On a less extreme note, I lived most of my life without a cell phone. Doesn’t that clearly mean I don’t need one?

The logic of this article is so completely flawed I have to comment twice.

This is the most depressing article i have read. How can an abundance of music be frowned upon. If you don’t want to hoard music then don’t. If you find something you really like, then listen to it over and over again.

Surely a system, where artists have the ability to connect to millions and millions of people with their music is only positive. In the iPod generation, nearly everyone i know is into music, most people are difficult to stereotype and get to discover exactly what they like.

Wake up and smell the sunshine. Live a little.

PSA: Don’t hate on the downloading

Anyway here are bands that I think should/would be remembered in some way, shape, or form:

Radiohead, Arctic Monkeys, The Strokes, Grizzly Bear, Muse, The White Stripes, Franz Ferdinand, Interpol, Queens Of The Stone Age, The Flaming Lips, Outkast

many people will argue with this, but these bands will be the face of this decade if you like it or not imo:
Green Day, Coldplay, The Killers, RHCP

This has been going on for years – way before downloading, and will continue. It’s partly a fault of marketing demographics – partly a fault of the death of the single – and partly the fault of record companies who just want to target the groups who are still buying records, although you can’t totally blame them for that (other things, yes) cos computer games and mobile phones have eaten away that market…maybe they should put their monies into developing bands and artists and letting them develop creatively, rather than dropping them after the first album; which has happened even with quite successful bands.

So the problem isn’t downloading; you’re blaming the victim there – that’s the result of the last 20 years of short-termism and niche marketing…the industry has quite successfully devalued their own product by concentrating on the novelty and short-term win rather than developing bands – and if they do it’s hyper-successful dross like U2 and Coldplay – totally bland. For every Radiohead, SFA (they got dropped!), Manic Street Preachers – or Jarvis Cocker – there are 1,000s of blandie indie bands and Celine-alikes.

Also the trust has gone – people know that they have to produce a hit with the first album – and second and third – or they’re out. So they play it safe and call it career and manage their ‘brand’ – the celeb culture is no help also, with no underground or space to experiment everything is out there, however unformed, picked apart and destroyed. Literally Celebrity is eating itself – let alone pop music.

There are spaces that have undergrounds away from the gaze but they are derided as being old hat or generic…occasionally then they break out like bassline house or electro house – create a buzz for a while and fall back down into obscurity with every part of it wringed out for fashion, lifestyle tips.

The irony used to be the indie sector was completely ignored, and moaned about it…then it got it’s wish, Britpop came along, and the majors – and now you can’t move for kids with guitars and the NME next biggest thing – but although I don’t want to argue that artists should starve in garrets, it’s certain under the gaze of corporates, 3am and the blogs and London lite et al something cannot grow – look at what happened to nu-rave. The very gaze of the media is what kills it – used to be Guardian didn’t mention or take serious punk for what, 5-10 years? Now it’s 5-10 days….so that part you have right…the speed of the media churn is part of the problem, but has been so pre-digital. Faster pussycat faster….but you need time to create something good.

well i guess here is where it becomes a personal preference. i like being introduced to new music and i enjoy that social aspect more than listening to a mutual tried-and-tested favourite. that being said, i find my different social circles will have different ideas of what is a modern classic, and our tastes will overlap pretty often. i think a song that you and your friends found and love together is more social than one picked in a top 100 list by rolling stone, regardless of how good it is.

I see what you’re saying, but I also think that there is a collective knowledge that goes along with something being a “classic” that is important. I wouldn’t say that “classics” are necessarily ranked – they’re more categorized by their place in the collective cultural IQ – canonified rather than ordered.

It’s a semantics thing that doesn’t really make a whole bunch of difference, but in the end people seek out things that other people like. Sure, great works are being made all the time, and people are enjoying them on their own. But if everyone has personalized favorites and the concept of “classic” loses meaning, what happens to the social aspect of music that has been so important throughout its history?

look at literature. the number of classic authors increases exponentially as time progresses until the term ‘classic’ eventually loses its meaning. who would you count as the last classic author? kerouac? vonnegut? rushdie? a better question is: who gives a f**k? when the work produced is great, why do we need the elitists to rank them?

It’s also to do with the death of music, through pop. “Normal” kids, or the mainstream, embrace whatever is popular at the one moment. And it’s not an artist they embrace, it’s just one song. Then the next song comes out and they drift to that.

@Colby I can’t imagine pop music being seen as great. There has always been boring pop music, however it’s just pieces of nostalgia for past generations.

but hey just because our generation might be remembered for this^ does not mean that i will not be proud of the musical accomplishments of our generation (outside of the ‘popular’ music mentioned above that is). And when/if my children happen to say “wow dad music from your time sucked” i will be able to show them the GREAT music that sound tracked my life.