What happened to rock music?

Discussion in 'Music and Recordings' started by rhythmdevils, Sep 5, 2020.

  1. HotRatSalad

    HotRatSalad Friend

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    If you listen to the original cd mastering of Carcass Heartwork and Death Individual Thought Patterns, then compare to some of the newer recordings they almost not listenable.
    Those 2 albums mentioned came out in early 90's but are not compressed AT ALL. they breathe you can pick up more natural and pleasing nuances out of even DEATH METAL back then. The melodies and sheer musical and song writing talent didn't hurt either. Now even if you buy those albums the most recent reissues are 2.5 times more compressed and sound like CRAP. Carcass aside, they actually released FDR versions of their stuff.
     
  2. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    All the 80s and 90s pop rock, even really praised and popular stuff like Guns n Roses, the Nirvana hits (the deep cuts are much better than the popular songs), post black album Metallica pretty much just sucks compared to Thin Lizzy. Sure you can bring up better and much cleverer acts like Alice In Chains or REM but come on, where are the balls and energy and pushing forward upbeats in 90s rock hits? Listen to early metallic before lars kept time to 90s Metallica. Wtf happened? You had bands who mixed thrash beats into pop rock better than Metallica themselves. Skid Row and Wrathchild America and then Megadeth on Countdown to Extinction but that wasn’t as popular as dumb midpaced sing along lighter flicking songs. And it happened to the entire popular music industry in the late 80s to early 90s. You have to pull out something like Deicide or Motorhead themselves to get anywhere close to Thin Lizzy.

    https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL440558287FCEC563
     
  3. DEATHxMACHINE

    DEATHxMACHINE Friend

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    I think no one knows the definition of Rock any more. Consider that Billie Eilish and Imagine Dragons both are considered by the industry as either rock or alternative rock. I personally would not put them in that genre. And this has been an issue for decades as it is different for each generation.

    There are still a ton of rock bands. They are just not followed by the mainstream. Some examples;
    Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats
    WIndhand
    Fuzz
    Elder
    Heron Oblivion

    Sadly, you have to find proper rock. It wont find you. Which from my experience isn't necessarily a bad thing. On a regular basis I find a band I never heard of but have been around for 10 years and have a few albums. So when I find it I get bunch of it.
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2020
  4. HotRatSalad

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    Lizzy was so good, never that popular in US besides the one hit single.
    I think there was more prog and exploring going on back in the day. Wacky song structures that just worked because of excellent song writing. Look at how weird Sunshine of your Love from Cream is constructed and played. Look at RUSH ! unconventional song structures mixed with basically POP and super human ability. Ever pay attention to Freewill, how they break off and do that magic shit just for the guitar solo then morph back into main song structure. All recorded remarkably sound wise. ALL THIS is what's missing from rock for 25 years now. Alice and Chains and Soundgarden were above the rest in many ways in the 90's IMO.

    Metallica ? They turned alternative, they were running on steam from Mustaine and of course Burton. When that well went dry you could tell right away. They were great 83-88 they had that NWOBHM sensibility and all those eastern scale type guitar parts. They sounded like Iron Maiden and Motorhead basically.
     
  5. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

    Pyrate Slaytanic Cliff Clavin
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    They still have compression. The SSL consoles were the first to have it on every channel and bus. They just don’t have look ahead limiting and muddy crap for the sake of muddy crap gear. The Waves L1 limiter came out in 1994 and the tube revival was not in full swing yet. Tube revival mostly produced gear much worse than the restored with modern parts or well recreated vintage stuff with some exceptions. Lots of hyped stuff is audibly and measurably very bad.

    for Carcass, you can hear it on the og heartwork cd. Necroticism is crystal clear. Heartwork is muddy and compressed. The fdr cd that’s jsut the dumped mix of heartwork is fantastic sounding.

    they also weren’t using ADAT and Mackies and the O2R that early.
     
  6. Syzygy

    Syzygy Friend

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    Hmm, I kinda think this makes my point rather well! Thank you.

    I see your Pissing, and raise you a Wish You Were Here.


    Edit: I appreciate all the analysis going on in this thread! One of the reasons I wanted to join SBAF was to find good new music, it just keeps getting harder every year.

    I've not got it in me right now to do the same (been analysing financials today). But what I find is that every now and then a good song by a band (or individual) will come along and catch my attention. It's just the case that it used to be many songs, or albums, by several bands, would catch my attention. Most of the "rock" music today might as well be played in the elevator, it's so unremarkable.
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2020
  7. edd

    edd Almost "Made"

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    I think the rise in the indie labels is/was just an artifact of the major labels crumbling. As piracy/the internet cut into their profits, the major labels got far more risk-averse as far as signing new bands (Interpol released their first/best/most successful couple albums under Matador before signing to a major, who dropped them after releasing just one album, presumably bc the sales were not up to snuff). These days, bands aren't given a chance to develop; if the sales aren't there, they're dropped. It's unlikely that a band like Pink Floyd would've ever made it to their DSOTM & after years in today's business.

    And even now, I think the indie labels are feeling their margins squeezed out. Most musicians these days make their money touring and selling merch on the road, not album sales. The albums are more of a promotion for the tour, where it was more of the opposite in years past. And, without label support, the bands themselves are squeezed financially as well. I do believe that some folks like David Bazan of Pedro the Lion toured solo for years due to the expense of bringing a full band on the road. As evil as the major label industry is/was (I don't care for Semisonic, but their drummer wrote an interesting account of the band's years dealing with the industry), I do think that they served some good purposes (at least for me, the consumer).

    For the people who haven't given up on new music, I do wonder how they go about doing so. I used say to some of my old friends who claimed rock died after the 60's & 70's that if they couldn't find anything new that they liked, then they weren't trying hard enough. But now, I find that I run into this same problem myself these days. My old avenues for discovery aren't really there anymore. I don't listen to the radio (for good reason), MTV stopped playing music videos (I thought 120 Minutes was a pretty good show for the time), most of my friends don't keep up with anything that's not played heavily on the radio, and I don't go out to shows much anymore where I might find a cool, new opening band.

    So, these days, I'm often just left to sift through whatever albums/tracks are being reviewed on Pitchfork (whose year-end lists largely contain bands/artists that I don't care for.... but I'm a creature of habit who's been reading their stuff from back when I did like a lot of bands that they liked)... or perhaps, looking into bands who are covered by some of my favorites...
     
  8. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    Yeah it’s amazing that cream and blind faith were so popular. The 90s were weird because all these artists had major label careers or distribution. Morbid Angel were on Giant records until they went bankrupt and they stayed on mtv late at night until the 2000s. Vh1 had soft rock but would throw in weird shit until the early 2000s when it went from the James Taylor Superstation that would also play Dead Can Dance, Kate Bush, Enya, and even Burzum to pure trash. All the super weird alternative rock bands got on sub labels. Beherit was on a major label subsidiary into the late 2000. My copy of Engram is from Fontana, owned by UMG.

    Metallica just took a lot and without cliff, couldn’t write the songs. Cliff was older than the others. Those British bands themselves ran out of ideas like Maiden and Angel Witch. Maiden repeat themselves almost verbatim after the fourth album. Diamond Head have one album.

    Metallica showed they could never hear something like Andulusia and turn it into To Tame a Land. Maiden still writes some great songs but the albums are basically unedited:


    .
     
  9. Tchoupitoulas

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    Pitchfork went downhill by moving from a niche, alternative rock site to a mainstream music advertising service: it was purchased by Condé Nast in 2015. It’s now to alternative rock what What HiFi is to audio gear. The site now prioritizes corporate, major-label top-40 hip hop and modern R&B drek.* This is part of the same process by which Billie Eilish becomes “rock” music.

    Part of the difficulty today in finding good music has to do with it becoming so democratic; the old record labels, for all their many, endless faults, did at least recognize and promote talent (once upon a time). Thanks to bandcamp, there’s almost too much music to trawl through now, although bandcamp itself has excellent guides to its music.

    KEXP is still a great station but its spotify playlist has become a bit stale and bland, the recommended songs narrowing in style and taste (as though reflecting a single intern’s preferences) to the “jangly soulless indie” that @rhythmdevils rightly bemoans. I’ve had more luck finding good new music through the playlists of radio stations, music websites, and record stores like BBC 6 Music 2020, Stereogum’s Favorite New Music, and Rough Trade Recommends (to be clear, I use spotify only for music discovery; artists get my money via bandcamp).

    I’m also old enough now that nearly all of my friends have moved on to other things in life and music is no longer a priority for them. It’s said that we retain a preferences for the music we discovered in our youth. Probably. But I’ve discovered some of my favorite music as I’ve arrived at middle age. I just miss the days when excited friends would insist that I hear the latest greatest band. That's only partly because there are fewer great bands around.

    * If you subscribe to the view that rock music has gone into terminal decline, spare a thought for the horror of what happened to R&B: from the music of Ray Charles and others on Atlantic Records (and other labels), R&B has long been reduced to a catch-all term for bland, insipid, soulless music.
     
  10. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    For me it’s not a case of preferring the music of my youth and no longer discovering new music. I’ve been putting just as much energy into finding new music as I did before. I was expecting things to be the same, like I said. I thought there was going to be this treasure trove of music waiting for me. I started by listening to pitchfork’s best of year end lists for all the years I’d missed. But I was surprised to find I guess exactly what you described. It used to be full of folk and rock and was now full of well everything else and mostly pop crap. Then I hit up metacritic which used to be a great resource. I used to like a lot but not all of their highly rated albums. I was surprised to not like much. And gave up after sifting through a few year end lists. Then I found bandcamp which wasn’t really a thing yet when I went under. I was super excited and found some amazing artists like King Gizzard and the Lizzard Wizzard and Haley Heynderickx and Allie Crow Buckley. Those are probably my 3 favorites I found on bandcamp. But I slowly realized how much was “jangly happy cookie cutter indie crap” even the “best new music” recommendations. I wish there was a better system for finding like minded bandcampers to follow. Like listing all your favorite bands and then getting matched to people. Instead of just your purchases.

    anyways, I’m kind of at a loss. It’s depressing hearing the same crap over and over. I think if I hear one more happy indie jangle I’m going to throw up.

    And I personally don’t like much music from the 80’s or 90’s though there are exceptions. I think there was a real creative boom around 2000 that died off.

    or I just don’t know how to find the bands, like you said, just being overwhelmed by so much music on bandcamp for example.

    I sadly lost my music obsessed friends too so I’m stuck with the internet.
     
  11. Tchoupitoulas

    Tchoupitoulas Friend

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    I posted this on another thread previously, but it's a good resource:

    It might work well for your tastes: Low's Double Negative was voted their album of the year for 2018. I can't find that edition online now, alas.

    A few years ago a small startup was making what promised to be a potentially great social media app for music: the idea was for you to create an account and list the artists and musical genres you like in your profile, and you'd be able to connect with others; you'd also be able to see what your friends were listening to. Spotify bought it, I think. And then it disappeared.
     
  12. edd

    edd Almost "Made"

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    Yup, curation of music in today’s world is the problem. And it’s a problem that I know at least some of the big wigs are aware of (after all, that’s what Trent Reznor was supposed to help with when he worked for Apple/Beats Music), but I don’t believe anyone’s made great progress with it. Though, quite honestly, I’m kinda talking out of my ass here since the only streaming service I have is what’s included in my Amazon Prime subscription. I generally dislike the subscription model. And I like to financially support my bands by purchasing their albums anyway. But if there was a streaming service out there that actually did a good job of helping me discover new music, I wouldn’t mind paying.
     
  13. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    cool, just downloaded the pdf.

    my favorite record store, Aquarius Records closed in 2016. I used to go in there and tell one of the guys behind the desk a list of bands and they’d methodically walk through the store picking out CDs they thought I’d like. And they had an online database with comments on each album and links between albums and keywords that were searchable and samples you could listen to from every album they sold.

    here’s an NPR article about the store.

    https://www.npr.org/sections/allson...-aquarius-records-a-record-store-for-big-ears
     
  14. Ringingears

    Ringingears Honorary BFF

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    This is rock for me. They were out of San Francisco. Got to see them many times at Winterland. And in Sacramento . 1973.
     
  15. Ringingears

    Ringingears Honorary BFF

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    Hope you guys will indulge me. But I had to share one more. It sounds best on a 1973 Marantz amp with 20W RMS and cranked to 11. :punk:

     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2020
  16. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    Quick! Pass me the vitamin C for god's sake!
    Too right. I had was having a bad trip before the song even started. Nearly fifty years after being even in the same street as a tab of LSD.

    I've skipped the subsequent posts for now as it is bed time, but there are a handful of bands from the 60/70s that obviate the need to listen to much of their subsequent imitation. @Psalmanazar can probably list them better than I can, if he hasn't already. Heck, just listen to The Eagles for a week. And I have to admit that I haven't even wanted to listen to the original Eagles for quite a while.

    Most of my favourite modern music is up to about 1975. Not all, and I do admit that, yes, I have missed a lot. But why did I start missing it? Because I could say derivative within the first thirty seconds of so many songs, and name the band they where trying to be.

    There is probably better honest pop than this wannabe rock.

    It's 5.15am. I must feed the cats and go to bed. Read the rest tomorrow... (or today as other people call it)
     
  17. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    I used to love to go into my local record shop once a week down in B'burg VA and they'd hand me 4 CDs and say "this is what you want to listen to this week". AI Spotify and Roon still has a lot to "learn".
     
  18. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    I'm mostly in prog and weird jazzy rocky stuff. After grunge in the early 90s I mostly stop caring about rock. Most newer rock stuff that I forgot their names sound the same to me. The same cheesy guitar riffs, signers wearing skinny jeans, too thin to the point that I think they are 90 lbs, and signing so white/plain that I take out the Dukes (Mayo for those who aren't in the South) from my fridge and start eating it raw.

    I also blame CDs for a lot of ills of rock albums (shit, most albums in general), 72-80 minutes of audio on a disc, lets ram so much filler songs up the ass to the point you are wasting $18 on a f'ing CD where you only like two-three songs.

    I always swear shit went south when CDs were "the format" over LPs. Who cares about song and time limits, load it the CDs with crap. I also hate albums where they are like 60+ minutes. 40-50 minutes unless double LP for me.
     
  19. Ringingears

    Ringingears Honorary BFF

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    I go up to 1979 myself. I was still in college and flirted with early Punk for a bit. After that I slowly bought less albums. This Is probably going to sound strange to some of you but really the last album I got into was the Dixie Chicks -Taking the Long Way. Surprised the hell out of me too. I learned to play the entire album on guitar. It was therapy at the time.

    Long live rock, I need it everyday.
     
  20. Biodegraded

    Biodegraded Friend

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    Aha, this might illustrate our age difference. That track seemed to me not bad imitation 60s-70s, but bad imitation C86.

    C86 was twee pop and certainly wasn't my favorite 80s genre, but it at least had the merits of being not over-produced or over-polished, would depart from rigid structures often enough to be interesting, and was commonly played by people who were endearingly serious but not terribly competent so you couldn't help but admire their attempts.

    For good imitation 60s-70s (and 50s) LSD reminders, I recommend the multi-album set 'Songs The Cramps Taught Us' for the originals, then seek out The Cramps' covers of the same.
     

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