Does anyone else...

[mashie989]

Does anyone else feel overwhelmed/depressed about the US music scene? Any input good/bad/indifferent is appreciated!

 

[JamesAH]

Does anyone else feel overwhelmed/depressed about the US music scene? Any input good/bad/indifferent is appreciated!

Mainstream music sucks now. It's wasn't like the 60's-80's now it's ridden with pure unadulterated garbage.

Bands like Nickleback and pop singers like Spears are like listening to someone scratch on a chalk board.

 

[mashie989]

I appreciate the input! What music do you listen to - I am kinda down and out about music right now in my life...but I am hoping for some unique posts/inputs
Thanks!!

 

[Fenny the Fox]

I feel that mainstream music is, and has long been now, rather poor in quality. I tend to go for the more underground or at least less mainstream musicians. Indie music a lot these days. That, and screamo/alt metal/punk-ish stuff. But, there are some very talented mainstream musicians as well, it simply isn't required to become a "star" these days.

 

[Zoooma]

Mainstream music sucks now. It's wasn't like the 60's-80's now it's ridden with pure unadulterated garbage.

Bands like Nickleback and pop singers like Spears are like listening to someone scratch on a chalk board.

That's purely opinion.

Everyone should know that music is art and whether it's good or not is completely subjective; it's up to individual listener to determine its value. You can't truly say that Nickelback or whoever is bad. It's not bad, you just don't like it and that's fine. The same goes with SOOOOOOOO many things in this world: the color of a car, the design of a building, food, fashion, TV shows & movies. One man's garbage is another man's treasure.

Anyway, I can't offer an answer to the OP 'cause I don't really listen to new music. Or maybe my answer would be indifferent. I haven't listened to any 2010 (secular) releases but I'm sure I have heard a few from '09 . . . but those listens would have happened while running. If it has a beat it can be a good distraction from how much I hate to run . . . but I don't scrutinize every song to determine whether I love it or hate it.

 

[JamesAH]

That's purely opinion.

Everyone should know that music is art and whether it's good or not is completely subjective; it's up to individual listener to determine its value. You can't truly say that Nickelback or whoever is bad. It's not bad, you just don't like it and that's fine. The same goes with SOOOOOOOO many things in this world: the color of a car, the design of a building, food, fashion, TV shows & movies. One man's garbage is another man's treasure.

Anyway, I can't offer an answer to the OP 'cause I don't really listen to new music. Or maybe my answer would be indifferent. I haven't listened to any 2010 (secular) releases but I'm sure I have heard a few from '09 . . . but those listens would have happened while running. If it has a beat it can be a good distraction from how much I hate to run . . . but I don't scrutinize every song to determine whether I love it or hate it.

You're right and he asked for an opinion and I gave it to him welcome to the opinion club. In fact this whole board is based on opinions so your argument is mute.

I appreciate the input! What music do you listen to - I am kinda down and out about music right now in my life...but I am hoping for some unique posts/inputs
Thanks!!

Metal,60's-80's rock,classical,choir/choral,Gregorian chants.

 

[NiobiumTragedy]

I think the one thing that irritates me the most is the elitist attitude people get about "mainstream" music. For example, when bands such as, say, Evanescence went big, a lot of their fans turned against them simply because they suddenly had a lot more people listening to them, so there was this odd feeling of offense like "we were listening to them before any of you even knew about them" which makes no sense to me. Granted, the third album was horrible and every copy should be burned, but Fallen was a fantastic album.

Point is, Zoooma is correct. If mainstream music was all bad, bands like Nickelback wouldn't be selling out every single show they do.

 

[Qyöt27]

I really don't get a lot of the Nickelback hate. I can probably name a dozen or more other mainstream bands and trends I think are leagues worse. Just because several of their albums followed almost exactly the same formula (the famous comparison of chord usage between "How You Remind Me" and "Someday" comes to mind), doesn't mean all of it does, or all of it is garbage. I actually thought "Rockstar" and some of the tracks from their last album were pretty decent, if not infectious. Not to mention "Breathe" and "Leader Of Men", which sound nothing like the material that came afterward (those two songs were actually the first things I'd heard from them, back in 2000).


I generally don't even pay attention to mainstream music now, save for the odd song I might catch in an advertisement or playing in the background of a TV show. Based on those alone I'd say it looks like pop music is improving from where it was a few years ago, but that's probably not saying much.

My suggestions: scope out the free music that iTunes and Amazon MP3 give away (both do it weekly, but Amazon keeps their free stuff around for weeks, months, even years at a time for some of the tracks). Both of them give away a variety of stuff - Amazon's selections tend to be higher quality on the whole, iTunes has more throwaway stuff, even though there are some iTunes freebies I absolutely love and aren't throwaway in the least; they just don't come around very often, whereas on Amazon it's more consistent.

But I'll just give a general nod to Goth Rock, Industrial, Alternative Dance, and Post-Punk. Maybe most of the best stuff is from the 80s, but whatever. Some current bands worth looking into, though (not all of these are in the above genera, nor are they necessarily American):

The Awakening
The Last Dance
The Birthday Massacre (especially on Nothing and Nowhere and Violet, like "Play Dead", "Promise Me", "Over", "Under The Stairs", "Nevermind", and so on)
New Skin
Bulletproof Messenger
Ladyhawk (this is a band on Secretly Canadian; "I Don't Always Know What You're Saying")
Ladyhawke ("My Delirium")
Cocktail Slippers ("You Do Run" in particular)
Desoto Jones
Autumn's Descent (maybe not the self-titled, though; the versions of those songs on Prelude and Deadletters] were better, IMO)
Alstroemeria Records (doujin music, mostly based on the Touhou series; behold some examples)
Time's Arrow
Porcelain and the Tramps
Ego Likeness
Project 86 (at least on Rival Factions and The Kane Mutiny EP, where you can really see the influence from classic Goth bands - as on a great cover of "Lucretia My Reflection" and heavily The Mission-sounding "Molotov", which has really gotta be one of my new favorite songs)

 

[NiobiumTragedy]

Birthday Massacre is brilliant. I can't wait for the new album.

 

[JamesAH]

You can't go by album sales these days. I mean if 4 million people bought a William Hung album does it mean that William Hung is good I don't think so.

A majority of album sales anyway come from teeny boppers who are mowing lawns just to get that stupid Simple Plan CD. And this generation of kids and teens are tone deaf to say the least hence the reason why mainstream music sucks now in America.

 

[Zoooma]

mainstream music sucks now in America.

Again, just your opinion but you stated it like it's fact. It's not fact like saying the car is black. If it's black it's black, there's no disputing it. But music isn't black and white like that. Mainstream music is GREAT right now according to many people, I'm sure. And ya know what? They're right. If that's what they like and that's what they think then it's cool to disagree but just make it clear you're not trying to tell people they're wrong.

 

[If Not For Grace]

It's wasn't like the 60's-80's now

The 70's were ruff on me w/disco, but I can find something I like in most all types of music, just wait a few days & a "new" song or artist w/pop up there, if not there are always the "classics" for any genre.

I love music from the Rolling Stones to Travis Tritt to Celine Dion to Dean Martin
to Tom Petty & Waylong Jennings--My new fav it Kid Rock-I know he's been out there awhile, but I just got started with his music.

 

[Peripatetic]

It's hard to even define "mainstream" anymore. Starting in the 1990s, music fractured into hundreds of sub-genres. Each one has a loyal fan base that buys their music and packs small concert venues. The days of the hot new band selling out stadiums is over. I think this is a good thing... we aren't bound to one dominating style of each decade. If you look beyond the pop charts, there is a lot of fantastic music out there.

 

[Zombieprincess1979]

i hate most mainstream pop, hip-hop and all that Lil' Wayne crap...but i love bands like Cradle Of Filth and Marilyn Manson.

 

[HarborOrange]

No mainstream for me... Everything I listen to has at max around 5 million fans world wide... That's Brand New, they're as mainstream as I get, and they're not mainstream lol.
I can't stand mainstream stuff... To me, it just seems like people just buy what the music industry tells them to buy, and they never go and dig to find the truly unique, and, what I believe to be, the most talented bands out there.

 

[asianangel]

Try Australian bands...I think they're fresh especially the new rock stuff coming out...but what do I know. I'm Australian hahah.

 

[HarborOrange]

Try Australian bands...I think they're fresh especially the new rock stuff coming out...but what do I know. I'm Australian hahah.

Ah, haha, they had Hungry Ghosts, but that band's no more.
And in New Zealand, there's Jakob... That's not technically Australia though.

 

[asianangel]

Ah, haha, they had Hungry Ghosts, but that band's no more.
And in New Zealand, there's Jakob... That's not technically Australia though.

I've never heard of either of them =/ how long ago did they release stuff? Birds of Tokyo are very popular right now...and Michael Paynter.

 

[poeticlurker]

I think mainstream "music" is not even art.

Art is original, it's new, it says something different every time. Mainstream music is all either about partying, sex, or love. While I don't find anything necessarily wrong with those subjects, I find that they're boring now and completely unoriginal. Why not write something just completely off the wall? Write about hurricanes. Write about your cat. Write about your sister's wedding, or something.

What I find especially irritating about 'mainstream' music (and some stuff that ISN'T mainstream) is that it's all the same tempo. Sure, they put sixteenth notes in there to make it sound faster, but I like songs with lots of energy and hiding the easiest tempo in the world behind sixteenth notes isn't gonna cut it for me. That's why I prefer rock and metal- faster tempo, more energy, more diverse subjects (for the most part).

 

[spiralhoney]

This is so why we need more college and non-commercial radio. For dj's to expose people to the awesome music that sometimes is right in ther own neighborhoods. Commercial radio flat-out sucks and is business driven.
The argument tossed about thes days is that with the internet we can find so much new music. You can but you are likely to focus only on what you are familiar with and will spend way too much time in front of your screen riding the keyboard. 2 hours of a good dj will have more of an impact than a month online and you will very likely be turned on to sounds you would never have discovered on your own.
Find out what college radio broadcasts in your area and get involved with them. The college I dj'd at for 17 years had an incredible and constantly growing music library. i learned so much simply browsing the stacks. More than I could dinking around online.