Surell

^ this guy gets it

__________________

galt54

Here follows my idiosyncratic hypothesis concerning the cause of the poverty in pop music nowadays. This hypothesis is based on the essential point conveyed in Ayn Rand's essay "The Comprachicos" (this essay is pubished in the essay collection "Return of the Primitive", edited by Peter Schwartz).

My hyopothesis is that the root cause of the dearth of good new pop music in our time is progressive education.

Why?

In order to create good new music the songwriter needs to possess formidable cognitive skills. Modern education sabotages the development of said skills. Therefore there is a poverty of good minds out there nowadays. And so, just as young people today are less able to read, write, do arithmetic,and so forth compared to the kids of my generation (I was born in 1954), so also kids today are less able to carry out the thinking necessary to create good new music. The minds of the young have been disintegrated by the (mostly public) schools which they have been required to attend.

A tragedy.

Conclusions (two of them):

1) We need a philosophy of reason.

2) We need to get the government out of education (in other words: NO public schools! Privatize both the production and finance of education!)

Janszoon

A person named Galt talking about Ayn Rand? Shocking I tells ya.

__________________
A Night in the Life of the Invisible Man

Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm

Zer0

I disagree.

How does this explain all the good music today that isn't pop music?

__________________

galt54

A plausible answer to that question is that there probably is not nearly as much good classical music, jazz music, blues music, folk music etc. being written as in earlier times either.

Of course, like everyone else I am not omniscient or infallible. My idea was, as I said in my previous post, merely a hypothesis. I am dead certain that there is not as much good pop music being wrtitten today as there was 30, 40 and 50 years ago - but I am not certain about the cause.

Zer0

That doesn't really answer the question, you are only referring to four types of music.

But you also seem to be referring to music in general as well as pop music. So which is it?

__________________

galt54

1) I am certain that there is not equally much good pop music being written today as in earlier decades.

2) I suspect that there is not equally much good music in general being written today as in earlier decades.

3) I am not certain about the cause of 1) OR about the cause of 2) IF 2) is true.

4) The reason for which I am certain of the truth of 1) but not of that of 2) is the fact that I listen to pop music all the time, but rarely listen to other types of music. I suspect that 2) is true due to mere hearsay plus the fact that if it were true "it figures".

Surell

You lost me at the fountainhead.

Btw you can only make a Beatles argument for influence or doing something before another person did that same thing. There are plenty of people that made better music than the Beatles.

__________________

galt54

I am not aware of the existence of any musical artist/group who has made still better pop music than the Beatles but who has been neglected by the music industry. It is possible in principle that "plenty" of such people have existed - but on the basis of the principle that it would contradict everything that I know about the nature of businessmen (that they seek profits, that they are not utter dummies, etc.) I find it difficult to believe. Also, the quality of the, admittedly modest, quantity musical artists hailed as "alternative" (REM, Red Hot Chili Peppers, etc.) does not impress me.

djchameleon

You are stuck in the past so any new artist you will subjectively not be impressed with even artists that are better than The Beatles and write excellent songs.

__________________

Fame, fortune, power, titties. People say these are the most crucial things in life, but you can have a pocket full o' gold and it doesn't mean sh*t if you don't have someone to share that gold with. Seems simple. Yet it's an important lesson to learn. Even lone wolves run in packs sometimes.