Is it really that bad, when compared to certain songs, singers, & bands in the past? Our younger generation seems to enjoy it, only because they grew up listening to it.
Pretty much those exact words have been used by parents to describe the popular music that their kids like for literally decades – back to the start of the rock era in the 1950s, and probably before that.
Jazz took the same flak in the 1930s.
Mozart wrote a song about anilingus.
The waltz was once controversial.
Young people have been offending their elders since time immemorial.
While I don’t view the music of millenials as talentless, and not all of it as lewd, a lot of the enduring music of the boomers was certainly performed by talentless people.
For instance, the beetles, not offensive, just meh. I don’t deny their influence on modern music, but they are cursed with being the first, those that followed did it so so much better
The world would have been a much better place without mick Jagger. His, well I guess most people seem to think what he was doing was singing, caterwauling is worse than fingernails on a chalkboard to me.
I guess that makes me a little weird, in that it’s the prior generations musical icons that are mostly void of merit, not the following generation to me.
I’d agree that it’s an age-old tradition to see new music , and the youth of today generally, as vulgar and scandalous, though there’s maybe some truth to things being ‘worse’ than ever.
When I was growing up in the 80s/90s it was perhaps Madonna who shocked, poncing about in underwear and conical bras - but in the age of self-objectification and narcissism encouraged by social media, lewdness has surely blossomed.
And modern music production techniques (e.g. real-time pitch modulation) mean that the talentless can prosper - though this doesn’t mean that talent doesn’t exist any more of course.
The modern age is always getting better at pushing the buttons of old folks, basically.
I’m curious: which artists influenced by the Beatles do you believe did it so much better.
Traditionally the whole point of rock music was to be “lewd” and push the buttons of the establishment. It was a form of rebellion for young people. Usually in the form of loud metaphors and double entendre about sex, drugs and partying.
“Modern” music, which I define as music from the past couple of decades isn’t particularly “lewd” IMHO. But much of what is played on the radio has become “talentless”. Or at the very least, it has become sort of bland, indistinctive and very corporate sounding. Kind of like the musicians were farmed by some giant corporation to play scientifically tested and focus-group approved tunes for a shrinking number of outlets attempting to inoffensively reach the largest number of people.
It’s weird because it doesn’t make any sense. The music of The Beatles and The Stones has been around for decades and is still enjoyed today. That’s not simply a matter of being “first”.
Everyone thinks the music they latched onto when they grew pubes is the best music ever. Boomers think it’s a crime that kids today don’t still worship Elvis and The Beatles.
There has long been a category of popular music that has been (at least as much) concerned with image and attitude, as with the quality of the music. Somewhat more complex is the fact that some new music explores different sonic textures, which may be not only unfamiliar, but also unpleasant to folk familiar with other styles. And different people may seek different things from their music. If I enjoy love ballads, I may have a hard time appreciating even well-crafted rap tunes expressing rage at an unfair system.
As an example - I recently saw/heard someone named Billie Ellish (sp?) on SNL. Apparently she is quite successful at promoting herself at a young age, but (from the parts of the 2 song I heard), any musical talent was well disguised.
Another category is the “manufactured” stars. We had the Monkees in the 60s. Before that, there were any number of Rickie Nelson clones. And my kids had Spice Girls and Backstreet Boys. Today, there is K-Pop. Hard to compare those groups to any number of people who write and perform their own music. But even such “products” can have a catchy tune or 2. And I have to admit, when I first saw/heard Destiny’s Child, I never dreamt the phenomena Beyoncé would become.
I attended 4 weddings this summer. I found it interesting to hear what songs from the 70s thru the oughts got played by the DJs. Staying power can be difficult to predict.
As I tell people: If you can remember when rock music was considered a fad that would die in two years, you are old. If you can remember when music was segregated, you are very old (white people had folk and country, “colored” people had jazz, soul and blues).
People have been decrying modern music since the first cave person sang the first notes.
Talentless seems a bit harsh, although I can definitely understand where that thought comes from. I think what I’d say is that radio music is very… produced and polished. If it was food, we’d call it highly processed food, to use an analogy.
But I don’t get a lot of the love for a lot of the contemporary artists of the past few years, and I did as recently as about 5 years ago. I don’t at all get what makes Billie Eilish so popular for example. Nor do I get why Cardi B is remotely popular either. Or Post Malone. I mean, his songs aren’t bad, but they’re not good either, and certainly not good enough for his level of fame. Or for that matter, why Iggy Azalea was popular some years back. None are that good, IMO.
I do think part of it is that we see pendulum swings- a few years ago, it was all folk-ish sounding rock (Mumford & Sons, George Ezra, etc…), and now the pendulum has swung in a more rap/r&B/hip-hop direction, making people go “WTF is this crap?” if they liked the other stuff.
If you want to define “lewd” as being “more profane and/or explicit than ever before”, then yes, that is true objectively. What was once the province of double entendres is now openly described. The word “fuck” is used more in recorded pop music in recent years (last 15-20) than ever before.
Talentless is a stretch but technology does help mask deficiencies in playing or singing.
Yes and no. A lot of people still listen to The Beatles and Elvis today. When people look back on the music from the 60s, 70s, etc, they mostly remember the good stuff that staid good. They largely forget most of the crap.
People remember Pearl Jam and Nirvana from the 90s. They have (or should have) largely forgotten The Spin Doctors.
Firstly, I think it’s kind of weird that there is a “pendulum” that swings back and forth between rap/hip hop and rock. Music that has largely been around for 40 years and doesn’t seem much different from what I listened to as a kid.
Secondly, I think the oscillations (or whatever) for that pendulum has been getting shorter as hip hop, rock and electronic dance music seem to be growing less distinctive as genres. It’s all sort of an “urban pop crossover” now. Katy Perry & Ed Sheeran (featuring Drake) (Deadmou5 remix).
At least bands like Mumford & Sons tried something different for awhile. Even if their last two albums discarded the banjos and washboards for traditional instruments, placing them solidly and generically somewhere between Coldplay and Imagine Dragons.
Talentless i dont think so. But its lewder by many degrees than any other generational music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDMGmtpvBjsNobody with a brain feels that way.
On the contrary. I’m amazed that young people today still listen to them. Back to 60s, people couldn’t even name a song from fifty years earlier (except maybe “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”).
This, and this.
Plus there’s real evidence that “modern day music” is more homogeneous than that of earlier eras. (Science Proves: Pop Music Has Actually Gotten Worse; Scientists Just Discovered Why All Pop Music Sounds Exactly the Same).
Plus, some of today’s musicians aren’t talented in the same way as musicians of yesteryear. (It takes a different kind of talent to be a rapper than to be a rock star or a crooner.)
Lip syncing, pitch correction, and sampling. Modern music is hopeless.
While bad language and explicit lyrics are more more common now, I dispute the notion that things were once solely the province of double entendres. (Spoiler tags and broken links for NSFW language). A quick little youtube searching finds:
LUCILLE BOGAN - Shave 'Em Dry (1935)
https: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PhOWpdt6xg
[spoiler]Now if fuckin’ was the thing
That would take me to heaven,
I’d be fuckin’ in the studio
Till the clock strike eleven.
Oh daddy, daddy shave 'em dry,
I would fuck you baby,
Honey I’d make you cry.
Now your nuts hang down
Like a damn bell sapper,
And your dick stands up like a steeple.
Your goddam ass-hole
Stands open like a church door,
And the crabs walks in like people.
Ow, shit!
(Aah, sure enough, shave 'em dry?)
Ooooh! Baby, won’t you shave 'em dry[/spoiler]
The Clovers - The Rotten Cocksucker’s Ball - 1954
https: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-n5vG2SjJY
[spoiler]Come on you poor ass singers and ya’ big dick slingers
We’re going downtown to the cocksucker’s ball
Fuck, suck and fight till the beginning of broad daylight
We don’t need no god damned taxi fair
We’re going to trim those hoes in a rocking chair
Take off all their rags
We’re going to play a little game call tag
Tomorrow night at the rotten cock sucker’s ball
Cha, cha, cha, cha[/spoiler]
Moderator Action
Since this is about music, let’s move it to Cafe Society (from MPSIMS).