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Why does mordern pop music suck?

#41
Diamond_Dave said:
Did anyone watch the video? I'm two minutes in and he's comparing the Beatles, Dylan, Zeppelin and the Kinks to Bieber, Britney Spears and Lady Gaga to make the point that the music of the '60s is better than the music of today. Problem is, there was pop junk on the radio in the '60s too. Record companies were just as shady. Lust for money and wowing the consumer with shiny yet worthless baubles wasn't invented yesterday. Likewise, there's great rock and roll being made today, by innovative bands who are pushing the boundaries.

Some say rock died an early death, but they keep filling up the classic rock airwaves with music. When I was a kid, classic rock stopped in the '70s. Now, it's Pearl Jam. Everything gets old. Some of it ages well and we wax nostalgic for it. The rest becomes Captain and Tennille.

I'd watch the rest but I'm pretty sure I've seen this video before.
Click to expand...

He does go into some more scientific metrics to explain the theory, which actually all ring true to me. The generally theme is that the music has gotten simpler in a number of critical metrics, and is less challenging to the listener to digest as there is literally less content there to digest in the first place.
 
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#44
What I find funny is ... all the people that wanted to make music the way they wanted played rock until they began to be old and instead of continuing their revolution they created rules ( like the structure of the song, the instruments choices etc ).

Good riddance pop music

Sorry not sorry
 
#52
It's funny how often the '80s get slagged, but think of the diversity of artists who were getting mainstream radio play and how many artists who were being played then became lasting, widely-respected icons. It's hard not to see what now gets airplay as being considerably more constricted.

I did discover one semi-interesting tidbit when the subject of American Idol and its impact on pop music (or lack thereof) came up on another message board. To what degree you can actually trust net worth figures posted on the internet, it appears Steven Wilson (yes, the neo-progger with virtually no mainstream visibility) actually has a higher net worth than everyone to come off of American Idol except Clarkson and Underwood. Nice to see an example of someone sticking to their own standards and taking the long view jetting past all those fame seekers who were willing to be molded into whatever their "mentors" thought America would lap up with a spoon. And too bad examples like that seem so uncommon.
 
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#53
I'm a Swifthead. I follow Taylor from gig to gig every tour, living in a VW bus called 'Even Furthur.' I make some dough selling handmade sequin dresses in the parking lots of shows, and that gets me enough for tickets, and a Starbucks glitter unicorn frappacino. Me, and the tens of other Swiftheads swap bootleg tapes of Taylor doing makeup commercials. Most people don't understand that our devotion to all things Swift is nearing religious status. I have a chia pet in the shape of Taylor Swift!
If you listen to a TS song backwards, you will hear the voice of Dog.
 
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#55
bluehevy75 said:
Qualatative discussion aside, I think it is fair to say that music has become increasingly "visual" (MTV, VH1, BET, Idol, youtube, etc.) in the last 35 years. I believe this "visual" component changes how people make and listen to music.

Marshall McLuhan - Wikipedia
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Agree.

Even the common nomenclature has changed. In my younger days we used to say: “Do you want to go hear (band name)?” Today the usage is: “Do you want to go see (band name)?”

Small change in the choice of words. Huge paradigm shift in the brain.

Even the MTV producers admitted that for the first five or so years better than 75% of the bands that were on would have never been considered for a record contract. Because the music itself wasn’t strong enough to stand on its own. After the five year mark it only dropped down to about 50% for awhile.

Today people want a big glitzy show.

And then they complain when the tickets start at $100 and they have to travel a good distance to reach a performance venue big enough to host one of these shows.

The fact you now have major bands regularly playing Las Vegas speaks volumes about where it’s been going for the last several years.
 
#57
A lot of reasons. One is the fact that we live in an instant gratification society which has stifled creativity. Another is that there is too much reliance on computers to create music, autotune, etc. Many people are using computers rather than actually learning an instrument. It's the same with movies. Almost everything is a remake, a prequel or a sequel and heavy reliance on CGI. Little if any imagination or creativity. It's sad. You would think that since we have the ability to learn anything and acquire knowledge simply by logging onto the internet that we would be seeing more creativity. The exact opposite has happened. There is also less face to face interaction which leads to fewer live personal experiences.
 
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