Well, maybe because new music suxx

[Bunk McNulty]

Is Old Music Killing New Music?

Ok, generally. I'm supper sure there are tons of great new bands and talented young artists.

But in reality the gist of this article kinda makes me chuckle and go "yup".

Thoughts?

An important part of the story has been left out:

For the last 10-15 years, there were a handful of producers who all worked the same formula. Here is an excerpt from The Song Machine, a story that appeared in The New Yorker in March 2012:


"A relatively small number of producers and top-liners create a disproportionately large share of contemporary hits, which may explain why so many of them sound similar. The producers are almost always male: Max Martin, Dr. Luke, David Guetta, Tricky Stewart, the Matrix, Timbaland, the Neptunes, Stargate. The top-liners are often, although not always, women: Makeba Riddick, Bonnie McKee, and Skylar Grey are among Dean's peers. The producer runs the session and serves as creative director of the song, but the top-liner supplies the crucial spark that will determine whether the song is a smash. (When I asked Tricky Stewart to define "smash," he said, "A hit is just a hit; a smash is a life changer.") As Eric Beall, an A. & R. executive with Shapiro, Bernstein & Co., a music publisher, puts it, "The top-line writer is the one who has to face a blank page." Stargate works with about twenty top-liners a year, and creates some eighty demos. These are sent out to A. & R. departments at record labels, to artists' managers, and, finally, to the artists, for approval. Around twenty-five of Stargate's songs end up on records each year."

Is it any wonder that after a while it all sounds the same?

 

[TyBo]

you know opinions...I find Yellow Submarine/most Beatles hard to listen to.

Yeow. Beatles hard to listen to ... that's a bit like finding, say, Frank Sinatra hard to listen to, or maybe, Duke Ellington - there are artists who are musical signposts for a reason. They did their thing so well that it's a marker in music history. If they're hard to listen to, that says more about the listener than it does them. Whereas ... I don't know how a rapper can be out of tune, but that guy somehow manages it. Good band, but yeah, that ... suxx.

 

[BtaylorTheRogue]

Are we really going forward with this conversation? Haven't we had enough of this ageism crap in the last couple weeks with all the threads about how old everyone is and how much of TB convos are centred on old folks' ideas and ideals?

Based. Bassed? I dunno.

Jokes aside, I agree so much. There's a sort of "community tone" (which heavily involves ageism and sexism) that I notice on TB, and I've participated in it a few times as a joke, because frankly I thought we were all joking. Every now and then, I have to be reminded that people actually believe that garbage.

 

[Brich]

Yeow. Beatles hard to listen to ... that's a bit like finding,say, Frank Sinatra hard to listen to, or maybe, Duke Ellington - there are artists who are musical signposts for a reason. They did their thing so well that it's a marker in music history. If they're heard to listen to, that says more about the listener than it does them. Whereas ... I don't know how a rapper can be out of tune, but that guy somehow manages it. Good band, but yeah, that ... suxx.

I do find Frank Sinatra quite unpleasingly as well lol, these are just opinions of course. This is also coming from someone who enjoys bands such as 200 Stab Wounds

 

[Nephilymbass]

I think that the music that makes the charts these days does suck. But miraculously I also constantly find new music I enjoy. So it's all whatever to me. We live in a day with corporate radio and when pop artists win the Grammy for best rock song. I get that a lot of people hear the crap that's on the charts and stereotype everything new as bad. If that's all I listened to I'd probably feel the same way.

 

[TyBo]

I do find Frank Sinatra quite unpleasingly as well lol, these are just opinions of course. This is also coming from someone who enjoys bands such as 200 Stab Wounds

Well,there ya go.

 

[turf3]

okay bud...

Well, what I heard there was a high quality rhythm section being paid to create a groove behind some guy who has no sense of time or pitch. At best, you could call it "poetry declaimed over a beat" which is not the same thing as "music".

 

[Brich]

Well, what I heard there was a high quality rhythm section being paid to create a groove behind some guy who has no sense of time or pitch. At best, you could call it "poetry declaimed over a beat" which is not the same thing as "music".

what is music?

 

[turf3]

Ill agree that vocally Mac's stuff is an acquired taste, but no one can deny Thundercat's bass or the musicianship behind the songs

Yeah, well, you know, the cats playing behind "Muskrat Love" just smiled and cashed the checks, too.

Even at my level, I've backed up some "musicians" where the gig called for us to smile, play the music, ignore the performer, and cash the checks.

If I buy the finest block of Carrara marble and then hand it over to the 5 year old boy across the street, along with a hammer and a chisel, it doesn't mean I'm going to get sculpture.

 

[EddiePlaysBass]

Yeow. Beatles hard to listen to ... that's a bit like finding,say, Frank Sinatra hard to listen to, or maybe, Duke Ellington - there are artists who are musical signposts for a reason. They did their thing so well that it's a marker in music history. If they're heard to listen to, that says more about the listener than it does them.

Sorry, but that is decidedly untrue. Or better, it is true: it means the listener does not appreciate the music they are listening to. And that is all it says about the listener's taste in music.

 

[31HZ]

Ok there Zapata. Keep fighting the good fight on internet forums.

Ever thought people play the music they play because... That's the music they like and that's the music that gets them gigs?

Sorry about your cover band, Boomer.

(this is humor)

 

[truand85]

Ill agree that vocally Mac's stuff is an acquired taste, but no one can deny Thundercat's bass or the musicianship behind the songs

Oh there's no doubt the music behind the song is great, but it is ruined completely by the frontman.

 

[TyBo]

Sorry, but that is decidedly untrue. Or better, it is true: it means the listener does not appreciate the music they are listening to. And that is all it says about the listener's taste in music.

Music does not exist in a vacuum. What exists now comes out of what came before, either directly or indirectly. Sometimes as an extension of it, sometimes as a reaction against it, and so on. It's kinda useful to have some understanding of that history to have an informed opinion. Of course, there's no requirement that opinions be well informed.

 

[truand85]

Sorry about your cover band, Boomer.

I'm 36 and never played in a cover band, but thanks for your concern there junior

 

[turf3]

Well, we read and hear and see that many of today's teens and 20 somethings are often found enjoying music from 1968-1998 or so. By comparison, when I was 16 in 1978, not one of my peers was listening for casual enjoyment to popular music from 1924-1954. Paul Whiteman? Bob Crosby? Kay Kyser? the Hoosier Hot Shots? You gotta be kidding.

So I think there's a good argument to be made that in the ears of today's young people far less interesting music has been made and widely broadcast in the years (just to pick some dates) 1998-2022, than in the years 1968-98. If there had been, wouldn't they be listening primarily to that, and wouldn't the teen or 20something who listens to the 68-98 period be as rare as the teen or 20something of 1978 who listened to the 24-54 period?

 

[turf3]

tl;dr: kids didn't embrace the consolidation and commodification of this art form; their parents did. Don't blame the kids.

Their great-grandparents, maybe. Have you never heard of Tin Pan Alley?

 

[truand85]

Well, we read and hear and see that many of today's teens and 20 somethings are often found enjoying music from 1968-1998 or so. By comparison, when I was 16 in 1978, not one of my peers was listening for casual enjoyment to popular music from 1924-1954. Paul Whiteman? Bob Crosby? Kay Kyser? the Hoosier Hot Shots? You gotta be kidding.

So I think there's a good argument to be made that in the ears of today's young people far less interesting music has been made and widely broadcast in the years (just to pick some dates) 1998-2022, than in the years 1968-98. If there had been, wouldn't they be listening primarily to that, and wouldn't the teen or 20something who listens to the 68-98 period be as rare as the teen or 20something of 1978 who listened to the 24-54 period?

Well you know, I was born in 85 and listened to 1920s and 30s Louis Armstrong songs all my life (still do). Great music transcends time.

Here's a classic recorded in 1927


Still as fresh sounding today as it was in 1927... Or 1985

 

[TyBo]

Well, we read and hear and see that many of today's teens and 20 somethings are often found enjoying music from 1968-1998 or so. By comparison, when I was 16 in 1978, not one of my peers was listening for casual enjoyment to popular music from 1924-1954. Paul Whiteman? Bob Crosby? Kay Kyser? the Hoosier Hot Shots? You gotta be kidding.

So I think there's a good argument to be made that in the ears of today's young people far less interesting music has been made and widely broadcast in the years (just to pick some dates) 1998-2022, than in the years 1968-98. If there had been, wouldn't they be listening primarily to that, and wouldn't the teen or 20something who listens to the 68-98 period be as rare as the teen or 20something of 1978 who listened to the 24-54 period?

I was that rare teen who did listen to stuff all the way back to the early 1920's, though mostly I listened to contemporary tunes - hard to ignore the Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Beach Boys, Righteous Brothers, etc., etc. ... . I'm very glad I did listen that way, I think it's useful to keep the old ears as open as possible, which I still try to do today. And there IS still good stuff today, but I think it's harder to find than it used to be. And it's mostly not on the radio.

 

[turf3]

Well you know, I was born in 85 and listened to 1920s and 30s Louie Armstrong songs all my life (still do). Great music transcends time.

Here's a classic recorded in 1927

You're skipping a couple generations there. That's acceptable.

Ever since the first beginnings of a "pop youth culture" - usually associated with the mid 1920s in the cities, as middle class young people embraced jazz, nightclubs, dancing, etc. - the pattern has been:

Your music is the real stuff.
Your parents' music is horrible cheesy and square.
Your grandparents' music is quaint and interesting.
Your great-grandparents' music is the real stuff, from a different era.

The current day is the first since then where a significant fraction of younguns are listening and actively seeking out the music of their parents' youth.

Of course there have always been outliers and musicologists; witness my high school friend who in 1978 was a HUGE Johnny Mathis fan. But he was one in a thousand, I assure you.

 

[31HZ]

Their great-grandparents, maybe. Have you never heard of Tin Pan Alley?

True! One has to go back pretty far to find the origins of the commodification of art.

It's a complex web of long-term trends, behavior patterns, and economic structures (for starters) that have brought us to where we are with today's music.

I just think that it's a gross oversimplification (and a disservice to everyone involved) to chalk it up to today's kids. Human beings haven't changed.