Today's Dark Side of the Moon, Abbey Road . . .

This is so true! I like The Beatles but they are almost irrelevant to most of the younger listeners today. It's an age related issue that sadly a lot of people (here especially ) can't seem to get a grasp of. You are correct to say that the historically important albums of our time will have little to no relevance to most people born after 2000. The era of the album is arguably over already anyway so such questions of "importance" won't even be asked in another generation. Recorded music is going back to where it began: bite size chunks and individual songs in the era of streaming tracks from a plethora of recorded material.

 

Life experience is more at play than any amount of talent at this point. The interesting thing I see in this thread goes back to youth and what was going on around you. I was raised on many of the titles listed, in fact, you'll have to pry my copy of Dark Side of the Moon from my cold dead hands some day. However, because it is important and listened to by me,and talked about, my youngish children appreciate it too.
Another example, when I was a student Thiller was THE album of the time. Took me many years to appreciate it as a great work of art on many levels. I think now it belongs in this grouping of a phenomenon experience. Does Thriller outsell Abbey Road or Dark Side, maybe or maybe not but it still sells A Lot of units. Other blips like Duran Duran- Seven and The ragged Tiger/ INXS - Kick /U2 - The Joshua Tree/ The Cure - Disintegration / Guns and Roses - Appetite For Distruction / Nirvana - Nevermind/ U2- Actung Baby were and are great examples of creating brilliant change in time/experiences.
Those are my litmus tests.
I'm 100% sure that younger listeners have their own set of albums.
I'm going back to my children's tastes now.I'm buying my 15 yr old albums by Muse, Halsey, Panic At The Disco, Radiohead, Moody Blues, Men At Work, Queen, Pink Floyd and more. Some of that was based on what dad plays and a lot goes back to what her collective "crew" listens too.
So,from my perspective I think that there is a lot of great music being created today, my earworm at the moment is Alvvays- Plimsoul Punks, but I will most likely never feel like I did when I heard Dark Side for the first time. The More experience we gain with music the more it starts to sound "like" phenomenon. If you heard The Bends and it blew your mind to the core connection, that may be you're Dark Side of The Moon. For some folks, no other album will ever be as great as the Spice Girls debut. It sold truck tons of units and was he soundtrack to a summer for sure. Hate to cue up old dude saying but 3/2/1...unless you were there maaaannnnnn.......
I believe that we have a great set of blueprints for masterpieces,with a lot of great albums and it is possible that an album can create a collective phenomenon with the younger generations, unfortunately, the curve and benchmarks have been set whether you like it or not.
This reminds me of the time I argued that Simple Minds- Once Upon A Time was waaaayyyyyy better than Motley Crue / Shout At The Devil in my shop class........

 

OK Computer is not my favourite album... nor is it even my favourite Radiohead album (that would be In Rainbows)... but it had an impact that is undeniable, has retained its standing over time, and is critically lauded for its accomplishments. I can recognize this.

The same can be said for albums like "Paul's Boutique" and "Odelay" -- both are also groundbreaking in the studio for their use of samples etc. That mastery of studio production is another thing that compares favourably with albums like DSOTM and Abbey Road.

Do I personally think they are the same legendary status of DSOTM and Abbey? Not yet. Will I ever like them as much as DSOTM and Abbey? For me, nope. But they are landmarks. NO doubt. And can't be discarded just because they were not made in the 60's/70's.

 

The Beatles or Pink Floyd didn't set out to make a 'classic', they set out to make the best record they could at the time. It's only in hindsight that something becomes a classic. It's all someone's opinion anyway. If the music moves you, that's all that matters, even the kids today, even if you or I don't like it. Classic, schmassic....All the old people in the 60's thought the Beatles were ****. Critics hated Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin.

 

Ok Computer is the most obvious one, I'm biased though being a fan but I don't think there is an album since that has had it's impact, maybe not sales but influence, it's the closest we've got to a Dark Side over the last 25 years.

I don't really listen to new music now so couldn't comment but get the impression a lot of it isn't built to last, in fact a friend some years back not really a music fan said he applauded it now being so disposable.

 

Exactly.

 

By the way, they released a new album this year after an 8-year hiatus, it's called Science Fiction. It's been getting some good reviews, and I liked it a lot personally.

 

Methinks it will be difficult to approach the popularity of albums of years gone by if for no other reason...exposure.
There are so many options out there now, both in titles, but ways to listen....just makes it difficult to find the cream of the crop
Gone are the times when we had record companies and DJ's weeding out the "weak" and bringing us the titles with the mostest/bestest potential.
Add to that, from my POV, music is no longer shared like it was back in the day, more of a personal experience?
Or....I could just be way off base here...

 

It's retro chic, doesn't mean the people buying those T-shirt are also listening to those albums. My daughter, she's 26 now, a couple of years ago, came across an old Peter Max design (not Beatlesy) garbage can with a faded Grateful Dead sticker that had been my wife's bedroom can when she was a teenager, and my daughter though it was cool and she wanted it for her apartment (of course, she never took it). Now she likes all kinds of different music, including lots of old rock as well as lots of contemporary hip-hop, but she doesn't really like the Grateful Dead. But that garbage can had a retro-cool appeal to her.

 

The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin (1999)
Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me (2010)
Viper - You'll Cowards Don't Even Smoke Crack (2008)

 

I just checked with my 21-year old daughter and 13-year old son. They know Michael Jackson and have heard of The Beatles (although they cannot name one song by them). But Pet Sounds? Abbey Road? Dark Side of the what?? They can tell you everything about Lana Del Rey and Kanye West though.
Honest, are people here really expecting that younger music fans are listening all day to albums released, like 45-50 years ago? A time when even most of the millenials' parents weren't even born? Now ask yourself the same question, when you were grew up in the sixties or seventies, how often were you headbangin' to the sounds of Benny Goodman or Al Jolson?

 

A lot of that depends on what they are exposed to by their parents.

 

It's much different today. There are really great albums that have been released in the past 10-15 years, but the general public doesn't hold them up to the same degree. There is just so much music that you can access with the tips of your fingers. We don't have the rock stars like we used to.

I love Mumford and Sons, Avett Brothers, Spoon, etc, but any member of my favourite bands could walk right past me on the street and I would have no clue who they are. Why is that? Perhaps our dependance on music magazines is gone (where magazines used to be our primary source of music news). Too much information on the internet?

Anyway, I don't think it's a coincidence that with the advent of the internet that we are struggling to name future classic albums that have come of the same time period.

 

I'm quite the misfit I guess. I've been headbanging to everything from Bach and Vivaldi to Lawrence Welk and Al Hirt and Stan Kenton since I was in diapers. When I was a kid my house was ringing with everything from Holst to Simon and Garfunkel, Handel to Bill Chase, Louis Armstrong to The Carpenters.

Yep, I'm a misfit. "My" music was never generational.

 

This outta be a short thread.

 

already mentioned

ty segall - manipulator

 

ugh. we don't need another dsotm or abbey road. WE ALREADY HAVE THEM. anywho, there are plenty of albums being made today that can stand up to the classics. when some kid 50 years from now puts a record on the turntable, maybe they hear king gizzard and the lizard wizard BEFORE the beatles. and maybe that makes sense to them.

 

Subjectively speaking this is also my point of view.






How does one compare albums that have decades of marketing as 'great' and 'classic' vs albums that have only been around for a short time?

Secondly, there wasn't a long history of recorded albums when all these 'classics' were recorded for them to be compared to.

 

already mentioned. album is over 20 years old already


beck - odelay

 

Frank Ocean's "Blond" is the best album of the last few years. It's experimental, mixes Pop with Indie rock, Hip-Hop, R&B etc . . . a masterpiece of an album

 

I think these might fit the bill. Regardless of MY opinion, these always come up when I have this discussion w friends:

Ok Computer
The Soft Bulletin
Nevermind
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Weezer (blue album)

 

You know, the music industry just had it's best year in two decades in 2016, with double digit year over year revenue growth, thanks to the maturing of the paid-streaming market.

 

I love the threads about DSOTM where at least a dozen people take the opportunity to say "I hate Dark Side". I always picture someone walking into Pizza Hut and yelling "I don't like pizza!"