hip hop bunny hop

While I think Zarko's fundamental point is sound, I must disagree on some issues.... and, as I am a feeling the blackberry wine, let the analogies flow:

-a magazine for barflys that I quite like once stated the fundamental irony of dive bars; a few of them are quality places, which just happen to be located in crappy neighborhoods and patronized by the poor. Eventually, some hipsters will catch wind…. there will be a period of inundation, and then – like the tide – the bastards will leave.

Or perhaps a wine analogy?

-wine, before it has been moved from the primary to the secondary, tends to smell and taste like jet fuel. However, after getting racked a few times… it matures. It tastes less like jet fuel. It is matured. Then, it is bottled, folks let it settle to account for bottle shock if they so care…. then they move on to the next bottle.

Point being, no decade is fundamentally remembered (amongst music snobs, anyways) for what was popular during said period, but – rather – what ORIGINATED during said period. This decade, like the many that came before it, will be judged for not what styles came to maturity in this time frame, but for what original styles came forth.

I mean, take the late 70s. An era of crappy rock ‘n roll, or the cradle of punk?

The idea is to be ahead of the curve, like the hipsters seeking out an as of yet untouched dive.

Guybrush

I think the worst pop music is easily from the 90s, no competition. Stuff like Wigfield, E-Type and Vengaboys particularly, absolutely horrible.



To me, it's worse than any of the 80s pop by far which is saying something. Sometime into the 2000s, people had finally figured out that this was too embarassing to go on with a few exceptions like Basshunter. Popular music from this decade had an overall higher quality I think and I think watching an imaginary show like "top hits of the 90s" on VH1 would be more awful than watching a "top hits from the 00s" which would be more of a bore.

The thing about the 90s which has been pointed out is that there was a crapload of great artists who broke through, particularly early for me. Bands like Rage Against the Machine, Supergrass and Pearl Jam. I was sort of interested in the new music in the 90s, but I haven't been in the 2000s. It's probably because I've been a bit passive, but to be honest, popular music hasn't excited me much since the 90s either, all that eurodance **** aside.

I think by this decade, ideas had been used up and it's the same old coming back in some retro-shape and being polished a bit. A decade of awesome and horrible is at least more interesting than a decade of bland. For me, this has been a more bland decade.

__________________
Something Completely Different

music_phantom13

To be fair I just don't really ever see Beck mentioned on here. Except for as sweet nothing's avatar. And if you want to go in terms of radio hits, then yeah a lot of music really sucked. Though I will admit, alternative rock stations seemed a lot better in the 90s than they do today filled with the same post grunge songs playing over and over. Maybe I just don't really remember the radio back then.

And I don't know about that, I hear a lot of new music that sounds quite unique, I don't know that we'll ever run out of new ideas for music.

Guybrush

Really?

I think you have to think of what was new this decade and compare it to the previous decades. The 70s saw prog, hard rock, further development of jazz fusion, disco, funk, metal and punk for example. The 80s had lots more metal taking different directions (thrash, hair metal, early black metal), power ballads, hip-hop, synth pop, post punk, new wave-ish and goth bands like The Cure, Sisters of Mercy or The Smiths. The 90s had eurodance, techno, rave, boybands, RnB, further development of black metal, various kinds of alternative rock like grunge and britpop.

These are just some things off the top of my head. There's a lot you could mention, but what have the 00s given us? I'm not saying there's nothing, but comparatively less.

__________________
Something Completely Different

Zarko

I was commenting more on the fact that people are saying 'I will look on the radio and cringe' type comments. Can't the same be said for any decade pretty much. Who's going to rate a decade on pop hits? Do we dismiss the 80's due to the styles, the 70s due to disco? No, we in fact hold it in higher regard due to other factors.

The Monkey

I don't think the ratio of good vs. bad music is any different now compared to any other decade, I think it will hold up just fine.

music_phantom13

I guess the main things that I can think of from the noughts would be the whole psychedelic/experimental pop type thing. Unicorns, Animal Collective, and all the stuff they spawned. Also, electronic music expanded as an influence into a lot of genres more regularly than it was found in the past, I think. People expanded on post rock to extend the idea into more metal based bands (Mono, Isis, Amesoeurs) and I don't think that was done before. The boy bands of the 90's turned into the elctropop of The Postal Service, Owl City, etc. Dance music has taken a cue from bands like The Happy Mondays and combined dance with alternative indie rock stuff like Star****ers, Joakim, etc. though this isn't too popular. You also have the creation of chill loop music with a beat; Memory Tapes, Memory Cassette, Neon Indian, and the likes. Don't think anything similar was around before.

But I guess a big difference is what people do with the genres we already have. The '00s has been like a big cluster**** of different sounds in a sense, in that artists have access to the internet now. People can find a sound from the 60s that was obscure and find 10 similar bands in a minute, and then repeat with tons of genres. All these influences then play into the music that's been made, and it's grown from there. I guess it really is just that there's a huge diversity in the music being produced, and it ends up meaning that we have to sort through 100 albums to find 3 or 4 good ones. Not because music is getting worse, but because producing your own music and putting it online allows anyone, no matter how bad, to release an album. So yeah, not as many new genres. Artists just have to try harder to create something unique that stands out.

86 Position

I look at things more from a hip-hop/electronic perspective. but I did grow up in the 90s and was able to see the TERRIBLE pop that came about. pop music, to me, was always cheese. especially in the 90s.

hip-hop was fresh until '96, '97. that was the turning point...although some of my fav hip hop albums came in 99. For example:

Ghostface Supreme Clientele
Black Moon - War Zone
Screwball - Y2K
Inspectah Deck - Uncontrollable Substance
Slick Rick - The Art of Storytellin
8ball & MJG - n Our Lifetime Vol. 1
Mobb Deep - Murda Muzik
Binary Star - Waterworld
GZA - Beneath The Surface
Redman - Doc's Da Name 2000 out in '99? or '98?
Pharoahe Monch - External Affairs
the Origoo Gun Clappaz album
Mos Def - Black On Both Sides
Lootpack - Soundpieces
Prince Paul - A Prince Among Thieves
Black Rob Life Story...mighta been 2000 though...
Kurupt - Tha Streetz Iz A Mutha****a
Snoop Dogg - Top Dogg
The Roots - Things Fall Apart
Dr. Dre 0 2001
the Kool Keith album
Soundbombing

lol realizing now maybe some of these are lesser known and so on. but still...99 was good.


now the 2000s was hip-hop becoming sh!tty pop music. and pop music itself stayed sh!tty. i've never heard such garbage as some of the stuff like Nelly, Chamillionaire, Soulja Boy, Chingy, St. Lunatics, G Unit, etc came out with. I have little hope for the future of hip-hop based on what's been popular in the past 10 years.

electronic music on the other hand...is where it's at. dubstep, garage, house (in all it's forms), downtempo, breaks....it's all becoming next level. new styles are coming about, new sounds that people havent heard. based on what I heard through the 2000s....2010 and beyond is unimaginable the sort of craziness that's gonna come about.

and as far as radio....you only have yourselves to blame. if you don't take advantage of the fact that college radio exists to combat mainstream radio then that's your fault. university radio not only spits, but pisses in the faces and mouth of mainstream airwaves.

one problem with the 2000s was the ease at which anyone can make music and have it heard on a mass scale....very affordable (and to be honest stealable) recording software, myspace, all those things. File downloading, pirating...all that. I was a die hard CD buyer until Napster came about lol. probably like most people

but yes...that's my rant.

Sneer

The 00's will be remembered for the Garage Rock Revival (Strokes, BRMC, early KOL, early White Stripes, Vines), Post-Punk/ New Wave Revival (Interpol, Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party, Killers etc etc), and bands such as Coldplay, who will probably be remembered as the biggest band of the decade (at least from a British perspective).

You also had the Post-Grunge movement with bands such as 3 Doors Down, Hinder, Foo Fighters (another giant of the decade) etc making an impact, whilst emo-pop was another movement that will be associated with the decade.

I'd also like to add thaty Hip-Hop has grown in stature over the last decade, weakening Rock music's grip on the mainstream conscious, there was a fusion with R'n'B that has become this bastard of a hybrid, seemingly dominating the charts.

Personally, i think there has been a huge blurring of identifiable movements, partly because of the Internet, which has enabled listeners to discover obscure bands for themselves without having preconceived classifications of magazines rammed down their throats, also, bands are now able to promote themselves to a much wider audience, so people are being exposed to a much more diverse range of music.

__________________
Fright Team radio show

Schizotypic

Yeah, the 2000's I think has been one of the best decades. Go on Pandora and type in Janis Joplin and eventually some crazy sick artist from the 2000's who takes their influence from her and does something different with it will pop-up on your screen. You could most likely do that with almost any genre; funk, soul, jazz, blues, anything.

Way I see it this isn't an issue of not having quality artists which size-up to the record books, because there are many. Maybe it's an issue of not having those quality artists being played on mainstream radio... but duh, the all mighty controllers have a market to reach and everyone older then eight is pirating their own personal mp3 collections for free. I'm surprised the mainstream music isn't spongebob's sing along.

It's a theory of mine, too, that for some reason or another this decade has less people who aren't mainstream zombies then previous decades, but I have no proof of that excluding what MTV tells me as I'm young. But hey- it's no crime to enjoy nothing else but mainstream music, it's just a choice!

Edit: Okay I got a little off track, my conclusion being I don't care how the 00's are remembered by society, I just care that I get more really rad, diverse, free music like I have been getting. Really I'm a happy camper. =)