# Will there ever be music as good as or better than music from the late 1960's and early 1970's? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 25, 2015, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-music-as-good-as-or-better-than-music-from-the-late-1960s-and-early-1970s/718529 "2015-04-25T20:55:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2015, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-music-as-good-as-or-better-than-music-from-the-late-1960s-and-early-1970s/718529/41 "2015-04-26T03:49:15Z")
There’s been tons of interesting and innovative music that’s been made since the early 70’s. I think the difference is that very little of it ends up on the mainstream pop charts like it did back then. You get the occasional “edgier” artist who does well commercially, but the underground never again really took over the dominant mainstream pop music paradigm like it did in the 60’s. Although the early 90’s were maybe a bit of a close call. ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2015, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-music-as-good-as-or-better-than-music-from-the-late-1960s-and-early-1970s/718529/42 "2015-04-26T04:51:20Z")
> [@2gigch1](#): > > Of course there will be good or better music in the future. There’s good or better music now. > > I very much enjoyed the music I grew up with, but I think some of the music I am enjoying now that was made recently is better. Yes. There’s lots of great music being made today. It may take a little digging, but it’s not really too hard to find. ---
**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:** [April 26, 2015, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-music-as-good-as-or-better-than-music-from-the-late-1960s-and-early-1970s/718529/43 "2015-04-26T05:01:58Z")
> [@boytyperanma](#): > > I’m younger. I prefer the music from the late 70s and 80s. So to me your poll makes a ridiculous assumption. Yeah, that’s my sweet spot, too, as far as rock music is concerned. But music in general? Too hard to say. Looking through my music collection, the vast majority is stuff that has come out in the last 20 years, although I really slowed down in the past five years or so, not having the energy that I used to to devote to keeping on top of it. I definitely love the stuff from the late 60s and early 70s, but it’s not difficult for me to imagine a better period of music, especially since, personally, there are better periods of music to me. But–and I don’t want to be too wishy washy about this–it’s not really that much about music being “better,” it’s just different. And that’s what I like. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2015, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-music-as-good-as-or-better-than-music-from-the-late-1960s-and-early-1970s/718529/44 "2015-04-26T05:05:43Z")
> [@Yookeroo](#): > > Yes. There’s lots of great music being made today. It may take a little digging, but it’s not really too hard to find. I actually think that it’s a heck of a lot easier to find now than when I was young. Growing up in the 90s, I was pretty much at the mercy of MTV. These days, thanks to the wonder that is the internet, I listen to new stuff that I would probably never had a hope in hell of knowing about in a non-online world. I have no idea what the kids are listening too, and as far as mainstream stuff goes, the little of it that I can’t avoid being exposed to is enough to convince me that I’m not missing much. But I find lots of new stuff that I like. I don’t even know (or particularly care) how popular or otherwise a lot of it is, really, I just know that I like it. There’s gold to be found if you scratch the surface. As for the poll: The “have you stopped beating your wife” aspect prevents me from answering it. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2015, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-music-as-good-as-or-better-than-music-from-the-late-1960s-and-early-1970s/718529/45 "2015-04-26T07:36:09Z")
As soon as people unplug everything, destroy auto-tune and all the rest of the “corrective” software being relied upon, there will again be garage bands and someone will try a new chord sequence, maybe alter tempo. When somebody learns what a “suite” is, there will be more experimentation. But basically, it’s money. We now have a generation which thinks music is something that is free or maybe cost a dollar. With that pay grade, expect a bunch of flat singing of maybe half an octave with yet another copy of “Video concept 132”. When the average teen has to save for 2 weeks and then decide which of the 5 albums she really wants will be the one she rides her bike to the record store and puts her money down, then music will again be valued. Popping a box out of your pocket, spending 4 minutes to download a bootleg MP3 puts a very low price on music. Maybe force NetFlix (Google) to pay scale for the music it plays, just as bars and dance halls will restore some value. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2015, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-music-as-good-as-or-better-than-music-from-the-late-1960s-and-early-1970s/718529/46 "2015-04-26T08:52:21Z")
There are most certainly still garage bands. And you don’t have to unplug everything to turn off auto-tune, or never turn it on in the first place. There is, basically, such a thing as indie music. I think a difference, maybe, between now and some earlier times is that the good stuff isn’t found on top ten lists. But there is good stuff in the world. Heck, as long as there are humans, a certain percentage of them will always make good stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2015, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-music-as-good-as-or-better-than-music-from-the-late-1960s-and-early-1970s/718529/47 "2015-04-26T09:03:31Z")
BTW, I wonder what it is about music that seems to make people so often think that the best era happens to coincide with the one they grew up in? I never hear people argue that the best movies, novels or architecture is that which was prominent when they were 18-25. But you get that with music all the time. It seems to glue on to a particular part of people’s brains. Not saying that it’s a bad thing. Just a thing. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2015, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-music-as-good-as-or-better-than-music-from-the-late-1960s-and-early-1970s/718529/48 "2015-04-26T11:47:47Z")
> [@Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](#): > > It would be easy to make a case that the music written during the 1920s to 1940s period in America - that is, the peak years of the so-called Great American Songbook - was harmonically more sophisticated, and the lyric-writing was of a higher caliber, and the songs generally more interpretable (less tied to one performer’s rendition) than the music of the period you tout. […] > > To claim the late '60s to early '70s as the best era betrays a bias toward a particular musical idiom - namely, the various strands of music that followed from the R&B/Rock boom of the '50s and the modes of expression associated with all of that. Well put. My facetious reply to the OP was going to be, “I agree that great music was being made in the late 1760s and early 1770s – Mozart’s first symphonies, Haydn – but Bach’s greatest stuff was in the 1720s, and that was even better.” And I speak as someone who has worshipped 1965-75 rock music every day of my conscious life (seriously). But that’s just it – it’s just ROCK music, one of a thousand genres of all times and places. Okay, assuming the OP meant to say two things: “1. Will rock music ever again be the preferred genre by a majority of Western culture (especially youth) so pervasively as in 1965-75?” and “2. Will rock music ever be as consistently good/innovative as it was during the same era?”, IMHO the answer to both questions is “no.” ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2015, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-music-as-good-as-or-better-than-music-from-the-late-1960s-and-early-1970s/718529/49 "2015-04-26T11:56:52Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > BTW, I wonder what it is about music that seems to make people so often think that the best era happens to coincide with the one they grew up in? > > I never hear people argue that the best movies, novels or architecture is that which was prominent when they were 18-25. But you get that with music all the time. It seems to glue on to a particular part of people’s brains. > > Not saying that it’s a bad thing. Just a thing. Interesting question. (I should mention, though, that your first point isn’t true for me at all. I was born in 1970, so I “should” love late '80s-early '90s stuff, but as I mentioned in my previous post, I happen to have always had the deepest passion for 1965-75 rock (and related genres), passed on to me by my family and reinforced by my childhood friends – and now, in 2015, my four-year-old son loves the Beatles, too, thanks to me.) Getting back to your question: There must be something about how music infuses the brain, making deeper connections and associations with one’s innermost self-awareness, in ways that, say, architecture does not. I recall Oliver Sacks discussing an old woman with profound memory loss (some brain injury, I think), who could nonetheless sing the songs of her childhood. No talking, just singing. Fascinating. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2015, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-music-as-good-as-or-better-than-music-from-the-late-1960s-and-early-1970s/718529/50 "2015-04-26T12:00:14Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I’m guessing that your average 16-year-old thinks the music they listen to is better. Agree, but there are outliers. Our 16 year old daughter is _obsessed_ with The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, and The Who. In fact, she is making me drag her to see The Who next month in Columbus. She will be swooning over Roger Daltrey, while I’ll be wearing earplugs and playing on my phone. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2015, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-music-as-good-as-or-better-than-music-from-the-late-1960s-and-early-1970s/718529/51 "2015-04-26T13:24:00Z")
Speaking of rock music, there’s plenty of good stuff still coming out - the difference between now and then is that there’s nothing that’s revolutionary in style. Basically, rock is now a mature art form. There’s nothing coming out today that couldn’t have been made in 1995, whereas there was shitloads of stuff coming out in 1969 that couldn’t have been made in 1949 - both from a technical and artistic perspective. There does seem to be a lot more innovation in other types of music, mainly electronic ones, but not much that I actually like. ---
**Author:** ![JerrySTL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e274bd/32.png) [@JerrySTL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JerrySTL)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2015, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-music-as-good-as-or-better-than-music-from-the-late-1960s-and-early-1970s/718529/52 "2015-04-26T15:27:27Z")
There was a lot of good music back in the '60s and '70s. And there was a hell of a lot of crappy music. 1910 Fruitgum Company anyone? Archies? Looking back that far it’s really easy to apply filters. I’m 60 YO and really enjoy the music from when I was a teenager. However I like more modern stuff also such as Wilco, Sufjan Stevens, and others. The stuff that you hear now in the Pop world is formula music but we had it back then also. The music industry tries to narrow what we can listen to so as to maximize profits. But then that’s been around for a long time also. Google “Payola”. But back in the 60s the industry execs didn’t have as much power and that did allow some interesting music to be put on records. Now we have streaming and downloads which are bypassing the big record companies and making them change their ways for the better. ---
**Author:** ![Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellis_Aponte_Jr)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2015, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-music-as-good-as-or-better-than-music-from-the-late-1960s-and-early-1970s/718529/53 "2015-04-26T18:37:12Z")
If you were a 43 year-old in 1970 you probably wouldn’t have been thinking, “Gee, what a fantastic period of popular music we’re living in right now!” Instead, you might have been saying, “Now, the big bands of the '40s - we’ll never hear music as great as that again!” ---
**Author:** ![funky\_little\_lee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e95f7d/32.png) [@funky\_little\_lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/funky_little_lee)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2015, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-music-as-good-as-or-better-than-music-from-the-late-1960s-and-early-1970s/718529/54 "2015-04-27T01:34:16Z")
> [@Yookeroo](#): > > Yes. There’s lots of great music being made today. It may take a little digging, but it’s not really too hard to find. I ask this in all sincerity, as a 52-year-old who is always interested in finding new music I like: Where do you dig? In my time you heard new music on the radio. But what I hear on the radio now is 99% just crap. So where is the good stuff hidden? I’m not being sarcastic, I genuinely want to know. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2015, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-music-as-good-as-or-better-than-music-from-the-late-1960s-and-early-1970s/718529/55 "2015-04-27T01:41:48Z")
> [@funky\_little\_lee](#): > > I ask this in all sincerity, as a 52-year-old who is always interested in finding new music I like: > > Where do you dig? In my time you heard new music on the radio. But what I hear on the radio now is 99% just crap. So where is the good stuff hidden? I’m not being sarcastic, I genuinely want to know. Youtube, Pandora, Spotify. Technology has changed, as have the social forces that control the technology. Edit: and I’m frankly astonished that over a third of y’all genuinely seem to think that the sixties represent some sort of pinnacle of human achievement in musical arts. How provincial can you possibly be? For one thing, this seems to apply only to the English-speaking world, unless the OP meant to list some excellent Japanese, Ghanaian, and Brazilian acts and just forgot to include them. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2015, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-music-as-good-as-or-better-than-music-from-the-late-1960s-and-early-1970s/718529/56 "2015-04-27T01:46:26Z")
> [@funky\_little\_lee](#): > > I ask this in all sincerity, as a 52-year-old who is always interested in finding new music I like: > > Where do you dig? In my time you heard new music on the radio. But what I hear on the radio now is 99% just crap. So where is the good stuff hidden? I’m not being sarcastic, I genuinely want to know. I’ve been tuned into a lot of new-to-me songs through Spotify. There are a ton of playlists on youtube, too. Another good resource: your local independent radio station. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2015, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-music-as-good-as-or-better-than-music-from-the-late-1960s-and-early-1970s/718529/57 "2015-04-27T01:55:17Z")
> [@funky\_little\_lee](#): > > I ask this in all sincerity, as a 52-year-old who is always interested in finding new music I like: > > Where do you dig? In my time you heard new music on the radio. But what I hear on the radio now is 99% just crap. So where is the good stuff hidden? I’m not being sarcastic, I genuinely want to know. depends- are you looking for new stuff that sounds like the stuff you already like? I wager you’ll be doomed to failure. > [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > Edit: and I’m frankly astonished that over a third of y’all genuinely seem to think that the sixties represent some sort of pinnacle of human achievement in musical arts. How provincial can you possibly be? like I said before, everyone thinks the way things were when they were adolescents was perfect in every way. It’s why we have boomers who act like every piece of music written after 1968 is garbage, and think re-runs of _Leave it to Beaver_ are documentaries about 1950s America. ---
**Author:** ![Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellis_Aponte_Jr)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2015, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-music-as-good-as-or-better-than-music-from-the-late-1960s-and-early-1970s/718529/58 "2015-04-27T03:42:24Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Youtube, Pandora, Spotify. Technology has changed, as have the social forces that control the technology. > > Edit: and I’m frankly astonished that over a third of y’all genuinely seem to think that the sixties represent some sort of pinnacle of human achievement in musical arts. How provincial can you possibly be? For one thing, this seems to apply only to the English-speaking world, unless the OP meant to list some excellent Japanese, Ghanaian, and Brazilian acts and just forgot to include them. I don’t know about Japanese or Ghanaian artists, but Brazilian…? \*\*Antônio Carlos Jobim Gilberto Gil Jorge Ben Elis Regina João Gilberto Astrud Gilberto Caetano Veloso Gal Costa Chico Buarque Maria Bethânia Sérgio Mendes Tom Zé Nara Leao Edu Lobo Milton Nascimento Roberto Carlos \*\* That looks pretty good to me. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2015, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-music-as-good-as-or-better-than-music-from-the-late-1960s-and-early-1970s/718529/59 "2015-04-27T03:46:42Z")
Of course better music will be created, OP. But either you’ll be dead, or you won’t think it’s better. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2015, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-music-as-good-as-or-better-than-music-from-the-late-1960s-and-early-1970s/718529/60 "2015-04-27T04:06:47Z")
I answered this for music in the future, not music in the past. Beethoven could rock. (Take that, Chuck!) The reason it was important was that back then it mattered, or we thought it did. The creativity unleashed when bands wrote their own music and broke free from the bounds of what music was supposed to be was a bit like how Beethoven smashed the symphonic model. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-music-as-good-as-or-better-than-music-from-the-late-1960s-and-early-1970s/718529.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-music-as-good-as-or-better-than-music-from-the-late-1960s-and-early-1970s/718529.md?page=4)