The Best Era Ever for New Music is... Right Now.

All a matter of opinion. On the other side, there are those who think you are 100% incorrect. I, for one, am always ready for something new- but just as I have stated in the past:

IMHO, there are some good things being released today. However, if I never hear them again, it will make no impact on my life whatsoever. Can't say the same for the music I already love.

And that opinion, is just as valid as anything.

 

Actually, I don't really read any musical press these days; don't need to. I've never looked at Pitchfork, unless a Google hyperlink led me there. The fact that I assume I must, is very telling.

All of my new discoveries are recommendations from either my own exploration, interactive "similar artists" tools, or from recommendations from people I know and respect. The only "press" I use with any regularity is allmusic.com, and even then, it's mostly to determine where to jump in when I want to check out an artist or genre with which I have no familiarity.

 

I can't speak for the OP, but for me that's not the case. At least in that I necessarily agree with their choices - but of course that these artists are advertised over others is something that will always be a factor.

Example: St. Vincent. I know she's a real Indie media darling and even gets raves on this forum. But for whatever reason I don't feel the connection. I have one album from her that's not too bad, but I sampled her newer stuff and if I don't really like them so I moved on. The only difference being that I actually can try-before-I-buy. You couldn't really do that 30 years ago unless your friend had the album or the radio played the whole album during some special weekend.

But of course I still know who she is. So Pitchfork or Stereogum or this forum - somehow she dropped onto my radar at some point. There will always be music marketing of some kind, there's really no avoiding it. I just like the fact that ultimately the end decision falls on me as to what I want to buy.

 

this argument will be repeated on this forum again and again and we'll just go 'round and 'round. but here's the deal....most of us are ALREADY LOST. yes, i get excited by new music all the time, and i find much new music that i enjoy every bit as much as the "classics". but i already have a sense of history from listening to music for my whole life (i'm 40). the real excitement is in the kid who is just realizing how powerful music can be. to that kid, a ty segall or parquet courts song is just as powerful, if not more so, than a beatles or rolling stones track. just like when i was a kid, a faith no more or pixies song meant more to me than a pink floyd or black sabbath song. the new music discoverer isn't burdened with history, and doesn't have to worry about artists being "derivative" or "not breaking new ground". if it's good music, it sticks with that kid.

i miss that feeling more than anything.

 

st vincent is best enjoyed live. i've seen a few webcasts of her and they're really enjoyable. but i'd never buy one of her records.

 

Hardly "common sense". The OP clearly sees the world as his way/everyone else. Who is he to say music "is not as important to you as it is to [him]" just because he -- apparently -- is never satisfied with the music he knows and must continually look for more. An argument can just as easily be made that he has a problem, not "common sense". The absolutist statements consistently exhibited by the OP combined with his defense of the groups in his original post -- who, without debate I believe, are simply not very well known despite the OP's belief they have strong followings -- continues to smack of defensiveness at not having his (subjective) musical priorities recognized by this group and the rest of the world.

In other words, just be happy for what you have.

Oh, and the 1970's were the best music era EVER (plus the Beatles!).

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

How can I like this about 100 times?

 

I've never got the appeal of St. Vincent either. Glad to know I'm not the only one around here.

 

Just the fact that someone feels the need for such a thread speaks volumes (pun intended). I do believe thou pretest too much…or something like that.

 

I know her via her collaboration with David Byrne, which is the other way I discover artists. I was introduced to Pomplamoose via an obscure Ben Folds B-side, which in turn led me to a slew of other new artists, and an undiscovered genre.

It all comes down to
intellectual curiosity; some people have it, others don't.

 

Though it's rather refreshing to get this argument from the other side for a change--a rarity for this forum--these kinds of biased, absolutist pronouncements seem just as misguided as those that we continually hear from the "classic rock first, last and always" crowd. Though I do generally consider open mindedness to be a virtue, in the end, we all like what we like and taking pride in one's subjective preferences seems foolish and myopic to me.

There is no best era for music, though there are certainly peaks and valleys for different genres over time. There's great music in every era if one has the disposition to be open to it.

 

Because of the internet, it's an absolutely amazing era for music, but it's not the access to new music that impresses me (although that's definitely something) - what's truly wonderful is how easy it is for young kids to discover older music. When I was young in the 70's, I would have no access to music from the 1920's; but for today's kids, Nat King Cole is a click away. And, from what I can see of my daughters, there is genuine interest - it's a joy to see. Young kids checking out Sinatra and being blown away by how much better it is than Maroon 5. I love it. This is a wonderful exchange, copied straight from the comments section of Sinatra's "The Way You Look Tonight" - they are trying to figure out what kind of music it is. There's a great response "On my phone it says "vocal" so I guess it's "vocal"?

Inoma Callain
2 months ago

So would this type of genre be considered jazz, or is there a special name for it?

Ryan-Michael Graycochea
2 months ago

It's sort of like Swing. The Rat Pack didn't really have a specified genre.
Reply
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Inoma Callain
2 months ago

Er, I'm sorry. I'm quite new to this music type. What do you mean by 'The Rat Pack' if you don't mind me asking?

Aaron Vasquez
2 months ago

Fairly positive they were Lounge, like for sure. The Rat pack was the group Sinatra was apart of.



Inoma Callain
2 months ago

So the music type is called Lounge?

xaris walker
2 months ago

+Inoma Callain It's Frank Sinatra type

Rodrigo Olvera
2 months ago

Vocal Jazz

Ryan-Michael Graycochea
2 months ago

The Rat Pack wasn't a group like a band. It was more like a title given to the group of musicians like Sinatra, Martin, or Sammy Davis Jr. by the media since they didn't have a concrete genre back then. I'd agree with Lounge or Vocal Jazz. If you use Rat Pack, it'll give instant recognition to anyone who knows Deano or Frankie.

Marko Medić
1 month ago

+Inoma Callain Lounge is for lazy people....

fatboy1333
1 month ago

+Inoma Callain

The Rat Pack was a Group of Entertainers that basically Ran Las Vegas between the late 40's and early 60's. Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop. They had the women, booze, money, talent, and friends. They were the Top of the performing World and they could play and sell out any room they wanted. This style of music is Big Band Crooning, for lack of a better term.

sethell2
1 month ago

Its called big band music too

SurpriseGuest1
1 month ago

I think they called it.....Swing!

samme79
1 month ago

I thought it was traditional pop but anyway jazz and swing is fine

Caleb Rowold
1 month ago

Early Jazz or Swing

lebarosky
1 month ago

I think the best way to describe this music is that it was made at the time that jazz, for one brief shining moment, was America's popular music. Mostly it was made by big bands, and Frank fronted the best of them. Also the arrangement is brilliant. But, yes, this is jazz.

Johnny Del
1 month ago

Jazz, swing, big band, any one of the three or a combination of them all would be correct.

Aidan Santistevan
1 month ago

On my phone it says Vocal, so I guess Vocal...?

Johndude
1 month ago

Big band would be my answer.

semaanfarah
1 month ago

Swing is usually a faster count than Frank or Dean. But calling this a form of swing wouldn't be wrong

Johndude
1 month ago

+semaanfarah I think swing is more what Glenn Miller did.

Steve Andrews
4 weeks ago

It was considered pop when it was recored. But now Big Band music, or maybe Jazz?

Johndude
4 weeks ago

Did they use the term "pop music" back then?

Arthur Harrison
3 days ago

This is in the genre of "Great Music."

Dion Sanchez
3 days ago

Swing?

 

I really dug her record "Actor", and to a lesser extent "Strange Mercy", but since then she's really bought into her own hype.

 

well, to be fair, ebola is better than maroon 5.

 

That's just utter nonsense.

 

Morgan Delt, Wand, Goat, Black Angels to name just a few bands releasing mindblowing albums this year... there's something happening here but etc

 

I actually saw a comment referring to the Maroon 5 version so i listened to it - it wasn't very good. I saw Maroon 5 perform at the Singapore Grand Prix two years ago, and they were great - "Moves Like Jagger" was their encore.

 

I can't agree more. There was a great scene where I grew up with a lot of mostly punk/indie bands. That really got me into music for the first time. I had already been into music, the stuff my parents liked (zeppelin, beatles) and stuff like nirvana but I was only like 10 when kurt kobain died. So when I found these local bands, most of them around my age or a few years older it blew my mind. There was a scene that was built by these people and we felt like we were gonna continue building it, which is what we did. Most of these bands made no money at all, maybe they released a 7" or 2 and played shows on the weekend. They did it for the love of music, to do something and have fun. They weren't necessarily creating some new form of music. But who cares it was a great time. And I am forever in debt to them.

Hopefully this kind of thing still exists for all the kids out there

 

Well, I don't necessarily agree with the intellectual curiosity stance. I seem to be much like you where I do feel the need to listen to new music and explore. I sample new releases almost weekly for example, as time permits. Or I'll do exactly what you described where I might find an artist through another artist.

But am I better off than some of the posters here who cannot find anything positive with new music? That's up to the person, I would think. I'd probably go nuts having to listen to the same music over and over again for years and years. But someone could easily say the same thing about listening to new music constantly like I do. It's really all relative.

As long as no one criticizes me for not listening to Zeppelin over someone like Madlib for example, then it doesn't bother me.

 

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

 

He sounds so proud.

I've got tickets to see St. Vincent at the "Hostess Weekender" in Tokyo next February, where she's a headliner with Belle & Sebastian and Tune-Yards (yikes). But, so what? I don't for a second think that makes me more "intellectually curious" than music fans who are interested in hearing archival Stones live shows, or hearing the new Dylan Basement Tapes, or those who are just being exposed to the stories of the old Southern bluesmen, or are hearing Harry Smith's American Folk Music Anthologies for the first time, or learning about the shocking original lyrics of Stephen Foster, or starting to understand Miles' Bitches Brew, or who prefer sitting in a vault at the University of Tokyo, studying ancient Japanese Noh musical dramas. The person fascinated enough by classical Japanese musical dramas to spend his life studying them, won't know who David Byrne is - but it doesn't mean he is not intellectually curious.

I understand the excitement you feel when discovering new music. I feel the same way (not as often these days, but I still have those moments). But I think it's a bit unfair to say people lack intellectual curiosity because they don't have the same interest in new music - it's a bit insulting.

 

I'm 55 and my taste in music is constantly evolving. I'm listening to some avant-garde stuff now that I doubt I would have been able to stand 5 years ago. I figure I'll be discovering new music that is nothing like anything I've heard before until the day I die. Conversely, I rarely listen to anything I listened to before I went away to college. Last time I looked in my iTunes library, it was 5 years since I listened to the Beatles, my favorite band as a teenager.

I agree with the OP that for a consumer of currently produced music, this is a great time, if not the best time in my life time. There's so much available and it's so easy to wade though it and find great stuff. It was a lot more work in the past. People mention DJs doing the weeding for them in the past. All I can say is that wasn't my experience. Other than 2 years away at college, most of what I heard on the radio was crap.

With the ease of sampling though steaming services, youtube, label and artist sites, etc, my purchases of new music have goon way up in the past few years. I've purchased over 60 non classical new releases this year, 75% of which are bands that haven't been around for 10 years. I've also purchased 50 or so classical albums of premiere recordings of recent compositions that are fantastic.

Since the mid-80s, I've had the money to buy as much music as I like. What always held me back from buying more was that I ended up buying too much I didn't like because there was no way to try before you buy. Pretty much the only way I found out about new music in the 90s and early 2000s was listening stations at record stores.

 

LOL, no song from Journey, Van Halen, or AC/DC has ever unfolded for me. They all sounded like crap back in the day and the still sound like crap. Yes, EVH can play guitar. To bad I hate what he plays.

For Heart and Deep Purple, I've like a few of their songs, but I've never heard an album that I would ever buy.

 

In 1973, the best selling album artist in the USA was Deep Purple; and today...it's Taylor Swift. Some may think the opening post is correct then, others not.

 

I like these threads but you not going to change anyones mind.
I'm still not ready to give up on new music.