Somewhat long (20min), but interesting commentary on several changes in music over the past 6 decades...how it is made, how it is popularized, and how its content has simplified (per the premise of the videomaker, of course).
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And they agree that modern pop music is crap.
I don't understand all the hate from some here for pop music from back in the day. It's incredibly difficult to write catchy tunes. And one of the reasons modern music is so bad is that all of the good melodies, sounds, etc., have already been used. I worked a golf project with a guy who won some sort of award at an Austin, Texas music festival back in the day, and he said it was incredibly hard to write original melodies.
From Frusciante (pseudo retired) to Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington the industry is losing high end talent much faster than it can be replaced.
Are there contemporaries the equivalent of Hendrix, Clapton, Santana, Bonham, Peart, Moon, or bands equal to CSN&Y, Cream, the Stones or the Beatles? I actually don't know, but it seems to me that today's music is more synthesized in a studio and less organically played by artists. I will admit that I am out of the loop except for what my 14 year old step-daughter listens to in the car.
John Frusciante is one of the best Rock musicians ever, IMO. He's in the discussion with those you mention.
As a vocalist, I'd also put Chris Cornell and perhaps Aaron Lewis.
Hard to come up with bands to compete though since many don't stay together nearly as long nor do they have the talent and/or mainstream notoriety. You lived through the Renaissance era of Rock Music, you're lucky in that respect IMO.
I am 58 and I have been heavily influenced by some of today’s music that my 22 yr old daughter listens to...also 50% of the time I am listening to music while working out or running and my interests have been influenced there as well. That being said love classic rock, modern country, and some of today’s pop. There is still plenty of good music being made, I don’t buy into that thesis
I think there is a tendency for people who have been listening to music for a long time to compare lousy pop music from today with music they liked from other eras. I'm around your age. I have friends who always complain about the crap music of today and yearn for the "good old days when music was good." They focus on today's silly Bruno Mars song and compare it to the great albums they remember from the 70s -- conveniently forgetting the Pina Colada songs of yesteryear. There is good music being made today. And there is pop pablum. I don't think it is much different today. If you are just listening to drive-time radio, you'll get a bunch of crap. If you want to find it, there is a lot that is interesting, inventive, complex, and artistic.
Maroon 5 and Adam Levine to be excellent. He has an incredible voice, outstanding musicians backing him up, and a great beat.
I dont buy into a lot of the diversity crap being thrown around these days but definitely feel my musical interests are wide ranging and diverse. Hell I have an entire Frank Sinatra playlist.
If you don't believe me, ask Lehigh.
Cant stand Bruno Mars
Charlie Putin is decent....very similar sound
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I'm just talking generalities. I like lots of music that others would not like. I like some music that falls within the broad range of "pop" music. Nothing wrong with enjoying a trifle. I don't happen to listen to Maroon 5, so I can't comment specifically on that. I try not to dismiss anything out of hand. To each his own.
Beyoncé (outside her recent art album) is Madonna redux for the most part. Hip-Hop sound in US is schlock. Popular music recorded today is bent towards the Corporate which makes it all cereal box stuff. If you’re listening to pop radio sounds you may as well paint your house beige, if it isn’t already. Outside someone like Adele there’s not much to like. - maroon 5 is probably the best example of the worst - shows like The Voice push for a type of sound not the ability to create music. That stuff is really the dumbing down of music. As pointed out in the video, the two writers - they forgot Drake - create shit sound and our children and grandchildren grow up with it as if it were talent. It’s junk like High Fructose Corn Syrup in soft drinks.
But I don't like the idea of dumping on someone because of the music they like. I don't have to think it is good for them to enjoy it. And I continue to say that pop music today isn't much more insipid than pop music of the past several decades. It is what it is and was . . . pap, pablum, tripe, pick the description . . . for the most part. Like I said, its the nature of mass appeal.
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It has been for decades. Crap noise for the masses. Risk in sales.
Good find by you. Not sure how you came upon this but good on you.
Sound compression is the High Fructose Corn Syrup in contemporary music.
The other day I was in a conversation about the band Toto and specifically their song “Africa”. I had never paid any mind to the lyrics before so I looked them up. Frighteningly bad lyrics. Interesting melody that drives the hook into the listeners ears over and over again. Hated the song then, even more now.
AM and most FM music radio is intolerable to listen to.
I don’t buy into the thesis, music is generational and I’m out of touch with the style and sound of today. The adage, my parents hated the music of my generation can only explain a fragment of the reason why contemporary music is difficult to listen to now. The quality of delivery changes and with it, often the quality of the sound. His argument is darn clear.
Anyway, a deeper conversion is to be had.
At least for as long as I've been listening to music. That's all it comes down to. Dumbed-down, simple pap for the masses sells but sucks. I don't think there is anything new here. Anyone doing interesting, inventive, complex, sophisticated music is going to have trouble connecting to a large audience. Nature of art as part of an entertainment landscape.
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But there is a difference between tripe and steak. And I don't have to pretend tripe is a filet because someone likes eating tripe, while ackowledging there is nothing wrong with eating what you like.
Whatever floats your boat listen to it. It’s called popular music for a reason.
Popular music snobbery cracks me up.
fairly simple pop songs but the nuance in popular recorded sound (like the man said), has gone. Dumbed down? I’m not so sure. A lot of pupular music in 50’s, 60’s and 70’s was in an experimental stage of poetry, melody and use of rhythm - doo wop, rock, and pop - The Wall of Sound and so on. Even Country Music was shifting. Rockabilly, Blues-Rock, Rock-Jazz Fusion, Electronic and so we’re all making strides - the cultivation of FM Music Radio and alternative sound opposing the AM Pop culture.
Cross over styles became the norm by the 70’s developing sounds like The Romones.
Dumbing down wasn’t really an overt thing until the disco era began. Not that producers weren’t looking for simpler catchy tunes.
Corporate rock culture like Journey, Toto, AirSupply, even Asia, the second coming of Chicago, Metallica, AC-DC, Aerosmith, the Scorpions, Kiss, (not in any order) jammed the air waves creating their own AM - FM stations competing with Disco, soft pop, light Jazz and next the RAP and soon to be Hip-Hop. Not all of it bad, just not much good. MTV, corporate record stores helped in the destruction of contemporary music. Flashy sales gimmick bands, sounds and easy to advertise stars with little to no talent became the norm - Madonna and more - Even Elton John wrote crass and horrid music, just for the financial gain.
So dumbed down isn’t quite that simple.
Link: https://youtu.be/LWdJ7Dy-3iY
If you go back and look at what made it big on pop charts in the 70s, it was mostly insipid pap like today. You can identify outliers that had some artistic value, but you can do that today too. The Pina Colada song was yesterdays Bruno Mars hit. And there were plenty of those spread across that decade. You Light Up My Life was as lousy as anything Katy Perry spits out. It just comes down to the simplest of ideas . . . to hit a mass market you aim for lowest common denominators. It renders audio pablum. Which, if enjoyable to someone, is just fine. I have a friend who loves to listen to what he calls "Yacht Pop," . . shit like Sailing and Cool Change. He digs it, probably because of nostalgia. I'm happy for him that he has something to listen to that makes him happy. But I still know it is pap.
He's the "Citizen Kane" of rock music. Lots of people think what he did was groundbreaking, but I find his music simplistic and shitty sounding. To me they sound like simply I-IV-V songs with no complexity or sound.
Klingons have more musical inclinations than you.
Link: https://youtu.be/nNTVzwjEyb4
I think it is fair to suppose that writers and producers are getting better at homogenizing music into what will sell now. I had heard that there were only a few writers who wrote most of today's pop songs. I had no idea it was only two writers until I watched this. Of course everything is going to sound the same when this is the case.
Just like with movies and publishing, the money that finances these enterprises is risk-averse. That's why we end up with Batman Returns Yet Again IV in cinemas and nothing but Tom Clancy's Blah-Blah on airport "book" shop shelves.
Commercial pop's bottom-line money success depends on hitting lowest common denominators. Hitting a broad market with safe, superficially appealing sounds. That hasn't changed since the advent of national pop charts and radio playlists. I don't doubt that they've gotten better at it. But at the same time avenues to access to broader music palettes have expanded. There is plenty of pap out there that you absorb just moving through society, but there is a lot of cool stuff to plug into if you want to. Both are easier today than ever.
It's practically a scientific approach being taken by producers and record companies now. In the past, it was more hit-or-miss.
And I disagree with your assertion that there will always be good stuff to find if you look hard enough. The business is fundamentally different now. The only way to make money is by touring, and the only tours that make money are by the POP(ular) artists. Lots of lasers, fireworks, stage elevators, and other bullshit. Can you imagine a band like Jethro Tull starting today and being successful? Of course not.
Not an audience like Katy Perry gets. But a following and financial success . . . sure. There are countless bands you and I have never heard of that have followings and make bank. You've probably never heard of the bands I like right now. But they are doing fine. iTunes has opened up a lot of lanes to listen and people are finding bands they don't hear on the radio. XM does some of that too . . .but it is failing.
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and it did for a while. Interesting to listen to REM and U2...compare their first albums with their latest. Sure, they matured as musicians, but it feels like they were maturing up until somewhere around 1990, and then they got popified, and started pandering a bit.
I still like to listen to a local college station. They play some popular stuff pushed by Big Music, but they play a lot of undiscovered, "rising to the top on its own merits" type stuff.
REM and U2 are good examples . . . U2 moreso, I believe. U2 was an earnest hard rocking band that turned into a brothel band. REM kept trying I think, with the exception of Out of Time, and just didn't have it in them anymore.
My 14 year old step-daughter actually sings along with can only be categorized as musical porn. Even the Stones would blush at these "lyrics" (sic).
of good and complex music being made now...but it is finding its way up the pop charts with increasingly less and less frequency.