Musical Evolution

As I succumb slowly and painfully to this advancement of age, this creeping, crippling world of "getting older," I find that my tastes in music are becoming increasingly complex. This happens for many, if not all people in some capacity with whatever subject in which they take interest. Hence the pursuit of a career in that field, the practice of a hobby, or any other way one chooses to dedicate or invest a serious amount of their time. Musical discovery happens to be one of the fields that fall into this category, and I've noticed that, as I continue to uncover sounds I've not before heard, my standards are raised, making it increasingly difficult for me to be impressed.

One way that a band can easily keep my attention is by continuously developing their sound. This is a suspect phrase, because "development" doesn't necessarily mean "innovation" - that's an important distinction to make. When artists are able to continuously create new material that manages to adhere to the old ideal while pushing the boundaries of capability,  those artists are candidates for my loyalty and respect.

As long as they don't suck dick.

Once a band begins to meet spotlight status, they can go many ways; few are acceptable. Example: Deftones has, since their conception, evolved their music in such a way that it remains heavy (granted, of late, not as heavy as previous albums) and still breaks new ground, every time. It becomes more polished, more dynamic, wholly satisfying. This is due largely to their ability to maintain sight of what they enjoy, in lieu of how bogged down with copycats and dick-suckers their environment tends to be.

Sometimes I feel like a music elitist. Don't worry; I don't hate sound-blacks. ...Can you imagine if music was a skin colour? There's be 50 or 60 more races and it would be absurd. People would look like cows and zebras with all the genre crossovers. All my friends would be constantly screaming.

Another example: System of a Down began in a much different place than they ended. I notice that when a group wants to break up while remaining friends, but can't do both due to their popularity, they say "hiatus" with every breath and then never return to their cohesive form. I can't say for sure, but it's my belief that System is no more because of the direction they were taken musically. They lost their sound in the interest of a more coherent political message; this was unnecessary, since most of the die-hards knew what they were talking about at initiation.

Meshuggah is fairly genre-locked; progressive math-rock is extremely specific. Yet, they keep from suffocating within the limits of their style of music, somehow creating art from sources that others would deem tapped.

My point is that, much like natural selection (actually, it's literally natural selection, isn't it? I'm so terrible with similes because they always end up being exactly what I'm comparing instead of just similar to it), bands who don't at least attempt to evolve, develop, or innovate their sound - Disturbed's last three albums have been the same rehashed and remixed drivel and have caused me to listen to them so infrequently that I almost forget they exist - quickly become repetitive and boring. Bands interested in changing their sound so drastically that they're near-unrecognizable should either start a new band, or just not do that. The few and far between who succeed in evolving in the best of ways, well, they're gold to me.