Ashlee Simpson. Orange Bowl. Booing

Once upon a time, the OB was famous for wonderful halftime shows, with entertainers I had actually heard of.

What the Hell happened?? :cry:

The hilarious thing is that so many people think this is some kind of new development.[/quote]

I don’t know, why isn’t it? I think one could argue about the fresh and revolutionary nature of countless recordings released to the general market during the 20th century.

As a recent example, I remember when 107.7 The End first went on the air in Seattle. It was truly edgy and in touch with the local music scene. I think I stopped listening sometime around 1993 or so (I don’t remember) when they switched from the local/indie rock with a few nationally popular hits format to the Corporate Alternative smega that pollutes the airwaves today (or so I’m told, I don’t think I’ve turned on the radio once in the past five years).[/quote]

Didn’t The End switch back in late 2003? I remember that was a huge deal, because they basically said, “Fuck It” and started playing the great songs of the altnernative era, rather than what corporate ordered down. In a way, it was kind of disturbing, because if you think about it, it’s “oldies” for the grunge generation. But I remember being up there for Xmas and just loving the radio for the first time in a decade. It was a huge deal, I know the NYT did a big article about it.

True, to a point. But popular music in the rock era has never been this manufactured, or this fractured. Even in the late 1980s and early 1990s, most big hits were NOT mass produced. Concocted abominations like Debbie Gibson, New Kids on the Block, and Tiffany were really pretty rare. A majority of hits were scored by bands or artists that actually played music, and didn’t rely on a creepy dad or a boob job at 16 or both (Hi, Lindsay!) to get to the top. Say what you want about big bands of the 80s and early 90s, but I can name at least two dozen acts off the top of my head who had huge hits back then and were about the music first and foremost. Since then I can think of maybe seven or eight new equivalents, and over the past five years I can come up with just one right away, the White Stripes.

Now, the charts are filled with acts that have NOTHING to do with the music. Music is just an avenue to get famous, which is the goal now. That’s always been the goal for a segment of the music biz, but it’s now pretty much completely demolished every act that actually wants to sing and play. I’ve always loved Joni Mitchell’s take on how the slide started with Madonna’s merging of soft-porn and lame dance music, and how the “soft” has gradually been lost over the past 20 years.

I think things are finally starting to turn around, with the decline of Britney and the boy-band sound, and a band like Green Day coming (back) out of nowhere to score a hit album. But we’re still inundated with production-line shit like Destiny’s Child and that fucking atrocious Lindsay Lohan. Man, in the pre-Madonna days, someone like Lindsay Lohan could only have gotten famous through porn stardom. Same with most of the disposable pop tarts.

Also, look at how fragmented popular music has become over the past five years. We don’t have any huge hits anymore that everybody knows, that define a time, a season or holiday. We didn’t even have a summer song this past year. Hell, find me a song that says 2004, or 2003, or 2002, like “Ghostbusters” and “When Doves Cry” said 1984, or like “Walk Like An Egyptian” said 1987, or like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” said 1991, and so on. To me, that sucks, and really is indicative of how pop music has lost its hold on pop culture, even if the song in question is manufactured crap.

There is still some fantastic rock being recorded, but thanks to this mass-produced shit, it’s very hard to get any exposure to it. I don’t know what the hell is good anymore, and I really don’t know how to find out.

I think the rebellious spirit behind rock has been taken up by rap or hip-hop or whatever it’s called. Yeah, there’s a lot of crap there and I don’t care for it from a musical standpoint, but there’s also a lot of fire and anti-establisment sentiment that used to be the province of rock, at least the cutting edge rock.

I don’t know that it did. Shortly thereafter, it gasped its last breath, if you buy the date I give.

It’s not that disco killed it. It may be that not being disco killed it.

Robert Plant blames Genesis. He may have a point there.

I blame the recording industry, for killing the live show.[/quote]

If you think the live show is dead, you haven’t been going to the right ones. It’s just that simple.[/quote]

That’s exactly the problem, extarbags: Who do I have to fuck to find the right ones? Back in the day, you could turn on a radio or MTV and occasionally find one worth checking out. Or, when I lived in Austin, I could cruise the pubs and find a band among all the SRV wannabes. But now I live in San Diego, and… well, it’s no Austin.

Bennie, you continue to be a whiny beeyatch!

Rock is dead.

Long live Paper and Scissors.

Did anyone see the R-P-S tournament that Fox Sports broadcast on New Year’s Eve?

I’d say that since we live in a cultre that would have a freakin’ Rock Paper Scissors tournament on TV, the current crop of teeny pop does a pretty good job of reflecting where we’re at.

So it’s going back to the manufacturered songs of the 60s, which was followed by the manufacturered songs of disco in the 70s, and the manufacturered dance music of the 80s and the manufactured hair metal of the 80s… Big whoop. As soon as everyone’s sick of that, something else pops up.

But here’s something: some people like that shit.

But we’re still inundated with production-line shit like Destiny’s Child and that fucking atrocious Lindsay Lohan. Man, in the pre-Madonna days, someone like Lindsay Lohan could only have gotten famous through porn stardom.

Whoa, hold on pardner. Lindsay Lohan was famous as an actress first. Regardless of her talent there (and she has a couple of really big talents… er, I liked Mean Girls, but that’s probably because I saw Tina Fey in a bra), there have always been actors crossing over (badly) to music.

Why the 80s saw “Return of Bruno,” Bruce Willis’ wonderful stab at music. And hell, we’ve had records from John Travolta, William Shatner, blah blah blah.

Hell, find me a song that says 2004, or 2003, or 2002, like “Ghostbusters” and “When Doves Cry” said 1984, or like “Walk Like An Egyptian” said 1987, or like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” said 1991, and so on.

“Shake it like a Polaroid picture.”

C’mon, the song of the summer is pretty rare but it’s out there; it’s maybe just not the kind of music you like, just as some people didn’t like Smells Like Teen Spirit, and some people booed when Prince opened for the Stones.

And Walk Like an Egyptian sucked. The early Bangles… now that’s when they were good.

There is still some fantastic rock being recorded, but thanks to this mass-produced shit, it’s very hard to get any exposure to it. I don’t know what the hell is good anymore, and I really don’t know how to find out.

That’s always been true, but apparently you were just more willing to look for it when you were younger. I’ll give you one good place to start: The Onion AV Club, which reviews a lot of great, great music. Or iTunes, which is where people are discovering tons of new music. Or try Harp, a music magazine that sometime tilts more toward alt-country but focuses on really good music. Hell, they committed commercial suicide by putting Paul Westerberg’s ugly mug on one cover.

Did you think to yourself, when you first heard “Walk Like An Egyptian,” that, oh my god, this song completely sums up what 1987 is all about? Did it strike you right away that “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was just the anthem and voice of 1991?

Or could it be that these songs take on their personas only in retrospect?

The first time I heard it, yes. Absolutely. No doubt. It was a definite “holy shit” moment for me, when I remembered how much I dug RAWK… but there was also melody, and some punk aggression…

My Tivo taped some VH1 video show, and how could it be sooo bad when they ran videos for Franz Ferdinand, Modest Mouse, Beck, Green Day, and a bunch of other great bands with great tunes?

As for song of 2004, how about “Mosh” by Eminem? I’m not a fan, but I thought it was damn good, and topical.

Walk like an egyptian? Yeah. It was like, “this is the shit topping on the crap cake”.

And “Smells Like Teen Spirit”? Fuck yeah. It blew my fucking socks off the very first time I heard it. It was liquid zeitgeist injected directly directly into my ears.

I didn’t ask you guys how awesome it was, I asked you if it struck you as being specifically a product of the year.

Without a doubt, absolutely. A couple of weeks after the video hit, Nevermind went to #1, knocking Michael Jackson out of the spot… and that’s when you knew it was REALLY HUGE big.

Without a doubt, absolutely. A couple of weeks after the video hit, Nevermind went to #1, knocking Michael Jackson out of the spot… and that’s when you knew it was REALLY HUGE big.[/quote]

Right, that’s when you know it was SUPER HUGE MAN, but when did you know that it was a song that would always represent 1991?

[quote=“Andrew_Mayer”]

Walk like an egyptian? Yeah. It was like, “this is the shit topping on the crap cake”.

And “Smells Like Teen Spirit”? Fuck yeah. It blew my fucking socks off the very first time I heard it. It was liquid zeitgeist injected directly directly into my ears.[/quote]

On a tangetially related note.

What then is the “the” song of this generation?

Forgive me, I can’t really think of any at the moment…

Are you actually going anywhere with this tangent?

Guess that depends on who you mean by this generation? We’ve got a wide spread here, from late teens up to old farts.

Are you actually going anywhere with this tangent?[/quote]

I’m thinking he’s going anywhere he can to try and prove his point…

Before this thread I would not have been confident in IDing “Smells like Teen Spirit” as even being from 1991, much less “the” song of 1991.