Stop saying there's no good new music!

You're right - lots of great bands didn't get anywhere, but that doesn't mean they didn't make great music. Usually,it's about bad management, bad luck, bad promotion or extracurricular issues. But most of the rock music that a major label put out in, say, 1968 holds up today as pretty good. CBS wasn't releasing garbage for the sake of it back then, there were only so many release slots available and they (the majors) did a good job of mostly filling them with quality.

As for tearing down barriers, that's awesome - as long as we recognize that if everyone can do something, it gets progressively harder for the average person to find the people who can do that thing extremely well. I was looking at it purely from the standpoint of ease in finding good new music, and how the glut of content makes that more difficult. But sure, if people want to create their own music and put it out, that's cool with me. I (and most of humanity) will likely never hear it, but that's fine.

 

Active and engaged music listeners have never been the majority. Most people accept what they're fed.

I've discovered a half a dozen interesting artists on this thread alone. And by using those is a starting off point, I've discovered several more. One, a British band called The Japanese House, I've been playing over and over again. They're very reminiscent of Imogene Heap.

 

It's not that hard to find cool stuff. I'm sitting in a Chipotle at the moment, and I heard something interesting on the background music system that sounded vaguely familiar.

Turns out it's the French band from the 80s, Les Rita Mitsouko. My wife Vickie used to play them on her radio show on KKFI-FM in Kansas City.



I was able to identify it by opening Google Assistant and asking "what's this song?" Google Assistant identified the song in 3 seconds.

 

Exactly my point. If people aren't fed the good stuff, it's damn near impossible for the casual listener to find the good stuff, because of the sheer glut of not-so-god stuff (and the decentralized nature of the music these days). Thus the perception that there's no good music being made anymore -- at least among older, casual music fans.

 

Sounds like being a casual music listener sucks.

 

Good thing forum members aren't casual listeners.

Problem solved

 

I disagree. I'm a committed music listener, but I use the same tool as the most casual listener - a streaming service. Now the one I use may be the least popular - Google Play Music - but it does a perfectly fine job.

It has access to all of the catalog releases that all of the other services have but the main tool I use for discovery is the "Station".

I search for an artist or song as a starting point, and it serves me a playlist that will be heavy on that artist or band, but will also give me a bunch of stuff that other people who liked the starting band also liked.

As I use it, I use the "Thumbs Up" or "Thumbs Down" tool to indicate my tastes, and it gets better and better. In fact, it has a playlist of things that I clicked "Thumbs Up" on, and I have a several hour long playlist.

And the harsh truth is that this soulless computer has done a better job of delivering new music to me than any radio DJ ever has - with the exception of my wife back when she hosted her radio show.

 

I like NEW music... Ramones are pretty good!

 

I like them as well, but think we should have a cut-off point on "new" somewhere after "all original members dead of natural causes."

 

Can I borrow your rose-tinted glasses?

 

I'm reminded of that famous meeting when Jim Steinman and Meatloaf demoed Bat Out of Hell to Clive Davis who rejected it, saying:

Do you know how to write a song? Do you know anything about writing? If you're going to write for records, it goes like this: A, B, C, B, C, C. I don't know what you're doing. You're doing A, D, F, G, B, D, C. You don't know how to write a song.... Have you ever listened to pop music? Have you ever heard any rock-and-roll music.... You should go downstairs when you leave here...and buy some rock-and-roll records.
​

With 43 million copies sold, it's right up there was "guitar bands are on the way out" in terms of boneheaded record company executive decisions.

 

Honestly, I find new music exactly the same way I've found it for decades -- on the radio, via published reviews, by word of mouth. Now I guess additionally I get recommendations of new releases on my streaming platforms. To me, the process of finding new stuff is just kind of the same as it always has been for the last 30 or 40 years. How did you people find new music you were interested in 30 or 40 years ago that was different?

 

Same here. Hell, with the advent of streaming, it's easier than ever to check out something that sounds potentially interested, and that's saved me some money. (Big Thief should be right up my alley, but I can't get past her voice.) But yeah, I find new music the same way I always have: radio, reviews, talking music with my music-minded friends.

 

Yeah, what he said.

 

I think one of the reasons its so hard for me to discover new music (note, I didn't say impossible), is that I'm still uncovering albums and songs from the '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s that I like. Plus some even earlier. New music only accounts for about 5% of my music hunting time.

 

There's a lot of "Never New Music-ers" around here.

 

CBS never released garbage ! Sure they did, either you didn't hear it, hear about it or you've managed to forget about it. All major labels released garbage along with the good stuff.
These label "experts" had/have no better idea what is or isn't going to sell than the average schmo. In fact the average schmo has the advantage of being a member or of target audience.

The usual label approach (especially post Beatles) was to sling out the mud & see what stuck.

Exactly.

The casual listener is not interested in finding the good stuff. They will shuffle (in their mind) what is being fed to them into stuff they like & stuff they don't. This more than meets their "needs".

The appalling standard of radio (think limited top 40 at best) where I live meant (means) that this was seldom an avenue to discovering new music.
The internet has provided so many avenues to discovery that I have been buried in new things to listen to. So far I haven't touched on streaming.

 

If I haven't heard it before, to me. it's new. I don't have a problem finding new (current) artists. The caveat is that I seldom listen to mainstream.

Why start at the 50's (& end at the 90's). If it involves an electric guitar I'll lend an ear. I have discovered plenty of good rockin' pre rock & roll music.

 

Yeah, like Sister Rosetta Tharpe

 

I live in the the US largest metro area media market, which is both good and bad in terms of media choices -- we have a lot of them, but costs are so high that anyone who is, say, paying to license airwave spectrum and setting up an operation here, has to go where they highest dollar volume opportunities are to support their costs. That means we have lots of radio, but not necessarily the nation's most creative or different radio. That said there are multiple option for non commercial as well as commercial radio. Plus I keep a satellite radio subscription. So there's a lot of different kinds of music I hear on the radio.

But, from my earliest childhood 56 years ago, music on the radio has always been a major part of my musical diet, including the most popular music. I'm not really a rock music listener per se. I like rock fine, though at this stage of my life it's not something I ind myself listening to much at all. Pop, country, r&b, classical, jazz, "world music," avant garde art music, my interest is in some of these areas more than in rock, especially these days jazz and classical... but even pop. I'm more interested in the new Selena Gomez record than I am in the new Ozzy Osbourne. Between commercial, non commercial and satellite radio, I come across interesting new stuff in all those categories on the radio as part of my exposure to new music still today.

 

I use Pitchfork and NPR basically. My mom has also been turning me on to some new stuff, which is awesome! She’s a boomer who loves music but isn’t a music obsessive like us ... if she can do it, anyone can!

 

That's a start. I have a guitar playing friend who only listens to pre rock & roll music. He believes that evrything after is just following what was already done earlier by artists that still remain obscure today.

Here's an easy to get hold of example. Ace Records also have many fine albums that cover this era.

 

She was inducted into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame as an "Early Influence" but that was BS. The woman invented Rock Guitar.

 

The musical canon we obsessively celebrate owes its existence to the "casual listeners" you condescend to. Do you think the rise of Motown, the Beatles, the Stones, etc. etc. etc. was the result of hardcore music geeks buying 12 disc deluxe remastered sets? No, it was causal fans who were exposed to good music on a large scale and responded by buying records, going to concerts and spreading the word. These people - who have no time to dig around the corners of Youtube and Spotify (or this forum) to find some musical needle in the haystack, have largely moved on to platforms and media that make finding the good stuff far easier. That's why we have peak television, and dead-as-a-doornail rock & roll.

Beyond that, I honestly have no idea what you guys are arguing about at this point, so I'll move along.....

 

All that is true enough. But it's also true that there are some people with great taste who find things and cue the majority into them. Back in the day, those people might work as radio DJs or worked in record stores and they'd have influence like that. But other than at listener supported radio stations almost nobody who introduces music gets to choose what they play, so DJs have virtually no influence. And, other than a few temples of vinyl, who goes to record stores these days? I still have friends from the record store days, and they will recommend music - but the truth is I'd have to work hard to look surprised, as I usually already know the music from having heard it here or via streaming.

This is a 12-way caged grudge match.