Sting says today's rock is a bore (prefers lute music)

reuters. ^ | Oct 19, 2006 1:16 PM BST

[MadIvan]

A typical John Dowland song -

Can She Excuse My Wrongs

Can she excuse my wrongs with Virtue's cloak?
Shall I call her good when she proves unkind?
Are those clear fires which vanish into smoke?
Must I praise the leaves where no fruit I find?

No no: where shadows do for bodies stand,
Thou may'st be abus'd if thy sight be dim.
Cold love is like to words written on sand,
Or to bubbles which on the water swim.

Wilt thou be thus abused still,
Seeing that she will right thee never?
If thou canst not o'ercome her will
The love will be thus fruitless ever.

Was I so base, that I might not aspire
Unto those high joys which she holds from me?
As they are high , so high is my desire:
If she this deny, what can granted be?

If she will yield to that which reason is,
It is Reason's will that Love should be just.
Dear make me happy still be granting this,
Or cut off delays if that die I must.

Better a thousand times to die,
Than for to live thus still tormented:
Dear, but remember it was I
Who for thy sake did die contended

Yes, Dowland is at a different level.

Regards, Ivan

[Screamname]

I`ll agree rock today is a joke, but coming from this guy goes beyond calling the kettle black.

[darkangel82]

I don't call it rock, I call it F@#$%!g garbage.

[mylife]

MTV helped kill rock years ago.

Aint that the truth. There maybe some good new rock and roll bands out there, but I havent heard them. MTV no longer shows fresh new acts, they just play the same prepackaged McCrap just like KISS FM and the other corporate radio stations

[SamAdams76]

I have to agree with Sting here. I listen to mostly baroque and renaissance music these days. Timeless stuff - though like fine wine, you need to give it time and develop a taste for it.

With respect to modern music, I do like listening to electronica and jazz/blues.

[Nate505]

The older you get, the more you complain about the music that's out.

I will say, the greatest music ever (at least in terms of contemporary music) tends to be whenever you attended high school and early college.

So for me, the greatest music ever is rock from the early 90's. Alice In Chains is my personal favorite band of all time. I'm sure fans of hair rockers who are 8 years older than me disagree and say that Guns and Roses is much better. Of course, I disgaree with them, even though I like GNR.

The other thing I've noticed is that you tend to like music that preceeded you (I like a lot of 80's and 70's music), but you tend to dislike music that is after your time, so to speak. I can't stand most of the new rock that's out today.

[Jeff Chandler]

Louis Jordan bump.

[Jeff Chandler]

I will say, the greatest music ever (at least in terms of contemporary music) tends to be whenever you attended high school and early college.

I must be the exception. I think the music my parents listened to in the 40's was superior to most contemporary music since.

[Nate505]

Probably. I'd be shocked if anyone under the age of 40 could name most contemporary music from the 40's, other than early Frank Sinatra, and a few jazz guys like Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman.

FWIW, I like most of the music that my parents listened to, but that was music from the late 60's and early 70's. Pink Floyd is still one of my all time favorite bands....

[grey_whiskers]

But there are quite a few these days that are very good, and several of them have gone mainstream in the secular market in the past couple of years.

Bah.

Phil Keaggy is -- well, he has so much talent it is unfair to other guitarists. But he's hardly a newcomer.

Iona is good, but they are hardly mainstream.

Cheers!

[JamesP81]

Iona is good, but they are hardly mainstream.

POD is mainstream (but maybe that's not really your style). There are some others that have gone mainstream and have good sales that I don't really care for (Switchfoot comes to mind). There are several others that aren't yet mainstream but I think have a good chance of going that way. Thousand Foot Krutch and Skillet come to mind (Skillet's new album is nothing short of amazing).

Of course none of these new artists even compare to the old mainstays of classic rock, and probably never will. Stevie Ray Vaughn, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Who, and many others of that era never get old.