When Was The Last Time Music Blew Your Mind Away?

Sometimes, I wonder whether I will ever be excited by new music again,… of course I will, but it’s getting more and more difficult, and even bands I used to like or at least find original are taking the mainstream highway, blending in the general insipid smog… this year marks a new step in this progression, when Ryan Adams recorded Taylor Swift’s entire album I knew that the difference between mainstream and indie didn’t exist anymore and that we had reached a point of no return.

And I am sorry to say, as much as I wish a lot of success to indie bands I have loved, as soon as they turn mainstream, as soon as they turn big, the music homogenizes with the ambient noise and they begin to suck. Here are a few recent examples: I have never really appreciated Grimes’ music, but it was at least unique and original, whereas her new album could fill up any pop chart except for may be one track? Sleigh Bells just released a song off their upcoming album (‘Champions of Unrestricted Beauty’) and it is a complete disappointment… When Alexis Krauss starts to sound like a Taylor-Swift-Katy-Perry combo without the white noise and the aggression of their first album, I know we are in trouble.

Why do we need all these cloned pop princesses? Is new music really more trite every year? Or is it just my imagination? A few years ago, a scientific study conducted at the Spanish National Research Council, proved that ‘diversity of … note combinations … has consistently diminished in the last 50 years,’ so I guess it is not my imagination it is really happening.

Then you have the music dinosaurs, which have made it mainstream decades ago but are not capable to produce some decent new album, … how does ‘Songs of Innocence’ compare to ‘The Joshua Tree’ honestly? And here again, it is hopeless, it’s a point of no return.

When was the last time I was left speechless after a show? When was the last time I said it was mind blowing? I am not sure, however it’s still happening occasionally when I go see some well-known or unknown band. Not all hope is lost, I saw some great acts this year, TV on the Radio, Alabama Shakes, Panda Bear, Courtney Barnett, Father John Misty, Interpol, Television, Queens of the Stone Age, Titus Andronicus,… I still got this excitation during a show at times, however the feeling seems to fade away bit by bit.