Lets Have Some Variety!

There are so many bands out there right now that think they’re going to make it big in the music industry, all you need to do is look on websites like myspace to see that. What actually makes a good band though? If one band is a carbon copy of another band, does that make them both good? Is it almost impossible for a band to have an ‘original’ sound now that so many different genres and techniques have been explored already?

It must be hard for record labels to decide who to sign for those exact reasons. There tends to be a lack of variety, especially when it comes to alternative music/ rock I find. Don’t get me wrong, I love a lot of bands out there right now but adults have always said to me that so many of them sound the same. I always thought that they were wrong but I’m slowing starting to see what they mean. It’s normal for guys to wear eyeliner and tight girl jeans now but go back 10 years and you would have been ridiculed to no end, yet you were just trying to be different. Then bands like Cobra Starship started to wear neon colored clothes and of course, other smaller bands followed. It’s to a point where each band has a twin and sure, both bands will sell CDs but it’s not necessarily because their music is original and fresh, it’s because it sounds exactly like one of their favorite bands so why would they like one and not the other?

Every era of music has someone or a group who tries to do more things to shock you and get your attention. Now so many things are commonplace, so much has been done, that nothing seems to shock us anymore. Ozzy Osbourne, Madonna, and Elvis all did things to shock us and bring attention to their music. What things can these new bands do to keep us interested. If they are a truly good band, then their music should speak for them and we don’t need the shock affect or a gimmick. The proof is, how many of you have listened to a song and really enjoyed it, but when you hear that artist live they sound lousy. So much of their music and sound is a gimmick and orchestrated by sound effects, etc. so they aren’t truly good singers but an ’act’.

Hopefully some of you understand or know what I’m talking about. I just realized this recently, and it’s changed the way I look at some musicians today.