Another Music Direct Catalog observation


I didn't want to hijack an existing thread about the current catalog's Joni cover so I started this one.

You know, I was thinking about this after I received my catalog and how burned out I was on "boomer music". I know as a Gen Xer, I've been saturated by Boomer culture since I came of age in the 80's, and my appreciation for these artists has waned in part because of their saturation in audiophile circles.

Yes, the MD catalog does pay lip service to contemporary artists, but its adherence to a musical paradigm that peaked 45 years ago or so is symptomatic of the undeniable waning of "hi-fi" as a hobby.
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Most qualitative conclusions are. However, many threads exist on this forum that attest to hi end audio's current wane/marginalization. 
I'm a Gen-X-er, and I hear you on the cultural dominance of the Boomers. For a long, long time, I had to stay away from the catalog of Rolling Stone's 100 best albums from 1987 that formed the backbone of my early collection. Lately I've been returning to it, especially to Joni Mitchell, CSN, and others. She is a towering genius. I picked up my first Byrds records recently, for cryin out loud! Similarly, I've been giving towering geniuses of 90s music a rest: Yo La Tengo, Smog, Low, Do Make Say Think. I'll return to that too soon enough. But we live in a different distraction-saturated world now, or maybe I'm just older. Music is my refuge from endless distraction. While music doesn't necessarily demand concentration, it puts me in a state of a kind of peripheral reception. I think there'll always be a market or communities for the appreciation of music in this way. And you can find that music in every decade. But it would do to keep exploring the frontiers. Good new music is out there. And I've just been going into different genres, back in time to classical and  early music, jazz, etc. My stereo would be really mad at me if I stuck with "my generation's" music. 
I listen primarily to Classical Music.  For a variety of reasons, after World War II most newly composed Music has had trouble entering the canon of basic repertoire.  Most of the energy of discovery or rediscovery has been on Composers that were outside the acknowledged Masters— first Late Romanticists such as Mahler and Bruckner, then with the Historical Informed Period Practice (HIPP) movement, Baroque and Pre Baroque composers.  When I attend a Concert and a new contemporary piece is on the program, everyone in the audience seems to grit their teeth for the ordeal—faces remind me of being at the Dentist office in the pre Novacaine days—and then we relax and wait for the next Warhorse to begin.
  The OP describes what to me seems an analogous situation.  The great Pop Music of about a 30 year span has achieved canonical status.  And while I am aware that new Pop Artists are always amongst us and selling out concerts and downloads, I think everyone here would agree that the scene doesn’t remotely resemble the halcyon days of yore.  Classical Concerts resemble Audio Museums, and the Music Direct Catalog, which in these days of the extinction of stores that sell Physical Media represents an important source of such media, is the Pop equivalent of the Classical scene.
It’s about time we got in charge of the musical culture. We had to listen to endless pop jazz treacle when we were coming up. Your kids will have the same complaints about your music soon enough.

By the way that was a beautiful picture of Joni Mitchell, wasn’t it? Don’t disagree and make me have to slap you around in front of your GenX friends. The should be more vintage pictures of Michelle Phillips and Linda Ronstadt too, not more unnecessary GenX stuff. Don’t worry, you’ll have your day sooner than you think.

Mike