5 ms·

My theory about "old" music: the 60's were essentially the golden age of Western culture, with brand new technology (synths, the electric guitar), and the sheer

My theory about "old" music: the 60's were essentially the golden age of Western culture, with brand new technology (synths, the electric guitar), and the sheer amount of absolutely new never heard before sounds coming out was insane. The wave kept going for a few decades, and now we're in a place where music is over-commercialized, perfectly produced, and there doesn't seem to be many new places to go with it. There's a lot of good new music nowadays, but you have to look for it, and it doesn't have the same impact as, for example, hearing White Rabbit for the first time. It's nearly all acquired taste. So, I think the problem here is that we lack impactful music because of a decaying culture, over-commercialization of the industry, and a lack of technical innovation. What can we do about it? That's the same question everyone is asking about nearly everything else these days.

zwkrt 5y ago
I’m an amateur musician (29years old, for reference). I can play the piano and the guitar and sing, but ever since I was a child my most innate musical talent was whistling. Something I have noticed about the old radio hits from the 50s-70s is how fun many of them are to whistle. Most contemporary pop, rock, r&b, country can’t hold a candle to the popular songwriters of that era in terms of whistle-ability. What I take away is that the popular songwriting style in that time was very “melody-forward” like in the days of tin-pan alley. Today I can tell that many songs are written in a more “mood-forward” way, and artists are more interested in exploring tambre than to make an absolute ear-worm of a melody. The result IMO is that those mid-century songs will have a lot more staying power.
- tcbawo 5y ago
  Given the sheer amount of copyrighted music these days, I wonder whether some of the lack of whistle-ability and pure melody might be due to sheer number of melody permutations already taken by previously written music. Given common chord progressions and music scales, it's probably likely that any catchy song your write bears some resemblance to an existing song with a protective copyright holder. There are many examples of lawsuits claiming retroactive ownership of new music.
Saint_Genet 5y ago
Anyone claiming that there is no innovative or impactful new music is simply not keeping up with new music.

zwkrt 5y ago

I’m an amateur musician (29years old, for reference). I can play the piano and the guitar and sing, but ever since I was a child my most innate musical talent was whistling. Something I have noticed about the old radio hits from the 50s-70s is how fun many of them are to whistle. Most contemporary pop, rock, r&b, country can’t hold a candle to the popular songwriters of that era in terms of whistle-ability. What I take away is that the popular songwriting style in that time was very “melody-forward” like in the days of tin-pan alley. Today I can tell that many songs are written in a more “mood-forward” way, and artists are more interested in exploring tambre than to make an absolute ear-worm of a melody. The result IMO is that those mid-century songs will have a lot more staying power.

tcbawo 5y ago
Given the sheer amount of copyrighted music these days, I wonder whether some of the lack of whistle-ability and pure melody might be due to sheer number of melody permutations already taken by previously written music. Given common chord progressions and music scales, it's probably likely that any catchy song your write bears some resemblance to an existing song with a protective copyright holder. There are many examples of lawsuits claiming retroactive ownership of new music.

Saint_Genet 5y ago

Anyone claiming that there is no innovative or impactful new music is simply not keeping up with new music.