Why is modern music so awful

[Jake Jackson]

I would add:

The removal of music education from schools.
The availability of decent, inexpensive instruments and recording equipment.

But I agree that there has always been terrible music, whether from Lawrence Welk or the Osmonds. There is just more bad music now, and the absence of musical education lets people accept it. The result is most pop, hiphop, metal, and teeny punk.

[Bunny_boy]

The removal of music education from schools.
The availability of decent, inexpensive instruments and recording equipment.

I'm my experience that is not true, although I guess it depends where you live.

There is just more bad music now, and the absence of musical education lets people accept it. The result is most pop, hiphop, metal, and teeny punk.

Unless I've read you incorrectly, that suggests that you need an education to enjoy music properly?

[Gamma-UT]

But I agree that there has always been terrible music, whether from Lawrence Welk or the Osmonds.

Weird callbacks for "bad music".

I can't say I'd go out of my way to listen to Welk but it's generally well-structured, just a bit bland. Young World wouldn't be out of place as the soundtrack to numerous 60s movies.

And the Osmonds? Not cool. But they managed to put out numbers like Crazy Horses (in a bid by the older brothers to do what the rock they wanted rather than the TV-friendly stuff the family demanded).

[Bunny_boy]

they managed to put out numbers like Crazy Horses

Just played it at 0.75 speed on YouTube to see what that would sound like and it's excellent

[eLawnMust]

I would add:

The removal of music education from schools.
The availability of decent, inexpensive instruments and recording equipment.

But I agree that there has always been terrible music, whether from Lawrence Welk or the Osmonds. There is just more bad music now, and the absence of musical education lets people accept it. The result is most pop, hiphop, metal, and teeny punk.

This IS an issue... If you haven't gone thru music in school & after-school you then have no idea... Playing actual instruments trains the EAR for the recognition of melodies & chords/changes... This is why you see so many on here begging for help to pick out a tune that is actually quite easy to figure out... So many on here just make same 'fat sound' music that is baby lullaby simple in musical terms it gets quite boring to listen to, way too many FX used & not enough musical talent...

[BONES]

What a load of twaddle. I went through school, did music until 4th Form, played in the school band in 5th and 6th Form and there was absolutely no music from my childhood and teens that I really connected with on more than the most superficial level. None. The first time I ever heard music that really, truly did anything for me was when I saw The Stranglers in 1979, at age 21. It didn't require any appreciation of melody or chord structure or anything else, it just smashed into me like a sledgehammer. It was literally a night that changed my life forever because music is something that connects with you on a visceral level. If you have to search for reasons to like/appreciate something, then you aren't connecting with the music at all and I feel terribly sad for you.

I feel similarly sad for young people today, generally; how the hell they are supposed to find the music that connects with them is beyond my ken. I feel so lucky to have grown up in the Golden Age of contemporary music, where exposure to every kind of music was everywhere and finding what you liked was relatively easy. These days it's all buried under a billions tonnes of absolute shit and finding something you don't already know about is next to impossible.

[lunardigs]

Yup, I agree.
It's a fun conversation, but in the end, good music in an ineffable thing--and so is bad music. After all, it's just a bunch of feelings we experience. Which is subject to your mood, the weather, your stomach, and so on.

[LoopyMallow]

Perhaps it's just that awful music is easier to see these days? Though there definitely has been a more corporate approach within the last 20-30 years...which can't be too good for creativity.

[Bunny_boy]

Though there definitely has been a more corporate approach within the last 20-30

I'm not sure of that. Record companies have always been profit-first, f**k-the-artist kinda deals. There's too many stories of artists being done over by companies from the last 70-odd years.

Plus there's stuff like this from the 70s. This has zero artistic integrity and started a craze for mega mix singles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars_on_45_(song)

[ksandvik]

I suspect the good stuff to crap ratio is about the same, the problem is the volume of music published today, supposedly 100k uploads a day to Spotify.

[_leras]

I would add:

The removal of music education from schools.
The availability of decent, inexpensive instruments and recording equipment.

But I agree that there has always been terrible music, whether from Lawrence Welk or the Osmonds. There is just more bad music now, and the absence of musical education lets people accept it. The result is most pop, hiphop, metal, and teeny punk.

This IS an issue... If you haven't gone thru music in school & after-school you then have no idea... Playing actual instruments trains the EAR for the recognition of melodies & chords/changes... This is why you see so many on here begging for help to pick out a tune that is actually quite easy to figure out... So many on here just make same 'fat sound' music that is baby lullaby simple in musical terms it gets quite boring to listen to, way too many FX used & not enough musical talent...

Sorry, but that's a complete load of BS. It's hardly as if that many prices of music and songs are super complicated. Many of the best bands in the world were largely self taught and their music had little to do with school music lessons.

Sure some modern music styles may be 'simple', but at the same time other people are pushing the levels of musical proficiency to very high levels, and clearly quite a few doing so in areas you may not even consider musical.

[_leras]

Perhaps it's just that awful music is easier to see these days? Though there definitely has been a more corporate approach within the last 20-30 years...which can't be too good for creativity.

Good music is also easier to see, there tons of it, and you can access nearly everything.

There are still things that gate people, especially the more live bands. It can be really hard to make good recordings to a professional sounding level for a band with real instruments.

Electronic and sample based musicians have it much simpler, they may only need to engineer recording a vocal.

It's harder to stick out, and quite sad that people need to pimp themselves on tiktok or other similar social media to gain exposure, but maybe that's just an equivalent of doing a lot of local gigs.

[BONES]

Perhaps it's just that awful music is easier to see these days? Though there definitely has been a more corporate approach within the last 20-30 years...which can't be too good for creativity.

The corporate thing has been around forever. Think about bands like the Monkees from the 1960s, they were even more contrived than One Direction.

[LoopyMallow]

Perhaps it's just that awful music is easier to see these days? Though there definitely has been a more corporate approach within the last 20-30 years...which can't be too good for creativity.

The corporate thing has been around forever. Think about bands like the Monkees from the 1960s, they were even more contrived than One Direction.

This is true, but not exactly what I was referring to. By "corporate aspect" I specifically meant the production of music as secondary content with the rise of social media. There is a clear trend of songs becoming shorter, more palatable, and same-y in order to chase social media trends. While trend chasing is not new, with how fast it goes these days on the internet it's not quite the same as it used to be. It's like record labels are always trying to catch the newest TikTok jingle, and are looking for artists to find that, rather than actually investing in music or star power.

[BONES]

I noticed that years ago. Songs like Vance Joy's Riptide seem perfectly written to be used in TV commercials, to the extent that I'd heard it on a TV ad dozens of times before I ever knew it was a proper song. It had "innocuous elevator music" written all over it. But I don't see how record companies are driving that. It's the artists who want the exposure, the record companies just seem to be trying to get in on it, too, by signing those artists.