UnassumingLocalGuy's Journal: Random Music Rant

It's odd. I went through my Launch music station (I've been a member since the pre-Yahoo! days) and relized how much my tastes in music have changed. Regardless, my station still looks really weird when you open it up and see:

beanie_bari's Station

Featuring: Gwar, The Rolling Stones, Frank Zappa, Squirrel Nut Zippers, Bloodhound Gang, Talking Heads, No Use For A Name, The Pietasters, Herbie Hancock, Dizzy Gillespie

My tastes in music are diverse indeed! Who has GWAR and Dizzy Gillespie in the same list? (I don't know, I'm too lazy to search.) I feel that my tastes in music have matured over the past few years since I last started up Launch. (I'm still dismayed by the lack of non-IE browser support.) But Yes, Eric Clapton, and Jimi Hendrix were on my "Do Not Listen" list. I mean, what the fuck. (Piece of shit, "server is experiencing problems" in the middle of a Zappa guitar solo. Die Launch!) But what has pushed my tastes in music in this direction? It's hard to say. I've become markedly atheistic in the last year or so (I was forced through Catholicism through the first 18 years of my life, but remained doubtful), and embrace the freethought that is expressed in classic rock (despite the fact that it was probably drug-induced). Zappa ranks up there as a personal hero (both for his musically-intellectual recordings, and his thoughts), Yes is musically stimulating, as is Hendrix and Clapton.

But the most influential thing that moved my tastes this way has been downfall of alternative rock. It's dead. It sucks. Good Charlotte? Sell-out crappy punk. Blink182 likewise. (To The Offspring: Please go back to the way you were.) The Ataris? Sell-out emo. (If you want to sing about sad stuff, it sounds better as a fast ska song--see Catch-22's Kristina) Linkin Park? It's not even ROCK! What the HELL is going on with rock? It's dying. The only somewhat pure forms have gone underground--System of a Down, most good punk rock bands, almost any metal that isn't contaminated with techno-crap and record-scratching, etc. The White Stripes are attempting to bring rock back to its edgy roots, but they're not very good. (They need a good drummer quite badly.) I can't stand alternative rock anymore. I used to be a devout listener, but it's now awful shit. *flips vintage Marantz receiver over to local Alternative station* Lookie, another band with guitars singing about nothing. No profound lyrics designed to "stick it to the man", no groundbreaking drum solos, no keyboards, no harmonicas or horns, just whiny ballads. I can't stand it. *Flips receiver back to classic rock station, just in time to hear the end of Golden Earring's "Radar Love"* I mean, why can't there be another good band that creates real music? And if there is, will it ever go mainstream and bring with it a revival of good music? I'd love to see a band that has the same skills as Pink Floyd come along and move it into this century.

This has been a pointess rant. I just don't feel like programming my homework assignment.

Oh, look, a semi-appropriate Slashdot quote.

Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way. -- Pink Floyd

--Chris