Is today's music crap?

Cafe Society
81

I’ve just skimmed the thread, so I’m responding directly to the OP, and my apologies if I’m repeating what’s already been said.

I think a lot of popular music is crap because it’s marketed to a mass audience, like a lot of popular movies, books, TV, etc. are crap because they cater to the lowest common denominator. Now, that’s not to say that you won’t get the odd Beatles thrown in there, but a lot of it’s going to suck.

So I think it’s hard to say that today’s music is crap if you’re comparing Britney Spears to Johnny Cash, but that’s because you’re forgetting Donnie and Marie (sorry, I’m having a hard time coming up with good, well bad, examples, I’m a youngin’).

I’m young and I’d say 90% of what I listen to was recorded before 1995, and probably half of that before I was 10. Not that there’s not a lot of good bands and singers out now, it’s just that the good ones from back in the day that have stood the test of time are better known than the new ones I have to stumble across on youtube or myspace (both great music resources, I have to admit). And shameless plug for my favorite band of the moment- Gogol Bordello. I posted a thread on them recently- if you think all modern music is the same boring crap that you hear on the radio, these guys will blow you away. Think gypsies on speed. Or acid.

82

[QUOTE=RedRosesForMe]
I’m young and I’d say 90% of what I listen to was recorded before 2000, and probably half of that before I was 10.
[/QUOTE]

Since “rock/pop” music as we currently understand it began around 1957 - fifty years ago - the fact is that close to 90% of it was made before 2000. It’s all new to you when ya first hear it; it just makes sense that a discerning listener would listen to more pre-2000 music than post-2000. There’s more of it!

83

[QUOTE=RickJay]
Since “rock/pop” music as we currently understand it began around 1957 - fifty years ago - the fact is that close to 90% of it was made before 2000. It’s all new to you when ya first hear it; it just makes sense that a discerning listener would listen to more pre-2000 music than post-2000. There’s more of it!
[/QUOTE]

Bah, you quoted me before I edited! No, that does make sense. Anyway, my point was that I’m young and I listen to a lot of stuff that was recorded before I was even born or when I was in diapers- I listen to Elvis and Johnny Cash and the Clash and the Ramones and The Smiths and even some of that hippie music. :stuck_out_tongue: I think I’m unusual for most my age- they may listen to some 80s pop (and even 70s rock) for a sort of nostalgia, if they remember it, or kitsch factor if they don’t -but it seems that the average 20-something (not your discerning listener, as you put it) listens to a lot more post-2000 music than pre.

ETA: And I’m unusual in that I listen to a lot of traditional folk music too- the Dubliners, the Pogues, the Clancy Brothers, some zydeco, things like that, and a lot of those songs weren’t even written in this century, so that changes things a bit too.

84

[QUOTE=Anne Neville]
cough Bob Dylan cough
[/QUOTE]

Okay, let me re-phrase; if you couldn’t sing, you shouldn’t become a singer. :smiley: I’ll acknowledge freely that Bob Dylan was a songwriting genius, but his singing makes my ears bleed. Him and Leonard Cohen. Somebody keep those dudes away from the mikes.

85

[QUOTE=featherlou]
Okay, let me re-phrase; if you couldn’t sing, you shouldn’t become a singer. :smiley: I’ll acknowledge freely that Bob Dylan was a songwriting genius, but his singing makes my ears bleed. Him and Leonard Cohen. Somebody keep those dudes away from the mikes.
[/QUOTE]

I think Dylan and Cohen both have distinct voices that I often (but not always) find appealing. Sometimes I’d rather listen to their voices than those of the likes of Aretha Franklin or Johnny Cash, who everyone seems to agree have great voices.

86

[QUOTE=Polerius]
But, that’s just the problem. I don’t want to work hard to find good music.
I just want to turn the radio on and have some great music come on.
[/quote]

I agree with you completely; I shouldn’t have to hunt down decent music like a fox (for a start, people take a dim view of other people shooting at their CD collections with shotguns…:p). I shouldn’t have to tune into radio stations from the other side of the planet to get some variety in my radio music, either (my own music collection has increased by a quarter since I found JACK FM- they’ve got one of the best radio playlists I’ve ever heard).

I have a very simple rule when it comes to music: If you’re any good, you’re going to be on the radio. If you aren’t on the radio, you’re not likely to be the sort of band I’m going to want to hear anyway, and on the off-chance you are, one of my music-mad friends will recommend you in due course. I haven’t reconciled this with the fact that 90% of the stuff on the radio is crap, but IME the stuff that isn’t on the radio is even worse than the stuff that is. My music collection has less than 50 songs from the last 5 years or so, which tells me that the sort of music I like isn’t getting any better. I may feel differently about it 5 years from now, but I doubt it, somehow.

My sentiments exactly on both counts. Unlike a fine bourbon, which is great when you’ve got a bottle from an obscure distillery in Lickspittle, KA that only produces one batch every other year because they super-double-secret-filter the bourbon into casks made from timbers salvaged from Confederate Blockade Runners, music is better as a shared experience that can be discussed with others and which we can all relate to. Sure, there will always be Indie “Small Batch” music, but telling people like Polerius and myself that we should be looking at Indie music to find anything “Decent” is like suggesting people should learn Japanese to watch Anime if they didn’t like this week’s episode of Family Guy or The Simpsons. (Yes, I’m aware there are plenty of people who have done exactly that, but my point stands all the same).

87

[QUOTE=Martini Enfield]
..my own music collection has increased by a quarter since I found JACK FM- they’ve got one of the best radio playlists I’ve ever heard
[/QUOTE]

Huh. JACK.FM is like auditory pablum to me. We have one of those stations here and even though I have it on one of my presets, I almost never turn it there or, if I do, I turn it after only a couple minutes. I’m astounded anyone who would actually search for music – which I am assuming you are due to it being an American – would think it’s a solution as it’s exactly the kind of format that everyone I know who is passionate about music would never listen to.

Of course, considering your attitude of “if it’s not on the radio then it’s not worth listening to”, it’s obvious we’re not going to agree on much. If you think “Macarena” is better than every song that never got airplay, then we have completely different ways of thinking.

88

[QUOTE=Martini Enfield]
…
My sentiments exactly on both counts. Unlike a fine bourbon, which is great when you’ve got a bottle from an obscure distillery in Lickspittle, KA that only produces one batch every other year because they super-double-secret-filter the bourbon into casks made from timbers salvaged from Confederate Blockade Runners, music is better as a shared experience that can be discussed with others and which we can all relate to. Sure, there will always be Indie “Small Batch” music, but telling people like Polerius and myself that we should be looking at Indie music to find anything “Decent” is like suggesting people should learn Japanese to watch Anime if they didn’t like this week’s episode of Family Guy or The Simpsons. (Yes, I’m aware there are plenty of people who have done exactly that, but my point stands all the same).
[/QUOTE]

Except, again, indie is pretty mainstream. All types of amazing music can be heard at the local college station of your choosing. Hell, just watch TV, watch an iPhone commercial, and right there you have three artists you should check out: CSS, Orba Squara, and I believe the Shins were in one.

89

[QUOTE=Windwalker]
I think Dylan and Cohen both have distinct voices that I often (but not always) find appealing. Sometimes I’d rather listen to their voices than those of the likes of Aretha Franklin or Johnny Cash, who everyone seems to agree have great voices.
[/QUOTE]

I think you’re confusing Johnny Cash with someone else. Johnny Cash was many things to many people, but a great voice was not one of them. Distinctive, sure. In the same discussion as Aretha Franklin as a singer, not really, in my opinion.

90

Oh, I have to disagree whole-heartedly.

I think music has gotten SO much better, it’s only gotten harder to find. Anything you hear on the radio is going to be mainstream garbage. You said you like Radiohead. I think Radiohead is great but there are many great artists of these days.

First, let me point you to my favorite net radio station.
http://www.dr.dk/radio/?top
Once you are there, click “Barometer”

This is a good selection of interesting new music with a Scandinavian slant. There’s so many great new artists that show up on this channel. Plus they have a crawl with the current songs.

I highly recommend it.

91

[QUOTE=ZebraShaSha]
Except, again, indie is pretty mainstream. All types of amazing music can be heard at the local college station of your choosing. Hell, just watch TV, watch an iPhone commercial, and right there you have three artists you should check out: CSS, Orba Squara, and I believe the Shins were in one.
[/QUOTE]

Never heard of them; and I’m not a big fan of the “Indie” sound anyway (most of the stuff that gets passed off as Indie here is either angry, or alternative, or on the air because of local content laws, and none of it is anything I want to listen to).

The iPhone isn’t available for sale in Australia yet, so they don’t have ads for them here either…

92

[QUOTE=Martini Enfield]
My sentiments exactly on both counts. Unlike a fine bourbon, which is great when you’ve got a bottle from an obscure distillery in Lickspittle, KA that only produces one batch every other year because they super-double-secret-filter the bourbon into casks made from timbers salvaged from Confederate Blockade Runners, music is better as a shared experience that can be discussed with others and which we can all relate to. Sure, there will always be Indie “Small Batch” music, but telling people like Polerius and myself that we should be looking at Indie music to find anything “Decent” is like suggesting people should learn Japanese to watch Anime if they didn’t like this week’s episode of Family Guy or The Simpsons. (Yes, I’m aware there are plenty of people who have done exactly that, but my point stands all the same).
[/QUOTE]

Most great acts started out as “Indie”, so I don’t really see why it should have any negative connotation at all. Sometimes the big music companies notice them, sometimes they don’t, but often that has little relation to how good the band is, but mainly how lucky or marketable it is. In any case, the great indie acts that are still indie are usually not to hard to spot; they’ll more than likely have a passionate local audience, have garnered some glowing reviews (and maybe some hateful ones, too), and be decently well-known among music fanatics of that specific sub-genre. This is how I’ve found recent goodies like Jose Gonzalez (a lo-fi solo singer-guitarist) and Nellie McKay (witty jazz-broadway singer-pianist with a hint of rap).

As for sharing the music with people, it feels much more intimate when you’re sharing a somewhat secret treasure with the uncommon music compadre. Also, if there are none around you, you can turn your friends into fans! Among my mates here, one guy was obsessed with the Dresden Dolls when none of us had even heard of them. After a few months or so, most of us became fans, and we’ve even sung along to a few songs together.

Having the Dresden Dolls in our milieu instead of say, Beyonce (a top 10 seller in 2006), is definitely worth a little bit of effort. Thank you, Adrian. :smiley:

93

[QUOTE=featherlou]
I have noticed that Boomers have a strong tendency to dismiss any music that is not from their generation.
[/QUOTE]
I heartily, strongly, disagree. I think that sentence would be somewhat accurate if you changed “boomer” to “people,” but in my experience boomers are no more (and no less) “music-generational” than any other generation. I’m a little too young to be a boomer and a little too old to be a gen-xer, but I have many boomer friends. We’re into a broad variety of music from current times back to centuries old.

[QUOTE=Martini Enfield]
I have a very simple rule when it comes to music: If you’re any good, you’re going to be on the radio.
[/QUOTE]
The problem is that the total volume of music produced is orders of magnitude greater than the playlists of your average radio market. Do they pick the “good” stuff? No. They pick the heavily-promoted stuff. I’m not saying good music never makes it to the radio. I was listening to some Carlos Santana this morning. But the overwhelming majority of “good” music according to most people’s standards will never hit the airwaves.

[QUOTE=Martini Enfield]
If you aren’t on the radio, you’re not likely to be the sort of band I’m going to want to hear anyway, and on the off-chance you are, one of my music-mad friends will recommend you in due course.
[/QUOTE]
The second half of this, on the other hand, is a pretty good argument. If you have friends more interested in music than you are, and they have a feeling for what you like, then you really don’t need to put any effort into hunting down new bands. They’ll do it for you.

94

[QUOTE=InvisibleWombat]
I heartily, strongly, disagree. I think that sentence would be somewhat accurate if you changed “boomer” to “people,”
[/QUOTE]

Right. This is a human trait, not limited to Boomers. One I don’t get. I love the stuff from my youth, but if that’s all I had to listen to, I’d get bored. Must be something I inherited from my mom (who went with me to Coachella a couple of years ago).

95

[QUOTE=InvisibleWombat]
I heartily, strongly, disagree. I think that sentence would be somewhat accurate if you changed “boomer” to “people,” but in my experience boomers are no more (and no less) “music-generational” than any other generation. I’m a little too young to be a boomer and a little too old to be a gen-xer, but I have many boomer friends. We’re into a broad variety of music from current times back to centuries old.<snip>
[/QUOTE]

I guess your mileage is varying from mine. I hadn’t noticed this until it happened again and again and again - a Boomer saying very clearly and dismissively that all of today’s music is crap, and being interested in nothing but music from the 60’s, 70’s, and (grudgingly) the 80’s. Maybe all people do that, but I’ve really been noticing it in the Boomer crowd.

96

For a thread in which the OP asked for objective analysis… there’s not much of it above.

Even the poster who listed the top songs of 1973 - a presumably objective ranking – went on to “prove” the point he was making by summarily dismissing most of them as crap. Well, it so happens I like “Bad Bad Leroy Brown,” and “The Night the Lights Went Out In Georgia” is on my top-25 most played list on my iPod, so what does this mean?

Here’s a purely objective observation:

1974: There were 35 songs to hit #1 on the Hot 100
1975: 35
1976: 26
1977: 28

Compared to:

2003: 12
2004: 11
2005: 8
2006: 18

There’s a difference.

97

[QUOTE=Bricker]
For a thread in which the OP asked for objective analysis… there’s not much of it above.

Even the poster who listed the top songs of 1973 - a presumably objective ranking – went on to “prove” the point he was making by summarily dismissing most of them as crap. Well, it so happens I like “Bad Bad Leroy Brown,” and “The Night the Lights Went Out In Georgia” is on my top-25 most played list on my iPod, so what does this mean?

Here’s a purely objective observation:

1974: There were 35 songs to hit #1 on the Hot 100
1975: 35
1976: 26
1977: 28

Compared to:

2003: 12
2004: 11
2005: 8
2006: 18

There’s a difference.
[/QUOTE]

Er, the difference being that today’s great music is not today’s mainstream music. See, well, the entire thread. Look, I understand why you want to bring numbers into this, but you can’t here. Also, what is the Hot 100? The Hot 100 could have changed and nothing else, with the same numbers being reported. It doesn’t really tell us anything.

98

That’s a damn good question–how do they determine the “Hot 100” songs these days?

At one time this could have been based on single sales, but for most of the last two decades no one has really bought singles. More people are doing so now thanks to iTunes, but AFAIK this isn’t reflected on any of the major charts.

If the “Hot 100” is based on airplay, that’s even sillier nowadays. Before FCC deregulation, when stations were under local control and DJs based their playlists around listener feedback, it would have made sense. These days playlists are determined in boardrooms and airplay is bought and paid for on a level that would have made the early payola-tainted DJs cry.

Most of what’s “popular” based on these charts is so because someone in a suit decided to make it popular.

99

[QUOTE=Martini Enfield]

I have a very simple rule when it comes to music: If you’re any good, you’re going to be on the radio. If you aren’t on the radio, you’re not likely to be the sort of band I’m going to want to hear anyway, and on the off-chance you are, one of my music-mad friends will recommend you in due course. I haven’t reconciled this with the fact that 90% of the stuff on the radio is crap, but IME the stuff that isn’t on the radio is even worse than the stuff that is. My music collection has less than 50 songs from the last 5 years or so, which tells me that the sort of music I like isn’t getting any better. I may feel differently about it 5 years from now, but I doubt it, somehow.

[/QUOTE]

Maybe this isn’t the best analogy, but I think that things that are the most heavily promoted are often not the best. Bud Light is the highest selling beer in America, but few I know would agree that it is the best. Epic Movie, Norbit, and I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry were all number one at some point at the box office this year, but I they all scored less that 15% on Rotten Tomatoes, and I doubt many people would consider these movies art.

The point is, the most mediocre and watered down stuff gets the most promotion and becomes the most popular. But if you compare the most critically acclaimed music releases with the Grammy nominations this year, I don’t believe you’ll see any overlap. For reference, metacritic.com shows the 30 best-reviewed albums of the year culled from various music publications as well as from listeners. None of these artists is even all that obscure, and I see them frequently mentioned on several music and non-music internet forums. But very few of them will you ever hear on the radio. I’m not even familiar with much popular radio music these days, but I still try to listen to at least a few new albums every week. 2007 has been a great year for music.

100

[QUOTE=ZebraShaSha]
Er, the difference being that today’s great music is not today’s mainstream music. See, well, the entire thread. Look, I understand why you want to bring numbers into this, but you can’t here.
[/quote]

Are you seriously suggesting that you can OBJECTIVELY make the statement that today’s great music is not today’s mainstream music?

I want to bring numbers into this because they are, at least at first blush, an objective measure of SOMETHING.

[QUOTE=DoctorJ]
That’s a damn good question–how do they determine the “Hot 100” songs these days?

At one time this could have been based on single sales, but for most of the last two decades no one has really bought singles. More people are doing so now thanks to iTunes, but AFAIK this isn’t reflected on any of the major charts.

If the “Hot 100” is based on airplay, that’s even sillier nowadays. Before FCC deregulation, when stations were under local control and DJs based their playlists around listener feedback, it would have made sense. These days playlists are determined in boardrooms and airplay is bought and paid for on a level that would have made the early payola-tainted DJs cry.

Most of what’s “popular” based on these charts is so because someone in a suit decided to make it popular.
[/QUOTE]

The Billboard “Hot 100” chart rankings are based on both airplay and sales.

In the 1940s and 1950s, Billboard published three charts that were considered roughly equally in determining a song’s popularity: best sellers in stores; most airplay; and most jukebox plays. Billboard combined all those into a weighted point system in the late 1950s and created the “Hot 100” chart, which quickly dropped the jukebox aspect as the jukebox era ended.

Today’s Hot 100 ranking comes from airplay, singles sales, and digital sales (as reported by Nielsen SoundScan.)