When electronic music sounded new, like the future... what went wrong!

[SLiC]

So as yet another emulation of a 35 year old synths drives the KVR forums crazy, I was reminiscing about when electronic music sounded new, like the future...

Now we seem to try so hard to look and sound like the past...

Is there nothing left to do with synthesis other than tiny incremental improvements in copying something that already been done? Analogue, FM, Samples, PM, WT, Granular.

Is that it, are we done?

[imrae]

There are plenty of people out there making abstract noise terror, but you've never heard of them because it doesn't sell many records and it doesn't get played on the radio.

[cthonophonic]

Oh, I know the feeling. I am holding off on writing my new sci-fi novel until someone invents new words.

[cryophonik]

I think the answer may be, at least in part, that people simply want to incorporate old sounds as a means of making modern electronic music styles sound new again. Then again, I'm old and don't really keep up with what's popular anymore, so I could be way off.

[SLiC]

I am also old (55) so remember a lot of this stuff first time around. I guess if you live long enough you see everything come back around, maybe it isn't that people lack inventiveness, maybe everything that can be done has been done. Maybe subtractive analogue was as good as it gets?

[SLiC]

Oh, I know the feeling. I am holding off on writing my new sci-fi novel until someone invents new words.

Funnily enough I am also getting that feeling with most books (its my age), its like every plot has been done and almost everything is just a slightly different and often inferior version of something else! (Notable exception anything by Joe Abercrombie or Patrick Rothfuss).

[thecontrolcentre]

Time happened. Its been 60 - 70 years since electronic music sounded new or futuristic. I'm thinking of Forbidden Planet/ Dr. Who era ...

I think the current obsession with analog sounds stems from people who were young in the 70s & 80s trying to sound like the music they loved at that time. If you're young now, the new electronic stuff probably sounds modern. Reminds me of the rock'n' roll revival in the 70s and 80s (Stray Cats,King Curt, etc).

[kritikon]

It'll change at some point. Music styles and tastes usually do, and so will the sonic palette with it. TBH I'm surprised the dancey stuff has been around for so long. It's 35 years, though it did morph and change pretty quickly for the first few years. But pretty well nothing new from 2000 onwards - at least not new for the popular mass market.

Personally I think the biggest thing holding change back is change itself - the business model, the ease of access with PCs etc. We all applauded the downfall of the major record companies - but what it's done is actually reduce mass market access to anything seen as new or risky. Even the big boys used to throw money at new talent - outside of the US that doesn't seem to happen much...exactly because of the business model now making it risky and smaller profit margins for them (i.e. they can't throw money around like they used to. And though it sound great - it's actually far harder to make it on your own, when you have zero cash and zero prospects. Can you see any band like, say Sex Pistols getting any serious money backing nowadays? Could you see them making it on their own when all they did was wind people up? Beatles etc only happened because they had major label backing.

I don't like the major label model, or the way they worked often, but what we have now isn't working well for inspiring music. Sometimes I hear stuff I listened to in 1990 or so and it sounds streaks ahead of what's around now. In terms of inventiveness, sounds, atmosphere, originality. Music hasn't finished, there is still new stuff to make. Unfortunately the internet world now means you do exactly as you see every other fuckwit doing. and the market has hardened. You can still make weird stuff, but less people listen because they don't want to be cut off from the "influence" state of mind.

[cryophonik]

IDK, I think I have a less cynical view of electronic music than many people my age (early 50s) and, while I agree that it's been a while since I've heard anything that sounds "futuristic" or "new", it seems to come in waves, or nodes, or something and tends to happen at a broad macro scale, rather than at the subgenre scale. 80s new wave and industrial music were big ones IMO. House, techno, and trance were game changers, too. I'm not particularly fond of dubstep as a genre, but I'd say that's the last thing I can think of that sounded "new" to me in the electronic music scene.

[chk071]

So as yet another emulation of a 35 year old synths drives the KVR forums crazy, I was reminiscing about when electronic music sounded new, like the future...

Now we seem to try so hard to look and sound like the past...

I don't see it like that. It might as well be that synth manufacturers were in their prime back then...

I mean, which new (unique) analog synth came out in the last 20 years which can really hold a candle in regards of becoming such a classic like the Minimoogs, Oberheims, Prophets, Rolands, whatever. Especially when you take a look at the "originality" of Roland's current synths, it's rather sad, isn't it?

Also, you can make very modern music with those old synths IMO.

[dark water]

@ SLIC, is there REALLY a past, present or future anyway?
Can you truly write a song, paint a picture, create a poem without thinking of the 'here and now'?


Besides, perhaps some musicians at various points in history thought "Is that it, are we done?"
And maybe they were 'done' with their sticks, or their lutes, or their harpsichords, or their saxophones, or their ARP synths.
But not so other musicians or developers...

[Yoga Pants]

It'll change at some point. Music styles and tastes usually do, and so will the sonic palette with it. TBH I'm surprised the dancey stuff has been around for so long. It's 35 years, though it did morph and change pretty quickly for the first few years. But pretty well nothing new from 2000 onwards - at least not new for the popular mass market.

Personally I think the biggest thing holding change back is change itself - the business model, the ease of access with PCs etc. We all applauded the downfall of the major record companies - but what it's done is actually reduce mass market access to anything seen as new or risky. Even the big boys used to throw money at new talent - outside of the US that doesn't seem to happen much...exactly because of the business model now making it risky and smaller profit margins for them (i.e. they can't throw money around like they used to. And though it sound great - it's actually far harder to make it on your own, when you have zero cash and zero prospects. Can you see any band like, say Sex Pistols getting any serious money backing nowadays? Could you see them making it on their own when all they did was wind people up? Beatles etc only happened because they had major label backing.

I don't like the major label model, or the way they worked often, but what we have now isn't working well for inspiring music. Sometimes I hear stuff I listened to in 1990 or so and it sounds streaks ahead of what's around now. In terms of inventiveness, sounds, atmosphere, originality. Music hasn't finished, there is still new stuff to make. Unfortunately the internet world now means you do exactly as you see every other fuckwit doing. and the market has hardened. You can still make weird stuff, but less people listen because they don't want to be cut off from the "influence" state of mind.

Also does not help that the current generation did not develop taste and complexity in music. Young people call music that’s clever, colourful, has a decent chord progression and God forbid a DIFFERENT chord progression for the chorus ......cheesy.
Let alone music that is not in 4/4.
They have no idea what they are missing, hope they get there some day to appreciate music that’s not just a rhythm and someone talking over one note. I am sad because of the state of young people’s musical taste.
You can call me old i am 46 but music from the last century was measurably better.

[vurt]

i obviously know different kids

[tf-drone]

Hi,
personally, I do not care for a perfect emulation. I just like the vintage sounds and the ergonomic GUIs.

[thecontrolcentre]

All the young people (in their 20's) that I know have highly eclectic taste and are into dub. ska, techno, trance, dubstep, experimental electronica, disco, pop, rock, punk, jazz etc ... my daughter loves show tunes from the 40s and 50s.