Is There Good Music On MySpace?

I've been looking for good music on MySpace for a long time and I must say that it's been a challenge finding it among the "top artists" in the Music area of the MySpace website. In fact, most of the music I find among the "top artists" on MySpace seems to be more an indication of the lack of taste among most people rather than an indication of actual good music being made.

At the Music By Day music blog, my colleagues and I have written reviews about a good deal of "MySpace bands." Unfortunately most of those reviews have necessarily had to be negative due to the horrendous music made by most of these bands. Yes, most of our reviews have been about the "top artists" on the site (those are the artists or bands with the most listeners) so you would assume there would be some quality there, but that assumption would be incorrect.

Among the awful bands we've reviewed have been Hollywood Undead, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Mindless Self Indulgence, Lies UnKnown, and Five Times August. These bands are not merely bad, they are awful. This is the kind of music that the kids who listen to this stuff will be ashamed to say they liked in a few years time.

So the question remains, is there any good music among the "top artists" on MySpace? And this situation also begs the question "why do people have such awful taste?"

Let's tackle the second question first. Part of the reason that such ridiculously awful music is so popular on MySpace is the very nature of the website. Most of the people who use MySpace are teenagers and teenagers almost always have bad taste in music.

Sure there are exceptions. There are the kids in high school who actually listen to good music (of course ironically they are the kids that are made fun of for their taste in music in high school because they don't listen to the same garbage as all the other kids.) But for the most part these high school kids have no understanding of the history of music and they don't understand how cheesy and talentless bands like Hollywood Undead and Five Times August really are. So yes, I believe demographics has a large part to play.

But is it something more than that? Is taste in our culture declining overall? It's hard to say. Certainly it's distressing that popular music is so bad but at the same time there is a lot of good music being made that is slightly under the radar. And to some extent it's really been the norm that bad music is popular and the good music is a bit "underground." There's been a couple of exceptions to that rule. The 1960s come to mind, as do the early 1990s. But in general it's been the manufactured nonsense that hits the top of the charts. So is today really that much different?

I'm not sure if it is or not to be honest. The ridiculous success of American Idol makes me think that yes, indeed, it is that much different. I mean is a show that glorifies karaoke singers really be so popular even after all of this time? Shouldn't the novelty have worn off by now? What's most amazing is that not only is the show popular but apparently people actually take these "artists" seriously and actually buy their albums! It's incredible to me. I looked at the billboard album charts recently and it was filled with former American Idol contestants.

Back to the first question. Is there any good music among the top artists on MySpace? To be honest I was beginning to doubt it. But yesterday I came across a band called Crystal Castles that is actually pretty good. Are they the next Beatles, Pink Floyd, or Radiohead? No, I don't think so. But they actually make music that seems to have actual artistic merit which is a nice break from Hollywood Undead and the like.

So yes, there is good music among the "top artists" on MySpace but you will have to dig through a lot of nonsense to find it. Or you can visit our blog where we'll help you find it!