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Toaster Mantis View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 14 2009 at 04:12
Originally posted by Henry Plainview Henry Plainview wrote:

If the 50s and 60s were the heyday of jazz, 60s and 70s were the heyday of rock, the 80s were the heyday of metal, and the 90s were the heyday of electronica, what is our current heyday?


That is a very good question. I would say it's the heyday of emo if it wasn't for the knowledge that was a well-defined punk sub-genre back in the 1990s and the stuff most people call "emo" is just any goofy-looking depressive rock band it can't fit into another subgenre, effectively diluting the term from what it originally meant and being a faint echo of what it used to be.

Remember that site making fun of various subcultures I made a thread about in the Just For Fun forum a while ago? It has a good, if snarky, demonstration of the difference between 1990s emo and 2000s emo. A picture says a thousand words... LOL the really funny thing, by the way, is that the guy who makes that site is a dude who designs merchandise and advertisement for rock bands. That's right, he's mocking the subcultures he's participated in defining* and commodifying. Doesn't keep the site from being funny, though.

Okay, back on topic: I really don't know. Maybe the 2000s are the heyday of a fractured music scene? Wink Post-rock is actually becoming popular right now in mostly intact form, but it seems like its popularity is still limited to people whose tastes already skew outside the mainstream (somewhat at least) so it's limited if it's going to definte the decade the way prog and punk did the 1970s.

*Genres are often defined more by critics and marketing people than by the artists themselves. That's why it usually takes at least 4 years for a genre to "crystallize" after someone's first defined it, because it needs a new generation of bands who have internalized the genre classifications.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 14 2009 at 04:40

I wasn't going by popularity though, lots of other music was much more popular than metal in the 70s and 80s. I think you're right, indie/post-rock is coming to a peak now, even though they started in the 90s and the revered classics are from them. Incidentally, have you ever heard of Guided by Voices? They were #1 on Amazon's list of Best Indie Albums, and after getting over the shock of something beating In the Aeroplane on an indie list, I looked them up. They're pretty terrible, but they're popular enough I'm surprised I've never heard of them.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 14 2009 at 04:45
Actually, the only post-rock band I'm really familiar with is Pelican... they're not the only one I've heard, but I'm requiring more and more listens to have an opinion on a band or album as I grow older. Post-rock's a genre I've been meaning to get into for a while, but again my  "stuff to listen to" list is so inhumanly long that it probably qualifies as a Buddhist holy text or an Open Source programming manual.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 14 2009 at 04:47
I don't write that down, too much work. However, my Saved For Later list on eMusic is over 250 albums, so I guess that counts for something.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 14 2009 at 04:54
I guess it won't surprise you that I haven't finished writing my "stuff to listen to" list. LOL
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 14 2009 at 10:37
Are we saying that "Rock is dying" or that "No good music has been in made in 30 years" or "Nothing innovative has happened in music in 30 years" - I believe they're all false but I'm curious what the real point is?
You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 14 2009 at 16:45
Originally posted by Negoba Negoba wrote:

Are we saying that "Rock is dying" or that "No good music has been in made in 30 years" or "Nothing innovative has happened in music in 30 years" - I believe they're all false but I'm curious what the real point is?


I'm saying none of those three strawmen. Read the OP again.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 14 2009 at 22:12
Hi Toaster, i don't we've met anywhere around here yet. So, i'm a bit confused about whether we're talking about the future of rock music (around the globe in general) that seems quite alive and well or the future of popular music, that we should all feel ashamed of ourselves for not participating in & "trying so hard to be different".


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 15 2009 at 09:21
Originally posted by Toaster Mantis Toaster Mantis wrote:

Originally posted by Negoba Negoba wrote:

Are we saying that "Rock is dying" or that "No good music has been in made in 30 years" or "Nothing innovative has happened in music in 30 years" - I believe they're all false but I'm curious what the real point is?


I'm saying none of those three strawmen. Read the OP again.
 
The "Strawmen" are attempts to summarize your interesting group of observations into a point.
 
I likely oversimplified, but the guitar is more popular now than it's been in a decade. Electronic music is no more prevalent than its been for almost 30 years. Innovative music being mainstream comes in waves and is a naturally self-diluting process.
 
The iPod, the internet, and downloads have caused an explosion in amount and breadth of music that people listen to nowadays. I believe you're right in that there are more subdivisions simply because we're now working with a global market where niche genres can actually stay alive. This is what is going to evolve over the near future and define where music goes. The question becomes what happens when music-philes like those here actually start exhausting the store of interesting music that's been lying around in obscurity, or from a different country?
 
Music and rock (loose definition which we're using here) is alive, well, and pretty darn mainstream.
You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 15 2009 at 12:16
Yeah, but my point is that all the good parts of modern rock are not mainstream because it's made exclusively by and for small subcultures (punk, metal, goth and so on), and that this is a result of a development that began back in the 1980s. Electronic hasn't become anywhere as esoteric yet.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 15 2009 at 13:02

I think that's been going on a long time (Thrash from SF, Punk in NYC, Black Metal in Norway, Math in Chicago), but with a global fanbases and online selling, you can really narrow down and still stay afloat. You may be right that good artists won't bother catering to the mainstream, that would actually be good for music in general. I'd rather have artists staying afloat but not too big. 

You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 15 2009 at 16:16
Originally posted by Toaster Mantis Toaster Mantis wrote:

Yeah, but my point is that all the good parts of modern rock are not mainstream because it's made exclusively by and for small subcultures (punk, metal, goth and so on), and that this is a result of a development that began back in the 1980s. Electronic hasn't become anywhere as esoteric yet.
I'm not so sure - from the little I know of Electronic music and Electronica I see it as being as diverse and faceted as Prog or even Metal, with many of those subgenres either becoming esoteric and "underground", or remaining there from their original beginnings. Even if you confine the scope of "electronica" to just dance music there are sufficient non-comercial diversions, spin-offs and niche markets to mark them as being narrow-band and targetted at selected audiences (not specifically subcultures, though some have be adopted certain electronic subgenres) - be that EBM, IDM or electro-goth, or practically any from this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_electronic_music_genres, very few of which could be considered mainstream.
What?
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 16 2009 at 01:49
Don't forget power electronics. WinkLOL

However, I still get the impression that right now there's way more good and creative electronic music than rock made for a (somewhat) mainstream audience. I mean that electronica as a whole hasn't become as esoteric as rock for that reason, though maybe that will happen too? Confused
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 20 2009 at 21:08
Will rock music get even more crappy? Undeniably, will it die? No.
 
And I also highly doubt if anything replaces rock music, it's gonna be electronica. LOL
 
If anything, I think prog is more popular now than it has ever been since the early 70s. I mean Porcupine Tree and The Mars Volta are in the billboard 100.
 
Of course the super anal prog fans will say that's not real prog (cuz you know, it's only real prog if it's directly copying something from the 70s) but the point is most people consider it prog, and rest assured the new prog bands that are breaking into the mainstream are getting more young people into the old stuff.


Edited by boo boo - April 20 2009 at 21:12
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 21 2009 at 06:20
Smile
Will allways be a need for another Band, another Sound, Another Tour.
 
Nothing like Discovering a new record, dosent matter that deep analyse will show its all been done before, because  it still wont be excatly the same thing.  
Prog is whatevey you want it to be. So dont diss other peoples prog, and they wont diss yours
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 21 2009 at 14:09
Replying to the OP:

I don't think it's only rock.  The days of bands playing to huge audiences are disappearing regardless of genre.  Most of the artists that are playing stadiums nowadays are from the 90's and before, except for maybe Coldplay and a few others. 

Because of the internet and file-sharing things are changing quite a bit. For the fans, its easier to actively find the music they like, without depending on MTV or Radio.  And for musicians its easier to reach their fans directly and make a living with relatively small but faithfull fanbase.

As for guitars and electronic music, I disagree.  If anything, guitars have become "optional"...that is, people have become open to other sounds.  But I still hear quite a lot of guitar everywhere. Perhaps some years ago when electronica was peaking, I'd agree, but that was a long time a ago.

Another thing is that guitarists have been using new sounds, far from the Les Paul/Marshall rock sound. Radiohead, for example, didn't go "electronic".  Sure they have a few electronic songs (I can think of 2 or 3), but alot of their music is still guitar-based, even if it doesn't always sound that way.  This becomes really obvious when you see them live.


Edited by DatM - April 21 2009 at 14:10
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 22 2009 at 14:25
There is nothing like a decaying of rock music going on. It just takes different forms and still actually evolves from what it was in the 70s and 80s. Do new bands take a lot out of the earlier rock bands? Hell yes, but countless of bands are making something new and interresting all the time. Some people say prog died after the 70s. Some people say that rock died in the 90s. Some people lissen to the early rock bands they learned to lissen to at the 70s 80s 90s or what ever and dont give a chance to the new styles of rock.
Right now emo music is out there the big thing but many alternative rock bands are making their marks on the industry. Fair To Midland, Billy Talent, Coheed and Cambria are all very close to emo rock but they stay in the more alternative side of music and usually have more depth to their music then a average emo band.
As in post rock Sigur Ros won a freaking European music award some years ago... !?
That was i big shock for me. A lot of great post rock is coming out right now and it's the purest form of new prog that i can think of. Music is constantly evolving even if the lisseners are not.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 26 2009 at 13:32
Originally posted by Henry Plainview Henry Plainview wrote:

If the 50s and 60s were the heyday of jazz, 60s and 70s were the heyday of rock, the 80s were the heyday of metal, and the 90s were the heyday of electronica, what is our current heyday?
 
Indie.
 
At least a quarter of indie is really damn good. Mainly the older stuff like Pixies, Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, Flaming Lips, Dinosaur Jr, Pavement, Fugazi, Yo La Tengo, Wilco, Slint, Neutral Milk Hotel. But some of the newer bands like New Pornographers, My Morning Jacket and The Decemberists are also excellent.
 
I still hate the majority of modern indie though. Arcade Fire are good but hella overrated, I used to hate TV On The Radio but I've warmed up to them now. Animal Collective are original, but I don't like them at all.
 
Modest Mouse, The National, Okkervil River, Patrick Wolf, Deerhoof, Sufjan Stevens, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Joanna Newsom and Devendra Banhart however, I hate with a burning passion
 
Either way, you read any mainstream music magazine (or visit just about any other music forum) and you'll find that these are the artists that get all the hype today.


Edited by boo boo - April 26 2009 at 13:40
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 26 2009 at 13:43
I thought "indie" just meant anything published by small record labels and didn't really refer to any particular genre, which perfectly illustrates my original point.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 26 2009 at 14:10

Well that was the case, at first. But now it's usually associated with certain sounds. You have indie related terms like Indie Folk and Indie Pop which don't have anything to do with what kind of label you're on. Lo Fi, Noise Rock, Math Rock, Post Rock, Twee Pop, Dance Punk are also labeled as indie genres. I'm not saying they are all sub-genres to a greater genre, because they're quite different from another. But the point is that Indie is specifically associated with certain kinds of music.

There's no particular sound to indie, I'll give you that, but I could say the same for prog. Both are associated with a particular music philosophy rather than a specific sound.
 
Think about it, Porcupine Tree have been on an indie label until In Absentia, nobody considers them an indie band. Modest Mouse signed with Epic well over a decade ago and they're still considered an indie band. 
 
Rather, Indie for a lot of people is a musical philosophy, one that's not all that different from prog's main philosophy. Making music that doesn't conform to the mainstream, traditional music structures or methods, music that challenges the listener and blends various styles to create something unique. Indie just takes that philosophy in a completely different direction.


Edited by boo boo - April 26 2009 at 14:16
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