autumn paranoia

I see the magazines, the record stores, the websites, hear people talk. Good music is dying. That’s the only conclusion I can draw from them. Something which used to have such controversy and originality is levelling out into mediocrity.
 The bands that were good have either quit or are becoming parodies of themselves, struggling to be original in a world where new ideas are becoming increasingly hard to find, and everyone seems to be saying the same thing. How long before the rest of the bands that actually mean something now either stop making music or sink into this unoriginal era?
 Autumn Paranoia. Two words which began by meaning nothing, chosen because they sound pretty together. But now they’re starting to develop a meaning personal to me; autumn is the dying season, where everything falls and withers away, and paranoia is fear, mostly irrational, but enough to drive someone insane. Put them into the context of music, and they become a metaphor for the fear of the artsits I care about quitting or fading away. If creation stops, extinction is imminent. What if I wake up one morning and realise that there really is no talent left? That the entire music industry has been reduced to mindless, inane drones? As cliche as it sounds, music is everything to me. A world without it would be worse than Hell.
 It’s paranoia, of course. Perhaps the future is less bleak from another’s perspective. And new bands form all the time - just one or two could keep real, talented, worthwhile music alive for a few years longer.
 Yet as I look through my former favourite music magazine, the desire becomes even stronger for good music to just be recognised. The media sings the praises of the latest radio-friendly rock groups and the stadium-filling legendary metal acts, but the existing and/or upcoming independant and maybe less usual bands are shunted to the side, given low reviews by idiots by idiots who completely miss the point of their music, then go on to award the established but often generic shows high ratings in a blind bias.
 It makes me sick, and so angry. And the bias goes through phases. Whichever band is the coolest right now, practically shitting out album sales and staging grand world tours, will most likely be the butt of all the jokes two years later. Oh, and this is the alternative press I’m talking about.The magazines specialising in metal, hardcore, rock etc. - the one’s who should be supporting and promoting more obscure little bands with something to say and a better way of saying it, instead of running pages and pages of Metallica worshipping every week, because nobody else is going to. People know what they’re told. If the media doesn’t move forward, music will be hindered behind it, unable to expand and evolve simply because nobody knows about it.
 So maybe I’ve noticed something genuine, but I’m one teenager, still in school, and unable to make much difference. I want to yell at the world, tell them what’s happening to it, tell them to snap out of this mediocrity. Try to halt the downward spiral we’re on.
 Or maybe I’m just pessimistic and spend too much time thinking about stuff. Take your pick.