SuperKid--

I empathize with you. 
Top 40 of every genre has always been iffy at best, but the current crop of crap is especially disheartening.

There are a few gems out there, but most of them are not guitar-centric bands. I personally like the music Adele, Pink and Norah Jones have been producing for a while, but those artists are out of my "normal" blues-rock listening habits...

But here's some hope:
In the late 70's/early 80's, guitars were being slowly supplanted by keyboards, keytars, synths and guitar synths. The Stones were still active, as were the Who, but punk flashed and died and New Wave had less use for guitar than one would have hoped.

Now understand, I'm speaking in generalities--there were guitar bands out there (Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Joan Jett, etc.) but they weren't first and foremost on the music scene.

But then a couple of things happened...
David Bowie saw a young Texian with a bolero hat being booed at a Swiss jazz festival and hired him to play on the  "Let's Dance" album...
That young Texian, Stevie Ray Vaughan, came along and reminded everybody how cool Fender guitars and amps sounded....
His brother Jimmie had been there all along, too, but SRV's ascension into the public eye helped the Fabulous Thunderbirds to get greater national recognition, thus pushing Fender (and Hohner harps, too) a little further into the limelight...
ZZ Top figured they could put some synths underneath their axes, put some leggy chicks in a cool hot rod and changed the world with "Eliminator"...
Clapton got sober-er and started performing well again...
Robert Cray was an overnight sensation (after chugging along for over a decade...that's a long night!)...
The Dire Straights released "Brothers in Arms", wisely reminding everyone that they wanted their MTV, ensured that at least one of their videos would be played...
The Stray Cats showed us how cool Gretsches and Bryl-Cream could be...

Guitar music and guitar players started getting attention, even in pop music...Michael Jackson squealed and asked Eddie Van Halen to play on "Beat It"...Jennifer Warnes asked SRV to do the same on one of her songs...Pat Benetar's hubby put his guitars a little more in the front of the mix on her discs...the Georgia Satellites harkened us back to the days of the Faces and the Stones...Guns & Roses washed the hairspray out and made some pretty kick-butt rock & roll for a while...

All this stuff is cyclical.

In the late fifties/early sixties, between Buddy Holly's death, Jerry Lee Lewis marrying his underage cousin, Elvis joining the army and Chuck Berry going to prison, rock and roll crapped out and was replaced by Paul Anka and Fabian...but the Beatles and Stones restored balance to the universe and all was right again, at least for a while.

...and all along, there were lesser-known artists and music scenes chugging along, creating some of the masterpieces we know and love. Those artists, like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Freddie King, Albert Collins and many others were not well known nor acclaimed by the general population.

...but who is better remembered today? Fabian or Freddie King? 

Things will right themselves again--and those same morons that think autotune and rap is "all that" will either learn or stay ignorant.

But you will have been right all along.

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Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

Have the 12-14 demographic ever been known for their discerning music tastes?

Has anyone heard the guitar solo in California King Bed by Rhianna? Its sweet.

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Rated "M" for meaty.

The 12-14 demographic discovered Elvis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, the Beatles, etc.

Well Kid, I think you have good reason to worry. Rock isn't dead, yet, but the internet has pretty much stangled most of the life out of it. Record companies are afraid to take a chance on any new music. Rock radio stations won't play anything new, even by major artists. They're both happy to just milk the classic catalogs for as long as they can. Even an artist as popular as Joe Bonammasa is never played on any main stream stations. There's a college station that plays him, but their range is about 15 miles.
Yeah, they'll always be some good new artists that get some recognition by a few people with more than half a brain. But the business that flourished in the '50's, '60's and '70's is on it's way to being a footnote in history.

_________________
'10 American Deluxe HSS Sunset Metallic
'10 JA-90 Thinline Telecaster
'15 Music Man JP-15 Blueberry Burst
'07 Les Paul Standard Faded LCPG #82
'14 Carvin ST300
'12 Carvin CS424S
'66 Guild Starfire IV w/Bigsby
'14 Warmouth Partscaster Daphne Blue

If you are worried about the state of Blues and Rock, apply yourself to learn to play them. If you play it, they will come.

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RK

2007 Fender Highway 1
2012 American Deluxe
2015 MIM Dave Murray HHH
2010 Fender Blacktop
1987 Fender Avalon Acoustic
2012 Marshall DSL 15 watt head

This thread has done a damn good job of reminding me why I wanted to leave the forum a few months back. Most of the posters here are obscenely closed-minde and dismiss anything they don't like as trash or "not music". A good number (not all, mind you) also seem to have an automatic hate for most music made after certain time periods, and everybody is always on about that "HURR MUZIK IZ DEYEING" garbage, which is not only completely false, but shows just how out of touch they actually are with the actual state of the music industry and it's various scenes. You have plenty of guys like TC who just dismiss ENTIRE GENRES of music (rap is a common target), when they have likely listened to VERY little of it (usually what's played on the radio, at that).

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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 rarely (if ever) dismiss entire genres.
There are individual rap/hip hop songs and artists that I like; I also know that it is a musical form that takes effort and talent...however, I do lament that hip hop (in production value, styling and presentation) has taken over the pop genre...most of what filters out there is pablum and base.
Likewise, I don't like 90% of the "Nashvegas" performers and/or performances--it's watered down 80's hair metal, or Def Leppard with a fiddle and a steel...and I never really liked Def Leppard...but I'll give almost any song or artist a listen (or two!) before I declare them "crap"...

Likewise, Floyd, you are very proud that you listen to underground/independent bands and artists...and that's cool. But answer this honestly--do you actually listen to any mainstream artists? If not, then you're being close-minded, too.

My tastes range from Mozart to Dwight Yoakum to the Ramons to Muddy Waters to Adele...I prefer blues and rock, but I'll give anything a spin twice...I'm not close-minded, but I am discerning...there is a difference.

_________________
Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

12-14 years old --- not exactly the select brains of the populous

But lets see here ...
Country -- guitar is alive and well here, in fact maybe the MOST guitar influenced music of all music out there now.
Blues -- Has been an underground style for a VERY long time now... It had a really good revival in the 90's (thanks maybe to SRV?) and is still going strong... but not big enough to be "mainstream"
Jazz -- Not a big guitar influenced music... (I am a semi pro jazz player btw), but there are more guitars in Jazz then ever before... and jazz has been an strong underground music since the 50's. Don't seeing dying anytime soon.
Rock -- Now here is the sad part. Rock and roll to me seems to be turning into an underground movement quite like jazz cooled down in the 50's... I mean real guitar influenced rock and roll... We will have to see what happens to rock....
Latin -- another guitar heavy music... This type of music is growing...

Lets hope guitar influenced music comes back around... but its certainly not dead or even dying IMHO...

_________________
In Reference to Blues Legend RL Burnside:
After a heart attack in 2001, Burnside's doctor advised him to stop drinking; Burnside did, but he reported that change left him unable to play.

Quite a few mainstream artists, actually.

_________________
Favorite bands:

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

Dude, I kinda feel your pain but since this is a guitar forum and most here are probably guitar players, it kinda figures there are some people who will poo poo on rap or other non-guitar centered music. I was a music major in college so I like it all. Like another posted, it all goes in cycles, including the hating.

_________________
TOO MANY GUITARS, TOO LITTLE TIME!

Current Stable:
Fender Stratocaster MIM 07
Squire II Stratocaster MIK 89?
ESP LTD MH-100QM
Jackson KE3 Kelly MIJ

There have been a number of psych studies done where it's pretty much defined, people's minds are "tuned" to music at a fairly narrow age range in their youth and the taste stays as a preference as they age.

In the past, it's been the (1) ones who listened to contemporary stuff and then the (2) band and orchestra geeks.

When this generation moves on, rap may well "go with them" and something new will come out.

This writer is waiting with wry amusement to see if the ipod generation will ever discover, the uber-compressd sound quality of that form of digital recording/playback is basically the modern equivalent of listening to a paper cup which's sound was transmitted to same through a string to antoher papaer cup.

When they hear their kid's orchestra concert live in the Jr High gym it'll be..."Wholly phock, is THAT what live music sounds like!?"

Well put CV.
If we should lament something it would definitely be public education (better described as the un-education of the public), it seems their goal is to kill creativity in young people and severely limit young peoples cognitive skills by eliminating true history and preaching political and social propaganda in it's place.
The issue for me with rap music is my distrust of preachers and politicians, ie: I don't like being preached to or being talked down to which is the self serving goal of all of them. Play me a song and I'll listen, assume that I don't know about what ever the preacher-types subject is and I'll change the channel.

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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'm honestly glad that they aren't still making the same music as they used to.

I mean how many times can you do the same things and still come up with something new?

Fear not SK you're on the right track, your rap friends i think are pretty misguided, or being young they've a lot to learn.

Anyway as regards rap: many members of the black community look at rap and they cringe, it's that bad. Some have said how is it that a once proud black tradition in music that brought us the likes of Coltrane, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Jimi Hendrix, Marvin Gaye, music that elevates the human spirit, can be reduced and debased to a level where the makers of rap music have reduced it to the basest human levels. Talking about slapping ho's around and beating bitches, while glorifying gang violence, gun crime and even murder?

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Luck won't do it and ignorance can't

George Van Eps.

I kinda feel bad for your buddies that said "rap is where it's at." Rap hit it's full stride several years ago and just like every other pop fad it has been over marketed and de-evolved into a cookie cutter style with plenty of folks seeing out new genres and new sounds every day. The best in the genre have already come and gone. notice how many have used their rap career to propel them into other fields. Rap will never fully go away, just fade from the spotlight as another style takes it's place. Club music will give way to driving music again. and so on and so on.

_________________
TOO MANY GUITARS, TOO LITTLE TIME!

Current Stable:
Fender Stratocaster MIM 07
Squire II Stratocaster MIK 89?
ESP LTD MH-100QM
Jackson KE3 Kelly MIJ