5 ms·

The obvious reason is that the best music ever produced happened to coincide with my own youth. Right?

by davidw 2y ago

arrobbiato 2y ago
It always seemed that my generation, at lease where I lived, listened to our parents’ music - Led Zeppelin, The Stones, The Eagles, Pink Floyd, and the like. We hated the music pushed on us at the time, e.g. Madonna and Huey Lewis, and oh lord, Starship.
2muchcoffeeman 2y ago
This has become a knee jerk reaction to a possibly flawed opinion. And unfortunately we may not get clarity for many decades. But I think it’s worth thinking about what makes a piece of music classic? Why will it stand the test of time where others don’t. And when producing music is easier than ever, does the proportion of good musicians increase proportional or do we just get more rubbish?
- carabiner 2y ago
  It's absolutely true though. No matter when you were born, the "best" music came out when you were about 17 years old: https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/comments/1d57778/a_cool_guide_to_what_age_you_were_when_your/ https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/comments/1d57778/a_cool_... All nostalgia is a longing for youth.
  - Lendal 2y ago
    While that is true, it's not what the article is about. It's about the attention economy stealing minutes away from what used to go to music appreciation and redirecting it to other competing activities that didn't used to exist.
- threatofrain 2y ago
  Something that I think is interesting is how instrumental limitations defined 80's synth pop, making it a very distinctive era of starkly composed music. We'll likely never have that kind of limitation-defined era again.
bamboozled 2y ago
No way, My father, his friends and I all listened to Metallica, Nirvana, RHCP, etc, when I was in my teens and they were in their forties. We all loved it. I think the age thing you talk about is a meme from the 50s or something, it hasn't applied for decades. I just think there really is a lot of crap around now.
- davidw 2y ago
  Well this just proves my point. I graduated from high school when Nirvana, RHCP - and the far superior Fishbone - were in their heyday. Your dad and his friends were simply cognizant of the fact that the music when I was young was the best ever!
Lendal 2y ago
That's not what he's talking about. He's a music producer. He likes a lot of today's music because he's producing it. He's talking to the youth who are producing it and he's helping as much as he can. There's not enough people doing it, and what there is isn't getting enough attention because youth are spending a lot of their spare time on social media. Music isn't the primary focus of youth attention like it used to be. Social media is the primary focus now. Social media can be used to spread music like radio/CD/MP3 used to, but it isn't as effective at that task. I'm not sure if this is good or bad. I mean, kids back in the 70's & 80's got relationship advice from random song lyrics heard on the radio, a horrible way to make life decisions. Now kids have much better access to information & advice so who's to say that the decline of music is an entirely bad thing? We'll see.
- vidanay 2y ago
  I can vouch for this first hand. Music has absolutely zero meaning in my 16 year olds life. They don't listen to music - new or old. They don't know who current artists are, and they certainly don't have an opinion about who is their favorite. Thankfully, they are also just as disinterested in social media.
- telotortium 2y ago
  > kids back in the 70's & 80's got relationship advice from random song lyrics heard on the radio, a horrible way to make life decisions Is getting relationship advice from TikTok and Reddit actually an improvement? Seems like the falling marriage and birthrates suggest otherwise.
mixmastamyk 2y ago
That's a thing, but for the most part I don't think is the main driver here. I agree with Beato's angle, but it needs some expansion. Twenty years ago the music industry was cut off from its main revenue source by internet sharing. It has somewhat recovered through streaming but the money they spent on artist development has not. Why? My speculation—combine the continued availability of classic acts (hello never-ending copyright) with the deluge of the cheap, mass produced content and there's just an incredible amount to choose from. It should be cheaper just from an economics standpoint, and since profit is down that necessitates less investment into excellence. Also, all the good pop chords and melodies are probably already taken as well, the music is pretty simple. The other angle to the problem is discovery, and that makes it very hard to get noticed. This article was pretty great on the subject: https://www.billboard.com/pro/new-music-tiktok-artist-development-suffering/ https://www.billboard.com/pro/new-music-tiktok-artist-develo... To get back to an older era when we were younger... I remember iconic albums/singles dropping every single week in the eighties. The machine was incredibly well-oiled and running. Today I hear something big maybe once or twice a year. Part of that is the discovery problem I know-radio and mtv were killed by the internet star. How to invest in quality, and how to make people aware of it?

The obvious reason is that the best music ever produced happened to coincide with my own youth. Right?

by davidw 2y ago

The obvious reason is that the best music ever produced happened to coincide with my own youth. Right?

It always seemed that my generation, at lease where I lived, listened to our parents’ music - Led Zeppelin, The Stones, The Eagles, Pink Floyd, and the like. We hated the music pushed on us at the time, e.g. Madonna and Huey Lewis, and oh lord, Starship.

2muchcoffeeman 2y ago

This has become a knee jerk reaction to a possibly flawed opinion. And unfortunately we may not get clarity for many decades. But I think it’s worth thinking about what makes a piece of music classic? Why will it stand the test of time where others don’t. And when producing music is easier than ever, does the proportion of good musicians increase proportional or do we just get more rubbish?

carabiner 2y ago
It's absolutely true though. No matter when you were born, the "best" music came out when you were about 17 years old: https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/comments/1d57778/a_cool_guide_to_what_age_you_were_when_your/ https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/comments/1d57778/a_cool_... All nostalgia is a longing for youth.
- Lendal 2y ago
  While that is true, it's not what the article is about. It's about the attention economy stealing minutes away from what used to go to music appreciation and redirecting it to other competing activities that didn't used to exist.
threatofrain 2y ago
Something that I think is interesting is how instrumental limitations defined 80's synth pop, making it a very distinctive era of starkly composed music. We'll likely never have that kind of limitation-defined era again.

bamboozled 2y ago

No way, My father, his friends and I all listened to Metallica, Nirvana, RHCP, etc, when I was in my teens and they were in their forties. We all loved it. I think the age thing you talk about is a meme from the 50s or something, it hasn't applied for decades. I just think there really is a lot of crap around now.

davidw 2y ago
Well this just proves my point. I graduated from high school when Nirvana, RHCP - and the far superior Fishbone - were in their heyday. Your dad and his friends were simply cognizant of the fact that the music when I was young was the best ever!

Lendal 2y ago

That's not what he's talking about. He's a music producer. He likes a lot of today's music because he's producing it. He's talking to the youth who are producing it and he's helping as much as he can. There's not enough people doing it, and what there is isn't getting enough attention because youth are spending a lot of their spare time on social media. Music isn't the primary focus of youth attention like it used to be. Social media is the primary focus now. Social media can be used to spread music like radio/CD/MP3 used to, but it isn't as effective at that task. I'm not sure if this is good or bad. I mean, kids back in the 70's & 80's got relationship advice from random song lyrics heard on the radio, a horrible way to make life decisions. Now kids have much better access to information & advice so who's to say that the decline of music is an entirely bad thing? We'll see.

vidanay 2y ago
I can vouch for this first hand. Music has absolutely zero meaning in my 16 year olds life. They don't listen to music - new or old. They don't know who current artists are, and they certainly don't have an opinion about who is their favorite. Thankfully, they are also just as disinterested in social media.
telotortium 2y ago
> kids back in the 70's & 80's got relationship advice from random song lyrics heard on the radio, a horrible way to make life decisions Is getting relationship advice from TikTok and Reddit actually an improvement? Seems like the falling marriage and birthrates suggest otherwise.

mixmastamyk 2y ago

That's a thing, but for the most part I don't think is the main driver here. I agree with Beato's angle, but it needs some expansion. Twenty years ago the music industry was cut off from its main revenue source by internet sharing. It has somewhat recovered through streaming but the money they spent on artist development has not. Why? My speculation—combine the continued availability of classic acts (hello never-ending copyright) with the deluge of the cheap, mass produced content and there's just an incredible amount to choose from. It should be cheaper just from an economics standpoint, and since profit is down that necessitates less investment into excellence. Also, all the good pop chords and melodies are probably already taken as well, the music is pretty simple. The other angle to the problem is discovery, and that makes it very hard to get noticed. This article was pretty great on the subject: https://www.billboard.com/pro/new-music-tiktok-artist-development-suffering/ https://www.billboard.com/pro/new-music-tiktok-artist-develo... To get back to an older era when we were younger... I remember iconic albums/singles dropping every single week in the eighties. The machine was incredibly well-oiled and running. Today I hear something big maybe once or twice a year. Part of that is the discovery problem I know-radio and mtv were killed by the internet star. How to invest in quality, and how to make people aware of it?