# Stuff worse than it used to be **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 8, 2016, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-worse-than-it-used-to-be/745556 "2016-02-08T20:48:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-worse-than-it-used-to-be/745556/141 "2016-02-11T15:26:59Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > Conversely, “oldies” stations play music from the 60’s through the 80’s and stuff like Motown, Elvis, Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, etc are largely ignored. > > I’m not tuning into the oldies station to hear Journey, people! We have a REAL oldies station here that plays music from the 50’s and 60’s, including Motown, Elvis, Everly Bros., and I love it. But even so, it’s like they have one big tall stack of records they found at the thrift store, and that’s it. They play good songs, but after a month or so, you notice there are no ‘new’ oldies put into the mix. Same songs, a lot, spread out over time, but after a month, well, there is ‘The Rain, The Park and Other Things’ again. There is SO much more I would love to hear, no luck. This happens on every radio station. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-worse-than-it-used-to-be/745556/142 "2016-02-11T15:53:58Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > Yes, the musical seems to be in no real danger. Depending on what you mean by “new,” in addition to _Hamilton_ and _Book of Mormon_, we’ve also seen things like _Spring Awakening_ and _The Drowsy Chaperone_, all within the past ten years or so. Push the boundary out a little further and you can also include _Wicked_, _Spamalot_, and _Hairspray_. > > What has changed about musicals, I think, is that they seem like a bit more of a niche interest. Back in the Rodgers and Hammerstein days, or even the early days of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Stephen Sondheim, it was fairly common for songs from musicals to become popular hits. There was an awareness of the musical theater among the general public that doesn’t seem to be present nowadays. Part of that may be because it’s become so difficult to see a new show–tickets to Broadway are incredibly expensive these days, and often hard to get for the really big shows. But another part of it seems to be that, for whatever reason, fewer people appear to be interested in musicals than they once were. I thought the animated musical “Strange Magic” was pretty good … though it was really the animation that blew me away. ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-worse-than-it-used-to-be/745556/143 "2016-02-11T17:32:09Z")
I always find it funny when people complain about songs from their youth being on oldies stations. You. Are. Old. Accept it. Pretty soon songs from the 90s will be on oldies stations because the kids who grew up listening to that music are now also old and that is what an “oldies” is to them. ---
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-worse-than-it-used-to-be/745556/144 "2016-02-11T17:52:09Z")
> [@Push\_You\_Down](#): > > I always find it funny when people complain about songs from their youth being on oldies stations. > > You. Are. Old. Worse, yet. I’m classic. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-worse-than-it-used-to-be/745556/145 "2016-02-11T18:02:52Z")
> [@jabiru](#): > > Musicals. When was the last good, new musical produced? I saw an ad on tv last night for a new production of _Fiddler on the Roof_. I loved this - when I first saw it 40 odd years ago. Every couple of years there’s a new production of _West Side Story_. Ditto. I’m singing _I Feel Pretty_ in my head right now. A great show. > > I can’t remember the last time I saw a new, really good stage or screen musical. Really? In the past few years I’ve seen _Matilda, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, Kinky Boots, The Book of Mormon, Newsies, Memphis, Billy Eliot, Jersey Boys, The Drowsy Chaperone, Avenue Q,_ and _Spamalot_. All great musicals. The issue is that it takes a long time for musicals to be seen by the general public. Part is that the more risque ones (e.g., _The Book of Mormon, Kinky Boots_) are not done by high schools (_Avenue Q_ is both risque and requires performance skills that few nonprofessionals have). However, earlier this year I saw a kickass performance of _The Drowsy Chaperone_ that was up there with the touring version. If you really love musicals, you might want to look into _Something Rotten_ – for [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUXsr83r590)alone. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-worse-than-it-used-to-be/745556/146 "2016-02-11T18:07:27Z")
> [@Push\_You\_Down](#): > > I always find it funny when people complain about songs from their youth being on oldies stations. I don’t care about songs from my youth being on “oldies” station. My complaint is that what used to be an oldies station (50’s and 60’s) no longer exists because they’ve shaved off the 50’s and first couple years of the 60’s to push in the 70’s and early 80’s stuff. Back in the day, it was Oldies: 50’s & 60’s Classic Rock: late 60’s & 70’s Adult Contemporary: Late 70’s & 80’s Then you’d have your “80’s, 90’s and Today!” style stations, etc. You can’t hear the old stuff any longer because supposed “oldies” stations no longer play it. That’s the complaint – I’m fine with being old, myself. Let me feel even older by being able to listen to some Del Shannon 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-worse-than-it-used-to-be/745556/147 "2016-02-11T18:11:24Z")
Computer keyboards. The acme of keyboards is the [IBM Model M](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_M_keyboard) which they stopped manufacturing in ~1999. Most keyboards these days are cheap throw-aways but even the expensive ones don’t quite match up to the Model M. Don’t get me started on the abominable Apple chicklet keyboard. (This message typed out on a 1996 Model M. Sadly it does nothing to improve the content of the message.) ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-worse-than-it-used-to-be/745556/148 "2016-02-11T18:42:35Z")
> [@Richard\_John\_Marcej](#): > > Actually, according to the laws on the books in New Jersey, here’s their reasoning. At least their reasoning in 1949: > > The Garden State self-service gas station ban dates back to 1949, when the New Jersey Legislature passed the Retail Gasoline Dispensing Safety Act, primarily over concerns about the safety of consumers pumping petroleum themselves. Many other states will follow suit, but eventually overturn their self-serve bans. New Jersey’s law, meanwhile, lives on as an iconic peculiarity of life in the Garden State — almost a badge of honor for New Jerseyans who haven’t a clue how to work a pump. Again, the rest of the world figured out a long time ago that people can work a gas pump without blowing themselves up. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-worse-than-it-used-to-be/745556/149 "2016-02-11T18:58:40Z")
> [@iljitsch](#): > > Yeah, the ones that cost a tenth of that old HP. > > You can get some really nice printers that are still very affordable these days. Maybe not built like a tank, but still built well enough, and they finally fixed all the driver nonsense. My old printer from 2003 still worked fine and they even still sold the ink cartridges, but the drivers were no longer compatible so I couldn’t use any of the advanced features such as double sided printing. So I got a new one, and I’m very happy with it. Like I said, no drivers and I can print photos directly from my phone wirelessly. Ah yes, printers. I used to have an old HP Deskjet that I loved. The ink cartridges were huge, and would easily last me most of a year, given my fairly modest printing needs. Then HP’s bean counters decided to discontinue the cartridges. I’ve tried refilling cartriges before, and in my experience it’s a crapshoot because half the time the refilled cartridge won’t work. I didn’t want to stockpile ink, or waste my time scouring eBay for the last cartridges on earth. So when my mom told me she had an all-in-one printer/scanner/fax jobbie that she wasn’t using, I jumped at it. Ugh. The cartridges on the new printer are tiny. I need to replace them every couple of months, even tho I’m not printing any more than I used to. Probably less. I’d dump it and get a new printer, but every other cartridge I see in the office store is also tiny. Big ones like my old printer used to use seem to be as dead as the dodo. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-worse-than-it-used-to-be/745556/150 "2016-02-11T19:02:30Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > I’m not tuning into the oldies station to hear Journey, people! How do you think I feel? I grew up in the 80’s, and now the music of my youth is considered “oldies.” ☹ ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-worse-than-it-used-to-be/745556/151 "2016-02-11T19:20:57Z")
> [@Diceman](#): > > How do you think I feel? I grew up in the 80’s, and now the music of my youth is considered “oldies.” ☹ Got news for you: It happens every 20 years or so. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-worse-than-it-used-to-be/745556/152 "2016-02-11T20:02:10Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > Don’t get me started on the abominable Apple chicklet keyboard. Worst keyboard I have every used. The keys popped off too easily and it was uncomfortable to type on. ---
**Author:** ![AppallingGael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9bd4f/32.png) [@AppallingGael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AppallingGael)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-worse-than-it-used-to-be/745556/153 "2016-02-12T01:52:26Z")
Regarding music radio, I think the problem is this fixation on “decades”. Why get stuck in that groove? If there were a common and concise name for the various quarter centuries, maybe some radio station could offer the best mix of 1951-1975, 1976-2000, and today. Harking back to the first page of this thread, one of the cooler old Cracker Jack prizes, I thought, was the little “tattoo” booklet. Just moisten and apply. Gumball machines back then (early to mid- 1970’s) offered a single marble-sized gumball for a penny (pennies, there’s another thing), a larger gumball (often goose-fleshed) for a nickel, while the quarter machines varied their content, but some of the neater offerings I recall were a generic squirmle, mini NFL helmets, and a booklet pointing out the eerie similarities between the Lincoln and JFK assassinations (e.g., “Lincoln” and “Kennedy” both contain 7 letters). Granted, Cracker Jack prizes never rose to quite that level. Speaking of comic books, the 60’s were not very much like the 70’s. Think Day-Hudson, Gidget, Frankie-and-Annette and so on compared to late 60’s-70’s films, except that 70’s comics weren’t quite as good as 70’s movies because they were after all for children who didn’t know better. Of course, the price of comic books and still more the price per page starting rising a lot faster then. Regarding comic art, some of the more inferior artists of the old days (I’m thinking of Bob Kane and whichever of Siegel and Shuster did the drawing) were creators of the characters, and that gave them a one-up on landing the drawing assignment. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-worse-than-it-used-to-be/745556/154 "2016-02-12T03:49:21Z")
> [@GreenElf](#): > > A lot of of stuff is worse than it used to be, but I’ll just mention a few. > > Most all of the candy now has high fructose corn syrup as a main ingredient. Movie theater refreshments now cost as much or more than the ticket price. Good call on that high fructose corn syrup. Used in all the soft drinks, too. I hate the stuff. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-worse-than-it-used-to-be/745556/155 "2016-02-12T04:06:18Z")
> [@AppallingGael](#): > > Regarding music radio, I think the problem is this fixation on “decades”. Why get stuck in that groove? If there were a common and concise name for the various quarter centuries, maybe some radio station could offer the best mix of 1951-1975, 1976-2000, and today. > > Harking back to the first page of this thread, one of the cooler old Cracker Jack prizes, I thought, was the little “tattoo” booklet. Just moisten and apply. Gumball machines back then (early to mid- 1970’s) offered a single marble-sized gumball for a penny (pennies, there’s another thing), a larger gumball (often goose-fleshed) for a nickel, while the quarter machines varied their content, but some of the neater offerings I recall were a generic squirmle, mini NFL helmets, and a booklet pointing out the eerie similarities between the Lincoln and JFK assassinations (e.g., “Lincoln” and “Kennedy” both contain 7 letters). Granted, Cracker Jack prizes never rose to quite that level. > > Speaking of comic books, the 60’s were not very much like the 70’s. Think Day-Hudson, Gidget, Frankie-and-Annette and so on compared to late 60’s-70’s films, except that 70’s comics weren’t quite as good as 70’s movies because they were after all for children who didn’t know better. Of course, the price of comic books and still more the price per page starting rising a lot faster then. Regarding comic art, some of the more inferior artists of the old days (I’m thinking of Bob Kane and whichever of Siegel and Shuster did the drawing) were creators of the characters, and that gave them a one-up on landing the drawing assignment. WTF? The 60s was a revolution in comics. It actually preceded the new hollywood cinema by half a decade or more. It was for kids of course, but the college students and adults started to read them, and collect old back issues, and publish fanzines…in the 60s… ---
**Author:** ![RunninMike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@RunninMike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RunninMike)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-worse-than-it-used-to-be/745556/156 "2016-02-12T06:47:03Z")
Right on re Movie Popcorn and butter. I used to work at a theater, and I would literally have to put sticks of butter in the warmer/ dispenser before every shift. So good. Washing machines. The new HE models are not to get the clothes cleaner, but to use less water and energy. OK, I guess. But when the old washing machines would fill up to the top with soapy water and that huge agitator would grind away at a full load for an hour or more, those clothes were clean. No re-do’s or extra cycles necessary. ---
**Author:** ![Soylent\_Juicy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@Soylent\_Juicy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soylent_Juicy)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-worse-than-it-used-to-be/745556/157 "2016-02-12T16:13:26Z")
Halloween Candy. I don’t know about you guys but I remember Halloween-size chocolate bars being bigger and getting more Smarties in a box than now. (Canadian Smarties - the candy-coated chocolate circles, similar to M&Ms.) ---
**Author:** ![NeonMadman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/58f4c7/32.png) [@NeonMadman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NeonMadman)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-worse-than-it-used-to-be/745556/158 "2016-02-12T19:23:28Z")
> [@AppallingGael](#): > > Regarding music radio, I think the problem is this fixation on “decades”. Why get stuck in that groove? If there were a common and concise name for the various quarter centuries, maybe some radio station could offer the best mix of 1951-1975, 1976-2000, and today. Maybe so, but I think that the reason for the fixation on decades is that most people imprint their musical tastes during their adolescent years, and that’s about 10 years for most of us. I was a teenager during the late 60s and early 70s, and that’s where my musical tastes developed. I’m still a big Bob Dylan fan, and I love lots of the music from that era. Many of my favorite artists to this day are people who started recording, or hit it big, during those years. Those years seem to me like a treasure trove of great music. Sure, there has been good, even great, music - here and there - in the subsequent decades, but it’s like finding the occasional diamond in a much larger sludge pile of mediocrity or worse. I know many here would disagree with me about that, but that may be because their music tastes were imprinted during other time periods. For my money, my teenage years were the best time ever for music. And, as I may have inadvertently revealed in my prior posts in this thread about comic books, my prime years for those were my _pre_-adolescent years. There’s an old saying among comics fans: “The Golden Age of Comics was when you were ten.” ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-worse-than-it-used-to-be/745556/159 "2016-02-12T20:01:22Z")
However, if you look at the tail ends of a decade, the music is almost entirely different. For the decade of the 2000s this perhaps is only noticeable by the decline of rock rather than by changes in genres per se, but I _never_ associate songs that are more than 5 years different in time together. So perhaps a better phrase for me would be "if we could have a common and concise name for a 5 year period, we could advertise the best mix of the mid70s (which is concise), and the turn of the 80s (which is neither concise nor descriptive but to me would be 77-83 ish, which is the absolute maximum age difference at which songs could have a similar vibe without engaging in homage.) ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-worse-than-it-used-to-be/745556/160 "2016-02-12T20:08:25Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > You used to be able to fix your own vehicle if you knew how. Now you can’t or may get sued if you try. How is that progress? > > P Vehicles now get 100K miles as a matter of course. Much longer between service intervals. breakdowns are fewer. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-worse-than-it-used-to-be/745556.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-worse-than-it-used-to-be/745556.md?page=9)