this is not the future of music

i don’t know if it’s just me, but i have a really hard time getting into most of today’s modern mainstream music. it really sucks to hop into my car on a bright sunny day, only to turn on the stereo and hear either:

a) the depressing/angsty voices of late twenty to early thrity something year old men, who croon about broken dreams and bad girlfriends, and that have backing guitars that tend to sound more like broken lawn mowers than six-stringed instruments.

or

b) auto-tuned to death voices robotically harmonizing to lyrics about crystal and “the jerk”.

at these times, i really don’t know whether to just turn off the radio or drive my car off of a bridge. i’m starting to believe that i wasn’t made for these times, at least not given my musical taste; i would much rather live in a time where all (not just some) music took talent, skill, and time to create, and not just a fast computer and a mini KORG. (not saying that anyone who plays the synth is not a musician, i just find musicians playing stringed/drum-med instruments more interesting, not to mention less self-centered.)

i long to have been around in the time when the 3-4 note chord progressions that i grew up idolizing (sadly), and inevitably recreating through my own music (not surprisingly), were being pioneered. To have lived, and ideally been the moody (incredibly), rebellious (not quite), hormone-driven (why not?) teenager that i am today, during the time when the Ramones and the Sex Pistols first began to blaze through 5 to 6 songs in a matter of 10 minutes would have been phenomenal. the music used to be so raw and powerful. it had purpose and a message that reached deeper than just earning money and getting laid on a semi-daily basis. and i feel like as far as mainstream goes, all of that is gone nowadays.

if this is the direction in which mainstream music is going to keep heading, i want no part of it. maybe its just me, but i’m not surprised in the least when i hear that the music industry is falling apart at the seams. when you look at the genres that constitute “modern music” , it’s not too shocking.

and if you haven’t already guessed, i like punk music.