Have you ever...

[PeterG]

... reflected over the fact that many of the power trio rock bands of the 60s and 70s created more variation and more melodies in one song than many of the 6,7,8,9,10 member indie bands of the 90s,00s and 10s create on a whole album or gig? Why is that I wonder? Indie pop (aka mainstream pop by the late 90s) was interesting up to about 1994, when Britpop had run out of energy and indie in general had run out of new ideas, cue loads of retro and plagiarist bands. It is beyond me how this mediocre and banal sound is still being payed by hundreds of bands e.g. Arcade Fire.

[klothos]

thats not fair: guitar-combo pop and rock music was still in its infancy in the 60s (and adolescence by the 70s) so the majority of it was unexplored territory: There was plenty of low-hanging fruit untouched......as a songwriter myself living in the "rock era" almost 60 years later, it can sometimes be difficult to come up with original "hooky" melodic melodies that don't somewhat resemble something from the past 50+ years.

[Yves]

I can think of nothing else...ever...it eats away at my psyche and prevents me from...hey look! A butterfly!

[rcarlberg]

It may be more difficult to come up with something new these days -- although that's a point I'm not willing to concede automatically -- but it's equally the case (I think undeniably so) that musicians these days aren't even trying, for the most part. I've remarked before on the endless plagiarism and recycling of ideas and sounds and techniques going on today, and how kids today do not realize how intellectually bankrupt their music is, because they're ignorant of the past 50 years of music history.

It hasn't helped that "the music industry" has been eating its young for the past two generations, endlessly reissuing music from the 1970s instead of developing or encouraging new artists.

Hey you kids! Get off my lawn!

[ronmac]

It may be more difficult to come up with something new these days

Not based on the number of threads ... oh, forget it.

[bob_32_116]

@PeterG: Well spotted - a case of "the emperor's new clothes". A good deal of so-called "indie pop" is defined by the lack of anything really going on in the song. The best that can be said for the songs is that they are not actually harsh or grating on the ear - they are just empty of any substance. The sad this is that when a truly independent artist comes along who is genuinely good - who manages to create something simple, yet interesting and new - they get lumped in with the rest of the "indie" pack.

Now about "power trio rock bands": I'm wondering why "trio" is relevant here, unless you have a particular trio in mind. I suspect this may be where our opinions diverge. Whenever a band gets described as "power rock, "power pop", "power metal", etc. it almost invariably turns out that I don't like them.

[Trane]

I kind of agree with Peter's OP, but IMHO, this goes for every form of bands, not just trios

thats not fair: guitar-combo pop and rock music was still in its infancy in the 60s (and adolescence by the 70s) so the majority of it was unexplored territory: There was plenty of low-hanging fruit untouched......as a songwriter myself living in the "rock era" almost 60 years later, it can sometimes be difficult to come up with original "hooky" melodic melodies that don't somewhat resemble something from the past 50+ years.

You're absolutely right... but how is it not fair??

That's mainly why I'm eternally stuck in the 60's & 70's in terms of rock/jazz music

Despite a RnR revival in the early 70's (see the festival organized by John Lennon thinh in Toronto's Varsity Stadium) , the revivals really started in the 80's (the rockabilly and new romantics thingies) and later on.

For two decades, I've used the analogy of discovering a new musical continent, once electricity invaded pop/jazz in the 50's/60's. It was a rush and the least little explorer appeared like a major groundbreaker (like Stanley, Peary, Asmundssen or Livingstone) and within 20 years, the whole continent had been explored and conquered and built upon.
Oh sure, once in a while a little out of the way valley is still being discovered (like Trip Hop or Post Rock), but it's usually a small niche. Today's mainstream is built on the foundations of what was erected by the pioneers (yes even the most abject pop/techno crap in vogue today). So yes, it's probably amazingly hard not to come-up with totally new or original ideas, because it's all been done before.

It seems that no-one is able to discover a new continent to explore.

[PeterG]

Bob, no, no particular band in mind. I wrote trio to provide the greatest possible staffing contrast and thus also the greatest contrast in available opportunities for creating sound. How a nine man indie band can be less melodic than Rush, Cream, Hendrix is beyond me. I once saw a gig with a three man proggy avant band play nine instruments between them at the same time. I guess less really IS more. Maybe huge collective bands with loads of members think that what they lack in ideas and trained musicians they can make up for in singers and beat percussion instruments, e.g. Polyphonic Spree.

[PeterG]

thats not fair: guitar-combo pop and rock music was still in its infancy in the 60s (and adolescence by the 70s) so the majority of it was unexplored territory: There was plenty of low-hanging fruit untouched......as a songwriter myself living in the "rock era" almost 60 years later, it can sometimes be difficult to come up with original "hooky" melodic melodies that don't somewhat resemble something from the past 50+ years.

I don't think it is unfair, because everyone has the same number of notes available. And classical composers and avant proggy composers are still creating new melodies every day.

[bob_32_116]

Stanley and Peary were definitely groundbreakers. I really liked their early stuff.

[klothos]

I don't think it is unfair, because everyone has the same number of notes available. And classical composers and avant proggy composers are still creating new melodies every day.

You missed the part about the "low-hanging fruit" -- Its only unfair to your ascertation that "rock bands of the 60s and 70s created more variation and more melodies in one song than many of the 6,7,8,9,10 member indie bands of the 90s,00s and 10s create on a whole album or gig" of which Im sayiing the easy low-hanging obvious things were plentiful in the 60s and 70s....Its like that with pop/rock music composing (which sometimes dictates how a writer comes up with melodies). The intro to Boston's "More Than A Feeling" is a great example: When a music composer guitar player strums a "D" chord based on the Spanish -style tuning, its very natural to move that middle finger to a C note (add the B passing tone) and resolve to a G. "More Than A Feeling" has this, so does the interlude to Tom Petty's "Stop Dragging My Heart Around". How does a modern songwriter that composes on a standard-tuned guitar* use such a natural dictative guitar progression without sounding like he ripped off the previous song(s)? There are a ton of songs from the 60s and 70s whose riffs are so natural and predictive that if the bands that did them hadn't done them and made them famous, there is a high probability that somebody else from that era would have.....................



Once again, its not that the 60s-70s guys were "more creative" but that they had more virgin low-hanging fruit to work with

EDIT - coupling this with rcarlberg's post #4 and a few points mentioned in bob's post #6 is probably more of a self-perpetuating
complete picture


* - I mention standard-tuned guitar as a norm -- there are a lot of songwriters in the past few decades who have composed new ideas based on alternate tunings that would dictate a fresher way of implementing a melody. John Resnick's "Iris" by Goo Goo Dolls is one example