There is no "art" in music anymore. Thanks Illuminati!

There is but not in the main stream stuff.

TV is impossible to watch any more. It's all so saturated with propaganda and mind-programming that it's become useless. Although sometimes I do flick on the news just for a good laugh, see what the latest bullshit is they are feeding the public.

As for music, I have an extensive collection, but stopped adding to it many years ago. You are right, there is no art left in it, unless you consider Illuminati messages to be art. So I only listen to what I have and that's it.

Movies are still entertaining to watch, but now I mostly dissect them for what they are, rather than trying to actually follow along with the "story", picking out the not-so-subtle messages and the blanket of symbology throughout it. I find it amusing how aggressive they have become with them.

Hip-Hop isn't dead.

I had a feeling someone would say this. Even many of the smaller artists/groups are trying to attain some attention by imitating the popular tripe to some degree.

???
What genre do you like?

Who cares, ive just been listening to Prince - Purple rain and Neil Young - Harvest, now im about to listen to some NIN or PJ Harvey.

Plenty of good older music out there.

Yes there is. Just don't listen to mainstream/top 40s music

The music business officially adopted the 'no real music allowed' stance when they foisted Nirvana upon the masses. At that point, not only was it cool to have absolutely no talent, but it became a huge detriment to actually be skilled. But of course the lead-up to this was decades long.

The reason the business model is so profitable is that talent is a scarce commodity; record companies would invest countless man hours searching for and developing talent, with musicians' careers usually taking several years to really gain traction, and without any guarantee of a good return on that investment. It's far quicker, cheaper, and easier to declare someone a 'star' or the 'voice of their generation', because the stupid kids who drive the industry will believe it.

Michael Jackson was declared the 'king of pop' in what, 1982? -- and the title remained with him until he died. He was a lousy singer and had one huge record, and that's it. But the media endorsement of his 'royalty' inflated him to absurd levels. And why the hell was Elvis the 'king of rock and roll', when Ricky Nelson or Buddy Holly were far more worthy choices?

When you can simply manufacture a 'star' and make millions, why bother looking for talent? That's hard work. It used to be that talented people could still find enormous success amidst the crap, but that was over 20 years ago. Music serves as a mere jingle to advertise an image, and it's the IMAGE that sells concert tickets and merchandise. People don't buy music much these days...they get it for free. As such, it has been devalued to unfathomably low levels.

The market for 'music' is geared towards kids from around 12-18. Any older than that and the industry doesn't waste their time with you. If you want to find new music, you're going to have to look far and wide, and sort through a thousand pieces of crap to find one thing that's actually good.

Few adults have the kind of time and patience required, and the industry has no incentive to change that. It's too late. The damage is done.

Lawyers killed music a long time ago.


Fuck lawyers.

The problem with that is a simple one: the mainstream stuff accounts for 99% of all the $$ in the business. Those who have the ability and desire to actually make GOOD music usually can't earn a living doing it, and have to find a 'day job', which doesn't leave enough time to make music in the first place. They can't go on tour when they have bills to pay, and they can't just sell their music because it will just get downloaded for free and/or youtubed.

Thats a bit cynical dude, i thought Thriller, Off the Wall and Bad were all pretty good albums.

Elvis i never really got, but as for music of that era i always preferred Johnny Cash, Chet Atkins or late 50's jazz like Coltraine and Miles Davis. When i consider 60s and 70's music its all about Prog rock, Jazz, Funk, Disco, Punk and Heavy Metal so elvis never got a shout for me.

Off the Wall and Bad were instantly forgettable. But let's ignore that, and go with your assessment of them being 'pretty good'. Three 'pretty good' records does not a king make (and there's still the question of why there would need to be a king in the first place). Thriller was much more Quincy Jones than Michael Jackson...so Jones should have been crowned.

I would keep Johnny Cash and Chet Atkins in a separate field; deserved or not, they're lumped in with the Nashville scene of the day, which (at the time) operated on a far different track than pop and rock and roll. And jazz isn't popular music, so it has the luxury of weeding out the Cyrus/Bieber type of no-talent megastar.

^This.

If OP hasn't found any good music it's because they haven't looked for it.

Not really, I can name about 1,000 artists that 95% of people that listen to mainstream music have never heard of. Each one magnificent and unique in their own way. A lot of these bands only release music in limited number on vinyl format even.

I'm 34 and I haven't owned a TV or listened to any "mainstream" music in close to 15 years.

Here is an analogy: In archaeology do you find the greatest treasures easily viewable on the surface? Or are they obscured and at first buried deep beneath the ground?

Such is for much music, art, literature and films these days it IS there. It just depends on how much digging you want to do.

the new country really sucks ass .... this Jason aldean freak has 10 number 1's and sucks donkey balls./

In that genre of music I would recommend artists like 16 Horsepower/Woven Hand, Bonnie Prince Billy and Richmond Fontaine.

Indeed, i guess you could say it was Joneses production talent. You certainly know your shit.

I still think MJ and Elvis are pretty important musically though, but maybe they are overstated, you might be right. Id be interested in your stance on the Beatles and Hendrix.

Music is such a subjective thing I guess.

I like to practice my Bach, Beethoven, Chopin on the piano in the morning before work.

But when I get to work and they're playing Skrillex, I like that too.

Guess I just happen to like a whole lot of different forms of music (some of which others might not even consider to even be "music").

I BEG TO DIFFER ,KIND SIR

The Beatles were the right band at the right time. Prefabricated rock and roll had started to take over, and the entire genre was about to die off, and they revitalized it..and their Ed Sullivan appearance came at a perfect time (shortly after JFK was killed) when American audiences needed something fun and smile-worthy.

But they, too, received far more hype than they could ever live up to, and it went to their heads. But that hype gave them license to do whatever they wanted, and still have people dub it 'genius'. Had they called it quits at the end of 1966, I think the music world would be a far better place today.

Hendrix was the politically correct guitar hero for a generation of people high on pot and acid and down on Western civilization. He was an offensive, incoherent noisemaker who would be completely unknown if he hadn't burned his guitar on stage. He wasn't worthy of so much as scrubbing Chet Atkins' toilet.

The sadly overlooked 60's band (in terms of actual artistic merit) is the Beach Boys...and Brian Wilson was *THE* genius of the rock and roll era.

'Liking' something is subjective, but that's irrelevant when it comes to quality.

Millions of people eat at McDonald's because they like it...but that doesn't make the food any good. And I'm being generous by even calling it 'food'.