crimson 74 and only saw the Dead once when they were still The Dead 5/11/79)

But I know last Saturday night in a little place, I saw the real deal and for me it's like seeing the bands I loved in 1977.

Get Ready to Receive Yourself

 

Mick was an artist, a supreme artist Dali was something else.
Some would say a commercial fraud.