Embracing the changes in the music world

[js1]

I still routinely go to shows and I still hear new music that's exciting and relevant. I'm 52. Here's what I have been listening to that was released this year:

I'm glad that you're able to find stuff that you like. And, I agree - the prog/metal scene is still healthy. But, commercial rock used to be a very big tent, and that's no longer the case.

In the 2000s, for the most part commercial rock veered towards the aggressive, with harder/more metal elements, and even the more pop rock acts (Fall Out Boy...) went that way. Rock music used to include music you can dance to and sing along with. This was no longer the case, and EDM and Hiphop grabbed that spot.

Take a look at the Top Rock Songs Billboard chart for this week (Oct 28). Out of the 50 songs, remove the 9 (!!) Tom Petty songs. Listen to the other songs on the chart. The songs are either aggressive (Theory of a Deadman, QOTSA, Linkin Park, Papa Roach, All that Remains, Skillet, HellYeah, etc). Or they're singable/danceable songs that are barely rock built with modern synth pop/hip hop elements (Imagine Dragons, Thirty Seconds To Mars, The Killers, Walk the Moon, Fall Out Boy). What I find interesting/disturbing is that previously guitar oriented bands have tossed the guitar aside, and are really no different than other synth/pop acts that are not considered rock.

There's a few exceptions. The Foos are there, of course, the Revivalists are old school.

The rock that us cover folks still play was, at one time, mainstream charting rock. I think that's over.

 

[RickJones]

Bazzboo said: Dee Murray. I agree. Saw him playing for Alice Cooper in 1978 and he had a great way of bouncing across the beat instead of nailing it down four on the floor.

 

[JMacBass65]

Dee Murray. I agree. Saw him playing for Alice Cooper in 1978 and he had a great way of bouncing across the beat instead of nailing it down four on the floor.

Going a bit OT here, but want to explore this a bit - if this merits an actual thread, let me know.

A number of years ago here I floated the idea that there was a particular "British" style of bass playing. John Paul Jones, Dee Murray, John Deacon and some others were specifically the types of players I was thinking about. I could never quite figure out it was that I thought I had identified, so never bothered starting a thread. I think you may have just done it, with this "bouncing across the beat" idea. I think there is a melodic component to it all as well, but I am just too musically ignorant to put it all into words.

Is there something to this?

 

[Mannyinnewyork]

Going a bit OT here, but want to explore this a bit - if this merits an actual thread, let me know.

A number of years ago here I floated the idea that there was a particular "British" style of bass playing. John Paul Jones, Dee Murray, John Deacon and some others were specifically the types of players I was thinking about. I could never quite figure out it was that I thought I had identified, so never bothered starting a thread. I think you may have just done it, with this "bouncing across the beat" idea. I think there is a melodic component to it all as well, but I am just too musically ignorant to put it all into words.

Is there something to this?

I’m not sure I know exactly what you mean, but I think Dee Murray is a solid player. Are you talking about the kind of playing you hear in SoCa music as well? A very ahead of the beat , percussive (lots of pickup notes) , busy and rhythmic style?

 

[kartiste]

R&B/hip-hop is the biggest music genre in America. Pop divas are having an identity crisis. Drake, Rihanna and Beyonce dominate mainstream culture. Teen girls now aren't as interested in staged artificial personalities as they are in hip-hop lyrics which are more direct and true to life. Hip-hop artists talk about relationships with maturity and are proud of their backgrounds. Enlisting rappers as guests on pop albums is getting old. Today's artists should be more sensitive about appropriating black culture. The biggest question in the music biz is whether Taylor Swift can match past success in a pop scene dominated by hip-hop. Thus spake The Wall Street Journal. The Pop Diva Identity Crisis

 

[Mannyinnewyork]

R&B/hip-hop is the biggest music genre in America. Pop divas are having an identity crisis. Drake, Rihanna and Beyonce dominate mainstream culture. Teen girls now aren't as interested in staged artificial personalities as they are in hip-hop lyrics which are more direct and true to life. Hip-hop artists talk about relationships with maturity and are proud of their backgrounds. Enlisting rappers as guests on pop albums is getting old. Today's artists should be more sensitive about appropriating black culture. The biggest question in the music biz is whether Taylor Swift can match past success in a pop scene dominated by hip-hop. Thus spake The Wall Street Journal. The Pop Diva Identity Crisis

Ah, the Wall Street Journal, the Beacon of light in an otherwise dark and uniformed world, the bringer of truth and the source of all that is real. Or The Charmin of printed word?

Is this thread taking a strange political twist?

 

[kartiste]

Ah, the Wall Street Journal, the Beacon of light in an otherwise dark and uniformed world, the bringer of truth and the source of all that is real. Or The Charmin of printed word?

Is this thread taking a strange political twist?

Nah. I just thought it was interesting to read a gross (very) overview of the current state of the music biz from a major business-oriented news organization, published this morning. Much in it is consistent with observations appearing in this thread (such as the spread of rap and the diminution of rock). I just included a summary of sorts for those who didn't click the link. Personally, I think people should play whatever they want and, hopefully, find an audience for. If you want to politicize music, or this thread, that's your choice (none for me, thanks). Also, you should note that this did not come from the editorial pages, which is where you look for politics in WSJ.

 

[Mannyinnewyork]

Nah. I just thought it was interesting to read a gross (very) overview of the current state of the music biz from a major business-oriented news organization, published this morning. Much in it is consistent with observations appearing in this thread (such as the spread of rap and the diminution of rock). I just included a summary of sorts for those who didn't click the link. Personally, I think people should play whatever they want and, hopefully, find an audience for. If you want to politicize music, or this thread, that's your choice (none for me, thanks). Also, you should note that this did not come from the editorial pages, which is where you look for politics in WSJ.

No politics from me.

 

[Honch]

...with the concept of playing only music of this century...

You did get a very sparse repertoire when 2000 hit...didn't you? At least the first half year. No 3 sets a night gig...
This is in the vein of what I talked earlier about peope just liking from a certain decade, and that it is a certain music style. It's not. there's 50s Rock, 60's rock, 70s rock, 80s rock, 90s rock, 00 rock and so on... still rocks. As if this century has a certain music style that didn't exist before.

What troubles me more so is that there are people, witnesses, still alive who remembers a time when there was NO rockn'roll. Imagine that for a second. They've moved to Florida, and they're soon gone, for us other to tell what it was like. RnR will turn into a blues thing eventually. Sort of same, but the narrative is the most important. Form over matter. While there are all kinds of funny labels now, you attach to anything POST. Post-punk, post-whatever, there's POST ROCK too. I've never ever heard of PRE-ROCK, or proto-rock before.

The song remains the same.

 

[hrodbert696]

You did get a very sparse repertoire when 2000 hit...didn't you? At least the first half year. No 3 sets a night gig...

Not sure what you mean. We play three sets a night just fine.

21 Pilots - Ride
Alabama Shakes - Hold On
Alt-J - Left Hand Free
Arctic Monkeys - RU Mine?
Arctic Monkeys - Teddy Picker
Black Keys - Gold on the Ceiling
Black Keys - Little Black Submarines
Cage the Elephant - Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked
Cage the Elephant - Mess Around
Cake - I Will Survive
Cold War Kids - Hang Me Up to Dry
Death Cab for Cutie - I Will Possess Your Heart
Dinosaur Jr. - Been There All the Time
Elle King - Exes and Ohs
Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out
Jimmy Eat World - The Middle
The Joy Formidable- Whirring
Modest Mouse - Float On
Muse - Supermassive Black Hole
Muse – Uprising
Of Monsters and Men - Mountain Sound
OK Go - Here It Goes Again
Portugal the Man - Feel It Still
Queens of the Stone Age - Little Sister
Queens of the Stone Age - No One Knows
The Raconteurs - Steady as She Goes
Radiohead – Optimistic
Ragnbone Man – Human
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Can’t Stop
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Dani California
The Shins - We Will Become Silhouettes
Silversun Pickups - Lazy Eye
The Strokes – Juicebox
The Strokes - You Only Live Once
Weezer - Beverly Hills
Weezer - Hash Pipe
The White Stripes - The Hardest Button to Button
The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps

As far as style goes, I agree that I couldn't identify, objectively, any one musical feature that makes that set list a genre unto itself or anything; it's just popular/alternative songs since 2000 that you can play with rock band instrumentation. But at the same time, I have played with classic rock bands (just subbed with one last couple of weekends), and I can confidently say that our set list doesn't sound anything like theirs. No one is going to mistake "Left Hand Free" for an obscure 70s tune they hadn't heard before.

 

[Nashrakh]

Teen girls now aren't as interested in staged artificial personalities as they are in hip-hop lyrics which are more direct and true to life.

Must be a regional thing. Whenever someone walks by with hip-hop blaring on their smartphone speakers in Western Europe, lyrically it's apparently all about being gangstas wielding baseball bats threatening their fellow musicians (what's up with that?), your sexual prowess and how many women you have had in your life, how big your car is, how ghetto you are if your mom doesn't own a house in a wealthy neighborhood (we don't even have trailer parks here).

I know the good stuff exists, but I've only ever encountered it in explicitly political hip-hop, which is a niche I guess. The only way I could appreciate the "true to life" angle above is how much social status, income, and living conditions dictate our everyday life, but I never got the impression that this was subject to a critical reception in its mainstream audience, quite the contrary.

 

[kartiste]

You did get a very sparse repertoire when 2000 hit...didn't you? At least the first half year. No 3 sets a night gig...
This is in the vein of what I talked earlier about peope just liking from a certain decade, and that it is a certain music style. It's not. there's 50s Rock, 60's rock, 70s rock, 80s rock, 90s rock, 00 rock and so on... still rocks. As if this century has a certain music style that didn't exist before.

What troubles me more so is that there are people, witnesses, still alive who remembers a time when there was NO rockn'roll. Imagine that for a second. They've moved to Florida, and they're soon gone, for us other to tell what it was like. RnR will turn into a blues thing eventually. Sort of same, but the narrative is the most important. Form over matter. While there are all kinds of funny labels now, you attach to anything POST. Post-punk, post-whatever, there's POST ROCK too. I've never ever heard of PRE-ROCK, or proto-rock before.

The song remains the same.

One more POST - post-modern. Everywhere. Reality is identical with the narrative, and the narrative depends only upon acceptance by a majority, who will then impose it on everybody.

 

[Honch]

Not sure what you mean. We play three sets a night just fine.

No, I reckon. If you came up with that idea the first half year of year 2000 (or 2001 if we shoud get real nit picky) that you should only "play music from this century" it would turn out really desolate and sparse. But you could play space rock jammy versions, each stretched out to 20-30 minutes each...

These days, no problem for sure.

 

[hrodbert696]

No, I reckon. If you came up with that idea the first half year of year 2000 (or 2001 if we shoud get real nit picky) that you should only "play music from this century" it would turn out really desolate and sparse. But you could play space rock jammy versions, each stretched out to 20-30 minutes each...

These days, no problem for sure.

The idea for the group came about in part because at one gig with a classic rock band, a pretty girl came up to us mid-song. I thought she was going to make a request; not exactly. Instead she asked, "Don't you guys play ANYTHING that's less than 20 years old?" The answer was - no. That's when I realized that part of the reason we're losing younger audiences is OUR problem - we don't make an effort to play their music. So I decided to start a band that would focus on newer songs. But I wasn't playing in any kind of band in 2000, I only took up bass in 2009 or so.

 

[Honch]

It's just the record companies that will steer us and herd us to make us think that we're choosing freely between some "genres" that they've labeled for us to make a choice between. Not all colors, but some colors that they will provide. They want to determine the selection available. They don't want too many. Least common denominator. I am quite indifferent to what happens to "rock" as such, as I do with "jazz" or anything else. I remember when UDM (Urban Dance Music) was around and djungle/drum'n'bass was the next big thing. I heard it already back then, that you couldn't do particularly much else within that style, and it was "out" in a couple of years, missed by none, grieved by even fewer. Even David Bowie made a fling at it.

People likes labels. Genres. Stamp. People likes to hear patterns, timbres, and - especially - forms that are familiar to them. A series of strategies designed to find a successful mean between the opposite extremes of unrelieved repetition and unrelieved alteration. If you rock (ha!) their boats too much out of that particular streamlining, or comfort zone, they get uncomfortable, unease, and don't have anything to cling on to. If you heard that form too much, and milked it all the way it can go, you turn to something else for variation. Both as musician and listeners.

When will we have the genre POST-MUSIC ?

 

[Honch]

This millenia type music kills me! Wears on me! It all sounds the same to me! I'd rather prefer any music style that was in the past millenia. From around 1400s and forward, but a bit after 1999 it got all watered down. How should a dress if I wanted to play in such a cover band?? Playing as much music from the former millenia? No matter if it was Bach, Gershwin, Miles Davis, or Rammstein... they're all the same style. From THAT millenia, when guitars where guitars, men where men, coke was a drink, and gay meant happy....

 

[JMacBass65]

I’m not sure I know exactly what you mean, but I think Dee Murray is a solid player. Are you talking about the kind of playing you hear in SoCa music as well? A very ahead of the beat , percussive (lots of pickup notes) , busy and rhythmic style?

Hmm...could be, based on your description.

 

[GnarlyThotep]

Let me preface by admitting that I grew up in the '90s and 20-oughts, so I am completely colored by the time I came of age in.

What sucks about new music is that nothing's special. Sure, my generation had Dream Theater and Primus and Tool and djent and prog-metal and all kinds of SERIOUSLY respectable musicians, but none of them ever seemed to reach the sort of stratospheric/mythical status achieved by Zep or their contemporaries. I think we're all basically jaded and it was all already done before by the time we were born so we're just less susceptible to Beatlemania. It's lame, I wish we were more excited about stuff.

What's awesome about new music?

In a word, technology. The advent of the internet meant that any knowledge of music theory, no matter how arcane, was immediately at our fingertips and readily available to anyone who was willing to put in the practice hours. The advent of DAWs and VSTs (some even free) meant that we had more tones, more textures, more potential for new ideas at our disposal than any generation of musicians who came before us. I'm FAR from convinced that we're using it all to its full potential, but there are all kinds of just completely left-of-center musical concepts that are cropping up every day--we are in a renaissance of sorts, fueled by the availability of studio-grade tools to literally anyone who even cares enough to record one or two songs one day when they're bored. This might sound like heresy, but I use all kinds of digital processing in my bass tone, and I consider Excision to be just as huge of an influence as John Paul Jones--there's only one spectrum of audio frequencies, but there are an infinite number of textures and moods contained within it. Digital technology has given us the ability to access more of them than ever before, and the way we collectively think about music is changing as a direct result.

 

[GnarlyThotep]

#bringbackdeadthreads

 

[Mannyinnewyork]

Hmm...could be, based on your description.

Here's an example of what I was talking about - not rock but the bass playing is awesome with that bounce you may have been talking about. I love this style of playing.