[Reprinted from my September 1, 2019 post on the now-defunct Only Solitaire blog. I thought that this essay, hopelessly buried in the depths of the blog, might be worth carrying over to the new site, with but a few amendments]. Prelude: A Slice Of Personal History
This is what I've been listening to recently. One reason I'm so convinced your general point is correct is that these days, in occasionally discovering some, by me, overlooked songs from the classic days is that I frequently note to myself: "this random obscure song from 1970 is actually better than any song I've heard from the past 15 years". So case in point, five songs by strictly second-rate bands from that period that easily found their way into my own musical canon.
1970, Forest - 'Bluebell Dance', the production is a bit muddy here, I like the Indian-type(?) modulation in the chorus.
1971, Comus - 'The Herald', this is rather lengthy and the effect is dependent on getting immersed in its mood. But eventually it became addictive.
1971, Trees - 'Murdoch', slightly annoying coda but a folk rock song propelled to greatness by the marching rhythm.
1972, Mellow Candle - 'Heaven Heath', I think it's quite charming and the harpsichord elevates it for me.
1977, England - 'Midnight Madness', pure progressive rock at a time when the genre was past its peak, but it's still "authentic".
I would say this is good as opposed to great music in the sense that I would never trade even a single classic by Pink Floyd or Genesis for these five songs, but I still think that modern music doesn't really have anything of even this quality.
Hi! Today it crossed my mind that we are detached from the artists by playlists. Playlists are the natural evolution of music charts, when you have freedom to pick your own hits and go into the direction you like. Still, you don't acquire the whole artists, you just take a few hits out of their catalog leaving everything behind.
I can see people are becoming playlist-oriented, not giving the albums enough listens or even not interested at all in listening to the whole albums. The computer allows for frantic skipping of tracks and going quickly through them. We abandoned the 70's approach where we had concept albums and suites and I think this was the most important change which shaped Today's music. A while ago you decided to abandon radio - I think we should abandon playlists. Instead, we should try to listen the whole albums and be more focused if we would like to have any connection with the artists.
Hey, I know this is a late reply; but I wanted to share a few thoughts on this interesting (& lengthy!) article. By the way, my musical idols are Bob Dylan, John Lennon, George Harrison & Ray Davies. I also have to mention that I've been reading your reviews since way back in my childhood during the late 2000s and your site has really helped me explore so many amazing artists, albums and songs. I'm forever grateful to you for that.
Coming to this article, I agree with most of your points here. Though I've not really seen any academic studies in the context of rock music's decline, I'd add my two cents on two major things that seems to have turned the tides:
1. (You mentioned about this in your article, but it's hard to notice :)) I don't see mainstream music in general being a major cultural & recreational force; youngsters nowadays are way more fascinated with video games & social media. The recreation/entertainment market in general has expanded so much more today - it was mainly books, singles, albums, and a few movies in the 60s, but today we've all those along with Films, TV Shows, Web series, Video games, Social media, YouTube, Twitch etc. The youngsters of 60s looked forward to the next Beatles/Stones record, whereas nowadays it's about the next Zelda/Elder Scrolls/GTA/Pokemon etc. release (evidence can be seen in twitter trends). YouTubers, Twitch streamers & Social media influencers have replaced musicians as idols to ape. Because of this, there's relatively less demand for musicians to be these artistic idols nowadays. Plus, there are already many past musicians if one wants such - Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ray Davies, Brian Wilson, Jagger-Richards, Lou Reed, Pete Townshend, Roger Waters, Morrissey etc. So there's not really much reason to be very experimental or innovative in the mainstream music scene of today - the market is already hyper competitive with other forms of entertainment + past artistic music = not much demand for new artistic music. Hence, I speculate that corporate music industry don't bother taking risks like those days anymore; when now image oriented mainstream pop music makes profit by getting hundreds of millions (even billions in some cases) of views and streams.
2. In continuation with the last point, rock music hence has become increasingly obsolete from the mainstream music & hence mainstream culture. Simple mainstream pop makes profits for the corporate, and I suspect that rap scene has replaced rock scene at the artistic level (to some extent). There are good rock albums coming out even today (I dig Weezer's Ok Human for instance, The Struts are pretty decent too), but they don't garner the sort of attention that they used to. 1965-1975 was the golden decade for rock music; its impact on culture and popularity was undeniable along with the slew of first rate to genius artists that arose. 1976-1986 was the silver decade imo - but you can already see the decline in both the popularity (I don't think any rock act from that era was as popular as MJ, Madonna; probably only The Police?) and the no. of first rate artists. This trend continued further and apart from the grunge revival and the minor Britpop revival, rock music has lost its impact on the mainstream culture.
But I still think there's hope (unfortunately not for current rock musicians I guess) - despite mainstream artistic music & rock music losing their relevance - due to the atomization of culture. We no longer live in an era of cultural monoliths (like The Beatles), and literally every niche has its dedicated culture & fanbase, and rock music especially has a relatively large one at that. About 1/2 of Beatles' 1.7 billion streams on Spotify are by young millennials and Gen Z (including myself); which is not at all bad for a band that disbanded 60 years ago. And I speculate that these fans will eventually gravitate towards other artists of the 60s, like The Kinks for instance. The Uber popular artists - Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd & Queen - will most likely ignite a young listener to explore other music from that era. Not to mention, the periodic release of music biopics and documentaries (like Bohemian Rhapsody, Get Back) will draw in more listeners. So, we can suspect a significant number of youngsters reverting back to retro rock music; and be pretty dedicated in preserving that because it's slowly eroding. So, rock won't truly be dead, it will have a decent fan base among the young, but I speculate it would be mainly for the 60s-90s rock; and for subsequent rock artists of the 21st century in that style. It may not be a living breathing mainstream cultural force, but then again, what is in this day and age?
Overall, I think John Lennon's lyric on Watching the Wheels -
"I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round
Hi George: sorry for the belated comment. I remember thinking when this was originally published that it was roughly half correct and half... maybe not incorrect exactly but weighted heavily through the perspective of someone who had burned himself out trying to assimilate as much music as possible (not a criticism of you- you made it much farther than I would've!) The bit about sophomore albums in indie rock is quite true, as probably is the idea that specialization has harmed music, though I then and now reject your contention that the attainment of greater equality in society has harmed music. Frankly the biggest problem is just the accessibility of old music- everything everywhere all at once or whatever that movie title was- why listen to some new band when every Beatles album is up on streaming? etc. You're right about hip-hop and probably wrong about the total exhaustion of human knowledge, though I see what you mean and deferring to the rarified intellect of an academic and intellectual such as yourself won't argue the point. I think the main cultural tendency I see this article as a reaction to-poptimism in its degraded late-10s "Ariana-Grande-is-just-as-good-as-Kendrick-Lamar-and-Joni Mitchell" form- mercifully appears to finally be on its way out on the ground level, although who knows how that will translate to criticism or industry, if at all. I still have my issues, but this was a noble effort.
I've come to your site to re-read some of those hilarious and entertaining reviews of 70s albums. I have mentioned this to people and told them how much fun they were to read. I'm a little stunned to see them gone. If they seem immature, I understand, but when you put your babies out into the world, they become something else and, to some extent, become someone else's. Everyone else's, in some cases. You know this to be true with songwriting, as well as other forms of art. I'll bet Dali loved his flaming giraffes and long-limbed elephants better than his drooping watches, but which became more beloved ?
I love that you dissed all the artists except Lennon and one other, which I don't recall.
Can you dump those old texts somewhere online and give us a link ? I would be so grateful.
I'll never forget that one statement, I don't recall which review but, to paraphrase:
"He's not the greatest songwriter in the world. No, sir. That would be Dan Fogelberg" and I am STILL laughing at that one.
Hey George, I hope everything's going well with you and I hope we get to hear from you again.
I've been a fan for almost two decades now, though I haven't commented on any of your platforms in almost as long.
I didn't read your whole essay, but I plan to now that I've found it.
You know, I'm a millennial who was once convinced that the best days of music were behind us, and I think to some extent that's true. There's just something like magic in the Beatles and Stones that few artists can replicate.
I spent my 20's looking for music, rarely finding any that really spoke to me, with some Arcade Fire and New Pornographers being notable exceptions. I thought I was done discovering new music by the time I hit 30.
Then I started digging into niches I hadn't really dug into yet and I looked towards new sources of material that wasn't Pitchfork (I'm not trying to say you don't explore or rely on Pitchfork, by the way). What I found - to my astonishment - is a veritable waterfall of new music worthy of exploration.
I know this not be your genre, but I'm convinced that some of the greatest bands ever are modern metal bands; Haken, Gorod, Archspire, Soen, Aeternam, to name a few. Even modern pop has a lot of surprises. Charli XCX put out a truly great pop album a few years ago.
I'll go so far as to say that the explosion of hooks, harmonies, musical ideas on some modern albums make the Beatles' best work look quaint, in a way, though I'd never want to diminish the greatness of that band.
To my mind, there are artists today that have really learned from past greats and have refined the craft of making music to such a level that I'd place them right alongside the 60's legends.
Some examples of great albums are:
Haken (my favorite modern band): Affinity
Charli XCX: Charli
Archspire: Bleed the Future
Soen: Lotus
Aeternam: Ruins of Empires
Gorod: A Perfect Absolution (my favorite modern album)
I am totally behind two issues that you presented in your essay. First, that Corpo Calculation has won and reigns supreme, second, that the new ways to publish music turn out to make artists prisoners of their public very often.
What I think your 2030s persona will be ashamed to read is your remarks about pretty much everything else :)
"well, yes, there is a tremendous lot of good music produced today and practically no great music; why exactly is this a bad thing?"
My reply is totally egocentric (and you wrote something similar yourself just before): why would I listed to good music if I can listen to great music? Unless I develop an obsession myself for some niche like Russian classical music from 1860 - 1914 plus some afterwards - which reader here owns CDs with music from Cui, Catoire, Roslavets and Ustvolkskaja? I do.
"todayʼs record industry has been completely deprived of people of vision"
On the contrary, I'd say. Let me refer to your remark on good/great debut albums of last 20 years. This is an excellent business model and that's exactly what the vision of the record industry consists of. Mayflies (the Dutch word eendagsvlieg sounds better) make money and then they die. And that's about those artists that are not the product of an algorithm. Want proof? Follow a program like The Voice for one or two years. One example is an American guy called Jordan Smith. His performance of Somebody to Love was awesome (check YouTube). Where is he now? Since 2018 he hasn't released an album. No matter your or my preferences, this is a waste of vocal talent. I blame the Mayfly Vision.
"And there is everything wrong with mistaking one of these types for the other, which is exactly what modern corporate culture has been trying to get us to do."
I would formulate this in a different way, mainly because I recognize that Miley Cyrus actually is a good singer. What's wrong is modern corporate culture forcing its Mayfly Vision upon indie types. And that's exactly what you describe in the next several sentences.
"the left-leaning / feminist / progressive people admire the lady for doing all the right things"
Heh heh again. While being radical left myself this is exactly why I dislike U2 so much. My point: artists are to be blamed as well. Though I guess in our days a kind of selection mechanism is at work. Those artists who do not go along get weeded out by modern corporate culture.
"it definitely was not that way in the sixties or seventies."
Sorry if I smash an illusion. But it's totally possible to be sexist, racist, rebellious, provocative and write great music at the same time.
Nothing I wrote thus far disputes your conclusion about the overall influence of the system.
"it is understandable that nobody wants to feel like a fossil in the brand new age"
Let me assure you that I have no problem at all with being the fossil I am.
"I had to overcome my phobias of ....."
My compliments. I never even tried.
"or you could push it back all the way to the times of Mozart ....."
Fortunately this is an anachronism. If there's one classical composer who defines "sell out" it's this Viennese genius.
"oh kids, stay away from classics unless you have the guts to really really mean it"
Have you ever listened to (parts of) Dream Theater's take on Deep Purple's Made in Japan? There is no doubt that four of DT's members are superior when it comes to skills (LaBrie, whose voice I actually like, simply is no Gillan). In classical music this factor is called expression. DT simply failed in this respect. The good news is that it can be learned. Korean prodigies failed around 1980 when they tried famous violin concertos. These days they've mastered it. So there is hope. There are more sources that can inspire pissitude (in a general sense the essential element of rockmusic) than poverty.
However I have some bad news for you as well. Some psychological research concludes that human beings can't keep up with new pop/rock music when they turn 37. That certainly applies to me. With precious few exceptions nothing from 2000 CE on interests me. Obviously you are older than 37 too. So it may be time for you to get nostalgic and wallow in the "superior" past.
"After all, it already takes a way above-average brain to understand the basics of quantum mechanics, let alone string theory"
Incorrect. Way above-average brains do not understand QM either, including the basics. “If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics.” (Richard Feynman).
"going beyond them would reduce the audience to near zero"
Which is exactly what has happened in classical music.
"The drastic expansion of musical horizons in the 20th century."
You forget one factor: technological developments. There can be little doubt that it was the improved amplifiers that made hardrock/heavy metal of the late 60's, early 70's possible. There is no reason to assume that technological developments have stopped and some may allow further expansion. Me not being a prophet nor aspiring to become one won't suggest a time limit. The lull may be brief or last long, but there is no reason to conclude it will last forever either.
"then either I am a genius of whining or you have a serious masochistic streak"
Neither. You simply raise some good points and some points I disagree with.
"One solution ...."
Another one is just sitting it out and in the meantime enjoy what we do have.
"coherent little theory"
Coherent little theories perfectly can be wrong, Aristotelean physics being one example.
"we are no longer living in a world that consistently produces amazement"
Ah, but we can find it in the past. Like a short while ago when I listened to Dale Hawkins' Suzy Q for the first time. Have you already tried The Tielman Brothers?
"construct your artistic reflection with almost surgical precision"
I've already done so. There is a downside though - now I'm largely done I don't listen to my favourites as much anymore!
"The only thing is that it has to be a choice"
While I'm far from sure about "settle for nothing less than perfection" I totally agree this one. And it's a fine reason to keep on reviewing.
"The same problem, I imagine, existed for most of us at the time"
Don't worry - for me it has existed since late 1981, when I largely lost interest for new developments in pop/rock and began to explore classical music. The difference to my advantage is that back then I could listen to an interesting and varied Dutch radio channel.
"a live-in-the-past kind of person"
Heh heh, I already was in 1976, when I just had turned 12. With punk and disco ruling I decided to hark back to Led Zep, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep and Black Sab. Go figure. All this never stopped me from having strong opinions. Without them it's not fun discussing music, don't you think?
"any right to expect that anybody would ever care about what I could say about Aphex Twin"
I hardly commented on such artists for the simple reason I don't care about them, while I still enjoyed your reviews.
"Seriously, I found myself scratching my head, going back to my first reviews of their records"
Call me unsurprised. This is why I don't care.
"that was precisely what worried me"
That's the difference between you and me. I never worried. If music fails to make an impression upon me like that, too bad. It's just not for me. Medieval music is not for me either. Why waste time?
"they have the same problem — good guys, good music, worth some friendly reviews, and then... out of sight, out of mind"
I have the same problem. I really, really like the debut album of Alestorm plus four of the songs of the next one. The rest: fogetuboudid. But I'm not obsessed by codes of honour.
"but significantly less (and I would even argue next to no) great music"
The same can be said about classical music. Before WW-2: from Gershwin to Schönberg. Afterwards: there are some names, but only few rose to fame after 1945. So Stockhausen is an exception, not a typical example. So I think the problem you discuss is structural.
Total availability, if nothing else, is a blessing. I remember being a kid in the 80s and going crazy over someone who had the White Album and me with my crappy C60 cassette re-recorded a 1000 times trying to fit in more songs. Much later came the MP3 CDs with all of the albums from a certain artist which were bought for pennies and piled upon without reason (I never did listen to the "Teenage Fanclub" CD to name one). Enter the internet: I didn't even know (or could afford) a lot of classics that now I love and learned about thanks to the network. Streaming, digital files, and you buy the ones you love in physical format for eternity (not really). But not only the media, it's also the background: yourself, RYM, and chatting with other music lovers help you dive into what's important or nice and why. For me it's the 70s, the 60s, the 80s too - as you said above, finding things in the past (or reassessing them). Sometimes I find something nice these days (Sarah Shook, Lana Del Rey, Curtis Harding). But I've realized I need my artists to have a story behind, an intention. Here's to the new old discoveries.
"third- and fourth-tier 1970s prog bands"
This is what I've been listening to recently. One reason I'm so convinced your general point is correct is that these days, in occasionally discovering some, by me, overlooked songs from the classic days is that I frequently note to myself: "this random obscure song from 1970 is actually better than any song I've heard from the past 15 years". So case in point, five songs by strictly second-rate bands from that period that easily found their way into my own musical canon.
1970, Forest - 'Bluebell Dance', the production is a bit muddy here, I like the Indian-type(?) modulation in the chorus.
1971, Comus - 'The Herald', this is rather lengthy and the effect is dependent on getting immersed in its mood. But eventually it became addictive.
1971, Trees - 'Murdoch', slightly annoying coda but a folk rock song propelled to greatness by the marching rhythm.
1972, Mellow Candle - 'Heaven Heath', I think it's quite charming and the harpsichord elevates it for me.
1977, England - 'Midnight Madness', pure progressive rock at a time when the genre was past its peak, but it's still "authentic".
I would say this is good as opposed to great music in the sense that I would never trade even a single classic by Pink Floyd or Genesis for these five songs, but I still think that modern music doesn't really have anything of even this quality.
Hi! Today it crossed my mind that we are detached from the artists by playlists. Playlists are the natural evolution of music charts, when you have freedom to pick your own hits and go into the direction you like. Still, you don't acquire the whole artists, you just take a few hits out of their catalog leaving everything behind.
I can see people are becoming playlist-oriented, not giving the albums enough listens or even not interested at all in listening to the whole albums. The computer allows for frantic skipping of tracks and going quickly through them. We abandoned the 70's approach where we had concept albums and suites and I think this was the most important change which shaped Today's music. A while ago you decided to abandon radio - I think we should abandon playlists. Instead, we should try to listen the whole albums and be more focused if we would like to have any connection with the artists.
Hey, I know this is a late reply; but I wanted to share a few thoughts on this interesting (& lengthy!) article. By the way, my musical idols are Bob Dylan, John Lennon, George Harrison & Ray Davies. I also have to mention that I've been reading your reviews since way back in my childhood during the late 2000s and your site has really helped me explore so many amazing artists, albums and songs. I'm forever grateful to you for that.
Coming to this article, I agree with most of your points here. Though I've not really seen any academic studies in the context of rock music's decline, I'd add my two cents on two major things that seems to have turned the tides:
1. (You mentioned about this in your article, but it's hard to notice :)) I don't see mainstream music in general being a major cultural & recreational force; youngsters nowadays are way more fascinated with video games & social media. The recreation/entertainment market in general has expanded so much more today - it was mainly books, singles, albums, and a few movies in the 60s, but today we've all those along with Films, TV Shows, Web series, Video games, Social media, YouTube, Twitch etc. The youngsters of 60s looked forward to the next Beatles/Stones record, whereas nowadays it's about the next Zelda/Elder Scrolls/GTA/Pokemon etc. release (evidence can be seen in twitter trends). YouTubers, Twitch streamers & Social media influencers have replaced musicians as idols to ape. Because of this, there's relatively less demand for musicians to be these artistic idols nowadays. Plus, there are already many past musicians if one wants such - Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ray Davies, Brian Wilson, Jagger-Richards, Lou Reed, Pete Townshend, Roger Waters, Morrissey etc. So there's not really much reason to be very experimental or innovative in the mainstream music scene of today - the market is already hyper competitive with other forms of entertainment + past artistic music = not much demand for new artistic music. Hence, I speculate that corporate music industry don't bother taking risks like those days anymore; when now image oriented mainstream pop music makes profit by getting hundreds of millions (even billions in some cases) of views and streams.
2. In continuation with the last point, rock music hence has become increasingly obsolete from the mainstream music & hence mainstream culture. Simple mainstream pop makes profits for the corporate, and I suspect that rap scene has replaced rock scene at the artistic level (to some extent). There are good rock albums coming out even today (I dig Weezer's Ok Human for instance, The Struts are pretty decent too), but they don't garner the sort of attention that they used to. 1965-1975 was the golden decade for rock music; its impact on culture and popularity was undeniable along with the slew of first rate to genius artists that arose. 1976-1986 was the silver decade imo - but you can already see the decline in both the popularity (I don't think any rock act from that era was as popular as MJ, Madonna; probably only The Police?) and the no. of first rate artists. This trend continued further and apart from the grunge revival and the minor Britpop revival, rock music has lost its impact on the mainstream culture.
But I still think there's hope (unfortunately not for current rock musicians I guess) - despite mainstream artistic music & rock music losing their relevance - due to the atomization of culture. We no longer live in an era of cultural monoliths (like The Beatles), and literally every niche has its dedicated culture & fanbase, and rock music especially has a relatively large one at that. About 1/2 of Beatles' 1.7 billion streams on Spotify are by young millennials and Gen Z (including myself); which is not at all bad for a band that disbanded 60 years ago. And I speculate that these fans will eventually gravitate towards other artists of the 60s, like The Kinks for instance. The Uber popular artists - Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd & Queen - will most likely ignite a young listener to explore other music from that era. Not to mention, the periodic release of music biopics and documentaries (like Bohemian Rhapsody, Get Back) will draw in more listeners. So, we can suspect a significant number of youngsters reverting back to retro rock music; and be pretty dedicated in preserving that because it's slowly eroding. So, rock won't truly be dead, it will have a decent fan base among the young, but I speculate it would be mainly for the 60s-90s rock; and for subsequent rock artists of the 21st century in that style. It may not be a living breathing mainstream cultural force, but then again, what is in this day and age?
Overall, I think John Lennon's lyric on Watching the Wheels -
"I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round
I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round"
is pretty applicable to rock music now imo.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/opinion/martin-scorsese-marvel.html
I’ll post my response to this big essay one day, but reading this Op-Ed by Scorsese reminded me of some of the points you made in your article.
Hi George: sorry for the belated comment. I remember thinking when this was originally published that it was roughly half correct and half... maybe not incorrect exactly but weighted heavily through the perspective of someone who had burned himself out trying to assimilate as much music as possible (not a criticism of you- you made it much farther than I would've!) The bit about sophomore albums in indie rock is quite true, as probably is the idea that specialization has harmed music, though I then and now reject your contention that the attainment of greater equality in society has harmed music. Frankly the biggest problem is just the accessibility of old music- everything everywhere all at once or whatever that movie title was- why listen to some new band when every Beatles album is up on streaming? etc. You're right about hip-hop and probably wrong about the total exhaustion of human knowledge, though I see what you mean and deferring to the rarified intellect of an academic and intellectual such as yourself won't argue the point. I think the main cultural tendency I see this article as a reaction to-poptimism in its degraded late-10s "Ariana-Grande-is-just-as-good-as-Kendrick-Lamar-and-Joni Mitchell" form- mercifully appears to finally be on its way out on the ground level, although who knows how that will translate to criticism or industry, if at all. I still have my issues, but this was a noble effort.
I've come to your site to re-read some of those hilarious and entertaining reviews of 70s albums. I have mentioned this to people and told them how much fun they were to read. I'm a little stunned to see them gone. If they seem immature, I understand, but when you put your babies out into the world, they become something else and, to some extent, become someone else's. Everyone else's, in some cases. You know this to be true with songwriting, as well as other forms of art. I'll bet Dali loved his flaming giraffes and long-limbed elephants better than his drooping watches, but which became more beloved ?
I love that you dissed all the artists except Lennon and one other, which I don't recall.
Can you dump those old texts somewhere online and give us a link ? I would be so grateful.
I'll never forget that one statement, I don't recall which review but, to paraphrase:
"He's not the greatest songwriter in the world. No, sir. That would be Dan Fogelberg" and I am STILL laughing at that one.
Thanks for the joy, dude.
Hey George, I hope everything's going well with you and I hope we get to hear from you again.
I've been a fan for almost two decades now, though I haven't commented on any of your platforms in almost as long.
I didn't read your whole essay, but I plan to now that I've found it.
You know, I'm a millennial who was once convinced that the best days of music were behind us, and I think to some extent that's true. There's just something like magic in the Beatles and Stones that few artists can replicate.
I spent my 20's looking for music, rarely finding any that really spoke to me, with some Arcade Fire and New Pornographers being notable exceptions. I thought I was done discovering new music by the time I hit 30.
Then I started digging into niches I hadn't really dug into yet and I looked towards new sources of material that wasn't Pitchfork (I'm not trying to say you don't explore or rely on Pitchfork, by the way). What I found - to my astonishment - is a veritable waterfall of new music worthy of exploration.
I know this not be your genre, but I'm convinced that some of the greatest bands ever are modern metal bands; Haken, Gorod, Archspire, Soen, Aeternam, to name a few. Even modern pop has a lot of surprises. Charli XCX put out a truly great pop album a few years ago.
I'll go so far as to say that the explosion of hooks, harmonies, musical ideas on some modern albums make the Beatles' best work look quaint, in a way, though I'd never want to diminish the greatness of that band.
To my mind, there are artists today that have really learned from past greats and have refined the craft of making music to such a level that I'd place them right alongside the 60's legends.
Some examples of great albums are:
Haken (my favorite modern band): Affinity
Charli XCX: Charli
Archspire: Bleed the Future
Soen: Lotus
Aeternam: Ruins of Empires
Gorod: A Perfect Absolution (my favorite modern album)
I am totally behind two issues that you presented in your essay. First, that Corpo Calculation has won and reigns supreme, second, that the new ways to publish music turn out to make artists prisoners of their public very often.
What I think your 2030s persona will be ashamed to read is your remarks about pretty much everything else :)
Still loving your stuff!
"well, yes, there is a tremendous lot of good music produced today and practically no great music; why exactly is this a bad thing?"
My reply is totally egocentric (and you wrote something similar yourself just before): why would I listed to good music if I can listen to great music? Unless I develop an obsession myself for some niche like Russian classical music from 1860 - 1914 plus some afterwards - which reader here owns CDs with music from Cui, Catoire, Roslavets and Ustvolkskaja? I do.
"todayʼs record industry has been completely deprived of people of vision"
On the contrary, I'd say. Let me refer to your remark on good/great debut albums of last 20 years. This is an excellent business model and that's exactly what the vision of the record industry consists of. Mayflies (the Dutch word eendagsvlieg sounds better) make money and then they die. And that's about those artists that are not the product of an algorithm. Want proof? Follow a program like The Voice for one or two years. One example is an American guy called Jordan Smith. His performance of Somebody to Love was awesome (check YouTube). Where is he now? Since 2018 he hasn't released an album. No matter your or my preferences, this is a waste of vocal talent. I blame the Mayfly Vision.
"And there is everything wrong with mistaking one of these types for the other, which is exactly what modern corporate culture has been trying to get us to do."
I would formulate this in a different way, mainly because I recognize that Miley Cyrus actually is a good singer. What's wrong is modern corporate culture forcing its Mayfly Vision upon indie types. And that's exactly what you describe in the next several sentences.
"the left-leaning / feminist / progressive people admire the lady for doing all the right things"
Heh heh again. While being radical left myself this is exactly why I dislike U2 so much. My point: artists are to be blamed as well. Though I guess in our days a kind of selection mechanism is at work. Those artists who do not go along get weeded out by modern corporate culture.
"it definitely was not that way in the sixties or seventies."
Sorry if I smash an illusion. But it's totally possible to be sexist, racist, rebellious, provocative and write great music at the same time.
Nothing I wrote thus far disputes your conclusion about the overall influence of the system.
"it is understandable that nobody wants to feel like a fossil in the brand new age"
Let me assure you that I have no problem at all with being the fossil I am.
"I had to overcome my phobias of ....."
My compliments. I never even tried.
"or you could push it back all the way to the times of Mozart ....."
Fortunately this is an anachronism. If there's one classical composer who defines "sell out" it's this Viennese genius.
"oh kids, stay away from classics unless you have the guts to really really mean it"
Have you ever listened to (parts of) Dream Theater's take on Deep Purple's Made in Japan? There is no doubt that four of DT's members are superior when it comes to skills (LaBrie, whose voice I actually like, simply is no Gillan). In classical music this factor is called expression. DT simply failed in this respect. The good news is that it can be learned. Korean prodigies failed around 1980 when they tried famous violin concertos. These days they've mastered it. So there is hope. There are more sources that can inspire pissitude (in a general sense the essential element of rockmusic) than poverty.
However I have some bad news for you as well. Some psychological research concludes that human beings can't keep up with new pop/rock music when they turn 37. That certainly applies to me. With precious few exceptions nothing from 2000 CE on interests me. Obviously you are older than 37 too. So it may be time for you to get nostalgic and wallow in the "superior" past.
"After all, it already takes a way above-average brain to understand the basics of quantum mechanics, let alone string theory"
Incorrect. Way above-average brains do not understand QM either, including the basics. “If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics.” (Richard Feynman).
"going beyond them would reduce the audience to near zero"
Which is exactly what has happened in classical music.
"The drastic expansion of musical horizons in the 20th century."
You forget one factor: technological developments. There can be little doubt that it was the improved amplifiers that made hardrock/heavy metal of the late 60's, early 70's possible. There is no reason to assume that technological developments have stopped and some may allow further expansion. Me not being a prophet nor aspiring to become one won't suggest a time limit. The lull may be brief or last long, but there is no reason to conclude it will last forever either.
"then either I am a genius of whining or you have a serious masochistic streak"
Neither. You simply raise some good points and some points I disagree with.
"One solution ...."
Another one is just sitting it out and in the meantime enjoy what we do have.
"coherent little theory"
Coherent little theories perfectly can be wrong, Aristotelean physics being one example.
"we are no longer living in a world that consistently produces amazement"
Ah, but we can find it in the past. Like a short while ago when I listened to Dale Hawkins' Suzy Q for the first time. Have you already tried The Tielman Brothers?
"construct your artistic reflection with almost surgical precision"
I've already done so. There is a downside though - now I'm largely done I don't listen to my favourites as much anymore!
"The only thing is that it has to be a choice"
While I'm far from sure about "settle for nothing less than perfection" I totally agree this one. And it's a fine reason to keep on reviewing.
"The same problem, I imagine, existed for most of us at the time"
Don't worry - for me it has existed since late 1981, when I largely lost interest for new developments in pop/rock and began to explore classical music. The difference to my advantage is that back then I could listen to an interesting and varied Dutch radio channel.
"a live-in-the-past kind of person"
Heh heh, I already was in 1976, when I just had turned 12. With punk and disco ruling I decided to hark back to Led Zep, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep and Black Sab. Go figure. All this never stopped me from having strong opinions. Without them it's not fun discussing music, don't you think?
"any right to expect that anybody would ever care about what I could say about Aphex Twin"
I hardly commented on such artists for the simple reason I don't care about them, while I still enjoyed your reviews.
"Seriously, I found myself scratching my head, going back to my first reviews of their records"
Call me unsurprised. This is why I don't care.
"that was precisely what worried me"
That's the difference between you and me. I never worried. If music fails to make an impression upon me like that, too bad. It's just not for me. Medieval music is not for me either. Why waste time?
"they have the same problem — good guys, good music, worth some friendly reviews, and then... out of sight, out of mind"
I have the same problem. I really, really like the debut album of Alestorm plus four of the songs of the next one. The rest: fogetuboudid. But I'm not obsessed by codes of honour.
"but significantly less (and I would even argue next to no) great music"
The same can be said about classical music. Before WW-2: from Gershwin to Schönberg. Afterwards: there are some names, but only few rose to fame after 1945. So Stockhausen is an exception, not a typical example. So I think the problem you discuss is structural.
Total availability, if nothing else, is a blessing. I remember being a kid in the 80s and going crazy over someone who had the White Album and me with my crappy C60 cassette re-recorded a 1000 times trying to fit in more songs. Much later came the MP3 CDs with all of the albums from a certain artist which were bought for pennies and piled upon without reason (I never did listen to the "Teenage Fanclub" CD to name one). Enter the internet: I didn't even know (or could afford) a lot of classics that now I love and learned about thanks to the network. Streaming, digital files, and you buy the ones you love in physical format for eternity (not really). But not only the media, it's also the background: yourself, RYM, and chatting with other music lovers help you dive into what's important or nice and why. For me it's the 70s, the 60s, the 80s too - as you said above, finding things in the past (or reassessing them). Sometimes I find something nice these days (Sarah Shook, Lana Del Rey, Curtis Harding). But I've realized I need my artists to have a story behind, an intention. Here's to the new old discoveries.