Hey You, out there in the cold, getting lonely getting old..

[Jericho941]

Jericho, take it easy, I think you missed a lot more than you thought.

I said the population of the country (that would be, y'know, the UNITED STATES, e.g. Maine, Hawaii, Alaska, Florida, everything in between...stop me if any of this rings a bell), not the population of country and western.

You're on a rant all by yourself, man, you're arguing both sides of it, and the best you can do that way is go 1-1 in the win/loss column.
Emily Litella called, said something about copyright infringement...

Haha, wow. Whoops!

[HTRN]

Red Fang

Red Fang's Music Videos are funny as hell.

[evan price]

Red Fang

Red Fang's Music Videos are funny as hell.

Absolutely. 'Wires' is probably my favorite, although 'Prehistoric Dog' comes in a close second.

[evan price]

Who...?
For that to count, you have to refute the point, not drive it home harder.
Muse at least isn't objectionable to listen too, if only Moby hadn't gotten there with that sound a few years ahead of them.
I'm not into metal, so I'll skip the others, but I suspect I'd need the Billboard Hot 50,000 to find any of their stuff charting on a radar screen.

So for music to not suck, it needs to chart favorably? Isn't that a total reversal of the point you just made?
If 'charting' was a decent gauge of a band's musical prowess, we'd all be listening to Nickelback, Semisonic and Chevelle.

[Weetabix]

Emily Litella called, said something about copyright infringement...

[JKosprey]

My girlfriend asked me tonight what kind of weird shit I was listening to.....

I was playing "The Wall". Love her, but sometimes I think she was raised under a rock.

[Aesop]

So for music to not suck, it needs to chart favorably? Isn't that a total reversal of the point you just made?
If 'charting' was a decent gauge of a band's musical prowess, we'd all be listening to Nickelback, Semisonic and Chevelle.

No, but to qualify, somebody besides the bands' assorted siblings, the guy across the street, and somebody in Hamburg on their FB page have to have heard of them. The point I made about charting is that the numbers are internally screwed around with, both to inflate the relative popularity of unpopular music, and to deflate more acceptable acts. But there are limits to either approach, as the death throes of traditional music distribution is demonstrating.

Statistically, there has to be some other Jagger-Richards/Page-Plant bunch of talented people out there somewhere. But I think at least a generation of possibilities has had their brains beaten against the corporate music brick wall, and until there's some ad hoc distribution system that lets talent get enough air and sunlight, not to mention money and exposure, we're going to be stuck with second-rate talent and genres that should have been left under their respective rocks long ago. When it's hordes of 20-somethings, and not just 50- and 60-year-olds, who look at YouTube performances from anywhere between about 1960 and the mid-1980s, and then lament the utter shite passing as musicial talent foisted upon them now, it becomes clear that the worst kept secret on the planet is that the music industry destroyed itself by believing their own hype: that they were the wisest selectors of talent anywhere and for all time, and people should listen to what was selected for them.

Force-feeding anyone leads to a predictable response, which is why most of what's on the Top 100 now smells like old vomit.
That isn't nearly as true for sub-genres, because the fans still rule the choices for the most part; but they're sub-genres for a reason.
But for the mainstream chart, the window that let megatalents make their own way closed more than 20 years ago.
It's like the line about Corbin Bernsen in Major League:

"I thought you didn't have any high-priced talent?"
"I forgot about Dorn because he's only high-priced."

[HTRN]

Absolutely. 'Wires' is probably my favorite, although 'Prehistoric Dog' comes in a close second.

Wires is probably the best(best scene, when they hand the guy walking in a flaming molotov ), although the opening scene in "Hank is dead"(with the guy drinking beer in the shower! ) and he turns around and the two other guys from the band are standing there..

[Aglifter]

Jennifer Nettles had an interesting sound. Then, she became part of some pop country band called Sugarland, and made money...

[Greg]

My girlfriend asked me tonight what kind of weird shit I was listening to.....

I was playing "The Wall". Love her, but sometimes I think she was raised under a rock.

In fairness, there's some stuff on there that *is* kind of weird shit, to anyone who doesn't own the album (or the movie, there are a fair number of differences between the album and the movie music). Also it helps if you're at least 40.