Why are there no more "mature" musicians?

[JMapleton]

Umm, Phish is still putting out a ton of new stuff, touring and attracting new fans. They are all "mature" older musicians. Add to the list Widespread Panic, Gov't Mule, Phil Lesh and you know have a host of older musicians that still have chops.

Their music may be great, but their albums aren't going double or triple platinum.

The audience is there, don't tell me only teenie boppers buy music. There are over a hundred million mature adults out there too.

 

[Russwinters]

Zakk Wylde?

Metallica?

Mega Death?

Canibal Corpse?

Slayer?


All these guys could be considered "Older" now.

 

[JSt0rm]

You just need to look a little bit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQaR7aWp1L0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJtqhYYs58A

 

[JMapleton]

Many of the great musicians of the 80s, 70s and even 60s are still making music today.

I think even most older artists who were the tops back in the day are not making great music today.

Artists like U2 are just hiring the best producers and putting out music that is okay at best. Artists like Springsteen have gotten all on the "let me explore my talents" sort of BS, where they deviate away from their original theme or style.

You can always tell a musican is going down the drain when they get into the "experiment" stage of their career.

 

[JMapleton]

Zakk Wylde?

Metallica?

Mega Death?

Canibal Corpse?

Slayer?


All these guys could be considered "Older" now.

Did you even read my OP?!?!?

How many albums are they selling today? None of those bands, and btw all of them are crap to appeal to burnt out stoners and losers, are putting out great music today.

You don't hear Metallica's new music on the top 40 today. Those other clowns I've never heard of.

My point is, where are the classics of today?

 

[Russwinters]

I think maybe your looking in the wrong place for good music now. Thats you problem.


People in the 60s 70s, 80s, and even before the 60s listened to the good stuff.


No the mainstream is just nothing but sold out marketing bullshit used to feed a generation of people who just follow whatever everyone else is listening to, which is whatever the radio stations play, which is whatever the record companies deem "the current fad".


You need to go off the radar to get the good stuff now. The classics are there, just not on the charts anymore.


Check out your local music scene, you will be surprised with the talent you find just in your area.

 

[JSt0rm]

The system isnt like that anymore. The music industry has changed into more fragmented smaller ethos that exist on their own.

for instance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2HrgmjIDLk

full song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr7pZmu3tsY&feature=related

 

[Russwinters]

Did you even read my OP?!?!?

How many albums are they selling today? None of those bands, and btw all of them are crap to appeal to burnt out stoners and losers, are putting out great music today.

You don't hear Metallica's new music on the top 40 today. Those other clowns I've never heard of.

My point is, where are the classics of today?

Also, I'm pretty sure Metallica's last album ranked pretty high.

oh here we are: "The album is the band's fifth consecutive studio album to debut at number one on the Billboard 200 in the United States, making Metallica the first band ever to achieve five consecutive number one debuts."

hmm....first band ever....impressive.


Also, I am a Professional Data Recovery Engineer; I would consider that at least fairly successful, and I listen to "That Crap" and it happens to appeal to me quite a bit. At least it has "Musicianship" ; something you probably couldn't detect even if it hit you in the face.

 

[JMapleton]

Also, I am a Professional Data Recovery Engineer; I would consider that at least fairly successful, and I listen to "That Crap" and it happens to appeal to me quite a bit. At least it has "Musicianship" ; something you probably couldn't detect even if it hit you in the face.

"You don't like my music, you know nothing about music!" Only on ATOT.

 

[Russwinters]

"You don't like my music, you know nothing about music!" Only on ATOT.

"I'll make a ignorant post about why there isn't more successful, charting "older" musicians, and then when given some valid answers I will bash and disregard them."

Only on ATOT.

 

[Muse]

College radio seems to have this, "oh, we found it, it's not famous, so it must be good" attitude.

A lot of the stuff you hear on college radio stinks, I agree. But there's a lot of great music, terrific stuff that you will never hear on commercial radio. You pick and choose what you want to listen to. Some DJs have it, some don't. Some are young and shallow, some old and shallow. Some are deep. I have been DJing college radio for about 30 years and I have to say, there's no DJ who's always hot. But I know great radio when I hear it, and the only radio I've heard since the 1970's that's great is college and pirate radio. Well, occasionally some Pacifica.

Agree, WFMU (NY) is great. I work at KALX, Berkeley. We have a pretty great reputation too, and a phenomenal record collection (around 100,000 separate items). There's more than one WFMU DJ that used to work at KALX. The DJs, while having to play 4 "feature" play/hour (i.e. newly released disks/vinyl), are free to play whatever else they want. The management pressures us to not play obscenities, because of the fear of getting fined by the FCC. We also are supposed to have some diversity in our shows, but aside from that, we are FREE! You can dismiss us as pretentious, but that's unfair. If you think you can do a better job, you can join our staff, get trained and be a DJ yourself.

 

[Russwinters]

last.fm and pandora are good options


pandora is really good because you put in music you like, and it makes a fairly decent attempt to play stuff you "might" like based off what you initially tell it to play.

 

[CKent]

There's been a huge shift in the music industry in the past few decades. Image and easily approchable simple music seem to make the most money, so that's what the RIAA sells. If you want to experience the plethora of amazing modern music and the musicians who make it, you'll have to dig deeper than the radio dial. Reading music & audiophile forums is a good start.

 

[destrekor]

I can't stand those faux-artistic musicians, who blow a lot of hot air about how their latest album has such-and-such philosophy behind it, what the greater concept of it all is, and how they are trying to do something new musically, and change the world and all that... blahblahblah.
Especially since most of the time their stuff is just a bunch of pretentious junk that's no good

Yuppies. They are a self-fulfilling prophecy.

They define themselves as yuppies without ever using the word yuppie, and describe their works in a characteristic way. It also has a characteristic sound.
They are successful because the way they speak is seen like the gospel to other yuppies, and those artist-yuppies are able to convince these other yuppies that they actually are enjoying the shit they have served up.
They are only successful with other yuppies. Their shit is so terrible it just can't be any other way.

 

[Kadarin]

Older folk still make great music, it just doesn't make it to the charts. Those are all about youth and good looks, the actual music comes second.

I agree, and tend to blame the current state of the music industry.

 

[dennilfloss]

I love Rosanne Cash's music. She has never sounded better and her voice, music and lyrics are definitely mature and smooth as a nice glass of port.

 

[Nik]

The sooner you sign an artist, the more of their career you're going to own them and profit from them.

It was much less about money back in the day. Now it's a full on fucking production to create something they think someone will like.

 

[Fritzo]

The system isnt like that anymore. The music industry has changed into more fragmented smaller ethos that exist on their own.

for instance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2HrgmjIDLk

full song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr7pZmu3tsY&feature=related

I'm not sure what I just listened to there....it was like Salt n Pepa met The Love Guru.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Did you even read my OP?!?!?

How many albums are they selling today? None of those bands, and btw all of them are crap to appeal to burnt out stoners and losers, are putting out great music today.

You don't hear Metallica's new music on the top 40 today. Those other clowns I've never heard of.

My point is, where are the classics of today?

So because you don't like a band's music, they are automatically excluded from meeting the criteria you've set forth in this thread? :\

Most forms of art - painting, music, writing, etc - aren't considered classics upon release. "Classic" is, by definition, designated retrospectively.

"Top 40" is a very small piece of the music-ranking pie. Judging by the tenor of your posts here on AT, I'm assuming you're a teenager; so you may not be aware that Billboard and other music-ranking houses, and radio stations, are much more granular in their categorizing than they were 30 years ago.

Would it surprise you to know that Rush has 14 platinum recordings, and 3 of those are double-platinum? You don't hear them on Top 40.

 

[LumbergTech]

Did you even read my OP?!?!?

How many albums are they selling today? None of those bands, and btw all of them are crap to appeal to burnt out stoners and losers, are putting out great music today.

You don't hear Metallica's new music on the top 40 today. Those other clowns I've never heard of.

My point is, where are the classics of today?

I believe what you meant was you want music that appeals to douche bags such as yourself.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

There's been a huge shift in the music industry in the past few decades. Image and easily approchable simple music seem to make the most money, so that's what the RIAA sells. If you want to experience the plethora of amazing modern music and the musicians who make it, you'll have to dig deeper than the radio dial. Reading music & audiophile forums is a good start.

Music industry has been this way since... forever. 60 years ago we had singers who belted out standards that everyone knew. 50 years ago we had Rock-n-Roll bands with guitar, drums, piano, singer. 40 years ago we a guitar, tambourine and 4 singers harmonizing. 30 years ago we had the most "complex" music - dual guitars, bass, drums, synth, singer. 20 years ago we had rappers with basic backbeats. And now we have generic synthesized music that anyone (and everyone) can sing over. The common thread is that much of the most popular music has been the most simple, because people relate to it.

 

[JMapleton]

Would it surprise you to know that Rush has 14 platinum recordings, and 3 of those are double-platinum? You don't hear them on Top 40.

Actually I'm close to 30 and you're missing my point. Yes Rush has platinum albums, but how many in recent years?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_discography

They haven't had one since 1991. Haven't gone gold since 1996.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Actually I'm close to 30 and you're missing my point. Yes Rush has platinum albums, but how many in recent years?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_discography

They haven't had one since 1991. Haven't gone gold since 1996.

Well then, if you're "close to 30", you should be able to support your point without insulting other folks' musical tastes.

Anyhoo, as someone else has pointed out, when U2, Bon Jovi, Metalllica release a new album, the album goes to the "top of the chart". Whether you think the music is good or not is immaterial.

A factor to consider is that inspiration runs dry after doing the same thing for decades. That's one of the reasons why Billy Joel left rock for classical composition.

Looking at the Billboard top 10 in Rock, 3 of the top 10 songs are by bands that have been around for a couple of decades.

And looking at the current top-selling albums across all genres monitored by Billboard, #'s 4 & 6 are by artists who've been making music since before you were born.

The final line in your OP is: "Is behaving like an adult no longer cool? Does bubblegum pop rule music? " The answer, as I implied in a previous post, is that the "pop charts" have often been dominated by young-sounding performers. Younger folks have traditionally spent more $$ on music than older people, so this makes sense.

 

[Udgnim]

they're all in Country music?

 

[SludgeFactory]

There's something to the notion that video killed the radio star. I think it really started going to shit when your looks became so ultra-important. It didn't happen instantly (well, it pretty much did for Christopher Cross, heh), but by the early 90's, most of the older or less attractive acts that made it onto MTV did so because they had some sort of legacy and popularity going back several years.

I also agree with everything in tcsenter's post about piracy and corporate sponsored tours. I think you can add in consolidation of record labels too, with music becoming even more of a product than it already was, sold by publicly-traded corporations that have quarterly earnings to meet. In that environment you don't take a lot of chances, you don't wait around for 3 albums for an artist to "develop," and you pretty much stick to the formula that's working at the moment. Yeah it's always been that way to an extent, but I think it's worse now.

So I think it's been business and technological factors have helped create the larger than normal generation gap that we have right now. The last huge generation gap in music, starting in the early/mid 60's, was more driven by evolution in society. In the span of 4-5 years, pop music went from folk or crooners backed by strings to distorted guitars, heavy backbeats, and screaming & wailing. You pretty much were in one camp or the other on that!