Is Modern Music Awful?

[Groove58]

[video:youtube]

[The Real MC]

YES

 

I keep an open mind, but I find very little new music worth listening to in the last fifteen years. Most of it is AWFUL.

[Song80s]

OLD fashioned

 

STUCk in the past

 

Grumpy old Man rant

 

Another example of Generational Bias

( my all time favorite )

 

And todays pop hits are Wonderful. And there is

so much wonderfulness to pick from. I can

find 1 or 2 examples to prove this case.

 

I think that covers 6 pages of posts

 

[burningbusch]

[video:youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cly_2pGTNw

 

Little known secret, the 3rd verse is also the same as the first!

 

Busch.

[hatricklov]

OLD fashioned

 

STUCk in the past

 

Grumpy old Man rant

 

Another example of Generational Bias

( my all time favorite )

 

And todays pop hits are Wonderful. And there is

so much wonderfulness to pick from. I can

find 1 or 2 examples to prove this case.

 

I think that covers 6 pages of posts

 

Agreed... thank you!

[CEB]

What does the gig pay?

[Outkaster]

YES

 

I keep an open mind, but I find very little new music worth listening to in the last fifteen years. Most of it is AWFUL.

 

Haha exactly

[Joe Muscara]

Oh good, because we needed another thread about this.

[Philip Clark]

Oh good, because we needed another thread about this.

 

We have one. lol

[FedzKeyz]

Not sure what your point is here, Busch?

 

The song was written in 1910, and originally had 3 verses (all different, and all omitted in the Herman's Hermits version) plus a chorus (repeated three times in this cut-down version).

 

So, this is an example of awful music that isn't modern? In which case, you should at least post a version of someone playing the whole thing.

 

Or perhaps you cite it as an example of great old music? After all, how many songs are recorded and get to No.1 in the Pop charts 55 years after they were written?

 

Or maybe you have an ability to appreciate music from a different culture that sounds "strange" to foreign ears?

 

[ProfD]

Please define "modern" in this context.

 

Nowadays, the newer music I hear runs the same ole gamut from good to bad.

[JohnH]

Yes it is. At least there's Shake it Off. That is awesome. Finding it harder and harder to find new stuff like that or Shut up and Dance or Daft Punk Get Lucky.

[area51recording]

Everything pretty much peaked with Vivaldi.....we've been on a long downhill slide ever since.....

[Song80s]

Oh good, because we needed another thread about this.

We have one. lol

 

 

Two-shay

 

Or touché'

[David Emm]

To some extent, yes, but its because of the Ninnynet, raging digital theft that can discourage originality and excessive pigeonholing aimed at a specific source of sales, such as hardcore ravers or Miley fans. The broader experimentation of the 80s has been pushed onto a blizzard of specialty streaming sites and podcasters. You must really dig to even find what you like most, much less something way out of a certain digital comfort zone. You can't just turn on the radio and have a savvy DJ *introduce* you to a *variety* of music over time anymore. Now, its an algorithm that feeds you more of what it thinks resembles the first thing you entered. Bands follow suit so as to get higher on the search return list. That's not at all the same as being original and drawing fans based on your uniqueness, or at least your cool left turn that changes the TONE of a style in a good way. There's certainly no lack of worthy musicians. Its the sometimes grotesque technological and social changes that have altered (and IMO) diminished the dynamic of how music is produced and sold. Sometimes, Progress sucks like a 6-pack of black holes.

 

[Al Coda]

What´s "modern music" ???

 

The question should be:

 

"Is today´s POP music awful ?"

 

And when that were the question, I´d say YES, because most POP music was and is awful, just because it was never a piece of art,- some special designed product for a precisely defined market instead.

And it´s also been done in the hope to make big cash quickly.

 

So, when it sells, it´s great.

In fact, it doesn´t matter if THE PRODUCT is (or contains) music or not.

 

I tell ya, as a studio session artist, I made big profit from that behaviour.

I called myself a "music hooker" at that time because it felt like prostitution.

OTOH, I was happy I was able paying for my rent, all the bills, the gear, service and food always,- and some extravagant life in addition.

And when I toured, I worked for the artists I had recorded that crap before.

Great jobs because they had the fans/audience and consequently the budget to do tournaments and pay well for my services.

 

At the same time, my idealistic friends were flat broke throughout, but played and recorded great music earning lots of praise and honor.

 

Now ask what I really love and it´s all jazz, fusion and some prog and rock.

But when I´d tried to do that to make a living, I´d never been alive anymore I fear.

I always loved to play my instruments and earn a living without the need to have a backup/day-job.

 

Why dissing POP music when it´s the basis to make a living for so many musicians in the world ?

I´d better try viewing it as some survival strategy instead of a shame.

 

At least I myself, I was happy it existed as long as I did it and not enough, I still get money for the stuff I did in the past and still doodles in radio and tv.

It helps when being ill, old or both and you cannot gig anymore.

 

A.C.

 

[hatricklov]

Yes it is. At least there's Shake it Off. That is awesome. Finding it harder and harder to find new stuff like that or Shut up and Dance or Daft Punk Get Lucky.

Funny you mentioned Shake It Off since it's mentioned in the video.

[MotiDave]

There's some good hard rock out there, but its so diffused and dispersed i don't see any super bands emerging.

 

modern pop doesn't work for me. i won't judge awful, its definitely not my thing. should i say most pop. once in awhile i hear a song that works for me. i'd add i didn't like pop in the 70s, 80s, 90s or 00's. except for that brief glorious era when big hair metal was the most popular music.

 

it was awful too, but i loved it.

 

my daughter listens to disney sirius. it is also not my thing.

 

I won't play a modern pop band regardless of pay. just not into it. i don't do music for income, i want to be paid to demonstrate a respect for what i do but its chump change in my pocket. those that need to make their living, no qualms with anything anyone does and i don't knock it. anyone making any music of any kind gets props from me.

[Bucktunes]

Nowadays, the newer music I hear runs the same ole gamut from good to bad.

^ This^

 

From time to time Ill tune in a pop music station and listen for a few days, just because I dont want to be one of those geezer musicians that dont know any music from this century.

IMO some things have always been the same in pop music. For every 10 current songs;

- 1 or 2 of them are really good songs that are melodic and tasty, and probably will be memorable for a long time.

- 3 or 4 of them are listenable, but usually contrived and arranged to be fashionable for a few months. They might be better if arranged differently.

- 3 or 4 of them are kind of stupid and make you roll your eyes. You wouldnt miss them if you never heard them again. But hey, the kids dig them...

- 1 or 2 are so bloody awful that you can hardly stand to listen to the whole thing. Next time you hear it you immediately change the station as soon as you recognize it.

 

As Duke Ellington used to say, There are only 2 kinds of music, good and bad!

 

 

[Song80s]

What´s "modern music" ???

 

The question should be:

 

"Is today´s POP music awful ?"

 

And when that were the question, I´d say YES, because most POP music was and is awful, just because it was never a piece of art,- some special designed product for a precisely defined market instead.

And it´s also been done in the hope to make big cash quickly.

 

So, when it sells, it´s great.

In fact, it doesn´t matter if THE PRODUCT is (or contains) music or not.

 

I tell ya, as a studio session artist, I made big profit from that behaviour.

I called myself a "music hooker" at that time because it felt like prostitution.

OTOH, I was happy I was able paying for my rent, all the bills, the gear, service and food always,- and some extravagant life in addition.

And when I toured, I worked for the artists I had recorded that crap before.

Great jobs because they had the fans/audience and consequently the budget to do tournaments and pay well for my services.

 

At the same time, my idealistic friends were flat broke throughout, but played and recorded great music earning lots of praise and honor.

 

Now ask what I really love and it´s all jazz, fusion and some prog and rock.

But when I´d tried to do that to make a living, I´d never been alive anymore I fear.

I always loved to play my instruments and earn a living without the need to have a backup/day-job.

 

Why dissing POP music when it´s the basis to make a living for so many musicians in the world ?

I´d better try viewing it as some survival strategy instead of a shame.

 

At least I myself, I was happy it existed as long as I did it and not enough, I still get money for the stuff I did in the past and still doodles in radio and tv.

It helps when being ill, old or both and you cannot gig anymore.

 

A.C.

 

There are 2 points. ( not pointed at you, AL)

 

for some/many, to make some money playing their instrument, they will mostly play pop, top 40, mostly 'commercial' if the bucks are there. The snobby question, is do you find that ' satisfying ' ?

 

Is it satisfying, in terms of your time, advancing your skill, and telling people " this is what I stand for "

 

I think the comeback is ' you have got to be kidding ' or " the pop 40 I play is demanding enough "

 

Next, is the retro perspective. Lets define it. I played in rock bands in the 70's. I know, BFD.

 

The material(artists) we covered; Stones, Santana, Chicago, Chaka Kahn, Doobies, 1 ELP song, 1 Yes song (roundabout) , Zeppelin, Foreigner, Deep Purple.

 

75% of our set material was fun to play( I doubled on guitar). We also added in our little jam arrangements to spice it up further.

 

25% of our set material was on the cheesy side. It was tolerable.

 

I don't know what its like today for a keyboardist doing pop 40, thats current or goes back 10 years. If the ratio is 75% I like / 25% cheese, that seems ok.

 

So maybe this debate needs some balance, based on your set list(s)

 

My skepticism begins when I read 'everything I play in the set list is great. here are 2 examples '. That assertion needs more beef IMO.

[MathOfInsects]

my daughter listens to disney sirius. it is also not my thing.

 

That's what they all say.

[CowboyNQ]

Nowadays, the newer music I hear runs the same ole gamut from good to bad.

^ This^

Yep this is where I am, too.

 

Back when I used to listen regularly to the Top 40 in the 80's and early 90's some of the tunes were head-scratchingly terrible, some were ok and some were wonderful.

 

Not sure that much has changed, other than I don't go out of my way to listen to pop music any more.

[The Real MC]

Not sure that much has changed, other than I don't go out of my way to listen to pop music any more.

 

I haven't listened to broadcast radio since 2006.

 

By then the new music no longer appealed to me and the ads were getting really intrusive. I had quite a lot of business travel and discovered a lot of good music that broadcast radio wasn't playing.

 

In 2006 I bought a car that had a radio/CD player that could play mp3 CDs. I could put ~150 mp3s on a single CD, press random play, and I had my own radio without the damn ads. That was so liberating.

 

It took a while to rip my CDs to mp3, but it was well worth it.

[burningbusch]

 

I don't know what its like today for a keyboardist doing pop 40, thats current or goes back 10 years. If the ratio is 75% I like / 25% cheese, that seems ok.

 

See, I think this is, for the most part, a non-entity. Kids aren't playing in Top 40 bands. If a venue wants that music, they'll just hire a DJ. It's far easier and the crowd gets the music they want to hear, not the music the bands wants to play. The young people I know who are playing live are doing far more edgy stuff. The play smaller clubs to a crowd that hates Katy Perry as much as any grandpa around here.

 

Busch.

[burningbusch]

Next, is the retro perspective. Lets define it. I played in rock bands in the 70's. I know, BFD.

 

The material(artists) we covered; Stones, Santana, Chicago, Chaka Kahn, Doobies, 1 ELP song, 1 Yes song (roundabout) , Zeppelin, Foreigner, Deep Purple.

 

75% of our set material was fun to play( I doubled on guitar). We also added in our little jam arrangements to spice it up further.

 

25% of our set material was on the cheesy side. It was tolerable.

 

 

Most bands playing in the 70s were covering popular album songs, not top 40. Top 40 bands worked the Holiday Inn circuit, with pastel leisure suits. It was horrible. I had offers but never had to do it.

 

Busch.

[hag01]

When I hear the term "modern music", the first association that comes into my head is composers like arnold schoenberg and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

 

In the last few decades, popular music didn't really changed much, in musicological terms.

[Josh Paxton]

I get confused so easily in these threads. Is this the point where, for the sake of appearing hiply inclusive and non-elitist and in tune with the current zeitgeist, we're supposed to pretend that a two-bar, four-chord loop repeating for three minutes with some predictable breaks, a few resonant noise sweeps, and some blatantly auto-tuned vocals over top of it isn't utterly insipid? Because while I'm sure there is some modern music that doesn't fit that description and isn't utterly insipid, an awful lot of it does and is.

[J. Dan]

There has always been both good music and bad music. I have a problem with the way they compare and the criteria they use to compare.

 

First, the market is very different. In the 50s and 60s you only had access to what was printed on records and/or played on the radio. Compare that to now, when most of the music is streamed and there is access to a far greater variety of music, including that which is not signed to any record label or getting any airplay.

 

What constitutes "Pop"? Given the very different way music is consumed currently compared to the past, what's the measure? Record Sales? Radio Play? Downloads/streams? Anyway you look at it, there is a changing measure of what is pop. Then you have to ask, was Beatles pop? Was Led Zeppelin pop?

 

First thing you have to do is pull the Beatles out of the equation because they were a massive influence that crossed from pop (even covers) in their early years to more experimental music. They are almost a once in a century type influence. Next remove the fact that the 70s were a time when a lot of more progressive music managed to make it into mainstream. That still doesn't make it pop, it just means the culture at the time was more open to alternative styles of music. ELP was not pop, even though they got airplay.

 

Next I take exception to the analytics used to measure the music. Lack of dynamics due to overuse of compression has to do with PRODUCTION, not the writing/performance of the songs themselves, and again also has to do with the media used to deliver the content.

 

You can always pick examples from each decade to try to show any kind of trend you want. If we want to talk strictly pop, and within that group, talk song complexity and lyrical complexity, here's one from each decade:

 

50s

 

[video:youtube]3rYoRaxgOE0

 

60s

 

[video:youtube]4V1p1dM3snQ

 

70s

 

[video:youtube]0N7LCvMQxHU

 

80s

 

[video:youtube]Zi_XLOBDo_Y

 

90s

 

[video:youtube]gwWRjvwlLKg

 

00s

 

[video:youtube]iP6XpLQM2Cs

 

10s (currently I think #2 this year for downloads/streams)

 

[video:youtube]2Vv-BfVoq4g

 

 

[JohnG11]

Everything pretty much peaked with Vivaldi.....we've been on a long downhill slide ever since.....

 

Surely you mean Joh. Seb. Bach?

[Song80s]

There has always been both good music and bad music. I have a problem with the way they compare and the criteria they use to compare.

 

First, the market is very different. In the 50s and 60s you only had access to what was printed on records and/or played on the radio. Compare that to now, when most of the music is streamed and there is access to a far greater variety of music, including that which is not signed to any record label or getting any airplay.

 

What constitutes "Pop"? Given the very different way music is consumed currently compared to the past, what's the measure? Record Sales? Radio Play? Downloads/streams? Anyway you look at it, there is a changing measure of what is pop. Then you have to ask, was Beatles pop? Was Led Zeppelin pop?

 

First thing you have to do is pull the Beatles out of the equation because they were a massive influence that crossed from pop (even covers) in their early years to more experimental music. They are almost a once in a century type influence. Next remove the fact that the 70s were a time when a lot of more progressive music managed to make it into mainstream. That still doesn't make it pop, it just means the culture at the time was more open to alternative styles of music. ELP was not pop, even though they got airplay.

 

Next I take exception to the analytics used to measure the music. Lack of dynamics due to overuse of compression has to do with PRODUCTION, not the writing/performance of the songs themselves, and again also has to do with the media used to deliver the content.

 

You can always pick examples from each decade to try to show any kind of trend you want. If we want to talk strictly pop, and within that group, talk song complexity and lyrical complexity, here's one from each decade:

 

50s

 

[video:youtube]3rYoRaxg0

 

60s

 

[video:youtub

70s

 

[video:youtu

 

80s

 

[video:youtu

 

90s

 

[video:youtube]g

 

00s

 

[video:youtube]iP6

 

10s (currently I think #2 this year for downloads/streams)

 

[video:youtube]2Vv-BfVoq4g

 

 

Good post. This helps in the debate with your concrete examples.

 

I think "perfect' to be a good example of 'Pop'.

 

As a keyboardist and an artist, you could not pay me to perform this song.

(call me a snob, I can handle it)

 

If anyone has to perform this song in your set list, well, I don't see where

the challenge is. Even the string section backup is basic stuff.

 

Those chords, tempo, instruments are elementary, its a simple song.

 

The song is all about the vocal. Everything else seems to be simple

backup is my quick analysis. Is this song going to be 'classic '

in 20 years ? LOL.