Why does most new music suck?

Real good post Oregonpapa. I know a guy who compares all new music to the British Invasion era, being absolutely and forever obsessed with it, especially The damn Beatles. He is constantly bemoaning the fact that his favorite style music is no longer in vogue, and can't understand how anyone can like any new music that isn't like it. I, myself, can't understand how anyone our age can bear hearing a The damn Beatles song again, ever. How many times can a person listen to a song of their's before there is nothing more to hear, for God's sake?! Okay, maybe Rubber Soul, occasionally ;-).

There is the old quote attributed to Duke Ellington, I believe: "There are two kinds of music.....good, and bad". I've also seen it ending as "good, and the other kind". But that doesn't really help, as different people put the same music in the two opposite groups. One man's good is another man's bad.

Jazz musicians dismissed The Beatles in '63 (or so said Jeff Hamilton, Diana Krall's drummer, at a drummer seminar I attended about ten years ago) because they weren't virtuoso musicians, apparently not knowing that being a virtuoso musician is not what is required to make good music of the type The Beatles were making, any more than being able to compose like Bach (or write a song as good as did John, Paul, & George) is a skill required to make good Jazz music.

John Lennon was blues, McCartney zippity-doo-dah. Steve Earle said Townes was a better songwriter than Bob, but try as I might, I just don't hear it. Ah well, it don't matter, there's a new Iris Dement album just out. God do I love her!

Wanna hear some empty, cold music? Listen to any of the early-mid 80's "New Wave" albums still in your collection! A lot of that stuff is no better than new stuff imo. I just went through my LP's and took a load of them from that era to Amoeba. I would never have listened to them again, the only reason to keep a record.

Even some of the "better" New Wave music sounds dated and disposable to me now. Stuff that I don't mind hearing, but don't feel a need to own, and wouldn't put on the player myself. Stuff like Squeeze, The Pretenders, Blondie (never liked them, but included because I know most did), etc. Too Pop for me now, not enough depth. But everybody's taste changes with age, doesn't it? Except for those guys I know who just can't let go of the damn 60's!

I often find what a favorite Artist of mine has to say about another Artist (or entire genre). In the 60's Bob Dylan said Smokey Robinson was our greatest living poet. Not long ago he expressed his approval of and interest in current Rap. Bob has always been far ahead of the curve, but in this case I'll just say he and I will have to agree to disagree. I was also "supposed" to like The Clash, and didn't.

Oops, my first sentence is incomplete. The last word was to be "interesting".