has the 21st Century produced ANYTHING worth remembering yet?

[acroyear]

don't mention LOTR (written in 1940s, films conceived in 1996), or Harry Potter (first book written in the 1990s), or The Matrix (first film, 1999).

most recent case in point, a radio station doing "mix hits" that plays on the next door quickie-mart I get my coffee from.  They were advertising that they played the best songs from the 80s (Men Without Hats' Safety Dance), the 90s (I Get Knocked Down, But I Get Up Again), and Today.

For today, they played a cover version of Supertramps' Give A Little Bit, written in 1977.

So far, the best pop song written in the 2000s by a group that became famous in the 2000s, was 1985, an intentional play for a retro-oriented crowd.

So where's today?  What has come out so far in the 21st century by groups that weren't releasing stuff in the 1990s that's actually worth listening to?

Anything?

didn't think so...

Comments

[greendalek.livejournal.com]

Heck, give it time. It may be the 21st century in a calendar sense, but the makers of public taste are still back in the 20th. *shrug* I'm reasonably sure that the trendmakers of 1904 hadn't exactly rocked the world at that point, either.

Some amazing new "thing," be it literary, technological, or sociopolitical, is almost certainly in the final stages of development right now, flying under the public's collective radar. One day it will explode onto the scene and define "the times," and nobody (least of all the marketing wanks) will have seen it coming.

well, the 1990s sucked too (apart from October Project)

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

(and the prog revival)

but I suppose you're right. Consider that the biggest thing in England at the time (1900-1910, and well into the 1920s) was (*still*) Gilbert And Sullivan, and all of their work was from the late 1800s.

And in America the biggest thing was the Wild West Shows that Buffalo Bill and P.T.Barnum were producing and touring with...which also started in the 1800s.

yeah, motion pictures didn't really kick in until the 1920s (talkies helped), but their early successful productions were either giant silent epics (ala rudolph valentino), or vaudeville on film (marx brothers, wc fields, stooges, the "Road" pics of Hope/Crosby). Turning film into artwork was still waiting for the 1930s, and then the war, changing the needs for escapism (Snow White, Wizard of Oz) and/or relating to the public (Gone with the Wind, reminding amercans of the horrors of war that we probably couldn't avoid getting into for long).

We're currently at a time both without a definition AND without a future.

I have a side rant on how because the "Future" has been "the year 2000" for all of our lives, and for the lives of any who lived through the 1900s from 1910 onward); one of these days I'll write it up in full.

But to me, our "future" was the year 2000, and that's now behind us, and so nobody's thinking about the future anymore. (its one of the reasons nobody even sees the potential Supreme Court nominees as being a factor in this election, not realizing that the next nominees will set the tone for this nation for the next 25 years).

I'll consolidate that rant up someday...

[thewhitedragon.livejournal.com]

actually... it has.

"The Ring" - one of the first movies to actually scare me in about 25 years. I wasn't scared watching Exorcist when I was a child. I wasn't scared when I watched pretty much anything growing up. The Ring, however, literally made me... twitch.

[cyberkender.livejournal.com]

The Ring is a remake of a Japanese story, so does it still count?

They Might Be Giants and Weird Al Yankovic both release albums in the past year that I'd put down as better than almost all of the other current music...

[javasaurus.livejournal.com]

Well, how about Five For Fighting? I'm not sure when their first album was released, but they certainly didn't become popular until this decade.

[kmusser]

It's given us Venus Hum. That's certainly worth something. And a whole bunch of cool games.

[queenmaggie.livejournal.com]

XM radio?
I can think of lots of medical advances as well.

[dacuteturtle.livejournal.com]

For the most part, I think all the good stuff is being written by indie bands. That stuff doesn't make the radio.

I'll name a few of my favorites: The All Girl Summer Fun Band, Sleater Kinney, The Ladybug Transistors. Bell and Sebastian have a large following.

As for HITS, I can't name you a hit in the last ten years outside of Tubthumping.

[selkiesiren.livejournal.com]

On the music scene:
Dark as they are, "Evanescence" is actually a very worthy group. They don't seem to be a rehash of everyone elses stuff, and their sound (while a little washed out occasionally) is a smidge edgy (on the deeper cuts), and the lyrics dark, but very poetic.

I'd also give a vote for Loreena McKennit and Sara MacLachlan for similar reasons.