Todays' pop tunes don't come close to impressing, or entertaining me at all! When I was in elementary school, right after The Beatles did Sullivan, the radio pop scene went on fire! I however, will not put down todays' pop because if many people like it and buy into it then it has to be viewed as good. We need another Elvis or Beatles to re-ignite the flame once again. Any volunteers?

thanks to technology, this generations getting dumber, hence why they listen to dumb music

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former user radio_friendly_unit_shifter

I agree! Not only that but......................I'm so strange that I actually use a turntable to play records, instead of scratching! Viva analog! I'm not anti-digital but I find it ridiculus that some these days can't scratch their $@!, without first logging online!

This thread reminded me of a couple verses from a fav Rush song:


and


But seriously, there is a ton of good music being made out there. Pop, maybe not so much.

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A word of advice, if your intent is to insult the intelligence of others, you might want to attempt to use punctuation and somewhat obey basic rules of grammar.

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CREDO ELVEM IPSUM ETAIM VIVERE

I may be a bit past the mark for such an adventure but you have my vote of confidence Juan!

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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.

The decline of Pop today is no big secret. You are right. It is in decline.

I think part of it has to do with all the talented ethnic artists being pigeon-holed and forced to conform to the contemporary Hip-Hop and Urban genre formulas instead of being allowed to take the mass appeal traditional pop route. For instance if Lou Rawls came along now instead of 45 years ago he'd probably be forced to do boom-chick-boom-boom-ka-boom Hip-Hop songs instead of having a more mass appeal pop flavor. He made some incredibly classy records in the 70's that still hold up today if you will bother to listen to them.

A big part of the decline of Pop is that only a handful of producers are behind most of the pop hits. Therefore most of the pop songs have started sounding more and more alike. This problem is compounded by upstart producers who simply copy the techniques of another producer instead of looking for a new or unique sound of their own.

Worse is the obvious fact that most producers are no longer tailoring production to the artist but instead are forcing the artist to fit into a certain sound that complies with the producer's and the label's parameters and formulas for "success." Meaning more likely to get airplay and sell downloads on I-Tunes.

"You can't use real horns, we use synth horns today! Nobody is using a real B-3 anymore, we'll use this midi plugin instead! We'll use the Eventide pitch correction on the vocals here and again here because I know that will sell. Sure the drummer will lay down a track but it will be replaced with a drum machine in the final mix and maybe he won't notice that he isn't even playing on the record at all."

The few truly great producers left are making good recordings, but they seldom get airplay because they don't care about fitting any contemporary formula. Quincy Jones knows how to make great unique recordings, but his ilk are few and far between.

Now and then a real gift drops, such as Lady Gaga, but she is the exception to the rule. The first thing record companies and producers usually do is suck the art and originality right out of artists and rare is the recording act that actually has any freedom to do what they want in the way they want. She got the freedom and the results have been spectacular.

I think in the 60's and 70's most artists actually sounded better recorded. There are numerous examples of this but just one is the 70's group Chicago who had recordings that sounded far better than the band ever did live. Am I the only one to notice that these days more and more artists sound better live than they do recorded? I think it is a complete reversal!

When the artist has more control, as is the case with Prince and Gaga, you get unique sounding recordings that can leave you breathless. If you tried to make Prince or Gaga fit into today's most prevalent formulas for success they would sound just as stilted and stifled as most of the other pop stuff.

Ask yourself this question, "What if Jimi Hendrix came along today?" The answer is frankly quite scary.

i have language difficulties, due to a certaint reason i dont want to explain again here. sometimes i find it hard to connect words, or find the right words. you gotta problem with it, then i dont want to know you

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former user radio_friendly_unit_shifter

You've made some great interesting observations that I'm sure many here appreciate.
I'm glad you pointed out the fact that Prince and Lady G. are great artists. Although I grew up listening to what is known as Classic Rock, ( I don't like the name because they started calling it that in the 80s ) I appreciate and respect other styles of music. I feel that Classic Rock ( I call it my music ) is very much influenced by Blues, Country, Jazz and to an extent even Classical music. I feel that the radio stations which play Classic Rock have become like corporate commercial oldies players. For example, Jethro Tull has many great tunes, but they will play the heck out of "Bungle in the Jungle," instead of "Aqualung" or "Nothing is easy." I bet alot of younger people think that "Wer're an American Band" is the only song that Grand Funk Railroad ever did! If they played stuff from the red alblum ( GFs' second ) alot of younger people would flip. I like to see more bands like Sound Garden and The Black Crows getting discovered. I'm sure they are out there, and I wish them luck! I know I sound like an arm chair quarterback, some will agree.

Technology has nothing to do with peoples intelligence, if anything it's just another tool at our disposal to create new ideas and styles of music and to distribute music in a new way.

Technology doesn't make people stupid, it changes how people do things, and its fine that you don't want to embrace that but there's no need to look down on people because that's how they choose to communicate or make music.

Quite the assumption. While I agree my generation is filled with, goofs, we clearly are not all this way. In fact I am using technology to advance myself and my future with a degree is Visual Communications Technology. So think before you post please.

Anyway, while I agree that today's pop hits cant compare to those of the past, I have a lot of fun putting some distortion in some pop songs. It's fun and a lot of people I play for think its pretty cool.

Sometimes I think everyone else is joking and I'm just not in on it.

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Rated "M" for meaty.

I'm enjoying the input here but I feel bad because some have been taking swipes at the gent from Australia. Please be kind, some folks are more sensitive than others and this man has taken two shots already on here. To the Aussie fellow, I'm sorry sir. I would not have started this thread if I knew it was going to victimize you. This is an open forum sir, so I do encourage you fire back. If you do not, it will only prove that you're a bigger person than the rest of us here. Peace and good day to all. God bless!

Black Keys are VERY watered down garage. They take music that other bands have been playing for years and gloss it over with poppy, fake lo-fi production so it sells, and pump it out. They certainly have a few good ones here and there, but they are nothing close to what some people try to label them as.

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Favorite bands:

Melvins
The Jesus Lizard
Cows
Big Business
R***man
Minutemen
Flight
Minor Threat
Big Black
Shellac
Karp
Scratch Acid
Wipers
Pixies

I've been singing that tune for ages-what the music industry desperately needs is another musical Renaissance like The British Invasion,sadly the alignment of the planets and stars won't happen like that ever again,so I guess that we're stuck with being bombarded with the insipid,vaccuous tasteless drivel that's being passed off as music on AM and FM stations these days.I'm glad that people who know what real music is can avail of satellite radio,internet stations,downloads and the good old reliable CDs and vinyl.It's a pity that there is a whole generation of kids growing up these days that wouldn't know good music from a McDonalds jingle and whose ideas of high fidelity is an I-pod and a pair of $10 ear buds.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.