It is a shame that the music industry has gone down the tubes, but just like the motor industry they have no one to blame but themselves.The lack of talent is at the lowest I have seen in my lifetime.All these fabricated and corporate created stars,the whole hip hop (and I dont give 2 shits )who is offended scene is a joke.Yet this is what is forced down the throats of todays teens.So if they dont like it,there not with it or cool.I have 2 sons 16 and 11 who have great taste in music ,WHY,because of me.And there friends that come over and shock me when they know good music I also find they know these songs from there parents which proves if something is good it will stand the test of time,but also how do you get the new product out there.If the music industry wanted to change the whole format of what is being played they could do it in the blink of an eye,but the bottom line is you have people in charge who only care about what they think will sell and have no regard for talent at all.You ever see on american idol someone sing there heart at then get critisised by the judges about what there wearing.DUH what the hell does that have to do with anything.That is wear the MTV age has there influence where what you see is as important as what your hearing.Take all these created stars first I have never seen Brittney Spears ever sing live once.I could not even tell you what her real voice sounds like as it is so heavily modified she sounds like she has a phase shifter pedal on when she sings and all the Spears clones that are out there .What are they offering to the history of music?Hopefully just a bad chapter as they cant sing ,write or play.Yet they sell tons of cds and have huge tours.Now hip hop,they at least write that nonsense but stealing other peoples music and coming up with nursery rhyme sounding loops is supposed to be talent?They have good producers that I will give them but this thing should have died long ago.I mean 90% of these artist are african american and had to grow up in a house where STEVIE WONDER,MARVIN GAYE.SMOKEY ROBINSON I can go on forever how many great black vocalist there have been yet none of these kids in hip hop can sing there tone deaf,and what about the blues they invented it yet there letting it die out.Now some will say just because I dont like it does not mean it is not good .Well I can say there is a lot of music in my field that I dont like but I know the people making it have talent that is the difference and I will stand behind my statements.Unlike all of the guitar magazines that thumbed there noses at players with chops during the grunge movement and now did a complete 360.I enjoyed some grunge but lets face it half of them bands played out of tune and the lead playing was beyond bad.Kurt Cobain was a very gifted writer but as a guitar player he was fair and as a lead player he was awful.Yet when Rolling Stone did the 100 greatest Rock Guitarist of all time RANDY RHOADS WAS #85 and VANHALEN WAS #70 and COBAIN WAS LIKE #17 OR SOMETHING WHICH SHOWS YOU WHAT THAT RAG KNOWS. To sum up this crisis I dont have an answer maybe one of you do but music has been fractioned of into so many categories you get lost tring to find something in a store.How do we get the talented players heard, where do we find them I mean who is going to search myspace for hours to find something good.DOES SOMEONE HAVE A SOLUTION TO THIS MESS.

The Beancounters have taken hold of the music industry. It's all about the bottom line and not developing artists. The AOR people have all been thrown aside and art people aren't making artist type decisions. Plus large contracts have been given to artists where there is no way they will ever recover that investment no mattter how many CD or Albums are sold. That is the reason you are seeing more greatest hits being issued. They have kept product (Cd's, Vinyl ) at an elevated price regardless of what the market demands were, a move where they pretty much cut off their nose to spite their faces. Downloads, Myspace, Facebook, Websites make it a lot cheaper for the artist to deliver product direct and greater profit for them. I only buy CD's if I want to have that in my collection, now it's just downloads.

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Lite Ash Tele, Partcaster Black Nashville Tele with Jason Lollars, Blues DeVille 410, Lunchbox 200 Watt Amp, Martin RTGE 00016 Acoustic

Zappa explains it better than anyone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GowCEiZkU70

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I really like all them "Aster" guitars. You know, like the Stratoc, Telec and Jazzm.

Russian.What a great link leave it up to Frank to nail it on the head.

That was great. The crossfire vid was great too.

hey stay cat i feel your pain. my opinion and mine only music evolves im a 50 year old guy i admit i dont get rap and hip hop.
but some of the rap/rock stuff works for me ie rage against the machine.
dont you think some of this is just rebellion ? we all went through it with our music in our day.
the music industry has changed so much and they did not keep up with the times they sat back and ignored the internet and downloads. and now there backpeddiling.
having said that they were always about the quick buck and what sells.
my taste runs to blues and blues was never marketed because it didnt sell.
hang in there stick with what you love trends will come and go. but good music last forever.

You know, it is kind of hard where I am at to talk about music too loudly.
I'm 17, HUGE rock fan of all sorts, going from Michael Angelo Batio to the Talking Heads. It is really, really sad because a lot of the kids at school, when hearing my response, will TRASH Jimi Hendrix, TRASH Led Zeppelin, TRASH every other guitarist/band I think is an inspiration, and talk about the Hip-Hop/Death-Punk-Emo music and how the Stanky Leg is better than Voodoo Child. It sucks.

I really, really, really wish I lived way back when all these guys were around; it is like I don't even belong in this time period, y'know?

Music certainly has evolved, but what could have perverted it so? Just corporate greed and fads/trends?

KRAD.it is funny you said that because I have a 16 year old son who has his musical roots in the music of the 40s and the 50s and is not to fond of rock but loves the Beatles.The thing is he says the same thing about school and wishes he was born in another era.Let me just say that everyone makes there era sound the best but in fact it all evens out.Now I am living in my 5th decade and this is the sddest state I have ever seen music in.What is the legacy of this decade going to be ,I have some obvious choices and they are all a joke.I have such a wide range of music I listen to I play in the hard rock blues vein but if it is good I am down for anything.The last song I had to go out of my way to know who did it was Through the Fire and the Flames by Dragonforce and that was because I heard my 11 year old playing it.That song had great lyrics ,a strong melody and killer guitar.Which years ago would be the norm.Hey keep listening to the people you are and maybe you and a few friends will reopen the door to great music.

The trick is getting your friends to listen to it. I've been moderating a high school guitar club for 3 years and I found out that the same kids who knock old bands never really heard them. They may have heard one song, but usually not a sample of their best work. They'll dismiss it as "too old" so they won't bother on their own. I decided that at the weekly meetings I would have them listen to an "old" song they probably never heard before. I've never heard a complaint yet and they are a very opinionated group.

You weren't born in the wrong decade, these kids just aren't open minded to music. Go peer-pressure them into something positive.

The music industry is in ruins because its not about talent, but marketability and number of units sold.

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RAMA LAMA FA FA FA

+1!

It's a shame that the music industry has gotten as bad as it has. While there ARE some decent newer bands out there (on another thread, I mentioned Vampire Weekend, The New Pornographers and Fleet Foxes as good examples), they seem to be fewer and farther between. AND you have to work harder to find them -- they're almost never played on broadcast radio or on MTV (then again, hardly ANY music is ever played on MTV anymore!).

It seems like a lot of kids are fed up and are turning to the past to find their musical idols. I see no shortage of teens wearing Led Zeppelin and AC/DC t-shirts at the mall these days...

What I just don't get is, for example, turn on Born To Be Wild and everybody's dancing and singing, plainly just rocking out, and still no1 at the party has ever heard or will ever hear any other song by Steppenwolf
It's a shame that people forgot that hits were just average or even below average songs put out by the band and that the best and bestselling albums have done just fine without hit singles

stallion , bro , thanks for the link , Zappa will outlast all of this years rock stars and idols maybe the last few years , the music industry needs him more now than ever , RIP Frank.

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.

I was watching G.E. Smith's Telecaster on Youtube, and what he did was he told stories about going into pawn shops and getting this AWESOME old Fender lap steels. That, to my knowledge, just doesn't happen anymore, and that sucks. I don't know what the big thing about Vintage is, but being able to go out and do that sounds really, really nice. That's why I wish I was back from the past, where all that stuff could happen like that.

As far as peer pressuring my friends, that is a good idea, but most of them like the music I do. The people around me aren't so easy to talk to about; I go to a pretty ghetto school.

And personally I dislike Dragonforce, but hey, opinions.

Good bands are still out there making great music, you just have to search a little (maybe a lot) harder these days. The one good thing about the state of the music "industry" is when you find the gems out there that are not being promoted and are just plugging away on their own steam, they sound that much better by comparison.