What is the world is acid rock??? I vaguely associate the term with Jimi Hendrix, but other than that whatever it was was such a tiny subculture that it had no impact whatsoever on the music scene.
Music really started downhill when schools stopped teaching music due to the cost. Back in the 70's in grammar school (long before I took up guitar!), I took violin for three years - today there is hardly any public school with a music program like that, Kids grow up with no musical foundation, and no way to tell what is good from what is trite and repetitive. So we get thousands of thuggish, illiterate rap bands and thousands of Britney Spears clones.
There are great, musicianship-oriented rock bands out there like Dream Theater and Spock's Beard, but too many of today's listeners lack even the basic musical understanding to discern the difference between these groups and the dumbed down retreads the record companies are pushing on them.
Good point. I rephrase my opinion to simply say music started to go downhill in 1972. Glitter rock (which s*cked) was the rock genre. But you also had awful soul (which s*cked unlike the Temptations and the Supremes of the '60s) the Captain & Tenille, Tony Orlando & Dawn. Disco (which really s*cked) was on the horizon.
There were a few bright moments -- Springsteen, southern rock, Willie & Waylon and country outlaws, Bob Dylan's best stuff -- but it has been pretty much downhill.
There are great, musicianship-oriented rock bands out there like Dream Theater and Spock's Beard, but too many of today's listeners lack even the basic musical understanding to discern the difference between these groups and the dumbed down retreads the record companies are pushing on them.
Good point, but I'll blame the music industry and the homogenization of radio -- remember when commercial stations would actually play an entire album for the lion's share of the decline.