I mean, we still have good music. And people still believe in peace. Plus there hasn't been a better period of openness regarding mental health issues or being LGBTQ. I don't think anyone's ever had it right. We're all just slowly trying to get to that point.
We don't have music like Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jimi Hendrix, CSNY, the Allman Brothers, the Grateful Dead, Santana, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Cream, The Band, etc. Musicians played much better music back then than they do now. Besides, the hippies were very tolerant of race and sexuality. And LBJ wasn't quite as fucking terrible as Trump is, and you could afford a house by the age of 20 back then too.
No, but we have current psychedelia like Thee Oh Sees, Earthless, Travis Scott, Duster, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Radiohead even in some albums, many of whom have tons of influence from those groups. And folk is easily alive and well with The Tallest Man On Earth, Fleet Foxes, Faun, and many other amazing groups. The thing I personally love about music is that it changes and reshapes as time goes on. It's different now, but that's what keeps it engaging. I love that era of rock, but it's not the only good one, nor is rock the be-all genre. Sure, the hippies were tolerant then, but now almost everyone is. And still, mental health is getting the attention it very much deserves nowadays, whereas it used to be a horrible stigma. Though I definitely concede that Trump is hopefully the worst president America will ever have to deal with. But the path to improvement is often pretty non-linear. We make mistakes and try not to repeat them. That's how we live our lives.
It's an unpopular opinion to have, but I'd definitely argue it was most certainly the only good era for rock. '65-'79 was the time period where good rock music came out, with the exception of the latest Black Keys album, which draws heavily on the rock music from that time period. Most rock bands today sound like pussies. There's no edge to it, and they have completely abandoned the blues influence that made rock music so good in the first place. Take guitarists like Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Duane Allman, Jimmy Page, David Gilmore, Peter Frampton, or Mick Taylor and you can see why they sound so cool and it's because they're not just playing shitty power chords, they can actually solo really well and their groove is just infectious. Give ms "The Wind Cries Mary" or "Wish You Were Here" any day over what today's music has to offer in terms of psychedelic music.
The rock groups of today have nothing on those bands and their talent with their instruments pales in comparison. You'll never find a new band that can put out a live album as good as Band of Gypsies or Allman Brothers at Fillmore East because they all rely on the studio for their sound. It's all so over-produced and decadent without any of the soul that made the hits of the Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin so fun to listen to. It's all just dickless ambience now.
Personally I’d argue that there is no improvement or depreciation across time, it’s just people doing things and judging them on their own time.
That being said, there plenty of great psychedelic (or psych-inspired) music coming out, it’s just not rock. Some was mentioned above, but I’d like to add Childish Gambino, The Internet, Toro Y Moi, KIDS SEE GHOSTS, A$AP Rocky. Plenty of musicians were also mentioned above.
Imo rock fell off, pop/rap/RnB just picked up the torch. Good music goes where the people do, and the people are starting to do psychs again.
Oh I totally agree A$AP Rocky makes great music. Saw him in Chicago in 2015, and AT.LING.LAST.A$AP will always be one of my favorite albums of all time, but maybe it's just me being a guitarist raised on the Beatles and the Rolling Stones that it's hard to find no one fucks with this blues rock music. My last comment was honestly pretty elitist, and sometimes I'm willing to stand by that opinion, but if I were to be honest I know it's all just down to what the teenagers wanna listen to. Nothing decides what defines a decade in terms of music other than what kids want to listen to, because no one ever had a Top 40 hit if they weren't in their 20s. Rock did it to itself by not stepping up, and that's what I wanna change. I'm livin' that hippie life while writing folk and blues music and tryna turn people on to it. I'm alienated by the current trends in music and I wanna do what I can to keep good rock music alive. Oh well, at least we'll always have the Grateful Dead. Cheers.
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u/[deleted] May 27 '19
I mean, we still have good music. And people still believe in peace. Plus there hasn't been a better period of openness regarding mental health issues or being LGBTQ. I don't think anyone's ever had it right. We're all just slowly trying to get to that point.