What happened since the great old days?

[rick57]

I saw a graph today of Rolling Stone magazine’s “500 Greatest Albums”, by year of relaese.

The trend shown was expected, but the magnitude was not:
These sample years illustrate the trend -

Year # in top 500

1951-60 nil
1961 3
1967 15
1969-72 25 the golden era
1982 7
2003 3

Possible reasons for the trend:
Rolling Stone lives in the hippy past and/ or wouldn’t have a clue
Too little risk taking by labels
Smart potential musos becoming console game designers instead
Why play new music, when you can play the great tunes from the 70s
TV is now much better

Where are today’s Dylan, Lennon, Bowie, Page, Byrne, Joplin?

Now we have Eminem, Outkast, Usher, Shania Twain & Diane Krall.


Why did it all go so horribly wrong?

[rabbitz]

MTV

[SY]

Something like the Cambrian Explosion only happens every few hundred million years.

[pinkmouse]

Hmm, the Punctuated Equilibrium theory of popular music. This could have legs...

[carlosfm]

Originally posted by rick57
1969-72 25 the golden era

I would stretch this 'golden era' up a couple of years, to 1974.
It would cover all the Genesis albums with Peter Gabriel, and the best albums from bands like YES, Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, etc.
An do not forget, a german band that started making electronic music with computers and influenced POP music as we know it today: Kraftwerk.

These days there are still very good music, but it's harder and harder to make something very original.

[cowanrg]

i hear this same arguement all over the web on multiple forums...

"where has all the good music gone?"

well, its still out there. there are still great artists producing great music. its just not marketed so its easier to get to. MTV and others are putting the stuff out there that they want to, but its not necessarily good. you have to go to a local record store, check out the new music and listen to a lot of different things.

i buy on average 5+ cds a month of all new contemporary music that is fantastic. there is a lot of new stuff out there that is good, you just cant walk into your local cd megastore and grab the newest release from the hottest MTV star.

[carlosfm]

Originally posted by cowanrg
"where has all the good music gone?"

well, its still out there. there are still great artists producing great music.

Of course there is always great music and great artists.
Have you heard Beck's latest 'Guero'?

[pinkmouse]

You really need to consider the age group of the people that responded, I would guess that Rolling Stone readers are likely to be old Fogeys like me!

[Frank Berry]

Another Old Fogey's input ...

The Golden Years should go back to about 1964. That was the year the Beatles hit the US charts.

Of course, I still love some of the music from the 1940's

[cowanrg]

Originally posted by carlosfm


Of course there is always great music and great artists.
Have you heard Beck's latest 'Guero'?

fantastic example! one of my relatively recent purchases.

also, if anyone likes harder/complex rock like tool or some of that stuff, the mars volta is amazing. i can listen to their cds back to back for like 6 hours solid. there is nothing else like it.