(oops, I wrote one of those lame Rolling Stone-type “record reviews” where I rant and rant about some tangent and hardly even mention the band…rofl…)
Why does most new music sound so mediocre and slapdash?
I realize it’s become easier and easier for anyone, talented or not, to make music and publish it to the masses. And I realize that’s A Good Thing, as long as there is some form of quality filtering available. Social networking should be the perfect tool to provide this quality filtering, but it seems to fail me over and over. Grabbing the “most popular” music just isn’t working for me. There’s too much quantity, and too little quality. I’d gladly have access to twenty times less music that was consistently 20% better.
Do I really miss having all those AOR music reps vetting music for me? Am I that lame? Maybe I just need to try harder – I don’t scrobble on last.fm, I don’t use Apple’s Genius thingee, and my Pandora filters are crufty, full of old bands that don’t tie me to good new music.
The bottom line is… I want music that has a certain base level of polish and effort. In the early 80’s, I used to say that all I needed to be happy was a beatbox, but I’ve heard so much empty worthless copy-and-pasted MIDI techno nonsense, often excused with a trance or d&b tag, that I swear I will take the gaspipe if I hear one more set of empty looping beats. And one more lame meandering acoustic-guitar-strumming effortless “look at me, I’m special without trying” “modern” band will send me over the edge. And what happened to innovative rap or hip-hop? What cookie-cutter nonsense it all is! Seriously people, life is too short, stop publishing crap.
Anyway, what HAS sounded good lately is music that has a little spitpolish without losing the rock and roll edge. Weezer and White Sripes type stuff. It’s a bit embarrassing, I feel like I’ve gone back to high school and fallen in love with Van Halen, listening to Weezer sing “The girl got hot”, “Screw rehab, I love my addiction, I can’t stop partying, partying..”, etc. or the spoken rock of the White Stripes’ Rag and Bone (I swear they are channelling “Hot for Teacher”).
Help me out. What’s the best way to find good new music?
