It's all local now

Reality/talent search type shows and Disney channel apparently have the inside track on making new stars that appeal to the young.

KElly Clarkson was a good find.

But Taylor Hicks? Really? Really?

Miley Cyrus? Talent, but eh....

Selena Gomez? J'lo? Ahem.......

I liked Scotty last year on AI too but not a huge modern country fan his first album was way too predictable and cookie cutter for me.

Times change. Maybe the new Beatles will still pop up somewhere someday somehow. I think the pop culture world is a lot more diverse these days so any single act will have a challenge attaining the levels of popularity and success long term that the Beatles have. Those that reach the pinnacles of popularity these days are so generic though that I suspect they will have difficulty retaining popularity over time aka The BEatles.

Maybe the days of super mega pop stars that also break new ground continually during their lifetime are gone.

I find I like a lot of new music these days however there is such diversity that no single artist or artists retain a major % of my music playtime to any extent similar to the past for me where I tended to levitate more towards certain acts. Its all good.

As long as there is always something new and interesting to listen to, who cares who the artist is really?

Probably true that Rock music as many knew it over the last half century has run its course and is mostly dead as a major cultural force. Not a bad run really.....

The good news is its still not totally dead and things have evolved in many directions over the last 10-20 years or so.

I've embraced a lot of genres and music of late that I never payed much attention to prior. I'm finding that you almost have to ignore genre with music these days in order to find the gems. There is so much integration and cross breeding of genres these days, including all that gets categorized broadly as "world music", that the traditional major music genres do not serve nearly as much useful purpose these days.

Big blockbuster stadium shows have improved over the years along with the facilities they occur in but are still generally the worst way to really experience live music.

In general, the smaller the venue the better.