Poll: Is pop music the best it’s ever been?

Is pop music the best it’s ever been?

  • Yes

    Votes: 2 2.9%

  • No

    Votes: 56 80.0%

  • Chicken bovril is particularly hard to find these days.

    Votes: 21 30.0%
  • Total voters
    70

Nitefly

Nitefly

Nitefly

Man of Honour
Joined
24 Sep 2005
Posts
36,044
I think… maybe yes?

I don’t really listen to much of it, but my general impression is that there is way more effort put into production and sounds and just the overall vibe of a pop song… everything sounds much less ‘pedestrian’… less ‘heart FM’.

Just for the sake of example, compare these two Kylie mega-hits. Her new single is an absolute banger! Haven’t seen the music video so ignore whatever comes up :D


Compare this to the pedestrian dross that is ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head’ - I absolutely hate this track…


Anyone else think similar?

Edit: despite the silly title, I was more intending to refer to what I’d broadly consider ‘modern music’ (~post-80s).
 
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Bluecube said:
Hell no. Pop music peaked in the ‘80s and it’s not been so much as downhill as diving off a cliff ever since
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Yup lots of great 80s stuff, great and instantly recognisable me sound palette.

I think the 90s was the very worst with its pop group stuff. The 2000s were then quite ‘reactive / faddy’.

Edit: this post has made me realise that I was really intending to refer to ‘modern era music’… so my thread title was silly and misleading - oh well! :o :D
 
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Nitefly said:
Just for the sake of example, compare these two Kylie mega-hits. Her new single is an absolute banger! Haven’t seen the music video so ignore whatever comes up :D
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No, you only think it's good is because the radio are conditioning you to think that. I had radio 2 on in the car last week for an hour and they couldn't stop going on about it.

I heard it and thought it was like early 2000s generic euro trash, it sounded as though it had actually been written for the 2002 Eurovision Song Contest. I actually had to go and check to see if it was the same song they'd been going on about. It's utterly awful.

Bluecube said:
Hell no. Pop music peaked in the ‘80s and it’s not been so much as downhill as diving off a cliff ever since
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This.
 
like others have already said, 80s all the way.

Genesis , dead or alive , bon jovi etc stuff that will never get old .


even my nephew (who is ten) thinks 80s stuff is better compared to the noises that come out of todays audio nonsense.

(ok I might have bribed him a bit with some chocolate cake, but that does not have effect on the decision, I swear)
 
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Feek said:
No, you only think it's good is because the radio are conditioning you to think that. I had radio 2 on in the car last week for an hour and they couldn't stop going on about it.

I heard it and thought it was like early 2000s generic euro trash, it sounded as though it had actually been written for the 2002 Eurovision Song Contest. I actually had to go and check to see if it was the same song they'd been going on about. It's utterly awful.
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It was more of an example to compare with the other Kylie song, which to my mind is much more reminiscent of the more boring sort of pedestrian pop I was alluding to in the OP.
 
It's never been worse.

Classic quote here:

"I don’t really listen to much of it"

:cry:

PS "Cant get you out of my head", was 2001 which would make in "modern" by your own defintion...oh and PS it's far better than Padam Padam, which is a great example of why modern pop music is so bad - it's all production and little else, which is why everything sounds the same it's the same voice enhancement and sound/vibe on everything, check out from 0.50 - everything sounds like this.

It's rank.

Being an indie kid in the 80s, I didn't like a lot of the current pop of the time, like Wham, Duran Duran, Spandau, Collins/Genesis/Gabriel vibe, but I did like Human League and ABC a lot, PSB, Yazoo, Depeche Mode et al

But even the really naff pop stuff I disliked back then is far better and has aged far better than modern rubbish, and we also had the likes of Prince.

Modern bands? LOL don't get me started...it was way better back them, the last 10-15 years have been absolutely terrible. Like them or not bands like Guns and Roses, Oasis, Metallica (still going obv) and Nirvana took over the World, the were incomprehensively huge at the time, there's nothing even comparable today.
 
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Darujhistan said:
PS "Cant get you out of my head", was 2001 which would make in "modern" by your own defintion...
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Yes. My proposition (as revised! :)) was that today’s pop music is generally better than pop music of what I consider the modern era (90s onwards).

Darujhistan said:
oh and PS it's far better than Padam Padam
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No :o :p

Darujhistan said:
which is a great example of why modern pop music is so bad - it's all production and little else, which is why everything sounds the same it's the same voice enhancement and sound/vibe on everything, check out from 0.50 - everything sounds like this.
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Interesting, the improved production is why I generally tend to like modern pop compared to a lot of what has come before. That and more emotive lyrics… generally.

Darujhistan said:
Modern bands? LOL don't get me started...it was way better them, the last 10-15 years have been absolutely terrible. Like them or not bands like Guns and Roses, Oasis, Metallica (still going obv) and Nirvana took over the World, the were incomprehensively huge at the time, there's nothing even comparable today.
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Yup, rock is definitely ‘out’ of the mainstream.

As for an example of a decent modern pop artist I’d probably go with… The Weeknd. Which is interesting (sort of :confused: :p ) as many of his hits have an 80s style soundscape.
 
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So in your estimation the "modern era" doesn't include today but does include music from 30 years ago? Interesting take on what "modern" means :cry:

So in summary you like today's over-produced, synthetic pap and laughably mid rubbish like The Weeknd, which is fine - that's personal taste, but that's not great evidence for claiming that music today is better than the 90s for example, especially as you also admit you don't listen to much if todays music anyway. I definitely agree there's a lot more (fake) emoting in today's music though, which is one of the major reasons why it's so bland, lame and pathetic.

I think what you've done is listened to two Kylie songs from different era's, liked the over-production and corpo blandness of Padam Padam more than CGYOOMH, and decided that that means today's pop is better than pop from decades ago.
 
Darujhistan said:
So in your estimation the "modern era" doesn't include today but does include music from 30 years ago? Interesting take on what "modern" means :cry:.
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:o

I really don’t think it’s a necessary edit, but does this make it easier for you to follow?

My proposition (as revised! :)) was that today’s pop music is generally better than pop music from the rest of what I consider the modern era (90s onwards).
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I don’t know why you are taking such an antagonistic tone - it’s supposed to be a fun and lighthearted thread for people to discuss their preferred music etc.
 
The trend seems to be for it to get dumber and dumber musically with each decade, even with modern production allowing for pretty much anything to be made as long as it can be imagined and overt cheese being consigned to history, for the moment. Things like key changes are almost completely a thing of the past.
 
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