New Music Stinks

[Bookkeeper's Son]

Perhaps, but how much songwriting talent?

[deeaa*]

Perhaps, but how much songwriting talent?

Statistically, there has to be ten times the number of talented composers as well.

Plus since each new generation is smarter than the last, possesses more and more talent etc. quite naturally...so yeah, I do think there is more of everything out there every passing year.

[R_of_G]

I'm not so sure it's a lack of talent really - hell we have such a lot of incredibly talented people right here on TheFret - it's just that the media and the record labels etc. prefer to not seek out talent but instead make a quick buck and do something that sells for sure. There are lots of great, superbly talented bands out there too, but they're not usually heard on mainstream radio etc. at all.

Actually there might be way more talent out there than ever before. I mean, there's like four billion more people out there than in the early 70's for instance, and a huge number of them have been exposed to a wide variety of music right from birth...and an incredible number of people actually take up an instrument and play these days. I've venture that if there were 100.000 guitarists out there in the 60's, the number must now be something like ten million aspiring players. There just has to be an incredible amount of talent to be found there.

Statistically, there has to be ten times the number of talented composers as well.

Plus since each new generation is smarter than the last, possesses more and more talent etc. quite naturally...so yeah, I do think there is more of everything out there every passing year.

Wholeheartedly agree with all of this.

While the 60s were indeed a watershed time for popular music in which much incredibly influential and groundbreaking music was made, let's not be too enamored with the nostalgia as to convince ourselves that the 60s represent either the beginning or the end of envelope-pushing popular music.

Justin Bieber makes a nice straw-man to burn as the supposed standard-bearer of current popular music when contrasted with the Beatles. Let's not forget the 60s also gave us Ricky Nelson, Fabian, Bobby Rydell, Neil Sedaka, et al. Let's make them stand for their entire time period and see how they fare against some of today's more talented songwriters and musicians.