As a 39 year old music fan who basically grew up in the later era and who is still as enthuasiastic about new music as he ever was....then I have to say clearly the early era is superior.
It isn't even close.
I do actually think most of that was down to the artists having pretty much a blank canvas to work on.
It's also impossible to imagine another set of musicians having the worldwide cultural impact The Beatles had.
What has happened in my mind as the rock/popular form has progressed and expanded into hundreds of sub-cultures.
I think that in the modern day things at least seem much more split into their own genres-that's a bit of a generalisation but I believe it mostly to be true.
Of course there has been some fantastic music since 1977 but in straight comparison the early era simply wins out not on music but also in terms of icons.
Marakanetz makes some good points but that is in specialised genres.
The big problem in modern music is the lack of the magical mixture of fantastic musicianship and charisma,mystique,star quality call it what you will.
The UK probably hasn't produced a great cultural icon with real musical roots since Morrissey at his peak with The Smiths-which is twenty years ago.
This will cause a riot but America's only crossover in these terms since Kurt Cobain is indeed Eminem.
Of course the world has changed and the music business is now a completely different animal on various levels-records now are CD length-a silly idea since the classic era meant records of 36 mins-not to mention a genre born out of single releases-there's been a bit of a backlash recently but still we have music releases now at CD length.
There still a lot of great new music being produced but you need to dig to find it and accept not many are going to pull it off over 70 mins.
I think you can safely accept that perhaps the golden era of rock music will never be repeated but if you can keep your enthuasiasm and an open mind then you can continue to find great music both new and old.
The great thing I think about getting older (for me at least) is that you can also expand your tastes into other areas you wouldn't have considered in your youth.
Didn't Bob Dylan (shot voice or not ) release a record a couple of years back that sits with some justification amongst the best of his fantastic body of work?
In fact Dylan to some extent has lived through all these era's and although his best work remains clearly pre-'77-I still enjoy listening through the debris of his terrible releases,shoddy productions,mistakes,returns to form and find gems of songs and about 6 great to brilliant albums.
Where there's life there is hope.
It isn't even close.
I do actually think most of that was down to the artists having pretty much a blank canvas to work on.
It's also impossible to imagine another set of musicians having the worldwide cultural impact The Beatles had.
What has happened in my mind as the rock/popular form has progressed and expanded into hundreds of sub-cultures.
I think that in the modern day things at least seem much more split into their own genres-that's a bit of a generalisation but I believe it mostly to be true.
Of course there has been some fantastic music since 1977 but in straight comparison the early era simply wins out not on music but also in terms of icons.
Marakanetz makes some good points but that is in specialised genres.
The big problem in modern music is the lack of the magical mixture of fantastic musicianship and charisma,mystique,star quality call it what you will.
The UK probably hasn't produced a great cultural icon with real musical roots since Morrissey at his peak with The Smiths-which is twenty years ago.
This will cause a riot but America's only crossover in these terms since Kurt Cobain is indeed Eminem.
Of course the world has changed and the music business is now a completely different animal on various levels-records now are CD length-a silly idea since the classic era meant records of 36 mins-not to mention a genre born out of single releases-there's been a bit of a backlash recently but still we have music releases now at CD length.
There still a lot of great new music being produced but you need to dig to find it and accept not many are going to pull it off over 70 mins.
I think you can safely accept that perhaps the golden era of rock music will never be repeated but if you can keep your enthuasiasm and an open mind then you can continue to find great music both new and old.
The great thing I think about getting older (for me at least) is that you can also expand your tastes into other areas you wouldn't have considered in your youth.
Didn't Bob Dylan (shot voice or not ) release a record a couple of years back that sits with some justification amongst the best of his fantastic body of work?
In fact Dylan to some extent has lived through all these era's and although his best work remains clearly pre-'77-I still enjoy listening through the debris of his terrible releases,shoddy productions,mistakes,returns to form and find gems of songs and about 6 great to brilliant albums.
Where there's life there is hope.