Rick Beato: The Real Reason Why Music Is Getting Worse

[StigErik]

I just listened to some 111 years old dance music (Trance-fusion possibly) made by a old dead fart named Igor Stravinsk.. eh.. something like that.
Still sounds modern to me!

 

[Ramon Cota]

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.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8-HDUBbtgQ
as much? maybe,since black metal has become a pop music nowadays. As good ? Definitely no.

 

[polmuaddib]

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 could be quantified and in other videos, Rick Beato does talk about it:

1. Repetition is more prevalent now then before.
It has been shown in research that if you have more repetition in a song it is more likely to be more popular, catchy on the first listening. Now, the problem is that everybody who makes music knows this and it is abused.

2. Simpler chord progression.
It is a fact that modern top 40 songs use 3 or 4 chords at most and those simplest possible. I am not saying you need 20 chords in a song to be good, but the problem is that songs lack diversity now. Rick has been doing songs analysis for a while and showing those chord progressions. It is a fact that all modern top 40 songs have almost the same chords.

3. No more key changes.
Many people have noticed that no song in the last decade used a key change. Something that has been used in past very effectively.

4. Autotune abuse.
Need I say more about this topic?

And don't forget Rick is talking about top 40 songs. Not all music. You can find gems nowadays like Jacob Collier and others, but it is rare and they are not in the top 40.

It is not true that top 40 music has always been bad because you had beautiful songs, simple and complex. Not so much today.

 

[ShadowBoxer]

Let's hear your music.

Question is irrelevant to the context, but see post #62

 

[kemmler3D]

It could be quantified and in other videos, Rick Beato does talk about it:

1. Repetition is more prevalent now then before.
It has been shown in research that if you have more repetition in a song it is more likely to be more popular, catchy on the first listening. Now, the problem is that everybody who makes music knows this and it is abused.

2. Simpler chord progression.
It is a fact that modern top 40 songs use 3 or 4 chords at most and those simplest possible. I am not saying you need 20 chords in a song to be good, but the problem is that songs lack diversity now. Rick has been doing songs analysis for a while and showing those chord progressions. It is a fact that all modern top 40 songs have almost the same chords.

3. No more key changes.
Many people have noticed that no song in the last decade used a key change. Something that has been used in past very effectively.

4. Autotune abuse.
Need I say more about this topic?

And don't forget Rick is talking about top 40 songs. Not all music. You can find gems nowadays like Jacob Collier and others, but it is rare and they are not in the top 40.

It is not true that top 40 music has always been bad because you had beautiful songs, simple and complex. Not so much today.

OK, busted, I did not watch the video and this is a fair response.

However, it seems like he mostly blames musicians for the state of Top 40 as if musicians were deciding the makeup of the Top 40. We agree there are good songs and good musicians working today - perhaps the businesspeople behind the Top 40 deserve more blame here? Maybe even listeners?

"Music is too easy to make" doesn't have anything to do with what music ends up being popular or favored by business interests. Just saying.

 

[JSmith]

Top 40 is not about popularity, it's about marketing and telling people what they should like, then purchase. It's never been an actual reflection of public opinion and is easily gamed by record companies.

It was originally a programming style to help radio compensate for television taking over.


JSmith

 

[StigErik]

It could be quantified and in other videos, Rick Beato does talk about it:

1. Repetition is more prevalent now then before.

Beethoven knew the power of a great "hook" as well, so it's not something new. But yeah, a lot of the music that's on radio these days have one simple leitmotif, and little else.

2. Simpler chord progression.

There are plenty of great songs with only one chord, like Tomorrow Never Knows by The Beatles.
The problem for me is that songs use the same chord progression, the infamous C-G-Am-F or variations of that.

3. No more key changes.

We really don't hear stuff like Elton John's song Burn Down The Mission anymore, that changes key four times.
Not to mention songs that change tempo, time signature or use odd meters like 5/4, 7/4 or even 3/4.
And when was the last time we heard a proper ritardando in a top-40 song....?

4. Autotune abuse.

What makes a lot of music interesting and create a lot of its character and sound, is that is DOESN'T use autotune, thus sounds a little imperfect.

 

[Titurel]

There are plenty of great songs with only one chord, like Tomorrow Never Knows by The Beatles.
The problem for me is that songs use the same chord progression, the infamous C-G-Am-F or variations of that.

By way of contrast with most contemporary pops songs is "Dream With Me" by Leonard Bernstein, a song with deliciously twisted harmonic movement. This is not an easy song to sing, if for no other reason than the quality of intonation required to make it work.

 

[Vacceo]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8-HDUBbtgQ
as much? maybe,since black metal has become a pop music nowadays. As good ? Definitely no.

There are a gazillon banda that are not Behemoth.

Teitanblood sounds as chaotic if not more than Blasphemy.

 

[goat76]

It could be quantified and in other videos, Rick Beato does talk about it:

1. Repetition is more prevalent now then before.
It has been shown in research that if you have more repetition in a song it is more likely to be more popular, catchy on the first listening. Now, the problem is that everybody who makes music knows this and it is abused.

2. Simpler chord progression.
It is a fact that modern top 40 songs use 3 or 4 chords at most and those simplest possible. I am not saying you need 20 chords in a song to be good, but the problem is that songs lack diversity now. Rick has been doing songs analysis for a while and showing those chord progressions. It is a fact that all modern top 40 songs have almost the same chords.

3. No more key changes.
Many people have noticed that no song in the last decade used a key change. Something that has been used in past very effectively.

4. Autotune abuse.
Need I say more about this topic?

And don't forget Rick is talking about top 40 songs. Not all music. You can find gems nowadays like Jacob Collier and others, but it is rare and they are not in the top 40.

It is not true that top 40 music has always been bad because you had beautiful songs, simple and complex. Not so much today.

Nice to see someone putting some balance to this thread!

Yesterday after watching the video and reading this thread, I was surprised by the reactions of many people who seemed to be jumping the gun in a way as if Beato had made a rant against all modern music made and that everything was better in “the old times”.

It’s true that...
1. The human sense of timing is often lost in today's music productions when everything is recorded to a static click track, and when the drum beats are locked to a perfectly aligned grid without the natural timing swings of a human drummer. The natural changes in dynamics and timings when a band is playing together at the same time will also be lost when the musicians are recorded one at a time to a static click track.

2. Most of the “perfect imperfections” are edited out in most modern audio productions, and when too much of that is done it takes pieces of the humanity and soul out of the music as there are fewer of those small "special details left to be found" in a song. It's not uncommon that the perfect take of a certain sound element or a part is re-used throughout the whole song over and over again, and a thing like that can also make a track sound boring, inhuman, and static-sounding in the long run.




There is no doubt that Jacob Collier who was mentioned earlier in the thread is a very multi-talented musician, but I was just listening to one of his albums and I think the song in the video below is a good example of an audio production with way too perfectly "locked-to-a-grid" type of beats. IMO the drums in this song kill all the sense of the natural flow and human timing in a way that makes it almost impossible to dance to it, or even enjoy just listening to it as it makes me a little bit dizzy (in lack of a better way to describe it). It's not just the drums, everything else also seems perfectly locked to that grid throughout the entire song.

I also find the overall production "over-edited" for my liking. It all just sounds way too clean, way too perfect, and way too static for me to enjoy it.
Sorry, Jacob.

Saviour - Jacob Collier

 

[DanielT]

And don't forget Rick is talking about top 40 songs. Not all music. You can find gems nowadays like Jacob Collier and others, but it is rare and they are not in the top 40.

It is not true that top 40 music has always been bad because you had beautiful songs, simple and complex. Not so much today.

That's the beauty of streaming music. Just listen to the current top hits, or top 40 songs from 2023 and then you can compare how it was decade by decade ago.

I wonder how many of last year's top 40 songs, or today's current top hits, are on ASR members' playlists? How many of those songs and even entire albums from each artist are listened to? Not then out of curiosity to investigate how these hits sound, but how many are really listened to and appreciated.

New good "odd music", by that I mean off the top charts, is of course easy to get these days. It has already been pointed out by several in the thread but that is another matter.By the way, I think it's nice to listen to newly created music from the basically extinct style of Rock. A bit like going to a museum, but hey why not. I like museums.
Even more museum can be obtained in the form of newly created jazz music.

As long as new creations aren't generic,overproduced, polished to infinite dullness by pefection crap then there is a potential to find good music regardless of genres.Music with flesh and blood, so to speak.
It is above all the generic aspect that I dislike. Steely Dan can be seen as music polished to perfection but there is something unique and special about them.
____
This is probably OT for the thread but I'll include it anyway.
I rarely listen to newly produced classical music. Whether that music is or is becoming worse than old classical music, I don't know. In any case I got curious and picked up a composer at random, Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf.

Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

With the right attitude and put in the right frame of mind, I must say that it grows.

Were we allowed to post Youtube videos? This to exemplify what I mentioned above:

 

[Ktacos]

So, I take it you are a moderately accomplished guitarist and have also interviewed well known professional musicians that almost anyone would recognize? ie platinum sellers

Where can we listen to your playing?

Question is irrelevant to the context, but see post #62

You found it so irrelevant you replied to it twice lol.

Multi-instrumentalist, can play keys, guitar, tuba, clarinet, saxophone, drums, but my best instrument is probably the computer. Might put a track up today that I worked on with a few local musician friends.

https://soundcloud.com/melohq

 

[Koeitje]

It could be quantified and in other videos, Rick Beato does talk about it:

1. Repetition is more prevalent now then before.
It has been shown in research that if you have more repetition in a song it is more likely to be more popular, catchy on the first listening. Now, the problem is that everybody who makes music knows this and it is abused.

2. Simpler chord progression.
It is a fact that modern top 40 songs use 3 or 4 chords at most and those simplest possible. I am not saying you need 20 chords in a song to be good, but the problem is that songs lack diversity now. Rick has been doing songs analysis for a while and showing those chord progressions. It is a fact that all modern top 40 songs have almost the same chords.

3. No more key changes.
Many people have noticed that no song in the last decade used a key change. Something that has been used in past very effectively.

4. Autotune abuse.
Need I say more about this topic?

And don't forget Rick is talking about top 40 songs. Not all music. You can find gems nowadays like Jacob Collier and others, but it is rare and they are not in the top 40.

It is not true that top 40 music has always been bad because you had beautiful songs, simple and complex. Not so much today.

So his video should have been titled The Real Reason Why TOP 40 Music Is Getting Worse.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

So his video should have been titled The Real Reason Why TOP 40 Music Is Getting Worse.

YouTube titles are design to get people to watch the video.

 

[Titurel]

So his video should have been titled The Real Reason Why TOP 40 Music Is Getting Worse.

And deprived us of this thread? Who could argue with that title?

BTW, I understand some astrophysicists have proposed replacing entropy in their papers with TOP-40.

 

[ehowarth]

Although I haven’t watched this click bait titled video yet, Rick Beato posted another a few days ago loving on this new song from Willow. So justified. Willow Tiny Desk Concert

 

[diddley]

The top 40 music nowadays is'nt alive anymore. No renewing no new trends just more of the same.
I remember the fridays that the card with the new top 40 appeared at the local vinyl shop and you could crab one, as i always did.
In search of the next new thing but nowadays it's hard to find new music that is insperational.But i still buy cd's mostly from old bands and former members.David Gilmour.

 

[gwing]

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.

I wasn't quite so hasty and listened to the Tiny desk video above as well. That I thought was better, but probably not sufficient for a third try.

But, there is mases of new music I am discovering and liking thanks to this new streaming world. As well as the old stuff Beato talks about and which I grew up with and still love, at least some of it.

 

[August West]

I spent my misguided youth taping Grateful Dead shows and collecting tapes of other shows. I collected so many for so long, it took until my retirement to start listening. 95% of my listening is GD or related (Jerry Garcia is the other 4%).

 

[tmtomh]

It never ceases to amaze me how many of our forum members' close-interpretation skills go to sh*t when the task becomes interpreting arguments instead of measurements.

Beato's video isn't simply about "old man yelling at could" or "grumpy Boomer listening to the Eagles and complaining about todays' music."

He's making a very specific argument. It's true that his video title is overly broad, and it's also true that his argument doesn't apply to nearly all of the music being made today - but it absolutely, positively does apply beyond just Top 40/Hot 100 music.

The specific argument he's making is that autotune, click tracks, samples, DSP, and so on have reached a point technologically where it is so much easier and cheaper to synthesize music and digitally "fix" flawed vocal and instrumental performances that a lot of modern pop, rock, and hip-hop (and I'd also add country) doesn't "swing." That is, the price for "fixing" flawed performances is that you lose not only the accidental or "bad" timekeeping and pitch errors, but also the intentional or "good" vocal deviations from perfect pitch and instrumental deviations from perfect time.

As always, we like what we like and that's cool - but his argument here is not wrong.

That said, I did notice that in this particular video he doesn't pay much attention to the positive side of the democratization of music-making: he focuses almost exclusively on the problems that come from not having to save up to buy a single album and from people being able to make music and get it out there using just a mic and a DAW. But he makes tons of videos and this is just one.

So sure, his argument might be a bit too much of a blanket argument. But the blanket dismissals of his argument in this thread are just as bad.