371–380 of 397 posts
"Home taping is killing music" The record companies did a fantastic job of killing music all by themselves, the quality has absolutely cratered and the occasional great artist that has made it through the long slog to recognition has done so despite the music industry, not because of. I spent a fortune on various formats and when streaming came along I simply refused to participate. I'm simply not going to pay a thir…
> the quality has absolutely cratered You just got old. It happens to everyone, and every generation says the same thing: The music I enjoyed when I was young and impressionable was great, but all the stuff they make nowadays is crap. People were whining about how Beatles destroyed music, how rock’n’roll was just monkey noise, how crooners like Sinatra wasn’t real singing.
My teenage kid strongly feels that modern pop music is trash quality compared to previous decades, thinks that new “underground” music is poorly mimicking previous decades, and bemoans the lack of current scenes that she can participate in. It’s a bit sad watching her sift through 90s/00s music rather than dig into new music of her generation, but I can hear the problem when she plays me both the underground and pop stuff her friends are listening to. It’s tame.
There have been profound infrastructural changes to cultural production and distribution, lead by SV and VCs. These have served to massively boost stock valuations of centralising digital platforms. The music they produce is affected by these changes. The faux meta genre “hyperpop” even exploits this (boringly imo). It’s reassuring to believe the kids are alright but the problem is not the kids.
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> the quality has absolutely cratered You just got old. It happens to everyone, and every generation says the same thing: The music I enjoyed when I was young and impressionable was great, but all the stuff they make nowadays is crap. People were whining about how Beatles destroyed music, how rock’n’roll was just monkey noise, how crooners like Sinatra wasn’t real singing.
Honestly this popular rebuttal actually appears more inaccurate and quaint to me than the opinion it’s dismissing. My teenage kid strongly feels that modern pop music is trash quality compared to previous decades, thinks that new “underground” music is poorly mimicking previous decades, and bemoans the lack of current scenes that she can participate in. It’s a bit sad watching her sift through 90s/00s music rather th…
The endless march of optimizing profits by investors who control an ever lopsided share of wealth destroys everything.
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> the quality has absolutely cratered You just got old. It happens to everyone, and every generation says the same thing: The music I enjoyed when I was young and impressionable was great, but all the stuff they make nowadays is crap. People were whining about how Beatles destroyed music, how rock’n’roll was just monkey noise, how crooners like Sinatra wasn’t real singing.
Honestly this popular rebuttal actually appears more inaccurate and quaint to me than the opinion it’s dismissing. My teenage kid strongly feels that modern pop music is trash quality compared to previous decades, thinks that new “underground” music is poorly mimicking previous decades, and bemoans the lack of current scenes that she can participate in. It’s a bit sad watching her sift through 90s/00s music rather th…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly this popular rebuttal actually appears more inaccurate and quaint to me than the opinion it’s dismissing. My teenage kid strongly feels that modern pop music is trash quality compared to previous decades, thinks that new “underground” music is poorly mimicking previous decades, and bemoans the lack of current scenes that she can participate in. It’s a bit sad watching her sift through 90s/00s music rather th…
What you describe is pretty common - a segement of younger people preferring older music, typically the music of their parents generation. This is nothing new either, not every young person liked Elvis either.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the quality has absolutely cratered You just got old. It happens to everyone, and every generation says the same thing: The music I enjoyed when I was young and impressionable was great, but all the stuff they make nowadays is crap. People were whining about how Beatles destroyed music, how rock’n’roll was just monkey noise, how crooners like Sinatra wasn’t real singing.
Ehh. I was in high school and college throughout the '90s and still think pop music quality peaked sometime between 1966 and 1986. It's not necessarily an age thing. I mean, I remember thinking that at the time too. There are still tons of great musicians and bands making new music today, but the stuff that most people are familiar with is dreck compared to what most people were familiar with fifty years ago. Among o…
Maybe you have just forgotten about all the dreck that was popular 50 years ago and only remember the classics?
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It’s also a sign you aren’t looking. Yeah, music is going to be trash if you’re just looking at what’s popular on the radio/TikTok/charts. Spend some time on bandcamp going through what’s been posted in your preferred genres.
“what’s popular on the radio /TikTok/charts” being gutter tier hogwash is exactly what they’re talking about. Humans didn’t lose the ability to create good interesting music, and nobody legitimately thinks that. The publishing industry prevents independent artists from reaching any kind of mainstream popularity. Indie artists need money and the publishers that decide the winners/losers by controlling all the traditio…
A publisher may wish to control distribution, but the cost to distribute any media (music, text, video, software) is nearly zero. The internet allows all of us to have a slush pile, to delve as deep for raw ore as we want. Some people want to go mining. Most don't and the traditional distribution networks ultimately market to such a person - and one way or another, we can't all delve through every slush pile. If you spend hours on SoundCloud or Bandcamp looking for music, you have less time to crawl for independent films or writing.
Any attempt to narrow the slush pile has the effect of marginalizing less mainstream efforts. If you read reviews or blogs to find things that seem worthy, then you are seeing what made it through someone else's slush pile. If you let the YouTube algorithm do it through recommendations, you are allowing Google to work through the slush pile.
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What you describe is pretty common - a segement of younger people preferring older music, typically the music of their parents generation. This is nothing new either, not every young person liked Elvis either.
I know. but what’s atypical is the tame-ness, the lack of energy and lack of community participation and shared experience in new music, and its sharp decline of perceived cultural value by the younger generation. I think the changing valuation and changing qualities are not wholly unrelated.
The reality is that yes, cassettes really were responsible for a substantial downturn in music revenue in the late 70s and early 80s: https://i.insider.com/4d5ea2acccd1d54e7c030000 Then cassettes got replaced with CDs which (initially) were read only, which again saved the market from piracy ... until online piracy with Napster and MP3 players completely crushed the music market, but far worse than cassettes. Even 20…
CD players hit the market in the mid 80s (I got my first one in 1988). The effect of cassette tapes would have really hit in the late 70s and early 80s as high bias tapes hit the market. In the 90s, CD players became affordable. Also, there was a big price difference between a cassette and a CD. Cassette was about $8 for a new album, CD was $14.
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I know. but what’s atypical is the tame-ness, the lack of energy and lack of community participation and shared experience in new music, and its sharp decline of perceived cultural value by the younger generation. I think the changing valuation and changing qualities are not wholly unrelated.
Was Gilbert O’Sullivan really that much better than Kenrick Lamar?
I have a lot of friends in the music industry since I used to work there until recently, both back end eg A&Rs and agents as well as artists. The common sentiment is that nothing new has happened in the last decade, everyone’s wondering why, and increasingly exasperated.
So okay, hip hop.. US trap has been largely in stasis since 2008/2010 (lex lugar era). Uk drill has been in stasis since 2017. Does 2023 Kendrick really sound much different to 2012 kendrick? Compare 2002 rap to 1992 rap.