Cancer Man

Haven't any of you noticed that music has not changed a great deal for many years now? It seems that new music released right now is not much different to music released way back in 1995 or even as long ago as 1991.

Has music stagnated this badly?!

Y2K Falcon

If you are talking about the "mainstream" alternative genre then for the most part I agree. What my 15 year old is listening to is the same thing (and on the same station) that I was listening to in 1995.

Of course, he thinks he's cutting edge.



Now don't get me started on what passes for "punk" these days.

illennium

My answer is always the same: You're not looking (or listening) hard enough.

Hollowgen

word

Aphex Twin

Perhaps you are listening to the wrong music then?

Cancer Man

No, but music in general has not really changed a great deal in most respects. I can listen to some typical music from as long ago as 1993 and it does not sound much different to music from 2003.

The Bus

Cancer Man: I think for the most part, you are right. But then music also hasn't changed from 1990 to 1980.

Which bands from 1990 (or earlier) sounded like Sigur Rós, or Fiery Furnaces? Where was El-P in 1990? Where was Air?

illennium

I know you asked this rhetorically, but if anyone has a concrete answer, please let me know as I would like to buy their albums

Also, if anyone knows of any 1990s soundalikes to Animal Collective, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, or Xiu Xiu, my wallet is waiting.

Filmmaker

Back in circa 1999, when artists like Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and The Backstreet Boys hit the scene and, for my money, single handedly sounded the death knell for popular music, I predicted their reign would pass like disco, within 2-3 years, 4 out the outside. Well, here it is over 6 years later, and who owns the dial? The same ol' crew, with their ilk, like the two Simpson sisters and Kelly Clarkson. I could have never conceived that even a generation as clueless and apathetic as Gen Y could subsist on a steady diet of this dreck for so long. With R&B sounding frozen in time for nearly 20 years, rap's plunge into inanity after Public Enemy's chart favor passed on, and heavier rock pulling all its pages from the late '70's punk movement (and getting every element of it so woefully wrong), the only bands delivering any music worth a moment's care are the more emotional, ambient arena bands like Radiohead, Coldplay and the long-reigning kings of them all, U2 (and, as a die-hard U2 fanatic, I don't know whether to be ecstatic or depressed that they are still the most interesting creators of rock music on the scene after a quarter of a century)...

ROBERTCOP34

WOW music today is CRAP ((( that point's to top 40 radio and really bad rap music ))).
But there some bright spots in today's music:INTERPOL there so underrated and better than most bands out there now and Depeche Mode & New Order just get better with age.
On-side note miss simpson has the no.1 cd in us that show's bad taste in my book it should Depeche Mode Playing The Angel (( Its the Best cd of 2005)).

ChrisKnudsen

The Animal Collective sound a whole hell like the freak folk band of Comus that were around in the late 60's to early 70's (go to allmusic.com to read more about them), Clap your Hands and say yeah sound like Neutral Milk Hotel if they did a more jangly pop thing, and well Jaime Stewart was in 10 in the Swear Jar and their record came out in 1999. Give me your money bitch!

ChrisKnudsen

Too just say that music today is crap is really ignorant. Ashlee Simpson's latest is an alright pop record and if people want to buy it, allow them to. I think the latest Depeche Mode record is actually particular good and probably their best since Violator, I still feel that other bands would probably enlighten your mind better. Also, while you call Interpol underrated, isn't both of their albums like Gold or something? I wouldn't call that cult status or anything even though Matador had to buy a bundle just to keep them.

ChrisKnudsen

I think hip-hop has gotten pretty good in recent years with the UK grime scene and the commercial success of chop and screwed and of course everyone's favorite crunk which is just excellent party records. And of course, there is that M.I.A. record. You could hold your ears to the underground if you want to hear more interesting music. Also, I disagree on your take of R&B sounding like it has been frozen in 20 years. While essentially the themes are the same, production has evolved and beats and samples sound a whole lot smoother than the jagged 80's. Also, pop music is also starting to be influenced a lot more by raggeaton which I think some of the so far singles have been good.

Supermallet

What music has missed is another revolutionary album that out and out changed the face of what popular music was. The last time we had it was with Nevermind. That's not to say no good music is coming out now. It's just that the popular charts have been dominated with generic pop. So maybe Hit Me Baby, One More Time was the last album to decide was what popular.

I think that we're now seeing older artists embrace maturity and start making some really interesting music again. Recent albums by David Bowie (Heathen, Reality), Peter Gabriel (Up), Depeche Mode, Kate Bush (Aerial isn't out yet, but all the signs point to an amazing album), David Byrne (Grown Backwards) and others have shown that old acts still know new tricks. On the other hand, U2, who did such a good job of adapting from the 80s to the 90s, have fallen into a rut.

Also, if anyone complains that there's no more interesting music, go find music by a band called The Residents. They're still the most consistently interesting experimental band around, and their new album, Animal Lover, is amazing.

ChrisKnudsen

Some other new genres tha thave emerged in the past few years like electroclash (died like 4 years ago, though), dancepunk (died like 2 years ago, though), and the emerging concept of noise (check out Wolf Eyes' "Burned Mind" on Subpop for noise's "Nevermind."). The most popular genre that has emerged, though, is emo music which was pretty much stayed in the underground until bands like Jimmy Eat World and such broke out in 2001 or so and now emo is the most dominate form of rock music played on alternative radio. Sure there are revivals like garage and post-punk which weren't really listened to in the mainstream of the 90's so I guess that could be said also.

ChrisKnudsen

Sigur Ros can be said to sound like the Coctea Twins a little bit, the fiery Furnances are just a 4th wave garageband that were a little too inspired by the scores of Leslie Bricusse and the Who's "Quick One" format, but most of the bands I think would have eventually came up anyways with technology's never ending evolution. If some of those artists like Air, if technology didn't evolve they would just have ended up sounding like their influences. El-P on the other hand doesn't like much from the 80's seeing that the genre of hip-hop had its biggest stages of evolution in the 1990's.

Supermallet

I love Wolf Eyes, but how on earth is noise an emerging concept? Lou Reed made an entire double album of noise in 1975 with Metal Machine Music, and Sonic Youth have been living off making noise for decades.

atlantamoi

You like a lot of the same bands I like, but I disagree that this is the only worthy rock music being made. Matt Pond PA, Sufjan Stevens, Of Montreal, M83 are just a few bands off the top of my head that all have recorded interesting and wonderful albums recently. U2 gets 1.3 stars docked off their latest album for recording what could very easily be the worst song they've ever attempted, "Original of the Species". I listen to that song in utter disbelief. Actually, that could be one of the worst songs ANY band has ever attempted.

Maybe music in general hasn't changed radically, but rock radio sure has. That awful grungey stuff finally started to shrink a few years ago.

Filmmaker

There's always been something at least fairly interesting going on in underground and fringe music, which I'd classify these bands as. Though the original poster didn't segment his thoughts to just popular music (e.g. Top 40), that's where I focused my argument. Even the fringe artists lately seem more derivative of earlier (in this case late '70s, early '80s) sounds than their cutting-edge precursors.

Though that is my next to last favorite song on the album (I'll vote "A Man and a Woman" as the bottom dweller), I would argue it's light years from bad, and for what it's worth, it was considered THE most wished-for song by audiences at their concerts to be played on tour (which it now has; this poll was during leg one back in spring), so it seems many U2 fans don't share your views on the song. Oh, and as far as whatever Suprmallet's raving on about--whatever.

ChrisKnudsen

Then you can argue Steve Reich and John Cage all of them don't sound like the current state of noise. I also think that "Metal Machine" might have a few good ideas with it but it is mostly just Lou Reed dicking around. Also, Sonic Youth is far too accessiable to being considered noise.

ChrisKnudsen

I think if you were going to check out the Residents, you should listen to their older material. I think the older artists still might have a few tricks in their sleeves, but seriously those are just like tricks and does "Heathen" even have a whisper compared to a "Funereal" or a "Sung Tungs" or almost anything considered great of the past few years. The only two I can think of really is Tom Waits and Jonathan Richman (but Robyn Hitchcock's "Spooked" was great). Most of those artists should just go out and produce other people's material. Seriously, think of a masterpiece come back album. I can't think of any at the moment.

atlantamoi

No argument there for the most part. But I do think many of these bands are making far superior albums to many of the old fart bands (including U2).

I simply don't get this (just one long-time fan's opinion). It's just odd to me that people who liked other U2 albums find that song appealing, but everyone has their own take.

wm lopez

The 1990's was the start of decline in music.
Here's what caused it.
Way too much rap on the radio and that killed the great soul music that's been around in decades before that. Kids liked the rap songs that you can dance to, but didn't realize that the background music that made these rap songs groove was samples from music from the 1970's!
MTV stopped playing music videos.
Radio stopped playing artists from Europe.
60's, 70's & 80's had many artists that had great music during these decades.
The big acts from Europe during the 90's was the SPICE GIRLS, ACE OF BASE.
There could have been more and radio and MTV is to blame for pushing this rap instead.

ChrisKnudsen

I don't think its radios fault if people wanted to listen to rap music. Radio is always adjusting to what is popular in the underground and well always do so. Before emo started getting played on radio today, Victory records would release a new album from some band and it would sell 70,000 copies in its first week sales. Now, selling 70,000 copies of an album in the underground is really huge but to sell that in one week is something that major radio stations had to take notice.

Supermallet

Steve Reich is a minimalist. I would never argue he's a noise artist. Cale's music has aspects of noise (check out the bonus track "Wall" on the reissue of his first solo album).

It doesn't really matter if you think Metal Machine Music is dicking around, it's clearly a noise album. Certainly the only full-on noise album I can think of from an established artist.

As for Sonic Youth: Are you kidding? They're all about noise. Check out the first two SYR EPs, or the Silver Sessions. Also, look at all the stuff the various members have done with members of bands like The Boredoms. Not all of SY's music is pure noise, I definitely agree with that, but the band comes from a noise aesthetic, and some of their music very much falls under the category of noise as your are defining it. Even stuff on Daydream Nation (Silver Rocket) has full-on noise passages.

Of course, we've left out the mother of all noise artists, Merzbow, who's been making music since 1980. So, again, my only argument was that noise is already a well-mined genre. It is still a great genre and a band like Wolf Eyes is still worth listening to, but it's not new.


Well, this clearly isn't worth arguing, since your opinions are going to vary so much from mine. I thought I had named some masterpiece latter-day albums (Peter Gabriel's Up, David Byrne's Grown Backwards, and The Residents' Animal Lover), but since you challenged me to name some more, I'm guessing you disagree. On this issue we will probably have to disagree, as it's a matter of taste, not fact, like the noise debate. But, to play ball, a few off the top of my head would be Robert Wyatt's Cuckooland, Bob Dylan's Love and Theft, and The Residents again, this time with Demons Dance Alone.

No need to whatever me. You didn't even quote what you felt I was "raving" about. If you're just going to insult me, why bother posting about me at all? If you want to actually argue my points, feel free. But that is nothing more than a snide comment to say "Man, I really didn't like what this guy said, so I'm going to dismiss it without any attempt to understand where he's coming from."