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.
... and it's not even hard to do. There are so many "custom" music sites now with algorithms that "learn" your musical taste over time as you give thumbs up or down to songs played. Spotify, Pandora, I'm sure other FReepers could name more outside iTunes and Amazon. Just set up a free account, name your "station," enter an artist and song, and just let it go to work. It'll begin serving up great music that you like in a matter of days.
I’ve got you beat Aurorales. I’m nearly 53 years old, I turn 53 next month and I find that there is some very good music being written and performed now days. But yes, you won’t find it on pop music stations; what we used to call “Top 40”. And heck a lot of pop and Top 40 back in the 70’s was dreck too. Who my age doesn’t remember Disco Duck or Chipmunk Love or My Chevy Van or Having My Baby or Billy Don’t Be A Hero or Gypsies Tramps and Thieves or Seasons In The Sun or S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y HEY (Saturday Night) and….Feelings…whoa, oh, oh Feelings…blech!
I have some friends my age who listen only to “classic rock” stations, as if any good music stopped being produced circa 1979 when we graduated HS or during the early 80’s before we got married and got full time jobs and mortgage payments and had kids, but personally if I hear Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” or any number of other songs that were in heavy rotation “back in the day” like Skynyrd’s Free Bird or Fleetwood Mac’s Don’t Stop Believing one more time it would be a thousand times too many. That’s not to say that I don’t like and enjoy hearing again lot of 70’s, 60’s 50’s music or for that matter 40’s Big Band, turn of the century Rag Time and classical music – Bach, Beethoven, Vivaldi, Mauler, Liszt, or modern classics like Copland, Von Williams, Gershwin, (although I’m personally most found of ancient, medieval and renaissance music) and I also like Cuban jazz and 1950’s and 1960’ jazz and instrumental traditional blue grass but I also like contemporary blue grass like Alison Krauss and Nickel Creek, and I also like to listen to good and varied new rock music too.
For instance I like Mumford & Sons, The Avett Brothers, Death Cab for Cutie, The Black Keys, The Raconteurs, Arctic Monkeys, Of Monsters and Men, Alabama Shakes, Delta Rae, Janelle Monae, The Lumineers and J.D. McPherson. Heck I even like Daft Punk – the lyrics are not much but I love those funky groves. LOL! I also like some “electronica” like Zero 7, Massive Attack and Air.
As far as radio stations, I look for what is called “Adult Contemporary” or “Adult Alternative” stations. I have this station tuned in on my car radio and at work:
http://xpn.org/playlists/xpn-playlist
That’s one very varied play list. They just don’t play new music and local musicians, but also a lot of deep album cuts from classic artists even going back to the early 60’s or 50’s. I’m always surprised what they play. One minute they are playing Arcade Fire and Daft Punk, the next it’s the Carpenter’s Close to you and the The Everly Brothers Cathy’s Clown.
Variety and sampling new things while appreciating the “classics” is IMO the spice of life! If anyone were to look at my music collection they might think that I either suffer from a multiple personality disorder or that 20 different people of many different ages and with widely varied tastes live in my apartment. : O
But for some, it seems to more a case of “Hey you! Get Off Of My Lawn” while forgetting how our parents really hated this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq3YdpB6N9M
Then again I remember my parents telling me how their parents hated Swing music and the jitter bug – how “loud and immoral it was”. And I bet my grandparents parents thought that the music of the 1920’s was equally abhorrent.