Music is declining

[Araillac]

This is how I feel. All that music that comes on the radio isn't even that great anymore. Most of it is fake music like techno that goes behind all that annoying sound alike pop, rap, hip hop, stuff that you hear all the time. Rock no longer has the feeling like it did back in the 60's, 70's, 80's, or early 90's. Metal, while having good complex riff, are often ruined nowadays by the ever common, scream. I use to like screamo but now it's all the same. Music started getting sour after Mr. Cobain had to leave us. What we need is some good music, not even complex, just good sounding, full of feeling that reaches out to people and changes the face of music. I can't listen to a radio with modern songs playing without wanting to rip it off whatever surface it's on and just slamming it repeatedly into the wall. We need a band to step up and take this job and I'd be more than willing but maybe when I play better and I have a band that will reach out to people. Thanks for listening, reading, if you did. Sorry to rant.

 

[Ben Lesser]

There's more music out there now than ever. Turn off your radio and start exploring what's out there on the net, and in your local scene.

 

[knarleybass]

My friend Greg Markell told me that if there was a renaissance of rock and roll we are in the exact opposite of that.

 

[baalroo]

this is dumb, the radio is for children... if you haven't figured that out it's your own fault. Popular music has always sucked, you've just gotten lazy.

GTFO ------>

 

[knarleybass]

you are saying that the radio was for children when Sgt. Pepper came out?

 

[Mike Money]

Maybe you're just getting old. Cause only old people say things like that.





Also... Kurt Cobain was just a whiny little girl with a guitar.


Dave Grohl was the genius behind that band... I'm sure of it.

 

[Tony In Philly]

My youngest daughter is 20 and in college. She's a great student but has cr@ppy taste in music. She likes garbage like Coldplay and Dave Matthews.... She says my band (late 60's /early 70's tribute blues rock) sounds downright paleolithic. Maybe it's generational but most new music is sounding self absorbed and dull to my ears. Or maybe I'm just sounding like one of those guys in my parent's generation that would say to me when I was young "The rock 'n roll you kids play is garbage...but the big band era...now that was really something". I guess history repeats itself.

 

[RedSubway]

I agree with you for the most part, popular music is declining as a whole. I would like to call you out on one point: screaming. I don't think that this is a sign of the decline. Hardcore and metalcore are very thriving and musically sound genres with great talent in many cases. Just because those vocals are not singing in that sense, does not mean they are bad.

 

[Jared Lash]

My youngest daughter is 20 and in college. She's a great student but has cr@ppy taste in music. She likes garbage like Coldplay and Dave Matthews.... She says my band (late 60's /early 70's tribute blues rock) sounds downright paleolithic. Maybe it's generational but most new music is sounding self absorbed and dull to my ears. Or maybe I'm just sounding like one of those guys in my parent's generation that would say to me when I was young "The rock 'n roll you kids play is garbage...but the big band era...now that was really something". I guess history repeats itself.

Yep, you're officially a cranky old man. Pick up your house robe and slippers on the way out. Also practice rolling up your copy of TV guide nice and tight. You know, to wave at whippersnappers that get on your lawn.

The Beatles - just as an example - were likely crap to your parents (and my grandparents), that's just the natural progression of things. As most people grow older they want to here some semblance of what they loved in their youth. As a corollary, I'd note that most people stop actively seeking new music a few years after college when they settle into their adult life. And the unfamiliar becomes "crap". Which is not to say there isn't a tremendous amount of crap out there IMO, it's all a matter of being able to distinguish rather than writing off anything different.

Then again, I don't listen to the radio at all anymore because for the most part the music I want to hear isn't on there, certainly not the new music I want to hear. Anyone who doesn't think there's great music being made today either isn't looking hard enough/in the right places or has just given up on the idea of anything "new" being good.

 

[seanm]

I would say there is no way music could be worse now than it was in the 80s. To me, that was the low point in music.

 

[peaveyuser]

I'm 16 and in general agree with you most of the bands i listen to are older or at least had their prime before the mid 90's. There are some decent newer acts that are out but I still think it lacks compared to the old stuff.


Some newer good stuff (some may not call this new but it is to me)

Flogging Molly is OK
Dropkick Murphy's are fun
Apocalypta is interesting with all the cello stuff
Headless Cross was like old thrash but weren't around for long
I can enjoy me some Foo Fighters
Airborne is ok
Nevermore has some good stuff

And some older musicians who have newer groups

Gov't mule is good
Velvet Revolver has some good stuff but still no GNR
Bassinvaders is sweet and they just came out albeit formed by a member from Helloween

 

[baalroo]

you are saying that the radio was for children when Sgt. Pepper came out?

I would guess that for the most part YES it was. However, the beatles are more the exception than the rule... would you like me to start copy/pasting billboard charts from back then? (HINT: say "no, I see your point")

 

[bmc]

Every generation says the same thing about music on the present being pathetic. You'll read the same opinion on TB in ten years when kids will say that music in 2017 sucked and will never be as good as what we were listening to in 2006. Trust me.

There is a lot of great music coming out every year. I personally tire of old music from the 60's and 70's. Been hearing it for too long. I won't go see some tired act from back then. Not interested.

Lots of good stuff out there and it's very diverse. You won't find it on the radio. Internet radio plays it. Go looking.

And for the record, I'm 50.

 

[Rattman]

There's more music out there now than ever. Turn off your radio and start exploring what's out there on the net, and in your local scene.

The OP certainly has some good points, and most I'm even gonna agree with the majority of them. I gave up listening to radio 'cold turkey' Oct 2005 and have only tuned-in 4-5 times since then... and only on the A.M. news talk channels.. no music whatsoever... I absolutely refuse to listen to anything that sounds even remotely like 'Hip Hop'.. so CD's provide my music "fix".. However, this situation was actually a-blessing-in-disguise as radio playlists being so horrible prompted me to start practicing and buying new gear again a couple of years ago.

 

[bmc]

Or maybe I'm just sounding like one of those guys in my parent's generation that would say to me when I was young "The rock 'n roll you kids play is garbage...but the big band era...now that was really something". I guess history repeats itself.

It hurts to hear it but you do sound like your folks. And my folks, who always believe that what we were listening to was a fad and we would all return to listening to music of the 40's.

 

[Visirale]

If you can't find good new original music you simply aren't putting any effort into listening. It's not that music has gotten dumber, it's that the tastes of the masses has been dumbed down. I have found good original artists in EVERY genre, no exceptions. Turn off the FM radio and get satellite, that's a good place to start. On average, I hear the "next big thing" about 3-4 months before anyone else has a clue who they are...

ESPECIALLY as a musician, it will be very hard for you to find stuff you like and identify with in popular music. Most people who turn on the radio and turn sub-par musicians into millionaires... guess what, they're not musicians. They just want something simple and catchy with a good hook that's between 3-4 minutes long, and doesn't deviate from intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus-outro.

 

[Visirale]

] I absolutely refuse to listen to anything that sounds even remotely like 'Hip Hop'.

Wow, the open-mindedness will take you very far in music!

I'd say over the past 20 years, the hip hop scene (not radio rap) has had the most fresh music out there. By refusing to listen to it you're missing out on some really great artists. But to each his own...

 

[knarleybass]

I would guess that for the most part YES it was. However, the beatles are more the exception than the rule... would you like me to start copy/pasting billboard charts from back then? (HINT: say "no, I see your point")

I would say they the Beatles (while still being the best) were not the exception, you are forgetting The Beach Boys (Brian Wilson and Pet Sounds, who helped inspire the Beatles to make Sgt. Pepper.) The Rolling Stones, The Who, and you could also say The Kinks. The Beatles were the best but they were no exception to no rule.
thank god for the Billboard Charts!

 

[knarleybass]

Even after the wave of the Beatles, we got bands like Led Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Yes, King Crimson, Kraftwerk, much more artistically exciting times then now. It's sad, back in those days, you had the radio and your friends to turn you on to great music, today we have the radio, our friends, the internet, television, song placement in movies and TV, ring tones, XM, Sirrus, iTunes, limewire, not to mention your local venues for live music, and we still have to "Dig", or search for new, great, and original music...

you tell me, what the state of music is today!

 

[Oric]

There's still great music coming out all the time. Never listen to regular old radio for what's good. I only listen to the local college radio station (never know what you'll find, I drove home from work at 3 AM once blasting Ornette Coleman) and NPR. It also helps that I have a very, very wide selection of music I like- I seriously like a good amount of death metal, bluegrass, hip-hop (people go on about this, but they only hear what's on the radio. Listen to some Mos Def and get back to me. I even like more mainstream stuff like Luda, even if it's just for fun).
That said, me and one of my friends occasionally will turn on music videos on MTV2 or VH1, and it makes me really sad. Ever since I saw the video of that new Kid Rock song that sampled Werewolves of London and Sweet Home Alabama, I've been rather sad about the state of things. When was the last time Kid Rock wore a shirt?