The New Music

I've been listening to my favorite radio station from the university of Virginia tonight, and I have to say I am ecstatic about the trend in alternative music today. For the last four hours, I have been listening to stuff with all of the creativity and melody, of the great avant-garde music of the early eighties. After the last fifteen years or more of very so-so music, this is a wonderful development. I first became aware of this new tend in music, while watching excerpts from the annual South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin Texas last spring, and have seen further evidence of it on late night TV shows, and even on Saturday Night Live. I can't tell you how happy I am to see and hear this new trend. By the late 90's and into the early millennium years, with the proliferation of grunge, hip-hop, and pseudo R&B, I thought a stake had been driven through the heart of complex melody, syncopation, or anything with a blues or jazz base. Banished were pianos, violins, synthesizers, horns, off beat percussion, and anything remotely resembling a hot guitar lick. What we became accustomed to, were very boring displays of four people, simply strumming electric guitars to a very predictable drum beat, while accompanying singers droned out boring angst ridden lyrics. Fortunately those dark days are gone and a genuine musical renaissance is in progress. Don't ask me who any of these new groups are, they are all new to me, and because I am old and out of the cultural loop, I couldn't tell you, but trust me, they are very good! WTJU