Classic Rock

My cousin and I were once discussing how music has changed so much. We both came to the final conclusion that the quality of music has changed greatly. He had thought that it has slowly been degrading and backed up his idea very well. He said that great expertise in music started out with Beethoven conducting large orchestras of highly skilled musicians. Then, he talked about how bands were formed next. They were all still greatly skilled musicians, but there were fewer members and they usually had solos to show how experienced they were. And now comes the modern age day of rap. Mainly all that makes it good is the lyrics and bizarre dances. There are usually only a few members, and it's just a guy expressing his feelings with a poem backed up by some other guy making a bunch of strange noises (sometimes not even using turn-tables).

Now go back a bit, and you are in the age of classic rock. Big names like Queen, Guns n' Roses, Led Zeppelin, and Journey come to mind. Now these were some really great bands. Everyone played an important role from singer to drummer. Their sounds would just work together perfectly. And in the majority of all classic rock songs, there was a big solo where a member of the band's choice would have their moment to shine by showing the reason why they are a famous professional musician. Nowadays, many bands have singers that sound alike due to new-age technology that alters their natural voices and tries to create a "perfect" voice. This does not make any sense to me at all. Why would somebody want to change someone else's voice if that is what made them famous in the first place. Looking back at classic rock, you can see a wide variety of different sounding voices. Freddie Mercury's voice and Axl Rose's voice sound nothing alike. The guitarists and drummers also were what made classic rock so great as well. Slash from Guns n' Roses was an expert at what he did. Sweet Child o' Mine (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-qx47-C2Q0) takes my breath away every time I listen to it. Watching John Bonham's solo to Moby Dick (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed5YvFkcR7g&feature=related) leaves me speachless by being suprised that someone can get that good at playing the drums. Looking back at moments like these make me think about what has happened to the music industry.