The effects of corporate music

There are some exceptions but the rule is exactly as you describe. Public access radio is where it's at but it takes a ton of voluteer effort not to mention fund raising on a continual basis. College radio is very good in many places. Both of these examples have varied genre's. Perhaps the digital age will allow enough licenses at affordable prices to bring the good old days back.

I listened to an incredible young talent this previous weekend. Ned Evett is known for his fretless guitar work. He plays and sings his own material which is exceptional. The few songs he did of other artists work was done in a fashion that was very different but still honored the original intent. He has apparently won some type of international competition of some sort and I could tell why. The fretless guitar is a radically different instrument than what you would expect. Knowing the characteristics of the guitars, if they had frets, and amp this fellow played rocked my boat with each of the voices being replaced by something very new. You might want to check out his website at Nedevett.com.

If there is a producer reading this (I know, I'm just one lugnut) please, do yourself a favor and pick this fellow up. If what I heard live could be reproduced on CD we would be watching this fellow and his two band mates on Letterman and Saturday Night Live very soon. Seriously, this is as refreshing as the first time I heard Dire Straights.

Nrchy

Was thinking about this thread and it reminded me of a KORN video i saw, it was a bunch of people trashing a record store and it kept displaying all these tidbits. It said that there are on average 100 songs released each day by record companys, however, only 4 songs get added per week to record station playlists.

There are really alot of real good bands out there that DO hit the billboard charts that do in fact have pretty provative and thoughtful lyrics. KORN, believe it or not, is definatly one of them.

Here is a short list of other "HARD ROCK" or top-40 bands that really do have deep meaningful lyrics. of course, sometimes you have to have the lyrics to understand what they say. But Musical taste/ability aside, these are all very insightful bands that sing/scream/yell of all sorts of controversial issues from a rather educated standpoint.

Rage Against the Machine (major advocate for human rights)

Metallica (anything from war, to prison, to hate, to love)

Tool (social issues, things they view as wrong in socioty)

A Perfect Circle (social issues, very similar to tool of course.)

Korn (lots of songs involving current social issues, anger, betrayal, learning about oneself and dealing with emotions and pain)

KMFDM (very political, lyrics about corruption, greed, power, government etc)

Marilyn Manson (check out an interview with this guy sometime, he will really suprise you, the guy is extremly bright/intelligent. yeah he is goofy, but in any interview ive ever seen him in where they try to make him look bad/weird he makes the interviewer look like a complete moron)

Linkin Park (insightful lyrics to the angst of growing up as a modern teen, hard for older people to relate, but lyrics are dead on with many troubled youths, and very well done)

Skinny Puppy (very political, abortion, vivecection, war, etc)

Rollins Band (lots of self awareness issues)

Limp Bizkit (various issues revolving around sex, growin up, and anger, betrayal)

Seems to be a pretty obvious theme here though. Most of the current bands producing intelligent/meaningful/insightful lyrics are usually Metal/hardrock. It is easy to dismiss these bands as unintelligable moronic guitar-rock bands, but scratch beneath the surface and you will see alot of meaningful insightful lyrics. Most of the real insightful songs are pretty filled with anger/angst, which is probably a result of musicians who feel changes are needed, or have standpoints on issues but feel powerless to do anything other than sing about it.

This is not a very long list, but it only took 2-3 minuits to come up with these bands. I challange anyone to say that there is nothing insightful to these bands and thier lyrics. In my view anyone who assumes that they are not insightful or intelligent is obviously close minded enough not to explore other genres of musical expression, and therefore missing out. Nobody has to like the music, but to dismiss something as unintelligent because thier taste does not cover that type of music, is showing who the unintelligent person really is.

But i aint saying all thier music is insightful, of course they do have songs just for fun, like any other band in the planet

Of course, this is only a small percentage of the crap that radio and MTV vomits out on yer plate and calls music.

i bet a few heavy bricks get thrown at me for this one.

Nrchy, I agree.

I will also suggest that there have been only a few in the past decade or so, but you are right, that they are becoming fewer and further between.

Personally, I think Rock'n'Roll is going through one of the droughts that occurs every 15 years or so. These periods seem to have occured when lessor forms of rock music (IMHO!) were prevalent. It seems like the late 50's to early 60's (Bland rock period of Pat Boone type bands), late 70's to early 80's (Disco, 'nuff said?!), and now the late 90's to early 2000's (Hip Hop and Rap), have all been drought periods. Periods where only a few decent groups made good albums, before some big new type of music broke the drought. Bands such as the British groups of the early to mid 60's (Beatles, Stones, Who, etc..) which lead to the psychodelic era, and the Seattle bands (Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam) lead to a good run of Alternative rock music. (Yes, of course there a few good bands that did start up in the drought periods, such as Supertramp in the 70's or REM in the early 80's, but they seemed to be few and far between.)

Currently, I would recommend Wilco as a top notch group, which you would probably appreciate. They are lead by Jeff Tweedy, and talented singer and songwriter. They are a somewhat experimental group, not so much as to be avantegarde (ie. too bizarre to be more than a footnote), but not straight rock n roll either, such as Godsmack or Creed. Wilco's latest album, A Ghost is Born, is very good as were the last two or three before that (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Being There, Summerteeth).

My opinions of course, but I am pretty sure if you give Wilco a shot you will like them. (If you like them, you might want to try Uncle Tupelo (Jeff's previous band, in which he had a partner - Jay Farrer) or Jay's subsequent band, Sonvolt. (Personally, I don't much like Jay's stuff, but I think I will give it another shot, as I too am desperate for some new GOOD music.)

Good Luck! Maybe others will have some other good ideas!
Cross your fingers that maybe something will break this drought soon!

I sometimes find it a bit difficult to relate to these threads because I never ever really listened to radio that much,I don't drive either which is possible for me to do and still lead a normal life here in Glasgow,Scotland!

Also here in the UK the situation has always been different.

There are so many aspects to this though.
One is that there is more music than ever to listen to but arguably now it's harder to find,more compartmentalised and has less chance than ever of being original.

In my book it is not fair to compare the artists of the 60's and 70's because they were working on a blank canvas.
Nowadays so much of popular music has been covered.
How easy is it to write the perfect pop song when you need to take on Burt Bacharach,Mowtown,Brian Wilson et al?

Get your acoustic out?
Dylan,Young,Mitchell et al might put you off.

The good news that there is still plenty of inspired youngsters about.
The whole Rap/modern day massive in the States thing is another can of worms which I'm not going to get into at this stage.

I might even say there is so much wonderful music already available that we might not even need any new stuff!

I read a lot about music and listen to tons still but another part of the problem is we simply cannot turn back the clock.
I know I will never wear out pieces of black plastic like I used to, I know that it is unlikely I will ever absorb music into my very being the way I did in my teens and twenties.
We got older and our passion changes, our lives become more complicated and time much more valuable but harder to find.

Nrchy it is your post and similar types of posts that have inspired me to start work on the Audiogon music news and reviews,things are coming together in the background, where we are preparing music reviews,articles and opinions from myself some friends and some well known Audiogoners so that perhaps there might be some more focus on music here.

Arnie is also interested in developing things on this front and hopefully we can really work together and develop things even further.

Whilst it would be impossible to keep everyone happy on an Audio site with what we are working on-I have made one thing essential;that everybody that is writing for Audiogon irrespective of their writing talents is both knowledgeable and passionate about the music that they have found and are finding.
However this thing pans out and for however long; if it reaches even a handful of people and turns them onto something new (to them) then it will be worthwhile.

Keep the faith.

The problem, for older audiophiles especially, is that a lot of the new developments aren't in traditional rock genres; they're in electronica. Which they ain't' 'gonna listen to.