Is Music Dead... or Just Dying?

Today I decided to post something different then a review. It has nothing to do with movies/games per se, but with music and a generation that seems to be killing it.

Now when it comes to musical tastes I'd say I have a broad range of musical interests, ranging from Metal to Country. If you suggest it, I will listen with an unbiased ear, however music is on a downfall, and the anchor it seems is mainstream media. I seem to remember the days when you could flip over to MTV and actually see MUSIC! Yes I know, I know, it's hard to imagine watching MTV without seeing your favourite episode of "Room Raiders" or the smash hit "Paris Hilton's New BFF", but at the time MUSIC was the "show".

Now I've watched "MTV" and the watered down lineup of "Reality" shows, and I have one question... "Do they think we are stupid?" Half of the shows are clearly faked, and passed off as reality shows, and the other half have as much intelligence in them as a waterlogged stick. Have we really dumbed ourselves down as a generation that we find this entertaining? Or is this the future of entertainment? It's the old addage, "As boring as watching paint dry." Maybe MTV will have a show called "Celebrities Painted Walls" and hour long look at paint drying in some of the top celebrity homes. I really believe that this is the fate of television, and if so I think I'll go read a book.

My biggest fear is that originality is dead, that everything muscially has been done, that we are doomed to drown in a sea of covers. The men and women who made music, and I say "made" because that's what they did took their respected genres and made them what they are, are dying. They are dying and it seems like nobody is picking up their flag, and the one's that are, are being pushed down by Music Televison. Kurt Cobain once said, "I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not." and what I think he meant was that he'd rather make music that he liked and have nobody like it, then make music that was widely accepted at the price of selling out. Musician aren't writing music for themselves anymore, but to appease the masses, and this is wrong. "All I'm writing is just what I feel, that's all. I just keep it almost naked. And probably the words are so bland. " a quote by Jimi Hendrix pretty much sums up my point, "Write what you feel, not what others want you to feel".

I realize this is a pretty big rant, but as a musician and a person who loves music it had to be said. I would just hate to live in a world where someone says, "Hey you remember that band The Beatles?", and society responds, "Who?".