Rock Collection: Today's Music Rocks

On the last post I told you about Pink Floyd's album Atom Hear Mother. Today, I'll talk about how Today's Music Rocks.

When I look at my Rock Collection, I can't help but smile. There is just so much life stored on those CDs on the wall of my Rock Collection and it spans years and years of my life. I can trace different stages of my life, good times and bad, girlfriends and old friends on these disks. That's really what music means to me, the appreciation of life and how music fits in. It's this reason that I don't rank one album, or Music Artist or Genre above another. I think it's foolish to think that I've got the all the answers, and that the music that I enjoy is better than someone else's, it's not. My rock collection is my own and it represents who I am as a person.

Now that said, I had a friendly debate with a friend the other day. Like me, this friend loves Rock and Roll, probably more than I. As often happens with a couple of brews, we got on to reminiscing about the good ole days, listening to Zeppelin or the Stones and as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, Danny (My friend) said, "They don't make music like that anymore."

I agreed, they don't make music like that anymore, but of course that's not what he meant. He was obviously stating that the music of 20 -50 years ago has more value than today's music, and that is where I disagreed. My response was something like "I agree that the music was great, but there's a lot of good music today."

O.K. it's fair to say that neither of us won that argument, but my point is that we often get hooked into a stage in our lives where music meant the most to us, and then proceed to defend that music until our dying day. I personally think this is a wrong approach, because there is just as much great music today as there was 20 + years ago.

As I look at my rock collection and think about great bands like Queen, or Guns & Roses or The Beatles, I think that although these bands existed years apart, they still hooked me in. So I began to think about what it was about the CDs in my Rock Collection that made me a fan. Invariably it always came down to the melody. What I mean by this is that although a great guitar hook or Piano intro or solid drumming or bass runs are awesome, it still all comes down to the melody. And it's not always important what the artist is saying, they often said nothing and I still enjoyed the music. And it is in this way that music can remain appreciated and progressive.

The problem with a tune is that eventually, it becomes repeated and re-used, sampled, covered, copied to the point that music of old has now turned into new music that has somehow been repackaged and re-engineered. That said, I still believe that mass-marketed bubble-gum music aside, there are some great bands today that really are worth listening, whether it be songs by Incubus, Green Day, The Killers, Metric or the Chili Peppers and so on, or less known artists like Calexico, Muse or Annie etc. These bands have all got great music to offer and worth listening to.

The next time you take your Floyd, Zeppelin, Stones or AC/DC from your Rock Collection and put it in your CD Player, perhaps you should put that CD back and explore lesser known artists, you'll be surprised at how much good music there is out there.