If someone (or even me or you) thinks the music is getting worse, I find it funny.

First thing: most music has always been shit, second thing: there's more music made and it's way more accessible every year.

The conclusion: if one says that "it's getting worse" has a bad memory and doesn't know how to find the music that actually appeals to them.

So #waah #waah you cranky fucks, cry more.

Sincerely,
A cranky fuck Gen Xer.

 

That's the actual problem. Music may or may not be getting worse but the problem is that the music people are subjected to as a standard is getting worse, and people are tolerating it. This is a trend in all arts, not just music, and it's been going on for decades if not centuries.

 

There is no problem, just some people's gatekeepy problem, e.g. it's a you problem, not a music problem. Art does not have standards.

For instance, I think the world would be a better place if people read Vonnegut and Bulgakov and such, but should it be enforced? Nah, let other people enjoy the murder mysteries and horror books.

 

But one they did, authors like that were known and considered a standard to rise to. Now they are not, except by people willing to step above the norm, which is being lowered all the time. I think you are undermining your own point. No one is talking about enforced standards. But you admit the standard is eroding.

 

Meato always causes useless stir with his excruciatingly predictable takes on the music industry, but one thing I don't think I've ever seen is people questioning his musical output.

Sure, he can shred, he has good ear, knows his theory blah blah. I'm nowhere near his level and will never be, but I'm educated enough to know his skills are far from rare among professional musicians.

I'm talking about his career. Yes, he did produce some hit records. You know what? SO DID EVERYONE ELSE HE SHITS ON.

I never bothered to go actually listen to anything he's done, but whenever he plays them in his vids, I'm utterly underwhelmed.

Quality? Yes. Originality? Yet to hear.

It's good but bland stuff, period.

Am I alone ?

 

Probably not. I've never really watched enough of him to say. I certainly have never heard something he's written, now I'm curious.

(A lot of great technicians are not creative. Rick Wakeman, say, amazing player, one of the best. Writes awful music. )

 

Last edited: Jun 27, 2024

I think the situation is complex. I would argue that pop music was at it's worst around the 2006-2014 time period. It was the height of the mono-culture, corporate, paint by numbers era. In many ways, some of the music up and coming artists are making is more innovative than it's been since the 60s. Music is easier to produce than ever, and platforms like Tik-Tok have made things mainstream that would never have happened in the record label dominated era. How often were any of the top 20 songs surprising in the 30 years between 1990 and 2020? The rise of nu-metal perhaps? Now there are surprising songs in there every week almost.

So why are we perceiving music to be worse now? Nostalgia goggles? Certainly that's a factor. But the real reason are two fold. Data methodology, and listening habits. It used to be that music had to be purchased with intent, and so you really had to intend to actively listen to it. We used record sales to determine the charts, so the charts were full of discerning music. Listening habits have now changed. The rise of streaming and earbuds means we are spending more time now listening to music then ever. The majority of that time however is not spent listening actively, but passively. We spend the majority of our day concentrating on complex tasks, what kind of music will you be listening to during that time? Complex arrangements that demand your attention, or vibe music? People still actively listen to music though, the very continued existence of "good" music confirms this.

Which brings me to data collection. Sales count for such a vanishingly small percentage of the charts that it is essentially irrelevant. So instead we look at the current metric, streams. What is going to dominate the streaming charts? The thing we spend most time doing, the passive listening. So the less complex, vibey, "bad" music easily outweighs the music people actively listen to, the "good" music. So if you looks at the charts, music seems "bad".

Here's the interesting thing though, if you look at other ways of ranking the "goodness" or even popularity of music, a different picture emerges. Every year, the national youth station in Australia "JJJ", hosts the Hottest 100. In that event, listeners vote for their favourite 10 songs of the year. They don't submit their top 10 most listened songs, they vote for their favourite. Well, wouldn't you know it, the hottest 100 is full of a diverse and quality list of songs.

So is music bad now? Or are we just measuring "quality", and popularity wrong?

 

no one under 20 should be allowed to talk about music: de-tik-tokize the world

 

I see that almost everything that is done, instead of increasing the value of music, culminates in its counterpart. I understand your point of view with playlists and the whole personal consumption/work thing, but all of this still seems to me to ratify the success of a personal experience now to the detriment of healthier and more productive habits for humanity, in a near future. Everything depends on algorithms, Youtube, Spotify, etc, and people are always linked to purely numerical results but not at all worried about the very dubious qualitative results, whereas previously, artists created albums with at least one insanely memorable single, not to mention that these groups sought to produce the best singles of all time... they didn't always succeed, but boy, they tried.

As for the IQ aspect, we are really only scratching the surface of this orb. Anything based on "I think" is different from hard science, with raw data based on statistical surveys. Only the future will tell (although I suspect what will come, because I look at this generation and see how unmotivated and unpassionate they are with things like careers, dreams, ideals, etc. and, consequently, how depressed and sick they already are).

Yes, my daughter listens to everything, ranging from Vivaldi/Stravinsky to The Beatles/Ed Sheeran. Her teacher is impressed by the way she reacts to any music (other children already develop more specific reactions to more predictable and repetitive music) and the way she expresses herself through movement (with improvised choreography, in the heat of the moment, with eyes closed). Yes, I see musicalization as something very important (pathos-ethos-logos).

As for the suggestion of using the multitude of postmodern options to consume and still learn something, I only do that when I come across something very uninteresting, 'cos my way of operating is to let myself be carried away by what becomes my focus of attention. For me, it just works like that.

Thanks for the nice chat dear ArticStorm!

OBS: Some absolutely interesting and hilarious placements:

"About having common tools homogenizing releases, I don't buy it. 99 % of songs aren't defined by which software it's compressed with on a vocal track or which DAW one uses to mix on. It boils down to the artists and their creativity." Lois Lane
"First thing: most music has always been shit, second thing: there's more music made and it's way more accessible every year. The conclusion: if one says that "it's getting worse" has a bad memory and doesn't know how to find the music that actually appeals to them." Will Kweks
"Anything we try to produce now is just part of the general background noise and static." (...) "Now the good restaurants are closed and the music is all White Castle, unless you take the time to find a good off the beaten track place to go (but go quick because they'll have to close in a month)." (...) "Getting back to basics!" gave us... well, Get Back." (...) "Music may or may not be getting worse but the problem is that the music people are subjected to as a standard is getting worse, and people are tolerating it." Smeghead
"P.S. - No, I do not dig the guy by default, but I respect his experience." BaSsDuDe
"So... hear me on this... orchestal ensembles homogeonized the sound of classical music on past centurys. Damn copycats composers everyone using the same tools and space disposition of them over and over again. And dont get me started about chamber music, the minified version of it." Demloc
"(garbage music) permeates everything in its wake of excrement." clone
"If only Foster were here to offer his learned opinion." Crinklebumps

 

It has nothing to do with age. When you want to discuss older music and compare it with newer music, you should know something about both.

And clearly, we all know that you do not. What exactly is your musical resume composed of when it comes to older music? Listening to the radio in the back seat of your parents car as a toddler? Are you one of these 20 year old kids they let near a $100,000 SSL board? Yeah, sure. Do you know the difference between an Otari and an Atari? This subject is Ludicrous. That was a rapper, btw.
Did you see Nirvana live for 5 bucks, or Green Day, Fugazi, or ..... Do you remember when FEAR got banned from SNL? How about ever heard a Prince record? How about Whitney Houston?

Explain what you think you know about music. I can talk to you about your EDM and other young people's club music all day. The reason why? Those "young kids" who you see selling tracks you wonder how they make them? They didn't. They buy them from old people and stick their names on them.

What we do with computers and music these days is great. But the discussion is like trying to compare Photoshop and a Monet. Short of you being the one person on this site with some art history degree, you have 0 clue what you are comparing.

 

Last edited: Jun 27, 2024

Either you're just being a troll or you have a close mindedness that is going to keep you from understanding a lot of very useful things in life.

 

The generation aged 50 and over tends to give up on understanding the present, preferring to remain attached to the good ol' days. the most pathetic boomers are the ones who say that their (and only their) solutions are the right ones, in a futile attempt to lecture the younger ones. Here's the news: in a rapidly evolving world, the old patterns of the past no longer work today, the problems are different and different solutions will be needed.
About music: What was played in the 70's belonged to the culture of that era. In the 80's the music was different because it belonged to another era and so on. Why should this cultural refresh in art stop now? It is obvious that in 2024 music follows what is happening to the world in real time, musical language and lyrics belong to the present.
Are you a boomer and don't like today's music? This means you don't like today's world, but I like to underline that you built that world….
That said, how can you listen to the same playlist your whole life without getting bored? Millions and millions of times pressing play on songs by Pink Floyd, the Doors and ABBA

I call this “audio autism”

 

There is nothing either good or bad.
But thinking makes it so.
-William Shakespeare

 

It shows how little you know what you are even talking about, to call people "boomers". That generation of people were born immediately after WW2 up until let's say 1960. But really it's even earlier. Unless you are dealing with people at actual record labels or physical studio owners, you are not encountering very many boomers in music. You have to go on Facebook to find people that old. They are people's grandparents age now.

It's obvious you are just trolling, but maybe we can all work together and figure out something you are actually good at.

 

Yep, that's a good take. The industry loves passive listeners because it can push whatever garbage they want on them to fill up their quotas. I think Beato's takes aren't entirely wrong, but he is rather partial in his stance. Yes, there are a lot of people making garbage with no deep meaning behind it, just monetary motives. Yes, accessibility has made it easy for people to produce and publish trash. But the opposite is also true. There's a ton of good music being made now, to an extent no one from the past century could even imagine or cope with.

Have you ever noticed that people don't really talk about music in depth? Music can be difficult to understand and describe, so people usually talk purely about their feelings or the aspects surrounding it. They might express their love for Taylor Swift and defend her passionately or criticize Lil [insert name] for selling out. They discuss who's charting on Spotify, complain about autotune, or criticize an artist for their political opinions. I rarely see people engaging in deep discussions about the music itself. It's as if everyone is talking about music, but not really discussing it.

Despite my disagreements with many things Rick Beato says, I have respect for him. He's clearly passionate about music and has done amazing musicological work interviewing so many great artists. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that it makes no sense to gatekeep who is allowed to talk about music when most people aren't really discussing it in depth anyway lol.

 

Last edited: Jun 27, 2024

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Last edited by a moderator: Aug 26, 2024

What a novel idea!

 

Of course I've read every novel and short story of Vonnegut's but until now never a word of Bulgakov, so got myself at your recommendation a copy of his Master And Magarita (actually two versions, the one I'm reading translated by Hugh Alpin, the other by Mirra Ginsburg). It's brilliant...thanks!

 

In 1700, musicians wrote sheet music by candlelight with a quill. By 2000, they're using Guitar Pro 8 on laptops. No wonder everything's going downhill! From "symphonies" to "auto-tuned garage band tracks" in just a few centuries!