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What the hell happened to music!?


AngelCityOutlaw
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Nothing happened to music. If you can't find music you like that was made within the last decade, you're not looking hard enough.

People only think music was better in the past because they're looking at the classics, while ignoring all else. The same with movies, television, and video games. There have always been your Rebecca Blacks, the only difference being it's now more visible, thanks to the internet.

Yeah, we pretty much determined this months and months ago.

Really don't know why we're having this conversation again.

isn't this thread OLD?

Yup.

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I agree a lot of the music that climbs the charts these days suck. No creativity, just plain stupid. But you put some sexy clothes on a guy or a girl, make some good one liners in the song, put a beat to it 12 year old girls start to scream and then it becomes popular and you hear it on the radio all the time. (Wow that was a long sentence! Grammar anyone?) There are still some diamonds in the rough on the pop charts these days but again most of it is garbage. If Shostakovich or Vaughn Williams was on the radio, now that would be epic 8O:-P

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I hear that one a lot: "You're not looking hard enough".

It's actually true. I still find as much awesome music as I did back in the day. The problem today is that you have to really dig for it. You have to know where to look. Popular music, be it rock, rap, whatever...You could just turn to the rap station and get Coolio, you know, Bone Thugs, Wu Tang Clan, Fugees...I'm not even a rap fan and can tell you that 90's hip hop whoops the living crap out of most hip hop on the radio.and tv today(I will exclude Outkast there for sure).

Rock? You could turn on the radio and instantly get Everclear, NIN, Foo Fighters, Nirvana, Stabbing Westward, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, etc., etc...

Now you turn it on and get a slew of bands that sound like a combination of Creed and Nickelback and whatever WWE uses when their wrestlers come out.

Pop? Even pop was better. You had Ace of Base, Eiffel 65, Aqua, No Doubt, TLC, to name a few..bubblegum stuff but I'm not a pop fan. Still way better in the 90's. And you also had weird new age stuff like Enya.

80's had its share of crap but still had some incredibly awesome stuff...but running out of time. Regardless, thank whatever powers be for the internet because we'd all be screwed.

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I think music sure has changed and the industry has changed plenty. But the assumption that mainstream music today is of less quality than previously is false straight up.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/chart/singles

Todays singles chart. It's a real mix of good songs, and bad songs. Cursory glance will reveal that Adele for example is 20 places higher than Nicki Minaj.

My point is, there's a lot of crap in the mainstream shelf, but there is also a HUGE increase in niche, underground and obscure music due to lower production costs. You don't need radio, you have webradio. You don't need to find new music. Last.fm, blogs, forums, spotify and itunes does it for you. And so forth.

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I think that may be part of it, at least when combined with the perceived growth of people who proclaim said "lower quality" music to be THE BEST MUSIC EVER NO MATTER WHAT AND NOTHING ELSE COMES CLOSE. I think that in itself is a big part of the irritation in some cases. It's one thing to like _____, it's another to claim its superiority and refuse to acknowledge anything else as being even remotely as good. I see a lot of that, personally.

In other words, overzealous fans tend to annoy non-fans and turn them against what they like. Who'da thunk it?

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Just curious, doesn't it bother anyone here, that while you can still find good music on the internet, it's no longer anywhere near mainstream. Which isn't the worst thing in the world, although it sucks for the musicians, who deserve better.

But, perhaps even moreso, from a cultural point of view, what passes for "popular music" today will now be echoed in the future at parties, weddings, social gatherings, etc., as it becomes a defacto touchstone of a generation, because it was there, rather than it was any good.

Elevator music in stores across the country will be recycling this shit, for decades to come.

It feels a bit quaint to just discount the continuous degradation of "popular music" as something we can just ignore.

I have no solutions, or expectations, but I wish there was something that could be done.

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It's not as simple as a case of rose-tinted goggles. What is different today is that almost all genres lumped together under "mainstream music" are converging into the same shit, using the same chord progressions, synth presets and production techniques. It's barely worth telling pop, dance or hip hop apart from eachother any more as they're all beating the same dead horse, instead of everyone beating their own dead horse.

This is an observartion that even has scientific backing.

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With good being subjective, it's almost not worth arguing.

Plus, what if the arrangements of the alleged "bad" music are good in the "elevator?" Plenty of popular tunes have been re-arranged into awesome, light versions of their counterparts. And sometimes,

I agree good is highly subjective, but there's such a narrow spectrum of what is even in the mainstream nowadays, I think a serious argument could be made that there is something seriously wrong.

It's been said already, but going back to the 90's for example, you had a wide venue of running music genres and artists out there, so that there was at least something out there most people could probably appreciate.

By elevator music, I meant not only the lightened arrangements, but also the general background music that you hear when you go to a store, which many times sounds like (at least to me) the original recordings of pop hits of yore.

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http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121022/00013120781/trent-reznor-talks-to-techdirt-about-his-unconventional-new-record-deal-why-he-still-loves-diy.shtml?utm_source=feedburner

Relevant for those of you who want to get learn'ed about the business - some great insight from Trent Reznor. Talks about music trends - some of the stuff from this topic.

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http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121022/00013120781/trent-reznor-talks-to-techdirt-about-his-unconventional-new-record-deal-why-he-still-loves-diy.shtml?utm_source=feedburner

Relevant for those of you who want to get learn'ed about the business - some great insight from Trent Reznor. Talks about music trends - some of the stuff from this topic.

With all due respect, I'm not sure what we're supposed to take away from this. Reznor decides he wants HTDA to reach as many people as possible (which all musicians I assume, want) and goes back to label produced music.

What's the lesson? Other than, all the DIY and previously built up fame of even a major act such as NIN, isn't good enough to get HTDA off the ground.

How is it really fair to say to musician nobodies, without a couple of decades of fame and success under their belt, that they can really build a massive audience through the internet, when Reznor doesn't even feel he can't? I'm not knocking Reznor, his reasoning is not unsound. But it's a bit telling about the viability of trying to build a music career based on new media standards.

I always thought this was an interesting write up of how the old label structure, as bad as it was, at least attempted to invest in developing new acts. It's freaking massive though.

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When it comes to music, the radio is by far the toughest atmosphere to take on. It seems to be overpopulated with so many beats, its all beginning to sound like a mess. But there are a few that manage to stay out of that level. I do hope that there are more talented artists that will take on new ideas and actually have an audience.

(I still don't get it why Adele became the choice for Bond's new theme in Skyfall)

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There is some cool music coming out too guys, with all the shit music we hear all the time.

At the end of the day though I agree, it has taken a turn for the worse. It's not like you have to feel guilty, though; if you set your Pandora to "Billy Joel Radio" or "Bryan Adams Radio". I do it all the time.

Go try it.

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