by BobbyZamora » Wed May 21, 2014 11:03 pm
really fed up with the current state of blues and blues-rock music. It's obviously a niche and inactive genre, but the amount of stagnation and sometimes just downright awful execution is amazing.
You'll hear people talk about artists like The White Stripes, The Black Keys, Reignwolf, Gary Clark Jr. as if they're boring, but you don't really realize how rare artists like that are until you search around a bit to see what else there is. I'm not exaggerating right now- there is basically nothing out there. You'll find some bandcamp for a "blues rock" band every now and then, but immediately have to turn it off when they start singing about cliched twangy-blues-sleaze garbage like "amarillo", "trains", "guns", "babes","honky tonks", etc. It just reminds me of this scene from Ghost World
The singers also always try way too hard to sound gruff and masculine. That is one of the reasons I like Gary Clark Jr. so much, you wouldn't hear most blues-rock bands release songs like this (the first one is more contemporary R&B, however):
Quite disillusioned with the whole genre to be quite honest- but it is a sound I crave. I just wish there were more good artists out there for it. I usually end up listening to the same Lightnin' Hopkins and Skip James songs.
B)