I was in my teens in the 80s, and remember the music from the 70s as a kid growing up, Steely Dan will always be at the top. I’ve streamed the current top forty hits to keep an eye on what’s new. There is pretty good, catchy pop music out right now. Dua Lipa’s “Don’t Start Now” comes to mind.
Edit: The NYT has a good multimedia article on how pop music is changing.
I just don’t know what world this is coming from.
Music today is generally EXTREMELY well produced. Crank up last year’s biggest song, “Blinding Lights.” You literally couldn’t have made a song that sounded precisely like that in 1971, or for that matter 1981. It is an extremely crisply, perfectly produced song, being sung by a highly technically proficient singer.
Don’t believe them. Commercial and critical success mattered to almost all of them. At least the Beatles were honest about that.
I misread it then; he’s right in that sort of… chill bands that are not quite rock but not quite pop seem to be scarcer than hen’s teeth.
Part of the problem is that the OP’s list of bands is sort of idiosyncratic; the Allman Brothers and the Eagles are sort of Southern rock-ish pop, the Isley Bros. and O’Jays are R&B, and the others are in other categories. I guess he’s getting at a more laid back sort of vibe from those bands’ music more than at any specific category?
But this is absolutely not true. Maybe it’s true if you only turn on FM radio or only listen to what’s on the Billboard charts. But anyone capable of complaining on the internet is capable of using the internet to access a million times more songs of than you could ever hear in 1971. Songs of every conceivable genre and from tons of genres that didn’t even exist when that chart was compiled.
And, yes, I read the rest of your post where you attempt to say “And nothing new now counts because I like the old stuff better” but that’s more a reflection on you than it is on the availability of new music from a ton of diverse types. And even with the handwavey qualifier about “public awareness”, I can still find new music with 2mil+ listens on Spotify or hits on Youtube.
Yep, this has been said in the thread already, but it deserves repeating - repeatedly. There are more songs being recorded and released than there has been at any time in history. There’s someone producing something you like, you just need to find it.
At the same time, it’s also more difficult to get on the radio, because it’s a closed market that requires cash to get on in most places. IIRC, the guy who ran my old label said it cost a few thousand dollars to get 5-10 plays, and he was getting a bargain. Payola is worse than it ever was, it just goes under the guise of record promoters.
So, you don’t like what they play on the radio anymore? Then stop listening to the damn radio. If you want, there are several streaming services that will cater to your tastes, and most will try to mix in newer stuff. If you’re honestly willing to sit down and search, go to Bandcamp and start poking around and looking for something you like.
But if you don’t hear music you like on the radio, it’s not the musicians’ fault. You’ll need to go looking elsewhere.
How do you know “nobody cares”? I loved your list, and it inspired another list (eta: scabpicker’s), but the thread was over the next day. So too bad, but nobody had time to say “Don’t feel unappreciated, we love your favorite artists!”.
As someone who’s never had one of their friends say “Hey, love that obscure musician you mentioned!”, I say toughen up.
Some of us care about new, different artists and genres of music here. We’re just too busy listening to tell you about our faves (besides, as soon as a second person listens to it, it’s not edgy anymore…).
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I’d also like to add that I think pre-packaged playlists are another “death of music” moment. Satellite Radio in the car playing nothing but “classic rock”, Spotify “Basic Vanilla” playlists…
I heard a cool song playing in a café, asked the barista and they just shrugged “I dunno, it’s a Spotify playlist… might be called Bistro.”
Dude, I asked you who the artist was, and you don’t know … AND you don’t care! Doesn’t that bother you?
This might be my Boomerism showing, but if I were playing music for customers, I’d have hand-curated it, and know what it was. If it were a playlist, I wouldn’t just click a button, I’d look at what was going to be playing. The point is, I would CARE about the music!
(I gotta go thank the coffee joint near me that is always playing new music that I’ve never heard before… lots of international, lots of jazz/rock/reggae fusion, a few old blues thrown in, and always “tasty”…)
That’s why I have Shazam on my phone. So if I hear a cool unfamiliar song, I can find out what it is, and maybe download it. It’s happened quite a few times.
I wonder if some of the confusion isn’t how music is being SOLD.
Music always changes, but never before in history has the way it is bought and sold changed so much. From the advent of the very invention of rock and roll to fairly recently, music was largely dominated by record companies. Record companies found or created promising artists, recorded music, and then distributed the music by putting it on the radio and selling recordings of it - first largely just vinyl, the cheap electronic tape, then CDs. The album became the most common format just because it made the most sense, commercially speaking. Concert tours mattered, of course, and you had some other media crossovers and eventually music videos, but it was basically that.
If an artist was to get any sort of significant commercial success, that’s how they got into your record collection. There was no other means of making it to stardom. Like anything else, getting noticed was usually a matter of luck - you knew the right person or got in front of someone at just the right time.
The internet has changed everything. Now you don’t need a record company to get famous. You can get really, really famous, really really fast before you have a record contract. YouTube and a vast drop in the cost of professional recording software has enabled young musicians to put out songs and videos of strikingly high quality to millions of potential fans without all the fuss and bother of convincing some rich guy at Butthead Records.
In 2015 a kid from LA wrote a song that he decided didn’t really work for him, so he asked his kid sister if she wanted to sing it so she could dance to it in her dance class. It sounded good so they uploaded it to Soundcloud, and it went viral, and Billie Eilish is now one of the biggest music stars on the planet, and she was already really famous before her songs were on the radio.
Obviously Billie Eilish - or other people who did an end-around like her, like Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendes, or Alessia Cara - are now so famous they’re on the radio. But there’s a zillion artists out there who’ve done the same end-around and found more than enough popularity in a niche market to make an excellent living and the kids are eating this shit up. My kid listens to music that’s NEVER on any radio station I’m aware of, and she has never in her life purchased music on physical media. When I was her age, my parents had some knowledge of what I was listening to because it was on TV, the radio, the cassette tapes were lying around. Now, you can find what you want from the comfort of your phone.
I was born in 1947. Yes, that’s correct. I was fine with the music I heard in the 50s. Then came rock & roll and I was more than fine with that and liked the music all through the 60s. Then came the 70s and I was fine with all that, including disco. The 80s had an onslaught of great musicians and songwriters and I still prefer to listen to retro. The 90s had some great stuff, but then came the turn of the century and suddenly most the female singers started sounding the same in an auto-tuned sort of way, running up and down the scale searching for the right notes; and now it seems like everyone is crying about something or another in a whiny tone. I watched Miranda’s latest effort (In The Heights) the other night and was immediately put off by the lead women’s singing. Is it Emo? I don’t know, but now I tend to listen to jazz most of the time. There are still women out there who can belt out a tune with a strong alto voice, but they don’t seem to be at the forefront. Go ahead; pile on.
Of course there’s good new music. There always is. Best to avoid pop music/celebrity radio & trendiness if you want to hear it though. Find your own music. Don’t be force fed by some dipshit radio station who have the same playlists wherever you travel to on the continent. It’s like shopping malls. Same fu__ing stores, doesn’t matter where in the world you are.
There’s actually nothing ‘new’ going on here. But ‘new’ would be a difficult task since so much has been done already. Still good though. Reminds me a bit of Flash for some reason. Flash was a 70’s band involved around the early Yes & Genesis era if I recall.
More recently, I like MOE & Umphries McGee. Sort of similar to the sound here. A little more proficient one might suggest.
Cause much of it is! Hah,hah. Many of them couldn’t string 3 notes together otherwise. But they look good and can sell merchandise and that’s what matters. Interesting that merchandising is actually more important than the music now. That says it all.
Listened to Song To The Pharaoh Kings (Return To Forever) in the car yesterday. Blew me away, as always.
But why would anyone pile on, though? I mean, people do. but they’re assholes who shouldn’t be given any notice but an upraised middle finger. I might trash talk from time to time, but it’s not serious. The world is a hard place and if you find a thing that gives you joy, grab hold of it. The one rule of music appreciation is listen to the music that you want to listen to, don’t listen to the music you don’t want to listen to. I’d add a corollary that you should keep an open mind, be open to new things, but I won’t insist on that. If you’re fine with your favorites, stick to them.
If I went to my parent’s retirement home I’m sure I could find residents who would refer to all the bands listed in the OP as “Noise those damn kids listen to,”
Jebus. Blink and the thread goes from 15 responses to 112.
Just a couple of things: At least 3 of the artists listed by the OP suck. Always have, always will. But just to pull someone out of the list - Carlos Santana is still making great music today. So are Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen, who also came to prominence during the 70s.
Agreed. Which is exactly what people have been doing. Every year, radio listeners drop off and find alternative ways of finding/listening to music. From what I hear, 2020 was especially bad since the last real refuge of consumer radio was work commutes and so many people started working from home and never had reason to turn a radio on. I don’t think I’ve turned on a radio to listen to music in at least a year, maybe two (I have turned on AM news stations during a couple major events while on my hour-long commute).
Which is why it’s funny to see people comparing what’s on the radio now when I assume most radio formatting these days is “safe” and unchallenging tunes geared towards older people or workplace/business listening. It’s sure not trying to reach the new generations of listeners with anything innovative because those people aren’t hitting the FM dial for their music.
Yeah I always thought the 60s and early 70s was one of the most cutthroat eras in popular music. I don’t think anyone in that era would even have put up with grueling demands from the labels to constantly be releasing albums and touring without the opportunity for success. Amazing music came out of it of course and you didn’t quite have the thing we have now with songs with 20 writers, but there was still a ridiculous amount of trend-chasing and creative decisions that were basically made due to money.
Supposedly part of Brian Jones’s problem (besides being a drug addict) was that he didn’t realize quick enough that the Rolling Stones had become a business and Keith Richard was going to angle to have a writing credit in every possible song as well as making himself one of the faces of the band at all costs. Brian just wanted to play songs and didn’t think he’d get screwed out of everything if he was figuring out how to play a marimba while Keith was coming up with the part of the song that would actually get him money and fame.
I’ll pile on.
Did you ever hear female singers like Alicia Keys, Fiona Apple or Erikah Badu? Or even Shakira?
Some places don’t get to choose the music. My hotel lobby has some 1970s European softcore trash playing. Much of it is pop songs in French. I don’t have a clue what the songs are and I hate the channel but I can’t change it.
Also, not everyone really cares about music. I listen - on dead nights - to My Playlist on my kindle. Most of it is 1960s-1990s rock and pop with a solid chunk of folk music. The only recent stuff is some Hozier, some The Decembrists and the soundtrack to Hamilton(no idea how that popped on it). I’m fine with that.
This thread is great. I could read this shit all day long! Of course, I’ve got some good music in the background…
Well, yes, and of course how it’s consumed. Since my tastes after about being 10 years old leaned toward things that I wasn’t hearing on the radio very often, I’m used to having to seek out the things I liked through other means (though, more on that in a moment). So, a gigantic amount of the music I found out about came from talking to my friends, acquaintances and strangers about music. Heck, I’ll talk to just about anyone about music.
But if you didn’t have a reason to develop that kind of habit of seeking out things, and changing how you sought it with the fashions of the times: I can see how these days can be a tough row to hoe, especially if you live in a place without a variety of radio.
And really, while broadcast programming generally is pretty safe. I still listen to the radio a lot, but that’s because I am fortunate enough to live in a pretty large metropolitan area (DFW). As a result, I have an embarrassment of riches. I’ve got at least 4 non-profit radio stations that I regularly listen to (two college, one music offshoot of the local PBS station - KXT, and the Mighty KNON), that all have adventurous segments that I love. Heck, one of the college stations, a Methodist establishment, has a wonderful Saturday morning show aptly called “The Good Show” (on covid-19 hiatus at the moment). That show has a myriad of joys, the depths of which include being surprised by a pre-Independent Worm Saloon Butthole Surfers song while out running errands one morning.
I mentioned the study as an interesting datapoint but specifically said pretty much exactly as per your first sentence. And no one least of all me has trotted it out to prove music sucks today. You need to read the whole thread and not assume or cherry pick.