Rick Beato: The Real Reason Why Music Is Getting Worse

[kemmler3D]

Rick Beato is the Ignatius J. Reilly of YouTube.

This is an underrated burn.

Seriously though, people take "music is worse now" at face value, but why?

Here's an equally well supported statement: "music is better than ever". It's so easy to make, that talented people all over the planet are cranking out albums that make the '70s look like a parched desert of coked-out nonsense produced by people that somehow sniffed themselves into the idea that NS10s were worth using in a studio.

If you want me to believe "music is worse now", quantify it somehow. Tell me how many fewer albums coming out now could be considered truly good (and on what basis) than before.

Otherwise it's just another old man ranting into the void, a waste of everyone's time and such a laughably trite observation that it should open for Jeff Dunham.

 

[ShadowBoxer]

You seem to be making some fairly quick/harsh judgments. Is your only exposure to him a few minutes of the YouTube video linked by Somafunk?

Actually, yes. Never heard of him. And based on that video I don't think I missed out on much. He's a perfect example of Beato's point.

 

[gorb]

Never heard of him until this thread. I find Tiny Desk concerts often offers the best of the artists and they always sound good production wise. I enjoyed it, very talented dude to be sure. Obviously a different sound from days of yore some long for, a very modern sound, but I dig it!

Love the tiny desk series

 

[Titurel]

This is an underrated burn.

Seriously though, people take "music is worse now" at face value, but why?

Here's an equally well supported statement: "music is better than ever". It's so easy to make, that talented people all over the planet are cranking out albums that make the '70s look like a parched desert of coked-out nonsense produced by people that somehow sniffed themselves into the idea that NS10s were worth using in a studio.

If you want me to believe "music is worse now", quantify it somehow. Tell me how many fewer albums coming out now could be considered truly good (and on what basis) than before.

Otherwise it's just another old man ranting into the void, a waste of everyone's time and such a laughably trite observation that it should open for Jeff Dunham.

It's not just music, but the arts generally. Tech of various sorts has reduced the (real) cost of art production. Consequently, people (claiming to be artists) are able to cook up hogsheads of increasingly thin gruel, package meal-sized portions of it in attractive boxes (real or virtual) and serve it to a populace made increasingly ignorant* by the failed educational system. Hopefully, if the gruel gets thin and bland enough, the public will notice and start looking for more nourishing intellectual fodder. On that day, again if we're lucky, a new renaissance might just start.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not anti-tech. Far from it. Most of the techies with whom I worked (30 or so years ago) were amateur artists, some with pro-level abilities. In the 1980s, I actually performed with the Los Alamos Symphony Orchestra, many of its players researchers from the lab.


* Ignorant, in the sense of lacking vocabulary in the language of the art being peddled.

 

[WillBrink]

Love the tiny desk series

Speaking of which, H.E.R plays a half dozen or so instruments, writes all her own music, and is a very talented young woman as well as her back up performers are very tight. My personal favorite of the set is "Feel A Way" starting at 6:52. Listen to that piano player alone and overall musicianship there. If you don't dig that song, we can't be friends...

 

[Mikig]

well, thanks to the Roon radios first and foremost, to the playlists that I find on the various TIDAL, Qobuz, Apple Music, I listen to a bit of everything.
Personal taste probably has something to do with it, and there's no question about it, but artists of recent times who have made me fall in love... I haven't found any yet.

However, I don't feel like giving an overall opinion, because I repeat, I have my own musical taste. I grew up on classical, Cat Stevens, Lucio Battisti, Dire Straits, etc etc.
Clearly, however, I admit that the problem is mine and not that of the music industry which follows the world and trends in order to sell...

I am only missing true artists, people who were musicians and poets at the same time. Now in most cases they are just characters, who play a part...
(a separate discussion for the "caliphs", real and good artists who however are not supported by the mainstream of the music industry)

 

[dasdoing]

 

[Barrelhouse Solly]

I'm one of the odd people who loves the music of my parents' and grandparents' generation. I love Louis Armstrong's records from the 1920s. When my voice changed, even though it was in the late '50s, the first singer I tried to imitate was Bing Crosby. When I was in my early 20s I spent about a year listening to Billie Holiday obsessively to get her phrasing down. I'm an Eddie Cantor fan.

 

[Ktacos]

Normal people hear new music they don't like and say, eh guess that ain't for me. Out of touch assholes make videos touting they know what's wrong with music. These people are barely involved in music as they wouldn't really pass

I wouldn't share any music in this thread, it won't be judged reasonably and will be held to an impossible standard just due to the context of the discussion.

Shadowboxer, maybe step back before being incinerated further lol.

 

[GoDawgs]

I wonder if the fact that when Beato was in his prime music appreciation years, normally you only heard what your local radio station played, their normal playlist. It certainly guided your choices and made certain songs and styles familiar, and if played repeatedly enough, perhaps eventually liked. We may have friends with older brothers who played us music and such, but mostly radio influenced what we heard.

I obtained most of my music in those years (1970s) on a TEAC A100 cassette deck and recorded my local FM station's "Midnight Album" played in its entirety, commercial free, 6 nights a week.

There is no doubt what I liked was heavily influenced by the two local FM rock stations in my area.

Today the myriad of music sources negates the "opportunity" of being force-fed a regular play list rotation with few alternatives available. Repetition could train us to enjoy some music we may not normally gravitate towards?

 

[kemmler3D]

people (claiming to be artists) are able to cook up hogsheads of increasingly thin gruel, package meal-sized portions of it in attractive boxes (real or virtual) and serve it to a populous made increasingly ignorant* by the failed educational system.

Regardless of how true this is, it doesn't diminish the output of the people with real talent. If it's a gold nugget in a bowl of gruel or an ocean, it's still a gold nugget.

Looking at the average quality of all music published is pointless, what's important is how many good-to-great albums are coming out in a given era, not how many bad-to-mediocre ones. The average quality is not important or even relevant to this discussion, because we don't consume the average of music, we consume one song at a time.

Restated yet another way: "Music is worse now" is (apparently always) a statement about how many bad albums are coming out. That's meaningless. Just tell me how many good albums are coming out, and if that number is falling or rising. If you don't have a grip on that number, then you don't have any basis to say anything about "music nowadays".

 

[CrustyToad]

This! Wanted to post but @dasdoing beat me to it

 

[Vacceo]

There has never been as much and as good Black Metal as there is now.

Some people should just simply say that they do not find music as appealing as they used to.

 

[Titurel]

Regardless of how true this is, it doesn't diminish the output of the people with real talent. If it's a gold nugget in a bowl of gruel or an ocean, it's still a gold nugget.

Absolutely! There's still real talent out there. But... it's probably harder work finding those gold nuggets in the elevated S/N ratio of our contemporary ocean.

 

[Multicore]

I surprised we are engaging with Beato's arguments at all. It's about as likely to be useful as critiquing the sermons of a televangelist.

 

[ShadowBoxer]

Shadowboxer, maybe step back before being incinerated further lol.

If there is anything that is entirely subjective that would be music. So, just because I might think your taste is suspect doesn't make me any less entitled to my opinion.

Let's revisit in 30 years and see if anyone remembers (or copies) Fred dude.

I doubt it.

 

[kemmler3D]

it's probably harder work finding those gold nuggets in the elevated S/N ratio of our contemporary ocean.

That's a discussion worth having, but I wouldn't even necessarily agree there either. Music discovery has changed radically in the past 20 years or so. Music reviewers and radio playlists have dwindled like crazy, leaving us approximately in the middle of nowhere when it comes to professional curation.

On the other hand, the streaming platforms can quickly give you an overview of whatever genre, vintage, or trend you might be interested in, all you need to do is perk up your ears when something good comes on and pull the thread. You can check out 100 new artists per hour if you're really determined.

There are also Bandcamp and Soundcloud which give you direct access to the newest (and sometimes best) stuff coming out. And social media gives us another way to share our music finds with peers. So while there's a ton of "noise", it's not like it's hard to avoid. There's always been a lot of crap on the radio, after all.

 

[DanielT]

What exciting new music styles in pop have emerged in the last twenty years?

Just for comparison 1954-1974. Did something happen then on the pop scene? New styles?

1974-1994? Was it standing still?

Music with a distinct type of style like:
Hard rock, heavy metal, prog, fusion,disco, punk, reggae and so on.
Maybe there has been an explosion of new exciting styles in the last twenty years? I may have missed it

 

[kemmler3D]

Maybe there has been an explosion of new exciting styles in the last twenty years? I may have missed it

If you managed to miss the dubstep craze (which fits your rubric) you must have been TRYING to miss it.

 

[DanielT]

If you managed to miss the dubstep craze (which fits your rubric) you must have been TRYING to miss it.

On the border of twenty years but okay.

Dubstep - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org