Good jazz is still being made, but we can all agree the jazz era ended decades ago. The same argument can be made for rock. In fact, we had a lengthy thread on this subject in 2017.
I feel like there’s more good music in more styles than ever before. Plus we have access to all the classics. The hard part is digging and finding it. There is just SOOOOOO much out there, and there is something for everyone, I believe. I, for one, don’t want to hear music that sounds like the 70s and 80s. I have a shitton of stuff from the actual 70s and 80s for that. I want something new, something different, maybe rooted in something familiar. But I would hate for music to sound like it did when I was a kid.
A few thoughts.
If you look at mainstream top-40 type music, it is incredibly bland these days. The music industry has mostly been taken over by money, and churns out pre-packaged blandness that is more guaranteed to sell. It’s been that way since the 1990s. There is almost no innovation.
That said, music has changed quite a bit since the 70s. Back then, the only way you could hear new music was on the radio, and you were limited to a handful of stations in your area. You had a better selection in larger cities, but even there you didn’t get that many different choices. Bands mostly released albums, and singles from those albums.
Today, bands no longer make albums, because they don’t have to. They can just drop songs on the internet. They don’t need to invest thousands of dollars creating a master disk and pressing vinyl. And listeners are no longer restricted to just whatever is playing on the local radio. You’ve got playlists on spotify, videos on youtube, all kinds of places where you can find new music.
There is a HUGE variety out there now, and it’s easy to get to. Once you get away from the super-bland top-40 crap, you can find amazing creativity and diversity. You can spend hours going down different rabbit holes, satisfying just about any music taste or desire.
Yes, top-40 type music is bland and stagnant. There is little creativity and little innovation, and the music hasn’t really progressed much at all beyond what it was in the 1990s. But if you are looking for better, there is plenty of it out there. You have FAR more music at your fingertips now than you ever did in the 70s or 80s.
It’s sort of true.
There is something very different about society today, I’ll explain how.
Back in 1973, you could make a movie about high school kids in 1962, and it would be clear as crystal that you were making a period piece. The music, cars, clothes and attitude would be screaming late 50’s early 60’s to everyone who watched it.
I can’t imagine someone making a movie today about “kids from 2015” and thinking it’s a period piece. There just isn’t as much definition between “eras” as there seemed to be.
I would say “calcify” but yeah
I don’t think 80’s music is better. I just think it was the last time there was a significant amount of fun music that everybody, regardless of skill, could dance to.
I agree. I only think it’s too soon to decide.
Yeah, I love the dance routine, where “Peacemaker” never cracks a smile.
Music today is just as good as it was in the late 60’s early 70’s (classic rock & roll). But there is SOOOO much more of it, that few songs- unless used in a long running Movie or TV show- have legs. I just checked the Billboard top tunes from the early 2020s and 2000- and i dont really remember hardly any.
But since there was less music in that period, many of the songs are still remembered fondly today- and still used in film.
I mean I like Taylor Swift (but by no means are a “swifty”) but ask me to name some, and I’d go- “err, ummm. well, there was one that went…”
I love that song/routine, and I love that according to Peacemaker the greatest band of all time is Hanoi Rocks.
There is simply not as much definition in any era compared to that which includes or borders on the 1960s.
When Suits was added to Netflix in 2023, a surprising number of viewers* thought it was a new show set in the present day, even though the first season premiered in 2011.
*at least those who weren’t that attentive to Meghan Markle’s age or personal life
You say this but apparently kids today watching “Back to the Future” can’t tell the difference between the 1980s and 1950s from the clothing and cars.
Even this notion of definition between eras is highly dependent on which eras you are talking about - and they are most likely the ones you were not only alive for but when you were more conscious about fashion and music and such, i.e. before you were 30-40
You’re going to make me link to that study again, aren’t you…or maybe the graph that was derived from it.
That said, I’m still buying and liking new music.
You boil down an entire decade to the top 20-30 artists and 40-50 songs and you are going to end up with a nice playlist no matter which decade it is. It’s been 50+ years, the shit is long forgotten.
New music is presented in a completely different way now. A group or a single artist used to put out a whole album. A lot of it was just filler and some were excellent songs that would not originally get any air play on the radio but became popular. There was an art to putting all of the songs in the correct order on an album, argued about by the artist and producers. Some only had the popular radio play song, other albums became sort of masterpieces. Everyone waiting for the next album to come out.
Now an artist “drops” a song. One. The song may be a hit but you may never hear anything from that artist again. How much of the artist’s music are you going to be exposed to? I personally think this way to expose people to a new artists music is part of the issue.
Air Play also is not as much exposure as it used to be. Used to be FM radio, maybe some specialized for different markets, like college students. Who is playing the new music now? Often enough that you might become familiar enough with it to become interested in the artist and want t hear more?
And now that so many new artists can at least get their music produced, there is frankly a lot of crap out there. Like whoever thought it was a good idea to combine rap music with country western. I want to throw up when I hear that.
That’s not really true, judging from the New Releases section of the record store or browsing Bandcamp. I’ve bought a number of new releases in 2025 (as in not reissues, compilations, etc).
As a ratio of total artists, there’s no doubt fewer putting out physical albums because they have other options or maybe dropping a couple tracks on streaming but there’s plenty of full albums still being produced including by new artists.
I’m still in a “find new artists and buy their stuff/see their shows” phase. Of course, most brand new artists/bands are, unsurprisingly, young and this sometimes means it’s three people within seven years of my age among three hundred 22-year-olds at a show 
It’s utter nonsense to say that people just drop singles these days, and nobody is making albums. I actually shop albums, both physical and digital, and their numbers are legion. Single drops and then disappear? I don’t see that.
Also, people wait with excitement for albums all the time, it’s happening in my own house! Mainly my adult daughter, who literally told me today that Blackpink has a release coming, but I also anticipate them, and sometimes even pre-order them.
To kind of emphasize earlier points, albums on LPs was the new fangled idea and singles were still dominant in the 40s and into the 50s. Full albums as the preferred release type hit its stride in the 60s. Saying things are “different” now is basically saying you came of age in the 60s but probably no later than the 90s.
Both singles and albums are still released today but, as in previous generations, the relative importance of each varies, not only across time but artist.
To pile on, The Warning’s Queen of the Murder Scene, which dropped in 2018, is not only an album, but a concept album that tells a novelistic story of a woman’s descent from obsession, to madness, to murder, to psychotic killer. The two record vinyl album contains extensive (and disturbing) art and lyric sheets and was release when the band was aged 12 to 17 (which means it was composed when they were even younger).
In concept and execution, I would put this up against the best concept albums of the 70’s.
Yeah, For instance, it’s pretty hard to keep up with King Gizzard and The Wizard Lizard’s release schedule sometimes. They released five studio albums in 2022. They only released two in 2023 and one per year after that. Similarly Ohsees released four studio albums in 2020, then one each in '22,'23,'24 and 2025. Both have released several live albums during that time frame.
And yeah, most of the music from both bands is guitar based rock.