It was artist and instruments also the lyrics not a one word repeating over and over.
60,70 and 80 were great years for REAL music.

Now if you like what on today more power to you. I am not judging you.

 

Nostalgia.

 

pretty much if you just listen to what's on the radio at a certain time and don't go out of the beaten path to find music you will think that. because it harkens to a time when you were younger, maybe formative years and where it had the most impact in you. BUT if you always keep digging you will find GREAT GREAT music being done ALWAYS. maybe it's not (or wasn't) on the radio and maybe now it's not on the top list of spotify but it's there.
i think it's mostly lazyness that leads people to say that in the good old days that's when there was good music. and hey, most of my playlist (if you wanna call it that) is what you'd call now vintage from the 60's, 70's etc. but i'm not lazy enough to not find a trove of good or better music done since.

 

Sure, but when they hit Lovelight, that motherfucker became the wildest beast ever leashed out on a musical stage !

 

Some young people don't have it easy in our modern times. Almost everything in music and fashion has already been invented, but they want to create something of their own. For them, the only way to succeed is through unconventional methods like pitch and tuning tools.

They lack the patience and talent for vocal lessons and learning to read music. Seeing others online who are much more successful also leads to frustration. It's also a matter of a lack of intelligence and learning ability; the internet has diminished some of their cognitive skills.

Overview of Cognitive Abilities

Cognitive Ability Description

Attention: The ability to focus on specific stimuli or information.
Memory: The ability to store, retain, and retrieve information.
Problem Solving: The ability to analyze challenges and develop effective solutions.
Creativity: The ability to generate original and innovative ideas.
Language Processing: The ability to understand and use spoken or written language.
Spatial Reasoning: The ability to understand and manipulate spatial relationships between objects.
Logical Reasoning: The ability to draw logical conclusions and make rational decisions.
Perception: The ability to recognize and interpret stimuli from the environment.
Information Processing: The ability to process information efficiently and extract relevant details.
Problem Recognition: The ability to identify potential problems or challenges.
Concentration: The ability to remain focused over an extended period.
Learning Ability: The ability to learn from experience and assimilate new information.

 

Something has just occurred to me that I don't think has been mentioned in the thread, that these days (and due to the fact that everything is done through social media nowadays), is that perhaps the music is not as important when compared to the rest of the things that artists have to do in order to be known and succeed now.

So for example, once an artist may have just been able to focus on their music, and other people would promote, manage, master the music etc etc. Now it seems that successful artists are expected to be able to do everything themselves, you have to be a jack of all trades in 2026 to get anywhere. And while they say the jack of all trades is the master of none, how is a musician expected to be able to master their craft when they are having to do 20 other things single-handedly (that they might not excel at) in order to get anywhere?

So social media has been a blessing and a curse for music, really, and I do question whether a lot of new artists are really deserving, music wise of their success, or whether they are just very good at multitasking, promotion and flogging their product. It's a new phenomenon really but it does add a lot more complexity than probably necessary.

 

Last edited: Jan 25, 2026 at 7:18 PM

What you're describing is also absolute self-exploitation, perfectly in line with the power elites who like to say: You just have to work hard enough to make it to the top. Unfortunately, these power elites, like Spotify, etc., always profit from it, so the money always flows from the bottom to the top.

First, as musicians, they pay for all their own equipment, then they work for free—no support for up-and-coming artists, for example—then, once they've finished a CD ORM, they have to start self-promotion. They spend many hours every day uploading their product: text and images/videos.

In the end, most will find that their creativity declines, and the stress and dissatisfaction increase. This is absolute self-exploitation, and those at the top always profit because they own these platforms. Some musicians then quit on their own to get their lives back and either look for other paths or go back to a regular job. Unfortunately, many musicians are lone wolves at their home screens and, above all, are not organized.

 

It's not fond and selective memories, there literally is no comparison. Think of almost any metric:

• Song writing quality
• Production aesthetics and quality
• Originality and creativity
• Longevity

Now pick a random week in the charts in the 1980s. Or the 70's. Now pick a random week in the last 10 years and compare the full top 40. It's not that there wasn't shit put out then too. It's the the quality:shit ratio was noticeably better.
Test it out for yourself. Here's one I just tried (just the top 10 for space reasons):

Random year (86) random week (Apr 26):

1 KISS –•– Prince & The Revolution
2 ADDICTED TO LOVE –•– Robert Palmer
3 WEST END GIRLS –•– Pet Shop Boys
4 MANIC MONDAY –•– The Bangles
5 WHY CAN’T THIS BE LOVE –•– Van Halen
6 HARLEM SHUFFLE –•– Rolling Stones
7 ROCK ME AMADEUS –•– Falco
8 WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR ME LATELY –•– Janet Jackson
9 YOUR LOVE –•– The Outfield
10 TAKE ME HOME –•– Phil Collins

Random year (2016) random week (Sep 10)
1 Ride - TWENTY ONE PILOTS
2 Cheap Thrills - SIA
3 This Is What You Came For feat. Rihanna - CALVIN HARRIS
4 Send My Love (To Your New Lover) - ADELE
5 Cold Water feat. Justin Bieber & MO - MAJOR LAZER
6 Don't Let Me Down feat. Daya - The Chainsmokers
7 One Dance feat. Wizkid & Kyla - DRAKE
8 Treat You Better - SHAWN MENDES
9 Into You - Ariana Grande
10 Can't Stop The Feeling - JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE

I feel fortunate to have lived my youth through the heyday of pop. It was such an energizing and exciting time musically.

 

Because 1. People are stupid. 2. People always try to paint the past better than it was, makes them feel more comfortable. They remember deliberately what suits them. 3. You can sell anything to people if you tell them it's vintage or what was used in the good old days. 4. People are nuts. The buy old gear, without thinking about why it was replaced. 5. People are idiots. 6. People are idiots. 7. People find comfort in always repeating the same things. So old things - old music - make them feel fuzzy and warm. 8. People are stupid. 9. The stupids were even better stupid in the old days. 10. People are stupid. 11. People are stupid. 12. People are stupid.

 

I ended up with so many quotes to reply to in this thread that I was virtually quoting every word...

In short: Absolute bollocks.

I have been round this argument before on here. Music is every bit as interesting now as it has ever been. Average production quality is better than it has ever been and the best productions are far superior to everything that went before. The level of musicianship achieved by some of today's non-classical players is nothing short of extraordinary.

Get your heads out of the sand and stop listening to music from the shitty kids (and kidults) pop charts and you may discover the truth - that there is an endless supply of wonderful new music out there, in all the different genres, if you can be bothered to look; if not, then enjoy your Rihanna.

I cannot possibly understand why you would prefer mono. Have you only one ear? Anyhow trust me, there's more good jazz out there than there's ever been. Maybe not so much 40s, 50s big band style (which I find very dated to be honest, plus I can't really listen to anything pre-60s (same applies to classical recordings), as the sound quality is too low for me to tolerate.), but virtually every other flavour imaginable. I've collected more new jazz in the last year than I have in the last 45+ years of listening to it. I even ended up actually paying to go to a gig a few weeks ago (Live engineer for 35+ years so venue's put me in a 'work' state of mind, so I very rarely go to one voluntarily - luckily it was a top notch venue with impeccable sound). Who did I go to watch? The Josh Meader Trio. The band was nothing short of absolute magnificence and it was a privilege to be there.

For everyone else, aside from jazz, if you're feeling that there's no interesting modern music to be found, a really good place to start would be browsing the offerings from KEXP: https://www.youtube.com/@kexp

If you're in the UK, or can access BBC elsewhere, there's also 6 music where you can potentially hear absolutely anything that was ever recorded: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live/bbc_6music

There's no excuses, if you're still stuck listening to DSOTM because you can't find anything new that turns you on then there's only one reason - your lazy self.

 

Last edited: Jan 25, 2026 at 8:11 PM

13. Dumb all over and a little ugly on the side.

 

Alright a nice summing up paragraph (a paragraph that's a numbered list) before this gets out of hand

1. Music used to be better
2. Music used to be worse
3. People are stupid
4. People are incredibly talented

thanks

ChatGPT is going to have a field day with that one

 

Yes, Ron was the OG Lovelight heavyweight champion and it was his superpower as well the last thread tying bind to the band as the rest were tripping the universe fantastic while he was snorting down Southern Comfort with his talented friend Janis...

...Though we digress.

 

Isn't this one of those people like what they know.
A fermiliar song always beats an unfurmiliar one.

It's basic phycological response. no one likes supprises.

 

It's not you, that's just the way it sounds. Most modern stuff (metal, pop, what passes for rock, what is on the "radio") is over-processed, comp/limited, "loudness optimized", volume levelled, into oblivion. There's no dynamic range, there's no "listening into a mix" and picking out the components of it because the only things that survive all that (unneeded) processing are the one, or two components that were placed at the forefront of the mix at the studio and the rest is just underlying noise. Not ALL modern stuff is that way, but the greater portion is. As far as content goes, hip-hop/"rap" (especially the gangster stuff) is completely worthless, IMO. Popular music stuff (forget rap/hip) has become redundant with many "artists" copping from each other to the point that much of it simply sounds the same. You can include a lot of EDM in that bucket as well. Occasionally there are a few standouts, but on the whole the redundant thing has become the norm. Just my opinion as I hear it.

 

There is just more junk available than ever. People only remember the great stuff. For every example of a "great" artist or song or album people remember from a period of time, there are many which are terrible. That ratio is now just higher towards garbage that would never have been released prior to relatively inexpensive digital audio recording and the internet.

100 years from now, someone will still be able to say "well, what about the Beatles, or Hendrix?" etc. They will be right to say that, except those are legendary exceptions that transcend what is possible by most mere mortals. Think Davinci, Michelangelo, Vermeer, Monet. But in any normal time frame, and any genre, there will always be other examples that are also nearly untouchable. Think Haring, Basquiat, Duchamp, etc. There is equally comparable junk available from their contemporaries as there are bad disco albums or 3 minute trap mp3 files.
There is just more junk now. Lots more.

 

Another angle to think about these kind of stupidities: I am 69 years old, one of my first three albums was Cosmo's Factory when it came out. And as long as I remember, the older people (> 30) ALWAYS claimed that the music from yesterdays was better. That goes for EVERY decade.

So ... when someone claims music was better in former times: it's an idiot.

 

How and where to start?

 

??

 

There's something new to discover every day; if you stop discovering
anything new, you've already become quite intellectually stupefying.

The world is full of secrets and surprises; there's always too much music, so not a day goes by without a shortage.

Just as nature didn't just invent one type of tree, but rather countless varieties, so it is with art.
From time to time, a musical talent shares their understanding of music with humanity.

There are also role models in music that one can look to for guidance on one's path of discovery.
There are many styles and forms of expression worldwide, encompassing different languages and cultures.

The internet brings all people together and makes knowledge, insights, and artistic creations available to everyone.

There are also old and new music magazines, Wikipedia, forums and blogs, as well as music publishers
and mail-order companies, all of which you can browse for information, bands, and artists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4AD
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Musical_groups_established_in_1980
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Musical_groups_established_in_1990