Well, commercial music has ALWAYS been a problem. The "song of the 70's" was You Light Up My Life. The record industry actually manufactured teen idols like Fabian and Frankie Avalon. The difference in the 70's in particular was that FM radio was not all that listened to so it allowed them to play pretty much whatever the hell they wanted. They came up with the term AOR or Album-Oriented Radio to define stations that would run songs off the b-side of albums along with blues, folk, funk, whatever. DJ's ran the show and they could make or break an artist. When FM radio began to consolidate and major corporations (ahem, Clear Channel) started buying up thousands of stations, radio changed. Now, radio is segmented into very specific stylistic genres. As a result, all the good music gets moved to the fringes of the industry while anything that fits perfectly into the center of a specific genre gets tons of airply. It isn't that MUSIC is less creative or original. It is that the music INDUSTRY takes fewer risks and, as a result, there is less on the radio (or being released) that is interesting or innovative. In order to find music that it original and interesting, you have to look outside the music industry - mainly to the independent artist community - or you'll constantly be disappointed. You are right that commercial music is less interesting or original, but that isn't music's fault. That is the fault of the marketing people at record labels and at media corporations who are more interested in pushing product than in discovering the next Dylan or Hendrix.
Good post, Jeff. The sad thing is... a lot of us listen to the mediocre stuff just because we don't take the time (or feel that we have the time) to hunt for the good stuff. Then, when we need new stuff, we just turn on the radio or pick up some CDs that we've at least heard of. And I do it. I've been too busy to even buy any CDs in the last few months. Most of us do need to branch out... especially given the sad state of the commercial mediocre garbage they cram down our throats. It's like eating institutional cafeteria food. There are also a lot of "artists" that are marketed based on factors such as their looks, which I don't find particularly interesting. I wanted music, not eye candy.
There are lots of good ways to find indie music. TONS online. For unsigned artists, just hit GarageBand.com, MySpace.com, BroadJam.com, CornerBand.com, AudioStreet.com, PureVolume.com or any of a number of others. Try CDBaby.com and search for different indie artists there. Plus, there are great magazines like Tracks on the online zine Splendidezine.com. There are lots of things like that. You can also paruse the playlists of radio shows like World Cafe or indie stations like KCRW in LA, which hosts great shows like Morning Becomes Ecclectic.
Thanks... once I get around to getting high-speed Internet at home, I'm there! (I feel guilty spending money on it so I stick with dialup so far... besides, I cannot spend any time on changing anything until this semester is over. Or on picking out music...)
I just noticed that my local radio station has started to play Arcade Fire and Bright Eyes, so that's good for people who like good music. It's not that there's no good music out there anymore - it's that you have to dig a bit for it now. My teacher goes on long rants about how terrible today's music is, but for such a supposed music buff it appalls me that he hasn't heard of so many of today's good bands. If you're just going to look at MTV or your local pop radio, then of course you're going to think everything's crappy today.
