RE: I may be getting old but I will swear that 60’s and 70’s music was the best.
Pop music is evolving to a point where you don’t get a lot of good melody at all... now, it’s mostly rhythm, beat and most of all — the ability to talk fast while following the beat.
Also, a lot of so called musicians can’t really sing. Their main “talent” ( for want of a better word ) is to look sexy, be very good dancers who can shake their booty, and lip synch to perfection while performing live with lights, smoke and technical effects doing the rest.
There used to be a time when lip-synchers were shamed and their awards revoked (remember Milli Vannili ?). Now, it seems that lip synching is standard and acceptable.
If they sing out of tune ( as Randy Jackson would say, sound pitchy ), technology can auto-tune the imperfection.
Not sure how long this genre of music is going to last until the next generation gets bored with it.
Having said that ... the music of GLEE isn’t like that at all. They really do a lot of re-versioning of the music of the 60’s and 70’s.
When the GLEE folks sing live, they REALLY sing (no lip-synching).
For instance, I haven’t heard Lulu’s TO SIR WITH LOVE for ages. Yet, they sang it, pretty well I might add. Listen to their version here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrLLF5t3iYQ
The thing to remember is that music is much much more diverse than it was back in the 1960s and 70s. And while mass-market radio and TV serve a certain slice of "what's hot this second," there are other people making music much more to whatever taste you have, and bringing it to their audience through alternative means than Top 40 radio play.