I'd go see Imagine Dragons open for the Foo Fighters.

I'd also love to see Slipknot and their maggots open for Taylor Swift

Jason

from my daily observations (and what i've winessed and heard in my history of rock and roll class)it is not about what you like, but about what everyone else, and what you are told,by the media to like, likes. the "cool kids" and it is very easy to tell who they are (just like when we were young), decide what is hip and what isn't.

right now bieber and taylor swift and a band called 21 pilots are what is cool for the "cool kids". the psuedo-hippies (as i call them) are into the foo fighters/dave grohl and pink floyd and led zeppelin. the "we are still kids" are into one direction and, believe it or not, bieber. (bieber is hot, real hot. BTW).

the macho boys still dig rap as do the black kids.

very very few are into any other classic rock acts other those above, and it simply isn't cool to like "old peoples music"

i will reiterate this point: the above mentioned are subject to change at a moments notice, as i've stated many times before, there is NO loyalty to any act.

i weep for them.

It's true, young people today have no idea what they're missing. It will be years before they get to experience the sublime joy of buying reissued compilations...

I couldn't agree more. I saw this happen with my little sister. For that matter, I saw this happen once Clear Channel & that A$$ H$$$ former DJ Lee Michaels (NOT the great keyboard player of the same name) took over virtually all radio programming in the USA (I believe it was) in the mid-late 70's. And it's gotten worse & worse.

The key is Renny's statement, but about what everyone else, and what you are told,by the media to like, likes.

And no, that isn't just an old guy attitude. We're back to the late 50's & early 60's where all the big hits were either AWFUL white covers of quality black artists; or even worse the early 60's version of Tin Pan Alley. Bobby Darin in 1960 = NSynch in 2005; etc.

Now the talentless white performers just try to sound black (i.e. Hip-Hop, techno & rap); & the talented black performers are in genres (Jazz, blues, etc) that have become culturally irrelevant to much of the planet DUE TO THE CORPORATIONS not promoting it.

THE majority of the talented newer performers are only known in back corners of the internet. I hadn't even heard of Steven Wilson (IMO THE rock artist of this century) until some icer's started talking about him

Anyone ever heard of Jefferey Gaines? He sounds like a mellow Elvis Costello. He's AWESOME. He's also black. He doesn't do rap or hop hop. He doesn't sell because black people are expected to both play & listen to only GARBAGE rap & hip hop. (he had 1 minor contemporary AOR hit that should have been top 5 in the 90's). The labels didn't promote him. (though he was a regular on one of one of Seattle's last true indy stations, which has now gone hip-hop).

Even in the late 80's, I managed 1 location & bought for 2 locations of a fairly major chain. It was conventional wisdom that with 1 or 2 exceptions (mostly Prince & though I despised them The Beastly Twerps) what was then called R&B had an average sales life of 3 months. It was worth pennies on the dollar after about 3 months. Made purchasing for a store a bit of a challenge in "Urban" areas.........

And rock? What's that? Artists that usually aren't quite as easy for the corporations to handle as the talentless 3 hit puppets.

MAYBE if we dismantle the media corporations the net will do it's job. Probably not, as corps own the net these days also.

End of Soapbox. Renny, I'm with you.

(can you tell I was in a bad mood today already? )

How's about promting QUALITY NEW artists & taking the time & investment for true career building.

That's the way it was in the mid 60's - mid 70's. They used to have actual music lovers running the labels. Now it's just bean counters.

Right on brother!

Rick A.

Since he's sobered up. I'm close to idolizing that man.

Got to be one of the top ten songwriters, lyricists, vocalists & performers of his generation

croz is so wise in his old age, i love the guy.

remember when he said that if CSN came out today no one would even give them a shot because they weren't good looking enough, he added something about having tits in order to make it.

Even is the world of 80's & 90's cover bands; I clearly remember several talented musicians of both sexes rejected due to there (lack of) looks.

In my experience, female bandleaders were much more picky about the male musician's looks then vice versa; which I've always found odd.

Top 40 acts are no different now than they were in the past. Y'all have the fortune of being able to select the cream of the crop from music of your generation(s), as do I. There are TONS of good bands around today, just as there were in the past, and I suspect they will still be enjoyed for years to come...just not the mainstream artists, who are exactly the prepackaged, marketed garbage you say they are. It's not the end days for music at all, any more than it was when rock and roll started in the 50s.

(I used "y'all", good grief! )

No egos in here

Those dumb kids today, they're just too dumb to like what we like.

Talk about condescending.

TED, YOU DON'T GET IT. IT ISN'T THE KIDS, IT'S THE BILLION DOLLAR MULTI MEDIA CORPORATIONS.

Which is why you're only seeing the corporations listed in this thread and not the artists....



.... oh, wait....

I don't know more than a dozen or so millennials but none of them are into any of this music. They like indie rock, garage rock, electronic/electronica (where they consider Resident Advisor the final word on this subject) , blues/blues rock, among other non-top 40 genres. They prefer vinyl over itunes (I don't know anyone, in fact, who likes itunes) though they won't say no to CDs. Many of them like exploring Bandcamp or a variety of podcats & blogs for new & old music. The few of these kids that have started a band play blues & indie rock.

Have faith, what comes around goes around.

geff is right, you are misunderstanding entirely what we are saying.

their options for listening are severely limited by what is put out there for them to listen to, remember when we could go into a record store and hear new things and buy new things....they cannot.

and yes, i know that they could scour the internet to find other music, but it is just easier for them to listen to whatever pops up in their twitter or snapchat accounts...their entire life, and i mean that without any sarcasm whatsoever, is their phone, it is their pacifier, they would rather lose a limb than their phone.

10cc said years ago "a telephone line is like a lifeline" they had no idea how right they were going to be.

I think you're close, renny, but not quite there.

Their options are far greater than we had. We had what the radio (or, on occasion, TV) would play. And what the labels would put out. And granted, the variety the labels put out then was far greater than what kids get today, in large part because of all the consolidation.

But there is a ton of music out there that is available now that wouldn't have been available when we were younger. We would have likely never had a Rebecca Black (regardless of how you feel about her), or any of the other folks who turned a YouTube video into something more.

If anything, I think what's lacking is the desire in a lot of these people to dig deep and find other music. And that's not new to millenials - hell, there are people of just about all ages who are content with what radio feeds them and nothing more. You hear it anytime an older artist has a new hit - "They're still around?" Yeah, they haven't had a hit in 15 years, but they've put out 10 albums in that time, you just didn't hear them on the radio.

From the wider cultural standpoint, what's lacking is the small point that this stuff can be consolidated around. It's not about radio play, it's about streams, but there are tons of streaming sites. And tons of people who serve up their material on their own sites rather than Spotify, etc. The big picture is a lot more complicated now, but we don't do 'complicated' so well - the media (again, consolidated like crazy) wants to do simple soundbites that grab eyeballs and then get them to the next page view before they can wander off to something else.

For me the rise of the Internet led me to Porcupine Tree and the other neo-prog groups that I love and then to the Steven Wilson solo work. I would have never heard of PT if it wasn't for a few fellas years ago saying I should give them a try in a chat group (long gone) though I recall Emilio was part of it.

I took a blind chance, bought Stupid Dream without actuall ever hearing it and became a big fan. So there are gems out there.

Remember when radio was quite varied & used to introduce us to new artists, new music & even new styles of music? Radio has become very homogenized & corporate the last couple (few?) decades; as someone said above; yes quality new music is out there, but one has to really hunt for it. The majority of Americans (see the sales charts) don't wish to do the hunting.

Heck, I don't have the energy these days; most new artists I discover now is either because someone here is raving about them or I get a promo that interests me enough to play it.

Most of my recent discoveries are artists that are 10-20 years in the business that I missed the first time around! I agree with Rennie's point, & would add radio to the causes.

well said!

Thank God we were all able to discover the wonders of artists like CSN without the backing of evil corporate major labels!