Ashlee Simpson. Orange Bowl. Booing

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

The point is that the songs he mentioned as being definitive of the year in which they were released only seem that way in retrospect. There’s no way you hear a song for the first time and thing “fuck yeah, man, this song is so totally the song that I’m always going to associate with this year.” Those associations are made by memory.

Gotta agree with bags. Little did I know Poco’s “Crazy Love” would be the song of '77 for me until a few years had passed.

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

The point is that the songs he mentioned as being definitive of the year in which they were released only seem that way in retrospect. There’s no way you hear a song for the first time and thing “fuck yeah, man, this song is so totally the song that I’m always going to associate with this year.” Those associations are made by memory.[/quote]

I’ll disagree with this. Certainly this is true some of the time but, just thinking back to when I was in high school (and more in touch with music than I am now), everyone I knew spent a summer listening to Guns and Roses Apetite For Destruction and I know that I felt beyond a shadow of a doubt, “Fuck Yeah, I’m always going to associate this album with this year.” The same would be true of Pearl Jam’s Ten.

In general, I think there is just as much crap as there always has been but, reading the excellent recomendations in the Best Albums of 2004 thread, and through my own personal experience discovering new performers online and ordering their CD either from their sites or from Amazon, I feel like there is more good music now than at any other time if you’re willing to look for it.

Or perhaps it’s that we have exposure to more good music than at any other time. I have a friend who’s a concert promoter in Boston. Her apartment is covered in concert posters for hundreds of obscure bands I’ve never heard of but who probably have huge followings, whether in Boston, online or whatever. 10 years ago, if you didn’t live in Boston or New York or LA or Seatle, you only knew about what they played on the radio, what you’re local really hip record store had, or what your ultra hip brother or friend from some place else told you about.

Now, in one weekend I can go from being so completely out of touch with music that I had no idea who Usher was when he won the Billboard Artist of The Year and being shocked and a little embarassed to find that I actually like my son’s Avril Levigne CD, to discovering (via the previously mentioned excellent thread) five or six indie rock bands that have me more excited about music than I’ve been in 10 years.

I have to agree with Brett to some extent here. I have been told that 2004 was the year of Usher. And yet I cannot recall a single song of his. Period. At all. I have listened to a lot of new music this year but somehow never heard or recognized a single song of this supposed dominant act this year.

You sir are a very lucky man. He’s had like 10 new songs on the radio last year all played ad nauseam.

There are two words that haven’t been mentioned in this thread that exemplify what mainstream listeners call good music: American Idol. Talent has been reduced to a pretty voice and creativity is reduced to how many grace notes and runs a singer can slop into a melody.

Excuse me, I have to get some goddamn kids off my lawn.

No offense guys (I’m 32 myself), but if you’re over 25, you have lost the right to declare what song was the defining song for any recent year. Here’s your Bachelor’s Degree, there goes your finger on the pulse of the what’s hip.

I remember when Appetite for Destruction came out. I remember when Nevermind came out. Or rather, when they became big and I glommed onto them. Not so much after that. Why? I got old.

What’s good lately? Ask a high school or college kid, what the hell do we know. Also, asking for a defining album for every single year is asking a lot. Otherwise, you’re going to have to do horrible things, like go with Celine Dion/The Titanic Soundtrack for 1997. Nobody wants to do that.

No shit, man, “Yeah!” is this year’s “Hey Ya” in that I can’t STAND hearing it. Overplayed like a motherfucker.

Although it’s unlike “Hey Ya” in that I never actually liked it much to begin with.

Hell, I’m a big-time Ludacris fan, yet this song just annoyed the hell out of me. I heard it at gas stations, coworkers’ desks, shopping malls, dollar stores, IT DIDN’T MATTER WHERE I WAS. Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

My wife and I were in Britain for two weeks in April for our honeymoon. There were 3 songs that played on the radio there.

Yeah!, that Maroon Five song, and Brittney Spears’ Toxic.

All great songs. Good stuff!

Bingo.

Not so much after that. Why? I got old.

this is the trend. In high school and college you have the time to listen to the radio, go to concerts. You graduate, and now you’re working full time. You get married, have kids. At this point you haven’t listened to the radio for, say, three years, you turn it on in the car, and go “What the fuck is this crap?!”

And you stop listening. You go to your CD collection and listen to nothing but the albums you had in college. You hug them like a six year old girl hugs her favorite teddy bear in scary situations. You’re old, but you don’t think you’re old. How can you be old?!

Then you get mad. Then you start saying things like “The music today sounds all the same and it sucks!” Then you go home and trim the hair growing from your ears.

The only reason I’m familiar with today’s music is because a younger relative has been staying with my family for a year. This is what makes me listen to

BTW, even the “crappy” songs are often well done, in a generic pop way, because talented song writers like Linda Perry (of 4 Non Blondes, but also the lady who wrote “Toxic”, “Get This Party Started”, and Gwen’s new song – the girl knows how to write a hook!) are brought in.

And don’t let the pop bullshit let you miss real talent, such as Christina Aguilera. Yes, she’s a skanky slut, but girl can sing. Unlike, say, Avril “One Octave Range” Lavigne or Gwen “Whiny and Flat” Stefani.

The thing to bitch about is that in pop, being hot is WAY more important than being good.

And don’t get me started on how shitty hip-hop is these days. Back when I was young, hip-hop meant something. PE, NWA, Ice Cube, etc. Sure, they had their party songs, but they also gave a shit about what was going on. Today, ALL the hip-hop and “R&B” songs are about “getting laid”, “getting my smoke on”, “getting my drink on”, “gettin’ krunk”, shooting people, kicking ass, and overt references to gang affiliations (“yeah, that’s the crip side”).

Hey, and for all the pop kitsch that are the Foo Fighters – I like them. And the Beastie Boys keep getting better.

Shit, it’s 4:30, I’m late for dinner.

Y’know, back when I was in college, we used to joke about how when we got old we’d be saying stuff like “Zeppelin… Floyd… Now that was good music! These damn kids…”

Of course, we just thought that was funny and ludicrous. [size=2](That’s how that word is really spelled, rap fans.)[/size]

Sure, pop has always “sucked” in every generation, but where are the Led Zeppelins, the Whos, the Pink Floyds, hell, the Spinal Taps, of the 21st Century?

Well, okay, Tenacious D is the Spinal Tap of the 21st century. But my point stands.

[color=white][size=1]At least Weird Al’s still making good music.[/size][/color]

Spoken like a true geek. :wink:

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

The point is that the songs he mentioned as being definitive of the year in which they were released only seem that way in retrospect. There’s no way you hear a song for the first time and thing “fuck yeah, man, this song is so totally the song that I’m always going to associate with this year.” Those associations are made by memory.[/quote]

That’s crap. Like Steve said, when a song like that hits, you know pretty much immediately, because it’s everywhere. I remember “Smells Like Teen Spirit” being massive when it was released. You couldn’t get away from the video. Nevermind was selling like gangbusters,

We used to get one huge song pretty much every season. This was always the biggest deal in the summer. We always had a summer song that dominated radios and video channels through the summer. What’s happened to that now? The last iconic song that really took off, that most people would have been able to identify would be “Hey Ya!” IMHO, and that’s already faded from most minds.

I get the whole “don’t trust the musical opinion of anyone over 30” and agree with it to a point. But I’m talking specifically about songs that cross boundaries. Songs that used to define years and moments did so because they didn’t just appeal to kids. Songs that you know, even if you don’t get. So I think you can make a judgment call about this stuff, even if you’re on the, um, wrong side of 30.

And it’s always been that way. There are any number of songs from the 80s that weren’t major hits that are considered “classics” now.

People were listening to fucking Miami Sound Machine when Floyd released Momentary Lapse of Reason. And that was the last rock album to hit the top 10 until Nevermind. Nevermind, btw, wasn’t even in the top 10 until Billboard changed over its system from “interviews” with store employees to actual sales data.

Do you mean bands with staying power that continue to churn out music that sells across generations? Wouldn’t that take a time? In other words, absent a crystal ball for peering into the future, it’s too early to make call for bands of the 21st century.

Hey Brett - go ask your father (or uncle, or mom, or aunt, or whoever didn’t tragically die in a horrible way that I didn’t know about) about that awesome Nirvana tune. See what happens.

“What’s that screaming shit? I like the slow parts, though I wish he didn’t mumble. Back in my day, singers enunciated. I remember this Queen concert…”

Denial. Not just a river in Egypt:

ASHLEE HITS BACK AT BOO BOWL INCIDENT
Ashlee Simpson has fired back at college football fans who booed her Orange Bowl half-time performance last week, saying she’s sure it has nothing to do with how bad she was.

Simpson howled her way through her hit “La La” as part of the Miami half-time show that also featured “American Idol” star Kelly Clarkson and country star Trace Adkins.

She was booed by the 72,000-strong Pro Player Stadium crowd as she left the stage – but she’s convinced Oklahoma fans were simply being critical because she was supporting rivals University of Southern California.

She says, "I was facing the Oklahoma Sooners, and I was rooting for USC, and they played a clip of it, so maybe it was that those people didn’t like. You never know. But I can’t make everybody happy.

"Maybe they were booing at me, maybe they were booing at the half-time show because the whole thing sucked. If they didn’t like the performance, and that’s what it was about, then sorry to them.

“There were no ear monitors when we went onstage, no floor monitors. And trying to sing in a stadium where you can’t hear yourself is kinda hard.”

“There were no ear monitors when we went onstage, no floor monitors. And trying to sing in a stadium where you can’t hear yourself is kinda hard.”

She should be grateful she couldn’t hear herself.