I'm not defending new music by any way, I was just raised on old tracks.

I was not born in 80s'.

Everything in the today's radio sounds overprocessed and the same way to me, though obviously one track doesn't equal another.

I can't explain why, maybe you have some ideas, maybe psychological or confirmed by industry?

Was I born too soon? The audio TECHNIQUES got nearly perfect nowadays and during 80s' or prior you maybe expected bad sound?

Loudness war is definitely not the case. I'd like to listen to good trance but I can't find any track that can compare to the level of ones released in 2002 or before, and newer ones are mixed well. Obviously its not -10 dBFS or lower, but -8 or so. I can imagine how a track could sound if it was mixed in higher dynamic range and it doesn't determine whether song is bad or not.
And no, I can't define level. That's why I need help.

I don't know about "128 epidemic" though, as I still don't know why people picked exactly THIS tempo.
As a hobbyist scripter I adore that this number is a power of 2 (2⁷), but it's about music, not computers. I dare say that ordinary listener wouldn't really differentiate 128 BPM track from 129 BPM if they were asked "which song is faster" in the middle of the night.

 

Last edited: Jan 25, 2026

Yep,
i´m on your side.
But the problem is bigger than we can think, bigger than we could write on this forum.
When i would start to write or talk about this topic, people could say i´m insane or paranoid.
I Just want to say one word: Equilibrium (The movie)
I alway think about this movie.

Because i´m lazy today, i let GPT write down my thoughts:

Spoiler: ai

Yes — the parallels are actually quite striking.

You can see them in today’s culture of self-optimization and control: we don’t suppress emotions with a drug, but through algorithms, constant performance pressure, and endless distraction, emotions often get flattened or pushed aside so we can “function.” Art and music still exist, of course, but they’re frequently optimized for attention and data, stripped of discomfort and depth rather than allowed to disrupt or challenge us.

There’s also a strong parallel in the trade-off between safety and freedom. Out of fear of chaos, people accept surveillance, normalization, and ready-made opinions — not because they’re forced, but because it’s convenient. At its core, Equilibrium asks the same question we face today: What do we lose when avoiding pain becomes more important than being human?

Now its me again:

I think modern music became less human, more AI, more flat. Same with movies.
People cannot concentrate anymore. Songs are maximum 2.5 minutes.
Analog Producing was replaced with Digital VSTs and so on so on so on.
I can continue for hours :D

BUT: There are still some pearls, or Diamonds to find.
For example yesterday i watched One Battle after another the movie, instead of going into Avatar 3 with my friens.
GOOD DECISION!
The movie with Leo reminds me really on the good oldschool type of movies, made by humans, filmed in Vistavision and Imax.
This makes it human.

And finally i wanna say:
Let´s continue making music. Use less AI Composing! Drink, Smoke, Take Dr**s. Let your brain and mind be free to make music.
That´s what the most Music between 70s and 90s lived from.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jan 25, 2026

Some points to consider, it was a lot easier to make an original sounding piece of music when there was less of it about, as there is more music made and it becomes easier and more accessible to create, originality becomes more difficult, and it could be seen that we're just rehashing the same stuff over and over, which has to get pretty stale.

Another thing is, we just live in darker times than we used to, technology might be advancing but I think life is just different to how it was, people aren't the same, and that has to reflect in the music that we create.

So, while there's still great music being made I think we've probably seen the best of it, in bands and in electronic music alike.

 

I still can't understand ostracism toward digital gear, there ARE good tracks that are made with it

people can't concentrate ≠ songs are too short
I can concentrate on music

This is purely subjective

 

because people don't remember all that mediocre and bad shit, just the good-enough stuff that survived

 

Because people are FUCKING STUPID, that's why.

 

Tighter and tighter corporate control of the charts has suppressed all the great new music out there?

This is comforting, Ricks Beato's spotify top 10 review every few months has shown over the last year a big change in taste is happening. Almost gone is the synthetic tuneless rap and trap that dominated for years, and increasingly a musicality echoing classic pop between 1960 and 1990 has taken over. Its not 'new' sounding but I think its a push in a healthier creative direction.

 

They remember the hits and forget all the bad songs, that's why. My go-to example is 1969 - the best-selling song of that year was 'Sugar Sugar' by The Archies, but everyone now thinks of 1969 as the year Led Zeppelin really took off.

In 20 years time, we won't remember all the bad stuff on the charts currently, it'll just be the big hits.

 

It is, I would have thought that most of the things I opinionize over are my opinion, I'm sure I could back it up with some facts and evidence but I can't really be bothered.

Perhaps in 2008 I might have done but I had more youthful exuberance then

 

With each passing day, the amount of human-generated data increases, and with it, the amount of music produced.

How can you classify quality or what you like to listen to, or tell the search engine? It's all there because people have been diligently uploading it. You're looking in the wrong place. Just forget the current charts, search elsewhere or with different keywords, and you'll find what you're looking for.

For example, I had Wikipedia list the bands of the 80s, and then I found some bands I knew, some I didn't.
I researched them, and if I liked a band, I downloaded it to my hard drive and also backed it up somewhere else.

Can young people still concentrate? Sure, some can't, and some can. Because "That's life, that's the way the world is."

Try living without your cell phone and constant information overload for a few hours or days, so your brain can rest. You'll see that you can suddenly think more clearly. Remember that only nature heals us, so try to connect with nature. Try to train or cultivate your perception and awareness. If you do nothing, you won't get any smarter; in the worst case, you'll simply become dull-witted.

There's a wise saying: "Everything changes—nothing stays the same!"

Just as the water in a stream is always in motion, so too are all things, living beings, and phenomena in the world constantly changing. Nothing remains as it is. People love the illusion of living in a stable world and environment. But reality often shows us the opposite: Becoming, passing away, and chance play a greater role in life than stability.

 

Because it's true.

 

I don't think music as whole used to be better in the past, I just think we have a very bad and selective memory.

 

Yeah this is a different story, is the bad music of olde worse than the bad music of now? Probably the standard and overall quality of music production is better now, but does the (considered) great music of today beat the (considered) great music of yesteryear? Objectively, I would argue, it does not

 

Last edited: Jan 25, 2026

Yep, simple as that. The standard of musicianship and songwriting in the 60s, 70s, 80s was light years above what it is today. You’d get a producer like Quincy Jones learning his craft over decades with artists such as Frank Sinatra before pulling in some of the finest session musicians of all time and the greatest single entertainer of all time (Michael Jackson) to make Thriller, the biggest selling album of all time. Nowadays, it’s just one bloke on a PC. You can’t compare. Of course, albums took millions of dollars to make back them and took months in expensive studios. That’s all gone. That expenditure of time and money cannot be justified anymore.

Also, the talent pool is far shallower. Think of a current band with similar musicianship to Dire Straits, Steely Dan, Queen. Well. You can’t. They literally do not exist anymore.

I know people don’t like it when you say “things were better in the past”, but in the case of music it is simply true.

 

Last edited: Jan 25, 2026

Realtivity.

 

In absolute terms, there's more good music available than ever before.

But discoverability has dropped immensely as "word of mouth" and active discovery on the part of the listener has been replaced with algorithmically optimised, kick-off-your-shoes-and-turn-off-your-brain, max profit, max agreeability, min effort, min risk, min disagreeability, force-fed, homogenised, same-same corpo power-slop.

We know the data. Popular music IS more samey, repetitive, less complex in terms of structure, lyrics, harmony, melody, intervals than ever.

Musical diversity is in decline - always has been though.

Whether you democratise access to making music (cassette decks, internet v1) or corpo controls discoverability of music (advent of mass media all the way to AI). The outcome is the same: Music becomes simpler.

At some point, we'll have come full circle and start plucking away at sinews from gutted animals like our uni-browed ancestors.

Sproing-sproing. "Shit's a real banger, yo."
Sproing. "Dat bass line, blud."

It is possible that popular music has become more complex (or at least more varied) rhythmically and dynamically. Production quality has increased massively.

"Complexity" isn't the same as "good" music though. So I'll say it again. More good music than ever. Worse discoverability than ever.

PS the same forced simplification trends can be observed in other aspects of life as well. Colour has been in decline for 70 years. We live in a world that is becoming more grey with every passing day - literally. It's fucking crazy.

 

Me neither. You're conflating and confusing several things here. Music is music - it was before we were born, it will be after we're long gone. You're talking about sound/audio/BPM: there is a difference.

First, there are different genres of music. Salsa music, for instance, hasn't noticeably gotten better, or worse. So let's look at Classical.

Classical refers commonly to mostly pre-electric era music, whether orchestral, church, chamber, quartet, duo or solo acoustic music. The interesting thing about classical is that the compositions/orchestrations haven't changed in generations, or centuries. Since the era of radio and vinyl, and later tape, we can hear how different generations of musicians (including conductors) have, in fact, changed how this timeless music is performed (live, or in the studio).

So the issue here, demonstrably, is neither sound or music. It's the people that have changed - or the times (which in turn have changed the people - same result).

Taking music and sound out of the question and equation, it's evident that Millenials are different from Boomers, and GenZ-ers are different from GenX-ers. I should hope no one would question this fact.

A very simple example: I didn't grow up with YouTube. I learned music from vinyl and tape - taught myself until I went to Berklee. I've taught Millenials piano, and they are incredibly fast learners - like vacuum cleaners. Most people learned music from a single teacher at a time, one hour once a week. Those days are over.

Before YouTube, you could hear a sax player, and figure he was west coast, east coast, mid-west, or south just by the way he played. This is because style was regional and passed on from human teacher to human student, not from half way across the globe to a vacuum cleaner. The pace has changed - older musicians grew up in a time where they had one entire week to digest, internalize, and most importantly, make their own whatever the teacher had passed on. YouTube trained musicians don't really have the patience to digest, not that deeply. The end result is that you can no longer tell a Millenial sax or guitar player or drummer from another in a blindfold test. It's all become a bouillabaisse.

Another way in which technology has impacted musicians and music is computers. Drum machines first, then synths and samplers, then sequencers and DAWs, and of course "DJs" or "Beat Makers." Prince had a song/album called "Sign of the Times," the whole imprint of technology on composition and arranging is a reflection of the times. It is what it is - Lord knows I was ecstatic when I got my first synth, my first drum machine, my first sampler, my first music computer. I embraced it. But I embraced it as a tool - I was already shaped with the three P's: piano, pen and paper. (I usually still write that way, and then I work out the arrangement in Logic.)

Negative - do yourself a favor, and listen to Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of The Moon," and "The Wall." Never mind the music, the sonic quality is unrivaled to this day. There are dozens of albums released in the 1970s and 1980s, even 1990s, that just pop when you play them (CD quality - no streaming, no mp3) on monitors. Now put on some Katy Perry or Rihanna or whatever rock/rap/crap/trap/trance you like, and you'll understand. It's a world of difference in terms of the sonics.

Bottom line, whatever issue(s) you're having with today's music are a reflection of the times, and environment we all live in. Yes, musicians bear the brunt of responsibility in music making, yes, the record/streaming industry has ravaged music making and musicians' livelihoods, and of course, the technology is ten times better today than it was 20 years ago (Internet, GPS, iPhones, Streaming, etc), and in the studio too. But microphones and preamps and cables haven't exceedingly improved - go on Reverb, some Neumann mics from the 50s and 60s (if you can find them) are selling for $35,000+ (at least here in L.A.), if you can find them. Some mics, some drums, some keyboards, basses and guitars (never mind violins) are virtually unbuyable - because no one's selling.

How all that applies to your 128 curse or whatever you call it, I don't know - or care to know, tbh. But I do care that some people think that because some technology today is different, it's better than it used to be. That's generally true about cars (not 100% but close enough), and planes, and flat screen TVs. Everything else is up for debate.

Personally, I'm only in it for the music - I don't care what the era is, if the composer was left handed or used a pencil or a computer.

The music is what matters. Make good (if not great) music. Don't fret about the other stuff.

 

When people say things used to be better they are not judging history. They are whining because time has become a high-speed treadmill, memory is a drunken editor, and the human brain craves any illusion of stability. Social change, technology, culture, all moving faster than a sane mind can follow. The present is a dense, fragmented mess, emotionally exhausting, and relentless. Surviving it requires constant adaptation, a mental gym no one asked for. We do not experience the present as a coherent reality. We experience it as a barrage of competing signals, each screaming for attention, none leaving room to breathe. Music, culture, art, all mutate to survive the chaos. What people remember as better music was not better. It was compatible with a slower temporal regime. One where listening was a ritual, interruptions were rare, and songs could loiter long enough to embed themselves in the mind. Meaning had time to accumulate before distraction devoured it. Memory is a trickster. It does not record, it reconstructs. Every recollection is a remake, filtered through the emotional state of now, stripped of cognitive noise, tension, and overload, polished for coherence, and flavored with longing or regret. The past appears slower, richer, more legible than the present because the mind selectively edits it, making life feel manageable. The past is not better. It is merely less crowded, less noisy, and easier to hold in the fragile hands of consciousness. And yet the mind protests. Nostalgia emerges as a desperate coping mechanism, an attempt to preserve continuity, predictability, identity, and the comforting illusion that life once had meaning that could endure. It is not a desire to return. It is a desire to survive temporal acceleration.



Among the most absurd of these protests are complaints about music. People gripe about "overproduced music" as if perfection were a crime, as if technological sophistication were a vulgarity. They wear headphones capable of recreating entire orchestras in perfect fidelity, connected to devices that can summon every sound ever recorded, every note ever imagined, and they moan. They long for hiss, distortion, scarcity, as if these were virtues, forgetting that scarcity was cruel, imperfection painful, and life itself merciless. They pine for a "rawness" that would have killed their ancestors with frustration and boredom. The present offers them abundance and precision. Every sound can be sculpted, every detail exposed, every composition enriched with possibilities that previous generations could only dream of. And still they whine. The complaint is not about music. It is about humans, forever unsatisfied, incapable of inhabiting a present that surpasses their bitter imaginations. They cannot tolerate abundance, clarity, immediacy. They cannot survive the miracle they sit inside. This is the cruel paradox of nostalgia. It does not preserve the past. It preserves the mind’s need for control and comprehension, filtering reality into something the psyche can handle. Cultural decline is imagined, not factual, a reflection of cognitive overburden rather than historical decay. We remember music, life, and time itself as slower, deeper, more meaningful, not because it was better, but because the mind edited it to fit the fragile narrative of identity. So they clutch their luxury headphones, complain about overproduction, and sigh at the supposed sins of modernity. Meanwhile, their ancestors would have killed to hear a single note without static, without loss, without compression. They are drowning in abundance, suffocating in the richness of a world that offers more than they can ever appreciate, and still they long for limits, for scarcity, for suffering disguised as authenticity. Nostalgia, whining, longing, and contempt for progress are not philosophical stances. They are the symptoms of minds incapable of inhabiting the only time that exists — the present — and of humans who have never learned gratitude. And perhaps the only honest thing left is to laugh at their misfortune, bitter and silent, as the world keeps accelerating past their whining, and music plays, overproduced and magnificent, into ears that fail to notice the miracle.

 

Last edited: Jan 25, 2026

It's about fashion though - my point is to understand WHY that occured

Radio played hits in 1980.
Radio played hits in 2025.

It might be bold and unethical assumption but bad songs COULD now be considered better then?

Purely subjective, both from chart releasers and user's taste - NOBODY remembers the chart of that particular radio that played in 2006.
People can remember one or two songs, not especially from the 1st or 2nd place of this chart.

While it is undeniable that human hearing is the second - after touch - most primitive sense I won't believe that radio stations or streaming services dictate the taste of users' taste because they don't have authority (see my next quote response). This way, no more music needs to be produced and in fact it is that way.

Music is completed. At this point people are trained that nothing can surprise them now. In 90s' you thought - "what a cool synth sequence!", but now you just think - "that's nice". No emotion or bondage, just simple statement.

It's called advertising.

In the past when you were not recognized or had no conditions to perform, you went to club, tried to get to manager or other decision-making person and showed him your pendrive with your tracks, awaiting response. It rarely came, sometimes never.

What's the common denominator of those people that were NOT backed up by other figures or did not succeed is this YouTube video with vinyl cover, with around 5000 views. This is the tragic story of someone talented, that just didn't have luck or was just born in the wrong time and place.

Artists have bigger impact on people than corporations because they are aware of art they do and of art they can make. Corporations - as of now - are a delivery service. Not a taste supplier.

If that's the case, why the music transformed this way it is today? Because at one point everything turned to the same thing. We are currently going circles, but it's too late to turn in the other directions. Music is no longer a luxury good...

...and I see you understand that

Because?

Based on?

But one person can make the good music (plural) as well, even without experience, EVEN today. Lack of overprocessing?

Me, you and nobody from this thread or even forum expects labels to hire TALENTS. If you are not making music fitting the TODAY'S STANDARD, you're out.

---

But at the same time you say:

---

 

I mean that 70s' techniques are possible to implement in 2020s, not that they are unreachable
---

I dare say they whine because:

• Sounds are not sculpted, but retrieved from the presets data banks which amount can be counted in thousands.
• Details are not exposed.
• Compositions are enriched. Beyond literal comprehension.