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 at 2:17 PM

I'd like to compare it to eastern Europe state in the early 90s' - the communism was falling and 20 years afterward when everything turned to capitalism the old people raised in this ideology (without repressions, obviously) are telling the younger people that "things were better under communism", but I dare say that they think like this because THEY were young back then

 

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:

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.

 

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 at 2:19 PM

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.

 

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.