for what it's worth...she'd turned into a pretty decent pop singer (maybe not my, or your, style...but she's got chops)
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Why Modern Music Is Awful
- Thread starter Junior Patrick
- Start date
for what it's worth...she'd turned into a pretty decent pop singer (maybe not my, or your, style...but she's got chops)
Let me tell you why music tastes cannot always understood, but should be respect... I met a die hard RUSH fan... guess which pop star the person liked very much also? Ariana Grande. 
First of all, a reminder to bear the forum rules in mind when posting... particularly about addressing fellow TBers with utmost respect.
On the actual topic of the thread, I'm just going to cut and paste what I said last time this made the rounds:
Simplicity and homogeneity can be defined and measured. They don't necessarily make music "worse," though they can. The assumption of the first part of the OP's video assumes it does. But simple music can also be powerful.
The other problem is that the frame of reference is misleading. When one frames it as "Beatles to Bieber," you're using an outlier as your starting benchmark rather than a standard. The Beatles were popular, of course - but they were extraordinary. That was the whole point. One can't use them as a starting point of reference. It's rather like talking about the economy using the 50s as the starting point; that wasn't when the economy was "normal," that's when it was in an extraordinary boom that was due to unique circumstances that hadn't existed before or since.
And finally, like I posted earlier, the video relies on "chart-topping music" as though it's apples to apples, as though the top 40 charts today are the direct equivalent in the music world of the top 40 charts of 50 years ago. As I said, they aren't. I was struck by a Chris Squire interview, before he died, where he was talking about how there was so much less music available then than there is today. So the video can assert that they studied half a million songs from the 50s to today, but not point out that so many more songs are released now than in the 50s; the top 40 are a different proportion of the market, and the market itself is entirely different in how music is produced and acquired and experienced.
When the guy in the video does weave that into his argument, he winds up contradicting himself. He argues that back in the day of vinyl LPs and no iPods, you bought an album, took it home, and listened to it over and over until you absorbed all its nuances and came to love it, and that made music better. Later on he argues that part of modern pop's inferiority is in familiarity, that it's bad that people like hearing something they've listened to over and over. So what supposedly made older music great now makes modern music bad?
He's also incredibly naïve about the operating of the classic music industry, as though it were all producers looking for talent and only talent, and as though the public were buying music based on a nuanced appreciation of their genius. That's laughable. And again he contradicts himself, admitting in passing that older record execs would "throw a few thousand pounds" at promoting an artist but then blaming the modern industry for "brainwashing" people into liking bad music by repeated exposure. Payola, anyone?
It's true that modern record execs are more risk-averse than they used to be. But he ignores that it isn't just that artists cost more to promote. It's also that in the age of file-sharing, there's less money to be made if the artist hits it big anyway. The top 40 as a market share has shrunk. People find their music by other means. Creativity isn't "dying" -- it's bypassing the record companies.
On the actual topic of the thread, I'm just going to cut and paste what I said last time this made the rounds:
Simplicity and homogeneity can be defined and measured. They don't necessarily make music "worse," though they can. The assumption of the first part of the OP's video assumes it does. But simple music can also be powerful.
The other problem is that the frame of reference is misleading. When one frames it as "Beatles to Bieber," you're using an outlier as your starting benchmark rather than a standard. The Beatles were popular, of course - but they were extraordinary. That was the whole point. One can't use them as a starting point of reference. It's rather like talking about the economy using the 50s as the starting point; that wasn't when the economy was "normal," that's when it was in an extraordinary boom that was due to unique circumstances that hadn't existed before or since.
And finally, like I posted earlier, the video relies on "chart-topping music" as though it's apples to apples, as though the top 40 charts today are the direct equivalent in the music world of the top 40 charts of 50 years ago. As I said, they aren't. I was struck by a Chris Squire interview, before he died, where he was talking about how there was so much less music available then than there is today. So the video can assert that they studied half a million songs from the 50s to today, but not point out that so many more songs are released now than in the 50s; the top 40 are a different proportion of the market, and the market itself is entirely different in how music is produced and acquired and experienced.
When the guy in the video does weave that into his argument, he winds up contradicting himself. He argues that back in the day of vinyl LPs and no iPods, you bought an album, took it home, and listened to it over and over until you absorbed all its nuances and came to love it, and that made music better. Later on he argues that part of modern pop's inferiority is in familiarity, that it's bad that people like hearing something they've listened to over and over. So what supposedly made older music great now makes modern music bad?
He's also incredibly naïve about the operating of the classic music industry, as though it were all producers looking for talent and only talent, and as though the public were buying music based on a nuanced appreciation of their genius. That's laughable. And again he contradicts himself, admitting in passing that older record execs would "throw a few thousand pounds" at promoting an artist but then blaming the modern industry for "brainwashing" people into liking bad music by repeated exposure. Payola, anyone?
It's true that modern record execs are more risk-averse than they used to be. But he ignores that it isn't just that artists cost more to promote. It's also that in the age of file-sharing, there's less money to be made if the artist hits it big anyway. The top 40 as a market share has shrunk. People find their music by other means. Creativity isn't "dying" -- it's bypassing the record companies.
Snarky Puppy, Cory Wong, Marcus King, all modern music that is incredible. Pop music sucks but it almost always has.
I feel bad for all the people who claim "modern music sucks". Y'all CLEARLY haven't searched at all. You took a spoonful from the radio and decided it's terrible.
That's a great point ... There's quite a bit of new music that one can find on the "alternative" stations on XM / Sirius satellite radio. Songs / bands that would otherwise only get radio airplay on college radio stations.
Viewing recent "how old is everyone?" threads here on TB, it's a fair assumption that not many of us here on TB are not listening to college radio stations.
New, interesting, modern music is out there .... You just have to move away from "commercial radio" and dig a little deeper.
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- Oct 18, 2012
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I agree with much of what is mentioned in the video. There really hasn't been anything released in mainstream popular music in the last 25 years that has interested me enough to want to buy it.
Beat Doctor has been abused by lazy producers.
That aside, there is plenty of modern music that is great.
That aside, there is plenty of modern music that is great.
What a lame meme. There are far more lyrics to the latter song than are shown here, but the modern music-hating meme creator cherry picked an extended, repetitive chorus.
One could easily turn the tables and compare the lyrics for the last four minutes of Hey Jude with a lyrically complex hip hop song from the likes of Kendrick Lamar or others.
I'm into Allan Holdsworth and bands like Brand X and old Bill Bruford etc.... what new, interesting music is "out there" and not on lame idiot brain "commercial radio" that I'll have to dig deep to find, that will be on par with the few things I mentioned ?? Anything even close to Jeff Berlin's playing on "Gradually Going Tornado" or Allan Holdsworth's "Wardenclyffe Tower" LP?? Who's the next "Yes" ??
Sorry, those are all one and DONE. There's nobody replacing them and in today's short attention span way of living, there isn't going to be any music like that ever again.
Hey, I get it... if you are one of those "working musicians" and playing the bar circuit every weekend, you'd better like all of that new (and old and rubbed into the dirt) and really exciting .. "music" that the kids (and bar drunks) like because otherwise it's going to be a lame gig trying to sell beer and pack the dance floor.
And... most people out there aren't musicians to any degree, so they pretty much dictate what is popular....
....and it's difficult trying to explain to most of them that players like Allan Holdsworth, Scott Henderson, Jeff berlin, Gary Willis, and the ilk, are the top tier , They have their own favorites and nobody is going to change their opinions on that.
... but it's like trying to explain to them that there's no way high school or college athletes are better than pros....
ahhh, rant over.. time to go to my day, err, only job....
I never listened to commercial radio really, either bought records, maybe some uni or obscure radio stations, or went to see live shows. So I'm not really worried about popular radio music, it sucks now (even more), but like it probably always has.
Internet, well let me say YouTube, has just made the searching and listening way easier. I'm grateful for that.
I'm actually amazed at how many or how few some videos, mainly jazz and blues, get viewed/listened to. Jazz especially, scores some high numbers. I didn't think jazz/blues were that popular. Nothing like radio play music viewings of course, but 10's or 100's of 1000's is a substantial amount.
Internet, well let me say YouTube, has just made the searching and listening way easier. I'm grateful for that.
I'm actually amazed at how many or how few some videos, mainly jazz and blues, get viewed/listened to. Jazz especially, scores some high numbers. I didn't think jazz/blues were that popular. Nothing like radio play music viewings of course, but 10's or 100's of 1000's is a substantial amount.
Ok, bad example. But I still would rather play the Abbey Road medley over I Don't Know (Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber, not Ozzy).
