Simply talking, analyzing, praising, or criticizing won't reform the current system; it won't improve on its own.
Doing nothing and just hoping is a poor strategy.

We need musicians, educators, and simply great people who care about young people. This isolation in front of devices is counterproductive. The music industry promises a lot—videos with "you can do this too, buy our product" are completely unhelpful.

We simply need to give many young people the opportunity to experiment and learn through play.
I think more can be done in schools and youth centers.

Creative music development needs more space in society because passive consumers of the entertainment industry don't awaken anything in them; they simply live passively instead of actively engaging with it.

How about:

- How to program a drum machine and how it works, with guidance from an active instrument expert.
- We'll write a song and sing it together, with guidance.
- How to make good TikTok videos, with guidance from a professional.
- We'll rap together, with guidance from a rapper. We'll cook together around a campfire and build a drum and other musical instruments ourselves, with guidance from a music teacher. Then we'll record a song, write our own lyrics, and publish it online together.

 

Last edited: Jan 27, 2026 at 12:01 PM

I want more of this musicianship and less lopping off the top of waveforms to make everything seem louder.

 

Idk, Kraftwerk opened doors for electronic musicians, but so did Aphex Twin, twenty years later, so did Skrillex another fifteen years later (love him or hate him -I personally have no love for him- but Skrillex had an impact on the musical zeitgeist like no other artist).

It is naive to consider that all the doors were opened 50 years ago and nobody has opened new doors since.

I always remind people of Burial, whose 2006 debut came out of nowhere and blew everyone's minds. A completely unique, fresh take on electronic music, from someone who was using software that was already old and clunky back then, and its impact can still be heard in recent stuff (Thom Yorke's entire solo career has been influenced by Burial, for one).

 

I´m sorry to ruin the fun, but observation alone is not enough..

engaged observation is another story-> while that might be easy, surrendering to a result is a different beast, body just likes things we get addicted to, like knowing the result of our actions

 

i kinda think this corporate mobile focused version of the internet and online interactions has to collapse from the inside first. The general public need to deeply understand its rotten core first hand to be open to new paths. I hoping smart people and creatives can start building a healthy alternative relationship with real life and online spaces right now and those balanced models will blossom after the collapse.

 

Soundcloud!!

I avoid Spotify or other Streaming Platforms.
On Soundcloud i still find small Artists and Projects.
Also good Mixes.

As Producer you can also Upload and we can listen

 

"producers and Singers" go nowhere without musicians who write, record and play actual music.

 

There are still tons of high quality music, but the mainstream taste has become so horrible, that the music that we get to hear in public is literally the lowest common denominator of all human existence. It is an audial reflection of mankind's lowest impulses, ideas and instincts.

 

I don't see it that way. "Capitalism" doesn't kill innovation in the arts, it shows up after to commodify and speculate on what's already happened. The cart, then the horse. Grass roots innovation is rare? I see art residencies all over supporting people pushing boundaries with sound and tech, finding new mediums to express themselves in an increasingly crowded landscape. They can't make a living from it? Sure. But they're doing it anyway, which kind of undermines the "capitalism strangled creativity" narrative. And let's be honest: all artistic eras are built on recycling the past. Was Grunge true innovation or just punk + metal + production aesthetics? Was jungle not just breakbeats + reggae + rave culture? Every "golden age" is just clever remixing with new tools.

The innovation exists if you want to find it and be part of it. Or you can wait for it to become commodified enough to feel "legitimate," which is basically waiting for capitalism to validate it. Ironically.

Maybe we just have to accept that the new things arriving aren't made for us. We already had our time, and now our biases around it become increasingly difficult to overcome with age.

 

music in the past is still better. todays music is boring.. it does not give you any feelings or euphoria. or sadeness. its just.. music

 

Maybe true for some but not for myself. I grew up listening to jazz, swing & 30-70's big bands, folk rock, rock , hard rock, acid rock, jazz-fusion, reggae, urban country, indian ragas (tabla and sitar), etc, etc, etc... I heard others (older folks) claiming what you describe above, but I never validated that because I didn't believe in it. I was (and still am) a musician (yes I actually play instruments) and musicians can't afford to be that way. But unless folks have become complete and utter followers (social media helps with that), and also completely tone deaf and lacking any/all discerning taste in production quality, a greater portion of the stuff produced today is #1 - sounding like shit because it was processed to death, and/or #2 content wise it's redundant and infantile. It's not me or others "living in the past" or "unwilling to accept change" or any of the myriads of other idiot excuses I have seen used here to validate crappy music/production. All you need is a pair of functioning ears - listen to it (if you dare) for any length of time and it becomes very evident all by itself. Not saying it's ALL that way because it isn't. There are still engineers out there who believe that dynamics and content rule out over flash and loudness.

I use digital tools now as well, but I use them in way reminiscent of my time put in on analog gear and principles learned in those years. As such, my end results don't mimic a wall of shit splattered against my ear drums. Content wise, I use my brain for creative ideas not digital crutches. Some of it may suck some maybe not so much, but it comes from my head not some sample pack or "AI" chord generator. TO be perfectly honest all the music that came from the analog years were not gems either just to be fair.

 

Last edited: Jan 29, 2026 at 9:01 PM

I don't like the sound of any mainstream music being made today and haven't liked much (if any) of it since the 90s although a lot of 90s music got a bit tacky towards the end, I'd still rather listen to that apart from the boy and girl band rubbish. I'm listening back to older music that I haven't heard before or haven't heard for years from the 60s onwards, including artists I never paid much attention to and I like most of it, no matter the genre. I just don't like the style of todays music, the singing, the production or song structure. And yes I've listened to a heck of a lot of modern music, including recommendations and I just don't get on with it, its missing what older music had.

 

What if I'm audiophile?

 

Lacking a time machine, I find it impossible to listen to music in the past. I only listen to music in the present... and then it's immediately in the past.
And even if I travelled back in time to listen to music, I'd still be listening to it in my present.

It's a conundrum and no mistake.

 

Yes, it might be so, but the music in the past (not from the past) is still better, not only for me but for all of us. This is an unquestionable fact. "And the time move slow..."

Live, at History:

 

that is true. the past, now and future all at once. what you consider as past is your brain reconstructing the past experiences

 

Could it be said people put more of their heart into things in the past?

 

Last edited: Jan 30, 2026 at 7:12 AM

He calls himself a musician with the solemn gravity of a man announcing a lineage rather than a hobby and he says it often enough that even the furniture has started to roll its eyes. His room is arranged like a museum gift shop for a decade that never loved him with vinyl records bought new but spoken of as rescued artifacts posters of bands whose internal arguments he understands better than his own and a guitar that leans against the wall in a posture best described as historically important. He insists music used to be real then not like now now being a moral failure with a beat and he says this with the authority of someone who was absolutely not there but feels spiritually entitled to complain. This condition has a name which he pronounces carefully as if tasting wine he cannot afford. Anemoia. The aching nostalgia for a past you missed combined with the certainty that you personally would have fixed it. He speaks of the old days as a time when songs emerged fully formed from suffering geniuses in smoke filled rooms and audiences listened in silence as if attending mass and record labels nurtured talent patiently like monks illuminating manuscripts. He never mentions the forgotten bands the bad lyrics the cocaine fueled mediocrity the fact that half those heroes would be making jingles today without shame or irony. Anemoia is not a historian it is an interior decorator. He is depressed but tastefully so and he attributes this to being born too late which is very convenient because it means he cannot be held responsible for the fact that he has written the same song seventeen times under different titles all of which include the word "echo." The past he longs for is mercifully nonjudgmental and cannot tell him that his chorus collapses like wet cardboard or that his pain sounds rehearsed. He claims modern music lacks soul while streaming twelve hours a day and he despises algorithms while praying to them quietly hoping they might notice his authenticity which he has curated very carefully to look accidental. He believes he would have thrived in another era one with gatekeepers who recognized genius instantly and ignored everyone else especially people like him now. Anemoia wraps around his depression like a velvet cloak embroidered with excuses. He is not unsuccessful he is displaced. He is not ordinary he is temporally misunderstood. He is not afraid of failing he is loyal to a golden age that exists mostly as a lighting choice. When the record ends and the room returns to the ugly present he sighs deeply as if history itself has wronged him then reaches for the guitar and almost plays something honest before remembering that honesty is risky and ghosts make much better collaborators.

 

Another thing to consider is that before the year 2000 every decade of music had its own identity and - with some exceptions - it's usually easy to guess in which decade a song was produced. Since about 2005, there has been a remarkable samey-ness, at least in Mainstream culture. For instance, a song like "My humps" would fit very well into the current musical Landscape, as would many songs that were released from 2005-2015.