Jazz: there is a lot of good stuff done at a very high level of technical competence, but the last creative giant in jazz was John Coltrane, and he has been dead for 35 years. And let me tell you that among people who are as into jazz as I am, someone working at that level would be known _instantly._
Likewise with rock, although here I haven't been closely following the new music since my mid-20s (now 20 years ago), but I feel moderately confident in saying that rock has been at best treading water since then. Luke's U2 and REM are OK, Nirvana wasn't bad, but I haven't heard anything in the genre that has gripped me with the force of early Elvis Costello, unless it was Dylan's return to rock with his recent band.
So, I don't buy it. We are in a trough. I think thsi is quite general -- classical music is dead, literature is snoozing, visual art is spotty, philosophy is living off capital, etc.
jks
--- joanna bujes <jbujes at covad.net> wrote:
> Grant writes:
>
> "This is contingent on us being aware of everything
> which is happening and
> being able to appreciate it. For example, how many
> people had heard of The
> Velvet Underground in the 60s, let alone bought
> their records? The same is
> partly true for The Doors, since their record sales
> didn't peak until many
> years after Jim Morrison's death."
>
> Well, in 1968, we were not allowed to play "Light My
> Fire" at my eighth grade dance. I liked that song:
> setting the night on fire seemed like something
> really worth doing. In L.A., at any rate, the Doors
> were big and known to pretty much everybody.
>
> Joanna
>
>
>
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