Older songs are better than now

Discussion in 'Mixing and Mastering' started by Kate Middleton, Jun 23, 2024.

  1. Crinklebumps

    Crinklebumps Audiosexual

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    They're remastering classic albums and 'fixing' the vocals. Un-autotuned/un-pitch corrected versions of original old songs will probably become the next sought after thing. And old singers who can't do it anymore seem fine with either miming 'live' (The Eagles) or worse...

     
  2. JMOUTTON

    JMOUTTON Audiosexual

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    Les Masterpiece of the masters of music making and better than anything that can be made now.













    Hindsight is a hell of a drug
     
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  3. Utada Hikaru

    Utada Hikaru Producer

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    I can only agree with OP if we talk about Dynamic Range. In the past music had much more impact and depth for its good DR. Now everything is squashed, flat and compressed AF for no good reason. Hell, even music streaming platforms have already loudness standard values for the better so there is really no point for making it sound "louder than the competition" anymore.
    [​IMG]
     
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  4. Margaret

    Margaret Rock Star

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    Please leave Rebecca alone. Everyone does something stupid in life, and she did this.
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  5. Margaret

    Margaret Rock Star

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    She created Tik Tok. Boomers hate her.

     
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  6. Warpigg

    Warpigg Newbie

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    Pet Shop Boys is my fave band since I was a teenage. I absolutely agree with you. They used to sound very cool and now they sound a little dated and lazy. Luckily they kept the very good quality as composers (their new album Nontheless is a nice collection of well written songs). They're still arty but it's such a shame they don't much effort in sound.
    I've always liked the work of Max Martin on Backstreet Boys records by the way.
    So yes, the old songs sounded better IMO
     
  7. JMOUTTON

    JMOUTTON Audiosexual

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    YHEA I love me some Ke$ha.

    Thirsty ass boomers are probably the majority of TikTok accounts all subbed and following twerking underage girls and railing about how bad it is that the people are watching it on hatebook/x-twatter while they are popping subsidized Viagra so they can fap to it on an other screen.

    But they aren't alone the top link where some young kids have their top 10, I actually like some of those songs.

    It is what it is.
     
  8. Lad Impala

    Lad Impala Platinum Record

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    What are you talking about? She's a genius for making friday
    how am i supposed to know the days of the week?
     
  9. DeKay

    DeKay Noisemaker

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    My theory on this is based on how throwaway music is these days. There is so much content released at such a fast pace nowadays, not a lot of love is given to each track and everyone's copying the next great sound. Previously careful decisions were made to decide which tracks would get a release. You had to work hard to stand out and make someone want to buy your music.
     
  10. JMOUTTON

    JMOUTTON Audiosexual

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    That's just how it seems now that you have a filter that allows everyone to forget the literal seas of shit that were played on the radio and for sale on records.

    We only remember the standouts but even in the time of baroque and classical composers there was a sea of shit, even patronized shit. Think about this every baron, duke, and city church worth their salt had their own composer or musical director that composed and arranged music for them. They weren't all the the quality of Handel, Vivaldi, Bach, Telemann, Schutlz, Rameau and unless you played baroque as a musician you probably never even heard of the last 3 and even then you might not have heard of them. I know them because I was exposed to them as sheet music by different teachers at different times and something about them stuck, there are many many more.


    There has always been tons of shit, there will always be tons of shit and in those seas of shit there will always be a few pearls.
     
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  11. Haze

    Haze Producer

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  12. Lad Impala

    Lad Impala Platinum Record

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    man it pisses me off that someone like Chris Brown still gets on top 10 worldwide
     
  13. Haze

    Haze Producer

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    How about this: I have absolutely no idea who Chris Brown is and dare say I don't want to. He's as relevant to my musical world as Taylor Swift who, you guessed it, I also didn't know jack about until this last week. I really would not know a single one of her songs. Unless they start to produce techno, punk, ambient, classical, metal, world, psytrance, dub, soundtracks, folk, jazz, dnb or anything approaching "serious" pop music I'm unlikely to because I pay absolutely no attention to the charts and stopped doing so in the early 80s.

    As it happens, that wasn't actually the video I intended to post anyhow, though it's in the same vein and there are of course many other examples on his channel that reinforce the same point

    In that particular one, I personally thought it was all complete shite apart from Sam Brown (not to my taste but worthy songwriting and production).

    The question I have to ask with all of it is "Where are the chords?" and thus "Where is the songwriting?". The melodies are garbage, the drum programming sounds like it's done by chimpanzees suffering from grand mal seizures and as far as prouction quality, ffs that piano sound in the David Guetta track sounds like sticking knitting needles in your eyes (or a Korg M1 piano through a BBE Sonic Maximiser with everything on full :winker:) and the vocals, man the vocals, THE VOCALS :wtf:. An album of KeyGen music would have 10x the musical interest of what is in that top 10 (I'm saying that 100% with a completely straight face).

    Even more relevant is the video regarding Taylor Swift's "success". Specifically, the "I am the Walrus" moment. Says it all in about 15 seconds.



    I think it's fairly obvious that the singles "charts" are now completely driven by teeny click bait. In some respects, it's always been the way that kids were the main consumers of new music but there's a marked difference in the speed of turnover and therefore quality. Maybe it's because they're all frantically clicking away desperately trying to find something that's actually worth listening to..

    Apologies for the rant, Lad Impala, the bulk of that is obviously not directed at you personally. :mates:
     
  14. clone

    clone Audiosexual

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    He's like Floyd Mayweather Jr, if you happen to be a female.
     
  15. Haze

    Haze Producer

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    Who? :rofl:
     
  16. Haze

    Haze Producer

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    I always reference 1979 as the ultimate year for pop music. The diversity of creativity and styles that existed in parallel in the charts we have never seen the likes of since. Slowly but surely, the diversity got narrower and narrower, being gobbled up, year on year, by the commercial machine until finally arriving at today's nonsense.

    Tell me I'm wrong...

    Here's the UK top 100 from 1979 (the top 1000 would be an even better list imo):

    01 Art Garfunkel Bright Eyes
    02 Cliff Richard We Don't Talk Anymore
    03 Dr Hook When You're In Love With A Beautiful Woman
    04 Tubeway Army Are 'Friends' Electric
    05 Gloria Gaynor I Will Survive
    06 The Boomtown Rats I Don't Like Mondays
    07 Blondie Heart Of Glass
    08 Lena Martell One Day At A Time
    09 Blondie Sunday Girl
    10 Roxy Music Dance Away
    11 Ian & The Blockheads Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick
    12 The Village People YMCA
    13 The Police Message In A Bottle
    14 M Pop Muzik
    15 Pink Floyd Another Brick In The Wall
    16 Elvis Costello & The Attractions Oliver's Army
    17 Gary Numan Cars
    18 The Bee Gees Tragedy
    19 Anita Ward Ring My Bell
    20 Racey Some Girls
    21 Queen Crazy Little Thing Called Love
    22 The Buggles Video Killed The Radio Star
    23 Janet Kay Silly Games
    24 BA Robertson Bang Bang
    25 Earth Wind & Fire With The Emotions Boogie Wonderland
    26 The Police Walking On The Moon
    27 Abba Chiquitita
    28 The Three Degrees Woman In Love
    29 Squeeze Cool For Cats
    30 The Bellamy Brothers If I Said You Had A Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me
    31 Squeeze Up The Junction
    32 The Sex Pistols Something Else / Friggin' In The Riggin'
    33 Peaches & Herb Reunited
    34 Lene Lovich Lucky Number
    35 Donna Summer & Barbra Streisand No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)
    36 The Dooleys Wanted
    37 Michael Jackson Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough
    38 Sad Cafe Every Day Hurts
    39 The Village People In The Navy
    40 Blondie Dreaming
    41 Earth Wind & Fire September
    42 Abba Gimme Gimme Gimme
    43 Abba Angeleyes / Voulez Vous
    44 Chic I Want Your Love
    45 Racey Lay Your Love On Me
    46 The Real Thing Can You Feel The Force?
    47 The Tourists I Only Want To Be With You
    48 The Jacksons Shake Your Body (Down To The Ground)
    49 Roxy Music Angel Eyes
    50 Edwin Starr Contact
    51 Dave Edmunds Girls Talk
    52 Dollar Love's Gotta Hold On Me
    53 Boney M Hooray Hooray It's A Holi-Holiday
    54 Abba Does Your Mother Know
    55 The Police Can't Stand Losing You
    56 The Commodores Still
    57 Electric Light Orchestra Don't Bring Me Down
    58 Earth Wind & Fire After The Love Has Gone
    59 The Shadows Don't Cry For Me Argentina
    60 Gerry Rafferty Night Owl
    61 Abba I Have A Dream
    62 The Crusaders Street Life
    63 The Sex Pistols C'mon Everybody
    64 Olivia Newton-John A Little More Love
    65 The Gibson Brothers Que Sera Mi Vida
    66 The Shadows Theme From 'the Deer Hunter' (Cavatina)
    67 The Jam Eton Rifles
    68 Leif Garrett I Was Made For Dancin'
    69 The Special AKA Gangsters
    70 Amii Stewart Knock On Wood
    71 McFadden & Whitehead Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now
    72 Rainbow Since You've Been Gone
    73 Amii Stewart Light My Fire / 137 Disco Heaven
    74 Status Quo Whatever You Want
    75 Ian Dury & The Blockheads Reasons To Be Cheerful (Part 3)
    76 Darts Duke Of Earl
    77 Quantum Jump The Lone Ranger
    78 Randy Vanwarmer Just When I Needed You Most
    79 Chic Good Times
    80 Patrick Hernandez Born To Be Alive
    81 The Sugarhill Gang Rapper's Delight
    82 Driver 67 Car 67
    83 Electric Light Orchestra Shine A Little Love
    84 Supertramp The Logical Song
    85 Madness One Step Beyond
    86 Wings Goodnight Tonight
    87 David Bowie Boys Keep Swingin'
    88 Fleetwood Mac Tusk
    89 The Ramblers The Sparrow
    90 The Dooleys The Chosen Few
    91 Sister Sledge He's The Greatest Dancer
    92 Queen Don't Stop Me Now
    93 Eruption One Way Ticket
    94 Dire Straits Sultans Of Swing
    95 The Beach Boys Lady Lynda
    96 Sham 69 Hersham Boys
    97 Gene Chandler Get Down
    98 The Gibson Brothers Ooh What A Life
    99 Gary Moore Parisienne Walkways
    100 The Flying Lizards Money
     
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  17. zalbadar

    zalbadar Ultrasonic

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    1979 was a good year for music.

    Now there's 2 reasons that come to my mind.

    First is it's cheeper to release music now. You can get away with no physical medium. no cost for shipping and the same cost to sell 100 copies as it is 1,000,000 copies. So more bad stuff is release on the off chance perople out there might like it, even if no one in the lable exept the Boss and the man who made it like it.

    The other reason and probably the main one is, as we get older our standards for good music drop as we explore life and here more, and I mean it drops alot.

    Think about it, how many songs did you know of when you where 16 and how many did you think were good, alright, acceptable and bad.
    Then think of how many bad songs you've hear in the last year.
    Now has the line moved? How many things that where just alright are now good because you know of so much more bad songs are out there.

    It's not that the songs have got better, you just know there's worse stuff out there.
     
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  18. Utada Hikaru

    Utada Hikaru Producer

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    I was looking for a singer to colab with my music, so I have spent hours, days, months! searching and listening new music, indie and emergent artists.....

    Bro, NONE of them knows to actually sing, all of these new music is all about "decent" production but boring, flat voices that barely hits their notes with pitch correction in the DAW. I was thinking that maybe I am just very demanding, expecting a lot, but now I realize that is exactly what you described, nowadays ANYBODY can make, produce and release music, so we are flooded of tons of new music (and "singers") that just started doing it without any serious music training, and now we are seeing the results.

    I am not saying that its a bad thing that anybody can make music, that's good!, but we also will see the downsides.
     
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  19. Lad Impala

    Lad Impala Platinum Record

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    I'm not a Beato fan, but i kinda agree with him and you in this one.
    That David Guetta song is a terrible version of the I'm Blue, feels like it was made by a kid.
    The drum sounds from the first song (Bad Bunny) are really piercing to my ears.
    The Drake song Rich Flex, well its a modern trap (or should i say crap?). Those melodies don't make sense to me. I really liked his album Scorpion though.

    The TOP 10s are changing all the time, some are better than the others... i still check the playlist from time to time, sometimes i find something that i like, sometimes i don't. I think we are in a bad streak.

    To say Taylor Swift is bigger than the Beatles is completely shit. Teeny bait.

    Lastly Chris Brown is a pop singer who beat the shit out of Rihanna back in 2009, his then girlfriend, who is another pop singer.
     
  20. clone

    clone Audiosexual

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