Music currently sucks. Badly.
Let me explain: I looked at the release charts mere moments ago, noted that Metric, k-os, Neil Young, Mastodon, The Decemberists, Kelly Clarkson, and Handsome Furs have all released albums in the last month, and I have cared nothing to listen to them in their entirety. And I like most of these artists (Mastodon not so much, but they're hipster-friendly metal so they get mentioned). And I wonder to myself why I am not excited to hear any of their new material and I suspect there's a major chance that I might be so uncaring that I don't really want new stuff from groups I know.
However, I think that it is a failure on the label system's part.
Almost all of these acts have a major label tie-in, and none of them have been given enough of an opportunity to really promote the quality of their new material. Only Clarkson had a heavily talked about release, and in truth, Nostradamus doesn't have to tell you that after My December didn't destroy sales records despite being pretty good that Clarkson's next record would be more bland pop jams about life sucking without a guy and about the power of men helping women versus the empowerment and emotion of a woman being a woman.
I'm also "friends" with k-os on MySpace and didn't know he had an album out until this moment, which might be a failure on one Kevin Brereton's part but is more likely a failure of the label's part. (Which as I write this, Wiki is wrong again as the record is set for April 14th in Canada with no U.S. date announced.) But nonetheless, there is a clear problem here that I'm noticing. The blogosphere isn't nearly as concise as of late in terms of introducing "hot new music" to people's ears, and I'm certain of this because Wavves is okay, but not that great and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are a fine band that has been the only thing new that this year has also been great.
Maybe my lament is that these albums are probably good and probably not great. Ah well.
