Who here listens only to music from the past? - Page 5

I used to think the same thing about the masses just accepting the crap on the radio, but then I thought about my own personal experiences and my family and friends. Now extrapolating my experience may not be correct, but I know only one couple under 35 who enjoys pop radio consistently. All of my friends and cousins do nothing but complain about radio and video play. Sure something by Green Day or Gwen Stafani might be kind of popular with some in my social circle, but it never gains any traction, it is more of a guilty pleasure.

Then there are all of us on the board always seeking good music (new or old) I would imagine that there aren't many of us that would list Good Charlotte as their favourite artist.

So I ask again, who are the masses?

I too like discovering an artist new to me and sharing them with my friends if they are willing. The problem with the digging (and I am guilty of this too) is that people end up priding themselves on the music they listen too because it is obscure. It's not a new phenomenon that as soon as an artist signs to a major label that they automatically suck or are sell outs amongst certain groups. We kind of end up doing the same thing the "masses" do. The "masses" buy because everyone else is - not because it's good, the "underground" buys because no one else is - not because it's good.

Why are they listening/watching it enough to want to complain about it??

much of today's generation that is brought up under the media's shadow. also, older people that are so utterly trapped in the past that they disregard current music as a whole based on the mainstream image (which is extremely unrepresentative).

that isn't necessarily true for the latter as much as it is for the former. sure, there are people that pride themselves on listening to obscure music and buy it for that reason alone, adopting the "My music is better because nobody has heard of it!" attitude. however, many other people realize that if you want something other than completely derivative, recycled trash.. you NEED to look into obscurity.

popular music today isn't like popular music yesterday. media pressure makes it very hard for anything that you haven't already heard to even scratch the surface of the mainstream. so in that regard, i completely disagree with you.. the underground doesn't buy because nobody else does, they buy because that's where the world of music is actually moving forward.. at least IMO. i realize that what's "good" is subjective.

This is a really interesting thread, so I guess I'll throw in my 2 cents.

I don't discriminate against new music, but I find myself listening to 95% older artists, partly because the library of "old" music is much much larger than that of "current" music, and partly because I generally prefer "style" of musicians from the 60s/70s. At least 3/4 of my collection is pre-82; older than me is about where I define old.

I believe it was Quincy Jones who said something along the lines of "The rhythms change, the melodies stay the same." For whatever reason I just don't dig what they're laying down right now, but I know that things will evolve from here, it's just taking longer than I want it to. Anyway, I don't agree that there is no innovation today, especially since it often takes 5-10 years to give us the proper perspective to determine what was innovative.

In the 60's and 70's it was more common for adults to be looking for/expecting new music which caused styles to evolve more rapidly. If you look at the billboard top 100 today, you will quickly realize that by FAR the largest market for new music is for 8-12yo. A substantially smaller share of the market means less music is going to be made for us. Still, I am confident that there are enough people who care about music that styles will continue to progress indefinately; just never at the rate of 1955 through 1975. The politcal and economic conditions, the heavy influence of drug culture, all catalysts to the evolution of music that were exclusive to that time period.

I think my friends think I'm a crazy old-timey relic, like betamax or 8-track; heck I can't even take anything where the lead singer screams the lyrics, let along constant double bass drum or that "nu-metal" guitar sound, surely I must have just crawled out from under a rock somewhere.

Sorry, but you just don't know what you're talking about. First of all, the Schwann catalog was a publication that listed every LP, EP and 45 in print. Just about every record store worth its salt had a copy, and it was out where customers could refer to it. The idea was, if you couldn't find what you wanted in the inventory of the shop, you could find the catalog number in the Schwann catalog and the store would order a copy and have it for you in a few days. That is exactly like "clicking your mouse". But the difference is, instead of a handful of albums to choose from from any given artist, you had a page full of titles to choose from. The material that has been reissued on CD is a small fraction of what was in print in the LP era. There are many more LPs that have never been reissued than have ever been released in the history of the compact disk. This is a fact.

See ya
Steve

Yes, but how many pressings of each of these obscure titles were there, and how long were they available?? I'm saying at this very moment in time there's more music (from all points on the globe) available to the average person than at any other single moment in time previously. I'm not comparing the amount of recorded music available right now to the cumulative amount of every moment up to this point.

Neither am I. The Schwann catalog listed "records in print". LP records remained in print and in circulation longer than CDs today do. You could find dozens and dozens of albums from artists that are represented today by just a couple of "best of"s. In addition to that, there were record plants in every major city pressing regional releases as well. At just about any point in time in the late 60s, there were MANY more titles in print than there are right now.

Today we have huge numbers of the same handful of titles. I'm not arguing the numbers of units... I'm saying that there were more different titles available.

See ya
Steve

And this makes sense, because more music was being bought at the time, and music was the #1 form of entertainment for people of all ages and demographics back in this time era.

Sure wish that were still true. I thought about that and it makes me feel a bit sad... maybe more than a bit.

Innovative isnt only about making something new, it also has to sound good. I'm not saying all new bands today arent innovative, they are, but the level itself of the musicians, and the way they all play together which is imo very important, is nowhere near the level of musicians back then. Synergy, as with hi-fi gear, has to exist between band members, and imho most of today's bands lack that.

I rather listen to music from the future.

My oldest CDs are from the 90's.