Jimmy Eat World

[loafergirl]

My first CD purchase this year (or modern cd purchase anyway, as I replaced the missing copy of Cracker - Kerosene Hat at the same time I got this cd) and it was worth the money. Granted some of the songs are a bit slow, but they're growing on me, and I really enjoyed the three songs that made the airwaves (Bleed American, The Middle, Sweetness) which is why I felt the need to actually pay for it.
As for the majority of the rest of the new music this year-
If I had nuts I'd say it can lick them. What the hell happened? Does anyone else remember when Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, REM and other bands with musical talent were getting played? It was like a golden age. What the hell happened?

-LG

[Ben]

Does anyone else remember when Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, REM and other bands with musical talent were getting played?

BAWAAHHAHWHwhwhahHALOLORLFOLFOLWAHHAHAHAAAaaaa.

Aaahhh, oh, that was good.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Nirvana died.
Stone Temple Pilots went to jail.
REM got cancer.
Pearl Jam irked Ticketmaster, and nobody messes with Ticketmaster.

That being said, when I started going big on my emo kick I grabbed as much Jimmy Eat World (or, JEW, as I like to refer to them) as I could. Something about them bugged me, and when I had the horrific data crash of '02, I didn't go back and get their songs again. Not sure quite why, I can't really put my finger on it.

[Protagonist X]

Does anyone else remember when Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, REM and other bands with musical talent were getting played? It was like a golden age.

I do indeed remember such a golden age. From around the middle of 1991 up through, say, a good portion of 1995, much music on the airwaves was worth listening to. Currently, I'm waiting for the Dread Onslaught of Fred Durst to pass over Western culture like a plague of locusts before venturing out again.

What the hell happened?

I've ruminated on this for a while and come up with a few theories. All are probably true to some extent, and as none are mutually exclusive, you can pick your own blend of them to suit you.

Hypothesis A: We remember this period as being a better era because of the things we were doing at the time. For me, it was actually making some friends in High School, and then going off to the first few years of college, when I still had much higher (if unrealistic) hopes for the future. When life smacked us down and forced us all to work in jobs we loathe for the pitiful sums that keep us barely alive, music seemed less worthwhile.

Hypothesis B: The golden era seems that way because most music was quite good during it, and more so because it was bracketed by periods of truly massive banality. In 1990, the biggest thing in the world was generic corporate rock hair bands, and I had no interest in listening to them at all. In 2000, the biggest thing in the world was generic corporate rap-metal and/or overpolished pop music, and I had no interest in listening to them at all. Kinda like sandwiching a Da Vinci original between two of Jeff Koons' miseries to drive the point home about quality and uniqueness of vision.

Hypothesis C: The Man regained control. In 1994 I was working at the campus radio station and got to hear weird tales of things in the music business from co-workers who were vastly more clued-in. Corporate Rock was so big in the late 80s and early 90s that certain music executives thought they had this whole "popular taste" thing figured out, and that the future was just one long decade of Pretty Boy Floyd, Anthrax, and Guns 'n' Roses on endless covers of Hit Parader. The whole Alternative/Grunge/whatever thing caught them unawares, and they scrambled to regain control, and finally did. Or so people have told me. Hypothesis C appeals mainly to my inner conspiracy theorist, but some of the arguments and anecdotes sound just plausible enough.

So there's the possibilities I came up with, mix to taste and serve well-chilled over a lengthy debate in your coffehouse of choice. Discussion is always invited.

[Worm]

You have to type it like this "THE MAN".

Frankly, I adore all the music I've got. Monster Magnet, Mister Bungle, Altered State, URT, They Might be Giants, Me First and the Gimme Gimme's, Soul Coughing, Metallica, Marylin Manson, NIN, Golden Earring(Radar love natch), Mighty Mighty Bosstones, The Offspring, The Seatbelts, Wheatus, The Ataris, Def Leppard, and those two Beavis & Butthead CDs. The two bands that I really don't care for that are in my current collection of music are Placebo because it has only one good song and Nickelback for the same reason as Placebo.

I haven't watched MTV for more than two minutes for years and years. Last time I turned it on Linkin Park was on ... well, they called themselves Linkin Park. I swear by all that was holy that it was Korn singing sure the people may of been different as were the instruments.

Music hasn't changed. What is easy to buy has changed that is all.

[Ben]

This is great. Used to be, people would grow old and bitch about how the music THEY liked, thirty years ago, was the good stuff, and everything since then is crap.

Now we have you young punks saying, "Oh, that stuff we liked ten years ago was great, and everything since then is crap." Of course, as I've already pointed out, all the stuff you like is still crap, but that's not the point.

Eventually I'm envisioning a world where four year olds talk about music that came out seven seconds previously, complaining how it's nowhere near as good as the music that came out nineteen seconds previously.

Get a grip.

[Worm]

Hey, I don't pretend to be a fan of Guns and Roses or Ozzy the reason is they were bands when I was shitting in my diapers. I enjoy there music. I even listen to it on my moms record player because she has almost every record from the last three decades. I like music that is good. Doesn't matter when, where, how, and what genre it came from. You can't classify expression and then simply filter out the kind you don't like.

If I were to discriminate against all electronic I wouldn't of heard the few electronic bands I like.

Just listen to music you like. What is so fucking hard about that?