How does one summarize the last decade in music (2000-2009)? Given the wide scope, the hundreds of popular and famous songs, many hits that have been forgotten, and the rise of pop culture tribalism (for definition and introduction to some basic concepts: http://culturemagazine.ca/music/2000_2009_making_sense_of_musics_lost_decade.html), how the hell do you answer that question? What were the hits? What songs and artists define that decade? We say today that the 60s were about the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, the Beach Boys, and a select few others. The 70s were about Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Heart, Michael Jackson, and the rise of disco (feel free to disagree with me on that). What is (arguably) our generation in music known for? What were the trends, who were the greats? I've got a few answers, but I do wanna know what everyone else thinks; there wouldn't be much use in posting this topic if not for dialogue. So what do you guys think? I did mine in paragraph form, but answer in any way you want.
It was the decade that the art of music died. I'm not even talking about the actual music, more so the presentation. Sure, kids are still buying CDs by the droves of people like Eminem or Lady Gaga, but a lot of the bands I like, and probably other people's favorite bands too, more than half of their sales are driven by electronic outlets like iTunes, Amazon, etc. There used to be a dignity and love for making music, crafting the artwork and unleashing it upon the masses. Now, someone can record an album in a week and it's out in cyberspace that weekend (see: "The Slip" by Nine Inch Nails). I'm not complaining, but the art and visuals are just as important as the actual music, and that seems to be lost on alot of people in my generation. The vinyl LP is a dead medium, the plug got pulled on that a long time ago. It's now a niche item, something collectors like to have. The CD is all but dead as well, in the next decade iTunes and other digital retailers will dominate. Record companies will be obsolete, and artists will have more control. You have to take the good with the bad. Less emphasis on the physical presentation, and more concentration on getting more and more music out there in a year, that in the last decade seemed impossible to do. The artists will get to control how and when they release their labor of love, but we as fan only getting thumbnail size artwork and PDFs as a digital booklet. It's disappointing in some ways.
So in other words it's less about fluffy presentation and more about the content. Sounds like the rebirth of the art of music to me. With the gateway of music opened a bit, labels don't have a monopoly on what music becomes widely known though advertising and award show rigging. Now word of mouth for something in some corner of the Internet can propel something to millions of hits. People who would have otherwise remain totally unknown. And there is no correlation between the amount of effort artists make put in to music released online verses the amount of effort to release things in a store. You make every online release sound like it took "a week." That's not true. What you're confusing with a loss of quality is actually that there's MORE people making things as they're starting out. Sturgeons Law. That doesn't make it all terrible though, it just means now that the people are the ones who decide who becomes famous, not corporations.
Just the mere fact that you consider it all to be "fluffy presenation" means you fall into the majority of my generation who just want the songs, not the whole package. It's meant to be digested with the artwork, lyrics, album notes, etc. They don't just slap an album cover on and expect you not to appreciate it. And yes, there is a connected line between the amount it used to take for people to record an album and release it. Before it would take up to a year, and that was mostly due to labels wanting it timed just right for maximum sales profit. Don't get me wrong, I like that people can record a song today, and "leak" it tonight, and then release it a few days later and it'll sell a bajillion copies on digital retailers. That's awesome. What I don't like is iPods and Zunes replacing record and (to a lesser extent) CD players. It's not the same as holding a big, beautiful LP and looking at these huge pages of beautiful artwork and having the lyrics, instead of going to a lyrics website. I can download "The Fragile", but having the LP is so, so much better, due to the packaging. Why do you think so many bands are releasing "deluxe editions" of albums? You can believe that they want to give you more bang for your buck, but the truth is, people don't care about the physical albums anymore. We live in a digital age. I don't have to buy a book anymore, I just need a Kindle and I can read any book I fucking want. It's the same with music. It's not personal anymore. Oh, and we as a people might choose what's popular and what's not, but that's not always a good thing. Especially when you leave it up to the inhabitants of the internet, where mindless, stupid shit like "Bed Intruder" can pop to #1 on the charts and suddenly that motherfucker is everywhere. AND HE DIDN'T EVEN MAKE THE SONG.
Truth be told I meant the music itself (i.e. new genres, subgenres, conventions, who's hot and who's not, etc.) and not the industry as a whole, but this is interesting stuff.
I rather not talk about the music itself, in fear of me being violently ill at the thought of what was popular in the past decade.
But how is mindless stupid shit like bed intruder any different that any mindless shit by Ke$ha? (at least bed intruder was funny). Seriously, ditto on not wanting to talk about what was popular last decade. When music went to a solid medium sold by corporations, people back then complained of the death of days of performing live music (all that existed then). When radio was invented, people complained about that too because it changed even more things that they used to cherish. And when the TV was invernted, and that devil music rock and roll, and tapes you could play at home. Each of these drastically changed the environments music lived in. Music used to be *just* the song. There didn't used to be album covers by some random artist paid to do it (Alas, Mike Shinoda is not in every band). There didn't used to be CD's, or the little lyric booklets. The presentation of art will change and it will always change. It's best to not get too attached. It is the changes that make life interesting enough to write songs about in the first place.
I think the digital world will allow any musician or hobbyist to share their stuff with anyone, for free or for a much cheaper price than what it is now. The record companies will basically die out and it will be up to the band/person to release their own music in cyberspace. This will allow for their ideas to be fulfilled 100% without any changes by the higher-ups. Think of all the bands right now that we've never heard of because they don't have enough money to promote themselves or make physical CDs for the masses and can't get a record deal. Most of those bands are likely more talented than Lady Gaga and Ke$ha. When the time comes for anyone who desires to promote themselves and share their music with the utmost ease, I think we'll start to see a rise in creativity again. Right now it just seems that people are making generic music just so they can get on the radio and get a crappy record deal. Edit: And to answer the OP, I don't really think any of the poppy groups should define our generation, but they do. We are the generation of less creative, simplistic groups that somehow appeal to the consumer. N*SYNC, Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, and now Lady Gaga. The bands that should be known for our generation are bands like Radiohead, Tool, Nine Inch Nails, and Red Hot Chili Peppers. They are still pretty popular, but they are overshadowed by all the crap that has been put out for the last 10 years.
I'm sorry, but I will take a physical booklet with gorgeous, full page artwork/illustrations and album liner notes and lyrics over a PDF file. It's not personal anymore. You're taking what I'm saying and comparing it to when they didn't have the means or know-how to do this type of presentation for music. It's not like this just came up in the past few years, album covers/LPs have been around before the Beatles, y'know. Music was never JUST the song. Before the radio, people had record players. Which was used to play records, which were housed in LP sleeves, which sometimes had a lyric sheet and some artwork. And on that sleeve was album artwork, even if it was just some guy with a guitar. We're not on the same wavelength, hell, not even in the same dimension, as each other on this subject. I've said my piece, and I'm firm in where I stand. My generation has caused the death of the ARTFORM of music. Not the MUSIC, but the ART that accompanies it as a companion piece that's supposed to compliment the MUSIC. Why can't I go two threads in OTHER Music without having someone bring a member of Linkin Park into the mix? I, and others, stay away from the LP side of this board for a reason. I blame "A Thousand Suns". UGH.
It's a Linkin Park forum, it seems ridiculous to get upset at the mere MENTION of Linkin Park in an appropriate context, Other Music or not. It isn't like it was crowbarred in to annoy you. I personally care more about a good music video than a good album cover: I think that provides a far better complement.
Sorry Casey but I think your opinion on the direction of music as an artform is dead wrong. If anything Music is much more present in everyone's lives then it ever has been and I think that's a wonderful thing. Music is art, regardless of how you create it. I think the "death of music" notion stems from the whole debate of how easy it is to create music these days and that debate is a two-pronged sword. On one hand I agree that anyone who gets involved in music should learn at least the basic mechanics and principles of it. On the other hand, things made mainstream in the past 10 years like garage band and FL studio, although responsible for bands like 3Oh!3 and Millionaires (although catchy, obviously lacking any serious talent), make it much simpler for novices to pick up the creation of music and really take to it full throttle. I don't understand why people are quick to criticise others who use things such as computer generated sounds and samples when the basic principles of music theory and chord progression pretty much give evidence that there is no such thing as original material anymore because every type of chord progression and pattern has already been created in some form or another. I personally prefer CDs to MP3s but the booklets and lyrics that came with CDs and Vinyls were never personal. They're always mass produced which makes the whole notion of booklets very impersonal. I think people hold on to CDs and Vinyls simply because of tradition. The fact is that these things are being phased out as technology progresses and we have to accept that. Music and technology will always have a relationship in which both will evolve together. As the sound, styles and image of music changes, so will the technology surrounding it. I wouldn't say that it's relative to the "death" of music as an artform but more the evolution of it.
So by "Artform" you actually meant "Pictures of any kind." Music is a subset of artforms. So are sculptures and architecture and other arts that are not considered collections of 2D pictures. You're misusing those terms. and btw. and before record players there were those cylindrical things, and before that there was no method of recording. You had to listen to it live. And people complained when recording became a factor at all. The world of picture art isn't dead either. I don't really feel much sympathy for the death of wasteful, expensive packaging... :/
Because of the mass interweb promoting of this decade, there are too many bands to really say who was the most defining of the decade. Rather, I'd look at how many new sounds/whole genres were found during the decade, and the fact that people generally have a wider understanding and acceptance of a lot more different types of music. The fanbases of noise, ambient, doom, hardcore, avant garde etc. whatevs have increased an amazing amount over the last decade - and i'm thankful for that, as people (including myself, as i didn't really use the internet before last decade) are getting into and pushing music forward, even when the pop scene is increasingly shit. I also think that "Fuck You" by CeeLo Green is a good indicator for the next decade - rather than being a song record labels pushed and pushed til it couldn't possibly be not popular, the song started off as a lyrics video, and then posted on two trillion blogs/forums, before breaking into the mainstream and still being on its way to being a classic of pop - based solely on how much people liked the song in the beginning. I hope to see a lot more of that. Also agreed that Linkin Park should stay the fuck out of Other Music.
I don't believe that this generation of music was when music started to die, I think every generation goes through that stage, and the cycle is just restarting again. Every band changes their image in every genre of music and same applies to emerging singers and other not so well known bands. Although I do miss some of the characteristics of the last decade, but I do think to every generation of music everything that is produced in that era, can't be all bad or its going to unbalance the life cycle of bad and good music. Sure I may not agree with music like Rihanna or Black Eyed Peas but bands that I agree with like The White Stripes and Tool have improved, as they're not going to stay the same forever. Like Dean and going back to my previous comment about the missed things from the last decade, I do miss buying CDs and reading the lyrics and looking at the interesting artwork (10,000 Days by Tool in particular) but I don't think any decade can be labelled the worst. Thirded, Linkin Park stay the hell out of Other Music.
All that was said was "There didn't used to be album covers by some random artist paid to do it (Alas, Mike Shinoda is not in every band)." Is that REALLY enough reason for everyone to get their panties in a bunch about Linkin Park being mentioned in Other Music? Seriously guys.
I agree with both of these posts. It is nice to have something physical, but I think that probably is sentimentality as much as anything to be honest. No one ever says "Hey, I kind of wish we still communicated by painting things on the insides of caves". When all's said and done I think you might as well embrace new formats.
While "art" probably wasn't the best choice of words, Casey is merely arguing that the package of music is dead, and I don't see where the argument is against that. Also, the personality of the package is somewhat subjective, isn't it?
I just wanted to say that I love this sentence. I have nothing of value to add to this thread. Carry on...
For me, the beginning of the decade showed promise. We ended up getting artists (like Linkin Park [sorry to bring them up in the Other Music forum, but I feel it's an appropriate example]) into the general public eye, and we actually had really good music coming out at the time, though, in my opinion, nothing really beats 90s music. Then the second half of the decade, and most certainly towards the end, the music ended up becoming a total shitfest of artists such as Soulja Boy, Ke$ha, and quite a long list of other artists, who seemed to have blown up out of nowhere on the radio/TV/internet, and are putting out sub-par music, and making millions by being mediocre. Shit, I wish I could be paid a crapload of money just for doing a bad job at my work. Now, I'm not saying the second half of the last decade was a total failure, and I still listen to artists that are still putting out music, but with the decline of good mainstream artists seems to be increasing, and it also seems like a majority of people only like the mediocre artists who seem to get the most airplay on radio, and the most attention on networks such as MTV (not the best example, but they still play some music videos in the mornings, and have 2 digital cable channels dedicated to playing just music videos) VH1, and BET. As for the physicality of the album, personally, I prefer having a physical CD and booklet, than some mp3's and a PDF file. the book gives me something to look at while I am listening to music, without having a whole bunch of applications open on my PC. But Luke does give a good point, that with the mass production of the artwork and the album really take away the personal factor.