Recently I've gotten back into playing bass again for a hobby that actually relieves stress versus create it. Ive finally sat down and taken the time for the first time to learn about all of the fancy equipment I just "had to have" back in the day but never took the time to learn how to use any of it. 6-10 years later here I am finally doing it. I've always listened for the bass line in any song, and I don't know if its just because its a natural thing for me but if the song doesn't have a good bass line I feel it sucks, but then I'll listen to the other instruments to see what there is and enough bands have good talent. When I say good bass line I don't necessarily always crazy and elaborate, just something that fits the song well with a little bit of the players flair, kind of lets you know hes not just standing in a corner getting a check. Although if I hear a song with a good bass line, i'll try to find the name of it right away so I can learn it later.
Lately I've been playing a lot of Dave Matthews, RHCP and Blues traveler. Of course i'll still play some Tool and Primus. I'll sometimes play some Mudvayne or other heavy bands that have really good bass lines, but I'm just not a huge fan of the "muddy" sounds.
Anyways, I listen to a variety of new music and of the new music out there, there doesn't seem to be a lot of mainstream "real" music percentage wise. DMB isn't as popular on the radio with new stuff around here anymore, but they are still well known and that band can put together real music. They've got one of the top 10 drummers of all time, a great bassist, crazy violinist, saxophonist (dk how the new guy is, im sure he's good too), and many others, the only boring instrument is daves guitar which is fine, hes only wanted to play rhythm and his main instrument is his voice. Put together its a style of music thats not really duplicated on as big of a scale. RHCP has quite the variety of styles out there, seems to be a song that fits everyone, funk rock is their core and it shows, although I think you'd have an easier time getting grandma to go see DMB than Flea running around naked. Its sad blues travelers bassist died so early, he was pretty underrated.
Anyways to the point of all of this, RHCP and DMB are just a couple bands that come to mind that are still making new music and going strong. My girlfriend likes country music, she likes RHCP and DMB a lot as wel, but country is still her favorite. So I find myself at enough country concerts and kind of feel the only difference between modern country and pop/hip-hop is the things they talk about in the lyrics which half the time don't really have a true story behind them but are catchy and relate to the masses. I don't mind the concerts but I often find myself bored because I don't know the words to songs, I usually only listen to the musical aspect of it which almost seems to be non-existent in the popular songs. Theres some that are okay, but they aren't the ones you'll ever hear on the radio it seems. I couldn't help but laugh when we were at the Eric Church concert and they brought out a piano so he could play a few notes. From what I've seen the guy can play piano, but in this song it sounds like a 5 year old finger punching hunting around for notes. Every once and awhile I'll bicker with here about how boring it is since there is no "music".
Then I get on these forums and here plenty of the other players talking about the same things. The days of a "band" are gone in nashville. They have the members that tour, and the members that record. They usually don't let the touring artist do the recording and they usually have a handful of people on call to fill the positions at random.
To me Its kind of sad that most people graduating high school don't know music, and the ones that do know music are simply the "band geeks". Other than them, the rest just see (IMO) one big moneymaking scheme. The record labels find a way to take events in a teens life have a pretty face sing it in a catchy way, and there off to the races. It seems to days of a band making music and people discovering them and liking them for the music are gone, now its almost like one big advertisement. They use psychology to determine what you like and how to build a song around that. I think I saw their success rate is only 5% now. Must be why you hear the same 20 songs repeated every couple hours on the "new hit music "channels.
Just me rant for the day I guess, I will admit I enjoy enough of the "cool" music, but more in a hysterical way than a musical enjoyment way.
Lately I've been playing a lot of Dave Matthews, RHCP and Blues traveler. Of course i'll still play some Tool and Primus. I'll sometimes play some Mudvayne or other heavy bands that have really good bass lines, but I'm just not a huge fan of the "muddy" sounds.
Anyways, I listen to a variety of new music and of the new music out there, there doesn't seem to be a lot of mainstream "real" music percentage wise. DMB isn't as popular on the radio with new stuff around here anymore, but they are still well known and that band can put together real music. They've got one of the top 10 drummers of all time, a great bassist, crazy violinist, saxophonist (dk how the new guy is, im sure he's good too), and many others, the only boring instrument is daves guitar which is fine, hes only wanted to play rhythm and his main instrument is his voice. Put together its a style of music thats not really duplicated on as big of a scale. RHCP has quite the variety of styles out there, seems to be a song that fits everyone, funk rock is their core and it shows, although I think you'd have an easier time getting grandma to go see DMB than Flea running around naked. Its sad blues travelers bassist died so early, he was pretty underrated.
Anyways to the point of all of this, RHCP and DMB are just a couple bands that come to mind that are still making new music and going strong. My girlfriend likes country music, she likes RHCP and DMB a lot as wel, but country is still her favorite. So I find myself at enough country concerts and kind of feel the only difference between modern country and pop/hip-hop is the things they talk about in the lyrics which half the time don't really have a true story behind them but are catchy and relate to the masses. I don't mind the concerts but I often find myself bored because I don't know the words to songs, I usually only listen to the musical aspect of it which almost seems to be non-existent in the popular songs. Theres some that are okay, but they aren't the ones you'll ever hear on the radio it seems. I couldn't help but laugh when we were at the Eric Church concert and they brought out a piano so he could play a few notes. From what I've seen the guy can play piano, but in this song it sounds like a 5 year old finger punching hunting around for notes. Every once and awhile I'll bicker with here about how boring it is since there is no "music".
Then I get on these forums and here plenty of the other players talking about the same things. The days of a "band" are gone in nashville. They have the members that tour, and the members that record. They usually don't let the touring artist do the recording and they usually have a handful of people on call to fill the positions at random.
To me Its kind of sad that most people graduating high school don't know music, and the ones that do know music are simply the "band geeks". Other than them, the rest just see (IMO) one big moneymaking scheme. The record labels find a way to take events in a teens life have a pretty face sing it in a catchy way, and there off to the races. It seems to days of a band making music and people discovering them and liking them for the music are gone, now its almost like one big advertisement. They use psychology to determine what you like and how to build a song around that. I think I saw their success rate is only 5% now. Must be why you hear the same 20 songs repeated every couple hours on the "new hit music "channels.
Just me rant for the day I guess, I will admit I enjoy enough of the "cool" music, but more in a hysterical way than a musical enjoyment way.
