jude111 wrote: Prog 74 wrote: I'm an American and listen to Pink Floyd a whole helluva lot.    I may be wrong, but my impression is that (white) Americans look back more. So many radio stations are 'oldies' stations and 'classic rock' stations. I don't know enough about UK radio stations, but it does seem to me that the UK and many other European countries are less interested in the past, and more interested in new-ish stuff, and even newer genres (e.g. electronica). I could be wrong; I wonder what others have to say about this.

I don't know about Europe but your on the money when it comes to American radio.Outside of top 40 ("music")ahem,you will not hear a lot of new good rock,prog ect.Radio is all corporate and pander to what's left of the major labels.So it is up to an individual to seek out music on his /her own.I know a lot of friends who still don't have hardly anything new in their music collection in the last 20 plus years.I am the one playing new stuff to try to turn them on to new artists.Maybe I am just a much bigger music lover?

Edited by jude111 - March 22 2014 at 19:39

jude111 wrote: Well, my feelings on the matter seem to get other people angry, but I'll just go ahead and state it, haha. A lot of the 'new'ish white/indie stuff coming out of the US is pretty musically conservative, and steeped in the past. It's not just oldies radio playing old music; it's also grunge bands recycling the riffs of (largely British) 70s rock bands. Even the riff for  "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is Blue Oyster Cult's "Godzilla" sped up. I remember in the early 1990s when the classic rock stations in Baltimore began to incorporate grunge bands in between tracks by AC/DC, Sabbath, Led Zep, and Lynyrd Skynyrd - it was a seamless transition. The 'hippest' American band in the past year, according to 'hip' American indie webzines, is Vampire Weekend, whose biggest inspiration as far as I can tell is Simon & Garfunkel. Meanwhile, you've got Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver, who, like country indies bands such as Wilco and Neutral Milk Hotel and before them, are strumming guitars in full beards and playing campfire songs and channeling John Denver. The previous hippest American band, Animal Collective, was channeling Beach Boys and Grateful Dead. And maybe this is all good, and people like that continuity and music steeped in tradition. I kind of like though how a lot of UK music isn't afraid to reject the past altogether and to forge new genres. My theory's actually related to linguistics. There is much greater linguistic variety - and much quicker dynamic change - in the "mother" country than in former colonies. You can go from one neighborhood to another in the UK and find greater linguistic varieties than you'd find in the entire continental US. Additionally, the English language is more dynamic and admits greater varieties of slang and changes in the UK than in the US. If music is a form of language - and a recent report came out saying that the same part of the brain is used for both - then perhaps there is a link... And it might explain why  American music (particularly white American music) tends to be more traditional and conservative, slower to change, slower to embrace changes, and less musically diverse. Now, all this collapses when we look at black culture in the US. I remember in my linguistics courses, this was just as true of language in American American communities.... I'll leave it there for now... :-)

Vampire Weekend was the most popular, but by definition that differs from "hippest." 

Edited by Polymorphia - March 22 2014 at 19:53

The Dark Elf wrote: Atavachron wrote: Hit a nerve, did I.   Well that's life on the streets, buddy. No, you didn't hit a nerve, but to use another tired old idiom, you missed the boat. I don't even think you are at the right dock. Perhaps you should just stay in the tub with your rubber duck and blow fart bubbles..

Wow, I really did rustle your feathers.   Is that the best you got?   Fart jokes? 

^ Great question, you might want to post it at JazzMusicArchives

Atavachron wrote: The Dark Elf wrote: Atavachron wrote: Hit a nerve, did I.   Well that's life on the streets, buddy. No, you didn't hit a nerve, but to use another tired old idiom, you missed the boat. I don't even think you are at the right dock. Perhaps you should just stay in the tub with your rubber duck and blow fart bubbles.. Wow, I really did rustle your feathers.   Is that the best you got?   Fart jokes?

WeAreKin wrote: I hold the feeling that I'm not sure that it's particularly important as long as the musical landscapes created and history generated have been absorbed and reinterpreted into something new. Just for example if Beethoven or Mozart were alive today they would be spotting their music in nearly everything out there from a western composition.  ...

The Dark Elf wrote: Atavachron wrote: The Dark Elf wrote: Atavachron wrote: Hit a nerve, did I.   Well that's life on the streets, buddy. No, you didn't hit a nerve, but to use another tired old idiom, you missed the boat. I don't even think you are at the right dock. Perhaps you should just stay in the tub with your rubber duck and blow fart bubbles.. Wow, I really did rustle your feathers.   Is that the best you got?   Fart jokes?  You are completely incapable of replying in context. Your are incapable of paraphrasing or understanding the gist of a dialogue. I don't know if you use English as a second language, but you obviously can't read. So enjoy the rubber duck and fart bubbles, because I no longer take you seriously.

 

Good one--  actually English is my third language.   Not bad for an illiterate, huh?

I think we can agree that rock music's peak years were roughly between 1965 - 1975.  Artists were given the freedom in the studio to virtually do as they pleased and this was encouraged by the record companies.  Music fans bought these experimental and progressive records and radio stations played them around the clock.  Warner Brothers famously signed the Grateful Dead and allowed them to be themselves.  They wisely did not try to "reign" them in and turn them into something more mainstream.  The more original and creative you were the more likely you would be signed and promoted by the record companies.  By the late 70s that began to change.  The music business became a business first and foremost.  Like any business it's aim was to make money and the best way to make loads of money in the music business was to sign bands that had mass appeal.  The more appealing you were the more likely you would have a top 10 hit.  MTV furthered the situation by saying you couldn't merely sound appealing you had to look appealing too.  A hairy, aging band like Jethro Tull would never get a video played if you were judged solely on "looks".  Creativity was stifled.  Wanting to venture beyond the standard 3-4 minute pop song structure was strongly discouraged.  Prog became a joke to many.  A few great prog bands have boldly defied those trends, but in order to survive it needed to go underground where is still exists today.  It's doubtful prog will ever again attain the popularity it had in the early 70s.  It can be done, but the now struggling music business needs to reverse it's stance on creativity & experimentalism.  The Flower Kings should be on the Grammys instead of just Beyonce, Macklemore or Taylor Swift.  Am I truly believe that any of those artists had a more creative, more imaginative album than Desolation Rose?  Absolutely not.  We need to stop dumbing down everything and instead encourage people to want to think and to learn.  Truly good music, be it classical or prog or jazz, requires a certain degree of intelligence that many people find intimidating.  Being smart, being creative, being different are what I find to be truly appealing and the music business should as well. 

rogerthat wrote: ^^  Well, throughout the 70s, no prog rock band won the Grammy for Album of the Year. There are of course a host of genre-specific categories which I am not getting into but Album of the Year was won by Simon & Garfunkel, S Wonder, Carole King, Fleetwood Mac and Bee Gees.

Edited by jude111 - March 24 2014 at 20:39