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> the quality has absolutely cratered You just got old. It happens to everyone, and every generation says the same thing: The music I enjoyed when I was young

> the quality has absolutely cratered You just got old. It happens to everyone, and every generation says the same thing: The music I enjoyed when I was young and impressionable was great, but all the stuff they make nowadays is crap. People were whining about how Beatles destroyed music, how rock’n’roll was just monkey noise, how crooners like Sinatra wasn’t real singing.

the_only_law 3y ago
It’s also a sign you aren’t looking. Yeah, music is going to be trash if you’re just looking at what’s popular on the radio/TikTok/charts. Spend some time on bandcamp going through what’s been posted in your preferred genres.
- Night_Thastus 3y ago
  Yes! One of the many joys of the internet and cheap computers is that anyone can produce music with very little upfront cost compared to before. If you trawl around through youtube videos with 100 views, obscure bandcamps, audiophile forums, niche discord and subreddits, etc, you can find all sorts of absolutely fantastic music. It obviously takes some work, but it's a lot of fun to discover as well!
  - the_only_law 3y ago
    Oh yeah, I forgot about YouTube, some of the best stuff I’ve found in recent years have been on channels that curate/promote music in particular genre. I have one for all sorts of punk genres, as well as one for doom metal and its related genres. They’re great, because they have all sorts of stuff, old and new, and help cut down on the cruft. My only complaint about bandcamp is the mobile app. As far as I can tell, there’s no way to change the sorting when you’re looking through a genre, so it’s usually filled with albums and artists I already heard years ago, but their website is much better.
    - nick-of-time 3y ago
      Basically all of the music I've bought in the last 5ish years I found through the channel Years of Silence. That person apparently has a very similar taste to me. Rujnuj has remained my favorite album for several years, especially since I found translations of the lyrics last year.
- mbn404 3y ago
  Aslo go to rateyourmusic (RYM).
- sixothree 3y ago
  On top of that there is vastly more selection than just 20 years ago.
- dmonitor 3y ago
  “what’s popular on the radio /TikTok/charts” being gutter tier hogwash is exactly what they’re talking about. Humans didn’t lose the ability to create good interesting music, and nobody legitimately thinks that. The publishing industry prevents independent artists from reaching any kind of mainstream popularity. Indie artists need money and the publishers that decide the winners/losers by controlling all the traditional distribution networks have no incentive to signal boost independents.
  - Spivak 3y ago
    You have TikTok completely backwards. It's giving a platform and virality to independent artists at a scale that was simply not possible before. If your only association with TikTok music culture is "TikTok charts" then you're just falling for the same Billboard top 40s but with a new coat of paint.
  - mmcdermott 3y ago
    > Indie artists need money and the publishers that decide the winners/losers by controlling all the traditional distribution networks have no incentive to signal boost independents. A publisher may wish to control distribution, but the cost to distribute any media (music, text, video, software) is nearly zero. The internet allows all of us to have a slush pile, to delve as deep for raw ore as we want. Some people want to go mining. Most don't and the traditional distribution networks ultimately market to such a person - and one way or another, we can't all delve through every slush pile. If you spend hours on SoundCloud or Bandcamp looking for music, you have less time to crawl for independent films or writing. Any attempt to narrow the slush pile has the effect of marginalizing less mainstream efforts. If you read reviews or blogs to find things that seem worthy, then you are seeing what made it through someone else's slush pile. If you let the YouTube algorithm do it through recommendations, you are allowing Google to work through the slush pile.
- JeremyNT 3y ago
  > It’s also a sign you aren’t looking. Yeah, music is going to be trash if you’re just looking at what’s popular on the radio/TikTok/charts. Spend some time on bandcamp going through what’s been posted in your preferred genres. There's more recorded music than ever, and I don't care what your tastes are there are - new and interesting artists are out there to discover. ... which is also, in its own way, a new difficulty. There's so much to sift through, finding what you think is "good" is going to be difficult. This is doubly so for people who grew up listening to the radio or watching MTV, where these decisions were made for them. The best advice I could give anybody is to find an actual radio station that plays what they consider to be good new music. This probably doesn't look like a commercial station, and you may not even have any in broadcast range of you, but there are plenty out there that stream online. I'm partial to my local NPR music station, but maybe you'd have better luck with college radio or a local low powered station instead. DJs may be a rare breed these days, but try to find some you like and just let them do the work for you. The algorithms aren't going to cut it.
intalentive 3y ago
No it's objectively worse. The average complexity is at all time lows.
- lwelyk 3y ago
  I wasn't aware there was an objective 1-to-1 correlation between the complexity of music to its quality.
  - intalentive 3y ago
    There's not but it's a good heuristic. In pop music the average entropy is much lower, not only because the songs are simpler, but because they are more alike.
    - TremendousJudge 3y ago
      Are you quoting that "Measuring the Evolution of Contemporary Western Popular Music" paper? Anybody who knows about music disagrees with its methods. Here's a good rundown by a classical composer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfNdps0daF8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfNdps0daF8
    - nradov 3y ago
      Since you're not required to listen to pop music, the average entropy is utterly irrelevant. If you prefer more complex music there is a huge amount out there, probably more than you can listen to. Average artwork has always been garbage throughout human history. But I still found a few good paintings to hang on my walls. As long as you can get what you want it doesn't really matter what else is out there.
      - ctoth 3y ago
        > Since you're not required to listen to pop music, Is there a trick I'm missing to avoid this in {Ubers, grocery stores, bars, ...}? If so I'd love to know about it! Note: am blind, so can't constantly wear earplugs.
    - 3y ago
mixmastamyk 3y ago
That’s a real thing but it’s also real that investment in artist development cratered along with the market for CDs in the 2000s.
pessimizer 3y ago
> You just got old. It happens to everyone, and every generation says the same thing I hate how people decide something is an inevitable eternal cycle that started in the 20th century. Recorded music hasn't been around long enough to think that platitudes like this actually have any meaningful content. I'm here whining about how you're using a Beatles example because your argument is literally a teenage Baby Boomer argument. I've got board games older than your eternal generational war over the consumption of recorded music.
- nkozyra 3y ago
  > I hate how people decide something is an inevitable eternal cycle that started in the 20th century. Recorded music hasn't been around long enough to think that platitudes like this actually have any meaningful content. Maybe, but doesn't the same complaint exist about other media, too? 'Kids these days and their [books|music|art|clothes|dance styles]'
- empath-nirvana 3y ago
  > I hate how people decide something is an inevitable eternal cycle that started in the 20th century. People were complaining about the loudness war in _classical music_ in the early 19th century, unfavorably comparing Beethoven to his predecessors, and how his imitators were ruining music. Human nature doesn't change, and the phenomenon of people having their taste in music frozen in their teens and twenties is not something that was invented with the phonograph. “It is not surprising that Beethoven should, occasionally, have entertained blasé notions of his art; that he should have mistaken noise for grandeur, extravagance for originality, and have supposed that the interest of his compositions would be in proportion to their duration. That he gave little time to reflection, is proved most clearly in the extraordinary length of some movements in his later symphonies… His great qualities are frequently alloyed by a morbid desire for novelty; by extravagance, and by a disdain of rule… The effect which the writings of Beethoven have had on the art must, I fear, be considered as injurious. Led away by the force of his genius and dazzled by his creations, a crowd of imitators has arisen, who have displayed as much harshness, as much extravagance, and as much obscurity, with little or none of his beauty and grandeur. Thus music is no longer intended to sooth, to delight, to ‘wrap the sense in Elysium’; it is absorbed in one principle—to astonish.” Letter to the Editor in the Quarterly Musical Magazine and Review, London, 1827
mschuster91 3y ago
> You just got old. It happens to everyone, and every generation says the same thing: The music I enjoyed when I was young and impressionable was great, but all the stuff they make nowadays is crap. Thing is, there are objective metrics about quality. One aspect is "loudness war" aka compression, where subjective loudness gets increased at the cost of dynamic range [1], another (in)famous aspect is the increasing use of auto-tune (both the software itself as well as the general principle after which it was named). Artists and especially producers love that shit because similar to standardization in fast-food it provides a "consistent" performance even in live productions - which is seen as "cheating" in music by older people, and I think for good reason. On top of that there's an increasing tendency of producers to push for "bland" personalities as well instead of also taking risks, and it's not just music - it's movies as well: most movies aren't original productions any more, a lot of them is based off of prior IP (Harry Potter, MCU) or endless continuations (Star Wars, Star Trek) to recoup ever growing production and marketing costs. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
- taeric 3y ago
  There really aren't objective metrics. There are quantifiable metrics, but turning something into a number doesn't make it fully objective. And nothing pushes for bland personalities near as much as people pining for the past.
  - wizofaus 3y ago
    That last statement might hold for "recent past" (last 10 or 15 years, say), but the one recent top 40 hit that stood out for me has a 50s type vibe (Until I Found You, Stephen Sanchez). I'm not particularly a fan of that style (well before my time!) but it's surely not "bland".
    - taeric 3y ago
      There are nuances there. I am not claiming that older things are bland. I'm saying that the people that are constantly pining on the past are. Really, it is more that they often make choices that lead to bland results.
version_five 3y ago
I'm not sure. Music goes in cycles, like the 80s generated a lot of crap and then gave way to the explosion of the alternative music scene. For an actual semi-objective measure, think about how often you hear songs from the 60s and 70s, and from the 90s (and early 2000s for hip hop). And then think of all the crap that's gone by that has no staying power. I'm sure it's partially my bubble, but there were bands in the decades I mention that are going to be widely listened to for a long time, while in between there's a ton of throwaway. Basically you get original, defining music as new genres emerge then runs of derivative crap between them, it's not constant.
nemo44x 3y ago
Yup. Getting old is a tough pill to swallow. An early sign is when you don’t care about new music. Face it, popular music exists for teenagers to claim their spot. Their unique identity from previous generations. The new and fresh - it’s about today and they are today.
- deepspace 3y ago
  > The new and fresh But that's just the point. New music all sounds the same. Half-spoken, mumbled lyrics- check. Autotuned to death- check. Forgettable tunes- check.
  - jabroni_salad 3y ago
    That's weird, the stuff I'm listening to has good clarity and writing and inventiveness. I'm listening to people like cory wong, theo katzman, ariel posen, big wild, chris thile's various groups, john grant, louis cole. Maybe whatever you're using to find new music just sucks? blink twice if it's a clearchannel playlist.
samstave 3y ago
Sure, but one cant deny the music of the late 60s and 70s changed a lot of human culture. But we dont have revolutionary music such as led zepplin, pink floyd, etc in the current crop. none of the above sought facade public images as much as every single 'influencing' pop-stars today. Their influence was organic. Today's music trends are forced. Aside from some EDM style folks, such as ZHU - great music but hes not out there trying to push 'lifestyle' bs, as much as others.
- bigbillheck 3y ago
  > Their influence was organic. Today's music trends are forced. This is 100% purestrain revisionism.
  - samstave 3y ago
    Uh, I had to goog this... but this doesnt map. So explain thyself ;; " this involve a significant revision of fundamental Marxist theories and premises, and usually involve making an alliance with the bourgeois class " - uh... explain me... to me?
    - bigbillheck 3y ago
      Your understanding of the music industry of the 60s and 70s is at the 'not even wrong' level. Let's start with this to set the context: > But we dont have revolutionary music such as led zepplin, pink floyd, etc in the current crop. And then when it comes to Led Zeppelin and this: > none of the above sought facade public images as much as every single 'influencing' pop-stars today. I'm not sure what 'facade' is doing there, maybe you meant to use a different word, but I'm also not sure how you can look at Led Zeppelin after the early 70s and say they weren't seeking a public image. Then there's Pink Floyd and this: > Their influence was organic. Today's music trends are forced. From which I'm going to guess that you've never actually listened to the lyrics to 'Have a Cigar'.
      - samstave 3y ago
        im open to hearing ypour thoughts
vondur 3y ago
I do think that the quality of the current Top 40 hits is certainly worse than in the past. However, there are good bands out there you just have to look for them on Bandcamp/Youtube or forums/sites dedicated to the genre of music you enjoy.
scelerat 3y ago
Ehh. I was in high school and college throughout the '90s and still think pop music quality peaked sometime between 1966 and 1986. It's not necessarily an age thing. I mean, I remember thinking that at the time too. There are still tons of great musicians and bands making new music today, but the stuff that most people are familiar with is dreck compared to what most people were familiar with fifty years ago. Among other things is that popular attention, once focused by a handful of local radio stations and three national broadcast networks (in the US), has been atomized by a billion channels. The stuff that gets shoved down the big expensive earball-rich pipes is pablum for broad but weak appeal, processed by self-affirming accountants and algorithms, to a degree it simply was not a generation or two ago. It's simply not the same.
- Spivak 3y ago
  You weren't around for the garbage. You're getting the benefit of listening to only the best of the best music from an entire generation with ears untainted by it being overplayed. If I pushed you twenty years in the future, made you completely forget all music from 2010 on and played only the very best hearing it for the first time you would be convinced that it was a renaissance.
- nemo44x 3y ago
  > I was in high school and college throughout the '90s and still think pop music quality peaked sometime between 1966 and 1986. Pop music or rock music in particular? Rock is a type of pop music and it's arguable that it is past its prime and was better when it was newer. > the stuff that most people are familiar with is dreck compared to what most people were familiar with fifty years ago. Likely some survival bias here. There was tons of awful music that was quickly forgotten about back in the day too. I will grant that the cost of recording and distributing music is much lower today so there very well is a lower barrier to entry which means there's probably more garbage than ever.
- agumonkey 3y ago
  I think what changed is The place of music in society. Availability doesn't mean wide impact. It often created smaller sub cultures. The place of music in people, there are more things capturing your mind now. The place of the industry, in the past access was granted through a tree of labels and record companies, it also had a weight in the inertia of styles and art. You went through more skilled eyes, it gives you a different legitimity.
stcroixx 3y ago
I like various music from the past 100 years or so, not just from when I was young, and agree quality of current pop is pretty low compared to that time period.
- nemo44x 3y ago
  I'd give way to say that the music from your teens and before. It's much easier to appreciate music from before your time than after your time for some reason. I'd guess nostalgia in part and because when you first heard the old music it was new to you and part of your nostalgia. So you don't experience it the same way that teenagers did when it was released but you have a relationship with it that is meaningful none the less.
chiefalchemist 3y ago
Yes and no. The problem current artists run into is coming up with something new. Disco, Hip Hop, Punk and even post-Punk were fresh and new then...but those sounds live on to this day in "new" artists. It's entertaining, but it's hardly something to get excited about. It's not a matter of getting old per se. It's a matter of having more context, more perspective. Yes, there's a lot of good music today. However, so much of it relies on what we've heard before, it rarely qualifies as great. Or, at best, great is relative to the current, which often is average at best. Do I want to listen to (e.g.) New Order, or a knock-off of New Order?
ok123456 3y ago
> Beatles destroyed music, how rock’n’roll was just monkey noise, how crooners like Sinatra wasn’t real singing. Agree.
asifgnionio 3y ago
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LanceH 3y ago
Where are the ugly singers? Music is represented my a disproportionately high number of hot women (and less so men) with no room for others. There is obviously a standard other than musical quality in play. Today, it's mostly true that everything is available. The music that reaches the masses, though, is defined by production over musical quality. Would we even see or hear from Cass Elliot, Janis Joplin, or Patsy Cline today? Producers would choose someone other than Patsy Cline for Crazy and twist Willie Nelson's arm to make him a ghostwriter on the song so the hot, autotuned, woman could claim she wrote it herself. There is more to it than just getting older.
- sspiff 3y ago
  This is nothing new though, this has been true since the rise of TV and things like top of the pops. Because guess what? People prefer pretty people. Once artists became visible, this was inevitable. The pretty people were going to become popular regardless of whether the music industry got involved or not.
  - agumonkey 3y ago
    A french singer contest saw a normal/chubby girl winning by a wide margin. The tour after te tv show bombed horribly. There's a reflex in crowds to seek for some traits and physical "beauty" seems one of them. The rest seems the exception (and those singers have either very special skills or a super solid persona)
- blowski 3y ago
  Lewis Capaldi, Adele, Meghan Trainor, Jay Z, Drake. I don’t believe any of them made it because of their looks. On the other hand, the Beatles, The Stones, The Monkees, Stevie Nicks, Olivia Newton John - their looks were very much part of their appeal. Same as it ever was. Face it - you’re old.
  - jurimasa 3y ago
    So, being old = opinion invalid? Nice ageism you have there, kid.
adamc 3y ago
I've liked significant portions of most eras, but it's true that today's music is different and seems more limited. The average song is being driven down toward 2 minutes by the realities of streaming, songs use a lot more sampling (because musicians cost more), there is much less modulation than there once was, etc. Objectively, it seems like less sophisticated music, in part because there isn't the same kind of money there once was in the system to pay for studio musicians, producers, etc. Is it possible to create great songs despite that? Yes, but it involves a lot of "skating uphill". You can see that older music is still getting a LOT of plays -- I think too many to make sense, unless we accept that the current industry is not healthy.
tracerbulletx 3y ago
Yeah, there's an insane amount of amazing music of so many different styles being produced. The nature of finding it, the gate keepers, what's cool, and everything else has changed though and if you haven't been keeping up with it, it might be somewhat invisible to you. Refusing to use streaming services out of principal definitely just sounds like being old and refusing to adapt though, you can always buy physical media to support an artist once you discover them.
msla 3y ago
Plus, The Winnowing: We don't listen to most music from decades ago. We don't listen to most hits from decades ago. The Winnowing removes most works, in every medium, from the popular consciousness, leaving only the consensus favorites, also known as the canon. Here's an example: "The Ballad Of The Green Berets" by SSG Barry Sadler was number one for five weeks in 1966, tied with "California Dreamin'" by The Mamas And The Papas. That song is effectively gone now. It's no longer remembered. It didn't make the canon, because The Winnowing got to it, so now it isn't part of The Sixties as a consensus mass memory. "California Dreamin'" which was objectively just as popular by the metric of the charts, however, is pretty well remembered and is, therefore, part of the canon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_the_Green_Berets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_the_Green_Berets https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kj9qv6rmG8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kj9qv6rmG8 Newer music hasn't gone through The Winnowing. More of the chaff is still remembered. Therefore, it all looks worse.
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  I agree with you in part, but feel there's something to the criticism as well. You can look at the top hits --- number ones, top 10s, Billboard top 40, etc., going back through time. And whilst the most popular song of any given year or decade often is reasonably banal, it often isn't, and as you go back through the list, there are dark-horse pieces which do appear. Another factor is that far more music is published or streamed now, which makes sorting through the mix much more challenging. Popular taste and memory are both fickle, and one thing that makes going through back-catalogues and earlier periods so interesting is that the sounds of forgotten hits are often fresh to modern ears, while at the same time being tinged with nostalgia based on style, composition, performance characteristics, etc. If you look at popular hits going back about 150--200 years (say to the 1820s -- 1870s onward), one characteristic that becomes overwhelmingly apparent is the role of technology in popular music. Earlier pieces are often meant to be played or sung by the masses themselves, and tend to instrumentation that would have been available (fiddle, flute, piano). The first recorded formats were player-piano pieces distributed on rolls (and with a distinctly mechanical sound). By the early 20th century, amplification starts to emerge, allowing smaller acts, then electrification (the 3--4 piece rock group emerges), synthesizers (1- and 2-person acts), rap DJs, and over the past decade or so the ability for either a single person to play multiple tracks or for artists in remote locations to be able to collaborate on a single piece. This may give rise to either original pieces, or simply amazing covers of classics. Leonid & Friends cover of Chicago's "25 or 6 to 4", for example, seems to me better than and at the same time more faithful to the original. It is technically fantastic, while at the same time having its own honest spirit and vivaciousness: <https://yewtu.be/watch?v=9_torOTK5qc https://yewtu.be/watch?v=9_torOTK5qc> Other notable covers: - Pomplamoose, e.g., "In the Air Tonight": <https://pipe.kavin.rocks/watch?v=9_torOTK5qc https://pipe.kavin.rocks/watch?v=9_torOTK5qc> - Disturbed's "Sounds of Silence": <https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=u9Dg-g7t2l4 https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=u9Dg-g7t2l4> I still think that songs such as "Gangnam Style" and "Someone That I Used to Know" are both truly good recent (post-2000, for me) songs. Both in originals and covers such as Walk Off the Earth's: <https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=p4hIzgqA9io https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=p4hIzgqA9io>. (Not to mention the parodies of the original and cover versions...). That said ... ... I listen to very little contemporary music, largely preferring classical and jazz / blues / folk traditions. Terrestrial broadcast radio is all but completely dead to me. And I don't use streaming services, so that's not really there either.
deepspace 3y ago
Watch this video, and tell me that there is no objective difference in quality between pre-2000 and post-2000 songs. With a few exceptions, modern music is autotuned-to-death, boring, indistinguishable crap. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uMW2XsMx8Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uMW2XsMx8Q
- jacquesm 3y ago
  Very interesting. After 1990 it drops right off a cliff for me with a few exceptions.
- allturtles 3y ago
  I have the same gut feeling that there has been a decline in quality, but I'm not sure that video makes the case. In the previous 10 years (2013-2022) years the songs that clearly fit your description are "Closer" (2016), "Sunflower" (2018), "Stay" (2021). I'd probably say "Old Town Road" (2019) is pretty bad also, with a very boring, repetitive bass track. And "Despacito" (2017) is catchy but has the same cliche beat as a million other songs in the genre. "Happy" (2013) is a fun song that could be compared to Bobby McFerrin's 1988 hit, "Uptown Funk" (2014) is a 70s throwback, "Hello" (2015) is a vocal fireworks show, "Blinding Lights" (2020) and "As It Was" (2022) are 80s throwbacks. On the other hand is "Never Gonna Give You Up" (1987) actually a good song? Is "U Can't Touch This" (1990)? Is "Wannabe" (1996)? No, they are fun but none of these are really good songs. I'm not sure just comparing the most recognizable song of each year gets you very far.
  - DropInIn 3y ago
    To so many on that list of "bad" and the reasons for it I can't help but think of James Brown and "I feel good" or a song like "Twist and Shout" which have had pretty damn good saying power and few would say are actually bad. A lot of Amy winehouses music too, as well as many "punk" songs.. repetition is not a hallmark of quality nor lack thereof.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      Amy Winehouse could have sung the phonebook and it would have sounded great.
yCombLinks 3y ago
This is the most banal argument. It's never possible something is worse than it was before?
- bazoom42 3y ago
  Note that a lot of people can agree that newer music is crap but wildly disagree about when the good music was made. Just in this thread you can see some claim good music was made until 1985, some say it was until the 90’s some say it was until the last decade. There is no consensus at all, which indicate it is not an objective change in quality.
  - yCombLinks 3y ago
    100% agree it's not objective, but if you took a poll for which time period had better music 1965-1969 vs 1980-1985 you'd have a heavy vote for 65-69
libraryatnight 3y ago
I agree. People will tell you they have objective ways of proving the quality of music, it's emotional reactionary BS. It's an art that moves with culture and technology; the length of the song, the instruments, complexity - people are going to make what they feel and listen to what they like (and there will always be people making some version of something even if it's not popular - one of my friends is committed to metrical verse). With so many people making music (and art in general) now, writing off a generation's output based on what sold or showed up in commercial media is short sighted. "Music" is so much more than what's irritating the taste-keepers.
benreesman 3y ago
I’m knocking on 40 and the absolute best shit is on SoundCloud done by some teenager or 20-something on like a pirated copy of Ableton in a basement. There are like 2 things you can do as the technology goes to infinity: make way more diverse awesome stuff, or just make the music one tiny part of the well-oiled Taylor Swift Corporation. There’s more amazing music being made than ever, and the stuff with big money behind it is worse than ever.
- rkok 3y ago
  Care to share a few links? Always nice to discover a bit of new music. Don't worry, I won't judge.
pallas_athena 3y ago
> and every generation says the same thing Juvenoia: "The fear or hostility directed by an older generation toward a younger one, or toward youth culture in general." See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD0x7ho_IYc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD0x7ho_IYc
ttjjtt 3y ago
Honestly this popular rebuttal actually appears more inaccurate and quaint to me than the opinion it’s dismissing. My teenage kid strongly feels that modern pop music is trash quality compared to previous decades, thinks that new “underground” music is poorly mimicking previous decades, and bemoans the lack of current scenes that she can participate in. It’s a bit sad watching her sift through 90s/00s music rather than dig into new music of her generation, but I can hear the problem when she plays me both the underground and pop stuff her friends are listening to. It’s tame. There have been profound infrastructural changes to cultural production and distribution, lead by SV and VCs. These have served to massively boost stock valuations of centralising digital platforms. The music they produce is affected by these changes. The faux meta genre “hyperpop” even exploits this (boringly imo). It’s reassuring to believe the kids are alright but the problem is not the kids.
- itsanaccount 3y ago
  I want to summarize because I feel like it cant be repeated enough on this site: The endless march of optimizing profits by investors who control an ever lopsided share of wealth destroys everything.
- bazoom42 3y ago
  What you describe is pretty common - a segement of younger people preferring older music, typically the music of their parents generation. This is nothing new either, not every young person liked Elvis either.
  - ttjjtt 3y ago
    I know. but what’s atypical is the tame-ness, the lack of energy and lack of community participation and shared experience in new music, and its sharp decline of perceived cultural value by the younger generation. I think the changing valuation and changing qualities are not wholly unrelated.
    - bazoom42 3y ago
      Was Gilbert O’Sullivan really that much better than Kenrick Lamar?
kansface 3y ago
Surely some generation is actually correct? Do you think all music is equally good and all trends are universally good as well?

the_only_law 3y ago

It’s also a sign you aren’t looking. Yeah, music is going to be trash if you’re just looking at what’s popular on the radio/TikTok/charts. Spend some time on bandcamp going through what’s been posted in your preferred genres.

Night_Thastus 3y ago
Yes! One of the many joys of the internet and cheap computers is that anyone can produce music with very little upfront cost compared to before. If you trawl around through youtube videos with 100 views, obscure bandcamps, audiophile forums, niche discord and subreddits, etc, you can find all sorts of absolutely fantastic music. It obviously takes some work, but it's a lot of fun to discover as well!
- the_only_law 3y ago
  Oh yeah, I forgot about YouTube, some of the best stuff I’ve found in recent years have been on channels that curate/promote music in particular genre. I have one for all sorts of punk genres, as well as one for doom metal and its related genres. They’re great, because they have all sorts of stuff, old and new, and help cut down on the cruft. My only complaint about bandcamp is the mobile app. As far as I can tell, there’s no way to change the sorting when you’re looking through a genre, so it’s usually filled with albums and artists I already heard years ago, but their website is much better.
  - nick-of-time 3y ago
    Basically all of the music I've bought in the last 5ish years I found through the channel Years of Silence. That person apparently has a very similar taste to me. Rujnuj has remained my favorite album for several years, especially since I found translations of the lyrics last year.
mbn404 3y ago
Aslo go to rateyourmusic (RYM).
sixothree 3y ago
On top of that there is vastly more selection than just 20 years ago.
dmonitor 3y ago
“what’s popular on the radio /TikTok/charts” being gutter tier hogwash is exactly what they’re talking about. Humans didn’t lose the ability to create good interesting music, and nobody legitimately thinks that. The publishing industry prevents independent artists from reaching any kind of mainstream popularity. Indie artists need money and the publishers that decide the winners/losers by controlling all the traditional distribution networks have no incentive to signal boost independents.
- Spivak 3y ago
  You have TikTok completely backwards. It's giving a platform and virality to independent artists at a scale that was simply not possible before. If your only association with TikTok music culture is "TikTok charts" then you're just falling for the same Billboard top 40s but with a new coat of paint.
- mmcdermott 3y ago
  > Indie artists need money and the publishers that decide the winners/losers by controlling all the traditional distribution networks have no incentive to signal boost independents. A publisher may wish to control distribution, but the cost to distribute any media (music, text, video, software) is nearly zero. The internet allows all of us to have a slush pile, to delve as deep for raw ore as we want. Some people want to go mining. Most don't and the traditional distribution networks ultimately market to such a person - and one way or another, we can't all delve through every slush pile. If you spend hours on SoundCloud or Bandcamp looking for music, you have less time to crawl for independent films or writing. Any attempt to narrow the slush pile has the effect of marginalizing less mainstream efforts. If you read reviews or blogs to find things that seem worthy, then you are seeing what made it through someone else's slush pile. If you let the YouTube algorithm do it through recommendations, you are allowing Google to work through the slush pile.
JeremyNT 3y ago
> It’s also a sign you aren’t looking. Yeah, music is going to be trash if you’re just looking at what’s popular on the radio/TikTok/charts. Spend some time on bandcamp going through what’s been posted in your preferred genres. There's more recorded music than ever, and I don't care what your tastes are there are - new and interesting artists are out there to discover. ... which is also, in its own way, a new difficulty. There's so much to sift through, finding what you think is "good" is going to be difficult. This is doubly so for people who grew up listening to the radio or watching MTV, where these decisions were made for them. The best advice I could give anybody is to find an actual radio station that plays what they consider to be good new music. This probably doesn't look like a commercial station, and you may not even have any in broadcast range of you, but there are plenty out there that stream online. I'm partial to my local NPR music station, but maybe you'd have better luck with college radio or a local low powered station instead. DJs may be a rare breed these days, but try to find some you like and just let them do the work for you. The algorithms aren't going to cut it.

intalentive 3y ago

No it's objectively worse. The average complexity is at all time lows.

lwelyk 3y ago
I wasn't aware there was an objective 1-to-1 correlation between the complexity of music to its quality.
- intalentive 3y ago
  There's not but it's a good heuristic. In pop music the average entropy is much lower, not only because the songs are simpler, but because they are more alike.
  - TremendousJudge 3y ago
    Are you quoting that "Measuring the Evolution of Contemporary Western Popular Music" paper? Anybody who knows about music disagrees with its methods. Here's a good rundown by a classical composer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfNdps0daF8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfNdps0daF8
  - nradov 3y ago
    Since you're not required to listen to pop music, the average entropy is utterly irrelevant. If you prefer more complex music there is a huge amount out there, probably more than you can listen to. Average artwork has always been garbage throughout human history. But I still found a few good paintings to hang on my walls. As long as you can get what you want it doesn't really matter what else is out there.
    - ctoth 3y ago
      > Since you're not required to listen to pop music, Is there a trick I'm missing to avoid this in {Ubers, grocery stores, bars, ...}? If so I'd love to know about it! Note: am blind, so can't constantly wear earplugs.
  - 3y ago

mixmastamyk 3y ago

That’s a real thing but it’s also real that investment in artist development cratered along with the market for CDs in the 2000s.

pessimizer 3y ago

> You just got old. It happens to everyone, and every generation says the same thing I hate how people decide something is an inevitable eternal cycle that started in the 20th century. Recorded music hasn't been around long enough to think that platitudes like this actually have any meaningful content. I'm here whining about how you're using a Beatles example because your argument is literally a teenage Baby Boomer argument. I've got board games older than your eternal generational war over the consumption of recorded music.

nkozyra 3y ago
> I hate how people decide something is an inevitable eternal cycle that started in the 20th century. Recorded music hasn't been around long enough to think that platitudes like this actually have any meaningful content. Maybe, but doesn't the same complaint exist about other media, too? 'Kids these days and their [books|music|art|clothes|dance styles]'
empath-nirvana 3y ago
> I hate how people decide something is an inevitable eternal cycle that started in the 20th century. People were complaining about the loudness war in _classical music_ in the early 19th century, unfavorably comparing Beethoven to his predecessors, and how his imitators were ruining music. Human nature doesn't change, and the phenomenon of people having their taste in music frozen in their teens and twenties is not something that was invented with the phonograph. “It is not surprising that Beethoven should, occasionally, have entertained blasé notions of his art; that he should have mistaken noise for grandeur, extravagance for originality, and have supposed that the interest of his compositions would be in proportion to their duration. That he gave little time to reflection, is proved most clearly in the extraordinary length of some movements in his later symphonies… His great qualities are frequently alloyed by a morbid desire for novelty; by extravagance, and by a disdain of rule… The effect which the writings of Beethoven have had on the art must, I fear, be considered as injurious. Led away by the force of his genius and dazzled by his creations, a crowd of imitators has arisen, who have displayed as much harshness, as much extravagance, and as much obscurity, with little or none of his beauty and grandeur. Thus music is no longer intended to sooth, to delight, to ‘wrap the sense in Elysium’; it is absorbed in one principle—to astonish.” Letter to the Editor in the Quarterly Musical Magazine and Review, London, 1827

mschuster91 3y ago

> You just got old. It happens to everyone, and every generation says the same thing: The music I enjoyed when I was young and impressionable was great, but all the stuff they make nowadays is crap. Thing is, there are objective metrics about quality. One aspect is "loudness war" aka compression, where subjective loudness gets increased at the cost of dynamic range [1], another (in)famous aspect is the increasing use of auto-tune (both the software itself as well as the general principle after which it was named). Artists and especially producers love that shit because similar to standardization in fast-food it provides a "consistent" performance even in live productions - which is seen as "cheating" in music by older people, and I think for good reason. On top of that there's an increasing tendency of producers to push for "bland" personalities as well instead of also taking risks, and it's not just music - it's movies as well: most movies aren't original productions any more, a lot of them is based off of prior IP (Harry Potter, MCU) or endless continuations (Star Wars, Star Trek) to recoup ever growing production and marketing costs. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

taeric 3y ago
There really aren't objective metrics. There are quantifiable metrics, but turning something into a number doesn't make it fully objective. And nothing pushes for bland personalities near as much as people pining for the past.
- wizofaus 3y ago
  That last statement might hold for "recent past" (last 10 or 15 years, say), but the one recent top 40 hit that stood out for me has a 50s type vibe (Until I Found You, Stephen Sanchez). I'm not particularly a fan of that style (well before my time!) but it's surely not "bland".
  - taeric 3y ago
    There are nuances there. I am not claiming that older things are bland. I'm saying that the people that are constantly pining on the past are. Really, it is more that they often make choices that lead to bland results.

version_five 3y ago

I'm not sure. Music goes in cycles, like the 80s generated a lot of crap and then gave way to the explosion of the alternative music scene. For an actual semi-objective measure, think about how often you hear songs from the 60s and 70s, and from the 90s (and early 2000s for hip hop). And then think of all the crap that's gone by that has no staying power. I'm sure it's partially my bubble, but there were bands in the decades I mention that are going to be widely listened to for a long time, while in between there's a ton of throwaway. Basically you get original, defining music as new genres emerge then runs of derivative crap between them, it's not constant.

nemo44x 3y ago

Yup. Getting old is a tough pill to swallow. An early sign is when you don’t care about new music. Face it, popular music exists for teenagers to claim their spot. Their unique identity from previous generations. The new and fresh - it’s about today and they are today.

deepspace 3y ago
> The new and fresh But that's just the point. New music all sounds the same. Half-spoken, mumbled lyrics- check. Autotuned to death- check. Forgettable tunes- check.
- jabroni_salad 3y ago
  That's weird, the stuff I'm listening to has good clarity and writing and inventiveness. I'm listening to people like cory wong, theo katzman, ariel posen, big wild, chris thile's various groups, john grant, louis cole. Maybe whatever you're using to find new music just sucks? blink twice if it's a clearchannel playlist.

samstave 3y ago

Sure, but one cant deny the music of the late 60s and 70s changed a lot of human culture. But we dont have revolutionary music such as led zepplin, pink floyd, etc in the current crop. none of the above sought facade public images as much as every single 'influencing' pop-stars today. Their influence was organic. Today's music trends are forced. Aside from some EDM style folks, such as ZHU - great music but hes not out there trying to push 'lifestyle' bs, as much as others.

bigbillheck 3y ago
> Their influence was organic. Today's music trends are forced. This is 100% purestrain revisionism.
- samstave 3y ago
  Uh, I had to goog this... but this doesnt map. So explain thyself ;; " this involve a significant revision of fundamental Marxist theories and premises, and usually involve making an alliance with the bourgeois class " - uh... explain me... to me?
  - bigbillheck 3y ago
    Your understanding of the music industry of the 60s and 70s is at the 'not even wrong' level. Let's start with this to set the context: > But we dont have revolutionary music such as led zepplin, pink floyd, etc in the current crop. And then when it comes to Led Zeppelin and this: > none of the above sought facade public images as much as every single 'influencing' pop-stars today. I'm not sure what 'facade' is doing there, maybe you meant to use a different word, but I'm also not sure how you can look at Led Zeppelin after the early 70s and say they weren't seeking a public image. Then there's Pink Floyd and this: > Their influence was organic. Today's music trends are forced. From which I'm going to guess that you've never actually listened to the lyrics to 'Have a Cigar'.
    - samstave 3y ago
      im open to hearing ypour thoughts

vondur 3y ago

I do think that the quality of the current Top 40 hits is certainly worse than in the past. However, there are good bands out there you just have to look for them on Bandcamp/Youtube or forums/sites dedicated to the genre of music you enjoy.

scelerat 3y ago

Ehh. I was in high school and college throughout the '90s and still think pop music quality peaked sometime between 1966 and 1986. It's not necessarily an age thing. I mean, I remember thinking that at the time too. There are still tons of great musicians and bands making new music today, but the stuff that most people are familiar with is dreck compared to what most people were familiar with fifty years ago. Among other things is that popular attention, once focused by a handful of local radio stations and three national broadcast networks (in the US), has been atomized by a billion channels. The stuff that gets shoved down the big expensive earball-rich pipes is pablum for broad but weak appeal, processed by self-affirming accountants and algorithms, to a degree it simply was not a generation or two ago. It's simply not the same.

Spivak 3y ago
You weren't around for the garbage. You're getting the benefit of listening to only the best of the best music from an entire generation with ears untainted by it being overplayed. If I pushed you twenty years in the future, made you completely forget all music from 2010 on and played only the very best hearing it for the first time you would be convinced that it was a renaissance.
nemo44x 3y ago
> I was in high school and college throughout the '90s and still think pop music quality peaked sometime between 1966 and 1986. Pop music or rock music in particular? Rock is a type of pop music and it's arguable that it is past its prime and was better when it was newer. > the stuff that most people are familiar with is dreck compared to what most people were familiar with fifty years ago. Likely some survival bias here. There was tons of awful music that was quickly forgotten about back in the day too. I will grant that the cost of recording and distributing music is much lower today so there very well is a lower barrier to entry which means there's probably more garbage than ever.
agumonkey 3y ago
I think what changed is The place of music in society. Availability doesn't mean wide impact. It often created smaller sub cultures. The place of music in people, there are more things capturing your mind now. The place of the industry, in the past access was granted through a tree of labels and record companies, it also had a weight in the inertia of styles and art. You went through more skilled eyes, it gives you a different legitimity.

stcroixx 3y ago

I like various music from the past 100 years or so, not just from when I was young, and agree quality of current pop is pretty low compared to that time period.

nemo44x 3y ago
I'd give way to say that the music from your teens and before. It's much easier to appreciate music from before your time than after your time for some reason. I'd guess nostalgia in part and because when you first heard the old music it was new to you and part of your nostalgia. So you don't experience it the same way that teenagers did when it was released but you have a relationship with it that is meaningful none the less.

chiefalchemist 3y ago

Yes and no. The problem current artists run into is coming up with something new. Disco, Hip Hop, Punk and even post-Punk were fresh and new then...but those sounds live on to this day in "new" artists. It's entertaining, but it's hardly something to get excited about. It's not a matter of getting old per se. It's a matter of having more context, more perspective. Yes, there's a lot of good music today. However, so much of it relies on what we've heard before, it rarely qualifies as great. Or, at best, great is relative to the current, which often is average at best. Do I want to listen to (e.g.) New Order, or a knock-off of New Order?

ok123456 3y ago

> Beatles destroyed music, how rock’n’roll was just monkey noise, how crooners like Sinatra wasn’t real singing. Agree.

asifgnionio 3y ago

[dead]

LanceH 3y ago

Where are the ugly singers? Music is represented my a disproportionately high number of hot women (and less so men) with no room for others. There is obviously a standard other than musical quality in play. Today, it's mostly true that everything is available. The music that reaches the masses, though, is defined by production over musical quality. Would we even see or hear from Cass Elliot, Janis Joplin, or Patsy Cline today? Producers would choose someone other than Patsy Cline for Crazy and twist Willie Nelson's arm to make him a ghostwriter on the song so the hot, autotuned, woman could claim she wrote it herself. There is more to it than just getting older.

sspiff 3y ago
This is nothing new though, this has been true since the rise of TV and things like top of the pops. Because guess what? People prefer pretty people. Once artists became visible, this was inevitable. The pretty people were going to become popular regardless of whether the music industry got involved or not.
- agumonkey 3y ago
  A french singer contest saw a normal/chubby girl winning by a wide margin. The tour after te tv show bombed horribly. There's a reflex in crowds to seek for some traits and physical "beauty" seems one of them. The rest seems the exception (and those singers have either very special skills or a super solid persona)
blowski 3y ago
Lewis Capaldi, Adele, Meghan Trainor, Jay Z, Drake. I don’t believe any of them made it because of their looks. On the other hand, the Beatles, The Stones, The Monkees, Stevie Nicks, Olivia Newton John - their looks were very much part of their appeal. Same as it ever was. Face it - you’re old.
- jurimasa 3y ago
  So, being old = opinion invalid? Nice ageism you have there, kid.

adamc 3y ago

I've liked significant portions of most eras, but it's true that today's music is different and seems more limited. The average song is being driven down toward 2 minutes by the realities of streaming, songs use a lot more sampling (because musicians cost more), there is much less modulation than there once was, etc. Objectively, it seems like less sophisticated music, in part because there isn't the same kind of money there once was in the system to pay for studio musicians, producers, etc. Is it possible to create great songs despite that? Yes, but it involves a lot of "skating uphill". You can see that older music is still getting a LOT of plays -- I think too many to make sense, unless we accept that the current industry is not healthy.

tracerbulletx 3y ago

Yeah, there's an insane amount of amazing music of so many different styles being produced. The nature of finding it, the gate keepers, what's cool, and everything else has changed though and if you haven't been keeping up with it, it might be somewhat invisible to you. Refusing to use streaming services out of principal definitely just sounds like being old and refusing to adapt though, you can always buy physical media to support an artist once you discover them.

msla 3y ago

Plus, The Winnowing: We don't listen to most music from decades ago. We don't listen to most hits from decades ago. The Winnowing removes most works, in every medium, from the popular consciousness, leaving only the consensus favorites, also known as the canon. Here's an example: "The Ballad Of The Green Berets" by SSG Barry Sadler was number one for five weeks in 1966, tied with "California Dreamin'" by The Mamas And The Papas. That song is effectively gone now. It's no longer remembered. It didn't make the canon, because The Winnowing got to it, so now it isn't part of The Sixties as a consensus mass memory. "California Dreamin'" which was objectively just as popular by the metric of the charts, however, is pretty well remembered and is, therefore, part of the canon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_the_Green_Berets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_the_Green_Berets https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kj9qv6rmG8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kj9qv6rmG8 Newer music hasn't gone through The Winnowing. More of the chaff is still remembered. Therefore, it all looks worse.

dredmorbius 3y ago
I agree with you in part, but feel there's something to the criticism as well. You can look at the top hits --- number ones, top 10s, Billboard top 40, etc., going back through time. And whilst the most popular song of any given year or decade often is reasonably banal, it often isn't, and as you go back through the list, there are dark-horse pieces which do appear. Another factor is that far more music is published or streamed now, which makes sorting through the mix much more challenging. Popular taste and memory are both fickle, and one thing that makes going through back-catalogues and earlier periods so interesting is that the sounds of forgotten hits are often fresh to modern ears, while at the same time being tinged with nostalgia based on style, composition, performance characteristics, etc. If you look at popular hits going back about 150--200 years (say to the 1820s -- 1870s onward), one characteristic that becomes overwhelmingly apparent is the role of technology in popular music. Earlier pieces are often meant to be played or sung by the masses themselves, and tend to instrumentation that would have been available (fiddle, flute, piano). The first recorded formats were player-piano pieces distributed on rolls (and with a distinctly mechanical sound). By the early 20th century, amplification starts to emerge, allowing smaller acts, then electrification (the 3--4 piece rock group emerges), synthesizers (1- and 2-person acts), rap DJs, and over the past decade or so the ability for either a single person to play multiple tracks or for artists in remote locations to be able to collaborate on a single piece. This may give rise to either original pieces, or simply amazing covers of classics. Leonid & Friends cover of Chicago's "25 or 6 to 4", for example, seems to me better than and at the same time more faithful to the original. It is technically fantastic, while at the same time having its own honest spirit and vivaciousness: <https://yewtu.be/watch?v=9_torOTK5qc https://yewtu.be/watch?v=9_torOTK5qc> Other notable covers: - Pomplamoose, e.g., "In the Air Tonight": <https://pipe.kavin.rocks/watch?v=9_torOTK5qc https://pipe.kavin.rocks/watch?v=9_torOTK5qc> - Disturbed's "Sounds of Silence": <https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=u9Dg-g7t2l4 https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=u9Dg-g7t2l4> I still think that songs such as "Gangnam Style" and "Someone That I Used to Know" are both truly good recent (post-2000, for me) songs. Both in originals and covers such as Walk Off the Earth's: <https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=p4hIzgqA9io https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=p4hIzgqA9io>. (Not to mention the parodies of the original and cover versions...). That said ... ... I listen to very little contemporary music, largely preferring classical and jazz / blues / folk traditions. Terrestrial broadcast radio is all but completely dead to me. And I don't use streaming services, so that's not really there either.

deepspace 3y ago

Watch this video, and tell me that there is no objective difference in quality between pre-2000 and post-2000 songs. With a few exceptions, modern music is autotuned-to-death, boring, indistinguishable crap. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uMW2XsMx8Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uMW2XsMx8Q

jacquesm 3y ago
Very interesting. After 1990 it drops right off a cliff for me with a few exceptions.
allturtles 3y ago
I have the same gut feeling that there has been a decline in quality, but I'm not sure that video makes the case. In the previous 10 years (2013-2022) years the songs that clearly fit your description are "Closer" (2016), "Sunflower" (2018), "Stay" (2021). I'd probably say "Old Town Road" (2019) is pretty bad also, with a very boring, repetitive bass track. And "Despacito" (2017) is catchy but has the same cliche beat as a million other songs in the genre. "Happy" (2013) is a fun song that could be compared to Bobby McFerrin's 1988 hit, "Uptown Funk" (2014) is a 70s throwback, "Hello" (2015) is a vocal fireworks show, "Blinding Lights" (2020) and "As It Was" (2022) are 80s throwbacks. On the other hand is "Never Gonna Give You Up" (1987) actually a good song? Is "U Can't Touch This" (1990)? Is "Wannabe" (1996)? No, they are fun but none of these are really good songs. I'm not sure just comparing the most recognizable song of each year gets you very far.
- DropInIn 3y ago
  To so many on that list of "bad" and the reasons for it I can't help but think of James Brown and "I feel good" or a song like "Twist and Shout" which have had pretty damn good saying power and few would say are actually bad. A lot of Amy winehouses music too, as well as many "punk" songs.. repetition is not a hallmark of quality nor lack thereof.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Amy Winehouse could have sung the phonebook and it would have sounded great.

yCombLinks 3y ago

This is the most banal argument. It's never possible something is worse than it was before?

bazoom42 3y ago
Note that a lot of people can agree that newer music is crap but wildly disagree about when the good music was made. Just in this thread you can see some claim good music was made until 1985, some say it was until the 90’s some say it was until the last decade. There is no consensus at all, which indicate it is not an objective change in quality.
- yCombLinks 3y ago
  100% agree it's not objective, but if you took a poll for which time period had better music 1965-1969 vs 1980-1985 you'd have a heavy vote for 65-69

libraryatnight 3y ago

I agree. People will tell you they have objective ways of proving the quality of music, it's emotional reactionary BS. It's an art that moves with culture and technology; the length of the song, the instruments, complexity - people are going to make what they feel and listen to what they like (and there will always be people making some version of something even if it's not popular - one of my friends is committed to metrical verse). With so many people making music (and art in general) now, writing off a generation's output based on what sold or showed up in commercial media is short sighted. "Music" is so much more than what's irritating the taste-keepers.

benreesman 3y ago

I’m knocking on 40 and the absolute best shit is on SoundCloud done by some teenager or 20-something on like a pirated copy of Ableton in a basement. There are like 2 things you can do as the technology goes to infinity: make way more diverse awesome stuff, or just make the music one tiny part of the well-oiled Taylor Swift Corporation. There’s more amazing music being made than ever, and the stuff with big money behind it is worse than ever.

rkok 3y ago
Care to share a few links? Always nice to discover a bit of new music. Don't worry, I won't judge.

pallas_athena 3y ago

> and every generation says the same thing Juvenoia: "The fear or hostility directed by an older generation toward a younger one, or toward youth culture in general." See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD0x7ho_IYc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD0x7ho_IYc

ttjjtt 3y ago

Honestly this popular rebuttal actually appears more inaccurate and quaint to me than the opinion it’s dismissing. My teenage kid strongly feels that modern pop music is trash quality compared to previous decades, thinks that new “underground” music is poorly mimicking previous decades, and bemoans the lack of current scenes that she can participate in. It’s a bit sad watching her sift through 90s/00s music rather than dig into new music of her generation, but I can hear the problem when she plays me both the underground and pop stuff her friends are listening to. It’s tame. There have been profound infrastructural changes to cultural production and distribution, lead by SV and VCs. These have served to massively boost stock valuations of centralising digital platforms. The music they produce is affected by these changes. The faux meta genre “hyperpop” even exploits this (boringly imo). It’s reassuring to believe the kids are alright but the problem is not the kids.

itsanaccount 3y ago
I want to summarize because I feel like it cant be repeated enough on this site: The endless march of optimizing profits by investors who control an ever lopsided share of wealth destroys everything.
bazoom42 3y ago
What you describe is pretty common - a segement of younger people preferring older music, typically the music of their parents generation. This is nothing new either, not every young person liked Elvis either.
- ttjjtt 3y ago
  I know. but what’s atypical is the tame-ness, the lack of energy and lack of community participation and shared experience in new music, and its sharp decline of perceived cultural value by the younger generation. I think the changing valuation and changing qualities are not wholly unrelated.
  - bazoom42 3y ago
    Was Gilbert O’Sullivan really that much better than Kenrick Lamar?

kansface 3y ago

Surely some generation is actually correct? Do you think all music is equally good and all trends are universally good as well?