It's not really music anymore

[DJ Egg]

There's always been heaps of crud in the charts, but the difference between the UK Top 40 of the 60's, 70's & 80's and that of the last 10 years is that, back then, about 30 to 50% of it was actually listenable, compared to about 1% now (impo).

All the good bands (with real musicians making real music) of the past and present have been swept under the carpet, in favour of a glossy image which appeals to 5-14 yr olds and makes lots of money - fast! Here today, gone tomorrow!

A lot of the old bands/artistes are still going - sure, some split up, some died . . . but they didn't all just disappear into thin air. Everything's gone deep underground, new and old.
There's still a lot of good music being made, but the chances of everyone getting to hear it are becoming bleaker by the day.

The UK charts are at their lowest ebb ever at the mo.
Once upon a time we were renowned and respected worldwide for producing some/most of the best music ever heard. Whereas now, we are nothing but a laughing stock.

Back then, you needed to sell somewhere between 250,000 and 1 million copies to get to No.1 - whereas now you can get to No.1 by selling less than 30,000.
Says it all, really.

The bosses at Virgin, WEA, Sony/Epic, MCA, Island, Polydor, Mercury, RCA, EMI, A&M, BMG, etc etc need their heads examining . . . or preferably, shooting!

[Cylob]

*round of applause*

My analysis exactly DJ Egg. I wouldn't change a word. I just pity the poor sods growing-up without access to the underground. I was lucky to be born in 1970.

[NJK]

fine example - neil young has a new cd called greendale

not a station in the netherlands has played one single track of it yet!!!!!

but you hear stuff by new artist almost every hour

[Cylob]

I don't think I could stomach a mainstream radio station. It's not for me. Shame, Radio 1 (the main BBC station) played some great stuff up until about 1999.

[NJK]

no wonder oldies station are doing so well these days

looks to my cylob you are working very hard today!

[Cylob]

If you stick 10,000+ MP3's in a playlist and put it on random that qualifies as your own personal station. No need for a DJ pressing the buttons.

I'm working Spaceplayradio. It just so happens I can multi-task quite well (spreadsheet, winamp, database, winamp).

[Cylob]

Originally posted by DJ Egg
Everything's gone deep underground, new and old.
There's still a lot of good music being made, but the chances of everyone getting to hear it are becoming bleaker by the day.

Why is it that only the very worst of each genre makes it into the charts? It's the wrong way round!!!! The best artists stay in the shadows - not through choice either.

[NJK]

are you trying to live up to the legend shabaviz55 by re-lauching old thread ??????

[Cylob]

Who the hell is/was shabaviz55?


Alot of these topics will still be relevant 20 years from now.

[NJK]

You spend not much time in GD
member from Iran who was kicked out about 7 times -
first time was because he used copy and paste to make threads- he passed them as the thread were his own.

in the sonique forums he posted the band/name game ( yes your thread) as his own

[Cylob]

Bastard! Stealing threads.

Anyway, GD is full of weird people with weird threads. And it has NOTHING to do with music. I do look in from time-to-time.

[Spazz333]

You guys are right about most of the good bands being underground now. I discovered that when I found mp3.com. Alot of my favorite bands I downloaded off there. Examples being Burn Season, Spiritfall, and Mary 5e. I find far, far more talent there than on any normal radio station. It's too bad mp3.com is dead now.

[Cylob]

I never tried MP3.com.

Still, you can't beat browsing other people's collections. If I find someone who likes (say Slowdive), they're guaranteed to have similar stuff. Works every time.

Without the internet though I would despair.

[Spazz333]

The nice thing about MP3.com was that Artists put thier shit on there for free. No peer to peer, no RIAA.

[Russ]

This really is a shockingly shameless plug, but give last.fm a try - you get your own personal radio stream, where you can skip songs. The system then learns from what you like and hate and plays you music it thinks you might like.

The great thing is, independent bands get as much a chance in our system as big-label bands with huge budgets. And it's fully legal.

I only work for them because I think it's a great idea - I haven't been paid in months, since we're on a tiny budget .

[Spazz333]

What size are the streams? Anything over 33.6 and my computer can't handle it

[Russ]

128k, unfortunately. We can't handle any other bitrates because of the nature of the system

[Spazz333]

Ah well, was a good thought anyways. I'll just have to deal with my collection