Rich Malloy
Senior HTF Member
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2000
- Messages
- 3,998
I think FM radio may be the greatest culprit as to why you can't find music you like. Where it once was just a tiny bit adventurous in its programming -- at least compared to today -- now it serves as nothing more than a filter to distill out an extremely limited playlist of songs with appeal to the lowest common denominator. I don't doubt that there's great music on the air -- I know that Gorillaz and Kanye and OutKast and the White Stripes and other groups I like very much are quite radio popular -- but I think it's also true that crap like Jessica Simpson, Black-Eyed Peas, and whoever is the latest melisma-crazy R&B diva are the ones who dominate FM radio. You know, along with the dinosaurs.
So where do I hear new music? Damned if I know. It gets to me, eventually (long after those crazy hepcats). How did I ever come across good music? I mean, I participate in the culture. I read. I go to clubs. I hear stuff in record stores (real records stores, not the strip-mall equivalent of FM radio). I use allmusicguide to trace connections from artists I like to similar ones I've never heard of. I participate in music-related forums. I don't exactly know... it's floating out there in the ether and eventually it floats by me. I'm just keeping my ears and mind open.
And I could give you my own list of contemporary suggestions (which actually has a good bit of crossover with Arman's list... great list, Arman!), but I'm not sure that's either here or there. It seems to me that there's so much more music of such great diversity today -- far more than ever -- or at least so much more that's readily available to one who knows where to look. Many new artists are subverting the usual distribution chain and finding an audience directly. The hip-hop underground borrowed a page from the jam-bands and began producing grey market "mix tapes" featuring the newest/latest without having to deal with the record companies. There's a new reality emerging, it seems to me, and even as the record companies are doing their worst to cram the file-sharing genie back into the bottle, their stranglehold on what music you get to hear is loosening all the time. Who knows what the evolution will be, but it seems to me we're living in an exciting time for new music.
But I keep coming back to this thought: that it's the very limited selection of music that FM radio plays that makes it seem as though nothing interesting is going on. But that couldn't be further from the truth. All of which reminds me of an eye-opening book I read last year by the film critic, Jonathan Rosenbaum: "Movie Wars: How Hollywood and the Media Conspire to Limit What Films We Can See" http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/155...lance&n=283155 It strikes me that many of the arguments he makes regarding distribution of cinema (lack thereof) apply with even greater force to the music industry (a business that's easily sicker and more cynical than Hollywood ever was, exploiting artists and the public alike and utterly without conscience). But there are options. This forum is a great example. It's here that I first learned how to hack a DVD player so that I could play all-region/all-format DVDs, and its here that I discovered where to buy these DVDs. Now, I get to seem films in my home sometimes years before they get any distribution to theaters near me (if ever). Subverting the usual distribution process has allowed me to see an enormous number of extraordinarily diverse films.
I know I've gone off on my own tangent to a great extent here. Your point may be nothing more than "I like the way the Beatles harmonize, and I don't care for the flow of Jay-Z. So, let's have more music like the Beatles". That's a more specific question of taste, and I wouldn't know what to tell you except that Macca's got a new album out and it isn't entirely a pale reflection of his past glory. But if your point is more along the lines of "I want some new music that's exciting and daring and better than the crap I hear on the radio", then I would say be assured that it's out there. More options than ever. Even a few small outposts that haven't been greatly influenced by hip-hop.
As for the aversion to hip-hop that I hear in this thread, that's another issue. It's unfortunate, however, inasmuch as the most compelling pop music of the last ten years has been hip-hop or it's many variations and cross-overs with the equally multi-valent varieties of house music. I have no idea why this notion that "rap isn't music" has taken hold among those who should know better, who should easily hear that Andre Benjamin possesses a vocal dexterity and prowess that Ozzy Osbourne never had on his very best night -- and I happen to think that early Black Sabbath w/Ozzy is brilliant stuff and Ronnie Dio's operatic abilities only made their music boring. We're talking aesthetics here, but if anyone here is hewing to some unexamined notion that the ability to "sing" in the traditional manner = musicianship = artistic merit, then I suspect you'll be trading in your Dylan and Ozzy for some Kathie Lee Gifford and Perry Como.
So where do I hear new music? Damned if I know. It gets to me, eventually (long after those crazy hepcats). How did I ever come across good music? I mean, I participate in the culture. I read. I go to clubs. I hear stuff in record stores (real records stores, not the strip-mall equivalent of FM radio). I use allmusicguide to trace connections from artists I like to similar ones I've never heard of. I participate in music-related forums. I don't exactly know... it's floating out there in the ether and eventually it floats by me. I'm just keeping my ears and mind open.
And I could give you my own list of contemporary suggestions (which actually has a good bit of crossover with Arman's list... great list, Arman!), but I'm not sure that's either here or there. It seems to me that there's so much more music of such great diversity today -- far more than ever -- or at least so much more that's readily available to one who knows where to look. Many new artists are subverting the usual distribution chain and finding an audience directly. The hip-hop underground borrowed a page from the jam-bands and began producing grey market "mix tapes" featuring the newest/latest without having to deal with the record companies. There's a new reality emerging, it seems to me, and even as the record companies are doing their worst to cram the file-sharing genie back into the bottle, their stranglehold on what music you get to hear is loosening all the time. Who knows what the evolution will be, but it seems to me we're living in an exciting time for new music.
But I keep coming back to this thought: that it's the very limited selection of music that FM radio plays that makes it seem as though nothing interesting is going on. But that couldn't be further from the truth. All of which reminds me of an eye-opening book I read last year by the film critic, Jonathan Rosenbaum: "Movie Wars: How Hollywood and the Media Conspire to Limit What Films We Can See" http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/155...lance&n=283155 It strikes me that many of the arguments he makes regarding distribution of cinema (lack thereof) apply with even greater force to the music industry (a business that's easily sicker and more cynical than Hollywood ever was, exploiting artists and the public alike and utterly without conscience). But there are options. This forum is a great example. It's here that I first learned how to hack a DVD player so that I could play all-region/all-format DVDs, and its here that I discovered where to buy these DVDs. Now, I get to seem films in my home sometimes years before they get any distribution to theaters near me (if ever). Subverting the usual distribution process has allowed me to see an enormous number of extraordinarily diverse films.
I know I've gone off on my own tangent to a great extent here. Your point may be nothing more than "I like the way the Beatles harmonize, and I don't care for the flow of Jay-Z. So, let's have more music like the Beatles". That's a more specific question of taste, and I wouldn't know what to tell you except that Macca's got a new album out and it isn't entirely a pale reflection of his past glory. But if your point is more along the lines of "I want some new music that's exciting and daring and better than the crap I hear on the radio", then I would say be assured that it's out there. More options than ever. Even a few small outposts that haven't been greatly influenced by hip-hop.
As for the aversion to hip-hop that I hear in this thread, that's another issue. It's unfortunate, however, inasmuch as the most compelling pop music of the last ten years has been hip-hop or it's many variations and cross-overs with the equally multi-valent varieties of house music. I have no idea why this notion that "rap isn't music" has taken hold among those who should know better, who should easily hear that Andre Benjamin possesses a vocal dexterity and prowess that Ozzy Osbourne never had on his very best night -- and I happen to think that early Black Sabbath w/Ozzy is brilliant stuff and Ronnie Dio's operatic abilities only made their music boring. We're talking aesthetics here, but if anyone here is hewing to some unexamined notion that the ability to "sing" in the traditional manner = musicianship = artistic merit, then I suspect you'll be trading in your Dylan and Ozzy for some Kathie Lee Gifford and Perry Como.
