5 ms·

No, it's not. It's because they're crap. Go back a decade or three before that point in time, and the radio stations were all independent and not owned by a s

No, it's not. It's because they're crap. Go back a decade or three before that point in time, and the radio stations were all independent and not owned by a single big corporation (ClearChannel). The entire music industry is very different now (or in 2000) than it was in 1970 or 1980 or even 1990. Finally, if you have an ear for music, you should be able to listen to music from other periods before you were born and find stuff that's really high quality, even if it's not a genre you normally listen to. Not so for post-2000 stuff (unless maybe it's some indie stuff or something obscure, not radio pop). Now as for 1016, music was really different in the days before recorded music. The classical stuff like Brahms and Beethoven was paid for by rich patrons (nobility usually) and played for richer audiences. The common people's music isn't very well known, since no one recorded it. The music that the King in 1016 listened to was surely not the same as what the peasants listened to.

Symbiote 10y ago
Beethoven wrote music from the 17th-18th century, and Brahms in the 18th. That's essentially modern music, when the comparison is with the 11th century. It's recorded on paper, and we can reproduce it easily. "Summer is icumin in" is from the 13th century (I can't find a reasonable recording). This is older, and was on HN 5 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11607392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11607392 / http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/first-performance-in-1000-years-lost-songs-from-the-middle-ages-are-brought-back-to-life-0 http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/first-performance-in-1000... In addition to peasant and court music, there was religious music. But I have no idea how common it was.
- Grishnakh 10y ago
  >Beethoven wrote music from the 17th-18th century, and Brahms in the 18th. That's essentially modern music, when the comparison is with the 11th century. It's recorded on paper, and we can reproduce it easily. Totally wrong. It wasn't recorded electronically, and you needed a whole orchestra of highly skilled musicians to reproduce it. Your average guy on the street in 1885 did not have this. Your average guy on the street in 1985, however, could just turn on his Sony Walkman and listen to a cassette tape of whatever music he wanted to, or to FM radio. This makes the music industry entirely different. The ability to record sound and play it back on a mechanical (or electronic) device without any musicians changed everything, and brought music to the masses in a way they never had access to it before. Before this, the average person either had to pay to attend a concert (probably not a frequent occurrence, just like attending concerts isn't exactly a daily activity for people today), or maybe he had his own (not very high-end) instrument and tried to play some things by himself or with some friends. That's an entirely different culture than one where people can listen to professional musicians play music at almost any time or place thanks to stereos, headphones, etc.
  - ptaipale 10y ago
    I don't think it's "totally wrong". Yes, you need a competent musician to play organ, or a skilled orchestra to repeat the partiture of a 18th century composition, but we have a good idea of what it sounded like. The tempo may be a bit of guesswork but probably not too far off. And if it can be played, it can be recorded and listened by anyone.
    - Grishnakh 10y ago
      No, it can't be. Maybe you're rich enough to hire a symphony, but some random laborer in 1885 was not. That's the whole point: everything has changed because music is accessible to the common man now, in a way that it never was before the invention of recorded music.
  - Symbiote 10y ago
    Simply being expensive doesn't make my point "totally wrong". It's not expensive, anyway: the cost is shared between all who buy the recording, or attend the concert. Early Medieval music can't be reproduced at any cost, with the few exceptions we have requiring years of study before they were understood. Also, I think people would have heard lots of music. Pubs in Britain used to have pianos, Irish pubs are known for having musicians, folk dancing was common, etc.
    - Grishnakh 10y ago
      >Also, I think people would have heard lots of music. Pubs in Britain used to have pianos, Irish pubs are known for having musicians, folk dancing was common, etc. How often did these pub-goers hear Brahms or Vivaldi? Probably never. They heard whatever music that local musicians played, or whatever they figured out how to play as amateurs, and that was about it. They didn't have companies finding talented musicians in different regions, countries, or continents and marketing them, recording their music, and making it available for them to buy a copy so they could listen to it while driving to work.
- DonaldFisk 10y ago
  I think you mean Beethoven was 18th-19th century, and Brahms was 19th century.
ptaipale 10y ago
One thing I'm glad is that my two sons listen to a lot of good stuff (1970's hard rock, music that was not new when I was a teen, or even The Beatles, from around the time I was born). It makes life more tolerable. What makes me sad is that over here, the public broadcaster (government-owned) has playlists for pop just like the commercial radio stations do. I don't understand why, and it makes radio very very dull.

Symbiote 10y ago

Beethoven wrote music from the 17th-18th century, and Brahms in the 18th. That's essentially modern music, when the comparison is with the 11th century. It's recorded on paper, and we can reproduce it easily. "Summer is icumin in" is from the 13th century (I can't find a reasonable recording). This is older, and was on HN 5 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11607392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11607392 / http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/first-performance-in-1000-years-lost-songs-from-the-middle-ages-are-brought-back-to-life-0 http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/first-performance-in-1000... In addition to peasant and court music, there was religious music. But I have no idea how common it was.

Grishnakh 10y ago
>Beethoven wrote music from the 17th-18th century, and Brahms in the 18th. That's essentially modern music, when the comparison is with the 11th century. It's recorded on paper, and we can reproduce it easily. Totally wrong. It wasn't recorded electronically, and you needed a whole orchestra of highly skilled musicians to reproduce it. Your average guy on the street in 1885 did not have this. Your average guy on the street in 1985, however, could just turn on his Sony Walkman and listen to a cassette tape of whatever music he wanted to, or to FM radio. This makes the music industry entirely different. The ability to record sound and play it back on a mechanical (or electronic) device without any musicians changed everything, and brought music to the masses in a way they never had access to it before. Before this, the average person either had to pay to attend a concert (probably not a frequent occurrence, just like attending concerts isn't exactly a daily activity for people today), or maybe he had his own (not very high-end) instrument and tried to play some things by himself or with some friends. That's an entirely different culture than one where people can listen to professional musicians play music at almost any time or place thanks to stereos, headphones, etc.
- ptaipale 10y ago
  I don't think it's "totally wrong". Yes, you need a competent musician to play organ, or a skilled orchestra to repeat the partiture of a 18th century composition, but we have a good idea of what it sounded like. The tempo may be a bit of guesswork but probably not too far off. And if it can be played, it can be recorded and listened by anyone.
  - Grishnakh 10y ago
    No, it can't be. Maybe you're rich enough to hire a symphony, but some random laborer in 1885 was not. That's the whole point: everything has changed because music is accessible to the common man now, in a way that it never was before the invention of recorded music.
- Symbiote 10y ago
  Simply being expensive doesn't make my point "totally wrong". It's not expensive, anyway: the cost is shared between all who buy the recording, or attend the concert. Early Medieval music can't be reproduced at any cost, with the few exceptions we have requiring years of study before they were understood. Also, I think people would have heard lots of music. Pubs in Britain used to have pianos, Irish pubs are known for having musicians, folk dancing was common, etc.
  - Grishnakh 10y ago
    >Also, I think people would have heard lots of music. Pubs in Britain used to have pianos, Irish pubs are known for having musicians, folk dancing was common, etc. How often did these pub-goers hear Brahms or Vivaldi? Probably never. They heard whatever music that local musicians played, or whatever they figured out how to play as amateurs, and that was about it. They didn't have companies finding talented musicians in different regions, countries, or continents and marketing them, recording their music, and making it available for them to buy a copy so they could listen to it while driving to work.
DonaldFisk 10y ago
I think you mean Beethoven was 18th-19th century, and Brahms was 19th century.

ptaipale 10y ago

One thing I'm glad is that my two sons listen to a lot of good stuff (1970's hard rock, music that was not new when I was a teen, or even The Beatles, from around the time I was born). It makes life more tolerable. What makes me sad is that over here, the public broadcaster (government-owned) has playlists for pop just like the commercial radio stations do. I don't understand why, and it makes radio very very dull.