Wow. Quite a response you've typed up there, 'savant.
My point was that neither you nor I can judge what is "art" and what is "noise". And no one knows what will, or will not, be remembered in 10, 20, 50 years' time.
Vivaldi was a rock-star in his day. He was pretty popular. Then he died. Unlike Mozart, Vivaldi's works were mostly forgotten until they were rediscovered two-hundred years later. From the standpoint of the 1800's, Vivaldi would have been as much of a flash-in-the-pan as Nickleback will (hopefully) be in 50 years. Yet today, Vivaldi is "one of the greats". And that's my point.
...but the past 20 years have shown a steady decline in all of the major art forms.
Really? Because I know a few Art History PhD's that would disagree with you. The rise of digital media has produced an explosion of Art that's unlike anything the world has ever seen. Of course it's not all wonderful. But that's the way it works. There were a lot of Parisian artists in the 20's and American & British musicians in the 60's who were pretty awful. And History has forgotten them.
I'm not saying that Nickleback or Kanye West is the next Vivaldi. God help us. But what I am saying is that only the jaded cynic has the view that, "Art is dead".
It seems the majority of modern music is just a pathetic echo of the past or a horrible auto-tuned vision of the future.
So says you. Look beyond the FM dial. Look beyond American Idol. There are
tens-of-thousands of artists out there - real artists - who are creating new, innovative, or just plain good music. And that's part of the problem. There's so much to choose from. Sure, there's a lot of mass-market crap. Tons. But it's just like there's a McDonalds or an Applebees on every corner. People eat there because it's easy and it's what they like. Music is the same. There's a lot of mass-market noise out there because that's what many consumers want, and the record companies keep shoveling it in. But it doesn't mean that you must have a BigMac for dinner.
Look deeper. There's great stuff (even
well-mastered stuff) out there.
Peace. Really.
And for the record, I'm 33. I listen primarily to Jazz & Classical, though occasionally I do enjoy a little Daft Punk.
