I'm Drowning Here
Posted 06-06-2008 at 10:31 AM by Jodizzle
Sometimes I wonder if the music market will ever become less saturated? Millions of bands, millions of musicians longing for bands, hundreds of millions of songs and half-written ones.
Sometimes I go on quests for new music. I think, "I'm gonna find something totally indie and radical." Maybe I do, maybe I don't ... but will I ever really know?
I get down with the classics. I appreciate them. Stuff my dad had playing on 33's. Loved it then, love it now ... especially if someone my age has no idea who I'm listening to.
Will I think that about the music that's out now? When I have a child, will he/she get down on what I'll be listening to when I'm feeding them cinnamon applesauce? Or, will I forget who I was listening to then when I'm taking my child to swimming lessons?
The Beatles. Pretty much everyone loved them. Guys, gals, teeny-boppers, young couples, punks, and church going folk (even though they might have had the record hiding under their bed). Nowadays you can get slandered for liking a particular band. The punk-rockers flip the bird at the emo kids. The emo kids cry and say no one understands. The teeny-boppers bounce their hair and snap their gum to bands that will only get air-play for a year. Don't even know how to explain rap music. Too many genres create too many followers who aren't accepted by other followers.
I don't think I'm longing for a "Universal Band" - but will there ever be any more bands that rise above and cut through everything? Is there anywhere to go after over-saturation? Will we start over again?
Again, I'm left to wonder
Sometimes I go on quests for new music. I think, "I'm gonna find something totally indie and radical." Maybe I do, maybe I don't ... but will I ever really know?
I get down with the classics. I appreciate them. Stuff my dad had playing on 33's. Loved it then, love it now ... especially if someone my age has no idea who I'm listening to.
Will I think that about the music that's out now? When I have a child, will he/she get down on what I'll be listening to when I'm feeding them cinnamon applesauce? Or, will I forget who I was listening to then when I'm taking my child to swimming lessons?
The Beatles. Pretty much everyone loved them. Guys, gals, teeny-boppers, young couples, punks, and church going folk (even though they might have had the record hiding under their bed). Nowadays you can get slandered for liking a particular band. The punk-rockers flip the bird at the emo kids. The emo kids cry and say no one understands. The teeny-boppers bounce their hair and snap their gum to bands that will only get air-play for a year. Don't even know how to explain rap music. Too many genres create too many followers who aren't accepted by other followers.
I don't think I'm longing for a "Universal Band" - but will there ever be any more bands that rise above and cut through everything? Is there anywhere to go after over-saturation? Will we start over again?
Again, I'm left to wonder
Total Comments 5
Comments
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Jodi! Good to know someone's in the same boat as me. Sometimes I feel like I get sick of music. Its sad too. I can't find something that I love, that covers all the bases for me. Its tough too, because in High School- liking something different makes you..."target'' if you catch my meaning.Posted 06-06-2008 at 03:32 PM by Pittman75
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Jodizzle,
I doubt we'll ever see what you're longing for... sadly. The channel between the artist and the listener is more fragmented than ever. It's not like you've got billions of people listening to the same programming (radio station, music tv channel, etc.). You've got so many choices.. terrestrial radio, satellite radio, cable tv, satellite tv, Verizon FIOS, plus a billion internet sites.. all of these places where you can hear music, and each is further subdivided into specific genres. There are channels on tv for music like MTV (and all its children), and also channels with just digital music and no actual video to speak of except song title/artist being displayed while the music plays.
When you see someone with an iPod or MP3 player, they're most likely listening to their own selections. There's no big guiding hand to introduce new music to the masses. There are lots of smaller hands.Posted 06-10-2008 at 11:02 AM by SteveB
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Well yeah, oversaturation is what drove me into a quest about who influenced the artists that influenced my faves...
After that I am now back among current acts, mostly not so well known ones that nevertheless have been around for quite some time. Currently my car CD-playa is running up and down the latest album of the H-BLOCKX (H - B L O C K X // official home), a German crossover band that has been around since the early 90s, went through quite some changes and was always sure to impress.
I try to avoid stuff like portable MP3 playas as I experienced that sort of overload-thru-copied-music in the early days of mp3... Musical inflation and c'mon - whom of those computakids really knows what's inside their terabyte-sized music harddiscs...
I'm just regularly checking out the not-so-big acts to keep my personal musical journey rollin' as time goes by ;-)
Quite an oldfashioned typa guy, I stick to my CDs as I do with my vinyl. I like the feel of a physical musical media - as for example I love playing my real "Balls" through a good tube amp instead of playing Guitar Hero on Bleedstation or even thru a modeling amp.
MH2cents... and keep rockin', Jodi - life's fun and small bands keep evolving music constantly. Keep supporting your local music scene and provide us with the stuff we all love to play on
Posted 06-10-2008 at 05:40 PM by Axilla
Updated 06-10-2008 at 05:50 PM by Axilla -
I personally can handle the fragmentation of the music industry. To me, it has opened up opportunities for bands willing and able to capitalize on what's going on. Take for instance, the newfound willingness of Dream Theater to do music videos. For many years, DT chose not to make videos, because MTV wouldn't play them. So, why make videos? Why not just make a nice live CD/DVD combo that fans could have instead of a video that they'd never see? Now, with the fragmentation of things, DT can sell videos on iTunes. Road Runner Records can play them on their website. Artists can get their music out to people without a record label getting in the way. I say, thank goodness for all of that. I don't want a middle man like a radio station conglomerate or a company like Viacom deciding what I can listen to. No thanks. I haven't listened to radio since radio ownership was deregulated during the early 1990's. Everything got so homogenized, predictable, and boring. I rather be able to make my own choices about "programming" what gets played on my iPod, my car stereo, my home stereo, etc.
I don't know that we'll ever see a "Universal Band." I think fragmentation of markets into niches is what we're going to see. It's definitely being seen in the auto industry. It's basically the whole reason why a brand like Scion even exists.Posted 06-26-2008 at 11:24 AM by roburado
Updated 06-26-2008 at 11:26 AM by roburado -
I think the last time I remember hearing the same music pretty much everywhere I went was either Sgt. Pepper or the White Album. The songs were on the radio all the time, and on all the kids' turntables, too.
I seem to remember Ringo saying something like "Sinatra in the '40s, Elvis in the '50s, the Beatles in the '60s, the next huge band will be in the '70s for sure."
But then came Disco, the Bay City Rollers, Prog Rockers (whose songs went on and on, and which I dug a lot), Marley, Boston, etc. It was pretty clear even back then that there wasn't going to be a next "universal" band in the '70s. If Springsteen couldn't do it, nobody could.
Not even MTV!
And now with the Web, the variety and ready availability boggles the mind. I know that in the '60s and '70s many of the teenage boys (and some girls, not too many) played in rock ("garage") bands. Just like today. But back then, only their immediate neighborhood new about 'em (because of the noise)! Few recordings were made (too expensive and difficult), even fewer movies.
Today, all the garage bands are on YouTube.
Better back then than now? I'm not so sure. I love the variety nowadays. But it does boggle the mind how much is out there.
"Will there ever be any more bands that rise above and cut through everything?" YES! And LOTS of them!! They just won't have the large audience that Sinatra, Elvis, and the Beatles had.Posted 10-25-2008 at 12:16 AM by GoKart_MoZart
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