No original music bands anymore

[Spitfire]

Maybe I've been living here too long but there seems to be no original bands anymore......only manufactured garbage like what comes out of Simon Cowell's (and the like) ass and 'The Voice' programs now......or the tolerated and criminally oriantated individuals that espouse/create music of all kinds and are subservient to all the borderline unsavoury trends or actions that are percieved as cool as if it's normal (Rap artists).

There are no old style bands with talent and longevity (plus wide appeal) anymore that are like AeroSmith/U2/Stones/Sting or Police with wide appeal....OK, they are all old and from a bygone era but still relevant etc as they perform at so many prominent dates and occasions. Why are all the grandpa bands still performing at the big events?

Where are the new bands other than the manufactured crap? Now, it seems to be the boy band rubbish or black guy smooze stuff that is borderline gay/gangster that elevates questionable characters as role models etc that propergate aggression as if it's OK.

The music industry seems to have surrendered to the superficailness of the fashion world with reckless abandonment for substance with plasticness and lack of quality plus depth all the rage....so manufactured without character or anything anymore.


Watch an episode of 'The Voice' on TRUE and then be easily tempted to commit suicide shortly afterwards.......shocker! I'm also surprised at how many old songs get a remake by some photogenic artist that has no origal songs or skills, only then for someone to tell me that it's a great song but they have no idea it was a song from the 80s that's been remixed and sold again.

What is everyone watching/listening to these days these days (probably stuff made a while back)? That was a rhetorically speculative question that doesn't need an answer as it would probaly be too scary or already known.

[Lung Per]

Nothing will be like the good old days.

[sandman67]

With you 110% mate

mum and dad habitually watch X Factor so I retreat to my room and watch stuff with the headphones on so I drown out the crap dingling its way upstairs.....I tries to explain to them that I despise every single aspect of the program and the way it elevates talentless no mark karaoke singers to pop stars, of how they shite on songs when they murder them, of how they all sound the same....shite

I point out that I still listen to Elvis, Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran, and bands like the Bootleg Beatles and Limehouse Lizzy (Thin Lizzy a likes) sell out arenas because that is great music that like the Beethoven, Motzart and Wagner I listen to has transcended time and is always great. I even remind them that its they who got me into 50s rock n roll....

but they watch on, and sometimes even call in for fecks sake.

Its music for the Feckbook and Twatter age - shite, bland, instantly forgettable, infinitely interchangeable and sold by the hundredweight to audiences of Pavlovs dogs. Bubblegum flavoured shitballs that take longer to download than they stay worth listening to and in fashion. Stock Aitken and Waterman chucked the poison in back in the 80s, turning Malcolm McClaren's short lived cynical sneer at the biz into a pop mass marketing strategy, and its been a rocky ride on a manure cart with Simon Cowell at the reins ever since.

As to new stuff....well Joolz Holland's show is always worth keeping an eye on. But mainly, outside the odd "new" band like Lacuna Coil or Rammstein, its the old stuff that still sounds the best to these jaded ears. I sneer and walk away, for as The Stranglers so ably pointed out, there are No More Heroes Anymore.

[zeitgeist]

I kinda agree with sandman's point although tribute bands aren't a great example to the original posts point of originality and longevity.
IMO its longevity which is so hard to achieve, with record companies pushing for the 'one-hit-wonders' which used to a scornful term but now seems almost desirable.

[sateeb]

I disagree...Lots of current great rockin' bands around,just harder to find.

Here's a few of my favourite current Rock/ish bands ...in no particular order


Pearl jam

Kings of Leon

The Black Crowes

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Lucero

Yorkshire's own...Richard hawley

Gomez

The Killers

The Black Keys

All the above available to download from the usual sites

[johnnyk]

It's happened before. The early days of rock 'n' roll with great original artists like Elvis, Little Richard, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis gave way to corporate control with manufactured "artists" like Frankie Avalon, Fabian and others. Pure pap. The Beatles restored independent singer-songwriters to prominence and a golden era followed continuing through the San Francisco sound and Jimi Hendrix et al. In the 70s the corporate weasels wrestled back control and inflicted disco and abominations like Olivia Newton-John, Barry Manilow and other sludge on an uninformed populace. Punk in the form of The Ramones and Sex Pistols tried hard but were not given much radio time so remained on the fringe.
As the record executive famously said, "We don't sell music, we sell records".
We're back in the dark ages again as far as western pop goes. We have stations playing "soft rock"....WTF is that? Rock 'n' roll isn't mushy Pat Boone ballads, it's rebellion at shattering volume.
I gave up and now prefer world music.

[caller]

All the above available to download from the usual sites

I think that's part of the problem. Sales are down and there's not the money there once was. Bands make their money from live performances.

[sandman67]

Zeit

my point about the tribute bands was that they exemplify the longevity of good proper music because they can sell out arena size gigs (and do) because people want to hear those songs played the way they should be - both the Bootleg Beatles and Limehouse Lizzy have also been performing the tributes for decades. That is longevity right there.

I dont see ads in the Sunday papers for Boyzone tribute bands

There was a recent edition of my fave BBC 1 gameshow Pointless where the end question was Popular Irish Music and the contestants were given three Irish bands to try and find a top 40 hit they had done that nobody else in teh survey had named. Two were Luois Walsh manufactured cackfest boy bands, one was Thin Lizzy. At the end when the "pointless" answers were listed, ie, hits that nobody else surveyed had named, the two Louis Walsh bands had big long lists including some that had been number ones and were massive sellers.

The Thin Lizzy list comprised of two songs from their whole massive list of chart hits - Killer On The Loose and Do Anything You Want To, both from the Chinatown album. I got both of them right.....because I knew that after a bad timing of the release of Killer On The Loose (it coincided with one of the Yorkshire Ripper killings) sales of the Chinatown album sank badly and the singles off it got little airtime.

THAT is the difference between a great band like Lizzy, and a pair of shitefest manufactured teen pop bands. After two or more decades people still remembered Thin Lizzy's hits, but after only a few years the manufactured dross was forgotten.

Now for some music

[lindosfan1]

Sandman you are spot on. The xfactor is only another form or karaoke. If they want to do the music industry any good, have xfactor, but the only entrants can be bands that have written and played their own music.

[deepee]

We probably connect to older music because it takes us back to a time in our lives when we were young and free and full of optimism. For some maybe it just drags them back to those euphoric times despite whatever the quality of that old music they maybe listening to. Can remember my dad criticizing that there was no good music around when I was a nipper too.
Admittedly the world has changed in the economic sense and big money plays a pivotal role in what is packaged up to the masses now.
But if you sit around, as many do, listening to your same old music sources then you won't get to hear anything new.There are good sources out there if you poke around.

[STEVE G]

Can remember my dad criticizing that there was no good music around when I was a nipper too.

I only know this because it's a common pub quiz question but the best selling single in the UK in 1965 was by Ken Dodd!

[redzonerocker]

The good thing is that since digital radio came about the choice of radio stations has increased, some that play just rock music.
I listen to Planet Rock radio most of my waking hours, generally classic rock but also a good mix of blues, prog & new rock.
They do plenty of features too, interviews, competitions & guest DJ's.

You can listen continuously (if that's your thing )to bands like Led Zep, Motorhead, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Spingsteen, Sabbath, Deep Purple and bands like Alice in Chains, The Cult, Green Day, Soundgarden, Crosby Stills & Nash, Wishbone Ash, ELP, Yes, Rush, Mountain . . . . . . . etc etc

A few new bands worth a mention & a listen;

Airborne,
Von Hertzen Brothers,
Volbeat,
Rival sons
Black Stone Cherry,
Alterbridge,
Sons of Icarus,
Blackberry smoke,
Avatarium,
Stone Sour,
Avenged Sevenfold,
Tracer,
Slam cartel,
The Temperance Movement,
Toseland.

[Homer]

A musician/band with something different to say & play attracts, against all odds, a following. The recorded music industry does what it knows how: find or create similar bands, then broaden their appeal if possible. Result is the musical equivalent of beige. For most people, the beige from their teen years is The. Best. Music. Ever.

I raise a toast to the successful musicians who turned their back on a fan base and solid revenue stream to follow their muse into new ground, even when I thought some or all of the subsequent music was crap. David Bowie and Elvis Costello immediately come to mind.

[sandman67]

hat tips to Homer for the shout out to both Bowie and the wonderful Elvis Costello. One of my particular faves of his given my profession



@ deepee

But if you sit around, as many do, listening to your same old music sources then you won't get to hear anything new.There are good sources out there if you poke around.

I do deepee

For example I have a real soft spot for AlunaGeorge after seeing them perform on Joolz Holland



see..... hardly my usual diet of old rock n roll, hard rock, classical or goth music.

But there is a world of difference, and a mountain of talent, between them and the pack of over-hyped karaoke singers warbling away and killing other peoples music.... like I can hear my mum and dad singing to downstairs right now.

S'no good..... can still hear the X Factor

...... run telecine.....speakers up....

[Frank La Rue]

A topic close to my heart - I listen a lot to music by collecting Concert DVD's, some of them I have bought at the night market in Hua Hin, and I seem to end up with the bands from the 60ties and 70ties, many mentioned here allready.
It is frustrating when The Rolling Stones at the age of 70 is going to tour again and their tickets where sold out yesterday in 13 minutes for the concert in Oslo, Norway. I did not buy, I have seen them twice before.
It is symptomatic I think for the lacking of younger, good bands who play for musics sake - Stones has money enough.
Admittedly, maybe I am not looking hard enough and maybe the distibution channels have changed so I have to look elsewhere.
But the best my oldest son coulf come up with in his days at home was "Scooter" from Germany - WTF? In my ears at least - tallented they are not, but apparently they make money.