Why Modern Music Is Awful

[Ric5]

 

[Lava]

This has been posted many times. Also, a message from the moderators: Ranting about modern music - please reconsider.

Yes! I'm still looking for a block feature on TB Forums. I've found that I just need to block some posters, for my own sanity.

 

[Ric5]

 

[nozkcb]

Protools and plugins and software
Basic Death of the "Music Industry" thanks to Greed, complacency, Napster, MP3s and the internet
Few remaining labels will only support guaranteed hits based on tested, formulaic pablum which has proven to have the greatest potential to sell
Music tastes have changed and more kids are interested in being a rapper or "DJ" than an actual musician (yep, talking atonally & rhythmically and/or playing other people's music on a computer doesn't count as being a "musician" in my book)

 

[Drop1]

Good music is good music no matter when it was written or what was used to make it.
There have always been gems in every genre.
Music today isn't better or worse. It's like tone. Just different.
I have never understood the mindset that if someone doesnt like something, its terrible.
That seems so closed minded.
You see it all the time on fb videos.
Someone will always be bashing the hell out of the background music and several other will be asking for the name of the song because they liked it so much.
How egotistical does someone have to be to proclaim that a song is crap? Music is subjective and that is their opinion. Nothing more.
Why bash something because YOU dont care for it. Trust me when I say, no one cares. They like what they like and rambling on about your opinion isnt going to change that.
At the end of the day, its we the peoples closed mindedness that caused the current status of music.
This video is dead right about one thing.
People tend not to like new fresh music .
They like familiar.
I learned this the hard way djing for 2 decades.
Breaking new music in a bar or club is a hard thing to do.
The crowd wants super famialr music and yous be lucky to play a new track and not completely clear the dance floor.
But if you give that new sound a few weeks or months to get radio play and let them get familiarized with it, that same song that flopped the first time they heard it becomes a crowd favorite.
People should be a bit more tolerant and opened minded about music. It is art after all. Theres no need to trash something because it doesnt fit your taste which is often very limited.
There is so much great music from all generations out there. Why pigeon hole yourself into certain sub genres and become elitist about it? It makes no sense and you wind up missing out.

 

[higain617]

I like how they always put on the rose-colored wraparounds, and disregard the fact that Led Zeppelin, The Kinks, and The Who all went on to release crap later.

 

[PullThePlug]

I remember feeling this way when I was younger. Somebody told me to check out "Top of the Pops" from literally any year, and it's loaded with objectively bad music. That was a real eye opener from my youth.

 

[Joeynone]

Sorry Dad.

I'm sure they all watch these videos laughing their way to the bank with their platinum album sales, sold out arenas and not even thinking about the 'bar-giggers' complaining about how good it was 'back in their day'

 

[Ric5]

I remember feeling this way when I was younger. Somebody told me to check out "Top of the Pops" from literally any year, and it's loaded with objectively bad music. That was a real eye opener from my youth.

Yes pretty much any years top hits will have some good and some not so good music

 

[Ric5]

I have lived a few years and I have learned to be comfortable that not everyone agrees with me.

But there is one exception … everybody has to like Carrots …

hahahaha

 

[alaskaleftybass]

Dude thinks he's reinventing the wheel.

I was posting for those who weren't aware of an industrial music hit machine. I'm aware it has been around a long time. But it it's more formulaic than in the past. The full article gives valuable insights into some of the top hit makers in the industry. Music has become more like a Big Mac over the recent years.

 

[dalkowski]

Yes! I'm still looking for a block feature on TB Forums. I've found that I just need to block some posters, for my own sanity.

You can put users of your choice on ignore. I do.

 

[Jacknotjohnbass]

Poop

 

[cosmicevan]

Yes! I'm still looking for a block feature on TB Forums. I've found that I just need to block some posters, for my own sanity.

Interestingly enough, when you put people on block, check back a few months later and you'll usually find that those folks you blocked have gotten themselves banned. Best to not engage and get pulled down with them.

 

[cosmicevan]

Ok, bad example. But I still would rather play the Abbey Road medley over I Don't Know (Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber, not Ozzy).

Music is all about personal taste and opinion, but the music below from Ed Sheeran is pretty inspiring to me...and just about every musician I know who has seen this clip.



Just because something is popular with teenyboppers it doesn't mean it isn't amazing music, difficult to pull off, or even something you can't learn from. Have your favorites, but be open to everything before deciding what you like or don't like...unless ofcourse you are only about image in which case, carry on (and don't let a friend catch you watching that clip I posted).

 

[Ric5]

There are some of our members here who are in some bands doing some good modern music

 

[david osborn]

Protools and plugins and software
Basic Death of the "Music Industry" thanks to Greed, complacency, Napster, MP3s and the internet
Few remaining labels will only support guaranteed hits based on tested, formulaic pablum which has proven to have the greatest potential to sell
Music tastes have changed and more kids are interested in being a rapper or "DJ" than an actual musician (yep, talking atonally & rhythmically and/or playing other people's music on a computer doesn't count as being a "musician" in my book)

Back in the day before digital recording actual musicians played together at the same time. There was a little punch in and fix going on, but that was it. A session with a string section, horns and rhythm section, a few guitar players, percussionist. .. maybe 20 musicians. .. you don't want to be the guy that plays a bad note causing the need to play it again. That put a certain energy in it. As you all know, it's simply not like that anymore. We've lost something. Computers have made us lazy. We know it can be manipulated and"fixed" in post production. It loses it's organic components, it's humanity. A series of overdubbed parts to a click track or drum machine for me isn't music. Is it junk? No, just different.

 

[Michedelic]

I'm with him. Modern music has some crud here and there, but there's a lot of great artists from pop to rock to hip hop and rap and everything in between. No sense in being an elitist snob.

If you're with him, do you advocate for his call to censor some else's opinion? I might have poked fun at his motivation(and what I deemed his questionable taste, plus questioning why he so adamant about his position)but for him to to tell the other guy to, well, it wasn't to shut the front door, was a bit out of line.

 

[Drop1]

I was posting for those who weren't aware of an industrial music hit machine. I'm aware it has been around a long time. But it it's more formulaic than in the past. The full article gives valuable insights into some of the top hit makers in the industry. Music has become more like a Big Mac over the recent years.

Yup. Its a money making machine. And now that everyone uses 2 or 3 pieces of the same hardware it's only going to get more streamlined.
Weather that's good or bad is up to the listener.
Hopefully the plugin market will keep progressing. They have come a long way

Protools and plugins and software
Basic Death of the "Music Industry" thanks to Greed, complacency, Napster, MP3s and the internet
Few remaining labels will only support guaranteed hits based on tested, formulaic pablum which has proven to have the greatest potential to sell
Music tastes have changed and more kids are interested in being a rapper or "DJ" than an actual musician (yep, talking atonally & rhythmically and/or playing other people's music on a computer doesn't count as being a "musician" in my book)

I dj'd for many years. Started on turntables and eventually moved to digital controllers because records became increasingly hard to find.

Never considered myself a "musician" though.

I will say this. It takes more than mist people think to actually be good at it. I may have been playing other peoples songs, but I mixed in key before mixing in key was a thing.
It's not much different from playing within a scale on a bass, just slower. You have to know what key you are playing in and what other songs are in key to mix with. Using this method is the same as on an instrument. You create tension and release over the course of a set. I like to resolve my sets with the key I started in.
Live remixing is far harder than learning an instrument and scratching in an appropriate key is very difficult to master.
The is a lot more to it than instrument playing musicians like to think. Creating on the fly is creating on the fly weather it be a groovy improvised bass line or a whole song done pushing buttons. The notes you play and the timing is critical in all music.
I'll also add, making a great song on a computer is far more difficult than writing a song on a single instrument. It really doesnt even compare.
The amount of knowledge needed to produce good eletronic music is insane.

 

[HamOnTheCob]

If you're with him, do you advocate for his call to censor some else's opinion? I might have poked fun at his motivation(and what I deemed his questionable taste, plus questioning why he so adamant about his position)but for him to to tell the other guy to, well, it wasn't to shut the front door, was a bit out of line.

I'm with him in that I think it's stupid to have people on a modern music forum saying that all modern music is awful. We all make music, and unless we're playing old covers, we're making "modern music".

But consider the following.

You said:

So, what's your vested interest in this debate? Own a publishing company? Member of NARAS?

Maybe he is playing music in 2019, which makes it "modern music," and accordingly takes issue with the implication that his music is "awful".

Member of the 'let's dumb down the population' cabal?

Have you ever heard music from the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, or 90s? Some of it is phenomenal. A lot of it was mindless nonsense. Everyone acts like every band from back in the day was like the Beatles or Zeppelin. There were so many bubblegum acts through the decades you couldn't fit them all into a book a million pages long. We fall all over ourselves getting nostalgic for groundbreaking musicians like Carol Kaye, Duck Dunn, Jamerson, and others. Why did they have careers at all? Because ARTISTS DIDN'T WRITE, RECORD, OR PLAY THEIR OWN SONGS. Many pop singers today are no different than all the artists of the past who were basically pretty faces and nice bodies who were plastered all over records they had very little to do with creating. How's that for "dumbed down"?

Please do cite some shining examples of superior mainstream, lowest common denominator modern pop, I'm curious.

Please cite some shining examples of superior mainstream pop from any era. For every one you or I can name, there are a hundred more we can't name who came and went in the blink of an eye because they weren't legitimate artists. You want examples of excellent mainstream talent from the modern era? Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga, Sia, Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift, and Bruno Mars are all excellent songwriters, performers, and many have also acted in addition to their music careers. These are just a handful of artists in the pop segment. I don't have the time to name everyone making music today who a snob such as yourself might find worthy. The problem isn't my inability to do that for you, the problem is your unwillingness to form your own opinions, preferring to regurgitate some nonsense you heard someone else say on the internet about how modern music isn't good.

You don't have to shut up at all, but if you find a more thoughtful, substantive narrative, you'll find a more receptive audience.