I just can't put my finger on it. The bright innovative quality of the culture is gone. At least I think it it.
All movies are total crap. Hollywood had its worst summer it over 25 years. I can't think of the last time I was excited over movie.
Music is absolute trash. I have been listening to a lot of 70s music lately, and it's amazing how innovative and technically superior music was in the 70s. Movies were also much more engaging and thought provoking in the 70s.
The 90s appears to have been the last hurrah for American culture, and that was mostly a rehash of the creativity of the 70s. 70s punk went completely mainstream, but just in a new name "Alternative", and 90s hip-hop completely stole the underground Funk/Jazz Fusion sound of the 70s. Even some of the greatest movies of the 90s were influenced by the 70s like Pulp Fiction.
Somethings that really struck me in the last few years:
1) Most if not all major movie releases have been remakes, sequels, prequels or re-boots, and 90% of them have been very bad, dumbed down, poorly written, poorly acted or cliche.
2) Rock-n-Roll (Americas signature musical export before hip-hop) has completely died off from mainstream music. All rock-n-roll genres are commercially dead from punk, to emo, to metal, to hard rock, to industrial, and Funk. There are absolutely no more hit Rock-n-Roll songs. There used to be so many Rock stations in my local area, now there is only one, and it only plays classic rock mainly from two decades (the 70s and the 90s).
3) I recently saw a System of the Down video {chop suey). I wasn't the biggest Rock fan at the time, but even i recognized it as softcore sellout non-sense at the time. "Chop Suey" was a huge hit at the time. Seeing this video in 2017, made my realize how tame, unoffensive and squared-out music is in 2017. Something like Linkin Park is actually too hard-core for today's audience, and that is downright laughable.
4)Something has really gone wrong with Hip-hop. I am 35yo, so you can call me old. BTW, old heads from the 70s and 80s hip-hop had nothing but respect for 90s artist, and most old heads I knew back then preferred 90s hip-hop.
I learned to appreciate Three-6-Mafia, and they are now one of my favorite groups. However, if you would have told me back in 1996, that ALL popular music not just all popular hip-hop, would somehow borrow heavily from Three-6-Mafia in terms of beat structure (crunk/trap beats), rap styles (Lord Infamous==> Migos), subject matter (advocating Being drug addicts rather than drug dealers or being sober), Lyrics (poor quality) and just mixed with heavy amounts of auto-tune.... I would have been very disappointed.
I was such a huge fan of hip-hop, and nothing made me more upset than the Shiny suit garbage that was taking over at the time. Now, R&B (Rap&Bullshyt) that RZA warned us about on Forever has a firm grip, there is basically no commercially viable alternative anymore. I find it nearly unbelievable that I lived in a time where Brotha Lynch Hung Season of Sickness went platinum and Moment of Truth and Liquid Swords were certified gold. That is crazy.
Imagine a world where an Album about Gang-banging Cannibals goes Platitnum and two albums with no radio friendly tracks and no tracks with female appeal went gold. That would absolutely never happen in todays world. Even with Youtube and Spotify, which are no-cost music media platforms, pop garbage outshines sub-pop genres in terms of views by nearly 1000-to-1 if not more.