Don't forget Handel!

Who's Kanye West? You are so true about John Lennon. He is one of my favs. Some other really good artists are Sublime, Bob Marely, and Eminem.

"The Sore-Throat Guy"? That's funny. He did have a kinda scratchy voice, but awesome all the same.

That's because there's so many "artists" who, in reality, can't hold a tune to save their lives, and use technology to make themselves sound better, look better, and so on. Their "art" clogs up the radios and music stores, stealing the limelight from the rare gems who actually have talent and ability.

Furthermore, the self esteem movement essentially killed the concept of earning the right to be admired/proud of your accomplishments, not to mention that thing called craftsmanship. Which led to, of course, the caking amount of tripe we have to put up with these days. Nobody (well, hardly anyone, anyway) seems to care about the quality of their work, whether it be art or technology or whatever, as long as they continue to pad their wallets and live the life of the rich and famous.

Meanwhile, the true artists who, generally, don't churn out a new album or three every month are falling to the wayside, because American attention spans have been hammered into oblivion by the daily assaults of commercialism and instant gratification and suchlike.

As a result we have people listening to these dreadful bands who, for the most part, couldn't hold an intelligible conversation if they tried, which they wouldn't because they don't even care.

...And people wonder why I'm not fond of America. [/rant] 

An excellent point. And I won't deny I can be very antagonistic toward country and rap. Rap especially, because I prefer something with a tune.

I'll be the first to admit that there is always an exception to rules such as "XXX genre really SUCKS". In any category of music you pick up there's going to be a few people with talent who write good music that appears to aim more toward quality rather than quantity (although both together is always good).

Really the best way to approach this would be to avoid arguments that don't leave any breathing room, especially since music is an art form, and art, quite simply, cannot have rules, because that would really kind of defeat the purpose. It just doesn't work to take something that is defined by the author's interpretation and all the audience's interpretations combined and sort of mushed together, and try to give it a set of rules. 

You make a good point. I just think that the new music of today, well, doesn't make you think. Of course it has a good beat to dance to or something, expresses the artist's feeling, but rappers would express love by saying "I love her" and a different person (I don't know, you pick) would maybe say "She is my rose, my heart beats only for her." You can see the difference. One makes you stop and think, the other is just straight out. A rapper would sing about drugs, and The Beatles would sing about being a walrus. I mean, when somone sings about walruses and eggmen, well, you get the picture.

I imagine a song to have a tune, rappers don't do that. I imagine a musical genius able to sing their songs without any techie stuff to make them sound better. Of course it is music. When let's say, The Jonas Brothers go live, they are so much worse than on their CDs, they sound entirely different. But if you hear (or heard) The Beatles live, they sound like they did on the CD, well, maybe more tired because they have to sing over the crowd's screaming. Anyway, some good musicians from today that I actually like are: Coldplay, Five for Fighting, Jack Johnson, Muse, Keane, etc. I don't just like the classics. Also, a lot of musicians don't even write their own songs now.