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I'm of the earliest Gen-Xers or the very last of the Boomers depending upon who's doing the categorizing, and I can say that folks older than me don't seem to realize music exists outside mainstream radio and television, they're still stuck in the major record label and Top 40 mentality. That music today generally does suck, but it's lowest common denominator background noise/entertainment. There is excellent music being created, recorded and distributed, however you've got to understand your own tastes and go find it, we're in a golden age of music, every kind. You just won't hear it at the same old same old that you've been listening to since the fifties or sixties, that's dying. It's like limiting yourself to CNN for news and believing that's how the world really is.

You are absolutely correct.

I am 45 yeas old......not near the age of the kids this post is putting down. But I do know that some very good music is being written and produced today.

The music that is upfront and shown to be mainstream is for the most part, substandard. I agree.

If you go digging around, you will find real talent in almost every genre of music. For instance, I love bluegrass. There is some wonderful bluegrass music being performed today.

Everyone should know better to not just take the “guided tour” when it comes to music, news, or religion for that matter. Go deeper and you will definitely find something wonderful.

Bingo.

When the original mp3.com launched in the late nineties I went indie artists in a big way.
The better acts never see top 40 because they never sign their music away to the big labels.

They don’t have to.

In 1998 Bassic built a home studio equivalent to the Memphis Sun Record studio that launched Elvis and Johnny Cash...for only thirteen thousand dollars. It could be done much cheaper than that now.
The pay wall is gone.

That music today generally does suck, but it's lowest common denominator background noise/entertainment.

It's also the "music" that is offerred up by those who are willing to "play the game" and be packaged, co-opted, and into perpetual debt to their label for hundreds of thousands of dollars or more.

Sign the contract and your music will be pushed on the radio, tv-shows, you'll get to gush about your recollections of the 70s,80s, 90s,00s, etc. on MTV/VH-1 "I remember the" specials, you'll get facetime in documentaries on bands that having nothing to do with you (like those in the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St. documentary, WillIAm and Sheryl Crowe I'm calling you out).

You may even get invited to the Obama White Hut.

Can't say I've ever agreed with a single Grammy choice.

And since the "star" celebrity status is manufactured, if you try to walk for independence, you'll get backlashed and find that those who rejected you are unlikely to ever like you and those who liked your "hit" aren't so interested in your new material (including the stations that played you in the first place).