What's so good about the 2000's?

[japanesebaby]

ps. it's not because i thought mainstream was somehow the most important scene out there - certainly not! i just think that the musical atmosphere/attitude of the mainstream actually does have an enormous impact on all fields of (pop/rock) music, whether or not artists themselves want to admit it. because even if they say "but i don't give a shit about the mainstream!", even that's one way of choosing one's ground, even that is a clear chosen attitude, actually... and therefore it MAY very well affect the way this person creates his/her own art. :!:

because i actually believe people (in this case, artists, musicians) are influenced by their surrounding a LOT more than they even know, much more than they ever want to admit. it doesn't have to mean there are direct influences - not all influences are that "blatant". but we are influenced by the world we live in, 24/7, so in the end there's no escape.... not completely.

i guess i am really interested in observing the world this way - not just music but everything in general. and that's why it's what i think about when i think/when i'm asked about my opinion about  "the atmosphere of the 90's" or something similar.

[revolt]

ps. it's not because i thought mainstream was somehow the most important scene out there - certainly not! i just think that the musical atmosphere/attitude of the mainstream actually does have an enormous impact on all fields of (pop/rock) music, whether or not artists themselves want to admit it. because even if they say "but i don't give a shit about the mainstream!", even that's one way of choosing one's ground, even that is a clear chosen attitude, actually... and therefore it MAY very well affect the way this person creates his/her own art. :!:

because i actually believe people (in this case, artists, musicians) are influenced by their surrounding a LOT more than they even know, much more than they ever want to admit. it doesn't have to mean there are direct influences - not all influences are that "blatant". but we are influenced by the world we live in, 24/7, so in the end there's no escape.... not completely.

i guess i am really interested in observing the world this way - not just music but everything in general. and that's why it's what i think about when i think/when i'm asked about my opinion about  "the atmosphere of the 90's" or something similar.

Japanesebaby, that's all very well, but I think the subject of all this was never "the atmosphere of the 90's" as it can be perceived from the mainstream or otherwise... As far as I understand the purpose of this discussion was to establish the quality of 2000's rock music as compared to the 90's... I said the 90's are by far better, you seem to have the opposite opinion, but so far I don't think you have succeeded in substantiating that opinion. I hope I am not being too harsh here.

But anyway, you really can't win this discussion, you know?  But good things could come out of it... For instance: you checking some 90's music previously unknown to you that eventually will help you "correct" your seemingly "distorted" view of that decade... And a similar thing happening to me as regards the 2000's...

[revolt]

actually it just occurred to me that perhaps we are looking at the whole subject of "decades" a bit differently, from the very beginning of the conversation.
i think i've been (rather deliberately) trying to observe the sort of general atmosphere of the decade, the general impression i've gotten about it, about the musical environments and so on - and that means i'm probably talking a lot more about mainstream than you.

if i really start listing individual remarkable albums and put them on the time line simply according to the year they came out, then perhaps i wouldn't say the 90's were so dull. surely there were a lot of interesting things which were starting to emerge in the 90's, i very well admit that, but however fine they were, they were not strong enough to have much impact on the general atmosphere, and eventually to be able change the course of the mainstream. it took some time before they really started to have that much impact on the musical life around us (if they ever had any impact on it at all. i mean, not all wonderful things ever manage to really emerge and redeem everything that they'd certainly deserve). but sometimes things grow strong enough and end up really having positive impact on the general atmosphere. that's why i talked about post rock and prog/ neo prog, as examples of things which, let's say which presence in the mainstream today actually do make it all much more bearable.
one thing is for sure at all times. there will always be loads of crap in the mainstream. that will never change, never has, never will. so instead of staring at that constant load of garbage, piling up decade after decade, i think the thing to focus on is to try and see how much good ingredients there are in the mainstream - IF any. and in this respect i think the 2000's are much more "lucky" than the 90's.

for instance this is all why i am talking about post rock in 2000's context: surely it emerged in the 90's, but it was still a rather marginal thing that didn't yet have much impact outside its own scene. but look at the 2000's and you can see that actually those marginalized post-rock influences actually started to make it to mainstream too - and THAT's something good. because it means the mainstream was/is not completely dull today. the same with all those prog/neo prog influences: of course they existed "already" in the 90's but they were more or less totally marginalized then. so there was very little "hope" that they would have been able to refreshen the general musical atmosphere at that time. it took some time before they really emerged and by then we were already in the very last years of the 90's/already in the 2000's. and at least i find it all a very healthy thing for the musical atmosphere today, that there are artists/styles in the main stream today who certainly could not have been there ten years ago - just because ten years ago the overall climate was so utterly dull and almost against all kinds of innovative/progressive things. today all that is allowed again - and THAT's why i like the 200's more.

so perhaps we're simply looking at this from a different point of view?



(about all the various scenes of post-rock: when i mentioned some artists i didn't even intend to give any sort of comprehensive list. surely there is much much more. and to be honest i don't even know anything about the chicago scene so it's better that i don't try to appear like i could even talk about it. but the reason i just mentioned a few bands is because i just meant them as examples of some sort of influences which i think are valuable ingredients of the wider general musical climate of today.
this is also the reaosn why it's so difficult to talk about one decade without also talking about the one that was preceding it. because the musical atmosphere of any decade greatly depends on the one before it - that's where it takes it's "flavours" and colours, it's themes to develop, whether it'll be in good or bad.)

Actually, I kind of guessed that you were not (very) familiar with Tortoise and all those American post-rock bands (not all from Chicago, so to call it "Chicago" scene as I have is a simplification...)... Or maybe some of the other post-rock-related bands too (although I have to guess that at least you've heard of Morphine). Because if you had known all these back then I think you would never have gotten the impression that the mid 90's were dull... Then again, I'm only guessing... Some of those bands could also be boring, sometimes.

But as regards that mainstream-absorbing-"underground"-influences thing, I think you are generally right as regards post-rock, but you should also not forget the whole 90's electronica/dance scene which had a BIG impact in 90's mainstream rock: starting with Primal Scream's "Screamadelica" and U2's "Achtung baby" from 1991, and going through other U2 albums as "Zooropa" and "Pop", David Bowie's "Outside" and "Earthling" (this last one is kind of an artistic failure, IMO, but it sports a blatant influence of drum & bass)...

[japanesebaby]

Actually, I kind of guessed that you were not (very) familiar with Tortoise and all those American post-rock bands (not all from Chicago, so to call it "Chicago" scene as I have is a simplification...)... Or maybe some of the other post-rock-related bands too (although I have to guess that at least you've heard of Morphine). Because if you had known all these back then I think you would never have gotten the impression that the mid 90's were dull... Then again, I'm only guessing... Some of those bands could also be boring, sometimes.

well i perhaps this topic was not about "the atmosphere of the 90's" but i don't think it was "does jap-baby know this band or that band or does she not?" either. sorry if that sounds like i'm grumpy, but i kind of feel like you're missing my point in my previous point when/if you say that "this is a conversation you can't win". because i never intended to try to win anything, or to make people agree with me. i don't need to prove i'm right - i'm simply describing why i feel the way i feel and what my impressions about the 90's/2000's are based on. so i just simply came to discuss something.
and in fact, i'm really not sure if anybody can even win this sort of conversation - and that's because if we really get down to it, past all our personal likes and dislikes then there really are no "better" or "worse" decades out there. i think. just decades.

i know i was veering off in my last two posts but it was because i just realized that the two of us have been talking about  this issue from a completely different perspective - and also been unaware (both of us, i think) that our perspectives were so different.
that is bound to change the course of the conversation, i think.

ps. is my knowledge of all the bands out there lesser than yours? obviously it is. yet i don't let that bother me. you see, all i have to offer for this discussion is what knowledge i happen to have - which is (yes) probably quite limited after all.
surely i'd be much more at home discussing something like the counterpoint technique in the works of orlando di lasso or the use of neapolitan chord in the early romantics or something like that - that would be my line of specialty, something i know quite a lot.
about post-rock, i don't know quite that much. but i guess i'm old enough (too old ) to not feel stressed about having to admit that here's where my knowledge ends. if that means i'm not fully equipped and capable of having this discussion, then i have to say i'm sorry for that and just sneak off the stage(?). 

[japanesebaby]

and i know you wanted a list of names, a list of bands and scenes that would prove that the 2000's are really worth something.
but since the name of the topic actually does give me some leverage perhaps my answer would be

"what's so good about the 2000's?" - "the fact that i've noticed that i'm simply enjoying the musical climate of the 2000's a whole lot of more than i ever enjoyed that of the 90's, whatever the (various) reasons for this are".

ok i know that might easily sound like i'm trying to be intentionally clever and just annoy you (although i'm not!) - but i think that's actually also a true answer, i'm not lying when i say that.
"whatever the reasons are" - they can be really various. some of them i tried to sum up above. and i also know that some of these reasons are actually at least partially of non-musical origin. that's what i mean by saying it's always a "general climate" kind of thing.

i guess i could write out two lists of band/album names, one for the 90's and one for the 2000's, and if i'd post them here you could say "hey i don't see much difference there, both lists are almost quite as long etc., so i don't know why you insist that the 90's were bad!". certainly true - but i'd still know that feel totally different about the 90's than i feel about the 2000's and i know i'd prefer the 2000's at any time, if i had to choose.
is that a too personal answer? perhaps it is. so you can say it doesn't explain that much. but then again writing a list of band/album names would kind of be the other extreme to me, and therefore it wouldn't perhaps explain that much either.

let me put it in another way for you: "what's so good about the 2000's?" - i could say "the mere fact that there're enough interesting things floating around and despite all the multitudes of crap out there there is still enough good music to cancel that out, balancing it, still making a lot of difference and having impact on people, so that there's no reason to believe that there wouldn't be more and even more interesting things springing from all that and therefore there is a very high probability that the next decade will be even better (which i wouldn't mind, actually)".
that almost sounds like i'm being optimistic  - me of all the people! hehe 

[revolt]

perhaps it was different elsewhere but all i can say is that around here the post-92 era was really bleak musically. nothing worthwhile seemed to happen. (and actually this is very clearly connected to the economical/political situation: in the early 90's my country was battling what has been called one of the worst ever economical disasters/depressions in the modern day europe. that meant a lot of things in the music industry seemed to be almost at a standstill. for instance, the concert life seemed to be almost non-existent, festivals going into bankruptcy and so on and so on. and ok you can say that "that's not the reason to hate the 90's!" and you'd be right. but still, it did affect everything very heavily. and it meant that if there was anything interesting at all during those times, it came from abroad. and what was being imported from abroad? oh, brit pop and all that nonsense. so...

OK, so what are your local 2000's bands that might be interesting for a foreigner to know?


PS: That national economic crisis of yours didn't seem to affect the folk/ethnic/world side of music... The 90's were the BOOM DECADE for all things folk in your land!

[japanesebaby]

OK, so what are your local 2000's bands that might be interesting for a foreigner to know?

well, for instance bands like

magenta skycode
von hertzen brothers
rubik
regina
lapko
disco ensemble
sister flo

to name a few. all very much post-2000 phenomenons. it has been (and is, all the time) really delightful to see these bands emerge (and new ones emerging all the time). 
thinking back something like 10-15 years ago, i really don't remember going out to see local bands much at all. at least for me that has totally changed today. especially from the point of view of live music, i'm very happy to live in the 2000's and not in the 90's. like said, the 90's very simply dead and hopeless compared to the scene today.

also, what i already said about comebacks, some "older" artists that i really used to like in the 80's but who turned more or less dull (if not entirely bad then at least somehow pointless, when compared to their earlier output) have re-emerged with much more interesting ideas and/or have managed to re-invent themselves:
for instance ismo alanko and 22-pistepirkko.

and even though i pretty much dislike the likes of HIM, nightwish, apocalyptica...  that kind of stuff, even then i have to give these bands credit for accomplishing  something good for the whole music industry with their success. there are a lot more possibilities for many sort of groups now, there's more interest and more genuine respect towards (all kinds of) local music because of the success of these groups.
all that happened post-2000, the 90's very more or less completely dead period in this respect.
i'm not a very active metal-fan these days so it would take some time to name the most interesting groups (i mean more or less alternative metal, not the abovementioned HIM & co. kind of "softie metal"). strangely, i seem to read a lot more about a lot of metal groups than i get to listen to them/see them live. that's kind of weird i guess. or i hear them on the radio but really can't remember which one is which now, without sitting down and checking out. but you just have a limited amount of time and you can't be checking out new music 24/7, even if you wanted to.

(and sorry i don't really follow the folk music scene at all so i genuinely don't know that much about that, past or present.)


perhaps the 90's did beat the hell out of the 2000's out there someplace else - or did it? let's have more "local surveys" then, please! 

[revolt]

OK, so what are your local 2000's bands that might be interesting for a foreigner to know?

well, for instance bands like

magenta skycode
von hertzen brothers
rubik
regina
lapko
disco ensemble
sister flo

OK, now we're talking. I admit my total ignorance regarding all of those bands, but I will find some time to check them in the near future. Hope there are some You Tube links for that purpose...

i'm not a very active metal-fan these days so it would take some time to name the most interesting groups (i mean more or less alternative metal, not the abovementioned HIM & co. kind of "softie metal"). strangely, i seem to read a lot more about a lot of metal groups than i get to listen to them/see them live. that's kind of weird i guess. or i hear them on the radio but really can't remember which one is which now, without sitting down and checking out. but you just have a limited amount of time and you can't be checking out new music 24/7, even if you wanted to.

Ha, perhaps I can help you there... 


Shape of Despair (funeral doom)

"Fragile Emptiness", from album "Illusion's Play" (2004):
http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=8CcZX5O-cQ4&feature=related


Hail (black)

"Barbarian (Finland", from their only album "Inheritance of Evilness" (2003):
(please check audio file at "Releases" in http://www.barbarianwrath.org/
(album reference WRATH666-o28: HAIL "Inheritance Of Evilness")


Skepticism (funeral doom)

Still alive and kicking today, but I could only find full links to 90's songs:

"Aether" from EP "Ethere" and album "Lead and Aether" (1997):
http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=BkCfFTueOuA



Horna (black)


"Vihan Tie", from album "Envaatnags Eflos Solf Esgantaavne" (2005)
http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=TvEzDbBhoA0


Please notice that for all these bands there would possibly be (even) better songs to check, but these were about the best I could find (except for Horna: that song is really as good as they can get).

[revolt]

By the way, Japanesebaby, I said I would check your local reccommendations and I will, but even before I do so I will risk saying that the best musician alive in Finland today is this one:

http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw89so4gEZs#18

[revolt]

OK, so what are your local 2000's bands that might be interesting for a foreigner to know?

well, for instance bands like

magenta skycode
von hertzen brothers
rubik
regina
lapko
disco ensemble
sister flo

to name a few. all very much post-2000 phenomenons.

Hi there. Well, I've already checked all these bands (just 2 or 3 songs from each, and well, I confess I didn´t listen to them in their entirety - I just wanted to get a general feel). I'm sorry to say that I'm not impressed by any of them. Maybe I didn't listen to their best songs (some clues from you might eventually lead me to the best choices...).
Not one of them seems to have anything that might lead me to say they have something different than dozens of other more or less indie pop/rock bands of recent years...

Well, maybe Regina could be an exception, since I seem to detect a slight finnish folk influence there that makes their brand of electro-indie-pop a little different than the usual (also, unlike almost all other bands you mention, I like their vocalist - she has a soft voice and a way of singing that sounds good to me, maybe it's here that I detect the folk influence as well as something that could be called more particularly "Finnish"... (but although this is not any kind of contest, I would argue that almost any Finnish folk group has a better singer or singers than her... not surprising, since Finland probably has the best singers in all Europe - it's quite shocking that this has no reflection in the rock world).

Other than that, Lapko has some falsetto vocals that totally ruin the music... Rubik's vocals might be better but I still don't like them - there were however some good riffs/parts in at least one of the songs I've checked (sorry I didn't register the title). Disco ensemble has probably the most tolerable male vocalist of all these, but unfortunately their rock sounds too generic to my ears. Ah, Von Herzen Brothers seem to have a sort of soft progressive rock thing going there, but it sounds nowhere near as good as, say, Opeth have done in their "Damnation" album.

So, again, sorry if I sound too negative, but this ride into Finnish contemporary pop/rock was really disappointing...

[revolt]

Do you know these guys? This seems to be a sort of world-music influenced progressive rock. It's all instrumental and it actually sounds much better to my ears than those rockers you reccommended...


http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=1sm_cuGbNTI

[japanesebaby]

ok well, indeed i must have gotten this all wrong. i didn't realize this thread was about you asking for personal recommendations, asking people to come up with things that you would like. i thought it was a discussion thread for everyone to explain their view, what makes 2000's worth it for you (personally). therefore i wrote what i wrote.
for all these "bad recommendations" i listed: i was comparing that scene (that of today) to that of the previous decade around here. perhaps i cannot impress you (with anything) but should you be able to do the same as i and compare that scene to that of the 90's, then you might get an idea what i was talking about. my view was a local one - because for me that local scene indeed has a lot to do with the question "what makes the 2000's worth it?". i simply would not want to live in the 90's again, no thank you.
therefore all i can say is that i don't agree that my answer is a "wrong" one. for you, obviously, it is - but it was my answer. and at no point was i even expecting you (or anyone else) to agree with me. everyone has their own story, due to their location and their likes. for me music is not just a list of albums and artists but it's greatly defined by the current live scene, live concerts, live events etc.
this is how i see it. and therefore i do find it pretty impossible to recommend anyone anything. i can mention things i know about and perhaps someone out there can sometimes pick some of them up and get interested in it. i've picked up a bunch of bands like this, just reading through threads like "currently listening" and so on. but it's a whole different thing than to try to recommend something specifically to one person (even if you knew the other person).
so now that i know what your question was about, i suppose that's what makes it impossible for me to answer your question. you would have to tell me what to recommend to you for me to be able to recommend you something - and why would i recommend you something you already knew about? so...


What's gone and what's past help
Should be past grief.

(exit jb - pursued by a bear)

[revolt]

ok well, indeed i must have gotten this all wrong. i didn't realize this thread was about you asking for personal recommendations, asking people to come up with things that you would like. i thought it was a discussion thread for everyone to explain their view, what makes 2000's worth it for you (personally). therefore i wrote what i wrote.
for all these "bad recommendations" i listed: i was comparing that scene (that of today) to that of the previous decade around here. perhaps i cannot impress you (with anything) but should you be able to do the same as i and compare that scene to that of the 90's, then you might get an idea what i was talking about. my view was a local one - because for me that local scene indeed has a lot to do with the question "what makes the 2000's worth it?". i simply would not want to live in the 90's again, no thank you.
therefore all i can say is that i don't agree that my answer is a "wrong" one. for you, obviously, it is - but it was my answer. and at no point was i even expecting you (or anyone else) to agree with me. everyone has their own story, due to their location and their likes. for me music is not just a list of albums and artists but it's greatly defined by the current live scene, live concerts, live events etc.
this is how i see it. and therefore i do find it pretty impossible to recommend anyone anything. i can mention things i know about and perhaps someone out there can sometimes pick some of them up and get interested in it. i've picked up a bunch of bands like this, just reading through threads like "currently listening" and so on. but it's a whole different thing than to try to recommend something specifically to one person (even if you knew the other person).
so now that i know what your question was about, i suppose that's what makes it impossible for me to answer your question. you would have to tell me what to recommend to you for me to be able to recommend you something - and why would i recommend you something you already knew about? so...


What's gone and what's past help
Should be past grief.

(exit jb - pursued by a bear)

The bear is tired. Really tired.

[japanesebaby]

just a bear, not the bear. so there's a difference. 8)
and i think this "a bear" is supposed to be an unspecified agent for slightly humorous exits, not an opponent. just something that chases people off the stage when needed....