Mainstream Music Stinks!

[socialleper]

Am I just getting old or is the current mainstream, over-produced drivel pretending to be music the garbage I believe it to be. Sure, once in a blue moon something halfway worthwhile mysteriously finds it's way onto the radio, clubs, etc. - but that's rare. It"s almost as if the music moguls have brainwashed our youth into thinking that what they're hearing is worthwhile.

Anyone agree/disagree? Thoughts? Comments?

Edit: Yes, I know I sound like my dad.

Mainstream is hard to categorize these days because the market is so fractured. There are a lot of niches.
What is on the radio, on tv, and winning awards has been mostly vocal oriented, electronic dance beat music for the last 20 years. Rock has been crowded out, or become sackless drivel.
As the money shrinks in music the need for home runs and broad appeal pushes music. The risk taking is reduced to the artist being a hot mess while releasing luke warm, play it safe music.
I miss the alt rock of the 90s a little and remember fondly when Slipknot or Mastodon would be on TV in the early 2000s.
There is a lot of good music out there today, you just have to look under a few rocks to find it.

 

[rylie]

all is cyclic
what goes around
comes around
you change
by choices

 

[jamro217]

At least in the 50s, DJs had some control over the playlist. Then the business evolved and stations had program managers. Now the airwaves have been pretty much deregulated and one person might be programming for a corporation which owns hundreds of stations. It’s not a situation that encourages originality.

I am from the classic rock era, but don’t listen to it, because it mostly sucks. Not as bad as current mainstream pop though, this crap is worse by an order of magnitude. Not everything is relative.

I was just being sarcastic. The music industry has always been controlled by business interests with a very small minority concerned over the fact that the product they are selling is supposed to be an art form, not plastic dinnerware. Every once in a while you get a deformed fork with a tine missing (what do you call that? A "threek"? ) or a mutated knife. You feel cheated because the box clearly states it contains 24 pieces of dinnerware when in reality there's only 23 2/3. That's still better than turning on the radio and hearing "Today's Hits!" which consists mainly of computer generated and/or de-screwed up vocals, computerized digital background instruments and a song list written by some Swedish guy. I sometimes find myself pining for the mediocre radio fare of the '70's. Even some of the lightweights had something of value to offer. Starbuck's "Moonlight Feels Right" featured a marimba solo by former Mickey Mouse Club guest Bo Wagner. You'd never see something like that today.

 

[Nephilymbass]

Am I just getting old or is the current mainstream, over-produced drivel pretending to be music the garbage I believe it to be. Sure, once in a blue moon something halfway worthwhile mysteriously finds it's way onto the radio, clubs, etc. - but that's rare. It"s almost as if the music moguls have brainwashed our youth into thinking that what they're hearing is worthwhile.

Anyone agree/disagree? Thoughts? Comments?

Edit: Yes, I know I sound like my dad.

In my opinion it does suck. But there’s plenty of music out there that is good if you know where to dig. Plenty of people making great new music because it’s their passion. The good stuff just isn’t mainstream. The mainstream is kind of like the broken American dream. The better musicians/songwriters aren’t living up to their full potential no matter how good the quality of their work is or how many hours they work. Now it’s all about two things; money and connections. And often times those two things go hand in hand. Don’t believe me? Here’s a prime example.
Taylor Swift is not an "underdog": The real story about her 1 percent upbringing that the New York Times won't tell you

 

[retslock]

I gave up listening to mainstream radio long ago. There’s good music and talent out there but you have to look for it. I seems to me that people the world over these days are more comfortable with low quality in a much broader sense as well.

 

[HeavyJazz]

I thought it was generally known that mainstream "anything" lacks substance - to put it mildly. As it pertains to mainstream pop music it's more or less bowling alley hooks fronted by some sort of overblown pornographic choreography.

Pathetic.

 

[Nev375]

Compared to the days of Bach and Beethoven, music has been a dying art for a very long time.

We used to have armies of musicians (sometimes with with cannons!) led by a conductor producing sophisticated emotional movements and themes. This was roughly equivalent to a fine painting by DaVinci or Rembrant. Furthermore, audiences understood it back then.

Not long ago that had been whittled down to folk singers with "3 chords and the truth" which is the equivalent of a Hallmark greeting card.

Nowadays we have copy/paste music editing, sampled drums, and autotune everywhere which is the artistic equivalent of a meme.


That's not the same as saying the world is devoid of talent these days. You have to actively look for it, but the idea that the peak of musical expression happened to be in the music of our youth is a laughable fallacy.

So to answer your question. Yes, music is generally worse and yes you are getting old.

 

[Tazziedevil]

But, the melodies and lyrics are often very good in my opinion. To wit, Herbie Hancock recorded an album of covers on then-current mainstream songs in the mid-90s called "The New Standard" which is wonderful. It has a cover of "All Apologies" (Nirvana) and "Thieves In The Temple" (Prince) on it.

.

That Herbie album is incredible. Thieves in the temple rivals the Prince version!

 

[iunno]

Compared to the days of Bach and Beethoven, music has been a dying art for a very long time.

We used to have armies of musicians (sometimes with with cannons!) led by a conductor producing sophisticated emotional movements and themes. This was roughly equivalent to a fine painting by DaVinci or Rembrant. Furthermore, audiences understood it back then.

Not long ago that had been whittled down to folk singers with "3 chords and the truth" which is the equivalent of a Hallmark greeting card.

Bach and Beethoven never turned into folk, classical music is "high art", and folk music has always existed. There were folk musicians and music made for the lower classes that wasn't nearly as grandiose as what great classical composers were writing.

 

[spade2you]

Every generation says the same thing. Not everything back in the day was great, and not everything now is trash. Once people hit an age where nostalgia sets in, nothing will be the same.

Welcome to TalkBass, sir! I will get off your lawn now.

I think a legitimate problem is that almost nobody pays for music, thus high caliber studios, session musicians, writers, producers, engineers have gone by the wayside. My wife often listens to pop tunes when driving her car. It would seem that most modern tunes are for people who have a limited attention span. These tunes seem to be all chorus with zero dynamics, build, bridge, etc.

 

[Tazziedevil]

This meme just seemed appropriate for this thread

 

[Nev375]

Bach and Beethoven never turned into folk, classical music is "high art", and folk music has always existed. There were folk musicians and music made for the lower classes that wasn't nearly as grandiose as what great classical composers were writing.

No, but the popularity of types of music has shifted. I will admit that classical composers never performed live on the radio, but listeners were once much more sophisticated by and large.

 

[iunno]

No, but the popularity of types of music has shifted. I will admit that classical composers never performed live on the radio, but listeners were once much more sophisticated by and large.

Classical music wasn't exactly the "popular music" of it's day, though. It was what the aristocracy listened to, but the masses would have been listening to folk music.

 

[Mili]

 

[sears]

I was taking care of my dad for a few months and had his Avalon with Sirius XM radio. 50s on 5, for example, plays what was actually on pop radio that decade. It's mostly crap!

I can imagine a parent back then saying, does anybody think this stuff that's drowned in the echo chamber sounds GOOD? Just like the aggressive tuning effects today.

At the very least, today's rhythm tracks are pretty excellent.

 

[Nevada Pete]

Much of the new releases simply lack the elements of music, i.e., rhythum, melody and harmony. Thus, it is more often than not hard to differentiate one tune from another because the material is not memorable, another important element. In other words, you can't hum the tune after you hear it. There is no tune.

It seems like an attempt is being made to lower the standards so much that nothing stands out as excellent anymore. Music business executives might find this desirable because it would soften competition if all the new music sounds pretty much the same, making it possible to essentially just release the same material over and over again. New Country seems like a good example of this, too.

 

[SunnBass]

This trite, re-hashed, pseudo-deep concept of "music these days" being bad and "back in 19__ music was so much better" disguised as rousing conversation is exhausting at best.

 

[Nevada Pete]

I prescribe the vintage motion picture, "Rock Around The Clock", with Bill Haley and the Comets.

The movie is an object lesson in how brand identification techniques were employed to entice teenagers into identifying with the new Rock and Roll dancing and Rock and Roll music as something distinctly their own. Brand identification is by and large where the so called "generation gap", especially including old folks hating Rock and Roll music, came from. It was an important component in how the new music was marketed. In other words, this was all contrived! Once it got rolling, it took on a life of its own. As intended. And we're still buying the idea today.

And yes, a lot of the new releases truly suck. Jim Rome, for example, does not refer to the public at large as "clones" for nothing.

 

[GreyBeard]

What do you think folks back in the 50's who were use to Glenn Miller thought about Chuck Berry?

 

[vibroverbus]

Every generation says the same thing. Not everything back in the day was great, and not everything now is trash. Once people hit an age where nostalgia sets in, nothing will be the same.

Sure. But I try to police myself on this constantly. Constantly try to check myself to see if I'm being a cranky old douche with limited taste, and try to objectively breakdown what is cognitively dissonant to me about 'new music'.

I like lots of genres/styles, so I actively try to like new stuff if I can, and this includes genres I think have generally slid into a load of crap: aka country and mainstream hip-hop. I actively try to listen for the exceptions there that represent quality.

If you look back over a broad time period, mainstream music always seems to have simple and overused chordal structures and always sounds predictable as part of a larger musical fashion at whatever time.

But, the melodies and lyrics are often very good in my opinion.

This x100. Some of this criticism comes from people who just don't like 'accessible' or 'familiar' compositions. Thats your prerogative if you do. That's fine. If you just hate pop music you probably would have hated Paul McCartney songs 40 years ago too. Me - I'm fine with a good pop song even if its not revolutionary. It should just be quality at least. Good lyrical / musical hooks and performances.

Nearly all the popular music I hear these days (and by "pop music", I refer to Billboard's top singles/songs chart) has pitch-corrected vocals to the extent that it sounds like a robot is singing. There are no live instruments - everything is sampled or programmed.

Not quoting whole post but yeah... Here's what I think the core causes of "to what degree there is a real problem" are:

• Upheaval in the music industry structure / supply chain and radio technology actually ironically making it easier for labels to cram crap out there than ever. Radio is 1. nearly completely automated, and 2. dying (sadly - I'm a radio freak... love me some radio...) If the computertransmitters are all playing the same program there's no competition on quality of music and 'discovery' between stations.
• Technology and mis-use of hip-hop derived methods and styles: sure the industry looks for formulaic songs - they always have - but instead of actual talented company song writer bang out a good tune and then actual talented studio musicians lay it down... "OH COOL ALL WE NEED IS SAMPLES AND REPEATED SYNTH DRUM BEATS AND LIKE SOME GUY AUTOTUNED OVER IT!" "HEY LETS USE THAT WITH COUNTRY NOW TOO!" BTW I am not anti sample/sequencer or anti-hip-hop by any means. I'm just anti-untalented sample/sequencer/hip-hop.
• Empirically the landscape of accessible tonal / melodic / harmonic / rythmic 'possibilities' is far more exploited than ever before. Its a lot harder to invent/discover a 'new genre' than will be accessible to the civilian that it would have been in 1940/1950/1960. Some will argue with me but I think this is just fundamentally true. OK could "Indonesian-Slendro-scale-based polyrhythmic-thrash-metal" be a 'new thing'? Sure. But in terms of stuff that was relatively easy to 'invent' yet be accessible to the public... variations on common / obvious / easy listenable chord progressions, pentatonic based melodies / forms... I think the 20th century exhausted a lot of the options. Its like the globe. We've explored almost everything, and for stuff we haven't... well... we pretty much can still map out where it is... So... everything is gonna start sounding somewhat derivative.

In my opinion it does suck. But there’s plenty of music out there that is good if you know where to dig.

Definitely. Digging is more work maybe than it used to be where you could tune in to your indy/alt/jazz/r&b stations and pickup whatever sounded good... but...

• There's still some independent and live-DJ radio out there. I have to stream stations to do this, and sometimes that's a PITA but I do and when I do I am always hearing some new great stuff. And I feverently hope that the future death of terrestrial radio will be a transition to more independent streaming stations / live DJ's spinning their favorite new discoveries.
• If you have good local venues, even if you can't make it to shows you can use their list of artists as 'listening samplers'. I get emails from some venues weekly and sometimes I will just sample the artists coming up that I've never heard of and discover great stuff.
• On the R&B/hip-hop scene, while many/most of the big mainstream artists are artistically without merit, autotuned sequencer programmed repetitive dreck (forcing myself to not name names...) there are some extremely cool artists out there including those that use live bands along with samples & automation, and don't use autotuning. Look for the guys who play with real full live bands - sometimes called the "neo-soul" genre. Some really good stuff out there. Too bad it doesn't displace the horrible autotuned crap that "all them damn kids listen to".