• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Turn That Awful Noise Down

Newk Yuler

Active Member
Joined
Mar 5, 2019
Messages
155
Likes
252
Oh, hell. The fact of the matter is pop music becomes less musical and more mindless rhythmic garbage with each new generation. And it's propagated by corporate greed with no regard for quality or how it's going to screw humanity. A lot of it sounds like it was crapped out by a computer algorithm programmed to appeal to simple minds. ...And as was once mentioned by a Beatle, there are a lot of people who like mediocre music. Popularity and generating capital is not a proper way to judge quality, but that's what you get with capital driven pop culture. Admittedly there are exceptions but certainly not the norm.

Please excuse me now as I need to go watch another stupid comic book movie.
 

pozz

Слава Україні
Forum Donor
Editor
Joined
May 21, 2019
Messages
4,036
Likes
6,827
I belong to a generation who took rhythmic garbage seriously and made techno out of it. I love music with no soul.

I think that's pretty much like saying: don't try to imbue your DAC with humanity.
 

Xulonn

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Jun 27, 2018
Messages
1,828
Likes
6,311
Location
Boquete, Chiriqui, Panama
Please excuse me now as I need to go watch another stupid comic book movie.

LOL - I'm 77 y/o, always enjoyed Marvel more than DC comics, and feel the same about their respective movies and TV shows. And I watched "Spider-Man: Far From Home" last night.

Perhaps I will balance that out by continuing my reading of an English friend's book on Greek philosophy - "Parmeneides, Master of Duality" - which is not nearly as popular as Spider Man movies with an Amazon Best Sellers Rank of #10,667,680 in "Books".
Parmeneides.jpg
 

Eirikur

Senior Member
Joined
Jul 9, 2019
Messages
318
Likes
509
Oh, hell. The fact of the matter is pop music becomes less musical and more mindless rhythmic garbage with each new generation. And it's propagated by corporate greed with no regard for quality or how it's going to screw humanity. A lot of it sounds like it was crapped out by a computer algorithm programmed to appeal to simple minds. ...And as was once mentioned by a Beatle, there are a lot of people who like mediocre music. Popularity and generating capital is not a proper way to judge quality, but that's what you get with capital driven pop culture. Admittedly there are exceptions but certainly not the norm.
Often overlooked but very important: in our youth there was a lot of garbage music too, but what remains now and what we still listen to has stood the test of time and can therefore subjectively be qualified as 'good'.
The comparison is therefore unfair and heavily biased: we compare the best of the (familiar) past with the entirety of the (unfamiliar) present!

This doesn't excuse auto-cue and computer rhythms sucking the life out of a song, and it certainly doesn't excuse the excessive loudness compression on many modern songs - in my opinion these technical 'innovations' are certainly quality killers.

Please excuse me now as I need to go watch another stupid comic book movie.
:D
 

KozmoNaut

Active Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2019
Messages
299
Likes
633
Anyone with a second-hand music store nearby can verify this. Take a look at their bulk record bins, the ones with "10 for $2"-style prices. They're brimming full of records from the also-rans, the bland nobodies, the stuff nobody remembers, the copycats and of course endless piles of "trumpet a-go-go" party music compilations.

Music of the past also had production memes/trends and overused effects. Today auto-tune and other effects are obviously cheaper and more easily available, but the flipside is that music production in general is also much easier, cheaper and widely available. So while there is a lot more crap, there is also a lot more quality content, from people who wouldn't have been able to record and publish their music back in the 60s or 70s.
 

Newk Yuler

Active Member
Joined
Mar 5, 2019
Messages
155
Likes
252
Often overlooked but very important: in our youth there was a lot of garbage music too, but what remains now and what we still listen to has stood the test of time and can therefore subjectively be qualified as 'good'.
The comparison is therefore unfair and heavily biased: we compare the best of the (familiar) past with the entirety of the (unfamiliar) present!

I get exposed to modern pop in a variety of genres, often to my distress, so it's not entirely unfamiliar for comparing to pop from previous decades. In the 70s I thought disco sucked. These days I appreciate much of that music as MUCH more soulful and musical than today's comparable pop rubbish.
 

Newk Yuler

Active Member
Joined
Mar 5, 2019
Messages
155
Likes
252
Music of the past also had production memes/trends and overused effects. Today auto-tune and other effects are obviously cheaper and more easily available, but the flipside is that music production in general is also much easier, cheaper and widely available. So while there is a lot more crap, there is also a lot more quality content, from people who wouldn't have been able to record and publish their music back in the 60s or 70s.

Since the internet and social media exploded it's become much more difficult to weed through everything. Beside the crap way the music industry promotes new music it's like the vast majority of peoples' opinions (and good new music) are lost like drops of water in seas of noise. I can't imagine it getting better. I guess I'm too old and cynical but I've not seen anything to make me hope for better in decades. It just gets progressively worse.

Related and FWIW I appreciate ASR for being a tier above most of the other audiophile information forums. I can come here and browse topics and find most peoples' thoughts at least interesting. Speaking of noise, that is. I can expect some decent level of intelligence throughout. I have a tendency to glance over and pass right over many comments in other forums because I'm increasingly finding them worthless. I'll often skip over a post with any form of poor capitalization, punctuation, and abbreviation of words that has become common with those who text mindlessly. I don't see much of that here, thank god. Although it has been on the rise with a lot of apparently new younger people discovering ASR is a good place to find clues about how to pursue better quality (sounding) music.
 

Eirikur

Senior Member
Joined
Jul 9, 2019
Messages
318
Likes
509
Since the internet and social media exploded it's become much more difficult to weed through everything. Beside the crap way the music industry promotes new music it's like the vast majority of peoples' opinions (and good new music) are lost like drops of water in seas of noise. I can't imagine it getting better.
That's a true observation and it pervades all levels of (consumer) goods. Too much choice like 10 types of salt in the supermarket with a hundred different opinions about it is stifling and time consuming. The natural defense against such overloads is indifference, exactly what we see in the majority of audio consumers.

I guess I'm too old and cynical but I've not seen anything to make me hope for better in decades. It just gets progressively worse.
Bloody kids these days, no donkeys on the lawn!

On the bright side: we'll soon get another 'new' SW release of King Crimson to celebrate the 50th birthday of In the Court, does that count?
 

anmpr1

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Oct 11, 2018
Messages
3,722
Likes
6,406
It's just a normal thing. A process of maturation. When I was 16, if I saw a 40 year old woman I'd think, "She looks like my mom." Now, if I see a 40 year old woman I think, "She looks like my daughter."
 

KozmoNaut

Active Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2019
Messages
299
Likes
633
That 1980s drum sound...

It is certainly iconic and I can't say that I hate it, but I get why people think it was severely overused.

Since the internet and social media exploded it's become much more difficult to weed through everything. Beside the crap way the music industry promotes new music it's like the vast majority of peoples' opinions (and good new music) are lost like drops of water in seas of noise. I can't imagine it getting better. I guess I'm too old and cynical but I've not seen anything to make me hope for better in decades. It just gets progressively worse.

The thing is that unless you spent your formative years immersed in the pop music of a particular era, odds are you won't like it very much. That's pop music for you, always an audio snapshot of a particular time, particular styles, particular trends. Social media has amplified this, pushing pop music not just on radio and TV, but in clothing stores, through streaming services, in Youtube videos, on Facebook and so on. So yes, we have more exposure to more music more of the time, which can lead to oversaturation.

On the other hand, if you shut the oversaturated Youtube channels, FB pages and so on out, and ignore radio/TV, this increased exposure also means underground and independent artists have access to much larger audiences.

I can only speak mostly for metal and hard rock, since those are the scenes I follow. Ignoring the big stadium-friendly bands and the bands that are played on default rock/metal streaming playlists, these last 10-15 years has seen an enormous increase in exposure for new and interesting bands from all over the world, because of the easy of digital distribution and DIY social media presence. I can get recommendations for some random project made by a highly talented kid in his bedroom in Chile, and actually be able to listen to it through a quick download or a Youtube video. That sure beats ordering tapes from obscure Greek mailorder-only labels and crossing my fingers, hoping it will ever show up.

The accessibility of all parts of the music scene has increased enormously, both for good and for bad content.
 

KozmoNaut

Active Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2019
Messages
299
Likes
633
That's a true observation and it pervades all levels of (consumer) goods. Too much choice like 10 types of salt in the supermarket with a hundred different opinions about it is stifling and time consuming. The natural defense against such overloads is indifference, exactly what we see in the majority of audio consumers.

I will acknowledge that this can be a problem, there is such a thing as "too much choice".

Unless we want to completely abolish supply and demand and all of capitalism (which could be interesting), the best thing we can to is to look our Fear Of Missing Out in the eyes and tell it to bugger off.
 

SIY

Grand Contributor
Technical Expert
Joined
Apr 6, 2018
Messages
10,386
Likes
24,749
Location
Alfred, NY
Too much choice like 10 types of salt in the supermarket with a hundred different opinions about it is stifling and time consuming.

That leaves me... stunned.
 

Eirikur

Senior Member
Joined
Jul 9, 2019
Messages
318
Likes
509
That leaves me... stunned.
Get out more, see the world, visit a large supermarket!
You'll be stupefied indeed if you actually pay attention to all of the choices you could make (friendly advise: don't).
 
Last edited:

GrimSurfer

Major Contributor
Joined
May 25, 2019
Messages
1,238
Likes
1,484
That 1980s drum sound...

Indeed. Devo was the first band to extensively use this sound. Others emulated it without understanding that everything Devo did was a tongue in cheek swipe at mankind regressing (or de-evolving, hence the band's name).

The techno movement followed because (1) it was the next logical extension of prog rock, punk and (2) musical talent wasn't necessary for some of the riffs (as long as a Commodore 64 was available).

There have been successive waves of low talent/high profit acts since then relying on autotune and other crutches. The fault lies with an industry that doesn't want to develop artists, just profit from them.

So what started out as a Kent State joke (albeit one that David Bowie developed because of its artistic uniqueness) has taken on gargantuan (and grotesque) proportions. Why? Blame De-evolution :D
 

scott wurcer

Major Contributor
Audio Luminary
Technical Expert
Joined
Apr 24, 2019
Messages
1,501
Likes
2,821
Top Bottom