Why is modern music so awful

[HAL76]

And the question is still

[_leras]

One thing that is happening that's going to cause issues is there's a bean counter tendency to take options away from people, and electronic music devices are great examples. Dance music in all of of it's forms being the dominant macro genre of electronic music has resulted in hardware manufacturers stripping out massive parts of music fundamentals from their devices.

Fortunately this hasn't happened with DAWs on the computer, but it's just a f*cking annoying phenomena to watch as someone whose loved me some odd time signatures, BreakCore and experimental Hip Hop.

I agree. Without a doubt there's a great dumbing down going on, but luckily not everyone gets caught by it.

There is also cutting edge everywhere in the world. Young musicians are arguably better than ever, with so many recordings and videos to take inspiration from when learning.

I think too many people have just given up and are stuck in the past. They can't believe that young people can do anything of note, even though they were young once. And, at their own loss, they can't be open minded with modern music.

Life hack: How to Understand a Genre of music that is new to you.

-Choose a genre
-Find some playlists
-Listen to this genre exclusively for a week or so, until you can actually 'hear' the differences between tracks
-Congratulations you've now liked some tracks more than others and probably have an appreciation of why those tracks are good.

There's great, or at least interesting, music in almost any genre.

[_leras]

In the past there were no less musical garbage (and musical treasures) than we have right now. The modern garbage will be forgotten and only more or less good music will be retained.

Very much this.

What will be really interesting is that we now have many more genres/types. Each has good music, but from a smaller area. I'd say we also likely lose a huge amount of really good music.

[_leras]

Except that I feel like the public was exposed to a much larger share of the music of the day back then than it is now. In other words—there was way less of it, but people heard way more of it, and it was way better. This is objectively true.

That's not true. In the past you'd have anyone who played locally, or you'd have the smaller curated music industry pushed set of radio music.

Now we have instant access to all of that, from many countries and an enormous giant unimaginably large amount of more modern music.

I mean you can lookup up a playlist of 1960s Columbian music and jump straight to a list of Phonk or Colour Bass, or anything in between. It's literally incredible.

[jamcat]

Right. So there was less music out there, but it was way more curated. This meant that the quality of music that was even given an opportunity to get recorded was objectively higher on average than today, and then it went through a second filtration process of curation and distribution that no longer exists, which further refined the quality of what was delivered as a singular, common cultural experience to the entire western world.

[vurt]

Right. So there was less music out there, but it was way more curated. This meant that the quality of music that was even given an opportunity to get recorded was objectively higher on average than today, and then it went through a second filtration process of curation and distribution that no longer exists, which further refined the quality of what was delivered as a singular, common cultural experience to the entire western world.

lulz

[mjolnir]

i can't help but think that some of the modern USB MIDI controllers are to blame too.
some of them really take away and reduce the musicianship and playability and replace it with flashing lights and too much minimalism.

[machinesworking]

Right. So there was less music out there, but it was way more curated. This meant that the quality of music that was even given an opportunity to get recorded was objectively higher on average than today, and then it went through a second filtration process of curation and distribution that no longer exists, which further refined the quality of what was delivered as a singular, common cultural experience to the entire western world.

IMO I get why you would think that, but you're not correct at all here. Zappa pointed out IMO rightfully so that it's the exact opposite problem. Now we have the whole boy band Disney/Nickelodian puppy mill approach, all fueled by this same impulse.

[jancivil]

Here's where I'm coming from.
Example: Copland Appalachian Spring, or Hoedown. Is this folk music, or is it not folk music - even though musically AFAIK it's the same fiddle tunes - because in a record store it's put in the classical bin? When bluegrass purists reject out-of-hand New Grass Revival covering Get Back, they've ghettoized themselves.

I began with Bartok, don't know why. Not a strong example cos you probably don't have a comparison like with American music.

[machinesworking]

I get that, at the edges it's always blurry where the lines are. I think most of us can relate to some degree to having a wide seemingly random taste musically that doesn't follow anything but an internal logic to everyone out there.

I'm not super convinced there's a thing you can bottle and tell me makes great music, I tend to think it's some balance between talent at an instrument and emotion, but it can lean all the way over to emotion and be powerful or the opposite even, to me at least.

The only rule I have is besides production value, there really isn't much to enjoy about the aforementioned boy bands and Disney star puppy mill. That isn't a new phenomena though, there were 50's groups that were made up of exploited teens with greedy managers and hit factory song writers behind them. Even in modern music there are 50 year old producers making beats for Eminems team back in the day to use for his songs and that happens with Beyonce etc. Even saying all that some, what I would call exploitation music, is fun.

[ghettosynth]

I get that, at the edges it's always blurry where the lines are. I think most of us can relate to some degree to having a wide seemingly random taste musically that doesn't follow anything but an internal logic to everyone out there.

I'm not super convinced there's a thing you can bottle and tell me makes great music, I tend to think it's some balance between talent at an instrument and emotion, but it can lean all the way over to emotion and be powerful or the opposite even, to me at least.

The only rule I have is besides production value, there really isn't much to enjoy about the aforementioned boy bands and Disney star puppy mill. That isn't a new phenomena though, there were 50's groups that were made up of exploited teens with greedy managers and hit factory song writers behind them. Even in modern music there are 50 year old producers making beats for Eminems team back in the day to use for his songs and that happens with Beyonce etc. Even saying all that some, what I would call exploitation music, is fun.

Spot on. I'd jump into the argument, but, the AI era has changed how I engage these topics. The long and short of it is that I don't buy that music is worse today, but, I do buy that it's much more difficult to stand out in the face of globalization. What is clear is that the music industry has shifted to reflect economic realities as well as cultural moments since it was a thing, and that will not change. If you're trying to use past models in the current era, then you should expect disappointment. Corollary, if you think that the charts represent what's good, then you're looking in the wrong place.

Also: Zappa is a walking talking type III error.

[_leras]

, which further refined the quality of what was delivered as a singular, common cultural experience to the entire western world.

lulz

that man clearly has no place talking about modern music

[lobanov]

In the past there were no less musical garbage (and musical treasures) than we have right now. The modern garbage will be forgotten and only more or less good music will be retained.

Very much this.

What will be really interesting is that we now have many more genres/types. Each has good music, but from a smaller area. I'd say we also likely lose a huge amount of really good music.

Agree. The further the more.

[lobanov]

The "old music" is music that has been selected. This is "good" (valuable) music that we retain and keep. It is not all music of the past.

The "modern music" is all music that is performed or played for the current moment.

In the past there were no less musical garbage (and musical treasures) than we have right now. The modern garbage will be forgotten and only more or less good music will be retained.

Except that I feel like the public was exposed to a much larger share of the music of the day back then than it is now. In other words—there was way less of it, but people heard way more of it, and it was way better. This is objectively true.

I'm not sure. IMO, it seems to you that there was lesser music as you think about music which has been already selected. It's just the essence of the historical view point. The further the lesser. Do you know all second- or third-tiers composers and musicians (now unknown) of the past? No. Now you see these ...-tier composers and performers, listen their music or read about them all the time. They are everywhere, you know their names. Don't forget that many organ players in churches were composers and many hobbyists made music for themselves and their friends. Or let's think about folklore music. How many musicians exist in the folklore context? Everyone? Half of people? I don't think that they are rare. In such a context professionals don't exist.

If such difference takes place it isn't very significant.

In the past only "good" music was widely shared. The "filter" worked differently than today (if today it exists) and this filter prevented large proliferation of "bad" music. Yes, it depended on musical technologies and musical institutes (such as the musical publishing).

But all what I said is just a model...

[machinesworking]

Also: Zappa is a walking talking type III error.

He was spot on about the music industry IMO. Especially when it came to talent agents.
I'm not particularly a fan of Janes Addiction but a good friend is in a famous 90's band and mentioned that Janes Addiction only got signed because three different talent agents went to the same show randomly and assumed there was a massive potential in Janes, whom they had all passed on in the past.