# Why does modern music suck? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 29, 2006, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-modern-music-suck/370621 "2006-08-29T03:10:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2006, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-modern-music-suck/370621/81 "2006-08-31T19:37:55Z")
[QUOTE=msmith537] [AM](http://www.myspace.com/amsounds) (The artist by that name, not the radio frequency) [Quincy Coleman](http://www.myspace.com/quincycoleman) [Jim Bianco](http://www.myspace.com/jimbianco) [Saucy Monky](http://www.myspace.com/saucymonky) [Cary Brothers](http://www.myspace.com/carybrothers) [Dead Rock West](http://www.myspace.com/deadrockwest) [Libbie Schrader](http://www.myspace.com/libbieschrader) No office but it all sounds like the same generic alt-rock college band Emo stuff since the early 90s. [/QUOTE] That should be “offence”, not office ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2006, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-modern-music-suck/370621/82 "2006-08-31T19:56:40Z")
[QUOTE=msmith537] One thing I noticed is that rock music back then actually ROCKED. It doesn’t really rock so much these days. It’s all melancholy commercialized post-grunge alt-rock bands complaining about their girl leaving them. The other things is that I’m not so sure about the longevity of today’s music. In 30-40 years will anyone remember Hoobastank or Staind? [/QUOTE] And not only that, the stuff they play on the radio is the **bad** melancholy commercialized post-grunge alt-rock bands complaining about their girl leaving them. The **good** melancholy post-grunge alt-rock bands complaining about their girl leaving them don’t get airplay. No, I’m serious! ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2006, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-modern-music-suck/370621/83 "2006-08-31T20:50:25Z")
[QUOTE=msmith537] Do they still play videos on MTV after about 9am? Since the 90s it seems like one long episode of The Real World vs Road Rules. I have to agree that the music today, while not “sucking” per se, seems to be lacking something that the music of the 60s and 70s had. Recently, I’ve been updating my MP3 collection with a lot of 60s and 70s stuff: -AC/DC -The Beattles -Billy Joel -Boston -The Clash -The Doors -Elton John -Jimi Hendrix -Led Zeppelin -The Police -The Ramones -Rush -Van Halen and so on. One thing I noticed is that rock music back then actually ROCKED. It doesn’t really rock so much these days. It’s all melancholy commercialized post-grunge alt-rock bands complaining about their girl leaving them. [/QUOTE] That music is out there, but so is a plethora of music that does not fit that description. For every great artist in your list, there is another artist working today whose work will also pass the test of time and be reminisced about petulantly by this generation, when they grow old and nostalgic. This discussion takes place with every generation of music lovers; and every generation has its great artists. [QUOTE=msmith537] The other things is that I’m not so sure about the longevity of today’s music. In 30-40 years will anyone remember Hoobastank or Staind? [/QUOTE] No, but there are many, many artists who WILL be remembered. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2006, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-modern-music-suck/370621/84 "2006-08-31T20:56:12Z")
[QUOTE=save that for real estate] Please tell me about all the wonderful Grime from the mid '70s. Can you inform me what your favorite early '80s Hyphy records were? And, just for kicks, what late '60s Reggaeton really rocked your world? I’m going to be a bit provocative here, and it may just be due to you being 44, but just because you don’t care about music that’s doing anything new doesn’t mean that nobody’s doing anything new with music. Or did old folks tell you music in the '60s sucked because they couldn’t hear anyone taking Big Band in new exciting directions? [/QUOTE] And dare I even bring hip-hop into the mix, which, as a popular music form, basically did not exist pre-1981 and, whether you like it or not, has been the most seismic development in pop music since rock’s debut in the late 50s? You did specify “rock music forms,” to be fair, but the OP’s question is broader than that. ---
**Author:** ![jukeboxhero00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/35a633/32.png) [@jukeboxhero00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jukeboxhero00)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-modern-music-suck/370621/85 "2012-07-20T06:49:50Z")
I think a great deal of the differance heard from mid 70’s on is that record companies weren’t having as many artisit write & record there own material in many cases. That is especially true now. You find someone who looks marketable and is willing to put up with the touring demands, have a real artisit write some songs for them paying them pennies on the dollar if that , slap together an album with three or 4 singles and Bam- never heard from that person again. Maybe a sophmore attempt is the first album was a big hit, but look at someone like Avril Lavinge- what the hell ever happend to her or Good Charlotte? They are gone becasue they were nothing but quick cash puppets for teeny bop pop fans. It makes more money - thats what it comes down to. Take an band like u2. If those guys release an album they know it is going to sell- they are guaranteed that to a point (although they better start producing some higher caliber stuff that No Line on The Horizon…) The record company has to pay them a much greater dividend. Same with Metallica or any other big stadium act. But if they sign up somebody small and promote the hell out of them they can “create” a star and make a crap load of money of idiots. I once had a friend who swore that anyone on the Billboard top 40 deserved respect… what got em there- record sales, that came from radio play, and who controls that- the record company with licences. They simply let he stations play the stuff they want them to play for cheap. All politics and buisness, nothng to do with music anymore ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-modern-music-suck/370621/86 "2012-07-20T07:22:35Z")
> [@Equipoise](#): > > [Suspended In Gaffa (MySpace)](http://www.myspace.com/gaffashow) (streaming audio) Damn, you know it’s a zombie thread when some fool links to frickin’ MySpace. Ugh. :rolleyes: > [@Equipoise](#): > > [Suspended In Gaffa (Web download)](http://suspended-in-gaffa.com) (contains song samples and more information on the artists) That site’s still up and the “podcasts” on each page are still downloadable. It stopped being updated years ago, when it became apparent that no one was interested, but hell’s bells, there’s some damn great music there, and it all sounds as good to me (ok, to ME) as it always did. Not everybody will like every song because nobody’s as weird as me, it’s a good way to sample a bunch of different artists and song types. ---
**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-modern-music-suck/370621/87 "2012-07-20T16:01:40Z")
It’s the old addage: Do you want it good or cheap? The music industry wants to turn a buck fast, so quality (and talent) goes in the trash. What a shame. I bet kids these days don’t even know the joy of a energetic jam session on their air guitars! ☹ ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2012, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-modern-music-suck/370621/88 "2012-07-23T18:54:12Z")
> [@Equipoise](#): > > Damn, you know it’s a zombie thread when some fool links to frickin’ MySpace. Ugh. :rolleyes: At least I got my answer to whether Hoobastank or Staind will still be around. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2012, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-modern-music-suck/370621/89 "2012-07-23T19:06:09Z")
> [@Jinx](#): > > I bet kids these days don’t even know the joy of a energetic jam session on their air guitars! ☹ You know, just because it’s from the 70s doesn’t mean we’re congenitally incapable of hearing it. And there are definitely modern songs that are great to airjam to. I will agree that, in general, radio stations play a disappointing pablum of modern music. Which is why I love my Current and listen to it as much as possible. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-modern-music-suck/370621/90 "2012-07-24T13:38:21Z")
I just don’t listen to music so much any more. I listen to the oldies radio in the car and I have several burned CDs with a very wide range of music from folk to show tunes to classic to big band, disco/dance, rock. I have plenty to chose from the past and am happy with what I’ve got…for me, the music stopped after the birth of my daughter. Too busy to go out to clubs or concerts, just didn’t care bon Jovi had a new one out! but. As she grew older, I found a whole lot of newer music courtesy she and her friends that I added to the list. I didn’t seek it out, but overheard and thought, “so that’s 9 Inch Nails, I like it”. I will telll you, “Jump Around” by House of Pain or “Rump Shaker” by Wreck EFX (?) are swell tunes and served the purpose of getting her to leave a friend’s house when I came to pick her up. If she wasn’t out the door in 5 minutes after I beeped the horn, the whole neighborhood heard one of those songs at top volume, lol! ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2012, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-modern-music-suck/370621/91 "2012-08-05T02:38:59Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > I didn’t seek it out, but overheard and thought, “so that’s 9 Inch Nails, I like it”. NIN is great and all…back when I was your daughters age. Actually I did read an article that described how modern music is measurably less diverse than music from seveal decades ago. Fewer chords, less range, specific timings and beats and whatnot. Which supports what I’ve long suspected. That record execs are pushing out this generic dance/pop hip hop (featuring some dude from Coldplay, Maroon 5 or OneRepublic) based on algorithms designed in a lab somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2012, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-modern-music-suck/370621/92 "2012-08-05T11:09:54Z")
I listen to Jazz. Every performance is new & fresh, obviously. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2012, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-modern-music-suck/370621/93 "2012-08-05T11:43:14Z")
> [@elmwood](#): > > Back in the 1970s and 1980s, when adults told kids that their music sucked, they didn’t respond with a list of little-known bar bands and a quick dismissal of “you’re not looking hard enough.” That’s what seems to be happening today, though. You see that throughout the SDMB, especially in “rap sucks” threads; people rattle off names of rappers that are almost unknown beyond a few zip codes in Brooklyn and a small, “elite” crowd of aficionados beyond, claiming that they’re the good ones, not what you hear playing on the radio. In the 1970s and 1980s, if a band was good, it got airplay and/or visibility from heavily promoted concert tours. If an adult told me in 1978 that Yes sucked, I didn’t tell them that they should really check out Starcastle, because they’re so much better. > > Back then, if a band was unknown, it was usually because it was just formed, or because it truly sucked. Today, the attitude seems to be that bands are at their best when nobody knows about them; once they’re discovered and become even nominally popular, they suck. The advice “listen to underground stuff” is perfectly sound advice to somebody who says they don’t like that genre. Think about it: what’s somebody’s exposure to a genre likely to be? By the laws of probability, probably the popular stuff. If they hate all the stuff they heard, it’s likely the popular stuff. Thus, most people who say they hate music find that, if they find music they like, it’s pretty obviously not going to be the popular stuff. It’s just that in the '70s finding underground music recordings was a fool’s errand because, you know, no internet. There is a certain perception among a certain subset of people that “mainstream music sucks”, but the advice “if you don’t like \, try the underground stuff since you’ll probably like it more” itself isn’t **necessarily** grounded in that. > [@NDP](#): > > Oh, please. Music has been going steadily down hill ever since J.S. Bach died. I don’t know, with a few exceptions, I can’t stand anything produced after Gregorian Chant went out of vogue. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2012, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-modern-music-suck/370621/94 "2012-08-05T11:55:07Z")
Stupid edit time limit… And there is a very wide range of music still being produced. [Bartholomew](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoP5NGLsWR0) by The Silent Comedy is very reminiscent of some of the musically minimalist rock that popped up even among popular bands a couple decades ago (by that I mean songs like “We Will Rock You” which were very, very good, but not musically **complex** ). [Cage](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKtsdZs9LJo) the [Elephant](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT4Y2JleWrQ&feature=relmfu)’s music from their [First Album](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPgWNuUkuA8) is sort of an alternate branch of music development, if Rock had stayed in vogue forever. I’m not a huge fan of The Hives, but what I’ve heard of them is similar. I’d drone on and on about other music that’s completely different from even this like [Streetlight Manifesto](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-UTPKL-UGY), etc etc. But I don’t think anybody wants to sit here while I link to a billion different songs. Even so, even mainstream music has some variety. In 200…7 was it? The top 40 included songs like Girlfriend by Avril Lavigne, and Hey There Deliliah by Plain White T’s along with the stuff like Crank That Soulja Boy. I’m not even convinced those three songs are from the same planet. [Obligatory remix of all top 25 Billboard hits of 2007](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls7yJmxAF9Y) (he’s done one for every year since then) that shows off some of the variety. Granted the majority of them are very similar, but there’s almost always a **couple** like Girlfriend and Hey There Delilah that he seems to dedicate a section to because he can’t really decide what to do with them since they just don’t fit. ---
**Author:** ![Coustralee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Coustralee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coustralee)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2012, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-modern-music-suck/370621/95 "2012-08-05T13:32:57Z")
sometimes while watching old fave 70s and 80s music videos you sometimes think if these groups were around today they’d be berated as too wierd, too different, be berated for their sub-par dancing etc. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-modern-music-suck/370621.md?page=4)