My music rant

[Taerdin]

I'm so frustrated with life right now, and desperately need to get this off my chest... feel free to comment or explain why my view is wrong/what your view is on the music world. Also if you've ever been deeply moved/inspired by a song feel free to PM me or post about it... I love discovering new music... on to the RANT :O

If you have a working mind you can recognize that some things are just money grabs, and are made to be enticing. Just because 'everyone' has something or 'everyone' uses something doesn't mean its 'the best' or even good! Pure fluff can be a box office smash, while a truly amazing and heart felt attempt at theater can be unnoticed.

What happened to the soul of music? Though you'd never guess it from looking at our present-day mass entertainment, I'm pretty sure there's more to life than love, sex, being 'the best' and/or a carefree promiscuous pile of disease and filth.* The human experience is such a broad spectrum of feelings and emotions, I feel like that's lost in mainstream music.

Despite what some may believe this is not an attempt to make myself seem 'better' than anyone. I don't think my music is the best, and that's not the point. I fully expect that more meaningful and heartfelt music is out there, and I love discovering it one step at a time. This is more like my desperate attempt to make sense of my world and hopefully find solace in the fact that I am not alone. I think everyone should listen to music that makes them FEEL SOMETHING. If your music does that for you, then that's spectacular; but whats been popular for quite some time now has failed me in this. If you've never been moved to tears by a song, or felt chills in your spine from an amazing vocalist or guitar solo or musical interlude then maybe you need to investigate more. Music is such a wide spectrum of styles and sounds, and sadly the mainstream ignores at least a good half of them. So get out there and discover for yourself! The internet is yours for the searching

(inspired by Rob Zacny's 'That's Entertainment'* and my younger sister... and my growing frustration with people hating on me for not being 'cool' enough for them in terms of musical taste.)

 

[Siuss]

I don't really know what kind of music you like but if you think all modern music has become soulless, I suggest you listen to "Avenged Sevenfold" by Avenged Sevenfold, and "Waking the Fallen" also by Avenged Sevenfold.

They are albums not just tracks.

 

[EXPLICITasian]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvCOAQwVA2E

Kinda how you feel, not mainstream, I doubt you've heard anything like this unless you live in Minnesota

 

[Siuss]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvCOAQwVA2E

Kinda how you feel, not mainstream, I doubt you've heard anything like this unless you live in Minnesota

I live in Minnesota, and while I've never listened to them, I guess my brother had been around for the early days of atmosphere with the guys.

 

[Labyrinth]

Some music retains it's "Soul" if you like. Much of the post-rock genre revolves around having that, as otherwise it would just collapse. Mainstream music I've never found to have this because it's based around making money. After all, why would you bother creating something wonderful and moving if you can just whinge a little and make millions off of that because your promotion company makes it suddenly popular, and everyone who wants to be cool goes out and buys your music.

This is the commercial genius behind television shows such as American Idol. The winner is the most popular person, so the produces automatically know that they're going to make a fat wad of cash when that person releases their one-off album before fading back into obscurity. All the screaming fans will want it, buy it, forget it in favour of the next big thing.

As for myself, I stick to music which means something to me. Post rock and metal.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Music has gone to shit a little bit. I find it hard to be too sad about it when there is 70+ years of back catelogue to get through and enjoy, though. As far as good modern music goes. Pink Martini are pretty great in my view. People are dismissive because of the early stuff, but the latest 2 Silverchair albums are excellent, particularly the song "Tuna in the brine". That is astonishingly creative.

 

[Ursus Astrorum]

Most mainstream, like pop, rap, and some of the more popular rock focuses on the bland and already-covered areas, but that's how it's always been. Most people are content with generic love songs and raps about how many hoes such-and-such a person has slapped today, and most artists are content to write said songs, so long as they get a paycheck.

Not all is lost, though. There's still a good many bands out there that actually try to establish meaning in their work, and even if they do have the occasional song that touches on a mainstream note, there's a big difference between AAR's Dirty Little Secret and A7X's Seize the Day

 

[Ancientgamer]

There's still plenty of music that has a "soul". Just don't look at mainstream, 'cause it will always cater to the lowest common denominator.

Of course, I don't know what your specific tastes are, that's just in general.

I would say the real problem with music is that people are able to make music without knowing how to create, read, understand music. We have so many programs like Garageband that people just produce music because they can and it gets people attention.

It is really hard to seperate those artists that can actually play instruments and those that do not. To go even further you have bands that can play their songs but require an editor to make it sound great and in a live show over half of the sounds would not be playable. Some bands cannot even do live shows well because their work is something that can only be created in studios.

This is true, nobody forget, there is a huge difference between a songwriter, and a composer.

 

[Taerdin]

Not all is lost, though. There's still a good many bands out there that actually try to establish meaning in their work, and even if they do have the occasional love song, there's a big difference between AAR's Dirty Little Secret and A7X's Sieze the Day.

What's AAR? Also a short list of songs that you found deep meaning in would be great, if you could like PM it to me or post it here

 

[Fatalis67]

Everything popular is a pointless trend that's popular for a month before nobody listens to it again. I listen to metal, it's infinitely more interesting and doesn't change with trends. It lets the music evolve slowly and more naturally rather than changing dramatically every couple of months to mimic the latest trendy band.

 

[TwistedEllipses]

Music has a way of reinventing itself when ever it becomes stagnant and I would say it's stagnating now...we just need to wait for the next wave...

 

[Bored Tomatoe]

I don't know what is popular anymore, as I stopped listening to the radio around 2004... I mostly listen to alternative metal, grunge and some punk.

 

[Aura Guardian]

I have all four Avenged Sevenfold's albums uploaded into my Zune. The rest are videogame soundtracks. But it barely made 2gigs out of the 30gig. Music has gone downhill badly.

 

[Aura Guardian]

I don't know what is popular anymore, as I stopped listening to the radio around 2004... I mostly listen to alternative metal, grunge and some punk.

Apparently singing a song about kissing a girl and liking it is popular. I blame the radio stations like 106.1 WBLI(In Long Island NY) for playing the same shit every 30 mins.

 

[Taerdin]

I don't know what is popular anymore, as I stopped listening to the radio around 2004... I mostly listen to alternative metal, grunge and some punk.

I stopped following mainstream music too... but its pretty much inescapable. If its not playing somewhere you have to go then its people talking about how amazing "Hot and Cold" is, or how great they are at the soulja boy dance... and me being very lost, confused, and afraid.

 

[Ophiuchus]

Some music retains it's "Soul" if you like. Much of the post-rock genre revolves around having that, as otherwise it would just collapse.

Absolutely this, post-rock is the most stirring music there is these days.

Slightly aside: I'm a bit disappointed to see so many Avenged Sevenfold fanboys on here, let alone in a topic like this, I thought we'd be a bit above that sort of twaddle on a forum that prides itself on intelligent and meaningful discussion.

 

[Bored Tomatoe]

I don't know what is popular anymore, as I stopped listening to the radio around 2004... I mostly listen to alternative metal, grunge and some punk.

Apparently singing a song about kissing a girl and liking it is popular. I blame the radio stations like 106.1 WBLI(In Long Island NY) for playing the same shit every 30 mins.

Atlanta radio fucking SUCKS, We used to have a super awesome radio station called 99X which played alternative rock and metal, heavy metal, punk and all the other delicious genres of music, but Oh, No, we rockers can't have our own station, Q100 had to be a bunch of dipshits, they bought out 99X and turned it into a station that plays the top 40 on endless repeat. Now all we have is project 96.1, which is decidedly meh, it tries to be like 99X, but has annoying DJs and doesn't play anything but Nickleback and Seether, No thanks, 96.1, I'll stick to my Zune.

 

[Taerdin]

Some music retains it's "Soul" if you like. Much of the post-rock genre revolves around having that, as otherwise it would just collapse.

Absolutely this, post-rock is the most stirring music there is these days.

Slightly aside: I'm a bit disappointed to see so many Avenged Sevenfold fanboys on here, let alone in a topic like this, I thought we'd be a bit above that sort of twaddle on a forum that prides itself on intelligent and meaningful discussion.

Can someone explain to me exactly what post-rock is? I don't know if I've even heard that term before... also... post what exactly? :S