Why are things the way they are

I'll spare you all the actual disseration I had ready for this thread. Instead, I will pose this question/discussion topic to you all:

Close your eyes. Think about the 70's. Deep Purple, Zeppelin, and Sabbath may come to mind. Or maybe you're thinking of Journey or REO Speedwagon. Maybe you're thinking of Pink Floyd or Judas Priest.

Those bands, they were all full of talented musicians with a conceptual idea of where they wanted their music to go.

Now come the 80's. You might think of Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Testament, Exodus, and Anthrax. Or you might think of Poison, Warrant, and Motley Crue. Perhaps even a pop band like Depeche Mode might come to mind.

The bottom line, behind the clownish glam makeup or the long haired fury were great and accomplished musicians that could produce quality music.

Fast forward to now (I know I'm skipping the grunge era). We have Korn, Limp Bizkit, Blink 182, and Drowning Pool.

Can anyone in these these bands even compare themselves to the majesty of Randy Rhoads, Roger Waters or Marty Friedman? The answer is no.

Fellow guitarists: Why has music today decreased so much in talent, concept, and direction?

What I don't want to hear is "Well, all the good stuff isn't on the radio." That's my point, what happened to the good stuff being on the radio?

What I also don't want to hear is "All those modern bands you mentioned, they may not be good musicians, but they love what they're doing and they have their own style." Fine, that may be true, but why have many people today settled for lesser quality music?

A few months ago, I put up a post that trashed some modern bands, and I got lots of flak for it, but nobody bothered to see where I was coming from.

Perhaps Steve vai put it best: "Nobody is cultivating musicianship, that's the problem. In the '70s, it was really cool to be a good musician. In the '80s, it was very cool to be a virtuoso. In the '90s, it's very cool to be a hack. And it's a shame."

Tell me, in your respected opinions, why things are the way they are. I have my own ideas, but I want to hear what you have to say.

For the most part I think your Steve Vai quote really summed it up.
But there are still some talented musicians sprouting up, you just have to search a little harder and don't depend on commercial radio.
Example; Phish, String Cheese Incident, and Indigenous just to name a few.

RAdioproblem: simple answer, radio was never as good as you imagine it to be... but you simply forgot how bad it was, cos you remember the decent stuff.. Also there are ALOT of radiostations now and there are brillaint radio stations... look under alternative...
AS for Via, his music is embrassing, you have to sit up and pay attention to hear the odd little riff here and there wich is good, amongst the cheese and repetitive dive bombing... I mean the 80's guitar based music was very embrassing, very cheesy and insincire... But bands like Depechmode, (very very early)human league (before the 2 women joined and they were this really dark electronica group), Joy division, Talking heads, Blondie, Stone Roses (possible the most underratted band of the eighties), The smiths, The jam, The clash (yes, they were punk and great)... um.. who else?, let me remember...
Well the point is there's buity in SONG writing which poeple like Via step past, I mean he's a speedy guitarist who can write catchy ringtones, and fills in the song with dive bombing, put those together and you got yer self "for the love of god"... It's quite cold and abstract sounding... And i dont think that musicain ship not being so prominant is much of a problem at all... I mean there are still bands like Muse who know their instruments... but they can write songs, much like those in the 60's (unlike those virtouso's in the 80's)... Those virtouso players had crap art work (as opposed to those grung players who played, painted and wrote), no real direction emotionally or politically, and they used speed as a cruth... that's my oppinion anyway...
the 90's gave us alot of great songs, and for the first time there were major bands bringing conceptail art into music (smashing pumpkins and nine inch nails, who open the way for other smaller bands like my vitroil).
I'm just glad the 80's cheese is gone for the time being..
and that poeple now are much more liberal in their tastes...

I'm going to sum it up in a few words: kids have gotten lazy. I don't think anybody wants to take the time to appreciate more complex music, and more importantly, nobody wants to put in the time to learn how to play more complex music. Obviously there are exceptions... us folks for one (assuming that you grew up in the eighties and ninties). Grunge paved the way for lack of real musical talent, and its perpetuated itself to the point where whats popular is simple repetitive beats with brainless, shallow lyrics.
Obviously there are exceptions.

Everything happens in cycles:
Discussions on this board, trends in music, everything.

I've learned to sit back and listen to the music itself. I'm mostly interested in "The Song." You don't have to be a terribly proficient musician to write one hell of a song and play it well. You have to be creative and solid. While I appreciate really technical stuff, I'd rather hear a good song. This is why Dream Theater and Vai bore me yet I listen to Morphine, Primus, Symphony X, and Buckethead.

70s: I think: "P Funk, Black Sabbath"
80s: Outside of SRV, Possessed, and a few other exceptions, the 80s were a waste of time.
90s: Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Primus, Morphine, Clutch, Faith No More, Mr Bungle...
00s: Well, Mike Patton, and Clutch are still kicking around...

This is just my opinion but maybe our predessesors done so much that there isn't much to expand to without people saying you're not origonal. I think today guitarist are looking for the easy way out trying to help their band make a dollar or two, but how many of todays bands will be around as long as Aerosmith. Aerosmith might be making records when my son is playing guitar in 2015.

Maybe, well I'm almost certain... it's because the peepz of these days (me excluded :) ) don't realise how much effort there goes into writing music. I'll tell you a little story that will surely sound familiar. When some friends come by and they see my guitar they ask if I wanna play something. Sure, so I play something like a sweep/tapping... to show some of my skills, but they don't seem to be interested because they think it sounds to 'classic' = they think I stink at playing the geetar (which is partly true :). BUT, if you play something really simple and with a catchy tune they think you're one hell of a guitarist. my point is, people who aren't occupied with music in any way just go for the thing they find the most attractive to hear. Yeah, sure, a solo from Yngwie sounds mighty impressive to us, but let it hear to some one who doesn't know a thing about guitars and he'll say it's not bad but there are much beter songs. (offcourse this doensn't count for all music and every group, I just generalised)
Oh, and another thing IMHO is, commercials DO matter ! Anyone ever seen a commercial of a band like Megadeth/... ?
Well I don't (maybe in your country, but not in Belgium) but when you look at groups like depeche mode/blink/korn you see all kinds of ****ty publicity stunts to encourage you to buy their newest cd. Real bands just have to do it by mouth to mouth publicity and gigs. Imho, you've got the talent and you play some descent guitar/drums/... without having some stupid commercial to give you financial ensurance or you don't have the talent and you 'invest' in your music to get the fourfold back.

All big 'imho's, don't shoot me if you don't agree with something I said :)

Excellent points on their own merit guys.

In my very own little private take on the subject I see it this way -The recording industry is ruled (or should that be Fukked) by money , A@R men for major labels probably wont sign talented bands because they are talented BUT because they fit into a genre such as boy band, numetal {it's all the same to them,as long as they fit into one of their marketing categories then they are a marketable product}
so as long as a band will sell... that's all they want.

This leaves our Original Talented band (OTB) with the option of going to a smaller label.

Major Radio station managers have a lot of dealings with these "record" labels so one can see that OTB certainly will not get radio air time, by and large, due to the ad revenue and kickbacks which major radio stations get from major record companies who squeeze out the smaller companies and their products.

This probably has something to do with Karl marx and the objectification of labour, if you trace it a back to the roots.

And the punter bends over and takes it up the arse as usual.

basically "is it gonna sell a load and make us some cash"is where it's at in the recording industry.

My tuppence/2 cents worth.SNS.

Candlebox - Short lived, but good.
The Dandy Worholls - Crap.

Like anything else, the original, "fresh" sounding, creative, "old school," grunge/alternative guys were replaced by cheap imitations. Why? Because it was selling. Then came Nu-Metalish stuff which I think will be replaced within two or three years. Possibly sooner. We're allready seeing a lot of bands where everybody (or so it seems) looks at them and says "what is this CRAP?!?!?"

Right now record labels are signing anybody who sorta kinda has "that sound" and possibly a good looking frontman who they think will sell a few albums. If the band flops they still have to pay back the advance, so what does it hurt?

The historical sequence of events has been covered pretty well here. I wish to draw your notice to the qualitative thread that goes with it.

I think the central problem comes down to [u]attention span[/u]. Take a look at the chronology of the trends in music listed in the previous posts. I see a matching rise in the popularity of MTV, MuchMusic, and mindless entertainment in other fields, like movies (too tacky to merit the term 'cinema'). These visual forms all feature fast pacing, minimal plot, minimal audience engagement, and actually discourage any intellectual involvement.

The target audience for mass entertainment (in the Western world, at least) has been conditioned to expect big thrills without making any investment on their part. As someone said in another post, "Thinking is fun.". That is not a widely held opinion anymore. I believe that people get 'lost in thought' because its such unfamiliar territory.

The only hope for improvement is to prepare for the inevitable cyclic trend away from the current 'dumbing down' to something with more substance to it. The very fact we're having this discussion is encouraging. If enough people look elsewhere for entertainment, you can be sure The Biz will scramble to get out in front of 'The New Thing".

lol... dont we call this dumbing down, "the americanisation of our tv shows"? lol :) (i mentioned it before, Red Dwarf was onbe fo the funniest tv programs over here, and it was low budget, crap fx which were actaully funny, and a cast of 4... and talking scenes were long, serious explanations / theories were explained in detail.. Then it got "adapted for the american market" due to it's success over here.. Oh goD! the scenes were too short, they'd cut them all down to less than a minute and a half!!!, there were more useless charecters, computer fx started playing a big part, plots weren't intracet, nothing was well explained anymore.. it's just became poor... and i dont think it's anything to do with americans, but how big entertainment buisness works... if you've got a combination that works they stick with it, and to hell with art)
To be fair though, I dont think poeple are getting lazy, I mean i listen to "life with out biuldings" and the popele who heard it here, didn't like it, it was nonsensecal, as it was very hard to follow, certainly more difficult than listening to 6 minutes of cheese just hear maybe 30 seconds worth of riffs.. I mean c'mon, it's Shht, but difficult shht, that's why it's so respected (that's why it's predominantly guitarist who like it, not musicains who play other instruments who have a musical ear, because it's cheese and doesn't convey feeling, real gut wrenching pain, screaming joy, soothing hope, nothing, just like a catchy mobile phone ring tone)... if you wanna hear great guitar lines with great songs listen to the stone roses...
Sorry about this rant, i've been listening to more and more steve via, and imo he's a major let down... I mean poeple rant about him, and all i hear is poo, quircky simple minded gimmicks, crap art work on his "war and passion" or whatever it is album... I mean i could do a flaming better job than that cack cover... sheesh.. I mean, I would hold my head high if had written an album like "odelay" by beck, or "buitiful freak" by the eels, or "soft bullitin" by the flammng lips or "electric lady land" by hendrix or any other decent album by some artistically talented muscian, not dull lacking in any concept cheese.. If i wrote that album ("war and passion" or whatever it's called), i'd probably still be drowning my sorrows this many years on.. same goes with "surfing with the alien" (which still fondly clings to my worst album ever heard award)..
oh yeah, I would really call alot of newer rock lyrics "shallow", the system of a down stuff is very deep, you just need to know some backround info, and if you'r willing to just brush it of or come up with the old 2it's sucks" argument ofcourse you will miss it, and it's nobodies fault but your own :)...
What I'm trying to say is, I love technical playing, I love deep playful expressive vocals... What i dont like is technical playing to feed the old ego, or music by drunks playing the paino, it maybe deep real deep, but the guy's hitting more bum notes than right ones :).. A compromise is good between the two... Although personally I would much prefer to be a powerful song writer, to put some idea or concept into poeple's heads, like "give peace a chance" :D.. but alas..
Sorry about my long rant..

Originally posted by mrcrowley

Fellow guitarists: Why has music today decreased so much in talent, concept, and direction?

The answer:

Music industry and money.

Music (i mean real good music - that kinda music u where talking about of the 60-80) is too expensive.

Letz go back in time to the 60´s....
Music had a different meaning.. it was an event! You where listening to hand made music for multimedial overkill wasn´t present. TV was not so important (Video killed the Radio star - its true).
When one wanted to chill one did not turn on the TV or play a computer game. This was the time when hundreds of talented bands where playing all over the world in several pubs. There where actually peeps who where interrested in hearing good hand made music LIVE.

Can u imagine that a band like Gentle Giant (VERY difficult to hear) had 12,000 peeps at a concert in Germany back in the late 60´s?? Today they would have not more than 120.

And why is this?

LISTENING to music has lost its value. It is too time consuming.

Its not that there are no talented musicians and bands here anymore .. its just that noone realy listens to them anymore but a few freaks.

And then the music industry. The Music Industry is NOT interrested in music - its interrested in making money (with music). and they are smart enough to know that when u are playing a specific type of music over and over again on Radio/TV peeps will begin to like it. So it was just logical that electronic music (techno) and music that is very easy to make made its way. For it is much cheaper to create music on computers then pay real musicians - and its much faster - and if you bombard peeps long enuff with that sh** then they´ll sooner or later love it.

Then - as i said - Video kiled the radio star. the popular musicians of today are not good musicians - they are good (?) actors.. or at least the look good.

Musical individuality does not fit in todays music industry.

sad but true

-=[Azrael]=-

Musical trends are often fairly indicitive of the society that creates it. We live in a commercialised society, so it is understandable that the music is commercialised also. There are groups of people who react against that mainstream just as there are bands that do. If you are dissatisfied by the music you hear maybe it is because you are dissatisfied by the way in which every consumer good you are offered is ultimately lacking in substance and is as shallow as the lyrics to an N'Sync tune. Of course, when the alternative is some violent death metal band that loves to sing about violent treatment towards women, where do you go?
There seem to be a lot of people here that lament the loss of good music, well, do something about it! There are plenty of people here that are good musicians I am sure, stand up.

WE HAVEN@T LOST GREAT MUSIC... it's become more difficult to find, yes... but it is there... and if you'r serious enough to pay real close attention to those songs, you could spend some time looking for stuff... I know the guy who started this thread didn't want to hear it...
but to be fair, a hand full of bands across 2 or 3 decades were named, and this is suppoused to show that music on the radio was good? I dont understand... Radio has been crap for a long time..
I mean radiohead as still played when they release something... oh that's a point radio is based alot on new singles, htat's why it may seem shallow

Pony One,

I hear what you're saying. There has definitely been crappy music for each of the past decades. But when I think about the rock sound that 'defined' and was prevalent throughout each previous decade, I see a definite decrease in quality.

That's just me, though.

i don't understand what the obsession with how baaaaad the music of today is - just make your own good music and people who have taste will listen...
i don't want those screaming nine year olds at my concerts anyway - they're not loyal fans and they don't even care what your music is about.
-Daniel

Originally posted by chris mood
....But there are still some talented musicians sprouting up, you just have to search a little harder and don't depend on commercial radio.....

Commercial radio is just that,commercial radio.They're in it for thr money,not the art.It just so happens they make money from something that thanx to them used to be art.
Just like condom manufacturers.Does using condoms do all it's said to do.Sure.But you think Durex wish you to keep away from aids?They don't give a phuck.For all they care,you might as well be using condoms to decorate for christmas or something.That's why their adverts don't in any way discourage sex(forget what they say in that small print),which would be the surest way of avoiding STD's and all.That's not where it's at for them.If someone found a new use for condoms that everone needed,thed go there in a flash.Forget the stuff about aids.What is aids?

Lol... "they dont give a phuck"... I like that :)...

The radio is simply there to pick up the most number of listeners (that's making a big generalisation, and not always the case, but for most it is true), which means playing the most sold singles or the ones expected to sell most... hence why there is a lot of chart stuff on the radio... if a "good" song makes it in there, it will also be played, but not really by taste simply by numbers...
That's why boy bands (i really dont like that name, I mean what do you call an all male band other than a boy band, a guy band, a man band :))/ girl bands, as chlichied, unoriginal and insinceir thier stuff is, it gets ALOT of air play, because it sells...

The problem is this type of stuff sells better when it gets more air play :mad: ...
In the end as long as there is good music that I can get my hands on (be it on limited edition 7' or mp3), I'm happy...