just to make you feel better, remember that King Crimson is gearing up for a new album and will start touring in september, 2014!!
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Listen to whatever music you like. If rap or pop’s your thing, then who are any of us to tell you off for it? If you don’t like a certain type of music, that’s fine, but don’t judge others because of what they enjoy listening to.
I personally don’t enjoy screamo or heavy metal, but that’s no reason for me to dislike people who listen to those types of music.
Music is supposed to be unique and expressive. People aren’t all the same, so it makes complete sense that there are tons of different bands and different genres of music, and varying levels of people who listen to them.
I think the point is that it’s kind of sad and disappointing how generic (ie. NOT unique) and shallow (ie. NOT expressive… motivated by things other than artistic expression) music has become the norm, and the so-called artists are rewarded handsomely for it. While people making unique and expressive music will for the most part never have their music heard in a way it deserves.
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I don’t think wildcat ever said anything along the lines of “people who listen to pop/rap are stupid” or anything like that. I don’t even think that he really bashed pop music in general, just the stuff that is fed to the public by the industry, which, for the most part, is pretty bad.
you are right in saying that music is supposed to be unique and expressive, and i think what Wildcat is upset about is that the music that is in constant contact with the mainstream radio is created for commercial profit, no so an artist can express his feelings.
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Psh. Not even. You’re so fab. I look drab
My point was that a large part of the population aren’t expressive and unique, and that that is the reason to be upset. Being upset at the state of music isn’t smart, because music is directly affected by the people listening to it, i.e. be upset that people aren’t unique, don’t be surprised when companies try to make money off of it.
I think it’s perfectly fair to lament for the state of the world and its youth. 
Nobody’s claiming that they don’t understand the phenomenon… just that it sucks.
Music is art. Therefore, by definition it should be expressive and unique.
When does it come out?
Also, if I was bashing genres, which I’m not, as pretty much all of them are affected, I’d post something like this:
Seeing as I’m taking popular music studies as a subject and writing a paper on the issues with non-conformist cultures and how they in the end aren’t really non-conformist.
First off, to say that music was better in the 90’s is just nostalgia. If you look at some of the #1 hits from the 90s, you will see that the music that sold back then wasn’t really as good as we’d like to think. I’ll give some examples:
This is Paula Abdul featuring an animated rapping cat.
Some people may like this song, but let’s be honest, it’s just a schmaltzy mess.
This is one of many boyband-abominations from the 90’s. Single of the year in 92, it had 13 weeks at number 1 on Billboard. In 94, the same group had two #1 hits, staying at the top for more 20 weeks combined. That’s close to half a year.
You think Gangnam Style is annoying? Well here’s the #1 single of 1996.
Finishing off the 90s, with 1996 #1 single of the year, AKA Cher’s horrible vocoded dance track.
These clips should say enough by themselves, but if you really need convincing I can say that several of these songs are still getting airtime. I can also mention Mariah Carey, who had a stunning 14 #1 hits during the 90s. And if anyone still needs convincing, I can keep this thread going with cringeworthy bestsellers from the 90s for a long time, for practical reasons (and the fact that listening through this stuff hurts my ears) I won’t do that.
There are some big musicologists and sociologists who have written on the “culture industry” and the mass production of music, some being as critical as stating that the music industry is corporations manipulating our expectations through standardizing music (this includes almost music that is less than a 110 years old, including independent artists as they are conforming to the standards whether they like it or not). I like to think that the music industry isn’t that fordist and don’t really agree with this view, I’m not that pessimistic when it comes to the music industry. I’m more on the side of the scholars saying that music in nature will always leave some creative space where good music can be made, no matter how industrialized it gets.
One point I like to bring out is that every since the radio got put into a car, people have stopped actually listening to music, and now we have streaming services on every digital device, basically having almost all music in the World at our fingertips at any given time. What this does is that we reduce music to background noise, music is just something that’s there all the time. We know we like what we hear, and we know we aren’t as happy when it’s not there, but we don’t really care what the music is as long as it’s vaguely in tune with the mood we’re in. What’s interesting is that it doesn’t really change the music people listen to, but it changes how people value music. By having it on as noise all the time, it’s logical that people don’t want to pay more than $10 a month for having access to all the music in the World all the time, even though the people who make the music gets completely shafted that way.
This post is insanely long now, so I’ll stop here and add more if necessary. As stated I’m writing huge paper on a related topic, so a lot of what I is just ideas from that paper in a more casual language.
EDIT: Also, I must apologize for making anyone listening to that music.
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