My older sister hung out with people older than her. As a result, I listened to music from a group of people about 10 years older than me. I distinctly remember Van Halen’s ”Unchained” playing on the Top 40 station in 1981 and me talking along with Diamond Dave, “One big break, coming up!” I was 8 years old. When I was 10 years old I saw The Wall for the first time. The images and music moved me like nothing I had heard or seen before. I remember trying to tell my friends (in 6th grade) about Pink Floyd and they laughed at me. A few years later, one of them became the biggest Pink Floyd fan I know. Ha!
Having a background in music from the ’60s and the ’70s throughout the ’80s, unfortunately, made me really dislike the ’80s glammy, pop metal. When Poison, Bon Jovi, Warrant and all of those other bands were topping the charts, I dug deeper into the ’60s and ’70s. The end result was a kid born in ‘73 with the musical interests of a kid born in ‘53. And yes, I believe that the pinnacle and turning point for all rock-oriented music took place in 1967.
It wasn’t until Nirvana broke through and changed everything in rock that I finally started paying attention to new music. I can’t tell you how much I looked forward to the day when I could turn on a pop radio station and hear music that I liked! Nirvana, Soundgarden, STP, Alice in Chains, all of those guys just really did a number on music. Good times, I must say. From ‘91/’92 through ‘95/’96, there was a ton of GREAT new music released. Even country music was good during that time. Unfortunately, record companies have to sign any band that sounds like the popular band so the late ’90s turned to crap again. Some gems made it through the muck and the mire, but overall it went downhill. By 2000, popular radio was crap again.
From 2004 to present (2008), I think we’re seeing another set of good music break through the corporate mold. Interestingly, I think that the Internet is making it difficult to get the music out. Look at me–I write and record in my basement. If it’s that easy, who isn’t recording? I think there’s so much choice now and so many options for listening to music that the standard forms of playing music can’t keep up. You have the corporate playlist stations and some true alternative stations playing the indie stuff, but they can’t keep up with it. Nor can they survive by playing anything because, really, who wants to hear music they don’t like? But how can you hear new music without listening through what you don’t like?
It will be interesting to see where music goes. My guess is that within the next 10-20 years, music distribution will officially change. Maybe no more FM stations transmitting music? Maybe we’ll be able to program our own XM equiv. radio to play what we want to hear or to interface with something like last.fm to suggest a radio playlist based on our likes and dislikes.
Yeah, that seems reasonable. I’m going with that one as my prediction for the future of music. Unfortunately, or fortunately, more and more artists will be releasing more and more music and less and less will be heard by the masses. Perhaps the days of arena rock and diamond selling albums are soon to be over? Perhaps artists in the future will–gasp–write and record because they like to write and record?