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This line of thinking pisses me off. Stating that music today sucks is just ignorant. If you're talking about pop/mainstream music when hasn't it sucked? With the explosion of musical offerings on the internet music now is as good as it ever was. If you want good music spend some damn time and look for it. If you want to be spoon fed, then you get what you get, or you can just keep listening to the older music your comfortable with.
If your over 30 and think pop music is bland or overly sexual, then face it : you have finally become your dad. If you think today’s music sounds all the same, remember what grown-ups once thought of yours.
Never has it been easier to access any type of music.
It fell off when if was clear that all that was needed to sell a "artist" was the right packaging. Videos of female singers hanging out of their clothes got attention and became the norm, the singers voice seemed secondary. Almost like they were saying, well she has the right look, let's get a catchy tune for her to sing, we can minimize her mediocre voice with backup singers and some autotune.
That's not to say you can't find people making good music today, there is still much talent about but most of it won't be on the radio getting massive airplay. Also start looking outside of the USA. You will find lots of good stuff you will never hear in the states. YouTube is the venue for new artists, I see many talented people on there.
Matt Andersen from Canada is as good as anyone from those good old music days you mention. You might not hear him on the radio in the states, but I'm sure he has had some tracks on radio in Canada. He is a story teller type of writer, a great singer and player.
First of all thanks for the suggestion but this is exactly what I'm talking about. He's the prototypical modern musician - decent voice but completely forgettable, uninspired melody and lyrics. Completely interchangeable with a 100 other musicians. Just strumming away a few basic chords, Where are the complex chord changes??? Where are the clever metaphorical lyrics??? Where's the original melody??? It's all, ya ya ya, baby baby baby woo woo woo. This is what he's trying to be but not succeeding:
I'd really love to find great modern music but it's just not there. When I scan the radio dial or the music sites all I find is the same prepackaged, garish, industrial junk music - a vast toxic waste dump of unoriginal blandness. And the worst thing is they're copying each other so you have garbage on top of garbage.
Music is essentially the same as it always has been.
People sneer at the music of the 'younger generation' the same way their parents sneered at their music, because they're mistaking their nostalgia for the music of their younger years for an objective assessment of 'quality' (a fool's game in and of itself). And they're too blind to see that they're simply repeating the ignorance of the bulk of every previous generation.
I don't care much for today's music, either. I simply lack the requisite self-absorption to think that that's anything but a manifestation of my preferences due to the impression made by the music I enjoyed during my youth.
The current state of popular music is in a word: appalling. A few more words: bland, boring, mindless, uncreative, uninspired, unimaginative, derivative, repetitive. Think of the great composer/musicians of the past, Johnny Mercer, Jerome Kern, George & Ira Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Rogers/Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, Hank Williams, Chuck Berry, Brian Holland – Lamont Dozier – Edward Holland (great Motown composers), Jr., Lennon/McCartney, Jagger/Richards, Bob Dylan, Carol King, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Elton John, Paul Simon, Pete Seeger, Bob Marley, etc, etc, etc. From the 20s to the 50s you had the great jazz explosion. From the 50s to the 70s you had another explosion of musical creativity: the "British Invasion", Folk, Motown, Reggae, countless high quality rock & roll bands.
What do we have today? A musical wasteland. Interchangeable loud, talent-free "artists" like Justin Beiber, Beyonce, Bruno Mars, Miley Cyrus, etc, etc, etc, and of course endless obnoxious, vulgar, one note, no talent rap "artists" who would never stoop to actually learning to play a musical instrument. How many times can you repackage YO YO YO, F F F, N N N?
So the question is: When did music fall off a cliff and how did we get to the sorry state we have today? My guess is musicians figured out they don't really need to work too hard or have much talent, or write intelligent lyrics or come up with an original melody. You can make a fortune just by being loud and flashy and stupid people will buy just about anything you run up the flagpole just to be au currant.
If your over 30 and think pop music is bland or overly sexual, then face it : you have finally become your dad. If you think today’s music sounds all the same, remember what grown-ups once thought of yours.
Never has it been easier to access any type of music.
And you've become the typical mindless teenie bopper: uncritically consume whatever slop is thrown in the trough because everyone else is. Yes, it's true, it's never been easier to access great music from the past. How does this relate to the current sad state of modern music?
Please share some modern day musical geniuses and timeless classics of today in your youthful brilliance.
Here's my list:
1. F***ing You Tonight by R Kelly. Truly touching, heartwarming and such a catchy tune. I know I'm humming it on the way to work everyday.
2. And of course everyone knows Kanye West is a musical genius; he said so himself.
I rented a car that had XM Radio. I had never heard it before . . . The whole way down the PA turnpike and through Ohio, we listened to a station that was 60's and 70's am pop tunes. It was fabulous! the Tommy James and the Shondells, Turtles, Strawberry Alarmclock, the Raiders, Hermans Hermits, The Archies, Tommy Roe etc, etc, etc . . . They just dont write stuff like that anymore. Catchy, happy, harmless . . . There is nothing that comes close today in the mainstream media.
That formulated autotune/dance routine stuff is generic and uninspired. See if it gets played 40 years from now.
It's a good thing you weren't listening to terrestrial radio as you went through Ohio. Cleveland, Ohio as the RNR HOF city is a laughing stock as far as their broadcast stations. You may luck out and find something on a low power college radio station there or get it on your smartphone...WCSB89.3 WRUW91.1 WJCU88.7... lot of experimental freeform music. Old truck driver country slammed up against a time slot of experimental electronic, then Hungarian folk music. Happiness san Bieber, Kanye and other negative attention A$$#@(&$....
It's better if you have an acquired taste that wasn't mapped out by the so-called arbiters of corporate culture. There's plenty of great music out there, so long as you don't take what these schmucks dish out to you. Plenty of lazy people accept this as their lot, and are too lazy to take the risk, and fear of being at odds with their friends. What a better time to find new friends!
I listen to WKHR 91.5 which presents a fine varied selection from classic radio blues, jazz, big band from the 20's to the 60's. The only talk I listen to is WNIR 100.1 out of Akron, with hometown N.E. Ohioan Bob Golic, former Browns, LA Rams and Saved By The Bell cast member has a good show from 3-7 pm. You can find these and the aforementioned college stations on the TuneIn app from your smartphone.
Other than that AM radio today is for political platform bitching. George Noory Coast To Coast AM is the only thing on AM I can stand, along with gardening and home improvement call in shows on the weekends.
On top of that I've dumped my DirectTV, brought on Netflix to my smart tv and laptop, and I'm having a blast building cheap HDTV antennas from YouTube videos to pick up my local channels.
This line of thinking pisses me off. Stating that music today sucks is just ignorant. If you're talking about pop/mainstream music when hasn't it sucked? With the explosion of musical offerings on the internet music now is as good as it ever was. If you want good music spend some damn time and look for it. If you want to be spoon fed, then you get what you get, or you can just keep listening to the older music your comfortable with.
I completely agree, there is a whole world of new music out there apart from the popular 20 songs. I'd actually go as far as to say it's even easier to be exposed to some less well know but brilliant musicians thanks to the availability of online music platforms.
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We can tell who is getting older.
Can't we??
