Young People, old music.

[coloradodem2005]

As teens adopt their parents' music, a classic repertoire gels

By DAVID MENCONI, Staff Writer
This is the music Chip, 17 loves -- the music of his parents' generation. Thirty years ago, it wouldn't have occurred to most teenagers to listen to Bing Crosby records from the '40s, unless they did it as a goof. That was their parents' music, and besides, they had Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of the Moon" to delve into. But nowadays, those circa-'75 Pink Floyd fans have children of their own, kids who are raiding their record collections for decades-old music.
<snip>

Often, the kids like what they find there. Or they prick up their ears at the vintage Yardbirds, Who and Led Zeppelin songs that turn up in commercials and movies. The music still pushes the same buttons it did in its prime.

Gena Wall of Apex remembers the day her 9-year-old son Kieran discovered "Layla" by Eric Clapton's Derek and the Dominos. He just had to share the discovery. He led his parents over to the stereo, sat them down, played "Layla" for them (the whole thing, extended piano outro and all) and solemnly declared that it "has to be the best song ever written."

"A lot of the newer music just sounds crazy," says Kieran, whose all-time top-10, aside from Green Day's "American Idiot," is '70s-vintage songs by the Eagles, Clapton, James Taylor and Lynyrd Skynyrd. "Those old songs just sound ... better. These new songs are just crazy, and you can't understand a single word they're saying. The classic rock I usually listen to, you can understand what they're saying. So I can memorize it and sing it in my head all day."
<snip>

The Limp Bizkits and Linkin Parks may come and go, but Zeppelin is forever.
<snip>

http://www.led-zeppelin.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=18296&st=0&p=465706&#entry465706

http://www.newsobserver.com/lifestyles/arts_entertainment/story/2209098p-8590037c.html

[vi5]

1. It's laziness and nothing more...

..yeah, if all I heard was the garbage they played on the radio then I'd probably listen to nothing but old stuff as well. But if people are truly music fans they will take the time to dig deeper and find that there are a ton of vital artists out there, currently making new music which is just as great and just as challenging and just as groundbreaking (in some ways MORE groundbreaking) than the classic rock of our parents. Especially in the internet age where you can sample new bands and artists and songs and get information about them at the drop of a hat. There is no excuse for the lame cop out of how bad current music is.

[SmokingJacket]

4. You're right -- there's a ton of excellent music being written right now.

Too bad it doesn't get on the radio.

[vi5]

5. Even if someone wanted carbon copies....

...of those older bands, they are out there. The article mentions Pink Floyd. Pink Floyd has been one of the biggest influences on any number of underground, independent artists creating vital music in this day and age. I can't blame people for not having the time or energy to pursue this stuff, but I would argue if you are under 30 years old and listening to only classic rock because you feel there is no good music out there, than I would argue that you're not really a music fan to begin with.

[American Tragedy]

6. I really agree.

It pisses me off when people say that there is no good music anymore. My father, a huge Pink Floyd fan, used to be a similar purist, until I lent him some new CDs from my favorite groups, and he was just floored.

I find an overwhelming collection of sophisticated, brilliant music was created within the past ten years, and continuing today. I do respect and even love a good deal of older tunes, and it's interesting to hear the origins of music I enjoy today.

[FrankBooth]

46. I agree and I'm 40 years old

and I listen to a ton of great new bands. Hell, if this kid like Led Zep so much (as do I) he should listen to Mars Volta.

[ghostsofgiants]

48. Haha, funny you should say that

The Mars Volta is my favourite band, and Zeppelin is my favourite "classic rock" band (I guess you could say).

[FrankBooth]

49. I just heard them for the first time recently

a younger friend of mine referred to it as "prog rock" which I thought was interesting ... when I grew up "prog" was Yes, King Crimson, ELP etc ...

[ghostsofgiants]

53. Haha, I refer to it as "surrealist punk"

I've been into them since probably '02, just before De-loused in the Comatorium came out.

I had actually just gotten into their "mother band" (so to speak) At The Drive-in, but they had already broken up, giving birth to Sparta and The Mars Volta. Sparta is good, albeit fairly standard emo/punk type stuff (similar to older At The Drive-in), but The Mars Volta blew me away.

[mark414]

7. we are a generation that has had everything handed to us

and everything done for us

i personally am one of those "diggers," and while i definitely enjoy much of my father's collection (and even his father's collection...big jazz fan), some of the stuff coming out in the last few years is some of the best stuff i've ever heard in my life

[vi5]

9. I love the classics too....

..but so much new music today combines some of the best elements of all the classics and adds current vitality and twists and technology to it. It's just as bad to deny the current music it's place as it would be to deny the influence of the classics on today's music. There can be a middle ground.

Nostalgia is the death of progress.

[trogdor]

8. You're a genius!

Now I know what I want to get my kid for his birthday! A mining helmet and climbing gear to go hunt down these vital artists that are out there waiting to be discovered by dozens of fans. I don't doubt they exist, but my question is, how much shit are we expected to wade through before finding that latter-day Led Zeppelin? After all, didn't Andy Warhol once say that 95% of everything is crap?

Seriously, though. If these bands exist, and I have no doubt that they do, isn't it the job of the music industry, broadcast radio, etc. to find them? When did it become my job? They want my $16.95 per CD for their unlistenable garbage, but they don't want to do the legwork finding what we really want to hear.

[vi5]

12. You're right, it's entirely the music industry and radio's fault...

I'm not even arguing that point. And if you or your kid are a casual music listener just looking for background music then throwing on your old records or just buying what's in the top 40 is fine. Nobody's saying it's not. My issue is the complaint that there is no good current music out there.

And yeah, sometimes you or he will have to take chances. You'll have to buy a record based off of a review or a mention on a website. Maybe for every 1 that sucks there will be 2 you find that blow you away.

If you or he don't want to do the digging then nobody's making you. But if someone considers themselves a music fan, and wants to make the complaint in print that current music is just screaming and yelling or not as good as the classics, then I am going to make the counter-argument.

[trogdor]

16. Rock and Roll is ALL ABOUT the casual listener.

They had a version of rock for those who disagreed with that sentiment. They called it "progressive rock." The casual listeners thought it was over-produced, overly pretentious, schlocky crap, and then came New Wave and hair metal. Even then, the best prog rock (ex. Close To The Edge, Karn Evil #9) was often enthusiastically received by casual listeners. Our great-grandchildren will still be listening to Led Zeppelin while wondering who the hell Britney Spears was.

[vi5]

25. It's a matter of of volume though....

There are simply more bands making music today than there were back then. Plain and simple. It's a numbers game. If people want to decry something then they should decry the volume of music out there, or the fact that what is being marketed by big record companies is garbage. Not the fact that music from today not as good as it once was. One is a factual statement. The other is patently false.

There are many more records competing for the same dollars.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

37. Listen to 3WK

Free underground internet radio.

I've discovered a bunch of good new stuff just listening to the radio while I'm at work.

There are plenty of other underground free internet stations out there.

I don't think you need a mining helmet to Google...

[ZoCrowes]

10. It's not laziness

Good music is good music!

Their is a lot of good music being produced nowadays (Lewis Taylor has been in heavy rotation in my car, the new Mars Volta album is great and Van Hunt's album is spectacular) however much of the good new music does not strike the same chord with me as Derek and the Dominos or The Beatles. It's not laziness it is just taste.

And most of the "groundbreaking" stuff in rock is just rehashing what Can did 30 years ago. The only truly groundbreaking music I am hearing is coming out of hip-hop. Even electronicia is starting to become hackneyed. To me it does not matter when the music came out. That is inconsiquential and people who make a big deal out of it are idiots. I'll say it again: good music is good music! Who gives a shit if it came out in 1927, 1956, 1974 or 2002 as long as you enjoy it?

On edit: Hopefully some of these kids will go back even farther and discover the blues and jazz roots of the classic rock guys. That is how I got into Woody Guthrie, Skip James, Charlie Christian, Robert Johnson, Blind Willie Mctell and many more. BTW I am 21

[vi5]

13. Yeah, but even the classics were rip-offs...

I'm sure plenty of people hated Zeppelin because it was just re-hashing old Willie Dixon songs.

I'm not saying that stuff is bad at all. I love most of the big classic rock bands with a passion. My only complaint is someone who is young and is just retreating into the classics.

There's a difference between appreciating the classics and having them as your touchstone. It depends on your age. There's no way that I'm going to be as moved by Interpol as I was when I first heard Joy Division 20 years ago. But Interpol is still a great band making great music. But I'd be just as wary of a 17 year old kid being more into Joy Division than he is a current band.

I will be just as dissapointed if my daughter ONLY listens to my music as I would be if she HATED my music.

[ZoCrowes]

17. That's true

for Zeppelins first two records. After that they came up with some pretty original sounds. I can think of very few blues artists who recorded anything that sounds remotely like Achilles Last Stand.

Why would you be wary of a 17 year old more into Joy Division than Interpol if the songs that Joy Division wrote appealed to him more? Who gives a shit if it came out 20 years or go or two if it is good music?

Speaking of Interpol I am gonna see them Wednesday night (should be a good show.) And I would rather listen to Joy Division than Interpol.

You're last sentence is the key. It's people who pigeonhole themselves into liking only one type of music that bother me. If you only listen to classic rock then you are selling yourself short of all the great that comes from every era. From Lightnin Hopkins to Frank Sinatra to The Beatles to Snoop Dogg it's all good man.

[Reverend_Smitty]

20. I like the way you think...

I'm 20 years old and why should it bother anyone what music I listen to. I derive pleasure from listening to Bach, Coltrane, Zeppelin and Radiohead.

Music is an intensely personal thing. Thats why I'm not one to really harp on people's musical tastes. If it sounds good and it moves you, listen to it. Who cares if it came out 30 years ago or last week. Great music is timeless.

[vi5]

26. I listen to anything and everything....

But I'm a rabid, obsessive music fan.

I like Joy Division better than Interpol as well. That was a bad example because they are a direct copping from another band. Perhaps then I should have said I would be dissapointed if a teenager was more into Joy Division than they were Radiohead or something like that. The best rock music to me is of a moment. Things change over time. If someone is only looking backwards then that to me is not productive. They shouldn't neglect to look backwards or not appreciate that stuff, but they shouldn't be looking only backwards.

[johnnie]

21. That's how I learned about all the great blues artists

Everyone was yappin' about how good Led Zeppelin were and I just didn't see (hear) it. But I did check out that a few of the songs were from Willie Dixon and the like so I got a few more names to look into. I also found out that Page and Plant liked to put their names on other people's songs, so I really had nothing to do with them.

[ZoCrowes]

23. That's a common trait

taking others songs, slightly rewriting it and then selling it as your own. Dylan did it constantly on his first few releases, it happened ALL THE TIME in blues. Page and Plant were just so high profile at the time that they recieved attention for it.

Examples:

Dylan's Girl Of The North Country is Scarborough Fair with different lyrics

The Jam's Town Called Malice pinches James Jamerson's bassline from You Can't Hurry Love by the Supremes

The Beatles Daytripper borrows the riff from Bobby Parker's Watch Your Step

Guns N Roses I Used To Love Her is basically the Stones Dead Flowers with different lyrics (even copies Mick Taylor's guitar style)

and that is just a few off the top of my head.

[johnnie]

24. Slightly rewriting is one thing

Page and Plant stole directly. The copped to it later, but it didn't help out the guys they ripped off.
I remember seeing Eric Burdon years ago and he went in to a rant about the almighty Zep. He never said their names, but you knew who he was talking about. It was funny as hell.

[ZoCrowes]

28. No they rewrote

just like the other people I mentioned. What they did with Whole Lotta Love/You Need Love was the same thing that Dylan did with Girl Of the North Country/Sarborough Fair. The difference was that Dylan used a song that was in the public domain and Zeppelin used one that was still under copyright. A lot of times when it happens the original authors just let it go. However, in the case of Zeppelin they were so high profile that there was a buck to be made. Another good (famous) example of this is Harrison's My Sweet Lord and the Chiffon's He's So Fine.

Hell I just wrote a song a week ago that ripped off the bassline from the Jackson 5's I Want You Back. Did I do it with malice to rip off the original artist? Nope I just love that fucking bassline and wanted to do something similar.

It is EXTREMELY common in songwriting to borrow (or outright ripoff) a song you like and not give credit for it. Hell it is pretty much the entire basis for blues music.

[johnnie]

34. I've written well over a hundred tunes

And I never blatantly ripped someone off. Sure I have some influences in there, but not to that extreme. You can make excuses for Zeppelin all you want, but to me they were the worst of them all. OK, so Dylan ripped off a tune here and there. Zeppelin put out almost complete albums of other people's songs and called them theirs. There is even an album out there that has about 30 odd tunes from the original artists that Zeppelin ripped off.
I'm sorry, but the fact that Zeppelin were cashing in on Willie Dixon while he was cleaning floors at Chess studios pisses me off.
I don't think the songwriters got on Zeppelin's case because they were so high profile. The Beatles and Dylan are pretty high profile. Zeppelin was sued because they disregarded the laws and stole tunes. It's that simple.

[ZoCrowes]

44. Dixon cleaning floors at Chess

was not Zeppelin's fault at all. The fault there lies with Chess records and how they cheated their artists and creators out of royalities.

And calling the first three albums blatent ripoffs shows how little Zeppelin you have listened to. You just have a dislike of a band and you have an agenda. That is what it all boils down to. I am pretty burnt out on Zeppelin myself and if I never have to hear Whole Lotta Love or Stairway To Heaven again I will die a happy man.

And you say you have written 100 songs and have not pinched a line or chop from a song you've heard before then you are lying through your teeth. Because that is basically what Zep did. They took a few lines from Killing Floor, The Hunter and You Need Love and peppered them throughout their songs. Just like they did with If You're Going To San Franciso and I Saw Her Standing There live.

[mark414]

15. have you heard tv on the radio?

i heard em first when they dropped that ep a couple years back and they STILL blow me away

[ZoCrowes]

18. TV?

You mean MV? I heard the Mars Volta a few years back after At The Drive-In broke up. I thought their last album was enjoyable but nothign spectacular but I recieved a promo of Frances the Mute and was floored by it.

[vi5]

29. No, TV on the Radio...

They are a multi-racial indie rock band from New York (Brooklyn?) that combine experimental rock, classic rock, Do-Wop, Soul, and beatboxing. It's great stuff. You should check them out.

[ZoCrowes]

30. Sounds right up my alley

I'll definitely give them a listen! Any album recomendations?

[vi5]

32. Their album is called Desparate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes...

..horrible title, great album. They also have an EP called Young Liars.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

38. I saw them open for the Pixies

They're pretty good live too.

[mark414]

50. noo "TV On The Radio" is the name of the band

they released an ep...3 years ago??? and a full length at the end of 2003 i believe...phenomenal stuff

http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/t/tv-on-the-radio/young-liars.shtml

[vi5]

27. Oh my god. That is the PERFECT example.....

They are a phenomenal band. They write catchy songs that are innovative and brilliant. The perfect example of a band that gets lost in the shuffle of volume out there today. They are getting some great press but nowhere near what they should be.

[mark414]

61. it still blows me away

i'm actually listening to the full length right now and it's hitting me as hard as it did the first time i heard it

ESPECIALLY ambulance

damn that track kills me

[Radical Activist]

42. If you grow up in a small town in the South or Midwest

There isn't much else you're exposed to. Growing up all I heard on the radio was classic rock, oldies rock, country and top 40 pop. In the late 80's I thought I didn't like music because all I heard on the radio was crap.

The record industry today doesn't put much good music on the radio. For a lot of kids, classic rock that their parents listened to is simply the best they have been exposed to. If you live in a small town and don't know anyone who is up on the latest ground breaking music then chances are you will never know where to look.

[vi5]

57. That MAY have been true 20-30 years ago...

...but it's definitely not today. In fact I have to work LESS to find more bands than I did years ago. And I have to spend less on crapshoots since with the click of a mouse I can hear samples of bands to see if I like them before I buy anything buy them.

And as for the rural vs. urban thing, I have lived in NJ close to New York City, and I've lived in rural pennsylvania. And my favorite record stores and the best shows and the best bands I've seen and the most vibrant music scene was in rural Pennsylvania. Lack of activity or boredom can be great motivators.

[Radical Activist]

59. You still have to know where to look online

A bunch of band names that you've never heard of doesn't help any if you don't have at least some idea of where to start. But yeah, I wish it had been that easy to find new music on the net when I was younger. Napster got big when I was in college and I never had a net connectin fast enough to take real advantage of it.

[vi5]

60. You're definitely right......

I mostly blame the music industry for all of this. Kids who only get their music from radio or MTV can totally be forgiven for thinking most stuff is garbage nowadays.

That rural/urban disconnect though is how the entire punk scene in america was created. Kids are always looking for something to do. Van Halen wasn't going to come to some small backwater town to play, but Black Flag would. Minor Threat would. Those rural kids are the ones creating their own music scenes as oppossed to having one handed to them on a jaded silver platter.

[LSdemocrat]

54. Why is new "good" music inherently better than old good music?

[vi5]

56. I don't think it is......

Some of it is and some of it isn't. I dont' think I said that (I didn't re-read my post so I could be wrong...but it's not what I meant). There is new music coming out now that is great and new music that has been released 10-20-30-40-50 years ago that is great. That's my point. It's the notion that the classics are soooo much better than what is being released today, and the notion that there is no good current/new music out there beyond the dreck that is on radio or tv that I take issue with.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. Speaking of old music, bad news:

I just got off the phone with an old friend of mine. He told me that Jakson Spires, the incredible drummer of Blackfoot, one of the seminal Southern Rock bands and certainly the heaviest of them, had a dissecting brain aneurysm at home last night. He is in the hospital on life support, with no measurable brain activity. He had just returned from Muscle Shoals Ala, where he has been working on a new album by The Southern Rock All-Stars.

Jakson was 54. He has a wife and at least two children, possible more. More would not be a surprise to anyone who knew him. After all, he worked hard at the mechanics of making them.

[SmokingJacket]

3. Whenever I go into a coffee shop near the college here...

they're playing 80's music. Last night I stood in line while listening to "Like a Virgin." Flashback: 1984. I feel sorry for those students -- don't they have their own music??

[trogdor]

11. Sure they do.

It just sucks, that's all.

A generation ago, we all sent out a loud message to the music industry - DISCO SUCKS!!!!!!!!!! What happened after that? They quit making disco records and they quit playing it on the radio!

Wow! Can you imagine that happening now? Hell no. We've been screaming "Britney Spears Sucks" at the top of our lungs for a couple of years now, but they're not listening anymore. We even tell them what we like by handing the classic rock stations all the ratings. A six year old could figure it out, but they're not goddam listening.

[vi5]

14. And the same thing is happening now....

Teen girls singing synth based pop songs are being replaced by artists like Avril Lavigne and her ilk who are basically the same thing, but dressed up in "punk" clothes and marketed differently.

It's the same thing that happened 25 years ago. People screamed "Disco sucks!" So what replaced it in the early 80's? New Wave. Wow, big difference. The record industry has always sucked.

Look at the Velvet Underground and Iggy and the Stooges. They sold no records when they were around. Yet if you look at the sheer volume of bands ripping them off today, and the fact that they sell more records in a year currently than they did the first 5-10 years they were out it shows you that you can't always predict what from today will last.

[trogdor]

19. I'll give you that.

But there were also The Pretenders, probably the best early 80's band there was. There was also Van Halen, the prototype hair metal band. Not exactly art, but it was fun to listen to.

[vi5]

31. Everything is cyclical.....

Look at a band like Black Sabbath. They never had "hit" records and they never got much classic rock radio airplay. But they were a grassroots success. That's why it's great that Ozzy won't let them be nominated for the Rock and Roll hall of fame. He remembers how the industry treated them and for them to turn around now and revere the band as though they (the industry) had anything to do with their success is hypocritical.

[johnnie]

22. In my circle of friends..

..We dug as deep as we could get. I started a band when I was 12 and we would all try to outdo each other with our musical knowledge. So it became a game to see who could discover "new" music. To this day (over 25 years) we still try to turn each other on to different music.
When I was working in the studio I used to tell the younger kids that they really should check out where the music they are playing came from. I could see what players were going to keep playing and learning and what ones were just doing it to pick up chicks :).

[InvisibleTouch]

33. I grew up listening to my grandmother's music

Old melancholy German stuff. I love it to this day. I love a lot of other types of music too, both older and recent, both English and German, which makes it nice to always be able to find something to listen to, according to almost any mood.

[Done]

35. Starting with Elvis and moving to

Hendrix and Aretha Franklin, music changed dramatically as the blues came into the main stream. This started with Elvis' "watered down" version of the blues, but over time the real blues began to be played. By the late sixties the blues had arrived and became main stream, and since that time there has not been any radical change in music. Teenagers in the seventies could listen to their parents music and hear something radically different from the music of their time, but when teenagers today listen to much of the music from the seventies, it is not all that different. Dramatic cultural changes like the move of the blues into the main stream are rare and only happen every few hundred years.

[Heddi]

36. Isn't it lazier, though

to automatically listen to whatever chum is churned out by the music industry because "MTV sez it's good music"?

I was born in 76, and grew up listening to my mother's very large record collection that ranged from Spike Jones to The Beatles to David Bowie to Queen to Black Oak Arkansas...she had everything, and when I was growing up, I listened to what she listened to.

As I aged, I started listening music that I liked (My first 45 was STray Cat Strut!). I loved Blondie and Madonna...

I like what I like. It's not laziness on my part that I'm not willing to spend hours that I don't have crusing internet radio hoping to find something I like. When I had time, I'd tune in Virgin Radio, or some other European-Based streaming web-casts in hopes of finding something new....

But all I heard were three things
1) European versions of American Artists (the cliche boy-band, angry girl, sentimental 20-something, etc)
2) American Music
3) Rehash of "Classics" like Nirvana, Aerosmith (vomit), Oasis, etc

So where is one supposed to go to find this "new" music? Word of mouth---tried that---heard one song, sounded okay, heard the rest of the album and it was tripe. Reading SPIN or Rolling STone---tried that--every band that WAS THE MOST UP AND COMING BAND is tiresome to me.

Maybe I'm just getting to the age where nothing is as good as it was when I was young, but I like the music I listen to. If it's old, so be it. Perhaps I'm old, perhaps I'm picky and finiky when it comes to my musical tastes.

I think it's far lazier to listen to music SOLELY because someone ELSE said that it was cool, or SOLELY Because it's played on the radio, than it is to listen to music that you actually like and that has meaning to you

[vi5]

43. It's not lazy to not want to hunt down new music....

It's lazy to make the statement that there is no good music coming out today. It's fine if someone wants to just listen to their parents record collection or if they just want to listen to whatever the radio churns out. That doesn't makes them lazy, simply a casual music listener.

But saying "there is no good music coming out today" is a lazy statement.

I have read most of the classic works of literature. I just don't have time to keep up with current literary works and all the books that come out every year. Yet I still go back and read the classics because it takes less time and effort on my part than tracking down the best new stuff and trying to absorb it and enjoy it. But I would never dream of making the statement that there is no good literature around today and painting with such a broad brush, simply because I didn't have the time to research it all.

Being a fan of any form of media, art or entertainment is a lot of work. There's nothing wrong with not being interested in doing so. But there is something wrong in my mind with making general statements about things such as most of the people in that article (and some on this thread did).

I'm not saying you do or said that. My laziness comment was directed at the people in the article who complained about the lack of good music coming out today.

[Heddi]

47. But realisitically, how much time does one need to devote

to "seeking out" good music in order to FIND good music?

I've done my fair share--I've taken friends' advice, I've taken reviewer's advice, I've listened to random "new" songs on US radio & other radio markets.....and I've found NOTHING that I like. NOTHING.

DOes that mean that there is nothing out there, no matter how obscure it is, that I WOULD like if I heard it? Definitely not. But I don't have the time to download a song from every artist and listen to it, then listen to other songs from that artist, and decide whether or not their music isn't just 'good', but high enough in my like-factor to continue to listen to them and purchase other albums.

Keane, for example---a year ago my husband heard them on Virgin Radio. Liked the one song they put out, so he downloaded a few others. They ALL SOUNDED THE SAME. THat one song may have been 'good' but as a band, or as an album, I thought it sucked.

Sometimes we're limited by time, resources, and frankly interest. I've got a CD collection that's over 3,000 CD's strong. I like maybe 70% of what I have (like meaning that I like it enough to listen to an entire CD and like the majority of the songs).

I like what I like. If I hear 1000 new songs in the course of a few months and dont' like any of them, it's not lazy of me to NOT seek out ANOTHER 1,000, then another, then another in the hopes of finding ONE band or artist that perhaps I like or that meets my musical needs.

As one who NEVER listens to the radio, I can say without a doubt that there is no good music put out today that gets radio airplay. There is no good music today that gets MTV airplay, or any other video airplay. Aside from that, what resources do I have (besides picking a band blindly) to find new and exciting music? The reviewers that work at SPIN have been smoking crack, for they said the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were the best band in the world--I don't like them. They said the Killers were the best band in the world--don't like them either.

I've neither the time or the energy to spend seeking out every band in the universe and listening to their songs in hopes of finding someone 'new'. And then, there's the chance that your 'new' band that just happens to fit the hits right for you disbands. or, in the case of the STone Roses, puts out a 2nd album that is so totally unlike the first as to make it unlistenable.

[vi5]

51. A LOT of time......

I mean as a 35 year old husband and father with a home to upkeep and a pretty demanding job, I don't have near the time I used to. But I still try to keep up. I read about a dozen music web sites a day, read reviews, listen to samples on line, etc. But music is my primary non-work and non-family outlet and/or hobby.

Also, what you're talking about is not LIKING a lot of the music you hear. I also don't see any problem with that. Taste is taste and you can't learn, unlearn or sell that. It's more the attitude that good music isn't being made today that I hear too many people my age and/or a little older or younger saying.

There's no doubt that no bands are going to knock me on my ass the way the bands of my youth some 15-20 years ago did. I would never hold them to that standard. But I try to at least recognize that there's still a lot of great music out there.

[warrens]

39. My teenage daughter listens to everything

Punk rock, shoegazer stuff, The Smiths, Velvets, NY Dolls, Beatles...the beauty of an IPod is that she can basically rip off my entire collection and listen to it later. Her favorite right now is This Nation's Saving Grace by the Fall.

[dpt223]

40. The classics are classics for a reason. n/t

n/t

[vi5]

41. Not necessarily...

Depends on what your definition of a classic is.

What is more classic, a band that sells fewer records today than they did when they were around, or a band that sells more records today than when they were around? One would indicated diminishing interest in the band, the other would indicate increased interest.

Popular does not necessarily equal classic.

[Ron Green]

45. I would even suggest that popularity and quality are inversely

proportional, in most cases.

[vi5]

52. I would agree...

..but then you'd piss off a lot of Beatles, Stons, and Led Zeppelin fans.

[Ron Green]

55. You know, though, I believe that the Beatles' popularity had little to do

with the quality of their music. I saw them live in 1964 and literally could not hear them for the nonstop screaming in the auditorium. The fact that they turned out to be very talented songwriters and record producers was lost on millions of their fans who just clung to what was popular. Their children are following Britney or Justin Timberlake now, I guess.

[dpt223]

58. Huh?

I never mentioned anything about popularity.

I personally listen to a lot of older music because that is what my parents listened to when I was little, ingraining those songs on my mind, and because many of the more modern bands I like were influenced by that music.

To me a band is classic if they influence future generations of musicians. Record sales do not factor into tha equation.

[liberalpragmatist]

62. Count me in

I love finding new music too, but I love a lot of the classic acts. Primarily The Beatles, The Kinks, The Byrds, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, and I'm getting into T. Rex.