Am I correct that Steely Dan was only 2 guys who played all the instruments (they used background singers-its how Michael McDonald got noticed)? They are/were amazing musical writers. I think they were the first to mix rock and jazz, and they did it so well.

I'm impressed it was just two core members. I didn't know that .. They were pretty talented. Not a lot of groups like that around now in the mainstream.

They made a song that I really like.

I think it was called; It Will Come Back to You.

They were ok. Far better than any of the new artist today tho. I can't think of any quality music made by new artists.

Innovators in (quality) music are extinct.

Well, that's really a relative assumption.

Good (not average or decent, but really good) artists still exists, the place's just gotten a whole lot more crowded.

I enjoy listening to Coldplay and Sublime among others. I also like some of this this hip hop and rap.

I think perhaps 'an endangered species' is more accurate than 'extinct'. It is just hard to see them because the overwhelming majority of very successful artists - and thus, those in the mainstream media - are rubbish.

The bar got seriously lowered during the nineties and never came back up. Personally I feel that rap (with the silent 'c') was a big factor, though not the only factor, in that lowering of the bar.

Following up on this I thought I'd look at a list of current popular music (a current top 100 albums list) to see how many names jumped out at me as quality vs how many absolute rubbish. As I expected, a significant proportion of (what I would call) the good stuff was from the 'oldies still going' side of the story - names like David Gilmour, U2, Foo Fighters (a borderline oldie perhaps) Oasis (likewise) ... there were a few more recent names that I've been impressed by (e.g. Coldplay, Travis, James Morrison, Ben Folds) ... and interestingly a lot of old albums or greatest hits albums from some genuine class acts from years ago (Queen, Stevie Wonder, Better Midler, Bob Marley ...).

Interestingly, 4 out of the top 100 albums were from Abba (if you count the soundtrack from Mamma Mia as 1).

I can't claim to know all the name on the list very well, but am at least familiar enough with almost all of them to have a general impression.

back on the original topic for a sec, a couple of other names I thought of who I think also play most if not all of the music on one or more of their albums - Prince, and Beck.

Some things we can agree on finally.

Don't get me started on rap. I'll freely admit I do not understand this genre. I can dislike something but still recognize the skill involved in it - that is understanding it. Not so with rap. The vast majority of what I've heard seems to require no skill whatsoever so I fail to see what can be appreciated. The only reason I can imagine someone liking it is because they know other's dislike it, so its a statement of some sort, like wearing your pants around your knees with your underwear exposed.

A fine case in point. This demonstrates how when a rap-genre track shows some skill, the majority of the skill involved is in arrangement and playing of the backing music, backing vocals etc. The lead vocal - the 'rap' itself - can contain a degree of skill in writing - putting together the words so that they fit delivery in the very singular 'rap' rhythm (there is only one, used in all rap, is it 3/4 timing? I think so). Production is a skill too, and this Will Smith track oozes it.

But to me, although it is well done, it is a case of poetry and performance art, not music.

I see some quality back in the early days, when the whole thing was an innovation. For example:

YouTube - Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five - The Message

But even then, when the 'rap' concept was original enough to be called an innovation and bordering on music (hell, you could just about dance to that Grandmaster Flash track), it was largely performance art. It was also very heavily political - it had a purpose. I never much 'liked' Public Enemy back then, but has respect for them in terms of their political motivations - they had a message and wanted it to be heard, and they did get it heard (though arguably only to a specific part of the potential audience).

But when it evolved into a mainstream format of 'music' it pretty much lost me, and I have little respect for most of its practitioners. Most of them use it as an excuse for being too lazy to learn a real musical skill - though perhaps it is now so culturally entrenched in Western society, one can hardly blame them - they grow up in a world that tells them it is music, even though it's not.

There are rappers who excel at the poetry and performance art aspects (Eminem springs to mind). And there are even skilled musicians who will dip their toes in the 'rap pool', but show us clearly that they do have musical skill with the main body of their work - I think I've heard Peter Gabriel play around with it, someone who I regard as the best of the best musically. But then Gabriel has been heavily into performance art aspects throughout his musical career too, so it seems kind of natural for him to play around with it. But it's one aspect of performance used in a context of deep musical talent, not a mainstream musical genre/skill of its own.

Personally I think Will Smith now has a day job he's very good at and I'd be happy enough if he stuck to it. Though I guess in his case he's a superstar now and can afford to throw out an occasional track or album and be 100% certain it will make him millions with relatively little effort, so why not?