has all the best music already been made?

From a purely commercial point of view, yes. There's a lot of people making awesome music somewhere I think, but you'll likely never hear it.

Getting signed these days is almost a badge of shame. What the record companies seem to be looking for are mass-marketing forumulas that have been predetermined to be safely hip by the conformist audiences they target. No chances are being taken on turning a buck.

To compound the problem, which was probably caused by the industry itself, today's average kids wouldn't know good music if it ripped their ears off. They've confused fashion with art.

There are exceptions to this, not all kids today are idiots and not all new bands reek. But enough do that the stench is unbearable.

To my ears, the stuff that passes for popular music these days is mostly meek and gutless pop pandering.

 

Very well said and true!

 

speaking of "unbearable stench", it seems that lately in these forums a prerequisite to a thread is making sure bashing the kids is included somewhere within it

 

do baby goats listen to music?

 

I agree with you phish. For my tastes, Porcupine Tree is an example of a current band who has a lot of lightning and a big jug! Also, I have been enjoying the music of the group Work Of Art and their recent release, "Lift."

Other than those two, I'm stuck in the 70s and 80s. Oh well...

 

I'm 35 now, and listening to the radio in the late 70's and 80's I heard a LOT of garbage. Eventually the garbage just gets filtered out.
Really, the music from that period people like to listen to or discuss now is a fraction of what was available then.
I think this will always be the case.
Though I agree that seeking out new stuff is harder these days.
And I can't get my head around why every time I try MTV, there's no music.
I'm thinking "let's watch some new videos" and someone's ride gets pimped.

 

I'm not familiar with Kelley Stoltz but I think Oasis is an example of what phish was talking about...except Oasis uses hooks and melodies from 40 years ago.

 

Uh, how many threads do we have going about Paul McCartney's solo output at any given time?

 

Has all the best music already been made?

No.

Come back in 1000 years and check out the music scene. I bet there'll be some interesting stuff.

(I want a time machine, dammit! What will music—and everything else—be like in a couple thousand years? I'm weird.)

 

My favorite period for music is 1976 to about 1984, and so I occasionally get in these moods where I have to fight the temptation to say that the best years are behind us. But I still get into new artists all the time and, like many here have said, good music is always being made. It just becomes harder to find with each passing decade, as the playing field gets larger and the dross rises to the top in increasing numbers.

 

The question is literally impossible to answer. On the one hand, the planet could explode or there could be some sort of widespread global cataclysm which would preclude any more music from being made five seconds after you read this. In that instance then the answer would be "Yes".

On the other hand, I'd guess that everyone reading this forum with be dead within eighty years tops. We have no idea what the future holds in terms of music coming within our lifetimes and we certainly have no idea what music will be coming out after we are dead.

 

the "BEST" music.... yes!

there is nothing now or in the past 10 years thats as good as some of what was done in the 50's, 60's 70's & 80's.

oh, and some of the 90's.

 

Birds sang yesterday, birds sing today, birds sing again tomorrow.

 

and in 2020 we'll all be complaining how music isn't as good as it was in 2007.

 

Art and music are direct reflections of the culture and society; the parlous state of music today is a mirror held up to the dispirited, decadent feel of life today (not too different from the declining years of Rome), as well as the tight-fisted control of the big conglomerates on what we see in the shops. The music many of us love (the 50's-'70's, for example) was produced when life had an altogether more optimistic, idealistic feel.

BTW I don't feel that there's no good music today; one just has to search for it away from the main commercial pipelines. Music that has a real, satisfying sound/feel to it can still be found (occasionally) in the indie area.

 

A Resounding YES. The average casual listener will find something worthwhile every now and then but the discriminating purist will curse the day the mainstream audience dumbed down and the music industry turned sour.

 

Even I find something worthwhile every now and then.

 

Some would say that music was severely "dumbed down" when you could simply buy a recording or listen to a broadcast instead of performing it yourself.

 

So far.

 

Most of what I like is already out there. Seems whenever I hear "new"
stuff, it just does'nt strike me the way the classic stuff does.
Where does one go after Hendrix, Beatles, Stones etc.?

 

It sure seems like it. These days it seems like music is very much a matter of recycling and reworking everything that has already been done before.

My job involves training young folks during the third shift and if it doesn't slow them down I let them blast what ever music they like. I'm constantly hearing what I've heard time and time before reworked or outright stolen and presented as the "Next Big Thing" from alt to rap to pop to punk. Nothing I hear on radio or from the major labels that spews this crap out sounds new or fresh in any way at all. The last "New" thing I heard that made me really pay attention was Sigur Ros. But that's one band out of a bazillion releases in the last ten years. Pretty poor odds.

For me "Exciting New Music" these days usually means finding something recorded long ago I'd never heard or simply ignored before.

Meh ... I must be gettin' old

 

Yeah, I can see us all waxing nostalgic about that Paris Hilton CD <efg>

 

BINGO