ORIGINAL: The Kiosk Project

hey blinduncledallas, do my eyes deceive me or is that Phil Spector in your Avatar?

ORIGINAL: Middleman

10 years from now...hmm....let's see....

The parties over. The Boomers will be mostly dead ( to quote a line from the princess bride). Most of the large music companies have all the music libraries over 80 years of recorded music. They will continue to re-release their collections to the public, make money on music backdrops for commercials and now also internet ads.

Having no place to hone their craft, musicians will become less and less adept at entertaining audiences. The people won't want to listen to boring musicians and will continue to accept the music of the past because it will be much better than the real thing. People will continue to record at home thinking they can create a new paradigm with online new music but by and large it won't sound as interesting as the music company tunes coming from the vault. Some musicians will however make a small income from online.

People will look back at the 1900s as a Renaissance in music expression much like the era of Mozart and Beethoven was up until that time.

or

Everything will be the same as it is now.

No matter what happens, especially you who are too young to remember, we must be constantly vigilant against the return of Disco.

ORIGINAL: space_cowboy

Not all disco was bad.

What? Who is that directed at? [/quote/]

the OP of course...but on a more serious note. if it's being recorded in the bedroom at the moment the next step would be an outhouse or the phonebooth down the road.

ORIGINAL: jacktheexcynic

personally, i think nirvana made a bigger contribution to rock than the beatles, although the beatles undoubtedly had a much bigger impact on music in general. but then i wasn't around for the beatles so my opinion is skewed. if there's a resurgence in early 90's grunge, then sign me up.

ORIGINAL: Middleman

To get the Beatles you have to contrast them as the link between 50s crooning or maybe Elvis and Led Zeppelin. They started out as straight up rock and roll and morphed into modern rock opera with Sgt. Pepper. Today their recordings sound a little thin and possibly uninteresting but taken as a musical link they dominated music from 1962 until 1967. As they began to decline LZ, Hendrix, Clapton and others began to rise. The early metal sound was defined and the Woodstock generation began as well as they began to fade.

Also contrast them to other bands at the time, the Herman Hermits, The Hollies, Dave Clark 5, Paul Revere and the Raiders, The Animals etc. The Beatles loomed large against what was then called "Bubble Gum Music". The only real competitor to them in America at the time were the Beach Boys. Interesting as well was the Motown sound going on at the time which was considered black market radio not nearly as big but dominated AM radio. Most of what was considered the underground cool (i.e. hippie music) stuff of the day was found on FM radio. The 60s were an interesting time of musical explosion. The Beatles were by far the most dominating act of the day. Measured against almost 40 years of music that has come since, the sound of their recordings probably sounds as out of date as Mel Torme or Frank Sinatra records sounded to people of the 60-70s era. Then again I don't get John Philip Sousa band music which has no interest to my ears but, in its time, it was the sound of the day.

ORIGINAL: Sonic the Hedgehog


It's hard to make such comparisons across the years. Without Elvis there would've been no Beatles, without the Beatles there would've been no Led Zep, etc...
Without taking anything away from the Fab Four, the Beatles were by far the most progressive pop/rock band ever in that they happened to be in the right place at the right time. If you listen to U2's first album and to their last, the differences aren't as huge as between the Beatles' first and their last. They were in a decade where popular music still had room to grow. Also having Abbey Road, EMI, and willing engineer helped a lot. Everything back then was in full expansion - litterature, politics, economics - and they had all the possibilities open to them.
On a different note, even if I'm not too crazy about their last album, I am happy that ACDC's latest has sold so much and caught everyone by surprise. People still enjoy raw rock and are hungry for catchy riffs that don't come out of a nightclub. This will slowly change things, but alas, very little young bands will be able to capitalize on this.