Why does most new music suck?

So it's like Actusreus said then? Cuz I sure don't remember a willingness to explore being a prerequisite 40 years ago. It just happened. Ever heard of fruition? Why shouldn't everything come together and happen at the same time? It happened that way with everything else. Why not with music?

40 years ago it was pretty much all about exploration. Where is the new frontier these days?

Listening to some Johnny Hartman, damn those Beatles for taking music over!

I'm 52 and I was finished with Led Zepplin et alii in 1979. I still have their records, sure, but life's too short to get stuck in nostalgia, which is what you've confused with "cool." Off the top of my head, The Strokes' "Machu Picchu" and Chuck Prophet's "Doubter Out of Jesus" are just two songs out of hundreds since 2000 that affirm my faith in rock and/or popular music. In my opinion, both genres are alive and well. Cheers.

We bend over backwards trying to find meaning in today's popular music, when the problem is that, as always, the music is simply reflecting life. In an earlier post, Orpheus10 was chastised for pointing to the politics and social movement of the times as important forces; he is exactly correct, those cannot be taken out of the equation. There will always be well crafted music; but, that does not great music make. It has nothing to do with wether it might be rooted in the blues or not. One can write (compose) a great poem (song) about Mickey Mouse; but, it's still just Mickey Mouse.

What made a lot of classic rock great was not just how well crafted much of it was, but also, and most importantly, how relevant the subject matter was. Even if the subject matter was, say, love, it was very new (revolutionary) to speak (sing) about love/sex with so much abandon and openness. Today, that's all old hat. We live in a society with much complacency, smugness, and COMFORT on a level never seen before; we take a lot for granted.

I am very hopeful, however. I am hopeful about the future of pop music because the problem is NEVER music's potential for greatness. First of all, I don't subscribe to the idea that the font of great melodies has run dry; it is a bottomless font, and that is the very meaning of CREATIVITY. More importantly, the forces that inspire greatness in pop music will come roaring back and hit creative artists in a big way. It is highly ironic that in spite of example after example of the failure of social trends that this country is currently flirting with, we continue to head straight for that inevitable disappointment (to put it mildly). THAT inevitable disappointment, and subsequent revolution, is what will ultimately inspire greatness in artists again.

Subject matter hasn't changed one iota from ancient times to classical to modern. Don't know what you're talking about. Revolutions bring new, but similar subject matter."There is nothing new under the sun", to quote one of the best known phrases in history.