Within the last decade, the standard for what we would call "good music" has been on a steady decline. Years ago we would only embrace the best of the best for ourselves. Once an idea of "good" was established within the context of music, others would try to challenge this idea of good. This resulted in "better." Once "better" became the norm, it was once again built upon to create something even better than that… and so on. It was a time of progression and creativity.

Though I understand art is a relative and subjective concept, the music that is now passed off as "good" just doesn't quite cut the proverbial mustard. The music is trite, the lyrics are repetitive and cliché. The phrases "Baby I want you" and "Girl I need your love" start to lose their meaning after the first hundred times they were used. The latest "hits," in most cases not even written by those who perform them, are spoon-fed to us by the latest up-and-coming artist that "The OC" tells us is good. We need to draw the line somewhere.

There was a time when blues and jazz music was popular. Jazz was good. The Blues were good. The marriage of these genres gave birth to rhythm & blues. R&B, in turn, gave way to hip hop. Throughout history, genres of music have built upon each other to create unique art forms. But somewhere along the line the funky fresh beats and lyrical prowess has degenerated into an image — an image of women, money and drugs. Though great music is still made, the bar is set ever-lower, which in many cases makes progress difficult. If the only thing you have to build upon is bad, you create nothing more than a slightly better bad.

Even the attempts to spin out of this pattern seem to fail because of the pattern itself. Take, for example, emo music in its infancy: the whining, the tight shirts, the teen angst. Whether you loved it or hated it, it was new. It was a change. Emo was a movement in opposition to the Dave Matthews, Abercrombie and Fitch-type popular culture. It was a move in the direction of change and originality. But what is "emo" now? Emo is pop culture now. It's all over MTV. The insatiable monster of pop culture has consumed the one movement against itself and claimed it as its own. The one anti-pop effort within the last 10 years has become everything it was originally against. From here it's been so flooded throughout America that instead of progression, what we have is a bunch of 15 year olds trying to replicate it exactly because it's cool.

The music industry sells an image these days, not music. Because we've found something that makes money, those who benefit see no need for progression. It's become stagnant. When was the last time we had a band like The Beatles? An album like Achtung Baby? Heck, when was the last time someone created a form of music that lasted longer than a fad? We have lowered our standards. What we once thought was "good" seems unattainable.