I personally like the first half of the 2000’s better than the back half of the 90’s.
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I have a lot of time for McClusky and Future of the Left. Dynamic live act.
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2000 is about the point where things really started to turn for the worse IMO.
The beginning of the loudness wars, the dominance of boy bands and teen pop girls, pro tools, auto-tuned vocals, songs written by committee in boardrooms, record company consolidations… the pits.
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It was the rise of the Ipod.
The quality of albums drops off, as soon as the Ipod gets popular…… especially with the IPod shuffle.
Saying that, music just dropped off a cliff around 2004-2007.
I moved to Melbourne in 2006 for Uni, and was so excited about seeing heaps of live music…… and when I got there, there was just nothing happening. Even the local pub scene was struggling.
It was just a weird time.
Not necessarily…there was still a lot of great music being made…it just got harder to find as the big labels stopped signing new acts that didn’t fit “the mould” and media outlets just played what the big labels wanted them to play.
I’m still finding great new acts/albums…it just takes more effort.
Also, the growth of streaming etc meant that people went off on searches of their own and found music that they liked…and that generally leads to more new stuff.
The main reason I started these threads is to find more new music…I will end up listening to a heap of stuff from these lists that I’ve never heard before…hopefully some of it will be good 
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You must not have paying much attention to the 80’s and 90’s if you think all that stuff started in 2000.
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Hmm local type bands around that time that I can remember the names; mercy arms, Dardanelles, ghostwood, the holidays, cut copy, Bluejuice, cut off your hands, vanshe, presets, Middle East.
I think like any space in time there’s good music to find… just that the massively marketed Americans really flooded the the pop market
There was stuff coming out.
But the quality overall was poor.
As I said, even the pub scene in Melbourne was struggling. The 2 saving graces for Melbourne was The Drones and Eddie Current Suppression ring. I reckon these 2 bands kept the Tote open 2-3 more years, before it eventually went under.
I’m speaking in retrospect and what I remember thinking at the time. I remember having conversations with my house mates that the state of music was lousy (back then)
I’d go out most weekends over that 2006, 2007 period, and there simply wasnt much on.
I lived at the Tote and Oldbar, and they simply weren’t getting many people through the door…. And quality of bands wasn’t great.
Yeah, you had a handful of Triple J bands. But you can’t build your live music scene around bands who tour every 6 months.
But even going through the albums release back then, the quality is poor.
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Not to suggest nothing good was made, but certainly what was commercial took a serious downturn.
Oh I know it started well before that; the decline was gradual.
In hindsight, I think MTV was probably the worst thing that ever happened, even though I (like many of my generation) absolutely loved it in the early days.
Yeah I didn’t venture out until a bit later (old bar, tote) - that period for me was seeing some electronic/indie band then go dancing…. For the chicks obviously
I disagree.
There is always peaks and troughs to the music scene.
Yes, we haven’t seen a music revolution since the Seattle scene of ’89, 80’s Hip Hop and 1976 Punk scene. I don’t think the commercial record labels will let it happen.
But there has been plenty of good stuff happening. You simply need to work hard to find it now.
I often hear that the pub rock scene is dead. Which is absolutely rubbish.
You actually need to go to the pub to see it. It simply won’t come to you on a platter.
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I found the 2000’s followed a similar path as the 90’s. Started off with bang, then faded out by the end.
The mainstream in the back half of the 90’s has the stench of Nu metal all over it. It took the garage rock revival (The Strokes, White Stripes, Hives etc) in the early 2000’s to get Nu metal out of the mainstream, and that garage/indie sound defined much of the decade.
I did have trouble coming up with albums for my list for 2009, but jumping ahead I’ve got heaps for 2010. Which is probably the cycle repeating.
Also, i can’t believe I couldn’t squeeze any The Hives albums into my lists!
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That’s the absolute truth - what it has really done is push me off of traditional sources (commercial radio, et al) and into the corners and margins, which is really where the best stuff is these days, of course.
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I think that’s what created the hole in the Melbourne market, when the garage seen died.
Bands like You am I, Jet, Dallas Crane, The Mess Hall, The Datsuns, etc. who were all playing smaller venues around Melbourne early 00’s….all got really big, then pretty much disappeared.
Yeah, I think any revolution takes on a different form now. There’s a revolution in being able to make music in your bedroom and be able to get it heard around the world. Not sure scene/sound based revolutions will happen again.
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My collection of new music began its decline around 2006 and was all but dead by 2011, never to recover, no more cycles. Not sure I can even participate in the 2010s thread!
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I just said the cycle was happening again, not that we were still young enough to participate in it!
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The democratisation of music is a double edged sword… it’s leveled the playing field in many ways, and that’s absolutely a good thing.
Unfortunately it also tends to create an oversaturation of noise. I think the positive overall outweighs the negative, though.
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