6 ms·

> Modern music is a mirror image of the internet culture as well. Blasted with as many synth hooks and processed vocal melodies as possible. This seems a littl

by warent 7y ago

> Modern music is a mirror image of the internet culture as well. Blasted with as many synth hooks and processed vocal melodies as possible. This seems a little bit like a fist-shaking "back in my day!" kind of judgemental statement. Music is a matter of taste and what you're approaching here doesn't relate to the topic.

ACow_Adonis 7y ago
like fashion, it's both a matter of taste, but is also a matter of culture, technology and tools. Invention of the radio, coupled then with the automobile, supported by advertising during drive time shows, has created a popular genre focused on simple short repetitive themes repeated 3 to 4 times, identifiable and quotable in a few second segments, and with a run time limited typically to 2 to 4 minutes. As a social researcher, one of the most frustrating things I found was this deep cultural idea that reacts against cultural context and analysis. a lot of people seem deeply offended that ideas of taste might have something to do with external forces or manipulation, time and place in the same way they get offended about the idea that their religion and culture is also largely determined by time and place: yet it's undeniably true...
- warent 7y ago
  I think we're talking past each other a little bit here. There's no denying that taste isn't augmented and influenced by "external forces or manipulation" (what, in all of society and culture, isn't?) and current pop is a fairly well-defined genre. I'm agreeing with everything you're saying. But that has nothing to do with the commenter relating "modern music" to a "constant bombardment of shit" which is what my reply was addressing.
  - warent 7y ago
    Correction: I meant "There's no denying that taste is augmented..." not isn't but I think you all figured that out by now :)
alxlaz 7y ago
The thing that makes it sound so much like a fist-shaking "back in my day" is that it reduces modern music to popular, heavily-promoted, commercially-successful popular music. There is money to be made out of superficial music, fit for consumption as a background to parties and dance, tailored for the least common denominator in terms of intellect. But that has always been the case; nostalgia aside, the "current" music of pretty much every decade has been pretty bad. Sure, the greatest hits are, well, great. But if you dig a little, you'll find that the songs that were just below the greatest hits in terms of popularity -- but hugely popular nonetheless! -- are pretty bad. But there are plenty of artists making good music today. And frankly, I think the current situation, where we have things like Bandcamp and Youtube and whatnot is better than ever before. If I'd been a teenager in the 1970s it's extremely unlikely that I'd have heard of bands like, say, Malicorne -- superb music but with success limited to their own country mostly. Nowadays, if there's a great band making great music in Ittoqqortoormiit, there's a good chance you can hear about them and listen to their stuff.
- copperx 7y ago
  There has been absolutely wonderful music in every single decade, and I dare say every year since recoded music has existed. I can't help but roll my eyes when people say that 80s music was bad. Sure, popular music was an abomination (when hasn't it?); but even if you searched a bit you would have found great music lurking in the shadows.
  - nothrabannosir 7y ago
    Agreed, though I would sooner say the 80s were the only decade where popular music was actually good. :)
- rorykoehler 7y ago
  Music has never been better imo. It's just that there is more of it so you have to go looking. If you don't know how to do that or aren't interested enough to invest in it you're going to come to the fist shakers conclusion.
Will_Parker 7y ago
> Music is a matter of taste I'm mostly with you with one exception. If there's one thing that may be objectively evolved, it is the power of the raw human singing voice. With all its expressivity, dynamics, range, colours, individualism, and overtones. I claim that anyone who studies carefully the pure sound of the voice and what it is capable of will always hear synth vocals as superficial. (I don't care genre, whether it's opera, art song, jazz, blues, hip hop or vocal music from any culture).
- GenghisSean 7y ago
  Another class of instruments that has evolved in all of the ways you named is the synthesizer. Certainly vocal performance is a very old tradition but to write off synth vocals as superficial is in my opinion throwing the baby out with the bath water. Sound synthesis has gone from an experimental and avant-garde playground to one of the most expressive and versatile fields of music composition. Techniques like additive, FM, and physical modeling synthesis have opened up whole new worlds of musical possibilities to explore. The combination of synths with vocals only widens the expressivity, range, color, and ultimately individualism that voice alone can accomplish. For every autotuned vocal track in bad taste there are just as many creative uses of vocoders, talk boxes, filters and samplers that enhance creative expression.
  - PavlovsCat 7y ago
    I agree with you both.. and offer as common ground an example of pure vocal bliss, yet in a song enabled by technology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7OYsGAp_QY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7OYsGAp_QY
    - erikpukinskis 7y ago
      I was sure you were going to link to this: https://youtu.be/Y6ljFaKRTrI https://youtu.be/Y6ljFaKRTrI
      - PavlovsCat 7y ago
suchagree 7y ago
The only problem morons don't understand is that all music is moronic. Do you sit around and jerk off all your life? Welcome to the music scene. Music is a thing for morons.
undulation 7y ago
Well, it's not entirely fist-shaking about the 'good ol days'. There has been research done into this that shows that modern music has become more repetitive: https://pudding.cool/2017/05/song-repetition/ https://pudding.cool/2017/05/song-repetition/
- tomc1985 7y ago
  But why is repetition considered "bad music"? The mind craves certain kinds of repetition. I'm big on the electronic music scene here; and once you're in the zone that repetitive four-on-the-floor 120/140bpm dance beat begins to feel like a heartbeat: essential, calming, and deadly if stopped On another note I recall hearing about some anthropologists who claim that the acoustics of Stonehenge are optimal for repetitive drumming in the 130-150bpm range, suggesting it to be an ancient dancehall for prehistoric techno beats
  - thomastjeffery 7y ago
    On that note, I find the best thing about EDM is that that repetition is used as a foundation for musical themes, and that expression is done by subtly changing repetitions to make new themes, then mixing them all together in interesting ways. There's definitely something meditative about it.
cyberferret 7y ago
I am going to have to back the parent comment about music, having had first hand experience with this. My son is currently trying to break into the music industry. He is a gifted guitarist and musician [0], but whenever he talks to music producers and execs, he is told that his songwriting is too complex, his songs too long (avg 4 minutes) and his lyrics too deep for the current generation of music buyers (read: teenagers and young girls). He is being told repeatedly by the people who make the decisions that he needs to reduce his songs to a basic beat with a couple of good hooks and not much more than that (apart from adding some eletronica). These are the people who fund albums and promotions these days. This is their criteria. From the horses mouth. [0] - https://instagram.com/jordanravimusic https://instagram.com/jordanravimusic
- spacegod 7y ago
  As a millennial/gen z music person, the problem is that your son is a guitarist. Guitar rock is dead. Foo Fighters, Qotsa,tool offshoot bands are all too 2000's. Sample and synth based rock is alive. We can simply sample any guitar lines and warp them to fit the beat. No need to hire a guitarist. Rock has moved on. It moved on in 2000 following the releases of Radiohead's Kid A, The Flaming Lips' The Soft Bulletin, Outkast's Stankonia and the Avalanches' Since I Left You. All are rock records that have minimal guitar use. Factor in that the Neptunes, Just Blaze, Kanye West, and Madlib dominated 2000's production styles moving them towards sampling. The 2010's is even more towards this style with the emergence of vaporwave and the new jazz rap fusion that Kendrick Lamar, J Cole and Thundercat make. I cannot think of the last time a guitar centric artist hit #1 outside of Post Malone. I don't even think Post Malone plays guitar on any of his hits either. Lastly your kid is not deeper than the other kids lyrically. Get off of your high horse and stop leading your kid towards a path to hell.
  - cyberferret 7y ago
    > Lastly your kid is not deeper than the other kids lyrically. Get off of your high horse and stop leading your kid towards a path to hell. Did you deduce that from looking at his Instagram feed that I posted above? A feed that pretty much contains NONE of his original material and only covers of current songs? That you didn't recognise that pretty much shows your total and complete lack of knowledge of the music industry today. You should spend less time at the (computer) keyboard and go listen to more live music. Lastly, Where did you get the idea I was leading him anywhere? All his choices, I am just reporting what I see when he talks to music execs.
dang 7y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20384256 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20384256.

by warent 7y ago

ACow_Adonis 7y ago

like fashion, it's both a matter of taste, but is also a matter of culture, technology and tools. Invention of the radio, coupled then with the automobile, supported by advertising during drive time shows, has created a popular genre focused on simple short repetitive themes repeated 3 to 4 times, identifiable and quotable in a few second segments, and with a run time limited typically to 2 to 4 minutes. As a social researcher, one of the most frustrating things I found was this deep cultural idea that reacts against cultural context and analysis. a lot of people seem deeply offended that ideas of taste might have something to do with external forces or manipulation, time and place in the same way they get offended about the idea that their religion and culture is also largely determined by time and place: yet it's undeniably true...

warent 7y ago
I think we're talking past each other a little bit here. There's no denying that taste isn't augmented and influenced by "external forces or manipulation" (what, in all of society and culture, isn't?) and current pop is a fairly well-defined genre. I'm agreeing with everything you're saying. But that has nothing to do with the commenter relating "modern music" to a "constant bombardment of shit" which is what my reply was addressing.
- warent 7y ago
  Correction: I meant "There's no denying that taste is augmented..." not isn't but I think you all figured that out by now :)

alxlaz 7y ago

The thing that makes it sound so much like a fist-shaking "back in my day" is that it reduces modern music to popular, heavily-promoted, commercially-successful popular music. There is money to be made out of superficial music, fit for consumption as a background to parties and dance, tailored for the least common denominator in terms of intellect. But that has always been the case; nostalgia aside, the "current" music of pretty much every decade has been pretty bad. Sure, the greatest hits are, well, great. But if you dig a little, you'll find that the songs that were just below the greatest hits in terms of popularity -- but hugely popular nonetheless! -- are pretty bad. But there are plenty of artists making good music today. And frankly, I think the current situation, where we have things like Bandcamp and Youtube and whatnot is better than ever before. If I'd been a teenager in the 1970s it's extremely unlikely that I'd have heard of bands like, say, Malicorne -- superb music but with success limited to their own country mostly. Nowadays, if there's a great band making great music in Ittoqqortoormiit, there's a good chance you can hear about them and listen to their stuff.

copperx 7y ago
There has been absolutely wonderful music in every single decade, and I dare say every year since recoded music has existed. I can't help but roll my eyes when people say that 80s music was bad. Sure, popular music was an abomination (when hasn't it?); but even if you searched a bit you would have found great music lurking in the shadows.
- nothrabannosir 7y ago
  Agreed, though I would sooner say the 80s were the only decade where popular music was actually good. :)
rorykoehler 7y ago
Music has never been better imo. It's just that there is more of it so you have to go looking. If you don't know how to do that or aren't interested enough to invest in it you're going to come to the fist shakers conclusion.

Will_Parker 7y ago

> Music is a matter of taste I'm mostly with you with one exception. If there's one thing that may be objectively evolved, it is the power of the raw human singing voice. With all its expressivity, dynamics, range, colours, individualism, and overtones. I claim that anyone who studies carefully the pure sound of the voice and what it is capable of will always hear synth vocals as superficial. (I don't care genre, whether it's opera, art song, jazz, blues, hip hop or vocal music from any culture).

GenghisSean 7y ago
Another class of instruments that has evolved in all of the ways you named is the synthesizer. Certainly vocal performance is a very old tradition but to write off synth vocals as superficial is in my opinion throwing the baby out with the bath water. Sound synthesis has gone from an experimental and avant-garde playground to one of the most expressive and versatile fields of music composition. Techniques like additive, FM, and physical modeling synthesis have opened up whole new worlds of musical possibilities to explore. The combination of synths with vocals only widens the expressivity, range, color, and ultimately individualism that voice alone can accomplish. For every autotuned vocal track in bad taste there are just as many creative uses of vocoders, talk boxes, filters and samplers that enhance creative expression.
- PavlovsCat 7y ago
  I agree with you both.. and offer as common ground an example of pure vocal bliss, yet in a song enabled by technology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7OYsGAp_QY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7OYsGAp_QY
  - erikpukinskis 7y ago
    I was sure you were going to link to this: https://youtu.be/Y6ljFaKRTrI https://youtu.be/Y6ljFaKRTrI
    - PavlovsCat 7y ago

suchagree 7y ago

The only problem morons don't understand is that all music is moronic. Do you sit around and jerk off all your life? Welcome to the music scene. Music is a thing for morons.

undulation 7y ago

Well, it's not entirely fist-shaking about the 'good ol days'. There has been research done into this that shows that modern music has become more repetitive: https://pudding.cool/2017/05/song-repetition/ https://pudding.cool/2017/05/song-repetition/

tomc1985 7y ago
But why is repetition considered "bad music"? The mind craves certain kinds of repetition. I'm big on the electronic music scene here; and once you're in the zone that repetitive four-on-the-floor 120/140bpm dance beat begins to feel like a heartbeat: essential, calming, and deadly if stopped On another note I recall hearing about some anthropologists who claim that the acoustics of Stonehenge are optimal for repetitive drumming in the 130-150bpm range, suggesting it to be an ancient dancehall for prehistoric techno beats
- thomastjeffery 7y ago
  On that note, I find the best thing about EDM is that that repetition is used as a foundation for musical themes, and that expression is done by subtly changing repetitions to make new themes, then mixing them all together in interesting ways. There's definitely something meditative about it.

cyberferret 7y ago

I am going to have to back the parent comment about music, having had first hand experience with this. My son is currently trying to break into the music industry. He is a gifted guitarist and musician [0], but whenever he talks to music producers and execs, he is told that his songwriting is too complex, his songs too long (avg 4 minutes) and his lyrics too deep for the current generation of music buyers (read: teenagers and young girls). He is being told repeatedly by the people who make the decisions that he needs to reduce his songs to a basic beat with a couple of good hooks and not much more than that (apart from adding some eletronica). These are the people who fund albums and promotions these days. This is their criteria. From the horses mouth. [0] - https://instagram.com/jordanravimusic https://instagram.com/jordanravimusic

spacegod 7y ago
As a millennial/gen z music person, the problem is that your son is a guitarist. Guitar rock is dead. Foo Fighters, Qotsa,tool offshoot bands are all too 2000's. Sample and synth based rock is alive. We can simply sample any guitar lines and warp them to fit the beat. No need to hire a guitarist. Rock has moved on. It moved on in 2000 following the releases of Radiohead's Kid A, The Flaming Lips' The Soft Bulletin, Outkast's Stankonia and the Avalanches' Since I Left You. All are rock records that have minimal guitar use. Factor in that the Neptunes, Just Blaze, Kanye West, and Madlib dominated 2000's production styles moving them towards sampling. The 2010's is even more towards this style with the emergence of vaporwave and the new jazz rap fusion that Kendrick Lamar, J Cole and Thundercat make. I cannot think of the last time a guitar centric artist hit #1 outside of Post Malone. I don't even think Post Malone plays guitar on any of his hits either. Lastly your kid is not deeper than the other kids lyrically. Get off of your high horse and stop leading your kid towards a path to hell.
- cyberferret 7y ago
  > Lastly your kid is not deeper than the other kids lyrically. Get off of your high horse and stop leading your kid towards a path to hell. Did you deduce that from looking at his Instagram feed that I posted above? A feed that pretty much contains NONE of his original material and only covers of current songs? That you didn't recognise that pretty much shows your total and complete lack of knowledge of the music industry today. You should spend less time at the (computer) keyboard and go listen to more live music. Lastly, Where did you get the idea I was leading him anywhere? All his choices, I am just reporting what I see when he talks to music execs.

dang 7y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20384256 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20384256.