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Where can music realistically go?

garyi

garyi

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I don't know mabye I am just personally in a musical wilderness but seriously where has popular music left to go?

If the best we can offer on the under ground is the Arctic Monkeys and everything else just sounds like a faximile of something else what else is there?

It only seems to go to the edges to the extreme. Luckily I like electronica which gives more options, but even this is sounding like stuff from last decade etc, you can only go so far with electronic sounds, you can only do so much with an electric guitar for rock, you can only use an Orchestra so many times as backing, etc etc.

Help me out here, what can I get into which is new, and not another Coldplay crap-o-rama.

I think Gilmour brought this home to me on Rock/Pop, as Madge is currently singing 'I have heard it all before.'
 
Maybe you need to make more of an effort to find music off the beaten track?

Or, do what I do! Only listen to music recorded before 1986.
 
You're not alone. I'm finding it harder and harder to track down new music that really does it for me, even in my prefered genres.
Even stuff that appears in Metal mags like Terrorizer seems to be going all weird, e.g. Sunno(((, Isis, Jarboe

What worked for me in the past was simply taking a break from it all. I had a period of about 4 years where I hardly bought anything new (around the time that nu-metal came along with bollocks like Korn), just stuff from my favourite bands. Then something popped up that seemed really fresh (not necessarily highly original) in the form of Slipknot's "Wait and Bleed". After years of dull grunge and nu-metal, something caught my attention and I got back into the whole genre again. And all was good.

Now I'm getting bored again and heading off into Merzbow, Blut Aus Nord, The Berzerker and just all round noisier in the hope of something that can get the adrenaline flowing again.

As for truly "popular" music, I haven't been anywhere near that since I was a kid, but I guarantee that pop music was better when I was a teenager than it is today :)
 
Gary, your tastes are developing, that's all. There's more music available now than there ever has been, both old and new, and no excuse for getting bored.

For old stuff, off the top of my head:

You like Zappa, so check out (for example) Captain Beefheart, Faust, The Red Krayola, Cardiacs*, This Heat

You like Floyd, so check out (for example) Soft Machine and the rest of the Canterbury groups

You like electronica, so check out Nurse With Wound, Throbbing Gristle, Mark Stewart, and then leap into the unknown and start exploring improv electronica, Spring Heel Jack, Evan Parker's Electro-Acoustic Ensemble, that kind of thing

Etcetera. You just need to start buying lots of unfamiliar things, follow the connections between groups and labels, and a whole new world will open up.

-- Ian

*I'm trying to mention Cardiacs in every post ATM
 
sideshowbob said:
Gary, your tastes are developing, that's all. There's more music available now than there ever has been, both old and new, and no excuse for getting bored.

For old stuff, off the top of my head:

You like Zappa, so check out (for example) Captain Beefheart, Faust, The Red Krayola, Cardiacs*, This Heat

You like Floyd, so check out (for example) Soft Machine and the rest of the Canterbury groups
Click to expand...

And, of course, exploring these routes will lead you ever further into the murky depths of Krautrock* (yer Can, yer Tangerine Dream, yer Kraftwerk)

* Which personally I think is all my arse, but then I don't even like 'Kind of Blue' so what do I know? (to quote Montaigne).
 
Perhaps this is my point, I ask a question about new music and we get points to the past (I appriciate the recommendations BTW)

Ian I will check the electronica stuff you mention.
 
One point though was the fact that as much as I like Zappa and Floyd etc I want something totally different totally new and thats the crux of my question.

Where can music go that has not already been done?
 
garyi said:
Perhaps this is my point, I ask a question about new music and we get points to the past (I appriciate the recommendations BTW)
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Soz, we're all boring old farts here. I'll ask the elder daughter for some new music recommendations.
 
garyi said:
Where can music go that has not already been done?
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Music you've never heard before has, to you, not already been done, whether it was released this week or in 1950.

There is plenty out there that is different to what you are used to, new to you.

Of my suggestions above, at least half the groups mentioned are still making great records. There's plenty of new stuff that's great too, but not much of it is pop music.

-- Ian
 
sideshowbob said:
Music you've never heard before has, to you, not already been done, whether it was released this week or in 1950.

There is plenty out there that is different to what you are used to, new to you.
Click to expand...

absolutely spot on!



cheers
Matt
 
I don't mean pop music. Just music that could be popular. For instance I found UZiq to be totally unlistenable. So although they might not be pop music to me they could not be generally popular.

Damn I wish I could explain myself better.

The crux of my point still remains, if you were to ask your daughters who is popular right now you would no doubt get a list of names such as Kasiabian etc, which although new are hardly ground breaking are they?

Let me phrase my whole question differently.

Where do you guys see music going in the next decade, the 60s seemed to be broadly shit at the beginning (If Saturdays sounds of the sixties is to be believed) but already new (genuinly new) stuff was coming through, then the 70s seemed to see a lot of new stuff and a lot of general pap, the 80s well what ever you thought of the music, it was different a lot had never been heard before.

The 90s, now we are struggling, you have Oasis etc which sounded like the 70s i.e. to me new music now sounds like old music.

And 2000 and beyond, well it all sounds like old stuff now. All new elctronica I am buying sounds like old electronica I have, stuff that sounds differently hjazzy sounds like Zappa etc etc.

What totally new music is there?
 
sideshowbob said:
Music you've never heard before has, to you, not already been done, whether it was released this week or in 1950.

There is plenty out there that is different to what you are used to, new to you.

Of my suggestions above, at least half the groups mentioned are still making great records.

-- Ian
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Indeed. I started listening to jazz in the 70's, mostly the electric stuff, and have been going backwards from there. It took a while to get the hang of Ellington, for example, because the overall sound of it was so different to anything I'd heard. Some of the live recordings are beautifully structured pieces, with great players,but the sound generally is a very big, lovely, rude noise - makes some purveyors of "grunge" sound like sissies.
To take one of Ian's examples, listen to This Heat, then follow the trails of the individual musicians - you'll find enough new and different stuff to last you for ages: Charlie Hayward is a great drummer by the way!

Cliff
 
garyi said:
What totally new music is there?
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OK, just one single example: Buy Electric Masada, At The Mountains of Madness (it came out about 3 months ago, hopefully that's new enough). I guarantee you've never heard anything remotely like it. It refers to all sorts of other music, but I suspect most of that is music you've never heard either, so it should be a total headfuck for you. It's an awesome record too.

On average, I get musical epiphanies (i.e., I hear something which is so unexpected I immediately get excited about it) at least once a month. You just need to toss out those mouldy old Floyd records and start on a buying frenzy.

-- Ian
 
Gary,

What totally new music is there?
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Christian alternative new-age Afro-punk.

It's upbeat, obscure, worldly and edgy, yet surprisingly lame.

Joe

P.S. If you'd rather not spend a lot on music you may not like, why not borrow some CDs from your library. Randomly pick a couple of discs from each genre and see if any of them sparks some interest.
 
Joe, we haven't had proper libraries in the UK since That Bloody Thatcher Woman was in charge, the illiterate cow.

-- Ian
 
Popular music has often found itself becalmed. Before The Beatles came along pop music was beset by manufactured teenage boyband equivalents, before punk prog was disappearing up its own arse, rap gave the 80s fresh impetus once post-punk had dried up and the dance/electronica scene pushed us through the 90s.

I'd agree that from a viewpont of "newness" we appear to be currently in a very dull period, but as Ian has pointed out, there's still good stuff being put out.

So I'm confident someone will come up with a new twist soonish. In the meantime I'm discovering so much from the past (actual old stuff and new stuff that's firmly rooted in the past) that I can't keep up.
 
sideshowbob said:
Buy Electric Masada, At The Mountains of Madness

-- Ian
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Like the sound of this especially given Marc Ribot's involvement so thought I'd buy it from Amazon, anyway apparently people who also buy this might also be interested in and

Adventure Holiday in the Welsh Mountains
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www.adventure.visitwales.com

Tickled

Chris
 
Joe, we haven't had proper libraries in the UK since That Bloody Thatcher Woman was in charge, the illiterate cow.
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What are you saying, Ian, that the Invisible Hand of the Unfettered Market occasionally gives us the finger?

Joe
 
garyi said:
Where do you guys see music going in the next decade, the 60s seemed to be broadly shit at the beginning (If Saturdays sounds of the sixties is to be believed) but already new (genuinly new) stuff was coming through, then the 70s seemed to see a lot of new stuff and a lot of general pap, the 80s well what ever you thought of the music, it was different a lot had never been heard before.

The 90s, now we are struggling, you have Oasis etc which sounded like the 70s i.e. to me new music now sounds like old music.
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Your talking about landmark records, they don't actually come along that often, your just looking to the past, it all looks different with hindsight- people forget the insignificant records (and some good ones too of course) but the point is your seeing the 60s from the train- it all looks lovely, 90's and now your actually there, its different when its not rushing by at 80mph and your only seeing the landmarks.
Some of my fav 90s landmarks were Loveless, Spiderland, Laughing Stock, In the Airplane Over the Sea, Giant Steps, Endtroducing... I could go on. If you don't have any of those I reckon they're pretty important, give them a try. From there, you can work back, there are obvious routes from post rock back to DC hardcore, then you can branch that forward a bit to EMO which is kind of post rock but without the jazz and usually much heavier, you can go psyche with the boo radleys etc. etc. Might give you a better perspective on what is happening now as well. From the 00's Lateralus, Geogaddi (I think you may have that though being a Warpist), I thought Drukqs was pretty landmark, cLOUDDEAD... The 00's are a bit harder as they haven't stood the test of time in the same way but theres still tonnes of stuff. Its also hard off the top of my head and this is just what I know, I was too young during the 90s to get most of it, I've just found it since. Its all there, you just have to go looking for it.
 
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