How old are you?
Us old guys generally like three chords and the truth much more than a bunch of extended turn arounds and complex chord structures or we would just play jazz. It’s what we grew up with.
But it’s all relative in terms of complexity. I find most good music to seem simple even if it’s not.
I think any of us old guys who started playing because we saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan are probably a bit jaded against a lot of modern, post internet, music primarily because we had better music to listen to growing up than exists in mainstream music today. When I was in the 9th grade my HS had a jukebox in the student commons room where we ate lunch and did other group activities.
The records on that jukebox included: Stone Free, Crosstown Traffic, Bob Seeger‘s Ramblin Gamblin Man, The Amboy Dukes, Journey to the Center of the Mind, Sympathy for the Devil, Creedence, etc. these songs were also played on top 40 radio. We just had better songs back then which isn’t to say there aren’t good songs now.
Even the concert experience was much better with much more freedom for the audience, much less security or rules, no cell phones causing distractions in the audience, not to mention much cheaper to attend. I saw the Birds, David Bromberg, Tracy Nelson & the Mother Earth, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Ramblin Jack Elliot, BB King, and a bunch of other lesser bands in a two day festival in Manhattan Kansas, where the ticket price was $12 for the 2 days.
As far as boredom in a band, the solution is to keep coming up with a new song to add to the song list every couple of practices and once that routine happens then the options for adding songs you like will probably open up. Or start a side project with some other youngsters where you are picking the tunes.
In the pre internet days a band had to be pretty great already before they could even attempt to record a record to be sold in the stores. There was also regional sound that existed across the country, where bands from Memphis sounded different from bands from Muscle Shoals, even though they are less than an hour away from each other, or bands from Chicago, or Nashville, or Kansas City, or New Orleans. Now those are just sounds in a giant pool on the internet.
Today every kid with a guitar is pumping content out on social media desperate to get their 15 minutes of fame by getting followers. So we are flooded with so much derivative content it’s impossible to wade through. And now all music is either a throwback or totally derivative. Greta Van Fleet is the perfect throwback example, so is Sturgil Simpson. It doesn’t mean they can’t play, it is just the quality of the songs for these bands will never quite be as good or the same coming from this flooded derivative pool of sounds and artists. This is all generalization however, and there is lots a great new music. I love everything My Morning Jacket or Wilco does.
sorry if I’m rambling…..lol.
