I always liked what I liked and that was that (my music collection is at times quite horrific in the combos I own - heh), but up until a few years ago I'd always lend an ear to guitar based 'indie' bands (can they really be called 'indie' these days?). Then I suddenly found that the albums I was buying were to be honest a bit crap - one or two good songs and loads of filler, none of the madness I loved, too much 'anthemic' stuff, which was so often just droning and pompous. I stopped bothering with reviews and stopped buying a lot of that stuff. Though there are notable exceptions.
I find bands have one or two good songs and the rest is tripe. Bands like Snow Patrol, keane, Coldplay etc bore me, they may have the odd good single but they're unsatisfying. A bit like traditional pop groups unfortunately and it's better to wait for the 'Best of' sadly. The 'angrier', more eccentric 'indie' bands tend to be the ones to go for in my experience.
Why? I think it's because unlike in the 80s and earlier, new bands now have no time to 'develop' and grow. It used to be that new bands struggled for a while and had small fan bases, but now they go straight to number one and are plunged straight into the whole marketing merry-go-round, have no time to grow, play endless grotty little clubs, get a 'story' and a reputation, have 'experiences' to build that difficult second and third album around. The Darkness are a prime example of why quick marketing doesn't work: first album - amusing nutters, second album - bloated rock stars. Pulp were quickly destroyed by their (eventual) success. So were the Stone Roses.
It's not just 'throwaway pop' that's throwaway nowadays alas.
I've a lot of very good first albums here by recent bands that I suspect will remain the only copies of their albums I own.
As for other genres of music, I like just about everything apart from reggae, X-Factor pop, formula indie and opera. Oh and 'synth music' isn't soulless, there's some that's pure Art - Aphex Twin, Daft Punk, etc, plus that's the genre where you get the interesting situationists, people like the KLF. And some of the very best music crosses genres and defies them, people like Martin Bennet (RIP) and Stereolab and The Fall. Fabulous stuff.
