Is that in response to me?
Is older music better?
- Thread starter Narj
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Is that in response to me?
I'm the opposite. I listen to more music now than I watch film. If I see one more ****ing comic book adaption...
Kind of. I'm not saying that's how I view music, but a lot of my friends do.
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Man of Honour
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1) You could make an argument that most music ever produced has been pretty rubbish and it's just that the stuff that is the "best" which gets remembered, the mind has a tendency to filter out the less appealing and romanticise past times rather than the present. I'd take this point to remind you that Joe Dolce's Shaddap You Face kept Vienna off the number one slot and that's a fairly heinous record.
There's still good music being produced and some of it will be popular music but it doesn't fit with your tastes, that wouldn't imply that it is bad, just that you don't like it. That said I'd be fairly sure there's more dross than ever too, that's to be expected when the ability to produce music becomes so much more available.
2) No idea, I suspect the proliferation of different bands makes it much more difficult to get so widely known. Until perhaps the 90s you generally had fairly limited methods of reaching the public - TV/radio play coupled with touring and that probably about covered the methods available to most, now pretty much anyone with an internet connection can get access to a huge variety of music and it can be wildly more diverse than before. Previously if you went to the trouble of making a production run of records/tapes/CDs you'd generally hope to have an available market numbering more than 10 people to make the costs worth it while now you can produce a song and distribute it for little more cost than the time it takes you to do it so if you really want to hear Albanian electro breakbeat with a reggae twist there's probably someone out there who's already done it.
Wouldn't it also be reasonable to think that it gets more difficult to produce something totally original now due to the amount of work that has gone before? Just as it gets more difficult to find a new place to explore in the World (e.g. most first ascents have already been taken so you can only really do it faster or in a slightly different way) it probably also gets more difficult to do something completely novel.
That's not to say that there isn't a whole heap of rubbish out there where people are just jumping on the back of quality work that has previously been produced and hoping some of the magic rubs off on them but simply asking whether expecting such innovation as previously is slightly unrealistic?
I think I'd prefer it if the same stylistic quirks weren't in every single Nicki Minaj record I've ever heard, she might be no worse in that regard than many others but they're distinctive enough to stand out in each song.
There was a big gap between Bjork and then falling over Ellie Goulding,
there has been a few one hit wonders in between, but nobody to really love.
I think finding good music now has changed, it will never be in the Top40, it will never be on TV or daytime radio, you'll just stumble across it in a music thread and it will click.
I probably found XX from a YouTube crawl and 212 from a guy in here.
there has been a few one hit wonders in between, but nobody to really love.
I think finding good music now has changed, it will never be in the Top40, it will never be on TV or daytime radio, you'll just stumble across it in a music thread and it will click.
I probably found XX from a YouTube crawl and 212 from a guy in here.
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Soldato
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Sadly, a huge percentage of music produced currently is horrible aggressive stuff by 'urban' people.
It's trash, it's aggressive, it focuses on violence, drugs, having loads of cash but not working and putting down and threatening other unpleasant 'urban' people.
The worst thing, is that decent, law abiding normal people who should know better buy it!!
The country's knackered I'm afraid.
It's trash, it's aggressive, it focuses on violence, drugs, having loads of cash but not working and putting down and threatening other unpleasant 'urban' people.
The worst thing, is that decent, law abiding normal people who should know better buy it!!
The country's knackered I'm afraid.
This argument doesn't hold water for me. Musical standards in fifty years will be different to musical standards now. If the current trend continues, they'll be a whole lot worse. It's possible to look back and appreciate things from a different perspective.
Not only this, but some music is ahead of its time. Some stuff which is created now, and which we think is rubbish, may well be understood and appreciated in years to come.
It doesn't get harder to produce original music, there is just a total lack of imagination around at the moment due to too many people wanting to ape their inspirations and the Internet giving them a platform through which to do so. On the other hand the mainstream is not concerned with originality anymore, but cash. The great acts of the 70s and 80s wouldn't get so much exposure these days because their band members don't have 18 year old girls prancing round in tight dresses.
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Popular music now is in my opinion much better than the stuff from the 2000's and a lot of the 90's
Of course you have to look outside of the mainstream to find the gems from every decade. Its only as time goes on that these become recognised by the majority and get called classics.
Of course you have to look outside of the mainstream to find the gems from every decade. Its only as time goes on that these become recognised by the majority and get called classics.
Speak for yourself. I'm very much up to speed.
It's more to do with the fact that as we get older and listen to more music we can see who the new artists are copying.
This is the first important factor. The trouble is, the OP is comparing two different things: the best from the past, and all from the present. In the here and now, you get to hear a lot of stuff that will be forgotten within weeks, along with future classics. But for music more than about six months old, that filtering has started. The further back you go, the more dross has been filtered out, by memory and by radio play, and the higher the proportion of classics. This gives you an artificial idea of how good the music was in the past. As someone who lived through quite a few eras of music I have to tell you there has been a lot of excrement over the years, but most has been forgotten. It's exactly the same reason why people think that the past had better TV.
But yes, age plays a part. It's a good safe rule that people's musical taste is set when they are about 14 (as is a large part of their taste in all art forms), and as they get older they seek out music that feels similar. It may not necessarily be from that same time period, but it needs to bring back that feeling. However, it's also generally true that as you get older your musical taste gets ore mainstream. I'd like to think that in general people begin to prize content (song) over presentation (the band) more, if you want to think of it that way.
M
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Well I'm 26 and can say for certain that's not true in any way for me. At 14 I was listening to mostly metal but now I rarely listen to metal and listen to a broad range of genres. I think you're musical taste evolves for a large period of your life (or that's certainly true for the people I know)
Very good point. I find it hard to argue against that.
Good bad or whatever.
Popular music used to be variety, for every stock aiken and waterman, there was a rock god ripping up the charts neck and neck.
Each to their own, but im glad i brushed with the 70's 80's, 90's, early/mid 2k before popular became a one track suit, 90% of the chart being one thing.
The spice of life or so they say, kicks arse loving all different things, great, pap, poor or otherwise
Popular music used to be variety, for every stock aiken and waterman, there was a rock god ripping up the charts neck and neck.
Each to their own, but im glad i brushed with the 70's 80's, 90's, early/mid 2k before popular became a one track suit, 90% of the chart being one thing.
The spice of life or so they say, kicks arse loving all different things, great, pap, poor or otherwise
Man of Honour
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I'm glad that some of us aren't so musical fickle in Stoke On Trent.
On Friday night about 30 grey haired people in the audience of young uns were watching a young band attempt our music from when we were teenagers.
After 30 minutes there was tumbleweed because both sets of audience weren't enjoying what they were doing (Alright Now, Smoke On The Water etc).
I brushed past them and said 'Why don't you play something you want to play' and the singer said we would kick them out if they did.
After getting some of the grey hairs involved they decided to go into a tribute of the Big Four who are Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax and Megadeth and they went down a storm with all the grey hairs in there.
Here is a screen grab from FB -
god this thread i really didnt ned to see lol ...i lost all faith in music after the 80's .. enjoyed various stuff in teh 90's onwards but my gods most of it imo has been total pants .. and i dont class myself as old at 38 . its just i look back now and cant see any golden period during teh last 30 years of bristish music .
a certain miss s cole..... that last pile of pooh she released ...omg .......cant sing . can't dance and she gets praised for it ... she stood against a wall pouting for most of it....
a certain miss s cole..... that last pile of pooh she released ...omg .......cant sing . can't dance and she gets praised for it ... she stood against a wall pouting for most of it....