Where's the music?

I was watching Saturday Night Live tonight (or lasi night, depending on your point of view) some girl was the so-called musical guest. I think her name was Kesha or something, but quite frankly I don't care. Her singing was absolutely horrible! Her band made total noise! But people were still entertained because they put on a fancy show featuring laser beams and fancy lights. I'll admit that it was stunning, but it didn't make up for the fact that she couldn't sing worth a damn.

Now let's take this band. They have laser beams and light effects that are pretty cool, but they also have music that makes it all the more awesome:


And, for even more awesome usage of laser beams, look no further than Led Zeppelin, live at Knebworth a couple of months before I was born:

Oh look, he's playing his guitar with a lightsaber!

My point is that yes, light shows and laser beams in music are cool. But you'd better have the talent to justify your use of them.

Now, let me turn my attention to Auto-Tune. UGH! I hate it! It takes away any natural sounds a voice might have and computer-corrects them to sound perfect. Well, good music... hell, even 80s music and the big pop music explosion in the late 90s featured a singer's natural voice. It was called practice and doing multiple takes to get the vocals to fit just right. And then praying to God that a) you didn't screw up live, b) didn't get sick and sound like crap live or c) having an audience that forgave your imperfections. Now, even in a live environment a computer can correct you if you accidentally sing Q-flat minor 18th when it was supposed to be a B-sharp. And that damn robotic overdrive setting has finally gotten old. Bring back the days when people used a guitar hooked to a talk box if you want to have talent and robotic voice coolness:


I don't know, maybe its because I grew up listening to music that seems old now but was still fairly fresh when I was a kid, and then was curious to hear how my decade sounded that turned me off of today's music (with the exception of Shinedown and Creed... and before anybody says, "But Creed sucks man," no it doesn't compared to the rest of music). But I have been listening to more New Kids on the Block lately, since that music, crappy as I thought it was when it first came out (and I was around 10 years old then) is better than 97% of music released today.

I'm sure there is a music act out there that has just come out and is writing and playing good songs. I just can't think of one.